Switchblade II (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
74Following on from the success of Gremlin's previous entry (see my review on LemonTube64), here is the highly polished sequel - another platform explore 'em up, with gun shooting and sword fighting action to boot. This is a cold play of the game after maybe 20 years, lets see how far I get.
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Production Notes:
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Captured: 8th March 2018
Narrated: 17th Sept 2020
Edited: 11th July 2018, and 15-18th Feb 2021
Like so many games, I never really got that far with Switchblade 2 back in the day. But this week marks the first time it has come up in the Lemon Amiga competition, so you can bet I will been a lot more familiar with it (perhaps beaten it), by the time the round is over. The game was played cold after many years away, so that you can see my learning it and without the review going on for too long. I wanted to release the footage this series, and it was pure co-incidence that it came up in the compo this week.
I played Chrome quite a lot, and Venus the Flytrap, but somehow (like Leander or Wolfchild) I wasnt drawn back to it for so many extra tries. I had it on copy, so I didnt own this.
Rendering Issues: The review was finished on Tuesday, but I had to render it twice due to a software crash during the first render. Almost all of these reviews were captured at 60fps, and re-rendered at 50fps for release. Most of the time this seems to work, and I think I got away with doing this for Simon and Sorcerer and Fire and Ice, but this time the result was bad, and the footage was very clunky. I had to re-render it again on Thursday at 60fps, and this time it seemed to work fine, and uploaded ok without freezing or stuttering. I've had major 60fps issues before, but this time it was the opposite case of having to deal with it, in order to get the footage looking smooth. I realise this may have affected the smoothness of many games this series, and I am of course very sad about that. Hopefully your enjoyment of these games hasnt been spoiled by all of this.
Danscore:
Switchblade 2 has all the polish and style of a AAA Amiga title, doesnt have the catchy music of the first game, and in fact no music in the game at all. Sound effects are also limited. The graphics are very well drawn and the scrolling as very smooth. Presentation is also up there with other games, although without an animated intro like the Turrican games or even Wolfchild. So the result is highly charming but also a mixed bag. If the levels on offer, only the first one offers the classic Switchblade mechanic of unlocking darkened rooms. The rest of the game is open and in full daylight, which makes this just another platformer. The are six levels in the game, but level 2 and 4 are very similar, as are 3 and 5. So only levels 1 and 6 stand out as being vastly different. Is there enough here to battle against the difficulty? Well.. sort of. It doesnt have the charm of First Samurai or Turrican, but it certain a step up from Midnight Resistance and Robocop 2. So I give it 7 out of 10. There are certainly some classic moments, but after level 1 if just seems to run out of ideas to add much replay value.