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Saboteur! (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I was never not going to get this, as a fan of the original Spectrum game, but I’d seen a lot of reviews and forum comments saying it was overpriced for a simple port of the Spectrum original. Sure, it had new music and sound, but £6 for a Spectrum game (and a very short Spectrum game at that) did sound a bit much, so I waited for a sale. 94p (free, actually, due to Nintendo Gold Coins) and I was in.

And everyone was wrong. What nowhere I’d seen actually mentioned at the time was that once you’d completed the five minute long original game, but a whole new hour long section opens up. New items to find in new locations, new enemy types, puzzles, tasks and tricky platforming sections. That was a big surprise. Imagine avoiding Donkey Kong on the Game Boy because you thought it was only the four arcade levels!

This bit has fewer and fewer platforms the higher the difficulty level.

Despite being new, it still looks and plays exactly like the original. There’s Spectrum colour clash, there’s the same colour palette, and it’s not as smooth or precise as a modern game. It absolutely doesn’t matter, however. What has changed, besides the length, is mainly sound based. Some more realistic thumps and gunshots, and a great soundtrack that fits perfectly. OK, it’s no BEEPer, but the upgrade still works here.

Hope there’s no leaves on the track.

There’s a concession to modern multi-button controllers too. On the Spectrum, the joystick would move and fire would pick up and drop objects, interact, and punch. Up would be go up ladders, jump, jump-kick, and long jumps would be a tricky diagonal. On the Switch, there’s a jump button now which makes things a lot easier, but Up still performs the same functions. Sometimes this means climbing a ladder is frustrating, or you might nudge up, and therefore jump, by mistake. The latter is especially compounded due to the game’s insistence on only allowing use of the analogue stick rather than the d-pad. The original wasn’t analogue, and neither is this, so it feels slightly inaccurate and out of place. That’s the only major flaw I can find though.

Naturally, this relic of a game isn’t for everyone. It’s no Hollow Knight or The Messenger, as it wears it’s origins proudly without much modern modification. It is, however, still a lot of fun and just shows how old games can still work now. In this way it has much in common with Castlevania: Spectral Invasion, only this is on the Switch instead of the original machine. Just don’t let the reviews of “it’s just a port” put you off like it did me: it’s not.

One of the (extensive) new areas.

The post Saboteur! (Switch): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Deltarune: Chapter 1 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Deltarune is the follow up to Undertale, that underwhelming RPG from a few years back that ended up with a huge following. It baffles me that so many people revere Undertale as it was so flawed. Entertaining, yeah, interesting, probably. Great? Absolutely not.

So you might be wondering why I’m playing Deltarune at all, let alone to completion. And the only answer I have, is that this chapter was free and, well, maybe it’s better?

And it is better. Not a lot better, and aside from new characters and a three person party, it’s really just more of the same. Sure, it has better background graphics and a slightly less guessworky “act” system in battles, but it’s just more Undertale with the same weird for the sake of weird humour and the quirky but rubbish characters and dialogue. It’s no more fun, deep or playable.

If it ain’t broke and all that, and clearly I’m in the minority thinking it was broke, but I was hoping for improvements in the places that mattered to me. Still, it was free and if wasn’t terrible at all – just not for me, same as the last game. If you loved Undertale, you’ll probably love this too.

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Phantasy Star III (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I wasn’t going to move onto Phantasy Star III so soon after Phantasy Star II, but there it was on the Sega Mega Drive Classics menu, winking at me, so I didn’t really have a choice.

As I’ve mentioned before, Phantasy Star III was my first JRPG. It’s still my favourite, and although Phantasy Star IV is probably technically better, it’s III that I have more fondness for. Back in the day I completed it many times. The first time, it took from Christmas to August, but after a few more I could do it in a single 24 hour sitting. This is the first time I’ve completed it in probably two decades, and it took perhaps 15 hours, but there’s a reason for that: I played most of the walking and some of the fighting on Fast Forward (an option in the Mega Drive Classics). If there’s one thing that hasn’t aged well in RPGs, it’s how slow you move.

Gianticorn and Wolfsnail was a short lived kid’s cartoon in the 1990s.

Surprisingly, I still knew almost all of what I needed to do in the game. Even the routes through some of the dungeons was still etched in my brain. I also found the game much, much easier than I ever remember it being, with much less grinding too. I seem to recall always needing to level most of my party up to around level 55 for the final dungeon and boss, but here I walked it at around level 48. Maybe I’m just better now.

For those interested, the characters I played as (the game spans three generations with a slightly different story depending who you marry at the end of each) were Rhys, who married Maia and had a son, Ayn, who married Thea and had a son Sean.

  • Rhys and Chums
  • That bottom. It was a different time!
  • Some of the baddie designs were… not the best
  • The Sages that Say “Nei”
  • Wren is a transformer and can fly.
  • The penultimate boss was easy

Now, do I start IV or do something else first?

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Kirby’s Adventure (Switch): COMPLETED!

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There’s no way it has been nearly six years since I last completed this, surely? That’s absurd. I’m sure I complete it every few months. The Diary, however, Cannot Lie.

Yes, it’s easy. Yes, I had 45 lives left at the end. And no, I haven’t 100%ed it because I need to go back and find a few secret buttons. But Kirby is always fun to play. And being essentially “free” as one of the NES games that comes with the Switch online service, that makes it even better.

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Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I do like a good platformer with blue skies and fun gimmicks. Which is why I’ve enjoyed all the other Shantae games in the series. Half-Genie Hero is, essentially, more of the same – but it streamlines things, ramps up the gorgeousness of the graphics, and is a bit easier.

The last of these points has been the most obvious change through the series. The first Shantae game, on the Game Boy was incredibly difficult, whereas Half-Genie Hero is a complete walkover. Well, apart from one bit right near the end when it becomes Flappy Bird for some reason.

I’m a tiny flopping blobfish

Streamlining means no arduous back and forth to get to each world (you simply fly there), or to get through each world (if you have the right item, you can warp from section to section). Dances, in order to transform into other creatures, is much simplified too, so doing so is much quicker and less fiddly.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Shantae game without all the same characters, very similar level themes, and most of the bosses from previous games once more. It doesn’t really matter because it’s still all new to play. There are a number of new transformations too, giving new ways to access areas. One of these, the mouse, makes what you previously thought was just platform design into an actual maze, which blows your mind when you realise.

Up on the roof

Importantly, it plays fantastically and is never (well, Flappy Bird aside, perhaps) anything less than the best fun. So much fun that after completing it I immediately went back into the game to collect all the items I’d been missing in order to get 100%. And then, I tried out a few of the extra game modes.

These modes are mostly the same, playing as arcady versions of the main levels only with different skills for Shantae. In Beach Mode, she has a beach ball weapon but needs to collect suncream constantly or she burns up. In Jammies Mode, she attacks with sheep and takes more damage, and in another mode she plays like the character from Mighty Switch Force, and so on. There’s also a mode where you play slightly remixed versions of the levels only instead of playing as Shantae (it takes place during part of the main game) you’re swapping between Sky, Rottytops and Bolos who each have different skills. Basically, there’s still loads to play.

Which is just as well as there aren’t any Shantae games left for me to play now.

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