Tag: Reviews - Page 31
Review Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition - A Pure Work Of Magic
A Switch port that Bellegar's belief
Divinity: Original Sin 2 begins with your character, a 'Sourcerer', facing a pretty difficult decision when the ship transporting them to the Divine Order-controlled prison island of Fort Joy is attacked by a huge Voidwoken Kraken and left floundering. You fight your way to the upper deck and, upon arriving at...
Review The Sinking City - A Solid Port For This Lovecraftian Detective Mystery
The Cthulhu mysteries
Despite being a writer whose work has divided so many - especially when it comes to the legacy of his problematic views and the running theme of ‘otherness’ in his poems and prose - HP Lovecraft remains the go-to inspiration for anything remotely Gothic or tinged with thoughts of mania and delirium. Naturally, it's only...
Review F-Zero - The Game That Sold Us Mode 7
What a way to launch a console
At their very core, futuristic racing games should have visual flair, and there was already an early history of this sub-genre before F-Zero released – including Nintendo's Mach Rider on NES in 1985, Powerdrome on 16-bit computers, and Atari's arcade S.T.U.N. Runner in 1989. Following these games, late 1990 became an...
Review AI: The Somnium Files - Another Gem From The Creator Of The Zero Escape Series
Insane in your membrane
AI: The Somnium Files sees the return of Kotaro Uchikoshi, director of two of the excellent Zero Escape visual novels, as he takes us on a madcap sci-fi adventure through the inner workings of a super-secret branch of ABIS Metropolitan Police Department on the chase of a potential serial killer using PSYNC technology. This...
Review Super Kirby Clash - Monster Hunter Meets The Cute Pink Puffball
And it's free to play, to boot
When Kirby: Planet Robobot launched in 2016, one of the sub-games included was a neat little RPG-lite take on a boss rush mode called Team Kirby Clash. A year later, HAL opted to expand on the concept further in a free-to-play release on the 3DS eShop called Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, which added in several more bosses,...
Mini Review Sydney Hunter And The Curse Of The Mayan - Indiana Jones In All But Name
“Why did it have to be snakes?”
Given the sheer rate at which the Switch’s eShop is expanding on a weekly basis, it almost seems inevitable that an Indiana Jones game will eventually make its way to owners. Until then, Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan is about as close as we’re going to get – but that’s okay because this...
Review Daemon X Machina - Solid Mech Mayhem That Gets A Tad Repetitive
Demo arigato, Mr Nintendo
While it’s always a good idea to ask for help when you feel like you might need it, it doesn’t always benefit you in the long run. This is something the team behind Daemon X Machina may end up learning when the game releases this week. After developer Marvelous released a demo way back in February and explained that it...
Review NBA 2K20 - An Impressive Port That Delivers The Full Experience On Switch
Shine bright
Once upon a time, the thought of a handheld device getting a fully-featured sports simulator seemed like an impossible goal. NBA 2K18 almost scuppered that dream with a disastrous launch in 2017, but a raft of support post-launch and a (mostly) issue-free follow up in NBA 2K19 proved the franchise can run on Switch, and do so with full...
Review Risk of Rain 2 - Rough 'Early Access' Edges Can't Spoil This Rewarding Roguelike
It's a wonderful day for rain
Since this review was originally published, Risk of Rain 2 has left early access. While we unfortunately cannot revisit games on an individual basis, it should be noted that the full, updated game may have addressed issues detailed below and offer an improved experience. It’s always fascinating when a 2D game series...
Review Hyperforma - A Bit Like Atari's Breakout On Steroids
Enter the Matrix
Hyperforma, originally released on iOS back in March of 2018, is a hacking game based around block-breaking mechanics very much in the style of good old Atari classic Breakout. Set in a delightfully dark and malevolent version of cyberspace, it sees you take control of The User, who must delve deep into The Great Network – a...
Review Blasphemous - A Nightmarishly Good Mix Of Metroid And Dark Souls
Witness the sickness
The Game Kitchen's Blasphemous opens with its central protagonist, the metal-masked Penitent One, last survivor of the Silent Sorrow Massacre, staggering to his feet atop a mass grave of bodies, each one an exact replica of himself. Here is a hero caught in an endless cycle of death and rebirth, charged with lifting a great...
Mini Review A Duel Hand Disaster: Trackher - A Uniquely Taxing Twin-Stick Shooter
Double vision
The Switch is home to some fairly unique games, but A Duel Hand Disaster: Trackher is undoubtedly one of the most bizarre titles to hit the console since its launch. It’s also one of the most stubbornly difficult games to wrap your head around, and without thoroughly studying the optional tutorial, newcomers will find it equally...
Mini Review FUZE4 Nintendo Switch - A Powerful Package That's For Serious Coders Only
Binary basics
Let’s get one thing straight: FUZE4 isn’t a game. Yes, you can play small snippets of games contained within, but it’s really more of an application focused on coding. It’s designed to teach newcomers the basics and allow seasoned coders to flex their coding skills right on the Switch. It’s not the kind of thing you’ll want...
Review Umihara Kawase Fresh! - An Appealing Platformer That Makes Itself Hard To Love
Something fishy
There’s something strange about Umihara Kawase Fresh! It’s not the fish with human legs; it’s not the tadpole that lays frogs. It’s not even the pork pizza you serve to a pig. What’s strange is that it can’t seem to decide how difficult it is. Assuming you are not familiar with the Umihara Kawase series, the opening of...
Mini Review Legend Of The Skyfish - A Poor-Man's Zelda
Hook, line and stinker
You don’t need to look very long at Legend of the Skyfish to know which series it takes influence from. Heck, the clue is in the name itself. Taking place on a set of islands, you take on the role of Little Red Hook, a girl with a particular talent of traversing the land and vanquishing foes with – of all things – a...
Review The Long Journey Home - A Thrilling Space Epic Undone By Its Own Spitefulness
Homeward bound
The randomised yet finely-crafted adventures found within The Long Journey Home are filled with wonder. Manoeuvring your ship through vast and numerous solar systems, navigating unexplored planets and meeting strange and wonderful alien species – it's all good stuff. But the coin is always flipping in the vacuum of space; the cosmos...
Mini Review Creature In The Well - You've Never Played A Pinball Game Like This
Deflect and energise
If you’ve ever been fond of the classic game of pinball, then Creature in the Well may well be up your street. In a curious twist on the traditional dungeon-crawler, the game sees you take on the role of the last remaining BOT-C unit, a robot engineer, in a desolate world where sandstorms reign supreme. You’re tasked with...
Review Torchlight II - A Brilliant Dungeon-Crawler Expertly Ported By Panic Button
Fill your boots
Looking at it from a purely objective standpoint, Torchlight II seems like a game that would grow stale within a matter of minutes. You kill, you loot, you level up, and then you do it all over again with slightly bigger numbers all around. Rinse and repeat for a few dozen hours, and that’s more or less Torchlight II in a nutshell...
Review The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter - A Brief But Striking Experience That Will Stick With You
Hiding in plain sight
Released to rapturous critical acclaim in 2014 with its heartfelt tale and stunning presentation, PC indie darling The Vanishing of Ethan Carter isn't new per se. But whilst it slowly crept onto other platforms – starting with the PlayStation 4 in 2015, and then Xbox One in early 2018 – it's only now made its Nintendo debut...
Review Bubsy: Paws On Fire! - How Many Lives Does This Bobcat Have?
Paws for loading
"Bubsy's back!" While that phrase might strike fear into your very soul, there must be a fair amount of readers with at least a residue of affection for the orange bobcat. Bubsy the Bobcat hails from the age of mascot platformers that has come back into vogue with the current wave of '90s nostalgia, and he somehow remains in the...
Review River City Girls - Streets Of Rage 4 Has Some Real Competition
A girls' fight out
The Kunio-kun series has been around for more than three decades in Japan, delivering a steady stream of quality titles mostly featuring its trademark art style: chunky characters with big heads. Some of the games made it to the west under various guises – Renegade, Super Dodge Ball, Crash ‘n The Boys, Nintendo World Cup and...
Review Bulletstorm: Duke Of Switch Edition - Puerile, Crass And Bloody Good Fun
Welcome to the Sausage Fest
There are one hundred and thirty-one ways to kill a bad guy in People Can Fly’s Bulletstorm. You can fling them into spiked walls and electrical sources, kick them off cliffs and bridges, set fire to them then fill them full of holes or just good old slo-mo shoot their heads off. You can slice them, dice them, explode...
Review Spyro Reignited Trilogy - A Blast From The Past That's Still Got Wings
Flamin' hot
Remakes and remasters are one of those things that feels ironically modern, and whilst they’ve had a place in the industry longer than some people think, there’s no doubt that companies are seeing dollar signs in their eyes when they look back at older successful franchises. Bleeding us nerds for all our nostalgia is a safe and...
Review Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy Of The Duelist: Link Evolution - A Decent Card Battler For Your Switch
Heart of the cards
Once upon a time, there wasn’t a single card-based game on Nintendo Switch, but now we have loads. We have the post-toys-to-life Lightseekers, the challenging warfare of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Champions and the all-out silliness of Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission – and there’s even The Lord o
Chicken-Wuss!
Imagine being in the unenviable position in which Square Enix found itself following the release of Final Fantasy VII in 1997. The studio had just put out a genre-defining game that many still say they haven’t topped and had catapulted itself to a position that invited unrealistically high expectations. Gamers are a notoriously...
Review Pokémon Masters - One Of The Best Pokémon Mobile Games, But Still Not Quite There
Gacha catch 'em all
While The Pokémon Company has been on mobile phones doing games and apps since 2011 – long before Nintendo seriously considered going mobile – it has never jumped into what many believe is the secret sauce to securing a successful mobile game: Gacha-style mechanics. These are games where you get characters through random...
Review Boreal Blade - Challenging Freeform Swordplay Undercut By Technical Problems
Bae blade
There’s nothing quite like battling for victory while teetering on the precipice of defeat. It’s that adrenaline-inducing moment in virtual time that’s made everything from driving simulators to fighting games so consistently engrossing. A sliver of health. Increasingly ill-favoured odds. But when you win, despite it all, it’s a...
Review Heave Ho - Hauls Itself Up With The Best Couch Co-op Games On Switch
To me! To you!
Given the nature of the Switch’s detachable Joy-Con, the console has plenty of couch co-op titles worthy of cracking out with friends. A few examples really stand out, like the delightful Overcooked series and Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, but there is arguably nothing that has quite managed to match the sheer joy that
Review AER: Memories Of Old - Take To The Skies With This Captivating, Combat-Free Adventure
Great Odin's Raven!
AER: Memories of Old begins with a beautiful little video gaming moment. As you clamber up and out of the collapsing cave in which your adventure begins, you're presented with an all-encompassing view of the fragmented floating islands, surrounded on all sides by majestic columns of billowing cloud and bottomless chasms, that...
Review Vambrace: Cold Soul - A Gorgeous RPG That's Tragically Undone By Dull And Difficult Gameplay
Soul Eater
We here at Nintendo Life have something of a soft spot for 2018’s excellent roguelike RPG Darkest Dungeon. With its beautifully distinctive art style married to tight, enthralling battles which made maintaining the sanity of your party of warriors every bit as important as keeping on top of your combat strategies, it managed to walk a...
Review RAD - A Gnarly Roguelike Which Is Let Down By Balance And Performance Problems
Get bent, muties
Double Fine has long since made a name for itself as a rather ‘out there’ studio that nonetheless produces quality work, such as Brütal Legend, Psychonauts, Headlander, and Costume Quest. Its latest release, RAD, fits right in with this lineage, blending in crazy '80s themes with an action-heavy roguelike gameplay loop. It’s...
Mini Review Whipseey And The Lost Atlas - A Kirby Clone That's Over In The Blink Of An Eye
You'll whip through it
“Jump and whip your way through this epic adventure,” begins the opening blurb for the Whipseey and the Lost Atlas listing on the Nintendo eShop. It undoubtedly does feature jumping, yes, and there’s certainly a decent amount of whipping to be found, but calling it epic is a bit of a stretch; we’ve had hiccuping spells...
Review Astral Chain - Platinum's Best Game Ever? You'd Better Believe It
In the chain gang
With games like Bayonetta, Vanquish, Wonderful 101 and MadWorld in its back catalogue, it's little surprise that Japanese developer PlatinumGames has gained a reputation for tight, action-packed titles that mix stunning visuals with intricate and rewarding gameplay mechanics. While its games haven't always been the commercial smash...
Mini Review Invisigun Reloaded - A Tense Action Title Blessed With An Ingenious Twist
Can you see me now?
The stealth genre has always been a bit of a love-hate affair. Some people relish the thought of sneaking past oblivious guards and knocking on walls, whereas others find the very concept of keeping schtum completely repellant. There’s rarely an in-between, but Sombr Studio has crafted an experience with Invisigun Reloaded that...
Review Grandia HD Collection - Two Classic Games, Shoddily Remastered
Not as grand as we'd hoped
You’d be forgiven for not immediately recognizing the Grandia series at first glance. This adventurous JRPG series is one of those that – for better or worse – never really found its footing with a wider audience, and though it had a strong start in the late ’90s, Grandia mostly fizzled out by the mid-2000s for a...
Review Hotline Miami Collection - Ready Up For Some Of The Old Ultra-Violence On Switch
Shut up and Drive
You’ve died. You keep dying. But every death imparts a new piece of knowledge. Sneak through that corridor. Use a door to take that guard out. Smash his brains out on the floor, then use his baseball bat to take out the gunmen in the next room. Blast the Doberman as its passes, then take the remaining enemies out before making a...
Review Snooker 19 - One Of The Best Snooker Games Ever, But Not Without Its Faults
Frame by frame
When it comes to nailing a sports simulator, it’s all about finding that sweet spot between authenticity, realism and fun. Even when that sport is a little more niche in its mainstream appeal, if you can’t capture the magic that makes that recreational pastime so unique, then you’re doing its fans a serious injustice. We’ve...
Review FAR: Lone Sails - A Glorious Mix Of Genres That Captivates Without Saying A Word
Ship-shape
The terrain is cold and unyielding here, the horizon sprinkled with the snapped struts of an industrial era gone by, resentful reminders of what used to be but is unceremoniously no more. As you journey onward – because that's all you do here; you just journey onward, forever rumbling towards the right of your screen – you'll see them...
Review SEGA AGES Puyo Puyo - You Can't Polish A Puyo This Plain
Less ‘yo’, more ‘pu’
We’ve now reached the tenth game in the Sega Ages series, and it’s safe to say the project has been a resounding success. Over the course of the past year, Sega and the retro wizards at M2 have released a steady stream of old-school ports that have had us using the phrase ‘definitive version’ more times than...
Review Oninaki - A Decent Daemon Distraction
Continuing the cycle of rebirth
The JRPG genre is one that’s gone through immeasurable change in the few decades that it’s been around, but there’s something about the ‘old school’ style of 90’s turn-based RPGs that still holds a lot of sway with modern fans. To cater to this demographic, Square Enix formed Tokyo RPG Factory in 2015 to...
Review SEGA AGES Space Harrier - A Tremendous Port Of An Okay Coin-Op
The real dragon quest
We’ll spare you the usual spiel about how the Sega Ages series is offering definitive versions of Sega classics on the Switch: given we’re approaching the 10th release in the series, you probably get the idea by now. Game number 9 is Space Harrier, Sega’s 1985 coin-op that blew arcade-goers away back in the day with its...
Review Superhot - Super Fun, Sort Of Brief
SUPER HOT
Putting everything on the Nintendo Switch may have started out as a joke, but now it’s becoming painfully obvious that life imitates memes more than the other way around. With the latest cult classic Superhot catapulting itself onto the Switch at its own very figurative pace, what’s next? We’re not here to discuss that right now, but...
Review Pandemic - A Too-Simple Conversion That's Looking A Little Green
Down with the sickness
When deciding to bring a popular board game such as Pandemic to a new platform one of the first questions you’ve got to be asking yourself is what can this version add to the already existing game to make it worth a purchase; more specifically, what can the move to digital bring to the table? How do you utilise the...
Mini Review PC Building Simulator - A Surprisingly Decent Rig
Have you switched it off and on?
The Switch is home to a vast variety of games encompassing all sorts of genres from first-person shooters to visual novels, but we can probably all agree that PC Building Simulator is a game that none of us were expecting to see pop up on the eShop (then again, we got Car Mechanic Simulator, so apparently anything's...
Review Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition - This Anime Adaptation Misses The Target
Hollow Fragment
Sword Art Online has been around in some form or another since all the way back in the prehistoric times commonly referred to as 2002. Originally a series of light novels, it’s been praised for its exploration of themes relating to the intertwining of real and virtual worlds and the effect this has on the psyche and physicality of...
Mini Review Gravity Duck - Finite Flashes Of Fowl Fun
Quack and easy
Gravity Duck is an odd little game, but a rather enjoyable one. It’s a 2D, pixel platformer in which you play as a duck gifted with the power to control gravity. After being promised riches in exchange for some golden eggs, the duck sets off to find those eggs in dozens of gravity-bending levels. The gameplay in Gravity Duck...
Review Ittle Dew - A Colourful And Funny Little Zelda-Like
A hero and a drunkard awaken...
When Ittle Dew launched on the Wii U back in 2014, we really enjoyed it, praising the game’s art style, soundtrack and puzzle design. It’s a clear homage to earlier Legend of Zelda titles - most specifically A Link to the Past - borrowing heavily from the classic SNES game, but at the same time retaining its own...
Review VASARA Collection - A Welcome Pair Of Bullet Hell Curios
Fly me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!
Visco Corporation may be best known for making 'unremarkable' games. We don’t mention this in a derogatory fashion; the games under their belt are far from bad, just arguably derivative and somewhat “safe”. Most of their arcade games were never given home conversions to begin with, making their...
Review DC Universe Online - A Full Fat, Old-School MMO Featuring Your DC Favourites
Super friends (and foes)
Who would have thought when Nintendo Switch first launched in 2017 that we’d have practically every genre imaginable represented in some shape or form. Online shooters. Competitive fighting games. Full fat ARPGs. The lot. Who would have thought we’d have fully fledged MMORPGs on a portable Nintendo console? And DC...
Review Exception - A Sumptuous-Looking Platformer With A Twist
Circuit breaker
With so many games being released on the Switch on a weekly basis, it takes an awful lot to stand out from the crowd. It only takes one unique idea, though, and what could well have turned out to be a fairly bog standard game is transformed into a unique, compelling experience. Exception is exactly that. A game that quite literally...
