Let’s get it out of the way in which. FIST: Cast in Shadow Torch on the Nintendo Swap is a irritating recreation. Not within the sense that it’s tough, however quite that it’s so frustratingly near being one thing nice and would not fairly make it. Like doing a pole vault and also you crack your ankle on the pole. There’s lots of great things in right here, however a combination of the sport falling wanting its potential and the Swap {hardware} struggling to maintain up makes this one a bit tougher to advocate.
Developed by Shanghai-based TiGames together with Sony’s ‘China Hero Undertaking’ initiative, FIST launched on PlayStation consoles and PC in 2021 prior to now making its approach to Swap nearly a 12 months later. It is a dieselpunk Metroidvania by which you assume the function of an anthropomorphic rabbit named Rayton; a former pilot who has to take up ‘arm’ to struggle again in opposition to the legion and their elite squadron, the Iron Canines, who’ve occupied his residence of Torch Metropolis. The arm in query fairly actually being a large arm that straps to Ray’s again — the eponymous FIST.
FIST hits all the commonplace Metroidvania notes: discover, hit a wall, discover an merchandise that will help you overcome stated wall, open up extra of the map, rinse, repeat. Nevertheless, resulting from its heavy reliance on narrative, FIST feels decidedly extra linear than one thing like Tremendous Metroid. The upgrades themselves are additionally fairly commonplace, like an additional bounce, wall jumps, and different weapons, and some of those actually really feel like they need to be in your commonplace equipment — extra on that later.
When you get your full equipment, Ray feels good to maneuver and the platforming challenges (and sequence breaks) are satisfying to tug off. That being stated, Ray strikes as sluggish as a rabbit with a large steel fist connected to its again, so if you wish to get round at an honest tempo, count on to be spamming that sprint button rather a lot.
One space by which FIST stands out a bit extra from different Metroidvania video games is in its fight design. Melee fight with a heavy give attention to combos is the secret right here; whereas not as deep as, say, Bayonetta’s programs, FIST’s fight is surprisingly satisfying. Nevertheless, that is one other a part of the sport the place the aforementioned problem with upgrades feeling like they need to be commonplace components of your equipment bleeds by means of. After we first received our palms on the sport, fight felt prefer it was lacking one thing to essentially make it click on; like a dodge that may cross by means of enemies and projectiles or a parry. These are each finally current, however one is the ultimate improve you get within the recreation and the opposite is missable. It is sensible for additional strikes and combo strings to be locked behind upgrades (which you’ll spend forex on at any save level) however these strikes being locked away made issues really feel a bit off within the early recreation.
Ray additionally positive aspects entry to new weapons with their very own set of combos, just like the slow-moving however hard-hitting drill and the lightning-fast whip, these will be swapped by means of with the press of a button permitting you to make use of a number of weapons in your combos. He additionally has a variety of sub-weapons like a homing rocket and batons which may parry assaults (separate from the precise parry). The kicker right here is that these sub-weapons use the identical meter as your therapeutic flask, in order that they find yourself feeling like a waste of sources comparatively.
Whereas not an excellent lengthy recreation by any means at round 15 hours, FIST feels prefer it hangs round only a contact too lengthy, paired with a pointy problem spike within the late recreation. There’s a phase revolving round slowly carrying batteries round, which is dangerous sufficient, but when they’re broken they reset again to the beginning, and it’s extremely irritating. To not point out the re-use of bosses all through your entire recreation, with some fights recurring three or 4 instances by the point you hit credit, making issues really feel a bit stretched.
FIST actually struggles on the presentation entrance at instances; whereas the sport was fairly the looker on PS5 and PC, the switch to Swap is not fairly as elegant. It nonetheless seems to be fairly good for the system, however components just like the fur textures throughout cutscenes look fully off, in addition to some areas struggling to take care of 30fps. That being stated, the presentation points aren’t all of the fault of the Swap. Cutscenes can reduce to black abruptly; the voice appearing can go from completely fantastic to bizarre, stilted line reads throughout the similar dialog, and characters will even teleport about.
This glitchiness transfers to gameplay too, with teleportation occurring to Ray often as he will get hit. Throughout one of many remaining bosses we skilled a glitch by which they simply disappeared off the sting of the display, soft-locking the sport, which was instantly adopted by infinitely respawning enemies on an elevator journey which as soon as once more, soft-locked the sport.
The largest downside of the Swap model, nonetheless, is the load instances. Hundreds between areas are on common 45 seconds to a minute lengthy (we timed them). That is made much more irritating as a result of there are components of the sport by which you go to an space solely to be advised a minute later that you must return to a distinct space and thus one other lengthy load. The worst offender is in one of many late-game boss fights by which dying means a 50-second load time adopted by strolling again to the world, loading into the struggle, going by means of the dialogue, after which lastly getting again to the battle. Which is even weirder contemplating different fights will load you straight again to the boss.
Conclusion
Though we might sound fairly adverse when discussing the sport, FIST: Cast In Shadow Torch actually is price taking part in; it simply has a lot potential that it doesn’t fairly attain. It rides on the cusp of greatness so usually, whereas not fairly making it over the hurdle. We won’t wait to play a sequel as a result of if it was iterated on, FIST could possibly be one thing actually particular. Sadly, because of the technical points related to this Swap model such because the unbearably lengthy load instances, it’s let down even additional. General, a promising basis that we hope results in higher issues sooner or later.
