Welcome to Switch Funday!
Last week i checked out the free to play game The New Denpa Men, https://youtu.be/8VjQxmvSxrY, but after my first hour with it i wasn't sure the game had showed me enough of what it is. The New Denpa Men is a slow game and it's mechanics and design feel old so i came back for a second hour thinking this would be enough time for the game to fully show me what it is.
My second hour with The New Denpa Men added little, if anything, to the overall game. it continues to not detail how to do things, i guess how to do the fishing after some annoying tries, and the big new addition of decorating felt poor, more so when you compare it to other games that came out on the 3DS. I tried out a couple of special events towards the end of the video and whilst it was nice to have something different to do, i got jewel pieces and there's meant to be someone on my island to give them to, but there wasn't.
Whether it's the jewel pieces or the fishing, it's frustrating that the game hasn't cornered off these aspects of gameplay until it's ready for us to deal with it. Many games will curate the start of the game in such a way that it feels random but in fact it's been designed so we're introduced to each gameplay mechanic. in The New Denpa Men, it feels like the start of the game hasn't been curated, it feels like it's been left as open as possible for all players to engage with. so i've been put into a scenario where there's a fishing mechanic that's not been explained and i have items to give someone on my island, but they're not on my island.
It was nice to get access to more Denpa Men in my party and i felt that it made the combat a little more easier. but it's still frustrating that the game doesn't specify what each of their abilities until they're used in combat. You can only do combat whilst on a mission. so if there's someone in your party that's not needed, you have to either finish the mission or quit.
The New Denpa Men continues to not be very accessible to new players and this second hour reinforces my statement that this is perhaps designed more for fans of the series rather than new ones. It's design feels like it was initially made for phones and was ported to the Switch, maybe Nintendo changed their mind. when starting the game i had to download additional game data which updated the game and it restarted. i had, earlier in the week, updated the game from the Switch home menu. this behaviour of downloading data to update itself is again something more common on mobile games than consoles and not a pleasant experience.
Version 2.1.12 played