Mighty Switch Force Academy was kind of a hard game for me to review, because not only did I really, REALLY not enjoy playing it, but it’s also hard to describe what exactly makes it so unfun without sounding like the unholy matrimony between an IGN reviewer and a broken record. But I really want to share my thoughts on this game, because there’s a lot for me to talk about, so much so that I created this whole account just to create this long ass review on why this obscure Mighty Switch Force spinoff is bad. So bear with me here, because I’m going to sound incredibly disjointed talking about Mighty Switch Force Academy.

For those who don’t know what this game is, it’s sort of a spinoff based on the Mighty Switch Force series, where rather than focusing on your player character, the whole level is in view, and you can see everything straight out the gate, from the girls you need to collect, to the enemies and player character. On paper, this doesn’t sound too bad, and actually kind of like a nice change of pace from the typical Mighty Switch Force gameplay. But taking a look at any of the screenshots or footage of the game can kind of tell you what problems it’s got already. So let’s get right into the biggest problem I have with this game; the character sizes.
Good god, these characters are fucking MICROSCOPIC in size. Like, it’s a bad sign when you actually have to SQUINT to even see where your player character is. Now, even though I think the microscopic size of these characters nearly ruins this whole game, I don’t actually think it’s a completely terrible idea for a game. I mean, look at Big Tower Tiny Square on Cool Math Games. What makes Big Tower Tiny Square work so well? Well, everything is a whole hell of a lot easier to look at, for one. The graphics are pretty simple to read so that you can focus more on platforming, and I mean, you literally play as a square. However, Mighty Switch Force Academy keeps most of the sprites from the base Switch Force games the same. If they simplified the sprites to have less pixels and made them more readable, it would’ve been a bit better, but since the sprites they reused are so detailed, it becomes a lot harder to even tell what’s going on most of the time. But Big Tower Tiny Square also works better as a smaller scale game just because the gameplay style is better accommodated for it. The game revolves around smooth platforming and the main challenge comes from seeing how well you can react to everything going on. The controls being fast and flowing well also accommodate for this. However, Mighty Switch Force’s base controls absolutely DO NOT work for this kind of game at all. Mighty Switch Force’s controls are generally kind of limiting, but they work well enough for a puzzle platformer. But when you’re already struggling to make out the what’s on screen AND trying to do somewhat precise platforming, even controlling the game kind of starts to become a fucking nightmare. But even with all the problems that come from having such tiny sprites, I still wanted to give the game a proper chance since I didn’t want to just leave my thoughts at, “Hurr hurr, the sprites are so tiny” Plus, the game has some good ideas under its belt, but this leads quite nicely into another one of my problems with Academy, the level design.

The game’s levels kind of fall under the same paradox that I was faced with when playing the original Mighty Switch Force. The game’s levels are well designed enough, but they aren’t engaging enough to make for a great action platformer, nor are they clever enough to make for a great puzzle platformer. So you’re kind of just left in this awkward middle where the game’s just kind of… boring and a bit frustrating. However, I still think despite that, Mighty Switch Force was still a pretty well designed game overall. But MAN, you really start to feel this hit hard when you’re an extremely tiny sprite. Like I mentioned before, since the controls aren’t fast paced like Big Tower Tiny Square, you have to slowwwwly make your way over to the next section of the level, which you do a lot because these levels are a lot less compact than that of the previous two games. The game does occasionally pull out ideas that I think are really interesting for a Mighty Switch Force game, like screen-warping and flipped gravity, but none of the levels really take advantage of these as much as I would’ve liked. They don’t really enhance the levels, they’re just kind of… there. These issues combined make a lot of these levels INCREDIBLY monotonous to go through, and fast. Plus, some of these levels are just straight up garbage. Iirc, I think it was Stage 10 with the huge blocks? I don’t know, but a special fuck you to that level in particular for having such precise jumps in a game like this. All in all, the main levels aren’t completely terrible, but they’re just incredibly tedious.

“Okay, so the main campaign isn’t great. Maybe this is meant to be more of a multiplayer experience” I said to myself, giving this game more credit than it deserves. Oh. My god. I couldn’t have been more wrong. In fact, the multiplayer just might be the worst part of this shitshow! So, I played the vs. mode with my sister, and from what I could tell, I think it works like this. So, you’re supposed to get the Space Hooligan as fast as you can, then take her to the big robot guy to get a point. You can also control the block-flipping while you have her. Repeat 3 times, one of the players wins. However, you can shoot the girl out of the other player, OR you can lose the girl while screen-warping, which is just fucking stupid. Sometimes, you can just… lose the girl, for absolutely no fucking reason. This mode is confusing as all hell, even for someone who’s finished BOTH Mighty Switch Force games before playing this! And at this point, we didn’t try the co-op, because we were both in agreement that vs. fucking sucked, but I can’t imagine that co-op could’ve been any better, because you’re playing the same frustrating game, but now you have to focus on a 2nd player! Seriously, I think the multiplayer in Mighty Switch Force Academy might actively make this game worse. It’s that damn bad.

I really wanted to give this game a fair chance, and I really did want to finish it. I’ve been trying to finish most of the games in my backlog before even starting up a backloggd account, and throughout the past year, I think I’ve been doing a decent job finishing a lot of my unfinished games. Even games I didn’t like, such as Mega Man 8 or Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi: Kaznapped, I was still able to finish those eventually. But Mighty Switch Force Academy is one of the first games in a long time where I all of a sudden just went, “You know what, fuck this. I’m not having fun, so I’d rather just spend my time playing a better game.” I haven’t experienced that feeling since I played Family Tennis SP, and that game is actual defecation on the face of the Wii U eShop. I know that some of you might be thinking I shouldn’t really have any right to review this game since I didn’t finish it, but I really don’t think I’ll be coming back to this one anytime soon. Personally, I still do recommend getting the Mighty Switch Force Collection as the Mighty Switch Force games are really good, but Academy to me just isn’t one of them. If you do happen upon the collection, skip this game. (3/10)