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Switchblade II appreciation thread


Adrian M

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Switchblade II...the media trashed this game for its supposed contrived gameplay and plodding pace? When you actually sit down and give it more than a few minutes, you'll find that this is indeed a pretty good side-scroller with basic, but fun gameplay and decent play control.

 

What's not to like? YOu can upgrade your weapons. The graphics are large and scroll smoothly on the small screen. The physics system is decent and satisfying. And the sound, while sparse in the effect dept, does the job. A fairly lengthy game too!

 

Why doesn't anyone give this wonderful game the respect it deserves? Is it because it was a relatively obscure franchise (what system did Switchblade 1 come out for anyway?), or is it because they saw the slower pacing and immediately thought it was little more than a sci-fi Viking Child (which was a fun game in itself)? I urge those who have not yet tried this obscure game a shot. Try it for 15 minutes and focus on the gameplay.

 

A worthwhile addition to anyone's Lynx collection, IMO.

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I'm pretty sure that Switchblade 1 was on the Amiga. I think I used to have a copy. It wasn't all that good, though. I really liked the Lynx sequel. But I never thought it had a lot of replay value. I played it through a couple of times, and now I don't really have any interest in trying it again. It was a fun game when I first bought it, though. There aren't a lot of good side-scrollers on the Lynx (emphasis on the word 'good') so I think people just didn't pay that much attention to it. It doesn't really stand out. There's not a much about the game that makes you wish there was a Switchblade III made. It had good gameplay, but not much personality.

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Switchblade II is an okay game. I thought it was too easy. I was able to beat it the third time I played.

 

Things I didn't like:

- They offer information in the stores for 10 credits. If you buy it you get great tidbits like:

"Jump to avoid enemy shots" = duh!

"Napalm is reccommended" = Napalm sucks! Never buy napalm!

- It was too short/easy.

- I took more damage from falling into the scattered stationary fires than I did from most enemies.

- The only weapon upgrade worth taking is the Guided Missle. It rarely misses. It passes through walls! It does excellent damage.

 

Compared to other platform games for the Lynx, I thought it was rather weak. I am still trying to beat Toki, now that is a challenge I am enjoying. Viking Child is fun and pleasantly long. I still haven't beaten that one either.

 

Cheers!

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Switchblade II is an okay game.   I thought it was too easy.  I was able to beat it the third time I played.    

 

Things I didn't like:

- They offer information in the stores for 10 credits.  If you buy it you get great tidbits like:

"Jump to avoid enemy shots"  = duh!

"Napalm is reccommended"     = Napalm sucks! Never buy napalm!

- It was too short/easy.

- I took more damage from falling into the scattered stationary fires than I did from most enemies.  

- The only weapon upgrade worth taking is the Guided Missle.  It rarely misses. It passes through walls!  It does excellent damage.

 

Compared to other platform games for the Lynx, I thought it was rather weak.  I am still trying to beat Toki, now that is a challenge I am enjoying.  Viking Child is fun and pleasantly long.  I still haven't beaten that one either.  

 

Cheers!

 

I always thought "Toki" was vastly underrated. It's an excellent game on the Lynx.

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[quote="davidcalgary29

I always thought "Toki" was vastly underrated. It's an excellent game on the Lynx.

 

I agree 100%! I think Toki is an excellent platform game. The difficulty ramps very smoothly, and each level provides a unique environment. It was all I was playing for a month. I could never get past the 5 level boss, so I decided to take a break :D

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If I recall, the Lynx version of Toki was pretty faithful to the coin-op original...as was usually the case with Lynx conversions. This was something I really liked about the Lynx as coin-op conversions for the NES, Genesis and SNES sometimes had drastic changes thrown in to make the game more suitable for home console play I guess.

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What's not to like? YOu can upgrade your weapons. The graphics are large and scroll smoothly on the small screen. The physics system is decent and satisfying. And the sound, while sparse in the effect dept, does the job. A fairly lengthy game too!

 

One weak point is the lack of music during gameplay. But nice intro- and ending music it has.

 

Otherwise I agree. This game is not bad at all :)

 

But you can't realy compare Switchblade II or Toki (or any other game) to the incredible Viking Child ;)

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I always thought Viking Child was just too tough. I couldn't get very far without cheating. Whereas Switchblade II's difficulty is just right. It's not that difficult to complete, which in my mind is more satisfying.

 

Viking child had the potential to be fantastic but they screwed the whole thing up by making it sooo slooow, in my opinion.

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  • 18 years later...
On 3/31/2022 at 12:36 PM, JagChris said:

This game seems quite different from the ST version. I'm working through it now. But will check out Toki.

Toki was as perfect an arcade port as you could get on the Lynx (I have the arcade PCB to compare) so I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

 

Haven't played SBII in a long time but I'll have to did it out of mothballs and give it another try. I just remember thinking it was ho-hum...had it been a little more like Strider it would have been more interesting. 

 

BTW, jgkspsx's avatar reminds me that I would have loved to have seen Commander Keen 4 on portable BITD. It's too bad Atari didn't try and grab that game for either the Lynx or the Jaguar when they had iD doing stuff for them. 

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5 hours ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

It's too bad Atari didn't try and grab that game for either the Lynx or the Jaguar when they had iD doing stuff for them. 

iD minus Tom Hall’s feelings on Keen are summed up by his appearance in Doom II.
 

 

They weren’t very nice people.

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On 11/24/2003 at 9:30 PM, Adrian M said:

Switchblade II...the media trashed this game for its supposed contrived gameplay and plodding pace? When you actually sit down and give it more than a few minutes, you'll find that this is indeed a pretty good side-scroller with basic, but fun gameplay and decent play control.

 

What's not to like? YOu can upgrade your weapons. The graphics are large and scroll smoothly on the small screen. The physics system is decent and satisfying. And the sound, while sparse in the effect dept, does the job. A fairly lengthy game too!

 

Why doesn't anyone give this wonderful game the respect it deserves? Is it because it was a relatively obscure franchise (what system did Switchblade 1 come out for anyway?), or is it because they saw the slower pacing and immediately thought it was little more than a sci-fi Viking Child (which was a fun game in itself)? I urge those who have not yet tried this obscure game a shot. Try it for 15 minutes and focus on the gameplay.

 

A worthwhile addition to anyone's Lynx collection, IMO.

Sadly sold so poorly, Gremlin never did any other Lynx titles ?

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On 12/1/2003 at 2:12 AM, patters98 said:

 

Viking child had the potential to be fantastic but they screwed the whole thing up by making it sooo slooow, in my opinion.

And cut back some of the RPG style elements from the ST version and the Lynx version lacked the excellent in-game music found on the GB version ?

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3 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

And cut back some of the RPG style elements from the ST version and the Lynx version lacked the excellent in-game music found on the GB version ?

The Lynx version seems superior to ST version.

 

Which version to you is the definitive version?

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3 hours ago, JagChris said:

The Lynx version seems superior to ST version.

 

Which version to you is the definitive version?

Even though i hate the platform itself, I would honestly go for the GB version, if we are talking the handheld versions. 

 

 

Personal preferences of course, but I would take in-game music over in-game sound fx for a game of this type, any day. 

 

 

 

Lynx version felt far too sluggish, the Zero-G type jumps etc and your character just plodded along. 

 

 

The ST version is superbly polished, more than the std 16 colours used in-game I believe and also featuring music. 

 

But the issue with it, was it's timing. 

 

 

 

Imagitec Design basically cloned Super Wonderboy In Monster land, then releases this  some months after Activision published the official ST conversion. 

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I had the ST version of Switchblade II so yeah I enjoyed playing it as well as on the Lynx.  But it's a British game, not a Japanese platformer so you won't be running and jumping around in Candy Land like Mario.  The slower pace is better suited for the cyborg character, and once you master the high jump mechanics you will feel like a bad ass cyborg.

 

Those were the type of games I really liked after I graduated high school, so I completely skipped consoles during the 16-bit era (though I admit consoles were much better for arcade ports).

 

My only complaint is I wished it had cool background music like the original Switchblade...

 

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