Demo Time: Lonely Mountains: Downhill (NS)

I've been aware of Lonely Mountains: Downhill for a couple of months now although I forgot where I originally heard about it, probably on Twitter.  What drew me to the game was the visual aesthetic, the somewhat simplified graphics, or at least the lack of detail in the textures of the characters and the world, and its take on extreme Red Bull-esque mountain biking. 

So, now I present to you, after carefully deciding on my control style and analyzing the button mapping, my first ride in Lonely Mountains: Downhill Demo on the Nintendo Switch.

Yeah.  I'm that good.

Admittedly it did take me a while to figure out what the two different control schemes meant and I ended up going with the simplified Left/Right Controls because that is what seemed the easiest to get me off of the top of the mountain, but if flight simulators have taught me anything, is that the simplified controls are not the optimal control style if you want to be increasingly better at the game aside from turning left and right.  I expect that if I do end up buying the game and want to improve my overall time on the tracks that I will need to figure out On Screen Controls.  I could, again, just be overthinking things, which would be pretty consistent, but for the time being, Left/Right Controls it is for me because it works and I am comfortable with it that way.

The demo itself consists of just one stage, which sounds rather short and lackluster for a game that is trying to encourage you to buy it, but it surprisingly works.  The stage itself is made up of seven stretches of trail and six checkpoints which function in exactly the way you want checkpoints to function, and they usually arrive right when you want them to.  There are stretches that show off the verticality of the terrain by having you ride down large boulders and off of embankments (I don't know if that is the correct word), there is an amazing vertigo indusing traverse, and a number of stretches closer to the end of the track that plays with foreground elements getting in the way of the camera, which thankfully is only fleeting and does look pretty cool as opposed to distracting.  It is a very well through out and designed demonstration stage for the one biome that you are riding through.

From what I could tell, the game ran smoothly without any stuttering or input lag.  The amount of time between from when you died, pressing A and then respawning is nearly instantaneous which is very important in this type of game where any normal person is going to crash on a semi-frequent basis.  I would say at least once between each checkpoint, but there was the stretch between CP3 and CP4 where I was able to nail the route, but then promptly biffed it right after reaching CP4.  I did not notice any collectables along the trail, although because I stuck very closely to the trail at all times probably means that I might have missed anything you could collect; and I am actually pretty happy that there are not out of the way items to collect, at least in the initial run.  There are additional challenges that do open up that appear time and skill based such as "2:30 or Less" and "2:15 or Less With 12 Crashes or Fewer."  Those could be fun although I can get down on myself when it comes to time based trials, often restarting whenever I make a single mistake which can be pretty aggrivating.

You know, I think after playing the demo and seeing some of the challenges that come up along with 15 additional trails that come with the full version, I probably will end up purchasing Lonely Mountains: Downhill, but because of the queue that I still have on the Switch [94:21:9 / Games Left:Completed:Kinda Given Up On], I will probably wait for a future sale to happen (sorry Megagon Industries and Thunderfull).  So congratulations to the demo for doing exactly what it was intended to do.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Was Everything A Man Could Want To Do

P.S.  And if you were interested in seeing me cross the finish line unironically, then I present to you my gloryful finish!

Such grace, such finesse, such poise.  I'm a natural.