Barbarian Saga: The Beastmaster Review (Switch)

Well, it’s been at least five reviews since we’ve looked at a Metroidvania game, so it seems only fitting to give Barbarian Saga a proper look. The game is heavily influenced by the swords and sorcery films of the late 80’s such as Conan the Barbarian and Beastmaster (as your character actually is both a barbarian and a beastmaster). After being forced to fight in a gladiatorial arena you decide to break free and with your demonic soul sucking sword, try to free the realm.

We would love to give you some more details of the plot, but the game is borderline nonsensical due to some poor writing and even worse translation. We often thought that whole sections of dialogue must be missing as characters spoke. This isn’t helped by the amount of text there is. Sometimes showing things is a lot better than reams and reams of text to get through.

The confusion goes for navigation as well as the map only gives you quite basic details with each area somewhat hard to distinguish from the next. There are also no markers or direction points, no way to check the progress of ongoing quests, or even a way to check on the controls for new moves you’ve learned. In a game world this big that is a problem. Even Hollow Knight let you put down marker stones.

The thing that most stands out about the game is how absolutely gorgeous it looks. It has a hand drawn art style and the environments and characters are beautifully illustrated. The cut scenes are equally top draw to look at. Unfortunately, when in motion everything seems blurry and a little undefined. Frequent frame rate drops and juddering also hinder any real ability to enjoy the lavish visuals as they jerk around the screen.

Another let down is that while the game initially seems to let you explore anywhere, you’ll soon find that it is continually funnelling you down a pretty narrow path. A lot of the environment leads you to dead ends without anything of value really being there. Metrodivania games have continually refined and moved away from the idea of pointless wandering in recent times but here there is a lot of level here just for the sake of it. You do get fast travel unlocked from the very beginning at least which is something.

Combat is decent enough. You have a strike and a block and new moves can be learned by finding broken weapons and giving them to the appropriate person. A lot of the new attacks don’t really do too much different though and with the frame rate issues the block can be tricky to initiate properly. Enemies are also varied and interesting to encounter and have a wide range of attacks and patterns. Bosses don’t let the side down either with a challenging yet logical approach to defeating them, the game certainly does some things right.

Overall, Barbarian Saga: The Beast Master has some really nice ideas. The look of the game is beautiful. If it could be updated so that when moving, it doesn’t look like a stop motion movie that would be go a long way to improving things. There is a wider issue with the general level design though and the text translation makes it almost nonsensical. With more time this could have been something a lot better but as it is it’s hard to recommend.

Overall 5/10

Kaboomania Review (Switch)

We are used to seeing retro styled games based on older franchises appear. What is a little less common is for new games made for original hardware to appear on the Switch. There have been a few of course such as Astebros, but they tend to stay in the realm of the Evercade. Kaboomania, is a new Amiga 1200 game with some very clear influences from the Bomberman series.

The aim of the game is clearly to try and recapture the spark that the original Bomberman franchise was known for. There are 4 player local vs battles and even a password system for the single player instead of an auto save. The levels themselves are generally quite a lot bigger than with the Bomberman games as well. It all sounds promising but somewhere along the way it seems to lose the magic.

First, the password system probably sounded like a great nostalgic kick to begin with, but in practice its incredibly annoying. Having to remember to write down or take a screen shot of your pass code every time you play will likely see you losing progress in the single player game. It’s something we have really moved beyond and including a save function as well would have made a lot more sense.

Single player suffers in the same way a lot of the single player campaigns of its inspiration suffer from. Single player Bomberman was never something that held attention for long. While the Bomberman franchise tried to keep mixing things up it never quite got the mix of clearing enemies and puzzles to the level of the multiplayer draw. There was a reason that when the game came out on Xbox Live that it was multiplayer only. Kaboomania suffers much the same fate. You move around a grided maze, clearing blocks, picking up powerups and looking for exit. Aside from the look it’s pretty much identical. However, as the levels are bigger it just becomes a drawn-out experience very quickly. As soon as level ten we were getting bored with it.

Unfortunately, it also has some technical issues. There is a lot of juddering and frame rate dropping. This occurs when bombs go off or when enemies are exploded. In a game this precise it makes things very frustrating at times as you jump around the screen. It also makes levels with a large number of enemies near unplayable at times. It’s something that really needs addressing. There is a powerup that drops a load of bombs all over the map which just results in the game pretty much grinding to a halt. An Amiga 1200 game really should not be stressing the Switch 2 out quite this much.

The other major issue for this is that The Bomberman Collection is also readily available. This is cheaper but when you can go and get a whole bundle of retro games that present a much slicker experience It’s hard to see who will be drawn to this. As a physical disc to be used with the Amiga 1200 this has merit, out in the wider world it really does begin to fall short.

Overall, it’s a shame Kaboomania can’t quite capture the magic of the games it is emulating. Without the technical issues this would be a fun distraction. But with the frame skips and general lack of polish in the movement and controls it just becomes too easy to ignore when there are better options available.

Overall 5/10

CloverPit Review (Switch 2)

Making its jump from Steam, CloverPit arrives with an already established cult following. Promoted as the slot machine version of Balatro, the game is a roguelike built around the core concept of pulling a demonic leaver and trying to make enough money to survive to the next round.

In terms of aesthetic the game is minimalist but effective. You start locked inside a small room. Inside you can see a locked door, the fruit machine, a toilet, bin, a machine to buy charms from and the money machine. There are also a couple of information boards that display the odds of certain symbols showing up and the deal or no deal style phone which rings between rounds.

The aim of each round is to reach a continually increasing set number of coins. Spare coins can be put back into the coin machine to gain interest. You get three turns in each round and early on you’ll realise it’s a careful balance between getting coins and the tickets you need to get charms which alter things like the likelihood of certain symbols showing up or giving rewards for certain combinations.

All this said, the game still comes down to a lot of luck. Using the right charms can change the value of symbols and make things show up more often but if you get a bad run there isn’t much you can really do. This is frustrating as even when you know the way you need to go with a build you can still play every turn as well as is possible and still not get enough coins to get through. It means, unlike games like Balatro, it can become tiring as decision making is nowhere near as deep.

If you reach the end of a round without enough coins the floor gives way and you fall to your death and need to start again from scratch. The only permanent things you can add are when you gain a key to unlock a draw. When draws are unlocked it means items can be placed inside them to give options in late game or even carry certain things over to the next run. At this point you at least get a bit more of an ability to plan ahead.

Achieving the gold needed for a round has the player set a new and higher coin target to reach. After a while you will also activate the ‘666’ numbers, which, if they come on the slot machine will see you lose all gained coins for the round. Of course, this can also be changed with charms to turn the so called ‘curse’ on its head. Between rounds the ominous phone also rings. Answering it allows you to pick from three further upgrades. Sometimes though you’ll get a cursed call which, if you can ignore, will grant greater upgrades later.

There is also a small DLC available at launch. The Unholy Fusion add on allows for players to forge various charms together to create new effects. However, it’s not available until you unlock all the draws in the game (which requires four completions). It’s both very cheap to purchase and also fairly non-essential unless you have really rung everything else out of the game.

Overall, CloverPit is an interesting game. It starts out a bit confusing then you’ll start to work out how you are meant to play it. However, if you don’t start seeing success in yuir runs due to the luck element it’s hard to see players sticking with it as long term as over rogue style games. What’s here works pretty well, it just feels a bit light weight at times and may leave you looking for something with more depth.

Overall 7/10