To celebrate the end of 2021, we are looking back at some of our best articles this year.
Originally published this past November: In an update, it was since learned that the game may have reused assets from an off-the-shelf pack.
The Nintendo Switch is home to some amazing games, including some that are in the running to be considered the best game of all time. It is also home to some games that are absolutely horrible, such as the ports of Troll and I, Ark Survival Evolved and WWE 2K18, which were disastrous ports to the system. But there is another, thankfully much smaller, category as well, and that is games that were developed with the Switch in mind and are horrific, and that is what we must touch on today.
When people think of this last category, some bring up Vroom In The Night Sky, but that game at least had the excuse of being a very early title on the system. But when it comes to Popeye on Nintendo Switch, there is no such excuse. Somehow, this game was made, and I am still trying my best to comprehend the situation because how anyone thought this was going to be well received is beyond me.
Popeye is ostensibly a remake of Nintendo’s classic arcade game (developed at least in part by Ikegami Tsushinki), which was a classic title that consisted of a few single-screen levels in which Popeye had to move about the screen to get hearts, musical notes and letters that Olive Oil tossed out for him. That game was a classic and modelled after Donkey Kong (which was intended to be a Popeye game at first), while this new game from Sabec attempts to recreate the gameplay in a 3D environment.
This may sound odd, and that is because it is. Sabec essentially attempted to take the levels of a single screen arcade game and turn them into a 3D collectathon and the result does not work at all. The arcade game was based on going up and down platforms and attempting to stretch these levels out into a 3D environment is a failed experiment.
The issues run deeper though as Popeye has terrible visuals, horrific voice acting, and the collision detection is a nightmare. Brutus is supposed to chase Popeye throughout the levels but will frequently just stand around doing nothing until Popeye is right next to him. The goals of the levels are overly simplistic for a 3D game, and multiple levels are just the same level reused in slightly different ways, showing little effort actually went into making this.
If this had been a fan game, it would have been understandable as a learning tool and maybe a little interesting. As a full game though, this is just plain wrong to see and is representative of every complaint that used to be made about licensed video games. Spelling typos, glitches and repeated use of assets are common throughout the game, as is lots and lot of loading, all of which combine to make for a very unpleasant experience.
Sabec had a reputation already for selling their calculator app for over ten dollars on the Switch, and that should have set off warning signs for most. This is not a good game in any way and comes off as an insult, not just to Nintendo’s arcade classic, but Popeye as a franchise. There is no satisfaction to be gained here and you will be left questioning yourself if you buy this.
If you do ever doubt your decisions in life, just remember that someone at King Features Syndicate approved the decision to license Popeye to these devs, approved the game and saw no issue with it, so at least you didn’t make as bad a choice as they did. There have been many fans showing off animation of Popeye fangames done in the style of Cuphead, using beat ’em up mechanics, but nope, we get this absolute train wreck. The worst part is, this is being sold for money despite its poor quality while many of the fan projects are ones that I would gladly spend my hard-earned cash on.
The sad thing is, there was a good remake of the original arcade game made in 2008 for mobile phones. It was an enhanced version of Nintendo’s title with new features and a new level, as well as numerous bonuses players could find. That was far more enjoyable than anything that this trainwreck of a game has to offer.
Suffice to say that I cannot in good conscience recommend anyone to purchase Popeye, even if it is being done to see how bad the game truly is. This is easily one of the worst games on the Nintendo Switch and a contender for the worst game of the year for 2021. How the hell this was made in the modern era, I will never know and that is something that will haunt me.
A review key was not provided and I purchased the game with my own money because I was an idiot and regret the life choices that led me to do that.