Earthlock is a game heavily inspired by the JRPGs of yesteryear, attempting to provide a gameplay experience reminiscent to that of a PS1-era Final Fantasy game. Previously releasing on Xbox One and PC in 2016, and Wii U and PS4 in 2017 as Earthlock: Festival of Magic, Earthlock shakes off its old name, offering new features that the original release was sorely lacking. The new and improved version of Earthlock which has released first for Nintendo Switch is said to provide a better fleshed-out story, crafting, side quests and much more. Earthlock makes a decent attempt of replicating the magic of 90’s JRPGs, but the game’s myriad of problems prevent it from becoming a title worthy of comparison to the revered game it’s inspired from.

The story is set in the world of Umbra, a world that has been affected by a catastrophic event that has ceased the world from rotating (thus the title Earthlock). The horrible event, known by the people as the Deadly Halt, has left the world in disarray. Areas that were once livable have become uninhabitable deserts or have been shrouded in snow, leaving humanity to seek refuge in the areas free from the harsh conditions. The story centres on Amon, a desert scavenger, who after uncovering a mysterious artefact quickly finds himself in a spot of bother. His Uncle is kidnapped by a mysterious group who have an interest in the artefact, and Amon must find a way to reunite with his Uncle. Amon isn’t alone on his journey, with plenty of allies joining him along the way, such as the adorable Hogbunny Gnart Tigermoth as well as Ive Lavender, a rebellious soldier from the Great Wave, desperate to prove she’s more than the just the general’s daughter.

The characters that form your squad throughout the journey are quite enjoyable, despite being very cliched. Characters exchange the odd piece of witty dialogue, but they still felt rather bland most of the time, lacking the amount of character depth required for me to feel truly invested, which was truly a shame, as I really wanted to love the characters. The story does take a while to kick into gear, and even when the narrative began to get slightly more interesting, my lack of engagement with the world lead to myself feeling not a lot of interest. For those that do find enjoyment in the game’s world, there is a decent amount of lore to be found, I just never felt compelled enough to look for it. The characters are decent albeit generic, but the issues with the narrative and it’s pacing made it hard to remain invested.

In terms of gameplay, Earthlock provides a turn-based system that occasionally shines, but more often than not is littered with minor annoyances. The combat despite its simplicity was often rather enjoyable, with more strategic combat than I thought there would be. Each character has two battle stances, which provide different ways to approach a battle. For example, Amon has a stance that focuses on melee attacks, and another stance that swaps the melee attacks for a spud gun that provides ranged combat options. The variety is appreciated, offering up different approaches to battles.

The ability to design your character’s talents using the talent point chart, and having characters bond over time to unlock special abilities were also aspects I enjoyed. In my playthrough for example, Amon and Gnart were inseparable, and when their bond meter reached max, Amon would be able to significantly damage the entire enemy squad, and then Gnart would heal him. Having six different characters to choose from to compile a team of four was also something I liked, as having the freedom of variety in your team composition could lead to a team that suits your style. The issues with the combat is how stale and repetitive it begins to feel, especially as the game progresses. This issue is further compounded by the overall slowness of the combat, as encounters seem to drag on far longer than they need to. Avoiding combat in a JRPG is an immediate bad sign, and during my time with Earthlock, I had periods where I’d attempt to avoid battles completely. I did find enjoyment in the game’s combat, but it does begin to get particularly grating.

When you aren’t in combat, you’re free to travel the world of Umbra as you wish. There isn’t a great deal to do other than the stick to the story or fight random hordes of enemies, but there are a few other options, in the forms of side quests and crafting. The side quests throughout the game sadly feel like an afterthought, often requiring you to simply collect a certain amount of the required item, but the games crafting was surprisingly enjoyable. Unlike crafting games that make you wait significant periods of time, Earthlock allows you to plant seedlings and craft ammunition and potions from your collected materials almost immediately. I appreciated the simplicity of the crafting system, as it never felt overly menial.  

One of the most unforgiving issues I experienced during my time with Earthlock was the difficulty spikes that came out of nowhere numerous times. The game overall isn’t overly difficult, but the spikes that occurred multiple times completely ruined the flow of the game. Making your way through a dungeon with ease, and immediately becoming useless in the next area soured me so heavily that I at times turned the game off completely. JRPGs are known to require some amounts of grinding, but the amount of work required to become competitive again often didn’t feel worth it, with the last quarter of the game suffering from this issue significantly. It’s disappointing that the game is littered with these asinine difficulty spikes, as I’m sure it will be a reason that some will stop playing the game completely.

Overall, despite myself having a myriad of gripes with Earthlock, I did find it to be a rather good game. The combat had its moments, the story was serviceable, the characters are likeable, the music is great and the talent point system and crafting is fun to tinker with. Earthlock is a game I wanted to love, and despite the fact that it had its fair share of issues mainly was difficulty spikes and boring moments, I do believe it’s a game you should try if you have a strong love for 90s JRPGs. It may not match the quality of a Final Fantasy game, but it does offer up a decent JRPG experience.

Big thanks to Snow Castle Games for providing the Earthlock Switch Download Code for this review.

Whether or not you’re a fan of retro-inspired games, you’ve probably heard of Owlboy before. After releasing on PC in 2016, Owlboy garnered universal acclaim and was touted as one of the greatest indie releases in the last five years. Now, just over a year on from its PC launch, the game has soared onto the Nintendo Switch (Owl pun), with PS4 and Xbox One versions not too far away.   

Owlboy centres its story on Otus, a mute Owl who struggles to garner the acceptance of people around him. He finds himself scowled and mocked heavily, especially by Asio, his brutally negative mentor. The story sees Otus’ town attacked by Pirates, setting into motion a journey that will see Otus and friends along  travel to many distant lands, in the hopes of stopping the sky-pirates from obtaining the three legendary relics and ruining their homeland. The basis of Owlboy’s storyline is undoubtedly video game story cliche, but somehow it manages to sprinkle in far more emotional storytelling than would initially be expected.

Owlboy is a game that addresses how people have self perceived flaws, and how, despite having weaknesses within themselves, the friends they have around them can make them feel like they belong. This is evident in Otus, with his struggles of being a mute, and how his best friend Geddy and his other buddies manage to give him strength and comfort in who he is. I won’t spoil any more of the story beats, but this game isn’t afraid to pile on you emotionally, as I found myself tearing up numerous times. With its fair share of epic and sad  story moments, Owlboy’s narrative is a true highlight, and an aspect of the game I deem to be extremely important. The impact of the story was something that took me by complete surprise, leaving me heavily engaged, even after the credits had rolled. I do however wish the game didn’t end so abruptly, as the story ends leaving many questions unanswered. Even though it was obviously a decision to leave the ending of the story to interpretation, I wish I was given a more definitive ending.

Owlboy may have it’s slew of heartbreaking moments, but it also has plenty of joyous charm that emanates from the game’s humorous bunch of supporting characters. Otus is a sweet character that despite being unable to speak, provides plenty of character and humour with his variety of facial expressions, while his best pal Geddy is a goofy but caring mechanic, who wears his heart on his sleeve and isn’t afraid to express his opinion. Most characters throughout the game ooze personality and are a breath of fresh air in a genre where many characters can feel particularly stale and one-dimensional. Character dialogue had me chuckling aloud numerous times, which is a testament to how well the character dialogue has been written. Characters in Owlboy are yet another great strength that keeps Owlboy entertaining throughout.

As Otus, you are pretty much given only a spin attack to keep enemies at bay. Otus, as indicated by his mentor Asio, isn’t particularly gifted, so his restricted moveset cleverly reinforces his character. In terms of flying, you’re pretty much free to do it uninhibited most of the time. There is no limit to flying, leading to the freedom of exploration, whilst alleviating the frustration of having to charge a flying meter. There are small segments throughout the game in which the ability to fly is taken away however, which leads to platforming segments that take away your comfort of control. Thankfully, these segments are well executed, leading to the type of quality platforming you’d expect from most other games in the genre.

Despite being unable to talk, Otus finds himself making friends, with these friends acting as individual abilities throughout the game. For example, Otus’ best friend Geddy acts as Otus’ method of attack, with Otus’ flying Geddy around while he shoots down enemies. The gameplay of all the friends throughout the journey is comparable to that of a twin-stick shooter. The shooting of enemies while flying around doesn’t at all feel complex, yet it still feels immensely rewarding to take out a multitude of enemies by spamming the trigger. As the game progresses and Otus makes new friendships, the new friends can be switched through on the fly (Owl pun) at almost any time. As to be expected from a game in the metroidvania genre, some areas can only be unlocked using certain abilities, with Alphonse’s shotgun allowing access to areas that Geddy’s blaster could not. Swapping through characters to ensure you have the right weapons at your disposal to progress through dungeons and defeat bosses can take a while to get comfortable with, but once you get ahold of the concept, it offers an interesting and enjoyable take on metroidvania progression.   

Graphically speaking, Owlboy’s pixel art aesthetic is in a league of its own, being arguably the most detailed and beautiful pixel art i’ve ever seen. The crisp animation looks jaw-dropping in both the Switch versions docked and handheld modes. The game’s highly publicised 9-year development cycle can truly be seen with the sheer quality of the games environmental and character designs. Characters exhibit a breathtaking amount of expression, both in body language and facial expressions. Otus’ face would turn from anger to shock, and in the games darker and more emotional moments, Otus’ body would slump, emphasising the gravity of what had occurred. The environments throughout the world are also extremely lively thanks to quality animation. Shrubs sway in accordance to the breeze, while the grass on the floor despite being so small in size can be seen moving with the wind also. The meticulous detail of Owlboys animation is something that arguably didn’t need to have been done, but the games world and characters are far more polished and expressive thanks to it.

The game’s soundtrack is also breathtaking, with numerous tracks providing great moments. Owlboy’s soundtrack has plenty of melodic tear-jerkers, as well as booming, epic beats, that always seem to perfectly fit in with the part of the game they are played in. My personal favorite would be the theme for the town of Tropos, with its epic piano and violin pieces being the perfect music to emanate Owlboy’s sense of adventure.

Despite being a brilliant 10 hour experience, Owlboy does have a small assortment of issues that did hinder my experience somewhat. When playing the game on the Nintendo Switch, I encountered about 5 crashes in my full playthrough. Some crashes were immediately after dying throughout the game, while other crashes seemingly occurred during the transitions from one area to another. Thankfully, the game autosaves frequently, meaning that not much, if any, progress is lost, but it’s still an annoyance nonetheless. I also encountered some heavy frame dropping in one of the game’s many boss battles, with the Lava Worm boss battle dropping performance to below 10fps when attacking. This was the only performance hiccup I recognised in my playthrough, but it was yet another frustrating issue, as I found it difficult trying to avoid attacks when the game would chug as badly as it did. These issues are simple fixes and will probably be removed in the coming weeks via patches, but it’s important to mention they do exist. It would’ve also been nice for the game to include a map feature, as it was hard to tell where I had and hadn’t backtracked.

Owlboy is overall a perfectly crafted Metroidvania experience that I implore everyone to play. The gameplay is tight and satisfying, the characters are sweet and charming, the story is remarkably deep and emotional, and the soundtrack ranges from beautiful and whimsical to booming and intense. Owlboy exudes polish and love, with D-Pad Studio managing to design a game that despite borrowing elements from games of the past, still feels remarkably fresh and modern. Owlboy is the complete package, and it offers up an experience that shouldn’t be missed.

Owlboy was reviewed on Nintendo Switch

Rocket League’s premise is decidedly simple. Drive your high speed, rocket propelled car, and try and get the ball in the goal. Despite being such an uncomplicated game, Rocket League manages to provide brilliant gameplay that is easy to learn, but extremely difficult to master, as well as an amazing smorgasbord of different multiplayer modes. Driving the ball in to the goal is a simple enough task for anyone to achieve, however the game sports high-octane flipping and boosting that ensures that the game’s depth of strategy is far deeper than it’s initially perceived. Rocket League may have been available on other systems over 2 years ago, but with the Nintendo Switch version only releasing a few months ago, it’s time to have a look at how Rocket League stacks up on the latest Nintendo console.

Rocket League is certainly king when it comes to gameplay. The main gameplay mode, titled Soc-car (brilliant pun, I know) pits vehicle against vehicle in a game of a high speed, high action soccer. As mentioned prior, the premise of Soc-car is remarkably simple, score more goals than your opponent to win, sounds easy enough correct? The simplicity of Rocket League is arguably what makes it such a fun and addictive game, with the gameplay objectives being easy to pick up and play. In terms of gameplay, that’s basically it, but the gameplay is so expertly crafted that it never feels boring or monotonous.

Soc-car is Rocket League’s main mode, and easily its best one

Soc-car isn’t the only gameplay mode on offer though, with various other modes available. Hoops mode converts Rocket League’s vehicular Soccer into a game of vehicular Basketball. Despite being not as fun as the game’s Soc-car mode, Hoops offers a mode that focuses more on keeping the ball in the air, with off-ground possession of the ball being the key to success. Hoops is undoubtedly a far weaker mode in Rocket League than Socc-car, but there is still plenty to be enjoyed in the Basketball themed mode. Snow Day is a mode that yet again changes Rocket League to different sport entirely, with Snow Day being a hockey mode. Snow Day succeeds in being a mode in which players can maintain control of the puck, as the predictability of a puck in comparison to a ball leads to far more controlled games. Being able to boost along the wall while maintaining easy control of the puck is a great feeling, and it was a great side mode that I spent lots of time in.

Rumble is a mode that resembles Mario Kart, with items being used on courses to add to an even more intense version of Soc-car. Every 10 seconds, players are given new items to use, such as a boxing glove that will propel the ball forward, or a disruptor which will cause an opponent’s car to accelerate uncontrollably. Rumble mode is hilarious fun that is best played with friends. The final mode, Dropshot, is a mode that involves hitting the ball into the floor of your opponents, in an attempt to break the floor and score a goal. Dropshot mode is all about maintaining control of the ball in the opposition’s side of the field, as once the floor has been destroyed enough, the goal is available. Dropshot is yet another great mode, being the most unique mode when compared to the other optional modes on offer. Offline play is a great time and the AI tends to be serviceable enough, although sometimes the AI can be a little dumb. If the ball is heading straight for the oppositions goal, they often just drive it right in to the goal. Offline play still provides plenty of hours of enjoyment, and despite the AI overall doing a good job its stupidity can be infuriating at times. The multiplayer is thankfully eons better, but we will get to that a bit later in the review. Overall, Rocket Leagues alternative modes are all great fun, and compliment the game’s already brilliant Soc-car mode.

Snow Day is an example of one of Rocket League’s great alternative modes

Rocket League’s slew of modes can all be played with differing amounts of players in each side. 1v1 is a mode that is great if you have a score to settle with a friend, but otherwise it’s probably the least ideal mode to choose, as games can feel empty when you only have the singular opponent. 2v2 is also on offer, but the game truly hits its sweet spot in terms of balance when 3v3 matches take place. 3v3 matches nails the equilibrium of intensity and enjoyment, ensuring games flow at a good rate and aren’t too over crowded. 4v4 modes are ideal if you want a far more frantic experience, but I found myself constantly gravitating to the 3v3 games. Rocket League at least provides the option to players, granting them the freedom to find a mode and player count that suits them best.

Car customisation in Rocket League is full of options of things to tweak, from the obvious paint jobs and tyres, to the finer details such as how the engine sounds. Being the Nintendo version of Rocket League, there are a few Nintendo exclusive items, such as the Mario and Luigi hats, as well as system exclusive cars, such as the Mario NSR, Luigi NSR, and Samus’ Gunship. Customisable parts can be obtained simply by playing the game, with microtransactions involving loot boxes being your other way to get a hold of the game’s more unique and awesome loot. I didn’t feel the microtransactions were at all egregious, and despite their existence, they can easily be avoided. Rocket’s League’s customisation options are something I found heavily enjoyable, as it allows for users to design a car with their own distinct sense of personality and flair.

No other game lets me customize my car to highlight my love of Australia and Luigi simultaneously

Rocket League flaunts an abundance of different looking courses, some of which are exclusive to particular game modes. Courses all play relatively similar, however some have varied terrain which makes for a different gameplay experience. Rocket League’s courses all feature rather different aesthetics. One course sees you playing in an underwater arena, with a Shark and Stingray gliding in the water above, while another course, Neo Tokyo, as its name suggests, presents a futuristic, neon-clad Tokyo city arena. Some courses even sport alternative time of day and weather modes, further adding to the variety of course selection. Obviously, most of the courses do play the same, but it’s nice to have varied environments, as it saves the game from coming across as overly stale.   

Rocket League’s multiplayer is the main reason to jump onboard and stick around, with all the modes available in the multiplayer playlists. Thanks to the cross-play collaboration with Xbox One and PC, Nintendo Switch users will never feel alone when it comes to finding other people online. If you don’t want to play against those on rivalling hardware for whatever reason, the option to turn off cross-play can be found in the options menu. I highly recommend keeping cross-play on however, as when searching exclusively for other Nintendo Switch users, I struggled to connect to games, and when I did, the other players were clearly from other parts of the world, and my online connection suffered. For the most part, I encountered little to no lag when playing online, something I’ve never been able to say I’ve experienced on a Nintendo system before. 

Every once and while when playing online I’d encounter another Switch user, but most online games I found myself with Xbox or PC gamers, which I found hard having an issue with. After all, having cross-play means that the game will always be populated, and that’s never a bad thing.

Seamless online multiplayer on the Switch is a beautiful sight

In terms of Nintendo Switch performance, Rocket League’s port is a little hit and miss. The game attempts to provide 720p 60fps in docked mode and 576p 60fps in handheld mode, with the dynamic resolution scaler making sure to drop the resolution in certain situations, to maintain the 60fps performance. As someone who prefers a game to run at a smooth 60fps, I’m perfectly fine with a game lessening it’s graphical fidelity, however, with Rocket League on Switch in docked mode, the game drops at times from a just passable 720p, to a far less forgivable 576p, which can look ugly when blown up on big TV displays. In the end, Rocket League manages to stay around the 60fps mark, but the game starts to progressively uglier as a result.

The game when in handheld mode, manages to hide most of its imperfections thanks to the far smaller display, but the game still struggles and looks quite jaggy and blurry. The games performance drops to around 40/50 frames when split screen is played, but it still manages to provide an enjoyable gaming experience. Performance wise, Rocket League on Switch is by no means brilliant, but I would say it’s still quite easily worth the purchase. Graphics may not be great, but the semi-reliable framerate paired with the ability to play portably offers a unique Rocket League experience that no other system can provide.

Performance will also improve later this spring, with Psyonix announcing updates will be brought to the system. Performance mode will offer 900p 60fps in docked mode and 720p 60fps in handheld mode. Quality mode will see docked mode maintain 1080p 30fps, with handheld mode aiming for 900p 30 fps.

It may not be picturesque, but it sure is fun!

Rocket League on Nintendo Switch may be the ugly duckling of the Rocket League versions, but it still manages to provide a quality Rocket League experience that maintains the exact same available content as the rivalling console and PC versions. Panic Button, the studio tasked with porting Rocket League to Switch should be commended for their ability to bring an enjoyable, content-packed game like Rocket League to the Nintendo Switch. Rocket League on Nintendo Switch is a joy to play, with the games myriad of modes playable both offline and online, sure to keep fans of the game entertained for a long while yet.