The Alliance Alive HD Remastered Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

The Alliance Alive HD Remastered Switch NSP Free Download Back in 2018, the 3DS was still receiving a slow, but steady trickle of new releases despite the Switch stealing the spotlight with its runaway success. Though many put away the old handheld in favour of bigger and better things, there were still plenty of excellent titles released in this period, one of them being The Alliance Alive. A spiritual sequel (of sorts) to an earlier release called The Legend of Legacy, The Alliance Alive fixed many of the issues of its predecessor while also introducing a host of cool new features to make it one of the best RPGs available for the platform.ROMSLAB.COM BEST SWITCH GAMES

The Alliance Alive HD Remastered Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

Unfortunately, it was also mostly ignored by the gaming community and flew under a lot of radars, so developer Cattle Call opted to upgrade it and bring The Alliance Alive HD Remastered to Switch. Though very little was added for this new release, The Alliance Alive HD Remastered is just as strong and RPG as it was last year, and certainly isn’t one to miss out on a second time.

A slave to tropes

Following a globetrotting plot and a motley crew of characters, the story echoes many classic JRPG plots, notably some of the earlier Final Fantasy games. Unfortunately, many of the problems stem from the writing. Party members are flat and tropey, villains are uninspired carbon copies of classics, and even characters I thought I liked started to grind on me. The dialogue definitely doesn’t help, as it reads a bit too modern natural for an epic fantasy adventure and is laced with humor that never really hits. Of course, your mileage may vary.Astro Aqua Kitty Switch NSP

The Alliance Alive HD Remastered Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

The main character of The Alliance Alive HD Remastered, Galil, is a stock protagonist with little personality to spare, and he ended up being my favorite. Serious characters speak exclusively in platitudes, while humorous characters never stop talking. All characters feel like they are there to meet a quota, but at the very least there is a good variety. If you like dog-boys or fox-girls, young prodigies or grizzled samurai, there’s probably one character you can get behind.

Competent where it matters most

The pacing, however, had me feeling completely at home. No subplot drags and most new adventures have you doing something, well, new. The game knows exactly how much time is too much, and when it needs to, it slows things down accordingly. The next sequence might be a dungeon or a boss rush, or you might find yourself cruising the vast world map looking for points of interest. It was very easy to get sidelined as each mini-adventure offered something unique and worthwhile. Plenty of optional dungeons and bosses await for explorers.Atelier Lulua Arland no Renkinjutsushi 4 Switch NSP

The Alliance Alive HD Remastered Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

Helping things to stay fresh, The Alliance Alive HD Remastered gives a crazy amount of combat options, focusing heavily on learning new weapon abilities. In a strange twist, the weapon fighters are the ones with the most variety instead of spellcasters. Frequently using a weapon type unlocks new skills, and I was still unlocking them even during the final boss fight. Spellcasters, on the other hand, have to buy their abilities, and it feels like you’re incentivized against full spellcasting builds.

Strange design decisions

Character progression eschews the standard leveling system in favor of seemingly random upgrades. For the most part, character stats are static aside from equipment bonuses, with the main battle rewards being talent points, weapon arts, and sometimes an increase in max HP or SP (the MP equivalent). Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell how or when any of these things will increase as there is no bar dictating them. Even the guidebook function, relegated at all times to a button, uses vague terms like “sometimes” and “occasionally.” After 30 or so hours of experience, I’m still scratching my head with only vague hunches to go off of.Atelier Lulua The Scion of Arland Switch NSP

The Alliance Alive HD Remastered Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

Unfortunately, the obtuseness of character progression is further muddled by its general slowness. It takes a lot of time to see improvements in characters, and you won’t even know when they’re coming. You can purchase talents that mostly supplement your abilities, but for the most part, they don’t actually make you stronger. Talent points are also strangely stingy, and by the end of the game I had nowhere near as many talents unlocked as I would have liked.Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy Switch NSP

Add-ons (DLC): The Alliance Alive HD Remastered Switch NSP