The Nintendo Switch is slowly becoming the place to be for indies because typically most indies find more success in Switch in comparison with other consoles. That is great! Nintendo’s current philosophy is of having more than 30 games a week, which gives more opportunity to indie developers to showcase their games to Switch owners. However, as I expressed before, this is a double edged sword, since not all games are guaranteed to be good. While I don’t like the following term, some fall in the “Shovelware” category. One of these games is Skytime.
From the small introduction, you play the role of a scientist that lost his family (this happened while he was getting chocolate, since the voice acting in that particular intro isn’t that good to understand). He somehow gets a reactor core after stealing it from evil military personnel. Judging by the intro, it feels that it’s going to be an action platformer game. However, it’s not. None of the hints given by the intro come to play in the game. Rather it’s an uninspiring first person platformer with no enemies except some turrets and bad timed jumps to end your life. This is a shame since–while nonsensical–the story had promise, even when you finish the last level when credits roll. They say that you defeated Dr. DZ, and I’m like, “When!? How!? Why!? Is Dr. DZ so lame that he can be defeated just by jumping buildings from roof to roof!?” It’s like the developer isn’t even trying. While it had a good idea by the time slowing mechanic, which helps you jump farther, sometimes it tends break an already broken game. Just for experimental purposes, I tried to see how far I could fall without dying and using the time slow to jump to the edges of each building. I got pretty far but that is all the game has going for it, and the characters attack weapon a telekinetic wrench.
Graphically, the game looks like a PS1-era game. It’s not a bad thing. However, when the story feels uninspired and the graphics are so-so, the whole game feels off. I’m not someone who cares much about graphics, but the way the game is designed leaves much to be desired. Across all ten levels the game has to offer (that it must be said that they are unlocked from the beginning), the slight variations in duration of each level and different obstacles encountered (turrets and moving flying cars that you use as platforms) is no enough to save Skytime. The music falls in the same uninspired feel as the rest of the game.
Bottom Line: Skytime feels like a game that was developed only to ride on the Nintendo Switch hype train. While the price is low, I wouldn’t recommend it just based on the price. There are better games in which to spend your hard earned money.
A Review copy was provided for this review.