Boulderdash 40th Anniversary Review (Switch)

Hands up anyone who feels old at the fact that we have reached the 40^th anniversary of Boulderdash. The classic rock dropping and gem finder has gone on to influence a ton of games and dates back all the way to the 8-bit era. While we were always Repton fans ourselves, it’s undeniable how iconic the game is and now it’s been brought to new systems in a comprehensive package.

For the uninitiated the game revolved around the player navigating a maze of dirt, rocks, gems and moving enemies from a flat 2D perspective. You can move freely through the dirt, but any rocks perched on top will then fall. If they hit you, you get crushed and die. Rocks will also fall off other rocks, sometimes creating huge landslides which can easily trap you in and cause a level restart. Once enough gems in a level have been collected an exit will open allowing progress to the next stage.

We certainly can’t complain about the number of levels included. As well as the first three games, there are a ton of new levels created with more up to date graphics. We do think the new look has a very ‘mobile game’ quality, but this isn’t the most deep of experiences so it’s not the end of the world. While most collections now seem to include emulated versions of original games that isn’t strictly the case here. You can play the games with either a C64 or Atari filter, but these aren’t the original versions of the game. You would be hard pressed to tell though.

Controls wise everything works well. Before a recent update you had to use the left stick to control movement, which was incredibly twitchy, but you can now use the cursor keys which is transformative in terms of precision movement. This has made the games a lot more friendly to play and means you are rarely overshooting when moving around. With a game this tough it really didn’t need anything else getting in the way of progression.

Boulderdash 40^th anniversary does fall between two audiences though. If you haven’t experienced the game before there probably isn’t much here that’s going to really draw you in. While fans may feel a little shortchanged by the fact there isn’t much in the way of archive footage or that more versions of the games haven’t been included. When you think to the extensive retro collections now filling the Switch this does begin to look a bit bare bones in terms of content by comparison. That said, there’s a lot of Boulderdash here, so if you are a fan or into these types of games there’s certainly enough to get into.

Overall 7/10

Shinobi: Art of Vengeance Review (Switch)

With all the recent retro revivals and intense 2D nostalgic throwbacks recently it’s hard to believe that we haven’t had a proper Shinobi gave for a long time. There was of course a 3DS game that wasn’t the best and most of the back catalogue has been made available, but Art of Vengeance is a resounding return to form.

The thing that stands out straight away are the gorgeous visuals. The game has been designed to look like a Japanese style painting and the colour and detail present throughout are stunning. In motion, everything flows as well as it looks with the game moving at an intense speed without faltering, even in handheld mode. It allows for a flow and momentum that every ninja game is crying out for.

The combat is much more involved than previous games as well. Historically, Shinobi games have limited the player to a jump and attack button, with the occasional special move. Here, there’s a combo system in play with light and heavy attacks and constantly upgradable and changeable special moves that can be bought from an in-game shop. There’re also instant kills and a host of movement options such as dashes and wall slides that wouldn’t be out of place in the latest indie Metroidvania.

To clarify, Shinobi hasn’t gone the Metroidvania route. The game is set out as linear, platform, levels. These can be revisited later when new power ups are acquired which can in turn can then be used to access a few hidden areas, but generally you are going from left to right through large levels and then taking on an impressively large and difficult boss at the end. Between each of the main platform levels there are also further throw backs to the past such as more action-based stages riding on horses or other vehicles.

The general games difficulty is challenging but fair. There’s certainly nothing here to compare to the Mega Drive games in terms of difficulty. If you do die you start back at a checkpoint, and as the levels are vast this is a smart design choice. It also helps to lessen the frustration on the few occasions it’s difficult to tell between a pit and what is the legitimate way forward. The bosses though are tough. They are damage sponges which go through varying phases of attack patterns, and we often found ourselves zooming through a level, only to be stuck at the boss checkpoint for a considerable amount of time. While this can be frustrating it’s good to see some of the old Shinobi challenge remaining in the game’s DNA.

Overall, Shinobi: Art of Vengeance represents a stunning return for Sega’s much-loved franchise. The action is slick and frenetic, and the level design is both beautiful and creative. Enemies are varied and provide enough of a challenge to be interesting obstacles and getting through a level provides enough satisfaction to continually push on to the next. Sega has been slow to mine some of its formally popular IP’s so we hope this is a sign of things to come. This is a creative, fun and intense success that it’s hard to see anyone not liking it, especially those with nostalgia for the original games.

Overall 9/10

Roadwarden Review (Switch)

Roadwarden, originally came out on the PC in 2022 and was universally praised for it’s rich story telling and world building. Now, a few years later it has made the jump to the Switch. With the market flooded with Metroidvania and Rogue-like games it’s great to see something a bit different and it’s even better to see something forging a more original path that will actually captivate and engross you. Roadwarden is all these things and more, despite a few performance issues.

The basic premise is that the game is a sort of choose your own adventure, text based, game with some RPG element. You play a new Roadwarden, sent by the merchants’ guild to keep trade moving through a fantasy peninsula filled with monsters and strange happenings. You can pick from a few different variations of your character and then it’s off into the pixel illustrated world to investigate and carry out quests. Your overall goal can be decided on by the player from a host of different options and it’s really up to you to explore where you want over the course of forty days.

The play screen in the game is split into three sections. You get an illustration of your location on the left, the main text description and selectable options in the middle and then access to information about your status and other information on the right. This is navigated by using the Switch control stick or arrow buttons or pressing one of the shortcut buttons. It’s a bit clunky compared to the PC but it does work. We can’t help but feel some kind of virtual mouse cursor may have been a better option though.

Both the illustrations and text set the scene of the harsh fantasy environment well. The text is often lengthy but interesting and there are a normally a host of options to choose from. You can normally even pick from different tones and emotions to use in your replies, all of it adding up to giving the player different paths to follow. This tied to the forty-day time frame means there is a decent amount of replayability here for those who really get into the game and want to play for longer. You certainly can’t do everything or go everywhere in one play through, and the selectable goals also means different priorities are needed for each run.

Once, players leave a location they enter a larger map screen which fills in as they explore. It can feel a bit daunting, but characters are good at giving you information about locations that are in different directions and where you might want to head. This means you are rarely in a situation where you are unsure of where to go or what to do. Instead, the game relies more on a sort of risk versus reward system with the player knowing what’s ahead but also what they stand to gain or lose by doing certain things.

While you are traveling you need to keep an eye on a host of things to keep your character going. There is nourishment, health, tiredness, armour and even appearance which all tie into different aspects of the game and add or remove options if they fall too low. If your appearance is too dishevelled for instance characters are less likely to interact with you, but resting and cleaning takes up precious time which you may not be able to waste.

There are various skill checks and elements of chance you’ll have to face as well. This is very much in the mould of an old school dungeons and dragons RPG, just with a bit more direction. Whenever something which requires ‘chance’ is an option the game will highlight it for you, so you are always have the information you need before making decisions. A well implemented tutorial which pops up naturally as you progress also helps to gently integrate player with the various systems the game runs on.

If there is a criticism it’s that the game runs pretty inconsistently on the Switch, at least in handheld mode. We had a fair few start up crashes when trying to launch and the very first time we played there was even errant code on the screen and an error message about memory. Luckily these disappeared once it seemed to get running but anything that moves is jerky and moving around your options on the play screen comes with a certain amount of lag. It certainly isn’t running in the most optimal way, lets put it that way. Despite this though it remains incredibly engaging and interesting.

Overall, Roadwarden is something both different and rather excellent. The world and atmosphere the game creates with its pixel art and lavish writing really helps to build the feel of a living place. Each interaction is interesting and there is more than enough ‘game’ here to keep people happy who would shy away from other visual novels. It’s closest to something like a digital Fighting Fantasy book, just with more options and systems running. Even with performance issues we really liked it and at the modest price, it’s very easy to recommend.

Overall 8/10

50 Indie Games that Changed the World Review

 

We’ve been covering Bitmap book releases for a fair while now. Most of them compile genres or specific games systems but every now and then you get something a little different. We’ve seen this before with the ‘Secret History of Mac Gaming’ and ‘A Gremlin in the Works’, 50 Indie games that changed the world may not be as far from the usual output as that, but it certainly takes a different view of the industry.

In terms of content, it’s a fairly straight forward set up. There’s a short preface explaining the goal of the book and what it’s featuring, a foreword by Thomas Was Alone developer Mike Bithell who adds some context to the indie scene and how development works and then an introduction which talks about what indie games are as a wider genre and concept. After that it’s a straight list of the 50 games with a few honourable mentions at the end. Surprisingly, there aren’t any more interviews are other features but then the book is pretty laser focused on what it’s trying to do and as it tops out at an impressive four-hundred and fifty plus pages so we aren’t really complaining.

Each of the fifty games is looked at with a considerable amount of depth. Generally, the games in these books get one of two pages maximum. A few special ones might justify four but here most of the games get around eight pages, split across text, screenshots and art work. Each also has a breakdown of why the game should be considered as a game that changed the world. It’s an impressive amount of focus to put on each title and if you aren’t sat there making a list of games to buy as you go then we would be amazed.

The games included are wide reaching. There are obvious inclusions such as Fez and and Axion Verge but also more modern games such as Vampire Survivors and some you may not be expecting like Among Us and 80 Days. It means there’s a wide range of titles covered from different years and spanning multiple genres. There will of course be a personal favourite left out somewhere but it’s hard to argue with any of the inclusions. The fact that Futurlab’s Velocity is here makes us particularly happy as the game and the studio are vastly underrated and you should probably all be out there downloading it right now. It even means we will overlook the fact none of the Pixeljunk or Bit Trip games are in here.

Despite the mass of pages and games included it would have been nice to have a few features in here. Something on key indie genres would have been welcome – even if it was only a few pages. That might have taken some focus away from the key theme of the book though and it’s not like there is a lack of content here. There is some mention of genres within some of the games covered as well. The piece on Dead Cells in particular highlights how Metroidvania and Rogue games dot the landscape.

Overall, 50 Indie Games That Changed the World works beautifully as a love letter to some of the most creative and innovative games the industry has to offer. Chances are you may well be aware of most of them but there are always those one or two that you will have overlooked. It also acts as a perfect place to start if you want to move away from AAA video gaming or even if you want to jump from retro gaming back into something more modern but which channels that old school aesthetic. We loved it.

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*image from Bitmap Books website