Switch it up……….in glorious 1080p

Mighty Switch Force was first released in the 3DS eShop in 2011, and it quickly became one of the best games on the service. About a year later, Wayforward decided to bring the game to Nintendo’s newest home console, the Wii U. But instead of it just being the same game with better visuals, Wayforward decided to push the hyper drive button and sent this game into hyper driving, and it really shows that.

Plot:
The story is the same as the 3DS version, except for the hand-drawn sprites/graphics and it being on the Wii U. The game begins showing a police car crashing, with Officer Patricia Wagon on the scene, but then, the Hooligan Sisters suddenly all escape from the police car, with one of them breaking a testtube with some chemical that makes monsters appear from it, now Patricia must chase after the Hooligans Sisters and bring them to justice. All of this is explained once you press start from the first time, but it only shows you this once, you can’t replay it ever again, unless you delete your save file.

Gameplay:
Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition, is a blend of an action platfromer with some puzzle elements in it. The goal of this game is to find and track down all five Hooligan sisters in each incident. The Wii U gamepad shows you where the closest sister is, or by an icon if you’re playing on the gamepad itself. The Sisters all go run and hide from the one woman police officer, and they don’t move or anything once officer Wagon approaches, which seems odd because that’s what they were trying to do in the first place. While the sisters won’t be a threat, the enemies they created from the chemical in the testtube will. Patricia has a gun that she uses to shoot enemies that get in her way, however, she can only shoot enemies that are in front of her, but not in any other direction. One of the key features in this game is that you’ll be switching blocks from the foreground to the background. Switching blocks can help you climb to the very top or defeat enemies. There are a few different blocks in the game, the basic blocks, which only goes foreground to the background, the warp blocks, which will send you flying, and if you switch while passing through a warp block, you’ll go in the direction of that block, indicated by a yellow arrow. And the red and blue lock blocks, which won’t switch in the background if you’re standing on the color block

Levels:
The 3DS version only had 21 levels (or in this case, incidents is what they are called), with the first 15 being normal levels, trying to figure out where the Hooligan Sisters are hiding and get to Corporal Gendarmor. In Level 16, you can’t control the switching and it happens atomically, with a boss fight at the end. After the credits, you’ll play the bonus levels. After you complete the last bonus level, then you’ll unlock the “hyper drive” levels. These levels look identical to the regular levels (in fact, these are the regular levels), except everything’s been changed around, with more enemies and different locations that the sisters are hiding in (and the spikes, don’t forget about the spikes), making everything tougher and more challenging. Once Patricia collects all of the sisters, then she’ll have to run to Corporal Gendarmor and the stage will then be completed.

Controls:
If you've played the 3DS version, then you pretty much know the controls of the Wii U version. The controls in the game are very responsive and work very well, especially if you are switching and jumping, while shooting at the enemies. You can control Patricia with the along stick or the d-pad. It’s nice to have both control schemes for those who prefer one over the other. The B button makes Patricia jump; she jumps the same height, no matter if you hold in the button in or not that long. When you press and hold the X button, you can scout the area around you, not around the whole stage, but near Patricia’s location. Most of the other buttons can be used to switch the block, that’s also good for those who prefer one button over the other. There’s no way to change the controls, but the layout is already perfect, so there’s really no need to.

Graphics:
The 3DS version had pixel sprites for the backgrounds and characters, this version however have hand-drawn characters and background sprites, and they all look amazing. The characters are all colorful and detailed, which is a good thing since they all animate pretty good on the highly detailed backgrounds.

Sound:
The original soundtrack from the 3DS game is present in this version, and they all still sound great, whether you’re listening to it on your TV or game pad (or your 3DS, or your Ipod, or your computer, etc.). The hyper drive levels feature remixes of all of the regular stage music, which is a nice addition to this version, since it helps make the hyper drive levels different for the regular levels, and they all sound great as well.

Difficulty:
The games difficulty is the same as the 3DS version, until you reach the hyper drive stages, where things get tougher. While the mighty buster is here to help (once you unlock it), some of the hyper stages can be tricky, even with the gun’s help, and paring the hyper stages will require you to play the stages over again.

Replayability:
While this game is longer than the 3DS versions, it can still be completed in a couple of hours. Since there’s more levels in this version, paring all of the levels will take much longer than before, since the hyper drive levels are much harder (but they’ll be much easier with the mighty gun). You’ll mostly likely come back to try and improve your times and par levels, though it would have been nice if there was an online leaderboard.

Overall:
Mighty Switch Force was already a great game, and on the Wii U, it’s even better than before. If you already own the 3DS version of Mighty Switch Force, then it’ll be worth it to double dip for this version. Either way Hooligan Sisters, whether you try and hide in the 3D portable device or the HD game console with a tablet for a controller, Officer Patricia Wagon will be after you to service justice, proving that the mighty can become the mightier.
9/10