Latest Reviews
Review Game Builder Garage - A Toolbox Of Terrifying Potential
Make your own damned games
Game Builder Garage is a game where you make games yourself rather than letting trained developers do it for you. If that sounds like a lot of hard work then Game Builder Garage probably isn’t going to be your flavour of choice. But if that sounds like a lot of hard work that you’d actually like to have a pop at, the...
Review DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power - A Kid-Friendly Alternative To Grimdark DC
These girls just wanna have fun
These days, when the average person thinks of DC, they tend to picture the dark, ‘gritty’ tone of the DCEU movies (along with the infamous ‘Martha’ scene, of course). Despite attempts to break away from this with the mildly enjoyable Shazam! and the frankly dire theatrical cut of Justice League, miserable...
Review World's End Club - A Real Looker Spoiled By Hit-And-Miss Storytelling
"I said I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard."
Zero Escape and Danganronpa are two of the most notable names in the visual novel space, so fans were understandably excited when the creators of these two juggernauts were revealed to be teaming up for a new project: World’s End Club. After a soft launch on Apple Arcade,...
Review Maneater - You're Gonna Need A Better Combat System
Calamity Island?
Tripwire Interactive’s Maneater really does have itself a pretty killer premise. Letting players loose on its open world setting of Port Clovis as a deeply scarred bull shark in search of revenge, it’s an unashamedly silly, hyper violent and completely throwaway experience that should make for a pretty great videogame. It...
Review Wonder Boy: Asha In Monster World - A Fine Revival, Faithful To A Fault
No boys allowed
It’s been a beautiful time for Sega revivals as of late, with games like Streets of Rage 4 and Panzer Dragoon: Remake bringing back old classics. One of the most prolific has been Westone’s Wonder Boy/Monster World series, which has seen no less than three entries – first, a remake of the Master System game The Dragon’s Trap...
Review Miitopia - A Daft DIY Adventure With Boundless Appeal, If You Make The Effort
RPGii
If there’s one 3DS exclusive we didn’t expect to make the leap to the Switch, it’s Miitopia. The oddball RPG starring you and your friends has been given the HD treatment, but does it really have a place on a system so much more powerful than the 3DS? The story of Miitopia is nothing too extravagant: the appropriately named Dark Lord...
Review SnowRunner - A Slow And Steady Off-Road Trucker
An ice change of pace
The arrival of MudRunner on the Switch in 2018 was a pleasantly surprising one. The game had previously been released on other formats a year earlier, and developer Saber Interactive did a surprisingly decent job of porting it over to the Switch, even chucking in its American Wilds expansion as part of the package. Its sequel,...
Review Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster - The Best Version Of An Ageing Classic
A Demi-fiendishly good time
By this point in time, it’d be easy to believe that the Persona series is Atlus’ flagship franchise due to how easily audiences seem to have connected with the lighthearted high schooler antics featured there. In actuality, Persona is itself a spin-off of Shin Megami Tensei, Atlus’ true flagship franchise which has...
Review Subnautica + Subnautica Below Zero Double Pack - An Accomplished Double Dive
What Lies Beneath
One of the very best survival titles currently available on any platform, Subnautica is a hugely immersive underwater epic that combines survival, crafting, open world exploration and an intriguing narrative to truly spectacular effect. It's one of our all-time favourite games and so, when we heard that both the original and it's...
Review Raiden IV x Mikado Remix - Another Astoundingly Good Shmup For Switch
Mix it up
Back in the late eighties when 2D shooting games were a dominant form rather than a somewhat niche genre, a particular kind of shmup became very popular indeed. While the likes of Capcom’s 1942 certainly set the groundwork, the success of Toaplan’s separate 1987 arcade releases Twin Cobra and Flying Shark made hard-nosed, unembellished...
Review R-Type Final 2 - Shmup Royalty Returns In An Authentic, If Flawed, Revival
The final curtain?
Almost two decades have passed since the last entry in the mainline R-Type series. That makes the arrival of R-Type Final 2 a genuinely exciting prospect — particularly for shooting game devotees. Firing up Granzella’s latest for the first time really does feel like a meaningful moment for the form. An icon has returned,...
Review New Pokémon Snap - The Best-Looking Pokémon Game Yet, And A Joyous Revival
Lental clarity
It's been 22 years since the original Pokémon Snap and with each passing console generation fans had never given up hope for a possible sequel. Why is that? It wasn't a long game, it didn't have that many levels, only had a small pool of Pokémon and the base gameplay was simply about taking pictures. On paper, Pokémon Snap sounds...
Best in class
Much like Koei’s Atelier series, Nihon Falcom’s Legend of Heroes games are some of the best RPGs that you’ve never played. Engrossing storytelling is one of the cornerstones of the RPG genre, and no other series exemplifies this as well as the Legend of Heroes. The story began with Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes way back in...
Review Poison Control - Entertaining To A Point, But Lacking Where It Counts
To Hell and back
Sometimes the only way to get to Heaven is to go to Hell. At least, that’s the case in Poison Control, the newest game from Nippon Ichi Software to make it to western shores. This single-player action-RPG/shooter has a lot of charm and characters with real personality, though they are a bit cliché at points. Poison Control...
Mini Review Densha de Go! Hashiro Yamanote Line - Yes, You Just Drive A Train
Come on, baby, do the locomotion
The eShop trailer for Densha de Go!! Hashirou Yamanote Sen (“Go by train! Drive the Yamanote line”) is just a guy singing “Densha de Go!” repeatedly while trains drive. For series fans, nothing else need be said. But let’s fill in the blanks. Densha de Go! is a Japanese train driving series that started in...
Review Bladed Fury - A Pretty Yet Bland Hack-And-Slash Platformer That Lacks An Edge
Muramessy: The Demon Blade
NEXT Studios' Bladed Fury is a side-scrolling hack 'n slash platformer set in the Warring States period of ancient Chinese history, an era characterized by endless warfare and high political drama that's been nicely infused here with a hefty dose of mythology and the supernatural. This is a game with a few good ideas up...
Review BIG-Bobby-Car - The Big Race - Chugs A Bit, But Fine For A First Little Runabout
Life in plastic, it's fantastic(ally average)
We’ve seen some odd licensed karting games in our time but the BIG Bobby Car is certainly one of the most left-field ones we’ve come across, even though it does make sense when you think about it. For those not in the know, the BIG Bobby Car is a plastic ride-on car for young children that’s been...
Review Balan Wonderworld - A Charmless, Confusing Fossil From The Creators Of Sonic
A relic of another age
Balan Wonderworld is a strange game. Mascot platformers were all the rage around the turn of the century, but that fad has long since died off. Yet here comes a brand-new seemingly high budget entry in the genre that feels straight out of 2001 (not in a good way) and it’s produced by Square Enix no less. Unfortunately, Balan...
Review Root Film - A Surprisingly Grown-Up Visual Novel
A murder mystery through a different lens
Like any good story, it starts with a death. We don’t know why someone is laying on the street or why people are taking pictures of them with their phones, but the world is dark and getting darker until it all fades to black. Root Film starts out grim and a little bit frightening, but the shock soon fades...
Review Story of Seasons: Pioneers Of Olive Town - Enjoyable, But Unremarkable
Is POOT a fart in the wind, or a glorious trumpet?
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town might not bear the Harvest Moon title that would identify it as a continuation of the beloved series, but that's all down to copyright, Japanese-to-English translation, and a schism between XSEED and Natsume. It's not very interesting, so to summarise: Story...
Review Overcooked! All You Can Eat - Stuff Your Face With This Awesome Multiplayer Marvel
Seconds, please
Team17 has just released Overcooked! All You Can Eat, which pulls together the two Overcooked! games as well as all of the related DLC. By the same token, we've compiled this mega-review which covers all of the content. Enjoy! Overcooked: Special Edition: Part of the draw and charm of the Nintendo Switch is the increased focus that...
Review Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle For Neighborville Complete Edition - Dig For Victory
A bountiful harvest
It’s been a long and weird road for the Plants vs. Zombies franchise. What began as a simplistic and quirky tower defence title eventually led to the creation of a surprisingly high-quality shooter spin-off series. The latest release in this series, Plants vs. Zombies: Battle For Neighborville, originally saw its debut on other...
Review Monster Hunter Rise - A New Apex For Capcom's Beastly Franchise
A new Nintendo Switch classic has risen
This encounter felt fated. Written in the stars. Ever since the Nintendo Switch was revealed in late 2016, one pervasive thought has been: “How great is Monster Hunter going to be?” While we saw the release of Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate in 2018, it was just a port of the 3DS title that was...
Review Sea Of Solitude: The Director's Cut - Fun While It Lasts, Which Isn't Long
Sea by name, C by nature
There are simply not enough games where you get to ride around in a boat. It was the best part of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, formed the pulse-pounding backbone of Hydro Thunder, and it’s everyone’s favourite bit in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Cars, planes and humans are cool and all, but boats? They really...
Review WRC 9 The Official Game - The Best Rally Game On Switch, But That's Not Saying Much
Still not rally what we're looking for
Over the past few years, the WRC series of rally games has gained a reputation for providing arguably the most accurate depiction of the sport. While the Colin McRae Rally series has over time evolved into Dirt – which tends to focus on more over-the-top racing (not that it’s on Switch anyway) – the...
Review Kaze And The Wild Masks - A Brilliant Homage To Donkey Kong Country
Kaze ni nare
Despite being a) beloved and b) hugely successful, the Donkey Kong Country series feels a little… well… under-rated. Offering a weighty yet fast-paced alternative take on the side-scrolling platformer, it’s always been second fiddle to Nintendo’s flagship Super Mario titles. It’s a surprise that such an overt love letter to...
Review Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning - RPG Action That Really Shows Its Age
Combat is King
Some six months on from its initial release on PS4, Xbox and PC, Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning, THQ Nordic's "remaster" of 2012's action-RPG epic, finally arrives on Nintendo Switch, bringing with it a solid hundred hours'-worth of high-fantasy shenanigans. While it's more than showing its age in many respects – and certainly...
Review Harvest Moon: One World - A Poor Imitation Of A Once-Great Series
Time to take this old horse out to the back of the barn
Harvest Moon: One World, to summarise the next few hundred words of complaining, is a badly-paced, unattractive, hollow facsimile of a Harvest Moon game. And yes, we're well aware of the Natsume/XSEED schism, and that Story of Seasons is the "true" Harvest Moon game, but even still, how the...
Review Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time - Better Late Than Never
Worth taking for a spin
In one sense, it should come as no surprise that Crash Bandicoot 4 has eventually made its way to the Switch, albeit five months after it came to other consoles. When the N. Sane Trilogy came to the Switch a full year after launching on the PS4, it was hugely successful despite that 12-month gap – both critically and...
Review Cotton Reboot! - The Wonderfully Playable "Cute 'Em Up" Is Resurrected For Switch
Bullets and Broomsticks
Witches and shoot 'em ups have proven to be an enduring alchemy for gaming’s prevailing niche, with the likes of Magical Chase, Gunbird, Deathsmiles and Trouble Witches casting a spell of bullet patterns over several generations of gamer. Success Corp. released Magical Night Dreams Cotton in 1991. One of the earliest...
