Switch Game Reviews
Review Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise (Switch) - More Of The Same, And That Might Not Be Enough
You might swipe left after a while
The original Fitness Boxing launched a couple of years ago, and while it certainly served its purpose, two years is a long time for anyone to be playing one game on a daily basis, as was its intention. With that in mind, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise is now with us, but a lot has changed in two years:...
Review Immortals Fenyx Rising (Switch) - An Off-Brand Breath Of The Wild That's Still Worth A Look
Breath of the Assassin's Creed of War
Do you remember when you were five, and your mum would ask you if you wanted anything from the supermarket, and you'd probably reply with whatever branded cereal you'd last seen an advert for in-between episodes of Scooby-Doo? Then, two hours later, she'd return with whatever off-brand cereal approximation she...
Review Just Dance 2021 (Switch) - Still Fun, But Feels More Like A Cash-Grab Than Ever Before
Blame it on the boogie
Just Dance 2021 is the latest in a long line of Just Dance games, each marginally different from the last. Much like serialised sports games, Ubisoft's choreographed creation is born anew each year, with a couple of new features thrown in, and a helping of new songs sprinkled over the top. Innovation is it not, but this isn't...
Review Kingdom Hearts: Melody Of Memory (Switch) - A Marvelous Musical Trip Down Memory Lane
Simple and clean
It’s hard to believe that the Kingdom Hearts franchise has been around for nearly twenty years. The odd pairing of Final Fantasy and several Disney franchises always sounded like an idea that just wouldn’t play out right, but the series has gone on to garner quite a sizable and passionate fanbase over its long run. With last...
Review Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered (Switch) - A Racer From A More Innocent Time
Cop a load of this
Here’s a fun fact for you: there isn’t a single person on this planet who can recite the titles of all 24 Need for Speed games in order. It’s actually physically impossible, like licking your own back or hearing the words “Hi, I’m Daisy” without getting irritated. While this ‘fact’ is open for debate, here’s one...
Calamity game
You know the Gerudo Valley theme from Ocarina of Time? It's a kickass tune – probably top five Zelda tracks – and one that's sure to get your blood pumping. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is all Gerudo Valley, a rousing number that'll fire you up for the journey ahead. It's also a tad repetitive and just one part of the symphony...
Review Sniper Elite 4 (Switch) - The Nazi-Slaying Series' Best Entry Comes To Switch
Moisten Nagant
Rebellion's Sniper Elite 4 was released to some high praise back in February of 2017, and is widely regarded as the best entry in the long-running series to date; it's a fun and flexible sniper's paradise with ten lengthy campaign missions set across the largest, most varied and vertical levels that crack Nazi skull-exploder Karl...
Rice, Rice, Baby
As comedian Mitch Hedberg once said: "Rice is great when you're hungry and you want 2,000 of something." You can buy it anywhere. Everywhere. But those grains don't come from nowhere – they are grown in huge flooded paddy fields, filled with workers who painstakingly harvest the stalks, dry them on racks, hull them, and process...
Review Fuser (Switch) - A Flawed, Dorky, And Often Brilliant Music Game
Disc Joycon
The Harmonix office must be an absolute nightmare. Plastic instruments everywhere, like an elephant graveyard of peripherals, gathering dust and leaking memories of Rock Band parties long past. Do they use the fake drum sets as plant stands? Are the guitars mounted on the wall as if they used to belong to Van Halen? Or do they just chuck...
Just remember, licence never replace eye, ear, brain
The Karate Kid movie series always seemed like a bit of a hard sell to this writer. Not to detract from the inarguable skill of said Kid, but there are plenty of films out there starring at least one Karate Adult. It stands to reason that the Karate Adult would simply be better at Karate than the...
Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube773k Watch on YouTube Mini Review Mad Rat Dead (Switch) - A Delightful Mix Of Rhythm Action And Platforming
Rodent rave
There’s one thing that really stood out to us when we started getting to grips with Mad Rat Dead: this game is cool. Everything about it, from the stylish visuals to the sublime soundtrack, screams attitude, and the devs have done a remarkable job in conveying this feeling without going overboard. If you’re a sucker for rhythm games,...
Review Tropico 6 (Switch) - This Enjoyable Empire-Building Epic Comes With A Few Technical Niggles
The great dictator
You'd be forgiven for thinking that a city builder/sim game such as Tropico 6 might be a poor fit for the Switch. A huge number of systems at play, an archipelago's worth of individually tracked citizens... it's something of a recipe for compromise. And, sure enough, there are compromises here – but far fewer than you may...
Review Descenders (Switch) - An Addictive Downhill Dash Of A Roguelite You'll Want To Check Out
Roguebike
RageSquid's Descenders, which originally released into early access on PC all the way back in 2018, has always felt like it could be a pretty good fit for the pick-up-and-play nature of Nintendo Switch. A unique roguelite offering that swaps the dingy dungeon combat usually favoured by the genre for viciously fast downhill biking, its...
Review Bakugan: Champions Of Vestroia (Switch) - The Kids Deserve So Much Better
Pokemon: Let's No
The great big battle beasts of Bakugan, alongside their pint-sized schoolkid handlers, have been doing the rounds on TV and in various video/card games since 2007's Bakugan: Battle Brawlers series. This latest outing sees developer Wayforward attempt to shoehorn this universe into a Pokémon: Let's Go-style monster collectathon...
Review Oddworld: New 'N' Tasty (Switch) - A So-So Remake Of A Legendary Game
Maybe Abey
What a difficult game to review. Yes, yes, you're thinking. It must be so hard for you to review a well-received remake of a beloved classic. But, you see, it is, because Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty does so much wrong and is in many ways so utterly redundant that it's difficult to keep a cool head when approaching it. Here's the thing; there...
Vampire slaying meets running-and-gunning
French studio Migami Games made a name for itself with excellent Castlevania fan games like The Lecarde Chronicles 1 and 2, but fan games don’t keep the lights on or put food on the table, so the team has understandably embraced commerci
Review Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Switch) - Perhaps Not Worth A Double Dip, But The Choice Pik For New Players
Wii say U want a resolution
As each month passes the Wii U becomes less and less relevant, as most of its first-party library continues to be lifted up, piece by piece, and carried over to the Switch. Why, it’s almost like what Pikmin do – DO YOU GET WHERE WE’RE GOING WITH THIS? Pikmin 3 Deluxe is Nintendo’s attempt at a definitive port of...
Review Transformers: Battlegrounds (Switch) - Accessible Turn-Based Action That's For Noobs Only
Bah weep grana weep Ninty bong
Hot on the heels of fellow Hasbro license G.I. Joe comes this turn-based tactical outing for those robots that take on the form of mack trucks, massive pistols, sheds and benches, the Transformers! Given the sheer love fans have for the series, Transformers: Battlegrounds has a lot to live up to – even more so when...
Review Tennis World Tour 2 (Switch) - A Promising Seed With Far Too Many Faults
John McEnwoe
Let's forget the warm-up and jump straight to the first serve, shall we? Tennis World Tour 2 demands a level of precision from its players that it simply isn't capable of facilitating. This is a sombre and serious tennis sim that bases its take on the sport around the perfect timing of shots and their precision placement on court. It's...
Review G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout (Switch) - Bland, Forgettable Saturday Morning Fare
G.I. No
There was a huge red flag right from the off, when G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout had not been accurately renamed Action Force: Operation Blackout for a British audience. We don’t want to be reminded of the incredibly crap films, we want to be reminded of the brilliant IPC comic Battle, and its Action Force strips that eventually spun off...
Review Cloudpunk (Switch) - An Evocative Noir Adventure Ruined By A Messy Switch Port
Blade Scunner
Nivalis, the futuristic metropolis in which the events of Cloudpunk take place, really is the heart and soul of Ion Lands' captivating "neon noir" adventure game. A wonderfully evocative voxel art city, it immediately transports us to a future that so precisely recalls the neon-drenched storefronts, rain-soaked streets and seedy...
Into the Zoid
This new Switch release takes us on a trip down memory lane to the world of Zoids, Tomy's massive mechanical animals and their mad human riders who've been doing the rounds since all the way back in 1984. Zoids Wild: Blast Unleashed, which originally released as Zoids Wild: King of Blast in Japan last year, ties into the long-running...
Review Hardcore Mecha (Switch) - Thrillingly Overblown Anime-Style Robot Action
Mechnificent
If you're a fan of great big robots mercilessly smashing each other's massive metal heads in – and let's face it, who isn't? – then RocketPunch Games' superbly stylish 2D side-scroller Hardcore Mecha would like a very loud word. This is an absurdly overwrought anime adventure spread across a solid seven-hour campaign which sees you...
Review Ben 10: Power Trip! (Switch) - An Underwhelming Adaptation Of A Cartoon Favourite
It's hero time
The Ben 10 franchise is one of the most popular productions from Cartoon Network, with a fourteen-year run that’s spanned five iterations of the TV show, with the current one being a reboot of the first show. As one would expect of a multimedia franchise such as this, a litany of video game adaptations (of varying quality) have been...
Review Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit (Switch) - A Joyful Fusion Of Reality And Fiction
Built it and they will come
Nintendo products have always had a certain magic about them. From the earliest examples, such as the simplistic-yet-addictive Game & Watch handhelds, to more recent offerings like the motion-driven Wii, touch-focused DS or cardboard-based Labo, the Japanese veteran has a genuine knack for creating toys which raise a...
Review AVICII Invector Encore Edition (Switch) - A Fitting Tribute To A Much-Missed Musical Talent
Nintendo SVICII
The music of sadly-deceased electronic musician Avicii didn’t initially strike us as a great match for a rhythm action game. The marriage of a single contemporary artist with the medium of video games gives us PTSD flashbacks to The Black Eyed Peas Experience. Thankfully, unlike Will.I.Am and Fergie’s barely-listenable dreck,...
Review FIFA 21 (Switch) - EA Insults Switch Owners Yet Again With This Half-Baked Effort
Don't spend your Mané on this
Okay, enough's enough. Ever since EA first brought the FIFA series to the Switch with FIFA 18, Nintendo fans have been given a lesser version of the game seen on other systems. At first, we gave EA the benefit of the doubt and put it down to the challenges of porting a game to a less powerful system with a user base...
Review Let's Sing Queen (Switch) - Makes The Rockin' World Go 'Round
Play The Game
When Freddie Mercury first penned Bohemian Rhapsody back in 1975, there's no way he could possibly have known the monumental challenge he was laying at the feet of Let's Sing Queen players some forty-five years down the timeline. Fair enough, the first half of the song isn't so bad – and let's face it, we've all cranked out "I...
The dood abides?
The best thing about Prinny 1•2: Exploded and Reloaded, a collection of Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero? and Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood!, is that game reviewers are paid by the word. Just that opening sentence has earned enough to buy several Wispa Golds, or your comfort food of choice. And you’ll need comforting...
Happy Happy Joy-Con Joy-Con
We’re afraid we've got some bad news for you. If you opened this review expecting a typically sarcastic put-down of the latest half-hearted karting game with a cartoon licence cynically slapped onto it, you’re going to be deeply disappointed. Turns out this one's actually quite good. To be fair, you'd be forgiven for...