Lunark Review (Switch)

 

Written by Thomas G.J. Sharpe

As cinematic platformers are on the re-ascendant it is heartening to me to see a developer making the case for the vital fibres of the genre. Flashback, Prince of Persia, and Abe’s Oddysee are all sort of the organs of Lunark, and it works out like a great slice of uncompromising pie.

The scene of this CINEMATIC platformer is sadly the weakest part of Lunark. The story is Deus Ex: Human Revolution adapted for a 90’s Saturday morning children’s cartoon. You play Leo, who is a peppy courier with a slight otherness to him, marking him against the human characters (like Jensen’s nano-guts), who has his very own guiding tech-mentor Gideon (like the fella with the office and the goatee). Things go chaotic at Gideon’s robot factory, however, and Leo is going to have to find out who’s behind it all. There are many locations to visit from futuristic city skylines to dank caverns, with a fun conspiracy narrative that won’t stretch your brain too much.

Rather than a beige-yellow-black cyberpunk murk, however, there are colours and adventure and boldness to Lunarks design. Having said that, there is a bit of a spattering of design styles on show here, which is jarring. There is beautiful, serious rotoscope cinematics (a la Flashback), with bold and blocky character portraits that take many styles. The occasional 3D model, lovingly frosted into abrasively large pixel form, work well, while some characters seem too small to make sense of. It is an odd presentation that I never quite got on with, but I do like the boldness of this game’s look.

To keep track; bold presentation, meek writing. So, the gameplay has to make up the mark and then some. And it does, for me. Lacking the fluidity of Conrad’s movements in Flashback, Leo is more noticeably taking a slot at a time on the ground. There is a plodding, but via this, thoughtful pace. Each little section can be tackled like a sequence of movements and actions that, if you get wrong, you soon learn costs you quite dearly. I bucked my ideas up and paid attention to jumps, ledges, enemy patterns, and obstacles, after Leo kept meeting his demise. At times this can feel quite punishing due to the distance of respawn points varying from quite close to too-far-to-be-enjoyable. You’ll get into the groove, or you’ll bounce off, probably, as the story isn’t quite compelling enough to drive it alone. Combat is inevitably pulled into this steadier flow too, where you have to fall into view of a drone or wee monster at the right time to get to cover, or get your shots off. There is a lot of timing and a lot of learning which movement keys to get in the right time, and during which cycle of movement. The difficulty curve isn’t that steep, but make sure you take your time.

I ended up enjoying the considered pace. There are very mild collectible-side-quest-NPC gewgaws to indulge in. The fact there was such a small amount of these felt like a song from a simpler time (I am currently playing through all the Assassin’s Creed games, so I’m generating a deep hatred for any collectible clutter like some gaming Marie Kondo). In fact, all of Lunark speaks from a different place. There is a lack of cynicism, a straight-forwardness, and a clarity of purpose that works. This is a tight and specific game, that speaks to an older time.

Much like point and click adventure games spawned new game types, the cinematic platformer was eaten by its own offspring (see Fade to Black) that pushed for greater excitement, embraced new visual angles, and sped up and up. These two genres are seeing a resurgence at the moment, and Lunark holds a particular spot with an entertaining game, that serves both something old and something new confidently and with a keen sense of joy.

Overall 8/10

The Library of Babel Review (Switch)

Styles of games always seem to run in cycles. Rogue likes, Metroidvanias, side scrolling brawlers etc. have all had their own revivals and now it seems is the age of the cinematic platformer. The pillars of the genre (Another World and Flashback) are already widely available on a host of systems but now we are starting to get games influenced by them and aimed at a new audience. Lunark is one and The Library of Babel is another.

The game is inspired by a short story by Jorge Luis Borges and deals with the idea that humanity has been long extinct. Intelligent robots now rule the earth, which has largely rewilded. Everything is harmonious until a library is discovered with everything that ever has or ever will be written inside it. This causes chaos as cults and revolutionaries start to rise. Amidst this backdrop you are sent to investigate a murder. There is also a heavy Apocalypse Now vibe that flows throughout.

The first thing that hits you is just how absolutely stunning the game looks. Every scene is gorgeous, and this is some of the finest artwork we have seen. All the areas have their own personality with jungles teeming with life and settlements buzzing with a mixture of neon and nature. The only minor complaint is that the game is often very dark and it can be difficult to see things at times. There’s also a lot of hidden passages and areas which don’t really have any visual ques to them so you’ll spend a lot of time crawling around on your knees by corners just on the off chance that there may be something there.

The story is strong and conjures the atmosphere of a noir-esque detective investigation quite well. There’s also a ton of characters to interact with and they all tend to be both interesting and well written in terms of dialogue that they dish out. This helps to keeps players engaged and keeps the plot interesting.

Gameplay is fairly straight forward and essential boils down to wandering around, jumping and crawling. A lot of the puzzles come down to finding an item and taking it to somewhere else, triggering switches or pushing boxes. This can become a bit dull at times, especially when you are trying to trigger switches in dangerous areas and keep getting killed. This is alleviated a bit by the fact that any doors opened, or key items gathered do stay in place when you respawn after death.

There is also a lot of wandering around back and forth. There are teleport points but sometimes you can get stuck in the dreaded ‘not really sure what I should be doing’ zone which can be frustrating. There is both a quest log and a map to help you out, but they aren’t the best. At one point we knew the name of the place we were meant to be going but couldn’t work out where it was on the map. Some people may see this as part of the investigation but for others it will become a drag as details are vague, especially if you come back to the game after a few days.

Overall, The Library of Babel is an interesting and engaging game, when it works. We enjoyed our time with it, but you can’t get away from the fact that there are long periods of time that can be a bit dull and directionless. If you can push through this though this is destined to become a bit of a hidden gem and it has clearly been crafted with real care and attention.

 Overall 7/10

Canon Dancer - Osman Review (Switch)

 

Strider has had several sequels over the years. There was Strider II, published by U.S. Gold which came out on a host of consoles and computers in 1990 and then Capcom itself released its own sequel (Strider 2), which was ported to the PS1 in 1999. Neither of these games are to be confused with the 2014 game Strider, which released across a host of digital platforms. Amongst all thess though is the true spiritual sequel to the iconic arcade game developed by the original director and released in arcades – Cannon Dancer, or Osman in the West. Sadly, this game never received a home release at the time. But now ININ games is here to bring it to modern platforms both digitally and in physical format.

Strider took its inspiration from the colder parts of the world and this design is flipped on it’s head in Cannon Dancer with a heavy Middle Eastern influence. The graphics are big, bold and colourful and full of rich reds and oranges and it certainly gives off that arcade vibe that games of the time were known for. The whole thing moves at a crazy speed as well and is much more fluid and smoother than even its inspiration.

Luckily, our hero is every bit as nimble as his more famous ninja friend with players able to launch the bell pants wearing Kirin all over the place with ease. You can also cling to and climb pretty much any surface which gives a huge range of movement once you have gotten used to how everything works.

Speed is the key to success with powering up Kirin’s attacks essential to survival. Once you have picked up a few powerups you’ll notice that when you attack, you’ll leave behind a shadow version of yourself which will stay in place and continue to strike for a few seconds before returning back to you. This is primarily how you take on bosses with players needing to dart into small spaces, leave a shadow and then dive out again so you can attack from safety. It’s difficult to master but a rewarding gameplay loop.

Unlike Strider, you’ll find the five stages almost impossible to clear with one credit. Even though your character is faster and more flexible, the levels are much more chaotic and unforgiving. This creates a strange set up as your special attacks are, in contrast, crazily powerful. You don’t have many buttons at your disposal (punch, jump and special), but pressing that special attack button pretty much obliterates everything on screen and even bosses are dealt a serious amount of damage. This does mean there is a temptation just to power through blasting the special button. Dying and then repeating.

Overall, cannon Dancer is a very welcome addition to the Switch arcade library. It’s also great that ININ have taken the game and given it a high enough profile to give it a physical release. However, the overall package could do with more content to really justify the price currently being asked. We had a whole collection of Turtles games for the same price so getting the Japanese and Western version of a single five level arcade game with few extras does seem a bit thin. That said, the game is really good fun so if you are a fan of Strider or arcade games in general then it is well worth a look.

Overall 7/10

Store Link - https://www.strictlylimitedgames.com/en-gb/products/cannon-dancer-osman-nintendo-switch?_pos=1&_sid=37e19b658&_ss=r

GrimGrimoire OnceMore Review (Switch)

It’s been a long time since GrimGrimoire first appeared on the PS2. It was always seen as somewhat of a unique strategy curio and even now there is very little else out there like it. Imagine a sort of game of witchcraft-based tug of war set across a 2D, side on, plane and mixed with a touch of classic RTS’ such as Dune and you are kind of getting there.

GrimGrimoire always looked beautiful, and nothing has changed in this new version. Now in HD, the artwork and creatures look absolutely gorgeous. Individual creatures and elements of the levels are incredibly detailed and some of the best looking you’ll find. Unfortunately, the levels themselves remain somewhat bland throughout with the multi-tiered battlefields changing little from level to level aside from enemies and portal placements.

In terms of how the game operates it’s a fairly simple premise with a large amount of nuance and tinkering. It has some standard RTS elements – for instance you’ll start each round sending out creatures to gather magic from crystals much in the same way as you would have sent workers out to collect spice all those years ago in Dune. This can then be turned into different creatures or used to upgrade your portals. Portals are used to someone the various familiars under your control. These are created from runes which come in various flavours such as necromancy or glamour with each allowing different creatures to be summoned.

Once you’ve got your production line running it becomes a matter of building your defences around your portals while also sending out troops to take down your opponents. Most levels end by either holding out for a certain amount of time or eradicating your enemy and the key is working out which of your creatures are best suited to defeating your opponents. The tug of war as troops pile up together can often seem a bit like a war of attrition but the games rule set is consistent so once you understand how things work it does make sense. It’s also not the longest or toughest game of this type so non-veterans need not be too intimidated.

Something which was tricky back on the PS2 was how the game actually controlled. The lack of mouse input means you are using a controller to move the cursor around the screen in order to select things. There are shortcut combinations of buttons which allow you to select groups but the game never quite gets over its awkwardness in this respect. What is a shame is that no touch screen controls have been implanted in handheld mode which seemed like an ideal way to effectively remove the games biggest flaw. However, as unnatural as it can seem at times the controls rarely become a problem to a point that it massively effects what is happening on the battlefield and everything is manageable.

Overall, GrimGrimoire Once More remains a unique and original take on the genre. The side on view has rarely been replicated and it plays unlike pretty much anything else. We are glad that the time has been taken to bring it to a new console as it was cruelly overlooked on its PS2 release. If you are looking for something different or want to try a more original take on the RTS game then this is well worth getting into and it hasn’t aged at all since its original release.

Overall 7/10