Marooners Review (Nintendo Switch)

Review code used, with many thanks to Game-Drive

A Girl’s Night of Fun

Party games are a genre that feel right at home on the Switch. Like in the olden days with the Wii, it’s very easy to give your friend a JoyCon and dive in the fun. Most often, you don’t get a storyline or such, as that isn’t what the game is about: it’s about playing together, and most often, have a blast doing so.

So I was prepared when I picked up Marooners to play it with my daughter: Time for a girls night of fun, especially since it looked so cute. And both of us are very partial to that, cute and colorful. We weren’t prepared for diving right in to the hectic and crazy jumping, running and button mashing that we encountered though.

Chosing our character was indeed fun. At first there wasn’t much to choose from, but the more you play, the more characters you unlock. A Caveman, Viking, Pirate, Deep sea diver and Pharaoh, and if you don’t use all four characters, the AI provides the others. We found a choice of several modes, being Party, Arena and Any. Plus, online and offline. Now, as we both aren’t exactly the party-animals in gaming we decided to go for offline, trying to take it easy. No one needed to witness our first try and probable failure.

Party mode pretty much meant we were thrown into the deep end. At first we were pretty slow on the uptake, before figuring out what we needed to do, our little avatar turned into a ghostly spectre. Poor thing, never stood a chance! But we didn’t need to fret for long, soon we jumped to another part of the map. Enticing names, like The Icy Isles, Mines of Mayhem and Rocky Road.

Hunting for the Pot of Gold

The main goal is to survive and collect as many coins as you can. Meanwhile, there also are other things to collect, bombs and such, that allow you to best the other players. Because you not only have to try and stay alive with all the computer throws at you, but you also have to beware of the other players. If they wack you over the head you lose hard earned coins to them. If, and that is a big IF, you manage to stay alive, you’ll see a big pot of gold appearing on the screen. Score that one, and you’re probably high on the scoring list.

After our first game ended in a disaster pretty quick, I decided to go look for something of a manual. Found it in the titles screen, but it doesn’t tell you much aside from what buttons to use.

So, we went back in, this time in Arena mode, where you try to best each other by throwing bombs and making sure you come out on top. Again, you hop between various locations, which each time offers a different setting.

After a while we got the hang of it, but each time the AI managed to stay alive longer then we did. Needless to say this wasn’t the girls night of fun we were looking for….it made us just a little bit gloomy that we obviously didn’t have what it takes to be a good Marooner.

A Complete Package

Marooners offers a complete package: the game can be set to one of 16 (!) languages, and aside from the offline mode, there’s an online mode too. In online, you can choose for one of several servers, in America, Australia, Asia and Europe. But as the game has a small player base, chances are it will be difficult to find opponents. Of course, if any of your gaming friends has the game too, you can always play with friends through wifi.

The gameplay is hectic, every level poses a new challenge. The big crusher coming in from above was a nice touch: you had to stay in the light trying to collect coins and gems. You’ll find yourself running from rolling boulders, avoiding getting squished by a stone slab with holes in it, sliding across an iceberg while trying not to fall off, walking on a bed of lilypads while the leaves disappear one by one and carrying an explosive object that awards you points but might blow you to smithereens, too.

The Niggles

What I found most disturbing is the hopping from one game to the next. Maybe I’m getting old, but it was so fast and you had to react so quickly, that most often I couldn’t do much in a level because I’d already met my demise before we truly got started. Plus, I found it difficult to see which character was mine, didn’t help either in reacting quickly.

I would have liked to be more precise, for instance when wacking one of the others, but it all felt a bit too much as frantic wacking. Your character can choose up to 8 weapons too, but all weapons play the same. More mashing!

Conclusion

Visualy, the game looks good. The characters are cute, and the levels look well designed. The idea of the gameplay is a good one, but for me, it was just too frantic and quick paced. I can imagine this game being a hoot for younger kids, but for us it didn’t feel very satisfying.

Combined with the price, I feel the game is too costly for what is offered. So this is why:

Final Verdict: I’m not Sure