Latest Reviews
Six not-so-final Final Fantasies
Few series are as beloved as Final Fantasy, and given how many re-releases, remakes, and remasters we’ve gotten over the years, Square Enix knows this. Often these remakes and re-releases have questionable quality and design choices that diehard fans lament. Enter the Final Fantasy I-VI Pixel Remaster, which...
Review Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp (Switch) - A Pair Of Strategy Gems Delightfully Reimagined
Black Hole Sun
After two lengthy delays to its original release date of December 2021 — a combination of last-minute fine-tuning and "recent world events" (aka Vladimir Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine) — Wayforward's Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp is finally here. This pair of Game Boy Advance classics have stood the time incredibly well...
Review Disney Speedstorm - Great Courses And Characters, But Stutters On Switch
Super karting, quite artistic, FPS atrocious
It’s hard to review a game when it has something that doesn’t bother some players but is considered a dealbreaker for others. Disney Speedstorm is a particularly tricky course to navigate, then, because it has two of them. Let’s get this out of the way first, then, so as to not waste some...
Review Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories (Switch) - A Witty Little Nostalgia Trip
Melondramatic, in the best sense
We are living in an unprecedentedly competitive attention economy, one in which time and energy are increasingly finite and precious. Because of this, it can be easy to overlook games which appear simple and unassuming at first glance: retro monochromatic Game Boy-style graphics, cute-but-childish anthropomorphic...
Review Pokémon Stadium - The Original 151 Brought To Life With Style
Your stadium tour awaits
This review originally went live in 2016, and we're updating and republishing it to mark the game's arrival in Switch's N64 library via the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. With the Pokémon franchise being as super effective as it was during the late '90s due to its handheld games, trading cards, television anime...
Review Cannon Dancer - Osman (Switch) - The Bold, Concise Strider Sequel You Always Wanted
Strider Too
Following his departure from Capcom, director Kouichi Yotsui was burdened with expectation following Strider's success. Sadly, despite his inventive, risk-taking approach to game development, he would never again win the limelight. In the mid-'90s he had a fling with Mitchell Corporation, a studio formed of ex-Capcom staff that coaxed...
Review Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection (Switch) - A Rock-Solid Compilation
Jack in!! Mega Man, Execute!
In the early 2000s, an ancient and long-forgotten era when Capcom regularly released new Mega Man games, the company decided to produce not one, but two mainline Mega Man series on the popular Game Boy Advance. Mega Man Zero would continue the gameplay and storyline that the previous action platforming franchises were...
Review TRON: Identity (Switch) - A Tight Visual Novel That Fans Of The Films Will Love
Griddy with anticipation
The world of Tron is filled with intrigue, opposing forces, and not-so-subtle hints at the influence humans have on the programs living within their computers. While the two films followed humans who made their way to The Grid, TRON: Identity is a visual novel that offers a look at how programs interact when there aren’t...
Review Batora: Lost Haven (Switch) - An Interplanetary Action RPG That Plays It Too Safe
That's no moon!
Italian-based studio Stormind Games came onto the scene in 2016 alongside the announcement of Remothered: Tormented Fathers, a decent survival horror game that eventually found its way onto the Switch. After its more critically panned sequel dropped two years later, the studio decided to pivot to another genre with a new project,...
Review Lunark (Switch) - The Love Letter The Cinematic Platforming Genre Deserves
That's both a moon AND a space station
Lunark sends players into the retro-future we all thought the '80s would be. It brings a world of flying cars and corrupt mega-corporations to life with vibrant pixel graphics and rotoscope animation. At its best moments, Lunark is an effective love letter to the cinematic platformer, a genre of gaming that...
Review GrimGrimoire OnceMore (Switch) - Magical Quality Of Life Additions Refine Repetitive RTS
Time is an unending circle
Learning magic is full of danger. One day you’re just getting your head around the basics of summoning different creatures and the next you’re stuck in an inexplicable time loop to prevent a trapped Archmage from reclaiming an artifact of unimaginable power. At least, that’s the way things go in GrimGrimoire OnceMore...
Review The Last Worker (Switch) - Well-Packaged Satire That Doesn't Always Deliver
Stand and deliver
First announced for Switch in March 2021, news of parcel-shipping immersive sim The Last Worker has been fascinating. Over the last two years, there’s been plenty of time for interesting little info trinkets to be packed and despatched from the Wired Productions warehouse. There was the time the game competed at the Venice Film...
Review Saga Of Sins (Switch) - Beautiful Stained-Glass Visuals, But Lacks The Divine Touch
Confession time
Rejoice, sinners, for redemption is on its way. Saga of Sins puts players in control of Cecil, a battle-weary cleric who has recently returned from the Crusades. Rather than receive a joyous reception when he arrives, he sees his home village of Sinwell has become infested with plague and its citizens consumed with their sinful ways...
Review Gripper (Switch) - Slick, Akira-Style Biking Action With An Equal Measure Of Frustration
The music's good, though
Heart Core’s Gripper has a lot to like at first glance. Motorcycle slides inspired by the classic anime, Akira? Yes, please. Starring a stylish half-cybernetic young man named None? Weird name, but cool. A slick art style and a heavy synthwave soundtrack? You’re speaking our language. The opening cinematic introduces an...
Review MLB The Show 23 - A Solid Inning On Switch With A Stellar Storylines Mode
Whiffs and Dingers
For the second year running, SIE San Diego's MLB The Show franchise lands on Nintendo Switch and, this time around, history takes centre stage with a new Storylines mode giving players the opportunity to learn about some of the all-time great baseballers from the Negro Leagues. It’s undoubtedly the highlight of an outing that...
*spooking intensifies*
It’s remarkable how easy it can be to see the effects of developers' genuine passion when playing a video game. In Kraino Origins—the product of one man, Angel Dorantes—you can just feel how much appreciation the dev has for classic retro platformers. Better yet, it turns out that he clearly understands what made the...
Review Have A Nice Death (Switch) - Delightfully Dark, Brutally Tough Roguelite Action
Dead good
In 2019, Magic Design Studios—a new team comprised of many ex-Ubisoft staff—put out the Rayman-esque Unruly Heroes, which we thought was a great platformer with some amazing visuals. For the next few years, the team went quiet while working on its next game, revealed in late 2021 as Have A Nice Death, a tough action roguelite about the...
Review Dredge (Switch) - A Haunting Lovecraftian Fishing Sim That Reels You In
There’s no plaice like home
New Zealand indie studio Black Salt’s Dredge surfaced in a highly mysterious trailer in 2022. All we saw was a small boat chugging around torrid seas, terrorised by Lovecraftian looming skies and giant, tentacled monsters. A later trailer showed a fisherman catching ever larger fish, selling them for ever larger...
Review Assault Suits Valken Declassified (Switch) - A Great Treatment Of A Mecha Classic
Assaulting the senses
Within a few steps into the world of Assault Suits Valken Declassified, it is immediately apparent that something distinct is going on. That’s because the steps themselves feel different. Compared to traditional run ‘n’ guns such as Metal Slug, for example, the movement in the Assault Suits Valken remaster is...
Review Blade Assault (Switch) - A Competent 2D Roguelite In Desperate Need Of Sharpening
To be blunt
It must be tough being a developer in the roguelite space these days. The absolute explosion of popularity this genre has enjoyed over the past several years has led to an impressive number of innovative new titles that find cool ways to create new play experiences or reinterpret old ones, but competition has never been higher and the...
Going out on a thigh note
Gust's long-running Atelier series has come on leaps and bounds over the past few years. Its various recent appearances on Switch in particular display a steely determination on the part of the Japanese developer to step up with its JRPG franchise and make a concerted effort to rub shoulders with the big guns. In Atelier...
Mini Review Storyteller (Switch) - A Clever, Funny Little Puzzler From Annapurna
We want more!
Whether it’s the eye-popping The Artful Escape or the music-driven masterpiece Sayonara Wild Hearts, Annapurna Interactive has put out more than a few must-play titles on the Nintendo Switch, so when we heard the publisher's next project was a little puzzle game called Storyteller, you can bet we wanted to check it out immediately...
Review Backbeat (Switch) - A Unique, Virtuoso Puzzler Steeped In Funk And '90s Cool
Sax, lies, and videotape
When you think “music game”, you probably think “rhythm action”. Well, Stockholm-based indie team Ichigoichie is here to confound your expectations with Backbeat, a funkily fiendish puzzle game about the intricacies of playing in a band. Ichigoichie’s first game was 2019’s Hexagroove, where they were already...
Cel of the century
Foolish is the person who looks at a tie-in game aimed mainly at younger players and instantly dismisses it as a load of old bums. Of course, most of the time they’re completely right – we still have occasional nightmares of that time we played Hotel for Dogs on the Wii – but every now and then a licensed game will go above...
Review Bayonetta Origins: Cereza And The Lost Demon (Switch) - A Placid Prequel For Platinum's Star
A Kind of Magic
If you happened to read our Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon preview a few weeks back you'll know that after the first five chapters of the game, we were pretty excited to continue our adventures through PlatinumGames' bewitching spin-off from the main Bayonetta series. We were impressed with its mix of gameplay mechanics...
Have at you!
Few games have enjoyed post-launch support as robust and high-quality as Dead Cells has received for the past six(!) years. Motion Twin has produced wave after wave of updates, some free and some paid, which have packed the already awesome base game with a dizzying amount of new biomes, weapons, cosmetics, and more. And all of it feels...
More blessing than curse
If you’ve not heard of Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, then don’t worry. Although this curious visual novel is receiving a worldwide release on the Switch eShop, its reveal was specifically earmarked for the Japanese Nintendo Direct back in February. So while we were undoubtedly smitten over Metroid Prime...
Review Figment 2: Creed Valley - Charming Action Puzzling, But Sluggish On Switch
Sleep well
In 2017, Bedtime Digital Games released Figment, a cute and dreamlike action puzzle game that aimed to be a little more ambitious and expansive than their debut release, Back to Bed. We enjoyed it, and evidently plenty of other people did, too, as the studio has now brought us Figment 2: Creed Valley. Though Figment 2 feels like more of...
Review Mato Anomalies (Switch) - Ambitious Detective RPG Is Overstuffed And Unengaging
Shanghai Surprise?
Arrowiz, the Shanghai-based development team behind 2021's Hermitage: Strange Case Files, returns to Nintendo Switch with a determined attempt to replicate the general rhythm and vibe of Atlus' all-conquering Persona series in the form of Mato Anomalies. This is an RPG that throws a whole bunch of ideas and gameplay mechanics at...
Review The Last Spell - An Extremely Fun, Dark Roguelite With A Clumsy Switch Port
Spells trouble
Even in a magical fantasy setting, nothing good comes from war. The Last Spell, a roguelite that mixes tactical RPG and tower defense elements, is set in a world that has already been destroyed by mankind’s thirst for destruction. With this unique blend of genres, the game offers up some fun and engaging gameplay mechanics, but...