Ploid Saga Review for Nintendo Switch

Developed By: Nape Games
Categories: Platformer, Retro, Shoot-em-up
Release Date: 06.25.20

I’m sure many readers will have a soft spot for flash games. Despite having much stronger consoles or even PC games to play there’s always something that pulled people in to play them. Every game in Ploid Saga is so basic, they all feel like flash games. Ploid Saga is a collection of four games. A platformer, Void+, it’s sequel Ploid as well as a shooter, Uchusen, and it’s sequel Uchusen 2.

Both Void+ and Ploid are incredibly simple. You go through a series of stages collecting gems that exist purely to raise your life count. You can choose to play as character who can shoot, Omega, or a character who can’t, but is much faster and jumps higher, Alpha. Omega feels like the easy mode to the game. While both characters can jump on enemies to defeat them, only Omega can shoot them, which makes everything more convenient when not trying to move around the stages. Spritework in Void+ is decent for characters and enemies, but is merely passable for everything else. Ploid on the otherhand has much nicer looking stages and even adds a “retro” mode that makes the game take on a filter to look more like a Gameboy game. Outside of looks however, the stages are all rather basic end up blending in together. You might run into a boss, but they end up just being bullet sponges.

Uchusen and Unchusen 2 are also incredibly simple. Uchusen is a horizontal shooter that’s main feature is slowing down time for everything around you. Every stage I played through felt exactly the same and ended with the exact same boss. The boss also doesn’t seem to display if you’re hitting it properly or not, just dying when it dies. The sequel for Uchusen does change things up a bit to make it a more interesting game at least. You can choose from three different ships, each with vastly different looks, and you can now pick up powerups. Not to mention, it’s a vertical shooter now. The game is much more challenging, a large improvement from how brainless the original game was, but it might come off as too challenging with shots from the first boss homing in on you. However, with certain powerups, this becomes more of an even playing field with you even having homing missiles.

If there’s something to be positively said for any of these four games, it’s that the music is all rather good, and in the case of Ploid’s retro mode tracks, downright catchy. The game luckily has a music player in the main menu for every tune too, which means if you bought the game purely for that soundtrack as opposed to the games, it’s right there for you. I also like each of the four games’ art. It all gives off an amateur or student look, which doesn’t feel too corporate or polished. All four games come off as too basic to really get anything out of, but aren’t bad by any means. Just medicore. I wish I enjoyed them as much as I liked the art and music.