Headland is an isometric action-adventure game from Danish studio Northplay Games. It's also another of the many mobile games that have been ported to the Nintendo Switch. This is a fairly broad category when it comes to quality. For every major mobile port, something less reputable is also released on the eShop.
This fact makes it quite difficult to read what Headland could be. Fortunately, the developers have created a usable game.
Headland Review – A Pleasant But Fleeting Adventure
The story opens with the hero, Nor, waking up in the middle of the night. As he gets out of bed, his toy robot speaks to him and opens a portal to The Headland. After passing through the portal, Nor encounters a personified version of his toy robot who now has fantastic powers. These powers are given to him by The Imagination Core, a sphere in the robot's chest.
At the end of the introductory level, a terrifying nightmarish worm takes The Imagination Core and shatters it. Nor's quest is to find all the pieces of The Imagination Core and return the sphere to his robot.
The Headland is a thinly veiled metaphor for Nor's imagination. The metaphor is fully explained later when Nor walked out of The Headland being scolded for daydreaming in school. The entire narrative revolves around the concept that nurturing your imagination is a good thing, which is true, although Headland doesn't spend time considering the idea beyond that simple premise.
Pieces of The Imagination Core are hidden in certain levels of Headland. To the game's credit, the level design is gorgeous. Each area isn't too big to be intimidating, but they're also so densely packed with collectibles, battles, and secrets that I never got bored with any of them. I always knew what my goal was and could see the next thing to interact with.
This does not mean that they are simple. Clearing a level is confusing. Some doors are locked behind color-coded keys, traversal methods must be purchased with level collectibles, and each stage's main objective is unique. One of them requires you to build a city while another has you on a weird type of game show. This keeps each level from feeling monotonous.
Unlike the layouts and scene objectives, the visual design is a disappointment; they all look exactly alike. There are a maximum of three area planes: a forest, a mine, or a palace. It would have been nice if the visuals matched the variety of activities they contain.
It's also worth mentioning the character designs here. They are all awful except for the final boss. Neither is meant to be a child, but sounds like a middle-aged office worker who still talks like it's a temp job. The main robot is a legally separate version of Clank from the Ratchet & Clank series, and the other robot is the generic toy robot from any other form of media. NPCs are those weird head gnome things that scare me, but at least they're interesting.
To safely venture through The Headland, Nor is armed with a sword, a dash, and a magical force field, and it is here that Headland feels crippled as a mobile port. Phone inputs are limited, which, in turn, limits commands on Switch. The only ways Nor can interact with enemies are these three actions. The force field isn't even always an option because it has to be charged. Once charged, it just spins around as you throw it at enemies. All Nor can do with the sword is swing it and perform a three-hit combo, but it's not a particularly deep fight.
Some depth is added by enemy mechanics. Each attacks in a different way that requires you to approach them in unique ways. However, Nor still fights them by swinging his sword in the same way.
To add to the woes of combat, using the moves isn't as enjoyable as it could be. The cadence of button presses to trigger the three-hit combo is faster than it feels natural. The dash is slower and clumsier than it should be. The forcefield will expire if you don't use it, and if you have a charged forcefield but aren't close enough to something to use it, then it's wasted. These issues don't completely kill the fight, but engaging enemies in Headland could be a lot more satisfying.
While you can't deepen combat, you can make Nor more capable. Weapon health, damage, and perks can all be upgraded on The Robot Raft, Headland's hub world. When you level up, you gain an inspiration point. This point can be spent on a health tree or a damage tree.
The most interesting upgrades are weapon perks. There are a variety of types of swords to bring into Nor's adventure. The advantage of the starter sword is higher recoil, but other swords do different things like increase your movement speed or the speed of your sword swings. Upgrading perks can be done by spending wood, stone, or gold harvested from stages.
New swords are unlocked in battle arenas. Entering a battle arena requires spending a specific key. Once inside, you must complete a wave-based enemy challenge to earn the new weapon. This is the only place where I encountered a bug. The lowest level arena does not spawn enemies, making it impossible to complete in its current version.
Headland Review – The Bottom Line
Benefits
- Wonderful level design
- Many ways to improve the player character
- Variety in enemy design
The inconvenients
- The fight could feel better and be deeper
- Several areas are visually missing
- Unimportant story
- Not memorable overall
Headland is a good action-adventure game. It would have been pretty good if it was only on mobile. However, for an action-adventure game on Nintendo Switch, more is needed.
It's hard to recommend Headland over the more ambitious offerings on the eShop. If you buy Headland for the Nintendo Switch, you won't have a bad time, but you'll quickly move on to the next deal.
[Note: Northplay Games provided the copy of Headland used for this review.]
