Demolish & Build was released by Noble Muffins and PlayWay S.A. on PC via Steam back in 2018 and it was a pretty decent title. Recently, with many titles coming to Nintendo Switch and quite recently Construction Simulator 2 heading to Switch, we now have Demolish & Build on Nintendo Switch as well. The Nintendo Switch version of Demolish & Build has been ported by Ultimate Games and this is our review of the title. For our review, we played the game on Nintendo Switch.
Starting with the basics, the Nintendo Switch version only weights at around 1.7GB while the Steam version was a decent 15GB title. This decrease in size is instantly visible right after you start playing because the Nintendo Switch version is severely downgraded when it comes to visuals. I know that Nintendo Switch does not have much power under its hood but even for a Switch game, Demolish & Build is a little too downgraded. Even mobile games look better than this.
One good thing about the Nintendo Switch port of Demolish & Build is that it brings all of the content of the full game. It has four different settings each with its own unique assignments, contracts, and properties to exploit. It also comes with all of the hand tools and vehicles which are present in the full PC release of the game. There is not much variety when it comes to choosing vehicles but there is one of every type of construction machine in the game which is good enough for a portable construction game.
The starting area Gold Valley serves as a tutorial. You will mostly find jobs involving basic vehicles and your own tools such as hammer here. You also have very little money in the beginning. Vehicles cost a lot of money so you need to complete plenty of contracts to earn money and purchase bigger vehicles which are extremely useful in different situations. Eventually, you can purchase your very own demolition robot as well which really makes demolition easier. The majority of jobs will require demolition in the game.
Normally, the contract has a fixed reward which you can earn upon their completion but if you perform better and spend more time in completing the contracts, you can land yourself some serious bonuses as well. In the early areas, the contracts give very little reward but in one mission I demolished each and every last particle and I managed to earn more bonus than the actual contract reward. In Demolish & Build, money is everything so you will need to earn every last bit of it.
Normal contracts don’t have any sort of time limit and you can take your sweet time in completing them. Quite often you will get a buzz about an emergency contract which is urgent and you have a small time to accept them. In return, these emergency pay much more than the normal contracts so they are a bit of a bargain. You can either complete the normal contracts at your own pace or complete the emergency contracts first and earn more money by rushing through the job. I earned $5000 just by removing some rocks from the ground which means that emergency contracts pay you really well.
You have freeroam as well which means that you are free to do whatever you want. You do not have to work on a contract straight away. You can start a contract, go out, take a ride of the whole town and then come back and complete the job. The game gives you complete freedom for that. The story of the game is pretty typical where you start as a construction worker but later are fired because your old boss was a prick. You then decide to start your own company with a partner who helps in financing while you do all the dirty work on the sites.
The game follows a linear story as well where you are free to complete as many tasks as possible. The story just serves as a milestone where you simply need to expand your company to a certain level by completing contracts and other odd jobs. You will find plenty of houses and lots in the cities which you can purchase as well. Complete their requirements and these properties will in-return give you rental income which is really good in the long-run. They also help in the growth of your company.
You cannot take part in all contracts available to you right from the start as well. You will have access to very few tools and vehicles when you start the game. You must start with the basic contracts, earn money and invest in better vehicles and tools. Purchasing them is simply not enough. As you use these vehicles out on different sites, they will use fuel and will also get damaged. You will need to refuel them and keep them in good shape by repairing their damage as well.
The cities in the game are full of different shops and vendors. You can purchase vehicles from the vehicle vendor and tools from the tools vendor. You will also find different fuel stations littered around each town which will help you refuel your vehicles at less amount. You must keep an eye out on your vehicle damage and fuel levels otherwise you will need to pay extra to get them towed or repaired if they are greatly damaged and unable to move on their own.
You can call vehicles instantly by interacting with the parking signs located around the city. Wherever you find a contract location, you will find a parking sign near it from where you can easily have the desired machinery delivered to you without any delay or cost. While on the site, you will be required to watch out for different hazards as well. The most common problem is dust which is the result of buildings falling down. Your contractor will charge a cost at the end if you cause too much dust. You can use water to easily settle down the dust. You also have a handy Builder Vision which highlights your tasks on the screen making the work really easy.
The ultimate goal in the game is to become better than your ex-boss’s construction company. You can check the Company Rating tab in the pause menu at any time to see how your company is faring against the competition. This is increases by purchasing and maintain properties, completing bigger contracts and increasing your company rating to better grades. You start from Grade E and then you move to the top gradually by making a name for yourself. Earning money is not really tough in the game and grinding is not really a thing for this game.
Overall this is a great game but sadly, the Nintendo Switch port comes with many problems. They are not gameplay breaking bugs or anything but some of them are extremely annoying. I don’t consider downgrading visuals as a flaw for a Nintendo Switch port. As long as the gameplay is solid, low visuals are okay. But when the gameplay is buggy, that ruins the whole game for me. The biggest problem with the Switch port is the game’s audio. More specifically, the engine noises of traffic cars. For me, they are so loud that they suppress every other sound in the game even if the traffic car is not in sight. It remains the same as long as the vehicle is near me or even far. It is not affected by the fact that the vehicle is even moving or stopped.
The other major problem is the ground where vehicles often get stuck while I am working on different contracts. The most problems occur where I have to drive a vehicle slowly from one surface to another such as from dirt to a road and the vehicle just gets stuck. I have to reverse and choose a different approach angle to proceed. This is extremely annoying especially while I am working on contracts and I don’t have much space to move around without breaking stuff I don’t really have to.
Other than these bugs, you will also notice that vehicles vibrate in a weird way while you are driving them on the road. These small glitches completely ruin an otherwise great Nintendo Switch port. Ultimate Games should try to work on fixing these annoying bugs as soon as possible. Demolish & Build offers a great portable construction and demolition sim on Nintendo Switch. Its biggest competitor on the platform is Construction Simulator 2 which is a much more stable form at this point. Until the bugs are gone, it will lag behind Construction Simulator 2.
Final Verdict:
I really liked playing Demolish & Build on my Nintendo Switch Lite. I wanted to give it a high score but in its current form, it has a lot of bugs and glitches which are extremely annoying. The game offers a great amount of content. Demolishing things is really fun whether you are using your hammer or the automated robot for the purpose. Normally, construction games do not focus do much on demolishing and mostly you just have to build but here you can demolish and build things which offer a nice change of pace. If Ultimate Games releases patches to fix the glitches and bugs in the game, this can be a great addition to every Switch player’s library.
Final Score: 6.0/10
