Not, ehh, as mighty as I'd expected.

I've had Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition sitting on my Wii U for ... I guess, almost as long as I've had my Wii U. So after being thoroughly underwhelmed by WayForward's attempts on Adventure Time, I figured, let's see what they can do with an original IP of their own. As it turns out, not much.

This isn't to say that Mighty Switch Force is a bad game, exactly. The core gameplay is competent enough, and there seems to be a respectable amount of content in here, based on the visible level count. The graphics are fine - if a little obsessed with cute, busty cartoon girls - and the soundtrack is stellar, as per Jake "virt" Kaufman's usual. But it's impossible not to notice the gaping absence of story, or any narrative explanation to the game's premise or world design.

Some games can get away with this lack of storytelling, but here it's conspicuous to the point of bothersome. With how strongly the game's characters are visually detailed, it just doesn't make sense that there isn't any amount of expository text, or any spoken narration -- especially in the midst of voice samples for random game actions, like checkpoints and health pick-ups. It's baffling that the graphics and sound are as polished as they are, but there is no attention whatsoever paid to the game's premise.

And without that, all that Mighty Switch Force really offers is a competent, but relatively unoriginal platform-puzzle game. The collision-switching mechanic is hardly new, and the other puzzles I saw in my (admittedly brief) time here were nothing that hasn't been done before by many other games. It simply isn't compelling enough for me to continue on with.

Better than: Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I Don't Know!
Not as good as: Offspring Fling!
But you really should: give the soundtrack a listen (and the sequel's, while you're at it).

Progress: Finished the first four levels.