Night in the Woods distracted me momentarily from the launch of the Nintendo Switch a few weeks back and now I've had almost two weeks with this curious little console I thought I'd write my impressions.
The good news is that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch) is as wonderful as all the impressions I'd read made it out to be. From the awakening scene where Link is presented with a sandbox of things to fight, climb, swim around and eat almost instantly the game then repeats this trick after about an hour of messing about and presents a much larger, almost overwhelming area to wander in. I've heard the go anywhere/do anything pitch numerous times attached to games and this is a rare occasion where it rings true and I did just this. The straightforward nature of the first task "Defeat Ganon" offered little direction but was a tantalising goal. There are a few conventional markers to follow but I was quick to get lost in the massive world. I walked the coastline for a good few hours, building ice stepping stones out to areas I was really underprepared for and quickly returning to the shore. Taking in all the time the amount of variety in the creatures, enemies and plants. When I decided to venture inland again I was in a lush jungle like place, as I ascended the cliff to enter this new world I heard the screams of a pair of truffle hunters being attacked by Moblins, the worlds intricate building feels lived in and almost unlike any other game i've played. There are things I'm seeing like a giant dragon looping the horizon at times which are mysterious and I can't wait to find out more about. The amazing thing being that I'm not being gated, I could just spent hours chasing beasts or sailing a makeshift raft. I did in the end follow the path I was being led down, which leads to the Zora domain, beforehand though there is a great approach which at first seemed to be too hard, the enemies swarming and much stronger than me. Through the language of the game though by the end of this section I was more understanding of the combat systems and weaponry in the game and much better at dealing with enemies. I've now completed the first traditional dungeon, which was a little underwhelming compared to other Zelda games. The blow of this softened by the fact the world is filled with shrines, which act as mini dungeons so it doesn't feel lacking. The main dungeon leads, as ever, to a boss fight which was great and once this was over I was given some cool new items then thrown into the world again.
It's a real wow factor of the new console being able to play a sprawling game like this on a train or at home. It wasn't until I played it on a commute that I really got what makes this machine so special. Somehow Breath of the Wild feels right in short bursts as well, aided by the fact I can save anywhere. Chalking off a dungeon in the 30minutes i'm on a train, or just getting a few steps closer to whatever goal I've set myself. I'm sure I'll be playing this game for a long time.
1-2 Switch acts as a demo of a lot of the new features of the controllers and while I like some of the mini games, like the Ball Count, Liar Dice and Safe Cracking (anything which utilises the HD Rumble really) others feel like an unwanted throwback to bad Wii mini games, a lot of blind waggling. Snipperclips is a much better demo of what the console can be and the accessibility of have a pair of controllers ready to snap off at any time and play multiplayer. Some of the puzzles are delightful, especially the variations on basketball.
Finally Super Bomberman R is a strange throwback to a game I really like. Multiplayer it adds nothing to the traditional Bomberman experience, and thats great. Again its a great proof of concept of a machine which allows multiplayer anywhere (I imagine when Mario Kart releases this crown will be taken). The single player campaign is a bit of a different story, It's got well acted cutscenes which are nicely put together but the actual game is a bit of a mess, its hard to see whats going on and when an enemy kills me (which happens a lot) there isn't too much of an impact, its all feels a bit airy. I might put some more time into it once I'm done with Zelda and I'm certainly pleased the game exists.
So thats about it really, I think the Switch is a curious little console. It looks nice, really quick to use and what I thought looked gimmicky about it, playing games on the screen and on the go and the tiny controllers which snap off, are actually great features. Its also really cool the rather small number of games out on it has been bulked up with a load of Neo Geo titles. Once there are more games in place and Nintendo announce whats going on with the Virtual Console I think that it could be a fantastic machine.
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