It is definitely weird to play a new Wii U game now in 2022. The Wii U itself was incredibly overhated (at least partly) because of the Gamepads features being misused and the developers of Captain U set out to change the public perception of the console and failed miserably.
Captain U at its core is a NES style 2d platformer. Unfortunately it feels incredibly bad to control. If I had to compare the controls to anything, it would be the first Metroid game. You can shoot a projectile, but you can only shoot it forwards or up; not down, but I will go into why when I talk about how badly it uses the Gamepad. I don't know how to describe this, but I will try. The character model is two units big, if you duck its 1 unit big. Now if you shoot a projectile over an obstacle that is one unit big, what do you do? Well you would probably answer just shoot out the projectile while not ducking, because you have common sense. But for some reason the devs made it so that the projectile would have been send out at 1.5 units and therefore collide with the obstacle. If you want to hit an enemy behind that 1 unit high obstacle you will have to press the jump-button for what can't be higher than 3 frames. If you don't press it for long enough it will still collide, if you press it for just a little too long you will overshoot the enemy. Amazingly this is not the only problem I have with the projectile. Shooting the projectile upwards will also send it forwards. I won't have to tell you why this is bad game-design.
But there are also problems with basic movement.
Captain Us jumps feel weird, but the basic ground movement is way worse.
Your horizontal velocity overall is painfully slow. This isn't a problem at first due to there only being 9 levels which are also not long, but remember this is a platformer in the style of a NES game.
There are random difficulty spikes, insta-kills etc. and if you die you will be send back to the beginning of the level. The game uses a life system. You start out with 100 health and there are random drops that will refill your healthbar. My problems with this system exist solely because of how the Gamepads features are implemented.
To activate the Gamepad you will have to come to a full stop and press the a button, but wait there is more. Usually things like the level timer, healthbar etc. are shown on the bottom screen, but they obviously had to implement the bottom screen somehow, so they gave it like 30 different things to do. If you want, or rather have to use the bottom screen, you will have to also have to press the R-button hiding all the useful information. They couldn't have just put this information on the top screen, because that would have meant the Gamepad is useless. Don't get me wrong, I like the Wii U way more than the Switch and there are games that used the Wii U Gamepad productively, but this just play into the hands of the people saying the Gamepad is useless. But let's take a look at the "great features" that are being enabled.
First you can break blocks (which I called obstacles previously). This is the reason you can't shoot down by the way; is it a good reason? No, but it sure is one. You can also move some, but not all, platforms, which is ok I guess. Unfortunate that you have to not move to do this because it could have been a really fun feature.
You can also place blocks, which can be used to block platforms or to jump on. The latter probably being a last minute decision, because it breaks some of the levels. Some level elements use the gyro. For example platforms or other platforms that one hit you. But the worst offender is the second auto scroller, which uses the gyro for movement and controls so bad that the devs implemented a text blurb saying that they are sorry.
But by far the worst time I had with the game was the level 5 boss. He can teleport to 4 platforms and shoot out poorly telegraphed projectiles. You can either damage him by moving one of these one hit platforms using the gyro or use your own bad projectiles, both of which are not fun to use. But every time the Boss does anything it will change the screen meaning that you won't see the projectiles, because you basically have to look at a different screen every 5 seconds. The boss also two hits you. If you die you will have to redo the level, which isn't the easiest itself and if you lose every life, which you won't see how many you have left, you will be send back to the beginning of the game and replay the entire game. I haven't mentioned this before but if you only ever had to replay the level you are in this would be 1.5/5, but sending you back to the beginning of the game is just outright annoying and believe me when I say that the rest of the game isn't that much better.
This isn't helped by you having to both move fast while using the Gamepad, which if you remember doesn't really work and of course later enemies just plain out one hitting you to artificially increase the difficulty.
All in all Captain U wasn't the swan song I was hoping for, but rather just a bad NES game using what would be waggle on the Wii to try to worsen the public perception of the Wii U.
Captain U at its core is a NES style 2d platformer. Unfortunately it feels incredibly bad to control. If I had to compare the controls to anything, it would be the first Metroid game. You can shoot a projectile, but you can only shoot it forwards or up; not down, but I will go into why when I talk about how badly it uses the Gamepad. I don't know how to describe this, but I will try. The character model is two units big, if you duck its 1 unit big. Now if you shoot a projectile over an obstacle that is one unit big, what do you do? Well you would probably answer just shoot out the projectile while not ducking, because you have common sense. But for some reason the devs made it so that the projectile would have been send out at 1.5 units and therefore collide with the obstacle. If you want to hit an enemy behind that 1 unit high obstacle you will have to press the jump-button for what can't be higher than 3 frames. If you don't press it for long enough it will still collide, if you press it for just a little too long you will overshoot the enemy. Amazingly this is not the only problem I have with the projectile. Shooting the projectile upwards will also send it forwards. I won't have to tell you why this is bad game-design.
But there are also problems with basic movement.
Captain Us jumps feel weird, but the basic ground movement is way worse.
Your horizontal velocity overall is painfully slow. This isn't a problem at first due to there only being 9 levels which are also not long, but remember this is a platformer in the style of a NES game.
There are random difficulty spikes, insta-kills etc. and if you die you will be send back to the beginning of the level. The game uses a life system. You start out with 100 health and there are random drops that will refill your healthbar. My problems with this system exist solely because of how the Gamepads features are implemented.
To activate the Gamepad you will have to come to a full stop and press the a button, but wait there is more. Usually things like the level timer, healthbar etc. are shown on the bottom screen, but they obviously had to implement the bottom screen somehow, so they gave it like 30 different things to do. If you want, or rather have to use the bottom screen, you will have to also have to press the R-button hiding all the useful information. They couldn't have just put this information on the top screen, because that would have meant the Gamepad is useless. Don't get me wrong, I like the Wii U way more than the Switch and there are games that used the Wii U Gamepad productively, but this just play into the hands of the people saying the Gamepad is useless. But let's take a look at the "great features" that are being enabled.
First you can break blocks (which I called obstacles previously). This is the reason you can't shoot down by the way; is it a good reason? No, but it sure is one. You can also move some, but not all, platforms, which is ok I guess. Unfortunate that you have to not move to do this because it could have been a really fun feature.
You can also place blocks, which can be used to block platforms or to jump on. The latter probably being a last minute decision, because it breaks some of the levels. Some level elements use the gyro. For example platforms or other platforms that one hit you. But the worst offender is the second auto scroller, which uses the gyro for movement and controls so bad that the devs implemented a text blurb saying that they are sorry.
But by far the worst time I had with the game was the level 5 boss. He can teleport to 4 platforms and shoot out poorly telegraphed projectiles. You can either damage him by moving one of these one hit platforms using the gyro or use your own bad projectiles, both of which are not fun to use. But every time the Boss does anything it will change the screen meaning that you won't see the projectiles, because you basically have to look at a different screen every 5 seconds. The boss also two hits you. If you die you will have to redo the level, which isn't the easiest itself and if you lose every life, which you won't see how many you have left, you will be send back to the beginning of the game and replay the entire game. I haven't mentioned this before but if you only ever had to replay the level you are in this would be 1.5/5, but sending you back to the beginning of the game is just outright annoying and believe me when I say that the rest of the game isn't that much better.
This isn't helped by you having to both move fast while using the Gamepad, which if you remember doesn't really work and of course later enemies just plain out one hitting you to artificially increase the difficulty.
All in all Captain U wasn't the swan song I was hoping for, but rather just a bad NES game using what would be waggle on the Wii to try to worsen the public perception of the Wii U.
2 Comments
I just think it’s more interesting to review games nobody knows. Also it Kind of bothered me that most reviews of this game in particular (on YouTube) where overwhelmingly positive. This is one of the worst games I‘ve ever played.
FallenGrace
2 years ago