Tag: Reviews - Page 25
Mini Review Later Daters - A Poignant Dating Sim That's Over Far Too Quickly
A short-lived romance
Later Daters argues that it's never too late to find love. From developer Bloom Digital Media, you take on the role of an ageing pensioner settling into life at Ye Olde Retirement Community, where the prospect of romance fills the air. The game plays out as a visual novel, presenting you with a vast array of choices and...
Review Totally Reliable Delivery Service - Return To Sender
FedEx-cruciatingly bad
We’re quite sure game devs don’t go out of their way to make a bad game. Normally, a game’s quality – or lack thereof in many cases – is a direct result of budgetary limitations, time restrictions, unexpected bugs, and many, many more variables. It really feels, though, that We’re Five Games are playing some kind...
Review Overcooked 2: Gourmet Edition - The Perfect Recipe For Multiplayer Fun
A full course meal
After nearly two years of regular post-launch support, it seems that Team17 and Ghost Town Games are finally ‘finished’ with Overcooked 2. The developers have provided some excellent additions in the time since launch, and all of it is now being tied together with the aptly named Overcooked 2: Gourmet Edition. For the purposes...
Mini Review Songbird Symphony - Platforming And Music Take Flight Together
Cheep thrills
We recently asked if there were any Switch games we'd missed which you thought were worthy of a review. Songbird Symphony was one of the most-requested games. Songbird Symphony is an indie rhythm-action platformer by three-person team Joysteak Studios. You play as Birb, an adopted chick in search of its birth paren
Review Gunbrick: Reloaded - A Painfully Tedious Puzzler Which Isn't Worth The Effort
Square goes
Following the formerly-exclusive (and really rather good) Bomb Chicken, developer Nitrome has returned with a whole new puzzle-platformer in Gunbrick: Reloaded. Well, we say "new", but that "Reloaded" in the title should really cue you in that we're dealing with the redux of an existing game, here – and if it didn't, one look at the...
Review In Other Waters - A Chilled-Out Journey Of Discovery Quite Unlike Any Other On Switch
A real treasure of the deep
In Other Waters is not an easy sell. A game where you explore the vast expanse of an alien sea? Sounds awesome, right? Something like 2016's Abzu, or the Wii's Endless Ocean series would be perfect for the Switch. Imagine that sense of freedom, the spectacle of magnificent aquatic creature drifting past you in such an...
Review Curious Expedition - A Return To The Punishing Origins Of Table-Top RPG Gaming
Call of the wild
It can be easy to fall into a certain rhythm with modern RPGs, especially after series such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy more or less codified a sort of ‘blueprint’ that players come to expect. However, RPGs in general vastly predate this blueprint, having received their start in a more social setting via tabletop games...
Review Cooking Mama: Cookstar - Definitely Needed More Time In The Oven
Undercooked
It’s been rather fascinating to follow the slowly unfolding trainwreck of Cooking Mama: Cookstar over the past week or so. What began as an innocuous and unassuming new release in a beloved series has quickly grabbed headlines after its mysterious and sudden disappearance from storefronts. Conspiracy theories around copyright...
Mini Review Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD - A Competent Remaster That Lacks Bite
The real tiger king?
Two of the biggest trends in gaming right now are developers making use of Kickstarter campaigns and studios bringing back their classic, nostalgia-inducing properties. TY the Tasmanian Tiger HD is a product of both of these trends. Originally released in 2002 for GameCube, Xbox and PS2, TY the Tasmanian Tiger is a 3D mascot...
Mini Review HyperParasite - Proof That It's Fun To Be Bad
Host with the most
We’ve seen quite a lot of rogue-lite games in the past few years, but HyperParasite is quite a unique one. Taking place within a typical cyberpunk cityscape, an alien parasite has invaded the planet and is looking to leech onto every unfortunate soul that happens to get in its way. The twist here is that you get to play as the...
Review Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories - A Totally Unique Experience Marred By Technical Problems
I feel the earth move under my feet
Let’s get one thing out of the way immediately. It’s by far the least interesting thing about Granzella’s Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories, the revival of a PlayStation 3 title originally set to come out in 2011, but your reaction to it will likely be the biggest factor in terms of whether or not you’re...
Review Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition - A Gorgeous Love Letter To JRPGs Which Just Falls Short
Ara Fell, not awful
There's a comforting familiarity to Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition that lends the whole game a veneer of nostalgia. That's not just in terms of its debt to classic JRPGs – which, naturally, it has in spades – but also in its character writing, which conjures up memories of old-school webcomics, fanfiction and English-translated...
Review Shinsekai: Into The Depths - A Watery Twist On The Metroidvania Format
Unsplashy adventure with hidden depths
We shouldn't be surprised any longer when a mobile-to-Switch port turns out to be decent. There are far too many examples to list here, but just recently both Exit The Gungeon and Oddmar have acquitted themselves admirably. Even so, we're as surprised as you are to note that the latest must-have Metroidvania...
Review One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 - Exactly What You'd Expect, No More, No Less
Maybe the real treasure is the friends we made along the way
The One Piece franchise is truly something to behold. Nearly a thousand episodes of the anime have been produced and the manga – which has been running since 1997 – has nearly a billion copies in circulation. Despite series creator Eiichiro Oda’s initial wish for it to run for only...
Review Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy - Back To School
A mature student
Years ago, when the Star Wars franchise wasn’t under the world-dominating scrutiny of the House of Mouse, developers were farming out all games like no one’s business. And while that did mean we were ‘treated’ to the likes of Star Wars: Demolition and Kinect Star Wars, it also meant the long-defunct LucasArts produced some...
Review Zombie Army Trilogy - Undead Action From The Team Behind Sniper Elite
Schlock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
It's 1945, World War Two is drawing to a rather bloody close and everybody's favourite angry auntie Adolf Hitler has just been informed that it's not looking great for him and his goose-stepping grunts. Being the level-headed Fuhrer that he is, little Adolf reacts to this news by immediately killing the...
Review One Step From Eden - A Mega Man Battle Network Spiritual Successor With Brutal Difficulty
The rockin'est, rock-steady beat of madness
One Step From Eden makes absolutely no secret of its cribbing from Capcom's late, occasionally great Mega Man Battle Network series. It essentially lifts the ingenious battle system from the GBA cult classic wholesale, makes a series of tweaks and additions, then sets you to work. There's no gallivanting...
Review Good Job! - This Laugh-Riot Feels Like 2020's Answer To Untitled Goose Game
Promoted to ‘essential’
We’ve all been in a job that we didn’t like very much. Heck, a lot of people – this writer included – have had jobs that they’ve actively hated, filled with menial tasks that make time grind to an absolute halt. Given the current world climate, chances are you’re safe and sound in your own home (and if you do...
Review Operencia: The Stolen Sun - A Rich And Satisfying Dungeon Crawler
Dungeon Master
Zen Studios' Operencia: The Stolen Sun doesn't really get off to the brightest of starts on Nintendo Switch. Opening with a prologue that sees you assume control of King Attila and his wife Reka as they attempt to close a portal between their land and the underworld, things kick off here with a ten-minute introduction that highlights...
Review Gigantosaurus: The Game - Yet Another Poor Licensed Tie-In
A gigantic mess
Licensed games continue to be incredibly hit and miss. There are certainly examples of titles that have got it right, such as South Park: The Stick of Truth and its sequel, but sadly there are countless other games that just simply feel like shameless cash grabs, relying solely on the popularity of the property over compelling...
Review Panzer Dragoon: Remake - Doesn’t Quite Nail The Landing
In-flight entertainment
Since this review was originally published, an update has reportedly addressed or improved one or more of the issues cited. While we unfortunately cannot revisit games on an individual basis, it should still be noted that the updated game may offer an improved experience over the one detailed below. When Nintendo revealed...
Review SeaBed - A Moving Visual Novel Masterpiece, If You Give It A Chance
Ooh, mysterious girls
Anyone who has ever studied literature will know all too well that even works universally agreed to be timeless classics don’t necessarily appeal to everyone in the general public. Such will doubtless be the case with SeaBed, a visual novel developed by Paleontology Soft and brought West by localisation specialists Fruitbat...
Review La-Mulana 2 - A Deep And Challenging Metroidvania For Your Switch
Passing the torch
As indie game development has massively ramped up over the past decade or so, there’s also been an equivalent rise in the popularity of the Metroidvania genre. We’ve seen countless fascinating examples of how elements of the genre can be bent or expanded upon to create amazing new experiences, but one of the finest examples of...
Review La-Mulana - Packed With Peerless Puzzles That Demand Dedicated Players
It belongs in a museum!
If there’s one element that it feels modern game design has largely left in the past, it’s mystery. There are some bastions of it still around today, such as the delightfully esoteric Dark Souls series, but most games these days just aren’t made to have impenetrable secrets. By that, we mean of the sort that can grind...
Review Saints Row IV: Re-Elected - Marvellously Madcap Open-World Fun
POTUS power
Few games do ‘fun’ with as much enthusiasm and self-awareness as Saints Row. While GTA tempers its acerbic tone and pop culture devotion with a firm set of in-game rules, Volition’s open-world series has always aired towards the silly and the slapstick. Want to throw yourself into oncoming traffic and ragdoll your way to insurance...
Pulled punches
Few shonen anime series fit popular culture’s continued obsession with western superhero tropes quite as well as My Hero Academia. This long-running manga and anime follows the journey of Izuku Midoriya, a young boy born without powers (or Quirks, as they’re known in the series’ canon) in a world where extraordinary abilities...
Mini Review Talisman: Digital Edition - A Superb Adaptation Of A Board Game Classic
You won't be bored board gaming on the go
Talisman is a superb board game that conjures forth innumerable fond memories. The vast multitude of characters to choose from, each more unbalanced than the last. The hundreds upon hundreds of Adventure Cards offering something new to see on every play. Spellcasting battles leading to pure salt from the...
Review Exit The Gungeon - Fine-Tuned Action That's Less Compelling Than Its Forerunner
Beating a hasty retreat
Having created one of the finest indie roguelikes of recent years in Enter The Gungeon, some might have wondered how developer Dodge Roll would follow it up. The answer, of course, is to Exit The Gungeon. This is no direct sequel, but rather more of an extended epilogue. Having faced and killed their past, our four...
Review DOOM 64 - Will Tide You Over Until DOOM Eternal Arrives On Switch
Eternal doom
Players of a certain generation might recall just how special it was having an actual Doom on Nintendo 64. The FPS that put corridor shooters firmly on the map was pretty ubiquitous in its ports – even back in 1997 – but having a graphically superior take with bigger levels, more guns and even more challenging demons to slay made...
Review Neon City Riders - There's Little Substance Under That Retro-Tinged Veneer
Retrograde step
Nostalgia is as potent a force in modern video games as it is in cinema, TV and music. We all appreciate a dose of something warm and familiar in these scary times. But the trouble with such rose-tinted glasses is that they can often obscure a litany of flaws and a critical lack of imagination. Such is the case with Neon City Riders...
Mini Review Stela - A Pretty Platform-Puzzler That Badly Wants To Be Inside
Caught in Limbo
If Stela is wholly successful at anything, it's as a tribute to Inside. It follows Playdead's immersive platform-puzzler template to a quite remarkable degree, while its shortcomings only enhance the reputation of the 2018 eShop release. Are you someone who thought Inside was merely a generic 2D platformer with pretty window dressing...
Review 3000th Duel - A More Approachable Alternative To Dark Souls
Karma is served
Nearly 9 years after its initial release, Dark Souls’ influence is as strong as ever. Its brutal difficulty and focus on slow, methodical gameplay have become iconic staples in modern gaming, with some games taking inspiration from the title, and others outright copying it. 3000th Duel sits somewhere in the middle. It’s a...
Review Animal Crossing: New Horizons - An Accessible And Addictive Masterpiece
The shores of Bell
Back when – what feels like forever ago – we found out that a new Animal Crossing game would be coming to Switch, we were told basically diddly squat about the whole thing, but excitement ensued nonetheless. As time went by and we learnt more and more about it, the hype reached ever higher rungs on the big ladder of...
Review Syder Reloaded - A Free-Scrolling Shmup Switch Owners Should Check Out
Free to roam
The Defender-style free-scrolling shmup sub-genre has always had a lot of untapped potential, and while some free-scrolling shmups like Fantasy Zone and Black Bird have garnered a fanbase of admirers, the style of allowing the player to control the movement of the screen still feels unexplored. Syder Reloaded is another take on this...
Review Langrisser I & II - Fire Emblem’s Erstwhile Rival Gets A Second Shot At Glory
Back from the dead
Back in the early '90s, there were two very similar fantasy-styled SRPG franchises that battled each other for relevance: Fire Emblem and Langrisser. Though each series offered certain defining gameplay or stylistic characteristics that the other didn’t, they were about neck and neck when it came to the overall experience being...
Mini Review NinNinDays - A Short And Sweet Visual Novel With Some Rough Edges
An everyday tale of near-naked ninjas
There are certain things those familiar with romantic comedy, slice-of-life visual novels have doubtless come to expect by this point: a scene involving a maid costume; a heroine who can’t cook; a date at an amusement park; and some sort of boob-based misunderstanding. NinNinDays from Qureate has all of these...
Review Dead Or School - Mutant-Slaying With A Sense Of Style
A diamond in the rough
Dead or School is a game full of obvious jank: likely the product of a tiny team of three working on a very tight, crowdfunded budget to realise a very – perhaps overly – ambitious creative vision. It’s questionably optimised, particularly in handheld mode, where it chugs quite a bit. Its 2D sprites appear obviously...
Review Overpass - A Slow-And-Steady Racer That Strays Off The Beaten Track
Muddy textures
The active ingredient of pretty much every racing game that you care to mention, from Out Run to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, is speed. Overpass might require you to get to the finishing line in the shortest time possible, but it's almost wholly lacking in that S-factor. It sounds perverse, but in order to make suitably rapid progress here...
Review Afterparty - A Hellishly Good Night Out, Without The Hangover
Hell yes
Night School made a relatively big splash with its 2016 debut Oxenfree, a ghostly story-based video game that set new standards on how dialogue can be executed in a game. The follow up to that title was always going to be an interesting one, then, as the question would be how Night School would iterate or, potentially, break away from the...
IMMORTALIZE!
Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late is the third iteration of the indie visual novel/2D-Fighter from developer French Bread which was first released in Japanese arcades all the way back in 2012. An update in 2017 added four new characters, a bunch of new modes and gameplay tweaks for console versions, and this latest iteration adds yet...
Mini Review Oddmar - An Acclaimed Mobile Platformer That Just About Holds Its Own On Switch
Inspector Norse
When Oddmar hit iOS and Android in 2018, it prompted many to proclaim its beautiful cartoon graphics and tight 2D platformer gameplay worthy of the Nintendo Switch itself. Now that Oddmar has hit the Nintendo eShop, we have a chance to put those lofty claims to the test. Do you know what? Those people were right, at least for the...
Review Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo - A Fine Shmup Selection, But Input Lag Remains An Issue
Continued delay
Just as Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo is the companion game to the earlier release of Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha, what you're reading now should also be considered the companion to our earlier review of the latter title. We suggest, to help digest the full context of this review, that the reader also hop over and read this companion...
Review Murder By Numbers - Ace Attorney Meets Picross In This Engaging Detective Adventure
Holmes and Robotson
There's a lot going on in Murder By Numbers. Mediatonic's rather mad mashing together of Ace Attorney-esque sleuthing and Picross-style pixel puzzles manages to cover sexism in the workplace, divorce, suicide, overbearing parents, the dangers of social media, the vacuous and often sleazy nature of the Hollywood TV industry and,...
Review Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary - An Awkwardly-Ported Tribute That's For Fans Only
On the Rocks
It’s amazing to us that 2020 is only Boulder Dash’s 30th anniversary. In fact, come to think of it, that can’t possibly be right, because we remember this one back on the Apple II. Indeed, a quick glance online reveals that Boulder Dash was first released in 1984, which would make this Switch version Boulder Dash 36th Anniversary,...
Review Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX - Fun, But Only In Short Doses
Titled Zangoose Game
When it comes to Pokémon spin-offs, the Mystery Dungeon series is probably the lengthiest. For every short-lived game like Pokémon Dash or Pokkén Tournament, there’s a Mystery Dungeon title offering potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay. Of course, whether you’d actually want to play one of them for hundreds of hours...
Review Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun Retro Brawler Bundle - A Stunning Retro Collection
Come for the Dragons, stay for the Kunio
Being a Kunio fan in the West is tougher than the mean streets Kunio and his friends come from. We've had to endure butchered localizations and dozens of titles being missed because they were simply deemed “too Japanese for Western consumption”. In fact, even nowadays, few Western gamers might realise the...
Review Bloodroots - Wonderfully Flowing Combat Makes This Hotline Miami Rival Stand Out
Blood sport
Games like Hotline Miami and Katana Zero have become instant modern classics thanks to their razor-sharp and utterly addictive gameplay loops. Following hot on their heels is Bloodroots from developer Paper Cult, a supremely stylish, confident action title that encourages improvisation and experimentation at every turn as you take down...
Mini Review Hero must die. again - A Unique JRPG That's More Than The Sum Of Its Parts
What would you do with five days left to live?
It isn't the most cheerful game, but Hero must die. again is a fitfully fun and refreshingly unusual JRPG with a time management focus that's perfect for the flexibility of the Switch. See, the in media res opening scene depicts your intrepid hero defeating the Dark Lord, but suffering a fatal wound in...
Review SEGA AGES Puyo Puyo 2 - A Fun But Ultimately Forgettable Puzzler
Same Pu, different game
When we reviewed the Sega Ages version of Puyo Puyo, we wondered why Sega had decided to go with the very first game in the series, and not one of the numerous better sequels. Seven months later, Sega has responded – not to us, we’re not that big-headed – by going back to the Puyo Puyo well and this time giving us a...
Mini Review Ganbare! Super Strikers - Strategic Soccer Action That Will Be Too Sluggish For Some
Strategy fans will get a kick out of this
The beautiful game of football (or soccer for those across the pond) is generally known for its face-paced, high octane action. The players are constantly moving, constantly searching for that one crucial opening to find the back of the net. Ganbare! Super Strikers is an odd little duckling, then, as its...