Tag: Reviews - Page 32
Mini Review Never Give Up - The Game That Wants You To Fail
Adorable brutality
Never Give Up wears its inspiration on its sleeve. Displaying quirky visuals and rock-solid gameplay, Armor Games' new platformer directly calls back to the surprise hit Super Meat Boy. However, Never Give Up takes the basic premise of Super Meat Boy and tweaks it just enough to avoid feeling like a carbon copy. You're tasked...
Review Pillars Of Eternity: Complete Edition - The Game That Saved Obsidian Comes To Switch
To Infinity and Beyond
The game that saved Obsidian, Pillars of Eternity was originally released back in 2015. It quickly broke records for a crowdfunded title when it was first announced, with over 77,000 backers raising a cool $1 million in the first 24hrs of its Kickstarter campaign to put the studio – which had been limping along after a...
Review The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors - A Masterclass In SNES Revival
Ninja Warriors 3.0
The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors is not so much the third game in a series as the third attempt at the same game. The first go was in 1987 when Taito looked at its revolutionary Darius arcade cabinet – which used three monitors and two mirrors to fake a triple-wide screen – and decided it needed some ninjas. It...
Review Turok 2: Seeds of Evil - A Painfully Incomplete Version Of An N64 Classic
Multiplayer goes extinct
The first-person shooter has become so prevalent on consoles in today’s market, it’s bizarre to think back to a time where PC gamers held the lion’s share of the genre. By 1998, the desktop faithful were gorging on Half-Life and Unreal, but a little console by the name of Nintendo 64 wasn’t about to bow down to the...
Review Hamsterdam - Lengthy Loads And Mobile Tropes Hamper This Hamster
Rats on, rats off
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from video games, it’s that heroes come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. From the straight laced Hylian hero Link to the wise cracking Umbra Witch Bayonetta, devs have given us some of the most memorable characters in any medium thanks to their unique design and endearing personalities...
Review The Forbidden Arts - Repetitive Combat Prevents This Platformer From Catching Fire
A spellbinding adventure?
A lot of games these days like to capitalise on nostalgia. Whether it’s with pixelated graphics or callbacks via specific gameplay mechanics like side-scrolling platforming, old school enthusiasts have more choices than ever before. The Forbidden Arts feels very much like game straight from the GameCube era, with a...
Review Subdivision Infinity DX - A Decent Port Of A Tight Little Dogfighter
Infinity gauntlet
If there’s one genre that fills our hearts with glee and childlike joy, it’s the good old fashioned space dogfighter. From the early days of Elite and Star Wars: TIE Fighter all the way to EVE: Valkyrie and Rebel Galaxy, taking to the stars and blowing other starships into crystalised bits has never really lost its lustre...
Review Omega Labyrinth Life - A Robust Dungeon Crawler With Plant-Based Padding
Roguelife
We’ve looked at several games over the past few months with a focus on fanservice: some of them offering cheeky, inoffensive fun in short bursts (Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Scarlet); others spicing up some lacklustre mechanics with surreal frivolity (Panty Party); others still that utterly fail to disguise boring gameplay with jiggle...
If you please Mrs Voorhees
Note. As of November 2020, the game's servers are no longer live and online play is only available via peer-to-peer matchmaking. Much like the film franchise from which he arose, Jason Voorhees has had a very inconsistent run of quality in video games over the years. He had some okay-ish outings on the NES and the...
Review Doom 3 - A Dark, Unnerving Oddity In The Slayer Series That Still Impresses
A Hell of a looker
The recent release of the Doom trilogy on Switch has been a welcome one, even though it’s been one mired in controversy over ‘login-gate’. Doom remains a fantastic game more than a quarter of a century after its initial launch, and that’s more or less the case with Doom II as well. Doom 3, meanwhile, is a very different...
Review FIA European Truck Racing Championship - Driven Off The Road By Performance Issues
Rig-amortis
It stands to reason that if you weld four wheels and an engine onto something, there’s probably bound to be someone who wants to race said thing around a track like a maniac. Because that’s the only reason we can imagine why there’s a real-life professional racing league for big rigs and trucks. It’s clearly a big deal for many...
Review Redeemer: Enhanced Edition - Bloody And Brutal Action That's Been Poorly Ported To Switch
Monk-ey business
Redeemer: Enhanced Edition is the Ronseal of top-down beat-’em-ups. With no frills, bells or whistles, it does exactly what it says on the tin/box/eShop description. You’re a former soldier living in a remote monastery. And when some bad dudes attack your temple and kill your fellow monks, it’s up to you to embrace your old...
Review Forager - A Delightful Fusion Of Stardew Valley And Harvest Moon That You Should Own
What a wonderful world
You wake up on an isolated, deserted island. It's quiet. There are only a few rocks and trees to keep you company. But you have a pickaxe. Let's break up this rock, see what you get. Oh, a few bits of coal. Okay, let's smash up some more stuff. Now you can build a furnace. Good, let's get crafting. You've levelled up too –...
Review Caladrius Blaze - A Mechanically Competent Shmup With Gratuitous Presentation
Behold the power of the "Shame Break"
Caladrius Blaze is new to the Switch, but didn’t just pop up overnight. The top-down shooter launched as plain old Caladrius on Xbox 360 in Japan in 2013, before progressing through arcade, PS3, PS4 and Windows on the way to Switch. Looking further back, it’s descended from 1990s Japanese arcade favourite...
Review Doom II - It's Hell On Earth With This Devilishly Playable Switch Port
Ah Hell, here we go again
Since this review was originally published patches have 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. Not only did Bethesda...
Review Doom - Blasting Hellspawned Demons Like It's 1993, All Over Again
Hell switches over
Since this review was originally published patches have 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. There are few games as...
Review Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power - A Charming, Magical Jaunt Stumbles Into 3D
High fantasy in three dimensions
When an established franchise fundamentally changes up the tried-and-tested gameplay it's known for, it can either go really well or quite badly. Take Metroid Prime, for example: moving the series into a 3D environment for the first time turned out to be the best decision possible, resulting in one of the most...
Review Picross Lord Of The Nazarick - Solid Puzzling With A Shoehorned Story
And they say Super Smash Bros. is the ultimate crossover...
Jupiter’s Picross series has remained a reliable fixture in Nintendo’s digital release schedule for several years now, delivering a steady and ever-improving stream of addictive nonogram puzzles for fans to solve. Over those years, the series has dabbled in a few crossover releases as...
Duck and cover
There’s a point early on in Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden when you realise this is something rather special. It’s when you’re methodically picking off a set of marauders patrolling a ruined settlement with a squad consisting of a wise-cracking anthropomorphic mallard (in a top hat, naturally) and his disgruntled warthog...
Review Mighty Switch Force! Collection - A Great Bundle From A Classic Series
Ne-naw, ne-naw!
When Mighty Switch Force! released on the Nintendo 3DS back in 2011, it became somewhat of a sleeper hit. Displaying Wayforward’s flair for originality with a dash of eccentricity, it soon spawned a sequel, a spin-off title and its very own HD remaster, all in the space of just 4 years. Now, the series has been brought together on...
Review Raiden V: Director's Cut - Bullet Hell On A Budget Both Veterans And Noobs Can Appreciate
Purple homing laser destruction for the whole family
It is hard to believe that Seibu Kaihatsu’s legendary Raiden shmup series graced Nintendo platforms a single time on Super Nintendo, twenty-seven years ago. But do all good things come to those who wait? We find out as Moss and UFO interactive grace the Switch with the 'Director's Cut' of Raiden...
Review Wolfenstein: Youngblood - Brilliant Co-Op Carnage That's Overshadowed By Its Forerunners
The wicked sisters
The modern incarnation of Wolfenstein has always been a wicked world to inhabit; a deliciously bloody alt-history full of technologically-advanced Nazis, giant mechanical dogs and the kind of well-fleshed out villains who creep right off the screen. Always driven by a compelling and purposefully shocking story beats, the murderous...
Review Super Mega Baseball 2: Ultimate Edition - Finally, A Decent Baseball Sim On Switch
Stealing The Show
It's always a tricky task to translate ‘America’s Pastime’ into a video game form in a way that accurately bottles the magic of a day at your favourite ballpark. For Switch owners, we’ve watched as MLB The Show – the only real go-to simulator for baseball goodness on consoles – continue to score home runs on other...
Review Lethal League Blaze - Jet Set Radio Meets Tennis Meets Street Fighter
Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge
Breaking into the beat 'em up genre is a tough ask for any fledgeling title. With gargantuan franchises such as Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Smash Bros. making up a sizeable part of the Switch's fighting roster, newcomers need to either nail basic fighting gameplay with pinpoint precision or introduce a fresh...
Review Kill la Kill: IF - An Underwhelming Arena Fighter That's Only For Fans Of The Anime
IF only it was good
When a popular anime receives a video game adaptation, more often than not it's some form of arena fighter. On Switch alone, we've already seen the likes of My Hero One's Justice, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 and more transform hit anime licenses into enjoyable spectacle fighters. With a sea of...
Review Skulls of the Shogun: Bone-A-Fide Edition - A Fine Port, But Online Play Is Dead On Arrival
Samurai Shutdown
Another day, another strategy game releases on Switch. With the arrival of the excellent Tiny Metal: Full Metal Rumble and a brand new Fire Emblem game, it seems we’re rather spoilt for choice in a genre that’s already delivered us the likes of Wargroove, Valkyria Chronicles 4 and the sublime
Review Fire Emblem: Three Houses - The Zenith Of A Legendary SRPG Series
House party
Fire Emblem has been through quite a rollercoaster journey on its path to success. After an initial debut on the Famicom in 1990 with Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, the series remained a niche exclusive of the Land of the Rising Sun for thirteen years until it made its way westward, spurred on by the appearance of...
Review Pawarumi - An Amazing Shmup That's Like Ikaruga On Steroids
Drain you
Pawarumi’s game-over screen, which you’ll see more times than you can possibly imagine in your attempts to complete Manufacture 43’s shooter, exclaims to the beaten player “Try Again, You Can Do It!” This is a game that knows it’s hard, knows it’s got a steep learning curve – one of the steepest we’ve encountered in quite...
Review Fantasy Strike - Taking The Fighting Genre Back To Basics
Less mashing, more smashing
The good old fighting game has certainly enjoyed a massive resurgence over the past ten or so years, one that many pinpoint as having been kickstarted by the release of Capcom's Street Fighter 4 back in 2008, and nowadays the popularity of the genre has returned to something akin to that which it enjoyed back in the glory...
Review Automachef - Considerably More Complex Than Using A Microwave
Rice of the Machines
Given that Team17 has already enjoyed huge success with Overcooked and Overcooked 2 – both of which are available on the Switch – you’d be forgiven for initially thinking that Automachef was more of the same; an attempt to tweak the format a little and keep dining out (ahem) on what it knows is already working. This...
Review Dead In Vinland: True Viking Edition - The Sims Meets Don’t Starve
Norse of the border
Back in 2015, French developer CCCP served up Dead in Bermuda, a tantalising dish that mixed survival elements and people management into one unusual experience. This Lost-style adventure looked casual, but that was just the tip of a challenging tropical iceberg. Three years later and it’s reworked the same formula for a new...
Review Rise: Race The Future - Imagine Anti-Gravity Ridge Racer, And You're Close
Just a lonely drifter
There isn’t a day goes by when we don’t pray that Bandai Namco finally snaps out of it and realises the Switch needs a new Ridge Racer game. The series’ arcade-style, drift-heavy racing action would be perfect on Nintendo’s system, but alas, we’ve heard nothing despite rumours early last year. So when we were told...
Review Lust For Darkness - A Clumsy Trip Through A Depraved Hellscape That's As Sexy As It Sounds
Mood killer
Two-and-a-half-years into its inception and Nintendo Switch isn’t struggling for games of a horrific persuasion. From unnerving yet humorous adventures such as The Padre to zombie-ridden action adventures a la Resident Evil 4, us hybrid handheld owners have plenty of grisly titles to satisfy our gluttony for the macabre. One thing we...
Review Tiny Metal: Full Metal Rumble - Finally, A True Successor To Advance Wars Emerges
The tiny student becomes a metal master
It’s now been eleven whole years since we’ve had a new Advance Wars game, with Nintendo seemingly happy to let its successful SRPG series slide into oblivion since 2008’s Dark Conflict on the DS, disregarding the pleas of fans whilst instead turning its attention to the more story-oriented and emotional...
Review Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order - Arcade Brawling Is Back, Baby
Hero syndrome
For years - ten of them, to be exact - the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games have retreated into the kind of obscurity only wistful nostalgia can occasionally dispel. They weren’t particularly outstanding games, but they were packed full of characters, lore, and storylines pulled straight out of Marvel’s vast archive. This was back...
Review Etherborn - A Work Of Art Hampered By Its Own Brilliance
Super Malevich Galaxy
At its core, the game is a puzzle platformer in which the central aim is straightforward: reach the end of each stage by activating various switches and avoiding dangerous obstacles along the way. Naturally though, it isn’t quite as simple as that, and that’s because of Etherborn’s other central mechanic: your ability to...
Review God Eater 3 - A Great Port Of A Fine Monster Hunter Alternative
Aragami killer
While simply describing God Eater 3 as a Monster Hunter clone might be a little disingenuous, it does comfortably sum up the core tenets of its gameplay. Much like Capcom’s seminal slaying series, you’ll explore pre-defined areas and face off against monsters of varying sizes. You’ll hack off body parts and use the resources you...
Review Attack on Titan 2: Final Battle - An Expansion With Real Depth And Some Odd Decisions
Giant killer
With a distinct lack of Spider-Man games on Nintendo Switch (we can’t help but look longingly at Insomniac’s stellar PS4 exclusive from last year and quietly weep), it fell to the most unlikely of sources to bring city-swinging and verticality to the console: Attack on Titan 2. The original base game has a few issues (check out our...
Review Hyperlight Ultimate - A Satisfying Switch Update For The Arcade Shooter
FTL FTW!
Hyperlight EX originally released on 3DS way back in December of 2016, at first glance looking like just another Geometry Wars clone, it proved to be very much its own thing with a unique twist; instead of shooting enemies, you use your ship’s FTL (Faster Than Light) drive to smash through them. We awarded the game a sexy seven at the...
Review Streets Of Rogue - An Ambitious Roguelite With Plenty Of Role Play
A rogue one
Let’s be honest, the rogue-lite has become a little too ubiquitous in 2019. Along with RPG levelling, procedurally generated levels and pixel art graphics, this once fresh and exciting sub-genre has arguably become more rote than riveting. And yet, despite the fact Streets of Rogue features all of the above, it’s somehow managed to...
Review Terraria - A Fine Switch Port That’s Missing One Key Ingredient
A decent port of a legendary game
If there’s one game in the world that has been cloned to death, it’s Mojang’s seminal sandbox block-builder, Minecraft. Most of the ‘me-too’ versions of it have been content with simply offering a vastly inferior experience that seldom adds much, if any, interesting new content to the tried and true...
Review Paradox Soul - One Metroidvania Too Many?
Dr. Rose, I presume
Another day, another Metroidvania. It feels like the Switch is getting a new one every week at the moment, and whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing will no doubt depend on your affinity with the genre. Whilst the Switch has become home to some of the finest examples of the genre in recent memory, such as Axiom Verge and...
Review Dr. Mario World - A Fun Puzzler That Really Comes Alive In Online Multiplayer
A National Wealth Service
It’s a well-kept secret that the WiiWare version of Dr. Mario is one of the greatest online multiplayer games ever released on a Nintendo system. The series may have originally launched on the NES back in 1990, but it was that release of Dr. Mario & Germ Buster (AKA Dr. Mario Online Dx) on the Wii that absolutely...
Review Dragon Quest Builders 2 - Beating Minecraft At Its Own Game
Building a new legacy
Though the Minecraft formula has been iterated on to hell and back, Square Enix managed to offer up an interesting take on the sandbox classic with Dragon Quest Builders. All the blocky aesthetics and open-ended crafting were present and accounted for, but these things were all couched within a wider narrative arc that included...
Review Blazing Chrome - A Truly Amazing Contra Tribute That 2D Fans Will Adore
I need your clothes, your boots, and your hover-bike
When Konami announced Contra: Rogue Corps – the latest entry in the Contra series – during Nintendo's E3 2019 Direct, you could almost hear a collective groan of disappointment worldwide. Of course, the realisation that Konami is actually still investing in console games was an absolute...
Review War Tech Fighters - What You Get If You Mix Pacific Rim, Gundam And... Mortal Kombat?
We're not mech-ing this up, honest
Making a video game about giant robots fighting each other (or indeed, fighting anything at all) should be a guaranteed hit. Yet the modest list of Switch mech-related game releases has proven over time that this isn't as easy as it sounds. We do know that this will very likely change mid-September, but can Drakkar...
Review Another Sight - A Neat Idea Undone By Clunky Mechanics
Don't look meow
Disabilities can often be a difficult element to include in a video game. How do you accurately represent a physical and psychological ailment in a way that a) brings something compelling to the game itself, and b) avoids trivialising a condition or state countless people live with every day? It’s a sensitive balancing act to get...
Review SolSeraph - A God-Like Disappointment That Proves What A Classic Actraiser Really Is
Sol Sacrifice
Ace Team’s SolSeraph immediately grabbed our attention when it was surprise-announced at the end of last month. Here, finally, was a spiritual successor to SNES classic Actraiser that looked to head back to the roots of the franchise by reinstating the winning combination of platforming action and Populous-lite strategy that was...
Review Senran Kagura: Peach Ball - A Shiny Casing Full Of Used Pinball Machine Parts
Pinball X jiggle
In the annals of video game history there have been a great many iterations of the classic arcade game of pinball, whether traditional 'realistic' recreations of tables or fresh digital spins on the genre. Pokémon Pinball, for example, built on the foundation of Kirby’s Pinball Land and added an addictive ‘catch ‘em all’...
Review Stranger Things 3: The Game - Netflix's '80s-Themed Sci-Fi Series Comes To Switch
Turn it up to Eleven
Once up a time – well, to be more specific, a generation or so ago – licensed tie-in video games weren’t the sole domain of LEGO. Practically every film property had its own video game equivalent, usually doing nothing more than offering gamers an easy way to boost their gamerscore or trophy count. Of course, this was back...
