Nintendo Switch - Game Previews (5 of 5)

Thanks to the fine folks at Nyteworks (www.nyteworks.net), I got advanced hands-on experience with the upcoming Nintendo Switch and many of its games. I’ll be covering my game experiences this week, ordered alphabetically for the sake of simplicity, and will be covering my hardware experiences on Episode 36 of the BumbleKast (scheduled Monday, Feb. 6th).

Super Bomberman R

Release Date: March 3rd, 2017

I never got into Bomberman. I dabbled in it enough to know the basics, but I never got into the franchise. My time with this version of the game was, in a word, frustrating. Part of that is my inexperience with the game, and I’ll own my stupidity of laying a bomb and realizing I’d trapped myself. But what was frustrating was my character getting caught on edges of the terrain, and some of the scenery obscuring me from view to the point I didn’t know if I was clear of the blast range or not. There seemed to be a wide variety of customizable options, at least.

In short: If you’re a fan of the series, give it a look. I can’t recommend it at first blush though.

Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Fighters

Release Date: TBD

I’ll be honest: I am not an arcade fighter kind of guy. I have neither the skill nor the patience for it all. So a game like Street Fighter in my hands is casting pearls before swine. This is a remake of Street Fighter II Turbo with HD versions of the sprites and the additions of playable Evil Ryu and Violent Ken.

I played three rounds as Blanka, M. Bison and Sagat – and was thoroughly thrashed. The controls on the Switch Pro Controller were responsive, I just didn’t know what I was doing with them. And while the new HD sprites are crisp and colorful, they retain the same limited animations of the time. It’s a nice balance of nostalgia and modern presentation.

In short: If you’re a fan of the series, it’s mot likely worth a look.