Back in the old days, if you wanted to try an obscure favorite on the Game Boy or DS, it was only a case of tracking down a cartridge before taking it for a spin. Sadly, in our increasingly online digital world, games can fall into the cracks of oblivion and find themselves without any means of being played – that’s the case for Volta-X.
If you were to ask me, Volta-X deserves to be counted as both one of the best Switch strategy games and one of the best Switch games overall, but as it was only ever available from the Nintendo eShop and has since been delisted, it’s doomed to fall into the pit of obscurity. This absolutely sucks, because it had a really unique (and highly addictive) style of gameplay, and a pretty compelling storyline too.
The premise of the game is basically Gundam meets Star Fox. You play as a young fox called Ian who has just become a Volta pilot. Voltas are enormous mechs and the anthropomorphic animals of the world carry out fighting tournaments with them to ensure that they’re strong enough to battle large alien invaders. At first, you’re joined by an elephant named Sheldon and a monkey named Benny, but there are a huge number of other pilots that you unlock as you make your way through the story.
While there are lots of other games that see you controlling giant mechs, I can’t think of another game that has you controlling a crew as they pilot one. So, for example, you can send someone down to an arm to ensure they’re firing fist missiles at enemies, or you can send someone to the other arm where they can then operate the defenses that will protect it from attacks from other Voltas, or aliens.
Each pilot has different strengths. For example, some of them are really slow-moving but are great at fixing things that get broken, so you might like to keep one like that in the area that’s most important so that they can keep the Volta’s most vital functions running smoothly. Others might move really quickly around the Volta, but only have a small amount of health, making them vulnerable to attacks.
During battle, there’s a lot to manage. You have three pilots in a Volta at a time, and you need to ensure that they’re keeping everything running smoothly and that they’re repairing any damage that it sustains. Meanwhile, these pilots themselves can take damage, so if one is defeated, you’ve then got the much trickier task of keeping everything running with just two pilots, or maybe even one.
I’ll admit that when I first started, it took a while for me to get the hang of it, but once I figured things out, it soon became a game that I played every single day. There were so many combinations of pilots and Volta components to choose from that you really could cultivate your own battle style, or find a unique way to approach each foe you faced. Finding the right way to take down a really annoying boss felt very satisfying.
It’s no surprise that it was great either, as it was developed by Gungho Entertainment. This studio will be familiar to a lot of people because it was the mastermind behind the much more successful Puzzle & Dragons. While I have the greatest respect for Puzzle & Dragons (or at least Puzzle and Dragons X on the 3DS, the only version I’ve played) I enjoyed Volta-X a lot more and I think it’s a pity that it never enjoyed the same levels of success.
The game also featured a special appearance from Playtonic Games’ beloved icons, Yooka and Laylee. They were the focus of a side quest, arriving in the world of Volta-X to see if they could find anything to help them in their ongoing battles with Capital B. Truthfully, it was their inclusion that brought Volta-X onto my radar (I’m obsessed with everything related to Rare and Playtonic) and it’s sad to think that fans who get into the franchise for the first time with the upcoming Yooka-Replaylee won’t have the opportunity to go back and experience all of the lizard and the bat’s past adventures.
Heck, even I can’t go back and re-experience Yooka and Laylee’s adventure in the world of Volta-X, and I still have the game installed on my Switch. Indeed, I won’t be able to experience the majority of the game (just a mini-roguelike mode that gives you a random assortment of pilots and Volta part to do battle with) as for some reason, the single-player campaign required you to be connected to the internet, and now that the servers are gone, the game can barely be played.
I think Gungho was hoping to make one of the best Switch multiplayer games with a thriving online scene, and when it didn’t take off in that way, Volta-X was torpedoed. It’s a shame though, because I only briefly dabbled in the online mode and drew a lot more satisfaction from the story mode, which had detailed backstories for all the characters, various progression trees to develop them along, and the perfect balance of humor and genuine sincerity in its storyline and dialogue – and now it’s all lost.
Partially, this irks me because I feel like Gungho could probably have done an update to ensure that the main campaign would remain playable even after the servers were shut down, but it’s also just a sad reminder of the ephemeral nature of modern games. When I got into gaming as a child in the 90s, it was easy for me to go back and experience the games of the previous decade by tracking down old copies. How many of the biggest games of our time will be completely lost in twenty years? And that’s to say nothing of the more obscure games like Volta-X which are already fading from consciousness.
I have such fond memories of playing this game back in 2021 while I was recovering from COVID. Although it was just three years ago, I’m downright nostalgic for it, but it’s the only game I have nostalgia for that I will never be able to play again. Just a year later the game was de-listed from the eShop (and Steam, the only other platform it was available on) and a few months after that, the servers were taken offline. So, sadly, if you haven’t already, you will never play one of my favorite Switch games.
For some classic games that you can still return to, read our lists of the best Game Boy games and the best DS games. They’re great – although if you ask me, both missing some key Donkey Kong games.