--Abbey Walker, Wolfenstein: Youngblood
In Wolfenstein: Youngblood, BJ Blazkowicz's twin daughters Jess and Soph launch a desparate search for their father, whose sudden disappearance concerns the family. It quickly becomes apparent that the gravity of the premise contrasts with the playfulness of the dialogue. The twins are often rather silly and lighthearted, giving each other fist bumps and dancing in elevators as they traverse through Nazi-infested landscapes. The sadism and cruelty of the Nazis in other Wolfenstein games is toned down drastically, and the general tone of the game is much lighter (and less philosophically charged) than the tone and themes of The New Colossus, even if the shooting is still fairly violent.
Since I played the Deluxe Edition, it is worth mentioning that the Buddy Pass, which is included only with the Deluxe Edition of the game (along with some additional weapon and suit skins), allows a player who does not own the game to play along as the second sister for free. This feature alone will justify the $10 price increase for those eager to play with friends as quickly and cheaply as possible for all parties. I have never heard of another game having a feature like this, so at least Youngblood stands out for this reason alone.
I want to clarify before going any further that the Switch version of Youngblood has hardware limitations that the game would not have on other consoles. Some of the following criticisms, therefore, only apply to the Switch edition.
Production Values
Anyone who goes from playing shooters on a traditional console to playing Youngblood on the Switch should be able to immediately see that the graphics of the latter are noticeably inferior to those of the former. The performance does suffer when numerous large enemies simultaneously attack you in an enclosed area, but the blurry visuals are a constant, particularly when you engage in swift motions. The motion blur is perhaps even worse in the Switch version of Youngblood than it is in the Switch port of Doom (which I plan on reviewing at some point).
In addition to occasional offline slowdown and the consistently blurry visuals, there are a number of late game glitches that warrant mention. While these glitches largely appeared in the last of the story missions, they included missing floors, spontaneous ejection out of the accessible areas of the map, and cutscene-to-game transition problems that actually crashed the game. The game is certainly not unplayable, and the graphics certainly aren't horrendous by handheld standards during slow movements, but the visual and technical issues might make the PS4 or Xbox One version a better fit for someone who owns one of those systems in addition to a Switch.
The sound fares much better, fortunately. The mechanical Nazi soldiers, German audio cassette logs, and dialogue are all realized well, even if the latter is often somewhat comedic and is simply shared by the two sisters for much of the game. Jess and Soph are prone to give each other random comments of encouragement during firefights, but they even briefly mention things like their thoughts on how clueless some men are about the intensity of women's sex drives and the need for "Old Testament justice" (as if they are likely to understand the actual legal commands and applications of Mosaic Law to begin with). Some might easily find their spontaneous conversations annoying, but the joking is not the whole of their dialogue.
Gameplay
Upon starting a new file, players select one of BJ's daughters, customize their power suit color, ability, and helmet type (more options are available for purchase using silver coins found in the environments), and then complete an assassination mission on a Nazi blimp. After the "prologue," players can walk around an underground resistance base in New Paris, a Nazi stronghold in this version of the 1980s. The resistance hideout serves as a hub from which you can visit other aboveground areas in the game, with underground areas having access points scattered throughout those aboveground locations.
As you progress through the main story, more connections between regions become available, and various alternate routes through familiar areas might be discovered. Some of these alternate routes need flashlights due to severe darkness, while others can be used to stealthily avoid enemies or to silently kill them. For those who prefer to simply walk or run to enemies and directly engage in gunfights, however, there are plenty of opportunities to fight, as well as plenty of opportunities to improve weaponry. More than 100 weapon upgrade options can greatly enhance the attributes of each individual weapon (other than the melee weapons), given that you have enough silver coins to purchase them--silver is easily found in small quantities throughout the game.
Character upgrades, as opposed to weapon upgrades, are purchased with points obtained as your character levels up or as she completes certain missions. These points can be spent on things like a secrets indicator, (eventually) the ability to catch grenades in the air and hurl them back, and health or armor capacity extensions. Yes, you can pick up armor like in 2016's Doom, and this is not the only similarity: the weapon wheel in Youngblood resembles that of Doom, though pulling it up does not slow the game as it did before due to the nature of online co-op. As the upgrades suggest, Youngblood is full of overt RPG elements, from the health bars above enemies to the leveling system to the large emphasis on weapon attributes.
Despite the game being crafted around the central co-op mechanics, you can play through the entire game alone, the other sister being controlled by an AI at all times. In fact, the very nature of many objectives requires simultaneous input from both sisters. The AI is actually helpful for the most part, even if she doesn't always revive you when she is under serious attack (yes, an AI that doesn't inhabit a biological body is inherently genderless, but the character herself is a woman). All of her kills generate XP for the sister controlled by the player, but the incentive for actively killing enemies instead of letting the AI take care of them is that only player kills can level up weapons.
Story
Spoilers!
When BJ Blazkowicz abruptly goes missing, his daughters leave their home in Texas to search for him in New Paris, bringing their friend Abbey along with them. The fact that many missions can be played in whatever sequence the player wishes means that the story is secondary to the gameplay and co-op, but there are some twists and revelations that unfold as the sisters complete their assignments.
Intellectual Content
As compared to The New Colossus, Youngblood is very thematically weak due to the game's minimal story. There are legions of collectibles, though. Some of the areas containing the collectibles are not obvious, but objects can be collected by simply walking up to tables, desks, or racks and pressing the Y button when the prompt appears. There are no puzzles that must be solved to obtain them, even if creative exploration is sometimes necessary to actually get to the locations holding the items.
Conclusion
Youngblood is a good game at its core, but its storytelling is intentionally weak to accomodate the nonlinear co-op missions, and it does run poorly at times on the Switch. None of this should stop a fan of the franchise from playing it on the Switch if they have no other options, but anyone who owns another current generation console might want to try the game on another system. As far as the length of the game is concerned, it took me right around 16.5 hours to complete every story and secondary mission at level 51. Even at that point, I still had many character upgrades to obtain and many weapon upgrades to buy, and it might take around 5-10 more hours to level up enough to buy every character enhancement. Youngblood is not the longest co-op game, but it isn't the utter atrocity that some reviewers describe it as.
Content
1. Violence: Although the blurriness of in-game motions does obscure some of the blood, killing human enemies with firearms and melee attacks alike is a bloody affair.
2. Profanity: The twins regularly infuse profanity into their dialogue, and they especially favor f-bombs. It seems like I would get along with them rather well!
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