Developer: Illfonic, Black Tower Studios
Publisher: Gun Media
Platform: Switch, Xbox One, PS4
Tested on: PS4
Friday the 13th: The Game Ultimate Slasher Edition – Review
Friday the 13th has been a major horror series, that even now still spawns a movie now and then. While many will probably argue the original is still the best, the sequels still have their fair share of followers. The online game fittingly called Friday the 13th: The Game, was released back in June in 2017 and didn’t really have a huge success. Now, two years later, the Ultimate Slasher Edition makes its way onto the Switch and we were quite curious to see how this horror survival game would fare on Nintendo’s handheld.
Story
There is no story to be told in Friday the 13th: The Game Ultimate Slasher Edition, which is not really an issue, as this is pretty much an online-only experience. This release probably also tries to revive the franchise, as younger gamers will probably not know much of the series. You’ll simply be able to pick a Jason character out of eight of the movies, leaving out the Jason character of the original film. Other than that, there’s not much more to tell.
Graphics
Graphically the game isn’t all too impressive. You can count the visible pixels all over the screen and the camera angle sometimes shows you very choppy animations. The characters all look like they were created for a console like the PlayStation 2, rather than a next-gen console. While there is a proper amount of clutter on the map, things look dated, and the animations of the game also look stiff and not finished. More than often certain animations won’t trigger, making it quite unclear if you performed an action or not. If you’re looking for an impressive horror spectacle, then this game won’t provide it for you.
Sound
The sound design of the game is something that is fairly decent. You’ll experience fairly atmospheric music and the music does get tenser when Jason is near a possible victim. Other than that, there are a few proper sound effects, the occasional scream, a few chopping sounds and so on. The game does not provide you with an overly impressive soundtrack, but what’s there is decent.
Gameplay
Friday the 13th: The Game Ultimate Slasher Edition is an (online) horror survival game, which either puts you in the shoes of legendary murderer Jason Voorhees, or one of the helpless camp leaders that might end up being chopped to bits. You’ll either have to kill everyone or try to make it out alive by escaping, having the police aid you or simply wait until the timer reaches zero.
We were quite surprised to see the online servers as active as they are on the game. You’ll have no issues finding matches to actually play the game, which is a huge plus. Online it will be somewhat of a roulette on who becomes Jason, and who will play as a camp leader. From there on out, it’s simply a matter of survival or slaying all the camp leaders. The game is pretty straightforward in what it requires of the player, but the same cannot be said about the controls.
The controls feel stiff from start to finish, no matter if you play with one of the different embodiments of Jason or with one of the camp leaders. There’s no proper tutorial to be found, which doesn’t help either. Everything feels clunky and as if it has been designed in a rush. The same can be said about the offline mode, which is there but doesn’t provide you with more than a way to play with Jason a bit. There is nothing to be earned by playing offline, which means you’ll be forced to play online if you truly want the proper experience.
There’s a perk system you can explore, which gives you some boosts the more you play. You earn CP when you complete matches, which allows you to buy perks. This is a small motivation to keep playing and make the game a tad more interesting. The more you play, the more experience you’ll get and in turn, you’ll unlock new Jason characters and camp leaders to play with.
Conclusion
Friday the 13th: The Game Ultimate Slasher Edition is a lukewarm release for the Nintendo Switch. If played with friends, you might have a bit of fun, but with total strangers, there is hardly any communication on who does what. Other than that, the game is riddled with control issues, poor camera angles, shitty graphics and forced grinding and waiting for our game sessions to finish for you to be able to progress. If you like games like Dead by Daylight, then this one might be fun as a pocket-sized release, but truth be told, it’s best to avoid this one.
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haha sick you used all the screens i took 😀