In recent years, mobile games have become a new trend in society and have grown quickly enough to “threaten” the entire mainstream gaming village. The reason is probably that with the convenience of phones and simple gameplay, mobile games are more accessible to more players. In addition, with the typical touch screen control, only some specific game types exist on the mobile system.
The “senior” players on the mobile system certainly cannot help but know the name Rayark – a legendary game company with great music game products such as Cytus, Deemo, VOEZ… Not only knows how to create excitement in players with the ability to play. The ability to make the most of the touch screen, but both the music and the visuals of the above games are fully invested, enough to bring Rayark to the throne of the mobile music game village.
However, it seems that Rayark’s ambitions do not stop there – when in 2015, the company shocked the mobile gaming industry with the release of the super product Implosion: Never Lose Hope. Indeed, at that time, the appearance of a 3D action game with “terrible” graphics like Implosion: Never Lose Hope had the same effect as an atomic bomb enough to make people think again about the so-called “graphical limitations of smartphones.”
In 2017, the global gaming world had to “bear” an even heavier nuclear bomb called Nintendo Switch. As a super unique system that blurs the line between Handheld and Console, the Nintendo Switch has proven its solid strength when quickly reaching sales of more than 10 million units sold after only seven months of launch – and always in a state of “out of stock” in all markets.
The reason for the Switch’s success, in addition to its unique design and great features, is probably in large part due to Nintendo’s “open door” policy when creating very favorable conditions for indie game studios to land here. As one of the fastest mobile game companies to grasp the situation, Rayark has continuously launched its “pets” on Switch shelves, from VOEZ, Deemo … and of course, the super product Implosion: Never Lose Hope is also not affected. So, what will be the effect of bringing an action game on mobile to its “playground”? Please read with Biareview to evaluate Implosion: Never Lose Hope Switch version with the following article.
One of the problems that mobile games encounter most often is the technical problem of the touch screen. Although it gives players the ability to play games with their fingers quite easily, for traditional game types such as action, fighting, etc., it is clear that the presence of physical buttons has a significant “weight” compared to virtual touch buttons. Therefore, despite achieving great success on mobile, it was not until “landing” on Switch that Implosion: Never Lose Hope fully promoted 100% of its power.
In Implosion: Never Lose Hope, players will control humanoid fighting machines called Warmech. With a slightly larger size than the average human, the Warmech uses psychic connection technology, allowing the driver to use brain waves to control Warmech from great distances, with extremely low latency. According to the storyline, players will have to fight alien beings called XADA, who have landed on earth and turned this place into a dead planet.
With just two buttons, players can combine heavy/light attacks in a certain rhythm, creating countless beautiful and effective combos depending on the situation (similar to the Musou game series). Players will have to consider short combo attacks with high speed and long combos with great damage but come with an increased risk of being “hit” because of not interrupting the combo in time to dodge. Later, with the larger the number of enemies and the significantly increased strength, the player will have to use the skill of evading reasonable attacks skillfully.
In addition to normal attacks, players can equip up to 3 skills from a fairly rich collection. Most skills have a relatively high timeout, and when cast, they will drain the mana bar (which gradually fills up when the player attacks an enemy or is hit). They can be wide-area whirling skills, creating damage-absorbing shields, or breaking enemy armor – so players should consider which stage will have what type of enemy and bring the skill accordingly. Along with that, the Switch’s handle with physical buttons and high-end vibration technology (Rumble HD) makes the player’s game experience even more perfect when the phases of sword discharge, shock, and explosion splash the screen, now accompanied by a real vibration feeling.
Implosion: Never Lose Hope gives players four major story chapters; each chapter includes many small levels with about 4 – 10 minutes/screen time. With each game screen being meticulously designed, not duplicated, it can be seen how much Rayark has invested in Implosion: Never Lose Hope. Implosion: Never Lose Hope leads players through sci-fi military bases, snow-covered ice mountains all year round to fiery volcanic caves, lava eruptions. Each level has small challenges – from not using the potion, not getting hit, to getting through the class in a fixed time. Complete these challenges to earn badges and use them to unlock many “genuine” rewards for reaching certain milestones (new Ark, unlock new characters…)
The number and types of enemies in Implosion: Never Lose Hope are not too many, but they are designed very meticulously and uniquely. Each monster has its characteristics, fighting style, and special moves, making it necessary for players to remember and react appropriately to avoid attacks and destroy them in the shortest time – instead of just slicing. In addition to the melee attacks available on Warmech, scattered along the levels are special guns with limited ammunition and separate functions, from submachine guns, grenade launchers to flamethrowers. Players will need to know how to take advantage of them to support combat effectively.
The Ark system is also a special highlight in Implosion: Never Lose Hope, making players have a very high motivation to “plow hoes.” Arks are upgrades in which the secondary Ark increases Warmech’s stats depending on the location – while the main Ark affects the character’s skill set. There are many cases where the player will face difficult choices, such as using a low-skilled main Ark with “huge” stats or using a mediocre Ark but with three good skills in return?
After all, compared to an original mobile game, Implosion: Never Lose Hope gives players many very bright experiences, such as the game has up to 3 characters with completely different fighting styles. By default, the player will control Warmech Avalon using a sword faster, in return for average stats. Later, players can unlock more Warmech Crimson, use the tapered field slightly, compensate for damage, and extremely wide bow. With the accompanying expansion, players can experience Warmech Jonathan again with a completely different long-range shooting style.
When it comes to mobile games, usually, the graphics will not be appreciated, especially when it comes to 3D games. However, most “terrible” 3D games look quite nice at a glance; when “look” closely, disadvantages such as aliasing edges or less sophisticated surface textures are immediately visible. However, Implosion: Never Lose Hope is a rare exception when giving players one surprise after another.
First of all, let’s talk about the extremely epic trailer, whose quality is not inferior to the cutscenes in Starcraft 2. Although I know this is just a pre-made movie, the real rate of the image in the game is also good. It’s hard to believe that Implosion: Never Lose Hope is a mobile game because the match possesses excellent graphics, even when enlarged on a 40″ screen in “docked mode” Switch.
From meticulous and unique hand-drawn 2D transitions to sophisticated 3D models, Implosion: Never Lose Hope shows that Rayark artists’ effort is not small at all. From the designs of Avalon, Crimson, Jonathan to the avatars of the characters, all depict their personalities and emotions. That is an extremely rare point in original mobile games because mobile game companies focus on satisfying the crowd with popular tastes rather than creating unique values, carving their mark.
The battles in Implosion: Never Lose Hope show the dramatic and climactic action the game wants. That is thanks largely to the character creation, smooth animation, and beautiful combat effects. Players can feel the weight of each slash, each club hit, each jerky shot that shakes the whole screen when encountering different types of enemies and environments.
Once again, Implosion: Never Lose Hope proves Rayark’s interest in going against the market, when the company not only “makes action games instead of music games,” “sells Premium games on mobile,” and “firsts.” Great 3D graphics on mobile”. Because mobile is a lucrative market, targeting all customers – that is, 90% of players are only casual (playing for fun) or less, very few “old” gamers but clinging to mobile. Therefore, as an unwritten rule, mobile games must have the difficulty to be reduced to the maximum so that everyone can play well. But, Implosion: Never Lose Hope is not on this list.
The writer has not had the opportunity to play Implosion: Never Lose Hope full version on mobile, so it is not clear if the game difficulty will spike when transferring to Switch or not. However, this version of Implosion: Never Lose Hope on Nintendo Switch is a formidable challenge for any hardcore gamer. Right from the medium difficulty, Implosion: Never Lose Hope quickly showed players that are blindly slashing without calculation would have extremely dire consequences.
While Avalon and Crimson both have a shield technology that absorbs a large amount of damage before “eating” the real health tree, it doesn’t help the player breathe at all – especially from mid-chapter two onwards. The sudden increase in the number of enemies and new mutations will make the player falter significantly because just a little mistake can pay the price with a long piece of blood. And Crimson’s power has a very significant difference compared to Avalon – while it takes a large number of badges to unlock Crimson. That leads to players having to hesitate when they want to choose to play Avalon again because the correlation in strength is too great.
But even with Crimson, players must be very careful when fighting because although the damage and attack range is much wider than Avalon, the “latency” when Crimson’s attack is also correspondingly high, leading to this Warmech. There are many loopholes for the enemy to exploit. Strong skills but “consuming” a lot of energy are also Crimson’s fatal weaknesses.
The power of the guns in the game is not impressive, even though they are limited in bullets. Players still have to rely on melee combos as the main, unless they pick up the extremely powerful – but also extremely rare XADA Slayer. The game’s difficulty also contributes to the “collect” of badges by completing challenges in more difficult levels.