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51 Worldwide Games

Click. Clack. Clunk. 

I love quirky presentation and interface design, and Nintendo and NDcube have nailed it with 51 Worldwide Games. Flipping through the games is like rifling through a box of board games in your attic, and presents the same pleasing click, clack and clunk. Cute, animated icons represent each game, and I often sit and scroll through them just because it feels so good. 

Must stop scrolling…

My procrastination would be a problem if the games weren’t fantastic, but the quality is clear. Hanafuda cards fly onto the table with satisfying slaps; Yacht Dice rattle around with neat HD Rumble and Four-in-a-Row counters land with a delightful bounce that makes beating my buddies even more gratifying.

The skits are low on detail but great fun

Shiny little plastic figures introduce every game in a cheesy skit. While you may find them grating (pun intended), and light on rules, I found them charming and was comfortable to learn how to play via the following static screen. 

Of the myriad board, card and miscellaneous games available, my favourites are those that I’d never played.

Mancala, an ancient board game based on sowing seeds, is simple, addictive, and polished. The bright, glassy pieces drop into their compartments with rhythmic thunks.

You addictive little devil

Card game President is a capitalists dream. The winner of each hand pilfers the best cards from the plebs, perpetuating their stay at the top. Outside skilful play (or a sloppy leader) the sole method to topple the administration is to reverse play by laying four of the same card. I’ve developed a mild obsession with it. 

It’s cool, but is this it?

Slot Cars is the Scalextric kit I always wanted. But highlights my main issue with 51 Worldwide Games: the lack of replayability in the miscellaneous games. Slot Cars comes with a measly three uninspiring tracks, and while you can create your own, you can only do so in Mosaic Mode.

Mosaic Mode allows you to line up multiple Switches in any configuration and swipe across them to create a unique track. It’s a clever, but expensive way to offer variety in a single Switch household. Further, while well made, I lost interest in Toy Boxing, Tennis, Football and Baseball, even in multiplayer, after one round each.

The quality of NDcube’s offerings has always been mixed (see Mario Party 10 and Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival). But I’m impressed with 51 Worldwide Games and 2018’s Super Mario Party. While there’s no doubt they’re making Super Mario Party 2 after the original sold 12m, I’m excited to see what NDcube pulls from the attic next.

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Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Ori and the Will of the Wisps’ bosses are tough. So tough, I’d gotten so good at fighting friendly ‘Guardian of the Marsh’ turned corrupted murder-toad, Kwolok, and died so many times, that I earned the associated achievement for speed-running his encounter the first time I licked his froggy face. 

That’s not to say that Wisps is frustrating. On the contrary, it’s a ‘if you die it’s your fault game’. I was to blame for every death.

Like each Metroidvania before it, you begin Wisps controlling a laughably underpowered character and end it feeling like a god. At the outset, Ori can scarcely muster a double jump. Ten hours later, you’ll be chaining triple jumps, wall grabs, grapples, bashes, dashes, burrowing, swimming, gliding and 360-degree ‘launches’ without touching the ground and wondering how you ever coped without them.

Ori can use Launch and Bash to pause in mid-air and shoot in a straight line in any direction

Executing all of this feels incredible. Ori is lithe and nimble and flows across the screen in graceful arcs, but, can also turn on a dime; pausing in mid-air and launching in a straight line in any direction. It’s exceptionally responsive and immensely satisfying and, while the skills above may seem a lot to learn, Moon Studios award them a perfect pace, so you never feel overwhelmed.

So many shards

In addition to permanent abilities, Ori can collect Spirit Shards; upgrades you can turn on and off at any time. These range from the scarcely noticeable to the game-changing. The Lifeforce Shard, for example, merely raises damage dealt by 10% when above half-life. In contrast, the Triple Jump Shard, adds, you guessed it, a third jump to Ori’s repertoire, allowing you to reach inaccessible areas far earlier than had you chosen not to utilise it. 

Struggling with a platforming section? Switch on the Sticky Shard to stick to and climb on walls. Troubled by a tricky fight? Turn on the Life Harvest Shard to seize more life orbs from your vanquished foes. It’s a fascinating system, allowing you to change the difficulty and mechanics available to you in both traversal and combat at any time.  

Splinter and Quickshot transform a single arrow into shower of death

My favourite Shards are Splinter and Quickshot. Both augment Ori’s new ‘Spirit Arc’ ability, a ranged attack allowing Ori to fire a single arrow in any direction. Splinter and Quickshot alter it by splitting the arrow into multiple arrows and allowing you to fire 25% faster respectively. These upgrades feel like collecting a power-up in a ‘shoot ’em up’ like Darius or R-Type – widening and accelerating your shots – and dramatically alter the character of combat.

Wellspring Glades and the Darunia-esque Grom the Builder

You can upgrade Shards by trading Spirit Light (Wisp’s lowest level collectable) in the game’s central hub, Wellspring Glades. A pleasant autumnal haven you can develop by trading Gorlek Ore (another collectable) with the ‘Goron-Esque’ Grom the Builder. I relish the chance to build-out towns in action games – Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’s Monteriggioni, for example, is excellent – and Moon Studios put the mechanic to good use with each upgrade granting access to more collectables and shortcuts.

Without spoiling anything, the ending of Wisps is definitive. While there is always some wriggle room for the series to return, it appears Moon Studios will not lead it. They’re reportedly moving on to an Action RPG and, based on the polish manifest in Wisps, I cannot wait to see what they produce.

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Final Fantasy VII Remake

The game is stunning but Clouds arm’s are tiny…

Final Fantasy VII Remake’s protagonist’s Cloud Strife’s arms are weedy. He’s barely smuggling ping pong balls under his sleeves, let alone bowling balls like fellow eco-terrorist Barrett. How on earth, then, does he manage to wield a near 100-pound, six-foot broadsword with such ease?

My experience with Final Fantasy VII extends to the party escaping Midgar in the original and a playthrough of Final Fantasy VII Remake, so, in short, I don’t know. Maybe he fell in a vat of his planet’s liquid lifeblood and subject of his eco-terrorism, Mako, and now has super strength to complement those smouldering turquoise peepers. But, what I do know is that it’s a joy to enable.

Remake has moved away from the turn-based battles of the original in favour of a Kingdom Hearts style battle system. You control Cloud, or one of his colleagues, in real-time. Attacking with square and dodging with the circle button. Unlike controlling Sora, though, when you choose a command from the on-screen menu, combat pauses, giving you a moment to breathe and contemplate your next move. Executing commands, be they abilities, magic or using items, depletes your Active Time Battle (ATB) meter which you can only replenish by battling in real-time. It’s an outstanding, symbiotic system, and you must utilise both elements to thrive.

Layered on this is the ‘Stagger’ system. By attacking an enemy and punishing its weaknesses, you build its stagger meter. Maxing it out turns said adversary into a veritable punching bag, unable to attack and susceptible to enhanced damage. The loop of attacking in real-time to build ATB, employing ATB commands to stagger foes and executing them as they lay limp is immensely satisfying.

Less satisfying, however, is Cloud’s ‘unique ability’. Tapping the triangle button shifts his fighting stance from standard ‘operator’ form to ‘punisher’ style, slowing his movement speed, but boosting his attack rate and power. While playing in both punisher and operator modes feels fabulous, switching between them does not.

Hitting triangle while carrying out regular attacks doesn’t always result in the desired stance change and, even when it does, the effect is often delayed far beyond the initial button press. Occasionally, too, I find myself wondering whether the shift has occurred. Yes, a sound effect plays, and Cloud’s physical stance changes. But the chime is often lost in the racket of battle, and the stance change animation dissolves into your flurry of physical attacks. Worse, the lack of clarity necessitates a glance away from the struggle to the stance status atop the command menu and, taking your eyes off the action, even momentarily, frequently results in receiving a substantial hit.

Less squatting, more curling

Thankfully, Cloud’s party members’ unique abilities do not suffer like this, and, the supporting cast is, arguably, more fun to command than him. While childhood pal Tifa plays similarly to Cloud, excelling in close-quarters combat and boosting stagger meters, both Barret “Bowling Ball” Wallace and Aerith “The Ancient” Gainsborough specialise in long-range assaults.

Barratt uses his gargantuan gatling gun to chip away at enemies from a distance. His unique ability, “Overcharge”, unleashes three mighty bullets, accompanied by chunky explosions and gratifying kickback, and rapidly fills his ATB metre. Aerith, on the other hand, is far more graceful and focusses on ranged magic attacks. Her best ability is “Arcane Ward”, allowing her to lay down a luminous field in which any magic spells will be cast twice which is excellent for exploiting elemental weaknesses.

Unlike Cloud’s biceps, Remake is dense, with even more systems (Equipment, Materia, Summons, etc.) balancing out the above. But, perhaps assisted the original’s ubiquity, they never become overwhelming. Though I have my irritations with the game (it’s linear, there’s a dirge of areas to grind in and the texture pop-in, even on PS4 Pro, is damn distracting), it has the most engaging battle system I’ve played in years and I cannot wait to see where Square Enix takes the series next.