SO I did give this demo a good go last night on Switch for about an hour. There's definitely some good ideas and a fun game even if it's a little rough in a few spots.
The first most obvious thing: the game looks and runs remarkably well for the hardware. Though there isn't a ton going on in the open world, it is HUGE and wide-open, you can see way off in to the distance at great image quality and the framerate stays solid (I wasn't sure if it was a locked 60 but it felt good).
The game itself is decent, very much Breath of the Wild inspired but on a hoverboard. The demo is like a tutorial area after you crashland on this planet after getting a distress call from your girlfriend. You get directed to a tower which you need to power up, there are a number of power cords connected to it that you follow out to different areas in the world. Two of them led to 'shrine' like areas where I had to go in and solve puzzles to acquire some new powers. The first gave me a magnetic grabbing power so I could pick up and place/throw items and enemies to solve puzzles, the second gave my character a ranged homing attack. The third power cord led to a race I had to do through several gates around the area. Then there was an easy boss you fought on the hoverboard, you had to lasso it, dodge rocks that it shot up from the ground, and use your homing attack to do damage. There are lots of items to pick up that you use to craft new components for your hoverboard that make it faster or give better boost or whatever, but it was hard to tell any difference even after I did a couple upgrades. After I powered up the tower it launched my character off to another area where some story stuff happened and that was the end of the demo. There were further powers to unlock beyond the two from the tutorial area.
My main issues with it I guess are the controls and game-feel, the character just doesn't feel like he has a lot of presence in the world. Floaty, lacking impact, sometimes sluggish. Combat wasn't great though it was better with the grabbing / throwing option, which was much more powerful than melee attacks. The hoverboarding is fun and has a great sense of speed but I didn't feel totally in control at all times, tough turning and direction where you want to go. Maybe that improves as you develop better components for it, not sure. Oh and the way it indicates damage is a bit annoying, the big glowing sphere appears around your character that starts blue and turns red the more damage you take. It's not bad conceptually I guess but it's just very distracting, especially once combat is over and you're still wandering around like a bright glowing orb while it recharges.
Basically, for an indie BOTW-inspired game it's very impressive, especially with how they've got it running on Switch, but you need to keep expectations in line. It would be hard sell at full price but it's budget priced too so that helps. I like it enough I'll likely check out the full game.
www.nintendo.com
