Dusk Review (Switch eShop) | Nintendo Life

Thank the deity (or prominent YouTuber I guess) you believe in for the explosion of the “Boomer Shooter,” and we to mean explosion. Now that those who grew up on the original Quake (currently available in a very good edition on Switch) are developers themselves, we’re seeing a big revival of old-school-style first-person shooters, and we can’t get enough of it. . Unfortunately, they’ve been a bit in short supply in the good old days of Nintendo, with only an acceptable port of Ion Fury and the pretty good Project Warlock holding up the side. Up to now.

Yes! The game that kickstarted the whole Boomer Shooter thing, New Blood’s brilliant and bloodthirsty Dusk, finally made its way to the Switch after more than a year of delay. Trust us when we say that the developers didn’t just sit on your hands – this is a game polished to the nth degree, a port that feels completely native to the Switch. Operates at locked 60 fps without snagging, slowing down, or stuttering. Levels load in about two seconds. And, in what is fast becoming a cliché, it looks spectacular in OLED. This is a port that should become a point of comparison in the future, an exemplary effort that, frankly, puts all dirty half-speed attempts to drag games from other systems onto the handheld to shame.

Every move is as stylish as you need it to be. You move Quick on Dusk, even faster when using the repeated diagonal jump bunny-hop style, for which the game has a dedicated button. You’d think a game explicitly designed for mouse and keyboard would have Joy-Con issues, let’s face it, less than flawless analog joysticks. But it’s tailored to perfection; you will be an expert in even small movements within the first level. There is also a gyroscope, of course, and the sensitivity can be adjusted to whatever level you find most attractive and intuitive. We have never really needed it though – the stick control is so well calibrated that we had no problems with the default settings.

Settings, that’s something to hold onto; There are many. An FOV slider, as well as multiple accessibility options: display changes, graphics you can make more or less pixelated to simulate your favorite software mode images … there’s a lot here to appreciate.

That’s enough praising the port (flawless). How is the actual game? Fortunately, he is also an ace. We’d compare it more openly to Quake, the original, with its deceptively simple move-and-shoot gameplay that hides a clever, complex level design that feels tested within an inch of its life. Using a variety of strong and violent weapons, you must take down the various acolytes of a Lovecraftian monstrosity in three episodes of carnage, each exponentially more complex, interesting and expansive than the last.

Shooting feels awesome, which is a good thing because it’s pretty much the entire game – Dusk is suitably old-school in his quest to do just one thing very well. Yes, there is exploration, key hunting, and some platforms for secrets (brilliantly hidden), but overall, you will use those activation skills above all else. Difficulty options range from ridiculously simplistic to psychotically difficult, but even on the hardest level of “Duskmare,” the game feels fair and balanced in favor of skillful play. Unless you’re playing with your eyes closed (the kind of madness you should save for AGDQ), you’ll always know what killed you, why, and how.

Speed ​​and skillful movement are the priority of this game over realism and weight, although thanks to the excellent sound design every time you fire a weapon, it seems that the world is about to come to a ruinous end. This is a killer arsenal, literally and figuratively: you can wield two shotguns, be precise with a hunting rifle, cut enemies into ribbons with twin sickles, or just blow them to pieces with explosive rockets which, of course, also open up the world of rocket jumps. Perhaps there could be a couple more weapons to play with, or a more meaningful distinction between the ones they give you, but the ones you is it so given are excellent.

You will need some awesome monsters to level off all this pain and thankfully they give them to you too. Only the first episode has crazy cultists, chainsaw-wielding hillbillies, and living scarecrows, not to mention toxic rats and baphomet-tastic goats. Things get a little more military in episode two, and we don’t want to spoil anything about episode three. Rest assured, things get weird.

We haven’t even mentioned Endless mode, with its new map parodying Super Mario 64 for this version. Or the Dusk ’82 pre-order bonus, a fun gift and a top-down version of the main game that reminded us of the underrated Rock Boshers DX. Frankly, it’s hard to fit all the good things about Dusk into one relatively short review.

conclusion

Dusk is amazing software and arguably the best Unity port for Switch we’ve seen, bypassing all the usual performance issues and delivering a brilliant experience of brilliant gameplay. We have tried to think of significant or negative reviews. Of course, the pad controls are never going to be as precise as the mouse pointer, but when the developers have adapted the analog sticks with such a degree of precision, it would be rude to use them. It’s not as good a game as Quake, but almost nothing is. Arguably better port that Quake got, and that in itself was excellent. There is a relatively limited arsenal of weapons; they are all cool but there is no iconic weapon here, just your usual pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, explosives, et al. Ultimately, Dusk is another absolute star in what turned out to be a phenomenal month for Switch; a true horror show, and the highest of the nine.