JUST ONE MORE!
Back in 2013, the indie game market wasn’t as flooded with roguelikes as it is nowadays. In the wake of Edmund McMillen’s ultra-successful Binding of Isaac, lots of devs tried their hand at crafting procedurally generated titles and we saw an influx of creatively diverse examples of the genre. Rogue Legacy was one such game, sporting a unique art style and fiendishly addictive feedback loop. The big change, though, was that each run would progressively add to your skill set.
While there were elements of soft-resets with each new run, death would bank your gold for you to spend on new upgrades. Over time, you’d eventually become a powerhouse and steamroll the current area you were in. It made for a game that was hard to put down precisely because each run contributed to bettering your next. With runs sometimes being five minutes long, it was also ripe for a quick pick up and play session.
Cellar Door Games has finally ported its premiere roguelike to the Switch and it feels like a match made in heaven. While the game did previously exist in handheld form on the Vita with cross-buy support, having everything on a single system means playing how you want is just so much easier. If you’re commuting to work and want to chip away at Rogue Legacy’s castle, just pop the Switch in your bag and you’re set. Once you get home, you can resume that same run on TV without needing to transfer saves or deal with cloud syncs.
The Switch’s 720p screen makes the artwork look beautiful in portable mode. I spent a few nights sitting in bed with the game and it was immensely satisfying. To my eye, the game actually looks far better than the PC original, though that could just be because of the small screen size. Surprisingly, the lack of a proper d-pad on the joy-con didn’t bother me too much. Rogue Legacy doesn’t feature things like ladders, so your vertical movement is often performed by jumping. For downward progression, you can enable a quick drop option to simply tap down and drop between floors or perform your downward sword thrust.
You could also use the joystick if you’re a savage, but the design of Rogue Legacy fits the Switch really well. Having to stop right in the middle of a run to use the bathroom or answer a phone call is great when you can simply hit the power switch and put the system into suspend. Having to give up the TV when a family member comes home is simple when you can just grab the Switch and change rooms.
A lot of that sounds more like a pitch for buying the Switch, itself, but that endlessly repeating loop Rogue Legacy and other roguelikes have just works with the Switch. It doesn’t hurt that nothing about the game is taxing technologically speaking, so you’re getting an ultra-smooth 60 FPS playback no matter how you play. I didn’t notice much in the way of sound compression, either, so this version doesn’t suffer from any artificial inferiority.
A lot of these same benefits also apply to Cellar Door Games’ follow-up, Full Metal Furies. While not quite in the same league as Rogue Legacy, the game makes a perfect case for why split joy-con play was such a wise decision on Nintendo’s part. Full Metal Furies is what I’d describe as a beat-em-up RPG in a similar vein to Castle Crashers and it features full cooperative support with the wide range of controllers available to the Switch.
If you’re bored one weekend and want to check something new one, just bring your Switch over to a friend’s and boot up Full Metal Furies. The same addictive loop of collecting coins, powering up your characters and steamrolling the opposition is present, just that the game is far less focused on having you reset runs or repeat areas.
Where this game starts to fall apart is just in how formulaic it becomes. The first few areas are a bit slow, but you’ll get a few fights while scrolling through different screens before reaching the end of the level. At the end, the level will wall you into a small arena and force you to fight waves of foes until it ends. Repeat this process for 10 hours until you hit the conclusion. To say it becomes a bit monotonous is an understatement.
In single-player, you can instantaneously switch between one of four characters, but co-op play is where the game shines. In multiplayer, you’re forced to learn your character like the back of your hand and rely on your friend’s abilities to thwart foes. With enough strategy, you can overcome almost everything the game throws at you. My friend and I stuck with the tank and sniper and we were taking out enemies that were roughly 20 levels higher than us.
It’s just in the pacing where this game comes to a halt. So many of the levels drag and the foes you encounter stop making sense a third of the way through. It seems like each area is going to introduce unique foes, but then all the old ones randomly show up again and the lack of cohesion makes the world feel very arbitrary. The boss fights are also pure bullet sponges, soaking up hits like it’s nobody’s business. Even so, levels are roughly 10 to 15 minutes in length and absolutely perfect for the same pickup and go stylings that Rogue Legacy built itself around.
Not needing to worry about bringing other controllers over is also great for possibly introducing your buddies to a brand new type of game. To his credit, my friend tries basically everything I throw at him, but I could definitely see some people being initially put off by how languid Full Metal Furies is. Having a friend around makes the time pass much easier.
If you don’t have a friend nearby, though, then fear not. Full Metal Furies makes full use of Nintendo’s online service and you can even utilize ad-hoc multiplayer if your friend has their own Switch and copy of the game. I couldn’t test either of those options, but the gesture is very much appreciated. It fits with the philosophy Nintendo has built the Switch around: “Game your Way.” There is even the unique ability to have same screen multiplayer on the go with this Switch port, which is something no other platform offers.
Whether or not you like either game is down to your personal preferences, but you can’t go wrong with Rogue Legacy or Full Metal Furies on Switch. Both offer all of the features of their PC brethren and even have features unique to the Switch system. They run well, look solid and should eat up quite a bit of time when they get your hooks into you.
You can grab both of the titles starting today on the eShop. Full Metal Furies, which retails for $19.99, will have a 25% discount starting today that lasts until November 25. Rogue Legacy can be had for its usual $14.99 price.
[This impressions piece is based on a retail build of each game provided by the publisher.]
