Review: Slide stars

Review: Slide stars

I got another Nintendo Switch game in our mailbox, and damn, do I love getting those! This time I played Slide Stars, a game by Triangle Studios, a developer located in The Netherlands. Slide Stars is the first water racing adventure in which you can play with over 20 of the world’s biggest international social media stars. Or at least that’s what the game promises. Let’s dive into this new adventure together, shall we?

We played Slide Stars for over 3 hours on the Nintendo Switch

What we liked!

  • Different rides: One of the few things I liked about Slide Stars, were the rides you could choose from. You start with a flamingo and along the way, you can unlock new rides (as well as stars, by the way). A few of the rides are: a seahorse, a tractor tire, a skyrocket, a baby turtle, and a rubber duck. Alongside with these various rides, you can also buy and unlock other ‘skins’ for these rides, like a silver flamingo instead of a pink one, or a log with leaves instead of without. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but seeing these rides and different options, was fun.

Somewhere between

  • Stars: I dived into this game expecting actual stars like Johnny Depp (maybe not him but you know what I mean, big stars). Unfortunately, this was not the case. Apparently, Slide Stars features social media stars, which I did not know in the beginning. So, warning: don’t go buying this game before reading the description. I ended up with a bunch of influencers that I did not know. For real, I didn’t know a single name in the game. That might just be me though because my boyfriend and another friend did recognize one or two names. But then again, they pointed out Freek Vonk, a Dutch biologist, and both of them are from the Netherlands, so that’s probably why they knew his name.

What we disliked

  • Gameplay: The gameplay seems pretty straightforward, but controlling your ride isn’t as easy as it seems, let me tell you. Still, it was a pretty simple concept where you only use your left and right stick, alongside with ‘A’ to jump. You gather coins along the way while avoiding traps and other obstacles. Every slide is different, yet it still feels the same over and over again, making the gameplay feel repetitive. After a few slides, I was pretty much done with the game, and I would have quit if it wasn’t for the fact that I had to write a review for it. Another thing that annoyed me, was that you could barely see ahead of yourself. I could never speed up because I never knew if there was an obstacle, some explosives, or anything else that would force me to slow down.
  • Pricetag: I don’t know who in their right mind would ever pay 40 Euros for a game like this. I could see it going for like 5 to 10 Euros, 15 maximum, but never 40 freaking bucks. It doesn’t offer enough to get this price, and from what I’ve seen from other reviews passing, it’s not a very liked game. I understand that the developers might have put a lot of time, money, and effort into this game, but you’re never going to reach players with this price. It’s not because you have a few ‘known’ influencers in your game, that people will pay.
  • Short: I also want to mention how short this game is. It has a bit over 20 slides that you can complete and that’s it. Even if your gameplay is boring, I’d expect to find at least one component that makes up for the price tag but nope, the duration of the game isn’t it either. I guess you can replay some levels in order to get all objectives (three medals and a complete star), but still, it’s incredibly short.

CONCLUSION

30%

I guess you can have some fun with Slide Stars, but it will start feeling boring and repetitive quite soon, I expect. The only thing I really liked was trying out the various rides, but besides this, I did not enjoy this game very much. I don’t know how the developers even dared to ask 40 Euros for this game, and I doubt this will be a memorable game for Triangle Studios.
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