Skull Island: Rise of Kong - Nintendo Switch

Great for 11 year old boys

Good price.

Perfect Holiday Gift

I don’t normally review video games but, as this game seems to have lent itself to “meme reviews,” and it’s hard to find a serious/objective one anywhere, I figured I would throw my two cents in and perhaps help people who are considering a purchase.‘Skull Island: Rise of Kong’ is based on the 2004 illustrated novel ‘Kong: King of Skull Island’ by Brad Strickland & John Michlig and illustrated by Joe DeVito. I point this out because there is a widespread belief that the creators of this game used King Kong as the protagonist because he is in the public domain. And, while it is true that the character of King Kong, as well as the original 1932 Kong novel, are in the public domain, Strickland & Michlig’s book, and therefore (tacitly, at least) this game, is officially authorized by King Kong creator Merian C. Cooper’s estate.With that out of the way, let’s get down to brass tacks. Over the last few days, I have played this game on Switch to 100% completion (finding and completing every ascension event, getting every skill point, finding every collectible, and beating every boss). And, after my experience, the only thing I can do is emphatically and unambiguously advise anyone considering buying this game to steer clear.Everything about this game feels minimal effort. The character sprites and textures are blocky and ugly, resembling something from the GameCube era. Background elements visibly appear/disappear/morph as you get closer to or farther away from them. Enemies move cartoonishly. Dinosaurs chasing you tilt backwards and forwards like rocking horses, while giant spiders jump without bending their legs first, simply “popping” up at you from off the ground. Kong himself fares no better, looking like a wax figure that you might see in a Bigfoot museum, and with ultra-simplistic action/movement animations.Also, there are bugs galore (and I don’t just mean the giant arachnids). In my playthrough, Kong frequently got stuck when jumping onto vines to climb, or when jumping onto things like rocks or ledges. Luckily, in addition to the main save (the game can be saved manually at any point), the game saves frequently, and rarely did I have to start very far back when things froze up. The enemy A.I. is also hit-and-miss, but as you’ll see below, this may not actually be such a bad thing.For me, the bigger issue is that the game is a slog to get through. The five levels (six counting a short tutorial) are labyrinthine, and you get the feeling that the developers gratuitously supersized the maps just to pad the playtime--as if piling on the confusion and frustration would make you feel like you got your money’s worth. You go this way and that searching for “ascension events,” which consist of beating a small group of generic enemies in a confined area, and subsequently are rewarded with “skill points,” which can then be redeemed for upgrades (more on those in a minute). Along the way, there are myriad other generic enemies to fight, but there is literally no incentive to do so, and in my experience virtually all can be run past. At the end of the level, you find a boss, and upon defeating it are rewarded with a new skill. Some of these skills, then, can be used to unlock or access areas that were previously unreachable (which is necessary to get some of the collectibles), thereby adding a Metroidvania element to the proceedings.When it comes to upgrades, there are a variety to choose from--increased HP, more damage inflicted, longer jump distance, etc.--but the only one I found actually improved my game experience in any meaningful way was HP regeneration. With Kong’s HP bar refilling automatically, I didn’t have to worry about finding health pickups (which come in the form of purple flowers and are placed generously), and I could sometimes “wait out” enemies if health got tight by running around and keeping my distance or finding a place out of their reach until my life bar filled to a safer amount.Another huge issue is the scaling, or maybe the sense of scaling. Perhaps the defining characteristic of King Kong is his size. In this game, it feels like Kong is a man-sized ape, or perhaps a man in an ape suit. All of the non-boss creatures feel (at least to me) like stand-ins for real-life-sized creatures if Kong were six feet tall. There are pterosaurs, but they’re the exact size of birds if Kong were man-sized. There are small dinosaurs, but they’re the size of dogs. There are larger dinosaurs, but they’re the size of horses. Even the trees and bushes are scaled to look like normal foliage if King Kong were the size of a human being. The only exception I found to this was that inside some of the caves, there are crystals, the classic kind of crystals that branch out into little shafts from the base. These crystals dwarf Kong. Since crystals like this are so small in real life, in the caves it makes it feel like Kong is six inches rather than six feet, more like a King Kong action figure. One of the appeals of playing as King Kong, one would assume, is the sense of enormity and heft that you are bringing to bear on your surroundings; in this game, that sense of scale is completely missing.Finally, I have to bring up the single most egregious shortcoming of this game in my opinion. While there is a map for each level which can be brought up by pushing the Up arrow on the D-pad, there is absolutely no way to tell where you are on the map. No icon, no nothing. With the sheer size of the level areas, this makes the map almost useless. And, adding insult to injury, words at the bottom of the map screen emphatically declare, “Check your current position on Skull Island!” I spent hours (particularly when going back through collectible hunting) trying to figure out where I was on the map, attempting to match the geography I was seeing to the map’s vague features, almost always in vain. I finally gave up, and found only one of the six collectibles I was missing after my initial run-through with any help whatsoever from the map function.At the end of the day, this game is not just bad, it’s the worst kind of bad: not so bad that it’s good, not so bad that it’s funny, not so bad that it’s interesting, just bad. In my humble opinion, ‘Skull Island: Rise of Kong’ is the single worst all-major-platform video game release of the decade thus far. In any genre to which this game belongs, there are better choices.Over the course of his storied history, King Kong has taken on the moniker “the eighth wonder of the world.” Suffice it to say, King Kong is not the wonder of the eighth console generation.

Great switch game for Kong fans! It is a difficult game so I'd suggest it for your older kids. Good quality.

As some of the other reviewers mentioned this is a poorly designed game. The graphics are terrible for today’s standards. The game itself is very boring with little to do besides quick battles with a handful of lame opponents. For the most part you’re just walking around the jungle waiting to battle with some creature. On top of that the first time it was played the character got stuck on some vines and the game had to be reset. No amount of pressing buttons worked. To make matters worse after only a few hours of play the game would no longer load. It would start up but then immediately freeze. Tried several times and nothing worked. Returning. STAY AWAY!

Good

The gameplay is ok and I’m not usually picky about graphics but it looks like a Nintendo Wii game. Only got it because my son loves Godzilla and Kong.