Here's what I've tried so far.

Mutant Mudds Super Challenge: More Mutant Mudds really. What the demo offered wasn't really too challenging but still enjoyable. Not a huge fan of the gameplay style since it's very basic at its core but whoever enjoyed the original will still find fun in this. The boss at the end was a nice change of pace though.

Rive: Had always been very curious about this one. It's a bit hectic to start with but once you get the hang of it and unlock hacking abilities, it becomes quite fun. Explosions everywhere! Nice visual style and will probably offer more in-depth combat in the full game I'm sure. A nice taste of what's to come.

Soul Axiom: Eh... it's interesting but the game feels very slow to control. Hopefully the full game offers more options but even using the running feels very slow to move around. Oh and holding down L3 to run? Baaaaad. Click to run but holding down is just awful. Puzzles were very basic and annoying to navigate.

Freedom Planet: Very much enjoyed what I played. It feels a bit too fast like Sonic and maybe the camera's closeness to the character annoys me more than it should but the gameplay is fun. Nothing too complex combat wise like I had hoped but maybe the full game offers more.

Typoman: Great idea for a puzzle mechanic. Solving puzzles by spelling out words from letters given to use is a fresh idea. Curious if this just becomes old or really pushes you to think hard. There's only one area where the answer isn't as obvious as the rest but it was still fun once the answer clicked.

That's it for now. I'll probably give the others a shot later, assuming I have enough room to download them all!

This sounds awesome. Is this a thing in Europe as well, I wonder?

EDIT: It is! Downloading so hard right now.

I didn't know Rive was coming out so soon! I, uh, apparently signed up to be a tester for it with an email account I never use and just now saw that I've had access to builds of that game for a long time now and just never checked it out. Ooops.

Check out Lovely Planet, gang.

I landed in my GOTY Top 10 last year.

Oh shoot, I missed Lovely Planet in there! Yup, that's a wonderfully fun game. It's like the Super Meat Boy of first person shooters. Very fast paced.

The only one of these I'm pretty sure I'm getting is Runbow but considering all you need to do is download a demo for the discount, might as well try a few out.

/EDIT Wait, what is Extreme Exorcism? Is Wii U finally getting its own Samurai Gunn / Towerfall type 2D 4 player brawler?! Though it looks like the co-op is the focus and the brawler is the side mode? I dunno. Could be fun.

Alright, I've tried them all. Quick impressions.

Mutant Mudds Super Challenge - More Mutant Mudds. VofE up there might have cruised through it but I found it very challenging. Might check it out.

Rive - This is probably my favorite of the demos, and I had never even heard of this game before. It's a fast-paced 2D SHMUP that switches between flying (ship), ground (tank) and sea (sub). You can also hack things (for instance I hacked a health bot and it followed me around healing). Lots of creativity in the small bit I played.

Soul Axiom - First person puzzler? To be honest I barely touched this one since the framerate was kind of bad and it was giving me motion sickness. Could be ok though.

Freedom Planet - New Sonic game without having the rights to a Sonic game. I have never cared much for Sonic's odd run forward really fast but sometimes somehow know you aren't supposed to gameplay, so this didn't instantly grip me but for Sonic fans it looks good.

Typoman - Limbo-esque platformer puzzler with word puzzles. You basically can move around letters to make words to solve puzzles and such. Seemed ok.

Forma.8 - A 2D game where you are this blob thingy that flies around and some shooting and puzzle solving. Didn't really get that into this one.

Lovely Planet - Kind of an odd game, felt like a Katamari Damacy style first person shooter. Instead of running around fighting tons of heavy AI enemies though it seems more about getting through short areas as fast as possibly without getting hit by basic enemies (single hit = death). I dunno.

Extreme Exorcism - This was another of my favorite demos, and I didn't even get to play the multiplayer which I am sure will be a huge part of the appeal. It's an odd concept... you play through these one screen areas killing ghosts with a huge variety of weapons... but the catch is that each time you clear a screen you have to go up against the ghosts of well... yourself, who do the exact same movements you just did. Why that would happen when you are still alive I have no idea but after say... 5 screens stage 6 will now have 5 of your ghosts running around. Neat concept and I really hope the multi turns out great.

Runbow - Not sure what to think about this. I suspect it really needs to be played with a bunch of people (it supports up to 9 players!) to get it. Basically it's just a race through these 2D platforming areas to see who can get to the end first. The catch is that the screen keeps changing hue and every time it changes certain platforming elements appear or disappear. It felt kind of basic to be honest but with 9 players it would probably be nuts.

Can you download these all at once or do you have to download them one by one?

@Jargon

One by one. Must have been 10-12 minutes of waiting for eShop pages to load up, for me.



Played them all, and RIVE is definitely my most eagerly awaited. Typoman is also really interesting, Runbow will be incredible at parties, and both Karen and I enjoyed Extreme Exorcism.

Lovely Planet I feel I can't play without a mouse and keyboard. Controls just aren fast and precise enough for this kind of game to be satisfying instead of frustrating.

I thought I'd like Forma.8 more than I did. Demo was kind of slow and boring.

@Guillaume

That's what I feared. Not going to buy any of these right away anyway so won't bother.

@Jargon It didn't take me too long. Or maybe it did but I was on my computer and I barely noticed.

I downloaded all the demos yesterday just to ensure I could get a discount if desired but many of these look really cool.

Freedom Planet and Runbow are the ones making me the most curious.

It'd be great if Freedom Planet would make the gaming community realize people still enjoy old school Sonic-type games.

How long will you be able to take advantage of this discount for? Like if I download these now, will I get the discount forever or is it a limited time?

I'm pretty sure it's a month or so. When you download a demo it will tell you.

If there were a way to download all with one click, I'd probably try them all, but now I may just try one or two.

I played through the demo of Freedom Planet and was really impressed. It's so similar to Sonic the Hedgehog games on the Genesis, but with more stylish moves to pull off. Those moves also have some punchy sound effects that makes the gameplay feel extra satisfying.

Freedom Planet is like a Sonic game with good jumping physics.

Finally tried out all the demos, and it seemed to be a good bunch overall.

Will definitely get Rive! Not sure why I didn't expect it to be all that, considering who made it, but I was happily surprised by it. Mutant Mudds will be mine as well, 'cause I liked the first one. Runbow could be one hell of a local multi-game, but I don't have a whole lot of friends close by, so that will have to wait. Same goes for Extreme Exorcism, I think.

I love the 16-bit Sonics and Gunstar Heroes, so Freedom Planet was good fun, even if it didn't seem to come close to either of the two classics. Typoman and Forma.8 were a bit 'meh', I thought, I couldn't even play Lovely Planet since it didn't let me invert the Y-axis, and Soul Axiom had such a horrible framerate that I quit after just a couple of minutes. Still, glad I got to try these out, and a handful of them seem great.

VofEscaflowne said:

Freedom Planet: Very much enjoyed what I played. It feels a bit too fast like Sonic and maybe the camera's closeness to the character annoys me more than it should but the gameplay is fun. Nothing too complex combat wise like I had hoped but maybe the full game offers more.

The full game has lots of bosses and minibosses that demand pattern recognition and quick reflexes, much more so than Sonic games. I got stuck on a lot of bosses, actually. Thankfully the checkpoints are generous.

@chrisbg99 The physics work similarly, but Freedom Planet's aren't quite as loose, so they're more lenient than classic Sonic but less adaptive. I like 'em both.




Soul Axiom -- Long load times for such a poor framerate. Also, not the best walking simulator I've ever played.

Lovely Planet -- Fun and I like the simplicity of it, but I'd much rather play with Wiimote/nunchuk or mouse/keyboard.

Mutant Mudds Super Challenge -- Kinda tedious and dull. Actually, I'm pretty sure I played the demo for the 3DS game and wasn't into that, either.

Typoman -- Decent Limbo-type thing. But that's not really my bag these days.

Runbow -- Simple but fun. I can see this being a good time multiplayer.

Forma.8 -- Got to the lava caves and stopped. Seems okay for what it is, but it's not what I'm into these days.

Extreme Exorcism -- Pretty clever little scheme for an arcade game.

Rive -- Easily the standout of the bunch, fast and flashy twin-stick shooter.