Switch Game Reviews
Review Shadowverse: Champion's Battle (Switch) - Switch's Best Card Battling RPG Yet
The game based on the anime based on the game!
It’s rather shocking to consider how few card games there are on the Switch today. Sure, there are quite a few deck-building roguelites that incorporate elements of card games into their design, but these don’t quite manage to scratch that same itch. Luckily, Cygames has seen fit to bring over its...
Review Samurai Warriors 5 (Switch) - Fast And Flashy Musou On Switch
Musou People Gonna Die?
Koei Tecmo's Samurai Warriors finally returns after a seven year hiatus with a soft reboot that takes the long-running saga back to its roots, focusing on a brash young Nobunaga Oda's unwavering determination to unify Japan whilst zeroing in on his relationship with Mitsuhide Akechi. Samurai Warriors 5 is a slick and stylish...
Review NEO: The World Ends With You (Switch) - A Striking Return To The Streets Of Shibuya
The rhythm is calling you back
For the past 13 years, fans of the Nintendo DS cult classic, The World Ends With You have been practically begging Square Enix to whip up a new entry in the world of the original. The vibes of that first venture are flavour-rich, boasting a bouncy and energetic soundtrack, a loveable cast of characters, and a combat...
Ryunosuke rises from the ashes
The last time we saw Phoenix Wright and friends, the stars of the Ace Attorney franchise, they were in a made-up country called Khura'in. Spirit of Justice came out for 3DS in 2016, and was relatively divisive — a lot of critics ranked it highly, but others found issue with its "wishy-washy" mechanics and its heavy...
Review Cris Tales (Switch) - A Gorgeous Indie JRPG That Does Just Enough To Stand Out
The time is now
Time travel has long been a concept that JRPGs have loved playing with. Titles like Chrono Trigger and Radiant Historia oriented their stories around time-hopping misadventures, while games like Bravely Default and Grandia have found fresh and interesting ways to involve time manipulation in the flow of combat. Cris Tales—the...
Review Cotton Reboot! (Switch) - 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...
Review The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD (Switch) - A Remaster That Truly Soars
A Legend Reborn
Returning to The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword some ten whole years down the line from its original release, you may be expecting, as we certainly were, to be greeted by a core game that's unavoidably, naturally, beginning to show its age in some regards. It stands to reason, this is an entry in Nintendo's storied franchise that's...
Review Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (Switch) - A Fine Action-RPG With Performance Issues On Switch
Ysy like Sunday morning
It’s been a little over three years since we last saw a new entry in the Ys (rhymes with “geese”) franchise, when Lacrimosa of Dana broke the nearly twenty-year period where new entries skipped Nitnendo consoles. We absolutely loved that release, and now that Ys IX: Monstrum Nox is out, we can confidently say that it...
Review Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings Of Ruin (Switch) - A Franchise Riding High
An ideal introduction to the series
Monster Hunter is a series with a longstanding tradition of being impenetrable to casual first-time players, with systems layered upon systems and tricky combat. In the mainline series Monster Hunter: World provided a multi-platform mainstream breakthrough, while on Switch the recent Monster Hunter Rise followed...
Review Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! (Switch) - A Cute And Absolutely Horrifying Dating Sim
Thus with a kiss I die
You've probably heard of Doki Doki Literature Club. The anime dating simulator achieved massive popularity largely through word of mouth, and the Switch version — which this review is about, obviously — comes almost four years after its debut, which means you've either already played it, or you've heard about it and not...
Review Destroy All Humans! (Switch) - Ray Guns And Probes Abound In This Silly, Simplistic Remake
Alien Resurrection?
Black Forest Games' remake of 2005's Destroy All Humans! issues a warning to players upon launching into its campaign for the very first time. The overall experience, it says, has been upgraded but the content, the story, words and images, remain the same and may be shocking to modern human brains. It's an honest acknowledgement...
Review Disgaea 6: Defiance Of Destiny (Switch) - A Series High Point, Just Not For Performance
Zed's dead, dood. Zed's dead.
Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny feels like an oddly topical title for Nippon Ichi Software. About two years ago, the company effectively ran out of money following a catastrophic mobile game launch, and it certainly appeared for a while that Nippon Ichi was going to go under. Somehow, the publisher managed to weather the...
Review Mario Golf: Super Rush (Switch) - A Solid Swing, But Par For The Course
Don't worry, not a fore out of ten
Camelot is a studio that has, for many years, dutifully churned out mascot sports games for Nintendo. Players often go back to the retro days when pinpointing the company's best efforts, though if you go by most recent form — Mario Tennis Aces — the studio is still doing good work. After serving up court-based...
Review Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (Switch) - A Rock Solid Switch Port For A Pair Of Pros
Vertuous Mission
If there's ever been a pair of videogames that need little to no introduction, whose glowing reputations proceed them to the extent that everyone from tired old pros to fresh-faced newcomers has surely heard of them by this point, it's the genre-defining Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and its sublime sequel. The first two entries in a...
Review Alex Kidd In Miracle World DX (Switch) - Vintage Sega Hero In Mediocre Remake
Putting the sham in Roshambo
We know we're risking the ire of several hundred very cross Sega Master System fans by saying this, but we have to be blunt — the original Alex Kidd in Miracle World, while inarguably an important and formative classic, is and always has been an exceptionally flawed game. Don't get us wrong, there's plenty to like and...
Review Game Builder Garage (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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...