Product Review: Nintendo Switch

In 2018 I wrote a review for Breath of the Wild that included this statement: “I don’t care about the Nintendo Switch’s portability (I prefer using a TV screen), and I probably won’t buy more than a handful of games for the system.” Times have changed. In the past few months I’ve played through half a dozen Switch games (Golf Story, Inside, Super Mario Odyssey, and so on), and I’ve completed most of those with the Switch in portable mode. The Switch is a kick ass console.

I still enjoy playing games on a big screen, but the convenience of picking up the console and playing in different rooms can not be understated. In portable mode it’s so easy to jump into a game like Bad North and defend a couple islands before putting the console to sleep with the push of a button. I didn’t think the joy-cons would feel very comfortable, but I have no problem with them; the Switch batteries always drain before my hands complain. So yeah, the console’s battery is not great, only lasting two to three hours. That’s why I said it’s great to take it to different rooms in a house, because the dock is nearby for a quick charge. A console like the 3DS is better suited for longer travels.

Most games nowadays are available across multiple platforms, so the console wars are much less of an issue than they were 20 years ago. Cutting edge graphics are the least of my gaming concerns; Sony and Microsoft can keep that war raging. The Switch graphics look good to me, and when it comes to exclusive titles, Nintendo has the one-two punch of Mario and Zelda. That’s a tough combo to beat. I’m also a big fan of the Switch pro controller – it’s almost as good as an Xbox controller and better than a Playstation controller. I’ll keep supporting Sony so long as they keep making excellent Spider-Man games, but my heart is with Mario and his pals.

The new OLED Switch screen looks fantastic, but I’m in no hurry to upgrade. My original gray and black model is a solid piece of hardware, which makes sense considering Nintendo’s history of building long lasting, durable products. The Lite model seems like a misstep, though. The Switch is a beautiful marriage between Nintendo’s home consoles and portable consoles, so why limit a gamer to just half the experience? After I’m done with this review I’m going to wake up my Switch so I can continue battling pixelated vikings. And after that the e-shop has much more to offer. Considering the quantity and quality of games available (including historic classics with the online membership), the Nintendo Switch may be the best console ever made.

Key Character: Hunter

We all have favorite fictional characters. They can be inspirational, sagacious, heroic… or they can be relentless villains who are just so damn charismatic. In this feature I celebrate fictional characters who make their worlds much fuller.

The original Resident Evil is amusing by today’s horror standards. The characters are visibly blocky, and the game features some of the best worst voice acting in video game history. But for a kid playing back in 1996 it was a different story. The voice acting remained laughable, but the infested mansion held its share of scares. Chief among the frightful creatures is the hunter.

The zombies are the goombas of Resident Evil, common and easy enough to deal with. But during a certain mission the lead character is taken away from the mansion only to return to a surprise. The control is ripped away from the player and the camera shifts to a first-person view. A creature follows the player’s path, speeding toward the mansion and leaping past a ladder. A scaly hand opens the final door and the creature enters the same hallway as the player.

A hulking, reptilian-humanoid then stalks toward the player with razor-sharp claws clicking on the hardwood floor. Yeah, this was the scary stuff. My friend would hand me the controller when it became time to take down a hunter, because he regularly found himself insta-killed (beheaded, no less) by a slashing hunter. Even in death hunters are unsettling. Their screams before falling over sound like cats being put through a shredder.

One of the more interesting things about the hunters is they aren’t bosses or minibosses. After their great introduction hunters replace zombies in some areas that had been relatively safe. They are an unnatural disaster the player has to deal with until the end of the game. Sometimes when facing them it’s a smarter decision to flee to the next room. Even when the player is loaded down with weapons, hunters help keep the “survival” in the survival horror game.

The lickers replace the hunters in Resident Evil 2, and they are cool monsters, but they’re also a definite downgrade. There’s something about the deliberate walk of the hunter, its sounds, its hearty build and instant quickness. Nowadays there exist multiple variations on the hunter (I like the frogman that swallows the player in one gulp), but the original screeching killer is an undeniable classic.

Video Game Review: Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions

In early 1998 my brother and I had a debate over which video game earned the championship belt between two heavyweight contenders – the RPG Final Fantasy VII and the strategy RPG Final Fantasy Tactics. In the years between then and now, history has decided for us. The Final Fantasy VII universe has accumulated spin-off titles, an anime feature film, and it is being remade as another big budget production. Meanwhile, Final Fantasy Tactics remains relegated to the past, for the most part. I tried playing one of the Game Boy Advance spin-offs, but it paled in comparison to the original.

I haven’t played every Final Fantasy game. Seriously, who has the time? But I’ve played enough to feel secure in saying Tactics has to be one of the best Final Fantasy games, and overall it’s one of the best video games released during the original Playstation era. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions is more of a re-release than a remake, but its improved translation fixes one of the main flaws of the original game. The battle system is still a bit overcomplicated for me to fully account for every detail (for example, characters’ zodiac signs affect attack damage), but in this case I’d rather the game be more complex rather than less.

The Tactics story itself is quite dense and hard to follow. The sense I had playing it the very first time was, “Man this is epic and cool but I don’t remember who that guy is and I don’t know who is betraying who.” Following the story is still challenging, but I liken it to reading a novel that expects you to pay attention and use a highlighter if you need to help yourself. The main character Ramza is a naïve highborn child who sheds the scales from his eyes as he grows, and his friend Delita is one of the most intriguing characters Final Fantasy has ever produced. He grows much faster than Ramza, playing the political game and using people so that he’s never used as a pawn again. Whereas many Final Fantasy games focus mainly on fantasy adventure, politics factor heavily into Tactics. The marriage of fantasy and politics sounds like a winning combination, doesn’t it? It’s no wonder Game of Thrones caught on like wildfire.

All this writing and I haven’t yet mentioned the combat. Unlike many RPGs, a button masher this is not. Units are moved across a map like chess pieces, placed strategically to inflict higher damage while avoiding attacks from opposing units. It’s addicting gameplay, and matches can extend to half an hour or more. Watching your black mage inflict a death blow just before a ninja is about to strike her down is one of the many small victories experienced on the Tactics battlefield. And thanks to the excellent job system, that same black mage can be transformed into a time mage, a monk, a geomancer, or whatever else you like for the next match. One of the only gripes I have with The War of the Lions is it includes special jobs that require absurd amounts of experience to attain.

I love Final Fantasy Tactics, and The War of the Lions is the best way to experience it. Anyone who enjoys RPGs, epic stories (seriously, I love the church vs. state vs. demons story so much), strategy games, board games, and anything awesome needs to play it. There’s no excuse either, because you can now play it on your phone like I did. Also, Delita is a character who deserves to be mentioned alongside heavy hitters like Cloud Strife. If that’s not enough of a selling point, Cloud also sneaks his way into Tactics as a playable character. There truly is no reason not to play this game.

If you’d like to know more about the game, or if you have already played Final Fantasy Tactics and want to take a trip down memory lane, here’s a great retrospective review by Resonant Arc.

Video Game Review: Spider-Man

Just like I got a Nintendo Switch strictly to play Breath of the Wild, I bought a Playstation 4 to play Spider-Man. In fact, I managed to snag the red PS4 special edition with the huge white spider logo slapped on it, and it looks slick. After spending hours completing every side mission and churning through the DLC, I’m happy to say that Spider-Man took the best parts of the classic Spider-Man 2 game (released way back in 2004) and improved on its weaknesses.

Spider-Man is a combination of Spider-Man 2 and the Batman Arkham games sprinkled with familiar, sometimes boring side missions copied from games like Assassin’s Creed. Even if some of the side missions aren’t exciting, web slinging around New York is enjoyable enough to forgive bland missions. Seriously, launching Spidey through the air and threading the needle through tight spaces at high velocity is terrific. Similar to the web slinging, the combat is fluid and varied. I never blamed the game when I failed in a fight, and when I fell into a good rhythm the streets of New York would be littered with webbed up criminals.

Although high end graphics are usually secondary to me when it comes to video games, Spidey looks amazing in this game. It’s clear that the designers took pride in crafting every costume, and I even found myself using costumes I don’t care that much about (Scarlet Spider, Secret War) because they look so cool in-game. The only problem is there are so many impressively designed suits and I could only wear one at a time.

I knew webslinging would be fun, but surprisingly, the story is the most impressive part of Spider-Man. Like the classic Marvel comics, Peter Parker has to balance crime fighting, finances, and family obligations. Mixed in with old tropes are new versions of Mary Jane and Aunt May (the best we’ve ever seen), sympathetic villain Martin Li, as well as a good kid named Miles Morales. There’s also Doctor Octavius, Peter’s mentor, who might be the most fleshed out villain I’ve ever encountered in a video game. The characters drive the story and inject it with life.

When I was about halfway through Spider-Man I realized something: this feels like being in a comic book! Whether I was slinging across the Upper East Side to meet Aunt May at the community center or dodging Electro’s blasts hundreds of feet in the air, I was immersed in the game and felt like the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. One of the only real flaws I found is in the title. “Spider-Man” is good, but adding an adjective like “Sensational” would be more fitting.