{"id":19968,"date":"2020-03-20T00:01:54","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T00:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=19968"},"modified":"2020-03-07T13:57:59","modified_gmt":"2020-03-07T13:57:59","slug":"vitamin-connection-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/20\/vitamin-connection-switch\/","title":{"rendered":"Vitamin Connection (Switch)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Meet the Sable family.\u00a0 Mom, Dad, an elementary school kid, a baby, and a dog.\u00a0 When they get sick, it\u2019s up to Vita-Boy and Mina-Girl to pilot a vitamin capsule inside their bodies to stop a bacterial infection\u2026and maybe even save the world in the process.\u00a0 Vitamin Connection is a Switch exclusive for one or two players.\u00a0 You\u2019ll use your Switch JoyCon controllers in unique ways as you steer the vitamin capsule through microscopic mazes while avoiding obstacles and defeating bacteria with your Vita-Blaster!\u00a0 It kind of reminds me of a cross between Life Force and Irritating Stick, with some WarioWare style mini-games for good measure.<\/p>\n

Each level represents a member of the Sable family.\u00a0 One of them will get sick and you\u2019ll need to pilot the vitamin capsule inside their bodies through mazes.\u00a0 Rotate the vitamin capsule to avoid hitting walls or obstacles.\u00a0 You can also fire a vitamin beam at enemies, but be careful as a meter will go down and you\u2019ll have to wait for it to recharge to use the beam again.\u00a0 At certain vital organ points in the mazes, you\u2019ll have to play a mini-game to proceed.<\/p>\n

These mini-games can be as simple as a Pong match or dance rhythm game.\u00a0 Other times you\u2019ll have to steer through mazes with different shaped objects.\u00a0 Some games use the JoyCon in creative ways.\u00a0 One game has you grabbing objects and avoiding obstacles, and if you are playing in two player mode, one person steers the ship and the other extends the grabber by moving their real hand toward and away from the JoyCon infrared camera!\u00a0 You\u2019ll win the stage by completing all the mini-games and exiting the level, but if you run out of energy in the maze or in a mini-game, you\u2019ll have to start back over at the last save point, which is usually at the last branching path.<\/p>\n

One of the best things about the game is the production values and personality.\u00a0 The music is almost Katamari Damacy quality, and makes me wish I would\u2019ve sprung for the special edition with the soundtrack.\u00a0 Also, as you travel through the body mazes, you\u2019ll meet other microscopic characters, and the voice acting is top notch.\u00a0 Really gives the game a Saturday morning cartoon feel.\u00a0 My favorite part is in the level inside the dog, you\u2019ll meet up with some calcium represented by two dog rappers.\u00a0 And as you play that stage, they\u2019ll rap about being a Good Boy and other doggy tropes.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the game isn\u2019t perfect.\u00a0 The main problem I had with the game is the controls.\u00a0 Mainly with the claw.\u00a0 After the first level, you\u2019ll get a claw grabbing tool that you can use to move objects out of the way.\u00a0 I never could get the hang of using this in single or two player mode.\u00a0 It\u2019s a shame, too, because you need to master it to defeat the last boss.\u00a0 I did manage to beat it, but I really had to muddle through it.\u00a0 I wish they would\u2019ve omitted the claw mechanic altogether.\u00a0 Also I feel the difficulty is imbalanced.\u00a0 I had a hard time with some of the mini-games early on, but then breezed through most of the rest of the game after that.\u00a0 And I wish you could switch control modes during levels.\u00a0 When I was in handheld mode, it wouldn\u2019t let me switch to TV mode to keep playing, and I also wish you could have a second player join in and drop out at any time, like a LEGO game.\u00a0 You have to play it in two players as a separate file.\u00a0 If there is a way to switch controls and modes mid-game like that, I couldn\u2019t figure out how to do it.<\/p>\n

I was worried the game would be too short, but after beating it, you open up a hard mode where you play as a different character, and the story is different, too!\u00a0 Also, when you get all five hidden stars in a level, you\u2019ll open up an extra bonus level.\u00a0 And you can unlock and play the mini-games separately, too (love the title screen art on these).\u00a0 So there is a bit of replay value to be had here.\u00a0 Overall, Vitamin Connection reminds me of games from the late 90\u2019s.\u00a0 You know, stuff like PaRappa the Rapper or Mega Man Legends.\u00a0 Like those games, Vitamin Connection isn\u2019t perfect and has some flaws, but it has a lot of personality and heart like those games did.\u00a0 And that\u2019s something sorely missing from a lot of other games today.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vitamin Connection is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Crude Humor and Mild Fantasy Violence.\u00a0 Since you play inside people\u2019s bodies, there is some bodily function humor here and there.\u00a0 And you can zap cartoony germs with a beam, and defeated characters explode into dust.\u00a0 But that\u2019s about as violent as it gets.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for the text, and younger gamers may find it too difficult.\u00a0 The two player option makes it great to play co-op with family and friends.<\/p>\n

One other thing I wanted to mention is that there is a warning at the beginning of the game that tells you that this is a work of fiction and you shouldn\u2019t freely give pills to people and animals if you don\u2019t know what they are.\u00a0 And that\u2019s a good point, as the game does show a kid giving a pill to a dog, which is something a real kid shouldn\u2019t do without parental supervision.\u00a0 But the game also has the pill fixing a broken TV set, so it\u2019s all silly and cartoony.\u00a0 But as you play this game with your kids, it\u2019s still a good talking point about medicine safety, especially with everything going on in the world right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet the Sable family.\u00a0 Mom, Dad, an elementary school kid, a baby, and a dog.\u00a0 When they get sick, it\u2019s up to Vita-Boy and Mina-Girl to pilot a vitamin capsule inside their bodies to stop a bacterial infection\u2026and maybe even save the world in the process.\u00a0 Vitamin Connection is a Switch exclusive for one or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19968"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19970,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19968\/revisions\/19970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}