Rendering Ranger Rewind Review (Switch)

The last few months have seen an increase in companies taking obscure retro games, giving them a lick of paint and then re-releasing them back into the world. As a result, we’ve had games that were never likely to appear on the Nintendo Switch Online Service brought back into the light. Rendering Ranger, one of the rarest and most expensive Super Nintendo games is the latest of these and another welcome addition.

Rendering Ranger is a side scrolling platform shooter similar in some ways to Super Contra. It’s not up there in terms of the legendary status but the general running, gunning and jumping are within the same area. There are also certain levels which move into a horizontal shooter where you pilot a ship. There’s also a basic powerup system where your weapons improve through pick ups but that’s about it. It was a simpler time.

Graphically, the game ties into the dystopian sci-fi aesthetic of the time in pretty standard fashion. There’s some cool enemy design and the game runs at about a million miles an hour as well so everything comes together in a slick and fun way. The action is intense and unrelenting, but the controls can be a little lose compared to other games which can lead to frustrating deaths. The game world does seem a bit cramped as well.

The levels themselves are also a little long and often have some repeated elements that verge on outstaying their welcome. There’s only so many times you want to go through the same loop of enemies and obstacles after all. Boss fights are well judged though with them being challenging without them falling into the realms of bullet sponges or being seemingly unfair.

Luckily, there are a fair few quality of life elements added to ease the old school difficulty. You can save and load at any point and there is also a rewind function. The game is fairly forgiving as well so all these combined mean players not used to older games should have a good chance of settling in and having a good time.

If you do die there is also a password system in place so you should be able to keep making progress. There are also a whole host of filter, screen size and border options to play around with and even the unreleased, European, version of the game has been included under the Targa title along with a music player and some museum options.

Overall, Rendering Ranger Rewind does an excellent job of presenting the very best version of the game and giving players the best chance of engaging and enjoying it. The game itself is just below the level of the cast iron classics of the time but is a fast paced and thoroughly enjoyable experience for retro game fans. We can also never get annoyed by companies spending the time to bring these more difficult to get hold of games to a wider audience.

Overall 7/10

Glover Review (Switch)

For a good few years now PQube has been tracking down and acquiring the rights to many cult hits and underappreciated gems across a host of retro platforms. The latest acquisition to be given a new lease of life is Glover, more specifically the N64 version of the game. The game also, impressively, has been released on the Evercade.

Glover follows the model of the standard 3D platformers of the day. You have fairly large, open levels to explore, lots of collectibles and a slightly frustrating camera to fight with. The game has been given a slight graphical overhaul which makes it look good enough on modern displays. The general blur vision of the N64 is long gone, so at least eye strain is kept to a minimum. This does of course make the levels look a bit empty and brown but then that’s just a sign of times.

We were a bit surprised to see that nothing else has really been added here though. There are none of the normal extras you now find on pretty much all retro releases. So, there’s no rewind or filters and most importantly, there’s no quick save feature so you are tied into the game auto saving at checkpoints. This is disappointing as the Switch by its very nature is portable, so quick saves should be standard on pretty much anything.

The controls have been mapped well to the Switch though and the game doesn’t feel particularly awkward. It is arguably even a bit smoother than many of the games on the Switch Online N64 service. This is handy as the game is complex to navigate as you are controlling a giant glove moving a ball around.

A lot of the platforming and puzzles require you to get the ball to various places by batting it, bouncing it or walking on top of it. All these things require practice to get right and early on you’ll likely be frustrated as you watch your ball role away for the hundredth time. When you get used to it though, it allows for a far more original take on the genre than many other games.

Aside from the ball physics, the other main gimmick is that you can switch around what type of ball you are using. You start with a standard beach ball, but you’ll soon get others made of materials that break on impact or that can traverse certain terrains. You’ll need to work things out quickly though because every time a ball bursts you’ll lose a life, and you only have five which seem to degenerate quickly.

Overall, Glover is a perfect example of an interesting but flawed game. The concept is clever and original, but you’ll need to put time into mastering how everything works in order to really appreciate what the game has to offer. It certainly has a charm and if you stick with it, it becomes a rewarding and fun experience. A quick save would have really helped though.

Overall 6/10

Bubble Ghost Remake Review (Switch)

Bubble Ghost was always an interesting title, and one that we first came across on the Gameboy many years ago. It had a short physical revival recently with glow in the dark Gameboy cartridges being sold through various specialist vendors and now a full-on remake has appeared. Although charming, it was never the most highly regarded game though so the remake as some way to go in order to make an impact.

The basic premise is that you need to get your bubble through 33 screens and defeat a few bosses along the way. You move your bubble by blowing it and if anything touches it, it burst, and you need to start the level again. This is also true of the boss stages and can lead to frustration at times as some of the levels are fairly long.

As the ghost you can travel without fear of being damaged. You can even move through objects to scout out the levels to some degree. If you move too far away from your bubble though it will burst so looking ahead is limited. Controls are simple with one button being used to blow the bubble, how far depends on how long it’s held, and the shoulder buttons being used to spin your ghost around. Another button will spin your ghost 180 degrees as well for moments you need to manoeuvre quickly. Unfortunately, spinning the ghost around does feel a bit awkward and sometimes it simply doesn’t feel intuitive enough to get through the harsh traps that require quick fingers and even quicker thinking.

The boss battles are another source of frustration with the unforgiving fragility of the bubble meaning one mistake and you have to start the whole sequence over again. This is made more annoying by the fact you have no real way of knowing what the boss will do at each stage, meaning you are into the bad old days of trial and error and having to remember what comes next. When you add this to some slightly stiff controls and sections of the game can lose their feeling of fun very quickly. The severity of the difficulty strangely reminded us of the Boy and His Blob remake which also had the one hit kill and trial and error mechanics running through it.

The remake pretty much rebuilds the levels from the ground up. They are based on the original screens but the have been expanded massively and the graphics are now done in a beautifully illustrated comic book style. It’s certainly impressive to look at. Away from this visual overhaul though there isn’t much else here in the way of extras aside from a speed run mode. It would have been nice to see some material relating to the original versions of the games though. We would have really loved to have seen some of the original versions as playable as well but maybe that was hoping for too much.

Overall, Bubble Ghost had a lot of potential to be a charming game that offered something different. When it works, the game is great fun, but frustration is never too far away and the boss battles in particular are real missteps which make progress grind to halt. That said, there’s a level of love that has been put into this which can clearly be seen in the lavish graphics. If you are patient and looking for a challenge, then this is well worth checking out.

Overall 6/10

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream Review (Switch)

As point and click adventures go IHNMAIMS is certainly one of the darker and most out there ones. Based on the short story of the same name is follows the story of five humans who are held captive by an artificial intelligence known as AM. AM has destroyed the earth and now keeps the five humans alive for its own sadistic pleasure. They are held immortal and eternally tortured, so far, they have been tormented for 109 years.

The game works in the traditional point and click way. You move around with the Switch left analogue stick and click on items to pick up and things to interact with. There are dialogue trees to work though as well and unlike many point and click games you can die. AIM won’t let you really die though and instead will drop you back at the start of the adventure, so it pays to save often.

However, each of the chapters can be completed in numerous ways with different actions being carried out throughout. Your characters have a spiritual health bar which increases whenever they do something good and decreases when something bad happens. The state of the bar at the end of the level along with the route you have taken to completion results in determining if you have been successful or not (something you won’t know for sure until the final act).

Taking control of each of the five captives in turn, players must solve a mystery relating to each of them. These act as self-contained mini adventures and change dramatically in content. One minute you might be wandering around a fantasy castle making deals with the devil while another adventure is set in a prison camp where horrific experiments are being carried out on the inmates. The one thing that does stay consistent is just how dark it all is though.

There is no humour here and each of the characters must overcome nasty things in order to make it through their section. Everything relates to things in their past and they are certainly not for the faint of heart. One of the characters main aims is to commit suicide so that gives you a hint as to the tone. It’s also very easy to make mistakes which lead you down the darker sides of the adventure. A number of times thing happened that surprised us, or we didn’t even know could be avoided and this can be frustrating.

Frustration is one of the biggest problems with IHNMAIMS. It’s wildly changing frame of reference within the different setups for the adventures made us feel that much of the time we were simply fumbling our way through it instead of having great revelations. Often using items on things when you’re stuck can have a bad effect or bring the story to an end without any warning and when you are intricately trying to get something sorted it’s beyond annoying. In one scene we accidentally clicked on something in the background and our player was immediately dragged back to the hub world by AIM without any warning or chance to abort our action.

Overall, IHNMAIMS is a strange one. The story is excellent, and the dark tone and menacing atmosphere are something you don’t normally find in this type of game. The multiple routes are also good (in theory) and it does a lot right. However, it never really clicked with us. Without the humour it dragged a bit and the fragmented stories of the captives and changes in tone and design didn’t really help this. A lot of time we were solving things without really knowing why we were doing it, and I would be surprised if we dived back in to find the alternative ways through the game. It’s certainly worth playing through once though and one ever point and click fan should at least try.

Overall 7/10