Headland | Nintendo Switch Review
Developed and published by Northplay, Headland is an action adventure game which comes to the Nintendo Switch from Android and iOS, and will be coming to Windows PC.
You take on the role of Nor as he wakes up in a bedroom and a robot invites you to jump through a vibrant and colourful portal. Soon after you jump through the portal and arrive in Headland, you meet Spud, a robot friend who needs your help after having his imagination core shattered into pieces. Spud’s imagination core gave him the ability to create bridges and objects in Headland and could also imagine enemies into smaller, less frightening creatures. As Nor, you will need to battle your way through a variety of levels in order to recover the 5 fragments of Spud’s imagination core.
Headland has pretty basic, no frills gameplay as you control Nor’s movement with the left stick, dash with B and attack with A. This works well for the style of game but I only have one little gripe. There is no variety in the attacks. Nor performs the same 3 strike combo over and over again which does make the combat fall a bit flat at times. However, this is helped by a pretty decent variety of enemies you will need to hack and slash your way through. Another saving grace from the somewhat repetitive combat is the ability to unlock different weapons to cut down your foes with, which can be upgraded using supplies collected from around Headland. You also have the capacity to level Up Nor’s health or power as you progress. For me, all of this coupled together with a charming story line was more than enough to keep me interested.
The style and artwork of the game seems like it is aimed towards the younger gamer but I will say, it gets pretty tough at times, especially towards the end where they throw large waves of enemies at you. You can become overwhelmed pretty quickly so this will provide a pretty tough challenge for any less experienced gamers out there. I found the looks and level designs of Headland to be great and felt like they really hit the nail on the head with the whole vibe they were going for here.
The performance on the Switch was not great with a few noticeable frame rate drops happening, mainly when there were a lot of enemies on the screen which definitely comes at a cost to the experience. They are aiming for 60 frames per second and it just can not handle it. I feel that sticking to 30 FPS may have been a better option for this.
The way they roll the end credits is something I have not seen before and thought it was a fantastic way to showcase all the people who worked hard to make this little game. I won’t spoil anything but it is definitely worth playing this to find out what I am talking about.
The style of Headland seems like it is aimed towards the younger gamer, but as mentioned earlier, it gets pretty tough at times, especially towards the end where they throw large waves of enemies at you. You can become overwhelmed pretty quickly
The price point for this is way off the mark in my opinion. Coming in at £17.99 on the Nintendo eShop, this is too much considering the game is free to download on Android and iOS and there is only a very small amount of extras added to the Switch version.
I did enjoyed my playthrough of Headland which took me around 4 hours in total, however, the frame rate issues and high price point are stopping me from giving this a higher rating. Once this game hits the sales, I would highly recommend picking it up and I feel it can be enjoyed by gamers of all ages.
PaultheBrave09’s Rating: 3 shards of an imagination core out of 5.
For more information on Headland please use the following links...
Northplay - Developer | Publisher | Facebook | Twitter | Website
Many thanks to Plan of Attack for the Review Key.
Headland | Windows PC | Nintendo
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