Unepic Switch Review – The Title Says it All

Unepic, Francis Cota

<p>Nintendo has done well with the launch of the Switch&comma; and it seems that every week there&&num;8217&semi;s another dozen or so games added to the system&period; A genre that is far from underrepresented is that of the Metroidvania&comma; and I have played a fair number of them this year&period; Some of them new&comma; and some of them are ports making their way to Nintendo&&num;8217&semi;s hybrid console&period; <em>Unepic<&sol;em> is one of these ports&semi; originally coming out back in 2011 on PC&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s even been on the Wii U&comma; and it&&num;8217&semi;s now on the Switch for a whole new audience&comma; myself included&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve been aware of the game&comma; and it caught my eye back on the Wii U&comma; but I never got a chance until now to try it&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m still not sure if that&&num;8217&semi;s a good or a bad thing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><amp-youtube layout&equals;"responsive" width&equals;"500" height&equals;"281" data-videoid&equals;"1ARSwOqhCx8" title&equals;"UnEpic - Gameplay Trailer &vert; Nintendo Switch"><a placeholder href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;youtube&period;com&sol;watch&quest;v&equals;1ARSwOqhCx8"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;i&period;ytimg&period;com&sol;vi&sol;1ARSwOqhCx8&sol;hqdefault&period;jpg" layout&equals;"fill" object-fit&equals;"cover" alt&equals;"UnEpic - Gameplay Trailer &vert; Nintendo Switch"><&sol;a><&sol;amp-youtube><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Unepic<&sol;em> starts off with the protagonist Daniel&comma; gathered together with a bunch of his buddies playing some good old fashioned <em>Dungeons &amp&semi; Dragons<&sol;em>&period; They all crack jokes&comma; and his buddies mock him a little bit&period; Daniel pauses the game to go to the bathroom&comma; and while he is there&comma; the lights go out&period; When he finally gets the lights back on&comma; he&&num;8217&semi;s no longer in his friends bathroom&comma; but in some foreign castle&period; As he explores the castle with only his lighter at first&comma; he encounters an evil spirit that possesses him&period; However&comma; the spirit&comma; whom Daniel names Zera&comma; is trapped in Daniel&&num;8217&semi;s body and must wait for him to die to be able to escape&period; This leads to plenty of snicker-worthy chuckles as Daniel and Zera banter back and forth&period; Sometimes Daniel reminded me of Fry from Futurama and this character made it a little bit more enjoyable if I imagined it was Fry with say the Robot Devil trapped inside of him&period; Anyways&comma; back to the story&period; Daniel finds out that someone named Harnakon is the master of the castle&comma; and the only way for him to get home is to kill him&comma; so off he goes on his quest to get home&period; The story is kind of interesting&comma; and again there is some chuckle-worthy laughs throughout the game&comma; but more often than not&comma; I just wanted to unlock some new areas and grew tired of some of the dialogue that happens in the game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;132686" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-132686" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-132686" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;12&sol;22141252&sol;maxresdefault1-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-132686" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Unepic&comma; Francis Cota<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><em>Unepic<&sol;em> is very much a Metroidvania game&comma; with all of the side-scrolling&comma; item-collecting&comma; backtracking action that you would expect&period; However&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s got a lot more RPG aspects to it than other games in the genre&comma; and that I did enjoy&period; The movement in the game is OK&comma; though sometimes Daniel feels a little too floaty as he is jumping around&period; There is quite a bit of material gathering and crafting that can be done&comma; to upgrade Daniel as you progress through the adventure&period; The weapons tend to fit into one of a few categories&period; You have swords that are good for hacking up traditional enemies&comma; maces&comma; which are good for smashing barrels&comma; and the bow&comma; which is good for shooting at faster or harder to reach enemies&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The game has a pretty decent button-mapping setup&comma; so it&&num;8217&semi;s easy to assign various weapons and items to one of three different button setups&period; The menu systems in general are very easy to sort through&semi; however&comma; the game doesn&&num;8217&semi;t pause when you go into your menu&comma; so you need to make sure you&&num;8217&semi;re in the clear if you are going to be poking around and seeing what you&&num;8217&semi;ve picked up and what you can turf&period; It is nice that the game keeps the item info and such on the screen at the bottom&comma; and if you&&num;8217&semi;re playing in handheld you can turn that off&period; Yes&comma; losing that information probably isn&&num;8217&semi;t for the best&comma; but if you want to play in handheld it helps free up as much screen space as possible&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;132687" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-132687" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-132687" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;12&sol;22141328&sol;maxresdefault-1-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-132687" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Unepic&comma; Francis Cota<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Visually&comma; <em>Unepic<&sol;em> is fairly bland throughout&period; The highlight is definitely the dialogue&comma; which is barely a highlight&comma; but the castle is pretty uninteresting and not very memorable&period; The enemies consist of your typical bats&comma; snakes&comma; skeletons and so forth&comma; what you would expect to find in a game like <em>Unepic<&sol;em>&period; Some of the bosses look pretty cool&comma; and fill up the screen but sadly their patterns are incredibly predictable and those fights aren&&num;8217&semi;t the toughest in the game&comma; especially compared to some of the tougher rooms you&&num;8217&semi;ll end up in&period; The music is pretty typical as far as a fantasy Metroidvania type game goes&comma; and in general isn&&num;8217&semi;t too awful&period; I ended up humming a few pieces here or there&comma; and it&&num;8217&semi;s another slight standout in a fairly mediocre game&period; The game runs well either in docked or handheld mode for the Switch&comma; which is to be expected as the graphics and game aren&&num;8217&semi;t really pushing the system in the least&period; However&comma; this is the type of game that you can easily spend a good chunk of time just wandering around&comma; and having it playable in handheld is a point in favour of the game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><amp-youtube layout&equals;"responsive" width&equals;"500" height&equals;"281" data-videoid&equals;"1uD&lowbar;29DtjTY" title&equals;"Trailer Oficial Unepic - Nintendo Switch - Castellano"><a placeholder href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;youtube&period;com&sol;watch&quest;v&equals;1uD&lowbar;29DtjTY"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;i&period;ytimg&period;com&sol;vi&sol;1uD&lowbar;29DtjTY&sol;hqdefault&period;jpg" layout&equals;"fill" object-fit&equals;"cover" alt&equals;"Trailer Oficial Unepic - Nintendo Switch - Castellano"><&sol;a><&sol;amp-youtube><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In the end&comma; <em>Unepic<&sol;em> was just an OK gaming experience for me on the Switch&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve played a number of Metroidvania games this year&comma; especially on the Switch&comma; and ultimately&comma; the story and dialogue was what really stood out for me versus some of the other games I&&num;8217&semi;ve played&period; Sadly&comma; the overall experience of exploring and fighting and backtracking just didn&&num;8217&semi;t seem as satisfying as I hoped it would have been&period; If you&&num;8217&semi;re craving another action-adventure type game for your Switch&comma; and want some RPG-style material finding and crafting mixed in with your adventures&comma; this probably is for you&period; If you like smarmy main characters that like to crack jokes about assorted video games&comma; but still somehow fall a bit flat&comma; again this is probably for you&period; In the end <em>Unepic<&sol;em> was basically just that&comma; not very epic&comma; but it may still be worth your time if you&&num;8217&semi;re a fan of the genre&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>A digital code for Unepic was provided courtesy of Francis Cota for the purpose of this review&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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