Latest Reviews
Review Split Fiction (Switch 2) - Peerless, Visually Stunning Co-op Adventure With Boundless Variety
Co-authored
In many ways, Split Fiction feels like the culmination of everything Hazelight Studios has accomplished in the co-op space. The journey began with Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, a charming fantasy that required solo players to coordinate both thumbs to control two characters simultaneously. The studio then progressed to A Way Out, a...
Plenty of bugs
Date Everything! is a dating simulator where the dateable people are actually objects, or inanimates, that exist around your home. You begin Date Everything at work, where you are a recent customer service hire at Valdivian, a major tech company. Almost as soon as your work day begins, you’re informed that your job is being made...
Review Fortnite (Switch 2) - A Visual Overhaul & Neat Mouse Mode Tricks For Ol' Reliable
A mouse-t play
Listen. I'm not gonna dive into this review of Fortnite on Switch 2 with any ideas of pretending to know everything, or even understand anything, about a game that's grown from hastily retooled battle royale to...well...it looks kind of like Roblox now, in all honesty. What on earth is going on here? Yes, since the last time I...
Review Mario Kart World (Switch 2) - The Perfect Introduction To A New Console Generation
Highway to Shell
Editor's note: With the whole team now having spent a week with the game, we've updated the text below with our verdict on Switch 2's premier launch game... True story: Not long before Switch 2 launched, I passed my driving test in America. A new Mario Kart game perhaps isn't the best game to start after getting a licence in a...
Review No Man's Sky - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition - Hello Games' Classic Without Cuts Or Concessions
Atlas(t)
When was the first time you played No Man's Sky? For me, it was right back at its initial launch in 2016, a launch that, for reasons that have been recounted ad nauseam by now, left me fairly miffed overall. Here was a game that was very obviously a huge task for its small (and, as it turned out, phenomenally determined) dev team, a game...
Come on and join the Kohga
It felt weird coming back to Tears of the Kingdom, one of my favourite gaming experiences evz, so soon after I had wrapped it up for the first time. Time has sped by unfathomably quickly, and I wasn't sure whether a performance boost and an additional mobile app would be enough to let the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition get its...
The ultimate life form?
When I originally reviewed Sonic X Shadow Generations on the Switch, I went bold and called it “the very best 3D Sonic game so far” – a statement I very much stand by. The combination of the nostalgia-fueled Sonic Generations and the thrillingly dark, Shadow-focused expansion made it an experience that comfortably...
Review Survival Kids (Switch 2) - Konami's NS2 Debut Is Cosy, Competent, Kid-Friendly Co-op
At first I was afraid, I was petrified
A treasure map: a voyage. The ocean sploshing happily at your makeshift raft. Then a ferocious storm! Shipwrecked, alone, starving, surely doomed. Well, not exactly. The happy sploshing part, yes — and technically a shipwreck — but then you’re in for a calypso-tinged, cosy hangout with friends. Survival...
Review The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GameCube) - A Timeless Treasure
Cel-da? Is...is that you?
In honour of the game's arrival on Switch 2 as part of the Nintendo Classics GameCube lineup, here's our new retro review of one of Link's most memorable adventures... If I were to put together a list of my favourite pre-Switch-era Zelda games, those that came before the
Review Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S (Switch 2) - A Disappointing Update For A Modern Puzzle Classic
T-blocks keep fallin’ on my head
We’re making this a trend now, huh? It’s never long before Puyo Puyo Tetris makes its way onto the scene. Such was the case back in 2017 with the launch of the original Switch, when a worldwide release of 2014’s Puyo Puyo Tetris (which released on Wii U and 3DS in Japan) served as one of the very first games...
Review Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour - Surprising, Delightful, And You Know Where It Belongs
Museum peace
Altogether now! "This should have been a pack-in." Or, if that simply wasn't on the table, free for the first year. Or free with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription. It's painfully obvious to everybody but Nintendo that paywalling this specific software further behind the already-pricey console is a mistake. And it's a real shame...
Review Wobbly Life (Switch) - Kid-Friendly Open-World Sandbox Is Frustrating Fun
It's a wobbly life
Editor's note: What's this? A non-Switch 2 game?!? Variety, my friends, is the spice of Nintendo Life... A goofy life sim set in a physics-based sandbox, Wobbly Life by RubberBandGames is an entertaining amalgam of open-world adventure and indie party games. With its cartoonish tone and compulsive gameplay, it's clearly...
Cleanliness is next to godliness
If you want to put your Switch 2 through its paces, there’s no shortage of options in its generous launch lineup. Whether it’s the candy-colored charm of Mario Kart World or the neon-drenched cityscape of Cyberpunk 2077, you’re spoiled for choice when it comes to visual powerhouses. With such major titles on...
Tri-forced new content
Editor's Note: As this is our first 'Nintendo Switch 2 Edition' review (and with many more to come, potentially), we want to outline their focus from the off. Our existing reviews — in this case for Breath of the Wild, both the Wii U and Switch versions, and the DLC — are still live and relevant. If you're coming to this...
Review Yakuza 0: Director's Cut (Switch 2) - A Series Highlight That's Never Looked Or Played Better
I'll be damned, the punk kid's finally turned into a true yakuza
Yakuza 0 was the first Yakuza game — after many, many attempts on my part — that finally and fully opened my eyes to the magic of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's long-running (and entirely bats**t) franchise. This was the one that finally did me in. And from the moment its incredible...
Review Fast Fusion (Switch 2) - The Most Accomplished Entry Yet, And A Visual Showcase
Fuuuuusion, haah!
Some of my favourite memories from the Switch 1 came from those opening few weeks following the launch in March 2017. Like everyone else, I was utterly glued to Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but I also poured a huge amount of time into Shin’en Multimedia’s Fast RMX. It was the game to showcase what the console was capable of in...
Names are for friends, so I don't need one
Hitman! A rebooted and re-suited assassination spectacular that I once got in a spot of bother over (never reveal that you're gonna kill Sean Bean in a computer game on social media, lest people mistake it for a threat), has finally — and without the need for cloud streaming technology — made it to a...
Review Arcade Archives 2: Ridge Racer (Switch 2) - Still A Thrill, More Than 30 Years Later
Are you all set?
I can appreciate that it's a thoroughly annoying thing to say to anyone under the age of 30, but you really had to be there with games like Namco's Ridge Racer. The original 1993 arcade release was nothing short of breathtaking—so much so that when EDGE magazine put a screenshot on its cover, I remember thinking it simply couldn't...
Review Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition (Switch 2) - A Superb Port Of An Incredible RPG
Here comes the choom-choom train
It’s more often than not these days that a game released in an underwhelming state is left abandoned in a pool of its own minor updates. On occasion, though, we have a redemption arc like that belonging to 2020's Cyberpunk 2077. Originally released in a state that was barely functional and riddled with more bugs...
Concrete schoolyard
Capcom's Street Fighter V (an incredibly good fighter, eventually,) launched in a famously sorry state back in 2016, with no single-player content of note, janky multiplayer, and a roster of fighters that took an age (and lots more money up front) to grow into something that felt fully complete. It was still very good in the end,...
Review Pipistrello And The Cursed Yoyo (Switch) - A Masterclass In Retro, Zelda-Style Game Design
Check out this next trick
Though the latest 3D Zelda releases have unmistakably taken the already popular series to all-new heights, there are still some fans who miss the ‘old’ way Nintendo used to design its popular green-hatted protagonist’s adventures. Such fans will want to pay attention to Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo from...
Larger than (Fantasy) Life
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time knows which side its bread is buttered. The original Fantasy Life on 3DS is a cult favourite, but not a bestseller by any means — yet its dedicated fanbase has been proselytising about the game for well over a decade, and it's those fans that have been hoping for this sequel for...
Real steamy
Steam-Heart’s is a most curious Saturn Tribute release, for two significant reasons: Firstly, it was conceived many moons ago as hardcore hentai erotica; and secondly, it was never particularly great. It first appeared in all its grammatically incorrect glory on the NEC PC-98 home computer in 1994. Compared to the console market,...
Review Rune Factory: Guardians Of Azuma (Switch) - A Bold Reinvention That Pays Off
It'd be rune not to
Rune Factory’s first entry arrived to a welcoming fanbase almost 20 years ago, and players have signed on for the adventures of a string of amnesiac protagonists, equal parts fighter and farmer, ever since. Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma delivers on the promise of the series with another hero mysteriously connected to the...
Review Old Skies (Switch) - A Slow But Satisfying Time-Hopping Adventure
Nozzotalgia
If you're a point-and-click fan — particularly of the '90s LucasArts-y variety — then you're likely familiar with Wadjet Eye Games. This is the team that brought us back to the genre's golden age with the likes of Unavowed and The Excavation Of Hob's Barrow (on which it served as publisher), and its latest slice of nostalgia pie is...
Review SoulCalibur II (GameCube) - One Of The Best Fighters Ever, Playable Oh-So-Soon On Switch 2
If you're eager to die, then that's fine by me!
With Nintendo Switch 2 bringing a selection of GameCube classics to Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack subscribers very soon, we looked into our back catalogue of retro reviews and found we didn't have one for one of the best fighting games ever created...until now. Enjoy! Soulcalibur II, of all...
Mini Review Duck Detective: The Ghost Of Glamping (Switch) - A Quacking Little Mystery
I suspect fowl play
A duck stands in a fedora and a trench coat, delivering a noir-style monologue about how his recent divorce has fueled his bread addiction. If this image doesn't tickle you, then you'd better give Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping a miss. If it does, oh boy, do we have the recommendation for you. Much like developer Happy...
Blade of glory
When Onimusha: Warlords launched for Switch all the way back in 2019, we had optimistically assumed that its sequel would be right around the corner. How naïve. A bit of patience has been required, but now, more than six years later, Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny has finally been given the same remaster treatment. We can’t be too...
Review Arcade Archives NebulasRay (Switch) - A CGI Deep-Cut After Decades Of Waiting
Namco's 1994 shmup has never been ported previously
Namco's 1994 shmup NebulasRay is one of those games which arrived at an odd point in the history of arcade gaming. Launching many months before Rare stunned the world with the CGI sprites of Donkey Kong Country, it was one of the earliest examples of a 2D video game built around pre-rendered...
Review Into The Restless Ruins (Switch) - A Marvellous Meld Of Dungeons, Deckbuilding & Auto-Combat
Celtic connections
It's possibly becoming a bit of a hard sell these days, the old roguelike dungeon-crawling adventure, replete with retro/pixel visuals. We know it. However, as busy and as overstuffed with pale imitators to the greats as this genre is, it's still well worth keeping an eye out for the odd gem. And here we have an example of said...