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| Title | Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition |
| Developer | WayForward |
| Publisher | WayForward |
| Release Date | June 25, 2015 |
| Genre | Puzzle/Platformer |
| Platform | Steam, Wii U |
| Age Rating | E10+ |
| Official Website | |
Watch out, criminals of the future–Patricia Wagon is here to stop you right in your tracks, and she has just the tool to do it: a siren on her helmet that can alter physical space. Fighting crime in Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition is a pretty frantic affair, having you leap, shoot and switch your way around to capture escaped female felons in each stage, trying to achieve the quickest time possible. Mighty Switch Force! is a time trial puzzle game. The objective is to arrest all five girls and escape in your robot, Corporal Gendarmor, while getting a time under the par so you can get a star for the stage. Getting the par time isn’t that simple, but with practice and memorization you should be able to do it eventually. Even if you don’t get the star, as long as you accomplish your objective, you’ll pass.
As I mentioned before, Patty is armed with a special siren that changes the landscape of each level. The siren makes blocks appear and disappear, allowing you to get across gaps, reach new heights, and even defeat your enemies. By positioning a foe in such a way that they are in front of a transparent block, you can then switch the block on so it appears and crushes the enemy against the screen. On occasion, you’ll need to do this to solve puzzles, and even do some rapid-fire switching to get where you or your enemies need to be to pass. I consider myself pretty good at platformers, but more often than not I was too slow to keep up with the switching. All I can say is to keep at it, and you’ll get it eventually. Your gun will be very helpful to you as well, both to eliminate pesky enemies in the way and also to push them into a block where you can finish them off.
There are other types of blocks you need to concern yourself with as well. Purple launcher blocks which propel you and your enemies great distances, and later on, red and blue blocks, which you can stop from switching if you stand on them as you use your siren. Combining all these elements, the stages steadily grow more and more challenging to get through, and if you end up using your siren at the wrong time or rush too quickly, you could find poor Patty smashed against the screen, or falling onto a bed of spikes. Thankfully you’ll never have to start all over from the beginning (unless you choose to with the retry function), because Ugly Checkpoint Dogs (Yes, that’s what they’re called!) are scattered throughout the stages so you won’t lose too much progress.
At the game’s climax, the ability for you to use your siren at will is taken away. The last stage requires you to count three beats while the blocks switch back and forth from transparent to solid, as you make your ascent to the boss. It’s not a challenging fight in the least, but the journey upwards is far more treacherous than the destination. The game will throw every trick in the book at you to test your skills, and I often found myself smashed against the wall. Mighty Switch Force! isn’t a very long game if you’re just doing the main sixteen stages. That’ll last you about three hours, but those who want a challenge will be spending far more trying to beat those par times and get the coveted stars for each stage. There’s also some bonus stages that you can run after the main game is over, making the count 21. If you’re feeling really confident, you can also try your hand at the Hyper versions of the stages once you clear them for the first time. Hyper stages will look similar to their originals, but with subtle changes here and there that make it trickier to get those par times.
Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition looks fantastic on PC. It supports both windowed and fullscreen modes at resolutions up to 1080p. Patty Wagon and every other character and enemy model now have a very clean and sharp look to them, and the stage backgrounds benefit from the dramatic visual upgrade from its original 3DS incarnation. It’s very much the same quality you would see with WayForward’s other Steam releases such as Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse or DuckTales: Remastered. Jake “Virt” Kaufman once again provides the soundtrack for this game, opting for an energetic, frantic and upbeat electronic musical selection that gets your blood pumping and wanting to chase down those criminal girls as quickly as possible. My two favorites from Mighty Switch Force! are “Apprehend Them!” as well as “Launch Hearts“, but it’s really all good.
Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition is a skillfully done high definition remastering of a fun and innovative puzzle platformer. WayForward once again sets the bar high for porting their games to new platforms, and at $9.99, the price is just right for what you’re getting. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
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Review Copy Provided by Publisher
