Troll and I Review – A Missed Opportunity on Switch

<p>In March 2017&comma; <em>Troll and I <&sol;em>was released on PC&comma; PS4&comma; and Xbox One&period; Fans were excited about the opportunity to team up with a troll&comma; battle monsters&comma; and explore a new world&period; Unfortunately&comma; the game was a flop&period; Players complained of low frame rates&comma; clunky controls&comma; outdated graphics&comma; and an oddly silent development team&period; I hoped the Switch release&comma; scheduled five months later&comma; would help Spiral House and Maximum Games redeem themselves&period; Alas&comma; they didn&&num;8217&semi;t learn&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Now&comma; there&&num;8217&semi;s a good concept under there somewhere&period; In <em>Troll and I&comma;<&sol;em> a young man named Otto loses his village in a devastating fire&period; While he tries to escape&comma; a pack of grizzly goblin-like creatures attack him&period; Just when we think he&&num;8217&semi;s going to die&comma; a terrifying&comma; giant troll comes to his rescue&period; The two become friends and spend the game working together to complete puzzles and find their way back home&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129006" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129006" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-129006" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;08&sol;22032200&sol;DH0FeKfUQAEYrC7&period;jpg-large&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Troll and I&comma; Maximum Games" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129006" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Troll and I&comma; Maximum Games<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>My excitement for <em>Troll and I<&sol;em> died about ten minutes into the game&period; Right after the village catches fire&comma; Otto plummets down an impossibly long hill&period; It becomes a test of dodging trees&comma; sliding under logs&comma; and jumping over obstacles while a big ball of fire chases him down&period; If you don&&num;8217&semi;t jump in just at the right spot&comma; you die instantly&comma; causing you to start the slide all over again&period; You have no control over camera angle during this sequence&comma; and I found myself facing a solid&comma; rock wall the first three times I tried to clear the area&period; Not being able to see where I was going&comma; I died each time and had to start over&period; This issue was clearly repeatable and should have been found in QA tests&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Even though the miles upon miles of falling seemed like an odd way to start the game&comma; I held onto hopes that the rest of the <em>Troll and I<&sol;em> world would be wonderful&period; I expected to be able to wander freely with my new troll buddy but no such luck&period; The world appears to be a wide open map but you can only go to the places the game wants you to go&period; If it wants Otto to scale the side of a cliff&comma; there will be square bricks to grab a hold of&period; If the game wants Troll to scale a cliff instead&comma; there will be bigger square bricks&period; Yes&comma; perfectly square or rectangle bricks jutting out of an otherwise wild-looking environment&period; So instead of exploring and enjoying the world of <em>Troll and I<&sol;em>&comma; I found myself just clinging to the edges of the map&comma; looking for bricks to climb&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129007" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129007" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-129007" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;08&sol;22032627&sol;DH0FFUeU0AA2O0u&period;jpg-large&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Troll and I&comma; Maximum Games" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129007" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Troll and I&comma; Maximum Games<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The next several puzzles in the beginning of the game are painfully obvious and even less enjoyable&period; Every time a new puzzle mechanic is introduced&comma; the same mechanic must be repeated multiple times&period; This causes it to lose novelty&period; Maybe this was annoying to me because of how painfully slow movement was&period; It required more patience than if Troll and Otto moved at a more reasonable speed&period; Climbing rocks or lifting platforms might be interesting the first time&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s boring the fifth or sixth time you have to do the same process ever-so-slowly&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The target audience for <em>Troll and I <&sol;em>is unclear&period; When Troll smashes an enemy into the ground&comma; body parts go flying&period; This argues a case for an adult audience&period; Nevertheless&comma; our adult intelligence is insulted when obstacles are clearly labeled with their solutions&period; Oftentimes&comma; a floating orb would appear over an obstacle with an image of exactly what tool or weapon you needed in order to clear it&period; They can&&num;8217&semi;t trust us to figure out a solution on our own&quest; There are other ways to draw a player&&num;8217&semi;s attention to an object other than clearly stating the solution&period; It takes the fun out of playing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129008" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129008" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-129008" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;08&sol;22032703&sol;DH0FRmXVoAA4EgW&period;jpg-large&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Troll and I&comma; Maximum Games" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129008" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Troll and I&comma; Maximum Games<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>What disappointed me most about the <em>Troll and I<&sol;em> Switch release was the lack of communication from the creators&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve had the pleasure of witnessing dozens of thoughtful&comma; constructive exchanges between developers and their fans&period; Most indie games are not AAA quality at launch&comma; and indie fans know this&period; When they encounter problems with a new game&comma; they turn to message boards and social media&period; The developers then patch the game as needed and everyone is happy&period; When <em>Troll and I<&sol;em> launched on Steam in March&comma; the developers didn&&num;8217&semi;t respond to a single bug report on the game&&num;8217&semi;s message board&period; When the game launched on Switch&comma; a memory leak error caused most players to experience frequent crashes&period; It took two full days for the publisher to address the issue and their response was a quick Tweet&colon; &&num;8220&semi;Please try rebooting the system and let us know if that fixes it&excl;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While we anxiously await more Switch titles&comma; <em>Troll and I<&sol;em> might seem like a great game to pass the time&period; Unfortunately&comma; I recommend skipping this one&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong> A Nintendo Switch review cop<&sol;strong><strong>y of <em>Troll and I<&sol;em> was provided by Maximum Games for the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;