DaileyBeating

Master Key is yet another great Zelda inspired game on the Switch (as well as Steam) and I am more than happy I decided to put time towards it. Indie Metroidvanias or Zelda likes may seem like a dime a dozen, but games like Master Key can really push through to that next level and make them feel not just like a copycat standing on the shoulders of giants, but something impressive enough to push the genre forward in its own way.

Overall Penny’s Big Breakaway is a fun platformer brimming with personality and ideas. If you want to take the time to learn the game and practice its mechanics it will meet you there allowing you to exploit the levels in ways I could only admire through my screen watching other players. There are more than a few earworms that I loved listening to as I played through the dozens of color filled levels bouncing, swinging, and rolling my way to the podium. If you like 3D platformers, and like challenging yourself to learn a games mechanics and chase leaderboards, Penny’s Big Breakaway is worth checking out.

I think there is some fun to be had with Foamstars and I think it square sticks with the game it could be a pretty solid multiplayer game eventually. But as it currently sits most of the game is not very enticing. I cannot deny that I had a really good time playing the game online with friends, but as I mentioned, with the limited game modes and the way the game cycles between 2 game modes, half the time the only option available to me to have fun was the basic elimination mode. The mission mode feels very underbaked, with each mission, single player or online, following the exact same structure of defending a target against slow waves of enemies. I want this game to improve, I hope it does improve, but as it sits now, I’m not foaming at the mouth to play more.

As I am sure people are well aware, 2023 has been a silly year for games. Every month, sometimes every week, there is another great game that wants to take you attention. I have made the best effort I can to keep up with the pace, but I like everyone else, cant play everything. However, I can try my best to recommend games I think people should give a go. That is why today I want to talk about warioware move it. This game came out at the beginning of November, so this video is almost a month late to the party. But that is why I am making it, because there really hasn’t been a party for this game, I feel like it has really been lost in the shuffle. I have always liked WarioWare, but I was really reminded of this when Get it together released on the switch a few years back. I played this game every week for a year competing in the weekly gold cups and I really enjoyed my time with it. Needless to say when Move it was announced a couple months back I was excited and surprised, I really did not think we would get a second warioware on the switch. The biggest thing that made this game make sense to release on the same console as another wario ware is Move it is motion based, if the name didn’t give it away, while get it together was just regular joy stick and button controls since it was going for more of a split screen coop joy con thing. Now while its a lot easier to sit down and just play a game with a regular ole controller, the idea of a full motion game sounded like just the change of pace I needed so I got my hat and tropical shirt, got some stretches in, and jumped into it. Aaaaaand then I rolled credits. Yes, the first thing I noticed when playing this game was just how short its single player content was. WarioWare tends to have real breezy story modes, but I think I knocked this out in less than 2 hours. Now the question is, is that a problem? To me, no. While I do enjoy watching the goofy little cutscenes with wario and friends, even getting the occasion chuckle out of me, that is not the main draw here. Playing through to credits in a warioware is only really a vehicle to unlock all the microgames, the real meat of the game is the replay ability going for high scores. The story takes place on an island that wario won a getaway to, along with all the side characters you come to expect like 9-volt jimmy T and a dozen or so other. Each character, or groups of characters get their own cutscenes that lead into their bucket of micro games. Each of these buckets typically are paired up with a stance that the game will put you in to play the games. Many of these feel pretty silly, like the BAKAAAAWW stance, but that only adds to the fun especially if you aren’t taking yourself too seriously. The stances are explained to you through these funny stories told from the voice of the island, AKA the voice above. These not only clearly broke down very clearly how to hold the joy cons and how to orient your body but also brought in some extra charm and goofiness with how they were explained. 4Most stances are pretty standard and natural, some are a little more awkward like the previously mentioned BAKAWWW. I was even more surprised by a couple other of the stances though, like th stance relies on you having your joy cons strapped to your wrist, which you know I be having done already because I am a safe gamer and respect the recommendations and safety standards brought to my attention when starting the game, and then just dropping them from your hands letting them free fall and be saves by the wrist strap. Sometimes you even need to kinda flip them back into your hands real fast to keep things going which was always a fun challenge. The other stance I was to talk about is the IR CAMERA ONE. This one kinda blew my mind because I had completely forgotten the RIGHTJoycon has an IR camera. It really impressed me when I was playing rock paper scissors in one microgame and the controller knew what option I was holding up. This stance also had its cons though, the main one being it was kind of an awkward thing to change to on the fly especially with the short leash the wrist strap allowed you to hold the controller from your hand Overall the motion based gameplay was a blast, and it felt really good to clear some space and move around, pretty good exercise too I wont lie, especially when the games get moving faster. The inputs from the joycons were mostly good, with some frustrating losses coming from the game not recognizing my exact movement. You have to be pretty disciplined to not only start in the stance it tells you but also understand the motion each game expects of you. Some are obvious and you can get on the first try, some are a little ambiguous and I just kinda shrug my shoulders and lose a life on the first appearance. Once you roll the credits there are some additional modes you unlock, mainly high score challenges and more a more difficult mode to try to play through.

If there is one thing the Nintendo Switch is not lacking of its great indie games. It seems like there is a never ending stream of titles from developers you have never heard of cranking out titles that deserve more attention. And hey, here is another, Curse Crackers for whom the belle toils. Curse Crackers originally released last year on steam, but I found out about the switch version after seeing a tweet from Colorgrave, the developers of the game a few months back and decided I wanted to give it a go. You may look at curse crackers and see the pixel artstyle and hear the music and just immediate go to oh great, here is ANOTHER retro inspired indie platformer on the switch, and while that is clearly true, Curse crackers really sets itself apart with its fantastic movement. It sounds dumb but the word that kept coming to my head when trying to describe the movement in this game was locomotion. So lets just pretend I used that thoughtfully and intelligently in the previous sentence. As I mentioned previously you control Belle, a former acrobat, alongside your sentient … bell… named chime. Belle and chime, very charming. Running and jumping as belle feels great, good speed, lots of jumping options with high jumps, quick long jumps, the ability to bounce off obstacles and enemies, but chime is really what makes the LOCOMOTION in this game feel just that much more fleshed out. You can throw chime in any direction as you run along through the levels, and at first that makes for your basic attacks on enemies, taking them out from a distance before you have to worry about dodging them, but what throwing chime is really good for is extending belles movement options because you can bounce off chime too. If you have played mario odyssey, think of how mario throws cappy to bounce off and extend his movement range, now belle cant capture and turn into enemies, but she sure can capture my attention with the creativity allowed through all her movement options. Levels are anywhere from 3-8 minutes long, depending on how fast you want to run through them. You can go slow and be methodical looking for all the collectibles hidden throughout, or you can hold that sprint button and start chaining together moves to get through in no time flat. A lot of the levels are really smartly designed with enemy and obstacle spacing allowing you to perfectly go from one enemy head bounce to the next and the next and so on if you are pulling it off right. I tend to play slow on the first run through and try and find all the secrets I could, but it was a hell of a time going back to the early levels and try to beat them as fast as possible. Checkpoints are pretty frequent, but even if you fail to make it to the next floating balloon checkpoint thing, respawning happens so fast it almost doesn’t feel like a punishment. The game lets you keep playing, no time to pick up your phone or get distracted between attempts. There are no lives in this game, so don’t feel bad if you do get stuck on a harder jump, nothing to sweat. There is more to the game than just going from level to level. Between stages you get to walk around an overworld map spread across several areas each with a unique theme and places to stop into and talk to npcs, see some of your collectibles, or pick up side quests. All of this is completely optional though so if you just wanna mainline level after level there is nothing stopping you. Personally, I didn’t even finish a full sidequest until after I rolled credits. These sidequests are a good time because they can unlock special items for you to change up the game with and let you play otherwise hidden levels that are a little tougher to take on than the main ones. Talking to the side characters in these areas can be fun, but I did not feel like it was super important. The dialogue can be pretty charming, but I wouldn’t say you are missing out on a whole lot if you skip all of this entirely. It can definitely be a good change of pace though if you just beat a couple hard levels and just want to relax and understand the world better. One of the coolest places in the game is in the main hub town that has a majority of the npcs, off in the corner is the library. There you can go read all of the pretty well hidden lore books that act as collectibles in the main stages. You can actually read lore entires for each of these and while I did not get super deep into the lore, nor do I think I really wanted to, as I was mainly here for the jumpy jumping, but it was really cool to see how much care went into adding that much more depth into the world for those who do want to read about it and talk to all your friendly townsfolk.Along the way you will run into some not so friendly folk in the form of bosses. A couple bosses per area every few levels or so, nothing too crazy, but I really had a good time with these. Bosses can be as straight forward as your typical jump over the shockwave, run under their jump ...

Have you ever played a game that has made you feel really smart. A game that presents fun challenges to you and does a good job teaching you to overcome these challenges to feel like you might be the next great mind to bring humanity forward? Well if that sounds fun you should try Humanity. Humanity is from developers of Tetris effect and that becomes apparent as you see all the creative and weird visuals and music that will drill its way into your consciousness and put you in a zen state as you play… ok the music isn’t as good as tetris effect but its still pretty good. At its core humanity is a puzzle game and the way you interface with these puzzles is by controlling this magical glowing spirit dog and placing commands on the ground in the path of the humans to guide them where they need to go. You are basically a sheep dog guiding endless numbers of humans through obstacles and into the light. Things start out pretty simple with you mainly switching the direction of the humans in certain places as they walk in a line to the exit. But as you play you will unlock more abilities that range from letting the humans jump to arming them with lasers to defend themselves. The cadence at which you get these new mechanics is well paced, allowing you enough time to learn a new mechanic, have fun with it, test yourself with it in more difficult puzzles and integrate them with the other things you have learned along the way, get the next mechanic and repeat. I really got glued to the game in my first few sit downs and was constantly being impressed by how fun and satisfying the solutions were to pull off and witness. Along the way you will come across something called Goldy, a large gold human, that mostly acts as a collectible to strive for in each level unlocking cosmetics along your journey. These goldy can show up anywhere from 1 to 3 times in a level and vary in difficulty to save. Sometimes going out of your way to direct your humans to grab goldy will make accomplishing other things in the puzzle more difficult, sometimes the goldy is a required key to beat the level in the first place. I ended up getting all the goldy and really enjoyed the added challenge pulling this off. Something in my brain would not let me move on without getting all of them each time so I didn’t “beat” a level in my mind until I saved them all. The game is separated into different chapters each with trials and optional trials within. Each chapter has a theme and Humanity does a great job making these themes make sense from the story point of view and what the game is having you do. The story is pretty light overall, and really only exists between chapters, you don’t need to pay attention or try to understand what the game is telling you to understand the puzzles or anything. If you do pay attention though, its basically a meta commentary on humans and them needing to be led and how we can devolve into violence if it means getting what we want and a bunch of other stuff that didn’t always make a whole lot of sense. Some of it went over my head, but that didn’t take away from the experience. I didn’t even expect a story going into this so even a thin plot designed completely to introduce new gameplay mechanics to me was more than I thought I was going to get. And introducing new gameplay mechanics was both a boon and a bane for how I felt about humanity. In the first handful of chapters all the new abilities, jumping, floating, diverting paths, felt like natural evolutions allowing for more complex puzzles that I loved. Where the game started to lose me a bit is when it introduced the enemy characters. A little over halfway though the game you start having to avoid antagonistic enemy humans who want to steal the Goldy from you and will attack and kill your humans to do so. Naturally this leads to the violence I mentioned before and you have to start arming the humans with swords and guns to fight back At first this was just another thing that felt right, when and where do I give them certain defenses in order to get through safely, sure makes sense, but eventually it felt like the entire focus of the game became this concept. This was only amplified when you gain the ability to lead the humans with the follow command freely walking the herd through the levels without the need for arrows to point them on set paths. This even led to stealth mechanics being implemented, your classic wait in a safe spot, avoid detection from bad guys on a surveillance route kinda thing. The game almost changed genres into a real time strategy game at this point, which, to be clear, was well done for the most part and even enjoyable at times, but it never looked back. This is what the game was now. It made me miss the first few dozens puzzles that I was hooked on and wanted more of. I loved watching these endless lines of humans walking like ants on the paths I set for them. Jumping over each other, climbing up ...

Bleak Sword is a top down, level based action game with a simplistic, yet in my eyes, beautiful visual style. The game presents itself in only black white and red, a color scheme that always works for me, and its great mood setting soundtrack does wonders to make you really glue yourself to the screen. The game is divided up into several different areas all with their own visual theming, music, enemies, and gimmicks culminating to a boss blocking your way to the next section of the game. The basic premise of bleak sword dx is your are a dude with a sword, and you are working your way through diorama-esque levels killing a wide range of enemies with solid and easy to learn dodge roll-sword swinging combat. There are pros and cons to the simplicity of the combat, pros its easy to learn and pick up, basically roll away, get your sword swings in, parry an enemy or two for big damage, rinse and repeat. The cons being the moment to moment gameplay, at least from the perspective of player control, stays the same from start to finish. The variety in the gameplay really comes from the enemies and their individual move sets as well as whatever different overworld gimmicks the world you are in happen to have. I call this a con because I do like to have some opportunities in game for player expression as to how they want to play the game and build their characters. The only player expression in this game is through choosing what stat to improve when leveling up, hp attack or defense, and picking a couple held items, but the challenges put in front of you do a pretty good at providing an experience that builds on itself and doesn’t feel stale making up for the lack of meaningful change on the player side. The enemy layouts are always changing, level to level, world to world and each enemy feels distinct. Seeing new enemies can be intimidating when you don’t know their move set yet, but once you experience an enemy a few times and learn their attack patterns you start to take them down almost on autopilot. Certain enemies can be parried easily, some need to be baited into attack and rolled dodged away to safety opening up an opportunity to strike, some can just be bum rushed to kill before they start spamming projectiles. The game turns into a sort of dance where you the player go from one enemy to the next trying to dispose of the nearest threat before the next enemy can spawn and overwhelm you. These moments made me feel extremely powerful and like I constantly learning and improving. The game can be demanding, it is not super easy by any means, but if you do get to a level that just isn’t clicking for you, you are free to go back to previously completed stages and grind up some levels to improve your damage output and survivability and try again as an all new more powerful you. The base game has you completing stages to advance through the story areas covering castles, swamps, snowy fields, and burned down towns, but bleak sword dx also includes a boss rush mode and arena you can hop into if you just want to test your skills and just kill a few minutes. There is a full bestiary with detailed descriptions of each enemy you come across that I loved going back to and reading, and a fun page of statistics that shows you how many times you died, how many enemies you took with you and so much more. The game has cutscenes to bookend each area, all kinda of setting the mood for what to expect in front of you and setting up boss enemies. These cutscenes were short and to the point but did a great job setting the tone. There is also a quality or performance mode option, but I always stuck to the performance mode. I am not sure if this was a Nintendo switch thing, or a game thing, but the extra effects on the quality mode, which did look pretty cool, were not worth feeling like I was wading through mud which was an unfortunate side effect. I wanted that smooth clean experience that performance mode offered, and the game still looked great thanks to the unique art style and level design. Bleak Sword is a great, easy to consume and be consumed by, action game I think more people should try out. While the overall gameplay loop can be seen as fairly simple, the game takes that simple setup and executes on it very well through great level design, fun varied enemies and monsters, all presented through a great retro looking art style and a soundtrack that will eat its way into you and have you tapping along with it while you kill everything in your way.

Trinity Trigger takes place in the aptly named Trinitia and focuses around 3 main characters, Cyan, Elise, and Zantis, along with their magical animal weapon companions, called Triggers. So, there you go you see where the title comes from now. Overall the story was enjoyable, but if you have played fantasy RPGs in the past, you are going to recognize and probably be able to predict a lot of the themes, twists, and story beats this game has. It is not a bad story by any means, I actually quite enjoyed it and was engaged until the very end, I just don’t think it did a whole lot to set it apart other than one scene very early on that did make me think this game was going to go a different directly than it did. I will say though, even in moments when the story isn’t hitting, it is supplemented with great voice acting from the cast. The lines felt real, and it genuinely sounded like the voice actors were having a good time. Most of the dialogue from the story is delivered in scenes with mostly static 2D artwork for the characters, which I thought looked pretty nice, but every now and then there are the in game cutscenes using the 3D character models, which I think looked not as nice. The biggest story moments even got these really nice anime cutscenes that I wanted more of. I alluded to it there a second ago, but I do want to emphasize that the main gameplay 3D visuals were some of the weakest parts of the game for me. The character models look kinda muddy and awkward. This extends to the monsters and world itself. There is charm in the design to the creatures and characters, but the visuals themselves left a lot to be desired. The environments you explore are varied, hitting your standard snowy areas, deserts, and forests, but also get into some more unique and expressive locales in the back half of the game. However, despite the areas having some differing monsters and visuals, they all started to feel pretty samey in design and layout. This extends to the dungeons you will be exploring as well. Later dungeons will add in a few new mechanics here and there, but for the most part if you have seen one you have seen them all. Towns also feel pretty similar, mainly acting as a checkpoint for fast travel and a place to restock on items while getting some story and pick up side quests. I did like the music in the game. I would say some of it starts to just kinda fade into the background, which isn’t always a bad thing, but there were a few tracks I genuinely really liked and made a point to sit around and listen to. I will say I was often disappointed in the music or lack of music during boss fights. Often times the music would be hard to hear over the rest of the sounds going on in the fight and I cant say I ever really felt that adrenaline rush that big loud boss themes have the potential for creating. The gameplay of Trinity Trigger is simple but fun. The moment to moment combat follows the tried and true 3 hit combo attacks with a dodge roll to avoid taking damage, its familiar but feels fun all the same. You can customize your moveset with different attacks and even switch between weapon types that you will unlock as the story progresses. The weapon types offer slow and weighty feeling high damage attacks, quick and easy combos, and ranged options as well. These different weapons can be used to break certain rocks blocking your path which are really just there to prevent you from going too far in one direction before you are supposed to. This role is also take up by your standard doorway blocking npc which could at times make me feel like the game was a little too linear. I get not wanted to let me into areas before I am ready but I would rather be scared off by a tough enemy than a generic soldier telling me don’t go here yet. Your weapons can be slotted with a wide array of manatite, which essentially act as skills or stat boosts to build your character with. These manatite can be found off enemies or chests, purchased, and crafted. It is a good idea to try and spread these across different weapons types and switch to what is needed for each encounter, but for a majority of the game I just picked the weapon I liked best and was able to get through almost anything that wasn’t a boss without too much trouble. Speaking of bosses there are a lot. Often focusing on you using a recently acquired weapon type and rolling out of their big red attack windows the bosses were not particularly impressive. Once you got the flow of a boss there were really just damage sponges that took a little too long to get rid of. Following a pattern here, they were pretty diverse in visual design, but most felt like the same kinda idea gameplay wise. No spoilers, but I will commend the last boss for at least feeling like a step up from what you experiences for the rest of the game. Design and difficulty of this boss pushed me to give it my all in a way most previous bosses didn’t. The bosses do have a neat mechanic ---

Fire emblem engage is a fantastic strategy RPG weighed down with a story that can rarely be taken seriously and a hub area that can slow down the pace to a crawl if you let it. Engage does a great job bringing back memories from previous games for veterans of the series while helping contextualize some characters past just being that sword guy from smash for new fans of the series. The story is nothing to write home about, but was fun enough to keep me smiling, whether that be from a genuinely good moment or just laughing directly at the corny dialogue. The thing that matters the most though, the playing of the game, is the best it has ever been in my opinion, and I cant wait to see how the game can continue to surprise and challenge me in the future dlc. So yeah, while not my absolute favorite in the series, engage more than lived up the expectations I had for it, and is more than worth your time if you are a fan of RPGs.

Shovel knight dig is a game I really enjoyed playing for short periods at a time. The structure of the game makes for a great pick up and play experience, but I think it lacks that “one more run feel” other popular roguelites have nailed down. The design of the npcs enemies and bosses, alongside the music and levels, has the expected shovel knight charm, and in my opinion the jump to the 16-bit artstyle gives just enough additional detail to confidently set Dig above the original game in this category I don’t know if this game will have the staying power of similar games or even other shovel knight games, but I did enjoy my time with it. The arcadey fun of shovel knight dig justifies its existence but I was really hoping for just a bit more to hold me longer.

Deaths door is one of my favorite games this year, and up there with some of the best indie games in recent memory. The gameplay loop is satisfying, and I always enjoyed exploring the beautiful environment to find new secrets. The game doesn’t overstay its welcome or feel too bloated, but there is plenty there to keep you busy. After rolling credits you will even be offered a surprisingly beefy post game offering even more exploration, lore, and challenges leading to the true ending of the game. Acid Nerve has created a hit well worth the praise and attention it has been receiving.

WarioWare get it together is an absolute blast. The quick survival type minigame modes had me always wanting to click play again, similar to the one more run feeling you get in a great roguelite. Once I was playing it was hard to stop, I always wanted to break the high score, get that one challenge from the mission tab, find that one missing game I haven’t played yet, it goes on an on. Sure, you can get through all of the unique content rather quickly I estimate no more than 5 hours, but it is such a tight, dense, serving of content that I wasn’t even bothered. I have spent twice that time going back and replaying the story modes trying to get higher score and check all the boxes on my mission tab. And the rewards for doing so, leveling up and customizing my characters, was fun enough to keep looping back and forth wanting to get more and more coins. Warioware deserves a shot if you are a fan of the series or even just a fan of creative quick to play games. Couch coop play is lots of fun, and while the screen may get a little crowded at times leading to unfortunate quick losses, it was still hilarious fun experience.

At the end of the day I really enjoyed triangle strategy. It Is a very good game, with lots of interesting depth and possibilities in the way you take on the game. It starts a little slow, both in story and gameplay, but with some perseverance to get through that opening arc it is a very enjoyable game. Me being a fan of games in the genre helped me power through the slow parts, but also made me wanting for more. The game can be great, but it never really punched through that glass ceiling I wanted it to like some of my favorite rpgs. It is very good game, great at times, but rarely is it amazing in my eyes. The story was engaging, but many of the big moments weren’t jaw dropping or were easily seen coming. There is your standard twist or two that were rewarding to experience, but I don’t think ill be thinking of this story months later like I do with some of my favorites. If you are a fan of the genres you will enjoy this game, I have no worry there, I just don’t know if it’s the game I would use to introduce someone to the strategy rpg genre.

Live A Live is a game I feel like I can recommend to just about anyone, even those who may not like rpgs. This game doesn’t always even feel like an rpg, it is much more nuanced than that. It doesn’t have the long grindy sessions other rpgs have and is almost designed for you to just enjoy yourself with someone new and different for a couple hours each night and I think that is really cool. The game isn’t the longest, but that is also a breath of fresh air to me. Some games feel long for the sake of being long but live a live doesn’t overstay its welcome which helped me more consistently have fun and be surprised by the gameplay, story, and music. Live A Live is great, please play it. If you aren’t sure about it you can even download the demo and see if it jives with you. The Nintendo switch has no shortage of games. No shortage of RPGs. And no shortage of team asano games, but even still Live A Live feels like required playing.

In my opinion Kirby’s dream buffet is exactly what it looks like, a simple yet fun time waster, and that’s fine. I don’t think you are going to put 100 hours into this one. I don’t think there is ever going to be a big streaming scene or competitive scene in this game, but you know what? Its still a good time. It has its problems, it struggles much like many other Nintendo games with lag and connection issues, but when it is working I like it a lot. The balance of the game and its scoring could be better, but its not really a game I feel compelled to WIN in, 1st through 4th place I could not care less. I think it could be cheaper, maybe even could fit into a free to play format but still think the $15 ask is not absurd. If you want a fun pick up and play game, I think Kirby is well worth its weight.

At the end of the day, I think Cult of the Lamb’s strengths outweigh its weaknesses. The game is far from breaking the wheel on the dungeon running side of things, but the opportunities for funny interactions and ability to make your own metagame on the village side of the game really makes cult of the lamb feel unique. After putting my time into it and rolling credits, I don’t see the need to go back and felt satisfied with where it left off. One of the biggest complaints for me is by the end game, my favorite part of the game, the cult village section becomes much less enjoyable due to lag, dropped and skipped frames, frozen movement etc. This may be a problem with the Switch hardware (or just the need for a few updates) but either way it was upsetting for things to fall apart once my village starts to come together in the way I worked towards the entire game. Many roguelites dig their claws into you with the gameplay and give you that feeling like you have to keep playing and keep playing, but my main pull in cult of the lamb was to get my ideal village built and once that happened right around rolling the credits, I did not feel the need to pick the controller back up, and that’s ok, it respected my time and I had a lot of fun getting to the end. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for any future updates or DLC Massive Monster has planned and who knows, maybe I’ll jump back in, but for now I can be happy that my Cult is absolutely flourishing