SMITE

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Title: SMITE
Developer: Titan Forge Games
Publisher: Hi-Rez Studios
Website: https://www.smitegame.com/play-for-free
Genre: Adventure, Action, Strategy
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Audience: 12
Release Date: 24/01/2019
Price: Free to play. Offers in-game purchases.

What the Developers say

Enter the Battleground of the Gods!

Join over 25 million SMITE players! SMITE is the multiplayer online battle arena that puts the power of the Gods in your hands. With an ever-expanding roster, new events, variety of skins, and biweekly updates, there is always something new and exciting in the Battleground of the Gods!

Go Ahead, Play God

Jump into the action as one of over 90 Gods from Pantheons around the world. Play as iconic figures like Ares, Thor, Hercules, Wukong, and Medusa. There are also unique Gods and Goddesses like the volcanic Pele, the Voodoo God of Death, Baron, and the nine-tailed fox, Da Ji.

Unique Games modes

SMITE has competition for everyone. Enter the Arena, the perfect game mode for players hungry for fast-paced brawls. Looking for a more strategic experience? Conquest is SMITE’s premiere competitive mode. Crush the opposing Gods and slay their Titan for a triumphant victory.

Introduction

I first had the pleasure of playing this great title as a beta around four years ago on the Xbox. And boy has the game come a long way since that time! It now boasts about 100 different playable Gods, with Bi-weekly updates pushing in more and more game content.

In case you aren’t aware, Smite is a MOBA that has finally had a fantastic port over to the Nintendo Switch and boy have they done a tremendous job, the only hard bit you guys have to do is pick a God to play.

What Smite does differently though is taking the top down MOBA style you all know and love and throws in a highly skill based 3D camera viewpoint. At first, it takes a while to get used to, but after the tutorial and a few matches, you soon get used to aiming and using specials and move sets.

There’s plenty to be sinking your teeth into with this though as different move builds and item builds can change the way the character play and feels. Let’s get on to my thoughts on the various elements that make this game feel right at home on the Switch.

Looks and Sounds

After the fantastic success of several other ports such as Paladins, another shooter MOBA, the guys have done it again with a port that’s both visually and aesthetically pleasing as some of the other great games. I’ve now had the pleasure of playing this game, and it looks and sounds great on the Switch.

I’ve had the game on Switch since early Beta and have the God Pack unlocked as well which is great. The only issue I found was choosing from over 90+ different Gods – I like the myriad of different skins you can unlock which look and feel great on the Switch as well, I’ve not encountered any screen tearing or jittering issues which can sometimes affect the Switch on screens with a lot going on.

Gameplay and Replayability

So the basic idea of Smite is what a lot of other MOBA/Battle Arenas already do, reduce all of the enemy teams tickets to zero. In Smite, you do this by getting your minions to the enemy portal and by killing enemy Gods.

Smite differs in the fact it isn’t a top-down view of the battlefield, and it is in fact from a 3D aspect where you stand and control your character/God from behind which leads to quite a learning curve in terms of aiming and ensuring you are hitting the CPU/human controlled Gods.

However the fantastic tutorial enables you to soon get to grips with this and after several attempts, I soon very quickly got the hang of it. My only gripe was what God to choose and building of the item/skills menu -this can make the game slightly daunting for newer players. Fortunately, after a short while of my God feeling a little underpowered I managed to find a website which helps a lot in terms of strategy and choosing the correct builds for the Gods which enables you to jump into games quite quickly and not have to worry about overthinking. The website was https://www.smitefire.com.

This could help newer players with quite a lot of different builds available, and players can upvote and comment below on builds they have tried and liked. Replayability is good with the daily and weekly quests and logins to achieve, and you can unlock different skins and rewards based on the amount of playtime and wins you achieve.

Conclusion

All in all, this is a solid port, it fits very nicely on the Switch. If you are a fan of MOBAs such as League of Legends and DOTA, you will enjoy this game. With constant, bi-weekly updates and the team updating it very often, it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon, so it is well worth investing your time in.

Rapid Reviews UK Rating

You can download Smite at the Nintendo eShop on the following link, https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/SMITE-1474903.html