Latest Reviews
Review Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 - Another Faithful Tribute To The Classic 2D Castlevanias
A classic Castlevania by any other name
During the 2015 Kickstarter campaign for Castlevania spiritual successor Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, one of the reward tiers promised a retro-styled prequel minigame. Nobody really knew what to expect at the time, but three years later it resulted in Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. Developed by Inti...
Old friends, new console
Nearly two decades ago, the Nintendo fanbase was graced with Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, the first entry in the series for the Game Boy Advance. Offering up a low-key and easily accessible gateway into the farm sim genre, it quickly garnered a following and earned itself the reputation of being one of the better...
Review Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise - A Fun Game, In Disguise
That game you like is going to come back in style
Let’s get the bad (though perhaps unsurprising) news out of the way first: from a pure technical perspective, Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise is a train wreck. Anyone who can't handle unstable framerates, crude character animation, moiré-like patterns and other visual artifacts or...
Mini Review kuso - An Accessible Yet Challenging eShop Gem
The least appropriately-named game of all time?
The sheer purity of kuso is almost disconcerting. A simple 2D platformer with no major traversal mechanics besides running and jumping, it's quite a difficult sell to the seasoned platform veteran. You have the ability to drop checkpoints instantly (a little like Ori and the Blind Forest), which means...
Mini Review Superliminal - A Mind-Bending Visual Puzzler With A Powerful Message
Well seasoned perspective
Ever since Valve’s iconic puzzler Portal launched back in 2007, we’ve seen a number of developers put their own spin on the genre, including ChromaGun, The Witness, and The Talos Principle. Superliminal is one of the more successful efforts; a mind-bending jaunt into a mysterious facility that turns out
Mini Review The Almost Gone - An Abstract Experience You Won't Be Able To Put Down
When life flashes before your eyes
The Almost Gone is a point-and-click puzzle game in which you investigate a variety of different locations presented as miniature dioramas. The story plays out as you piece together clues and examine objects, and it’s one that doesn’t shy away from tough subjects, such as alcoholism. It’s an abstract...
Review Ultracore - DICE's Lost 1994 Run And Gun Shooter Is Reborn On Switch
A roll of the DICE
Back in the forgotten, misty year of 1994, a game called Hardcore (developed by Digital Illusions, now better known as DICE) was previewed in game magazines for Mega Drive, Mega CD and Amiga. Then, thanks to the encroaching next generation of consoles, publisher Psygnosis canned the title when it was borderline completed. And now,...
Mini Review Across The Grooves - A Time-Travelling Tale That's All About Relationships
Time after time
Across the Grooves is an interactive graphic novel that puts you in the shoes of Alice. Having lived a relatively normal existence thus far, Alice’s life is turned upside down when she receives an odd package from her ex, Ulysse. A vinyl record is contained within, and when Alice plays it, she’s launched back into the past to...
Joe Hawk's Rising
If you've ever indulged in a little of Redlynx's Trials series, tried your hand at some Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or dabbled a little with Hello Games' Joe Danger on last-gen consoles, you'll have a good idea of what Urban Trial Tricky is attempting to aim towards. Tate Multimedia has created a messy mish-mash of all three here, with...
Review Outbuddies DX - Offers Lots To Love, But The Failings Of This Metroidvania Bring It Down
With buddies like these...
You can’t move for Metroidvania games these days, and given that a huge percentage of these are indie games with retro-style graphics, we propose a new subgenre called Retroidvania. Outbuddies DX fits rather nicely into this new pigeonhole we just created, and we can safely say that of all the Retroidvania games we’ve...
Review Catherine: Full Body - The Ultimate Version Of A Surreal Cult Classic
A Rare Vintage
One of our absolute favourite games from the last console generation, Atlus' Catherine is a sublimely stylish mix of visual novel, dating simulation and fiendish block tower puzzler that tells a captivatingly warped story whilst constantly challenging its players with its clever and rewarding platform puzzle elements. Originally...
Review Infini - A Clever Spatial Puzzler That Looks Like No Other Game You've Played
To Infini and beyond
There's a mind-boggling degree of variety out there on the eShop right now, with multiple genres and virtually all tastes catered for in one way or another. But there isn't much out there that's downright weird. Or nothing that even approaches Infini, in any case. The world of games is a pretty conservative place when you...
Review Biped - A Polished, Nintendo-Style Experience That's A Little On The Short Side
The true walking simulator
The simple act of walking in video games is rarely, if ever, a challenging endeavour. It’s more likely that we’re asked to perform more complex moves like jumping, punching, or kicking, but walking is more of an immediate, automatic action that we probably take for granted. Biped flips this concept on its head, and...
Review Yes, Your Grace - A Curious Mix Of Kingdom Management And Medieval Adventure
Red weddings and royal whodunnits
Modern European royalty has things easy. Without any form of meaningful power to wield, all they have to deal with is intra-family bickering and the odd scandal. The regal protagonist of Yes, Your Grace has to deal with all this, plus a kingdom on the brink of bankruptcy, starvation, and a drug epidemic. Oh, and...
Review Mr. Driller: DrillLand - As Much Fun As It Was 18 Years Ago, If Not More So
Want a great puzzler? Bosch, here's one
There was a time when Mr. Driller was widely considered one of the best puzzle series around. After the first game hit arcades in late 1999, it spawned a bunch of sequels throughout the following decade, with 11 different versions launching in 10 years. And then... nothing. We haven’t had a new one since...
Review Star Wars Episode I: Racer - This N64 Cult Classic Doesn't Quite Make The Podium In 2020
The Race of Skywalker
A long time ago in, erm, this galaxy, a game called Star Wars Episode I: Racer was a smash hit, leading to dozens of enthusiastic magazine reviews with the byline "now this is podracing!" Unfortunately, the intervening years have been unkind to the Star Wars prequels, but does that hindsight extend to this thoroughly...
Stuck on you
Much has already been made of the fact that Ninjala so closely resembles Nintendo’s very own Splatoon and yes, the similarities on an artistic level are pretty striking and plain for all to see. However, spend more than a few cursory moments with GungHo’s free-to-play effort and you’ll find a game that works very differently to...
Review Urban Flow - An Accessible And Absorbing Traffic Toy Box
We like traffic lights
Traffic is stressful. A game about directing traffic should be stressful. Urban Flow isn't. If anything, it's quite a zen experience; more so with each additional player you bring into the game. It's a game that anyone can play, with a premise that can be explained to anyone in a matter of seconds. This is a tremendous...
Review Blair Witch - A Decent Horror Romp That Doesn't Quite Live Up To Its Tantalising Premise
The Blair Switch Project
1999's The Blair Witch Project was something of a milestone in modern cinema history. An independent, low budget hit that made mega-profits at the box office, it was the first truly successful "found footage" movie (although not "the" first) as well as the first to cleverly employ the internet in a viral marketing campaign...
Get it locked in
Taking inspiration from the likes of Eighting's Soukyugurentai and Taiti's 'Storm' series of shooters, Missile Dancer is a vertically-scrolling shmup with simple yet addictive mechanics; holding down your shot button causes a targeting circle to expand around your craft, and any enemies caught in this circle will be considered...
Review The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters - A Gorgeous Horror Adventure That Fans Of The Genre Will Love
Sibling rivalry
An interesting way to compare and contrast popular media from around the world is to look at how different cultures handle horror, because there are distinct trends that can be observed. American horror, for example, often has a focus on spectacle through blood, gore and other attention-grabbing, shocking imagery, but beneath all...
Mini Review Darius Cozmic Collection Console - A Surprisingly Varied Selection Of Home Ports
Thou shalt blast a fishy on your little Switchy
Having covered the coin-operated portion of the acclaimed Darius series of shmups (with the exception of G-Darius and Dariusburst, which are on the upcoming Darius Cozmic Revelation), we now come to the console side of the franchise, which is represented almost completely here. Unfortunately, that...
Mini Review Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade - Coin-Op Highlights From Taito's Seminal Shooter Series
The REAL sushi striker
Taito's beloved Darius series took its sweet game to appear in a dedicated compilation. Until now, only 2006's jam-packed Taito Legends 2 package represented the series with the latter titles Darius Gaiden and G-Darius, but with the release of Darius Cozmic Collection, we finally have a near-complete museum of this venerable...
Class Act
Nihon Falcom’s long-running The Legend of Heroes series finally hits Nintendo Switch in this third entry in the epic Trails of Cold Steel story arc, a direct sequel to Trails of Cold Steel II that takes place less than two years after the Erebonian Civil War portrayed in both that game and its epic predecessor. This is an enormous,...
Review Colt Canyon - A Twin-Stick Roguelike With Razor-Sharp Gameplay
A Fistful of Bullets
Twin-stick shooters generally have a lot in common with one another. Most of the time, they’ll throw an absurd amount of enemies in your direction, and it’s often an exercise in basic survival against the odds, with bullets flying in every direction possible. Colt Canyon certainly displays aspects of this, but it’s an...
What legends are made of?
Matrix Software's Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia is a sequel to the 1998 PlayStation game Brigandine: The Legend of Forsena, a tactical role-playing affair that featured a mix of strategic map manoeuvring and turn-based battles played out on a hexagonal battlefield against the backdrop of a fantasy tale of warring...
Mini Review Behold The Kickmen - A Gloriously Silly Take On The Beautiful Game
"What a big lovely match!"
Behold The Kickmen is a football (or soccer, if you prefer) simulation for everyone who hates the sport, or, at the very least, remains totally clueless to its global appeal. Created by Dan Marshall of The Swindle fame – who readily admits he knows nothing about football and thought it would be fun to see what kind of...
Review Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour - A Timeless FPS Classic Comes To Switch
Got any gum?
Always bet on Duke. It seemed only a matter of time before Duke Nukem 3D cropped up on the Switch; after all, it'd be downright odd for him to miss a format. Sure, there was Bulletstorm: Duke of Switch Edition, but that's not real Duke. This, however, is. It's the magnum opus of the series, when the Duke was in fine fettle, yet to be...
Review Pokémon Café Mix - Perfectly Pleasant Free-To-Play Puzzle Action
Make the perfect Pikabrew
If you thought the only thing The Pokémon Company had in store for you this month was a new way to get frustrated while brushing your teeth, you’re sorely mistaken. Pokémon Café Mix is another free (well, free-to-play) title for Pokéfans to wet their whistle with, and this one’s an actual game rather than an app...
Review Namco Museum Archives Vol 2 - An Eclectic Mix That's For Hardcore Fans Only
The other Galaga brother
Not content with releasing just one compilation of vintage 8-bit goodies this week, Bandai Namco has given us a second helping for those not completely satiated with the first batch of 11 games. Much like Namco Museum Archives Vol 1, this isn’t your typical Namco Museum compendium containing a cornucopia of coin-op...
