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Review AI: The Somnium Files - Another Gem From The Creator Of The Zero Escape Series
Insane in your membrane
AI: The Somnium Files sees the return of Kotaro Uchikoshi, director of two of the excellent Zero Escape visual novels, as he takes us on a madcap sci-fi adventure through the inner workings of a super-secret branch of ABIS Metropolitan Police Department on the chase of a potential serial killer using PSYNC technology. This...
Review Daemon X Machina - Solid Mech Mayhem That Gets A Tad Repetitive
Demo arigato, Mr Nintendo
While it’s always a good idea to ask for help when you feel like you might need it, it doesn’t always benefit you in the long run. This is something the team behind Daemon X Machina may end up learning when the game releases this week. After developer Marvelous released a demo way back in February and explained that it...
Review NBA 2K20 - An Impressive Port That Delivers The Full Experience On Switch
Shine bright
Once upon a time, the thought of a handheld device getting a fully-featured sports simulator seemed like an impossible goal. NBA 2K18 almost scuppered that dream with a disastrous launch in 2017, but a raft of support post-launch and a (mostly) issue-free follow up in NBA 2K19 proved the franchise can run on Switch, and do so with full...
Review Umihara Kawase Fresh! - An Appealing Platformer That Makes Itself Hard To Love
Something fishy
There’s something strange about Umihara Kawase Fresh! It’s not the fish with human legs; it’s not the tadpole that lays frogs. It’s not even the pork pizza you serve to a pig. What’s strange is that it can’t seem to decide how difficult it is. Assuming you are not familiar with the Umihara Kawase series, the opening of...
Review Bubsy: Paws On Fire! - How Many Lives Does This Bobcat Have?
Paws for loading
"Bubsy's back!" While that phrase might strike fear into your very soul, there must be a fair amount of readers with at least a residue of affection for the orange bobcat. Bubsy the Bobcat hails from the age of mascot platformers that has come back into vogue with the current wave of '90s nostalgia, and he somehow remains in the...
Review Spyro Reignited Trilogy - A Blast From The Past That's Still Got Wings
Flamin' hot
Remakes and remasters are one of those things that feels ironically modern, and whilst they’ve had a place in the industry longer than some people think, there’s no doubt that companies are seeing dollar signs in their eyes when they look back at older successful franchises. Bleeding us nerds for all our nostalgia is a safe and...
Review Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy Of The Duelist: Link Evolution - A Decent Card Battler For Your Switch
Heart of the cards
Once upon a time, there wasn’t a single card-based game on Nintendo Switch, but now we have loads. We have the post-toys-to-life Lightseekers, the challenging warfare of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Champions and the all-out silliness of Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission – and there’s even The Lord o
Review Astral Chain - Platinum's Best Game Ever? You'd Better Believe It
In the chain gang
With games like Bayonetta, Vanquish, Wonderful 101 and MadWorld in its back catalogue, it's little surprise that Japanese developer PlatinumGames has gained a reputation for tight, action-packed titles that mix stunning visuals with intricate and rewarding gameplay mechanics. While its games haven't always been the commercial smash...
Review Snooker 19 - One Of The Best Snooker Games Ever, But Not Without Its Faults
Frame by frame
When it comes to nailing a sports simulator, it’s all about finding that sweet spot between authenticity, realism and fun. Even when that sport is a little more niche in its mainstream appeal, if you can’t capture the magic that makes that recreational pastime so unique, then you’re doing its fans a serious injustice. We’ve...
Review Oninaki - A Decent Daemon Distraction
Continuing the cycle of rebirth
The JRPG genre is one that’s gone through immeasurable change in the few decades that it’s been around, but there’s something about the ‘old school’ style of 90’s turn-based RPGs that still holds a lot of sway with modern fans. To cater to this demographic, Square Enix formed Tokyo RPG Factory in 2015 to...
Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube773k Watch on YouTube Review Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition - This Anime Adaptation Misses The Target
Hollow Fragment
Sword Art Online has been around in some form or another since all the way back in the prehistoric times commonly referred to as 2002. Originally a series of light novels, it’s been praised for its exploration of themes relating to the intertwining of real and virtual worlds and the effect this has on the psyche and physicality of...
Review The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors - A Masterclass In SNES Revival
Ninja Warriors 3.0
The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors is not so much the third game in a series as the third attempt at the same game. The first go was in 1987 when Taito looked at its revolutionary Darius arcade cabinet – which used three monitors and two mirrors to fake a triple-wide screen – and decided it needed some ninjas. It...
If you please Mrs Voorhees
Note. As of November 2020, the game's servers are no longer live and online play is only available via peer-to-peer matchmaking. Much like the film franchise from which he arose, Jason Voorhees has had a very inconsistent run of quality in video games over the years. He had some okay-ish outings on the NES and the...
Review FIA European Truck Racing Championship - Driven Off The Road By Performance Issues
Rig-amortis
It stands to reason that if you weld four wheels and an engine onto something, there’s probably bound to be someone who wants to race said thing around a track like a maniac. Because that’s the only reason we can imagine why there’s a real-life professional racing league for big rigs and trucks. It’s clearly a big deal for many...
Review Redeemer: Enhanced Edition - Bloody And Brutal Action That's Been Poorly Ported To Switch
Monk-ey business
Redeemer: Enhanced Edition is the Ronseal of top-down beat-’em-ups. With no frills, bells or whistles, it does exactly what it says on the tin/box/eShop description. You’re a former soldier living in a remote monastery. And when some bad dudes attack your temple and kill your fellow monks, it’s up to you to embrace your old...
Review Caladrius Blaze - A Mechanically Competent Shmup With Gratuitous Presentation
Behold the power of the "Shame Break"
Caladrius Blaze is new to the Switch, but didn’t just pop up overnight. The top-down shooter launched as plain old Caladrius on Xbox 360 in Japan in 2013, before progressing through arcade, PS3, PS4 and Windows on the way to Switch. Looking further back, it’s descended from 1990s Japanese arcade favourite...
Duck and cover
There’s a point early on in Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden when you realise this is something rather special. It’s when you’re methodically picking off a set of marauders patrolling a ruined settlement with a squad consisting of a wise-cracking anthropomorphic mallard (in a top hat, naturally) and his disgruntled warthog...
Review Raiden V: Director's Cut - Bullet Hell On A Budget Both Veterans And Noobs Can Appreciate
Purple homing laser destruction for the whole family
It is hard to believe that Seibu Kaihatsu’s legendary Raiden shmup series graced Nintendo platforms a single time on Super Nintendo, twenty-seven years ago. But do all good things come to those who wait? We find out as Moss and UFO interactive grace the Switch with the 'Director's Cut' of Raiden...
Review Wolfenstein: Youngblood - Brilliant Co-Op Carnage That's Overshadowed By Its Forerunners
The wicked sisters
The modern incarnation of Wolfenstein has always been a wicked world to inhabit; a deliciously bloody alt-history full of technologically-advanced Nazis, giant mechanical dogs and the kind of well-fleshed out villains who creep right off the screen. Always driven by a compelling and purposefully shocking story beats, the murderous...
Review Kill la Kill: IF - An Underwhelming Arena Fighter That's Only For Fans Of The Anime
IF only it was good
When a popular anime receives a video game adaptation, more often than not it's some form of arena fighter. On Switch alone, we've already seen the likes of My Hero One's Justice, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 and more transform hit anime licenses into enjoyable spectacle fighters. With a sea of...
Review Fire Emblem: Three Houses - The Zenith Of A Legendary SRPG Series
House party
Fire Emblem has been through quite a rollercoaster journey on its path to success. After an initial debut on the Famicom in 1990 with Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, the series remained a niche exclusive of the Land of the Rising Sun for thirteen years until it made its way westward, spurred on by the appearance of...
Review Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order - Arcade Brawling Is Back, Baby
Hero syndrome
For years - ten of them, to be exact - the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games have retreated into the kind of obscurity only wistful nostalgia can occasionally dispel. They weren’t particularly outstanding games, but they were packed full of characters, lore, and storylines pulled straight out of Marvel’s vast archive. This was back...
Review God Eater 3 - A Great Port Of A Fine Monster Hunter Alternative
Aragami killer
While simply describing God Eater 3 as a Monster Hunter clone might be a little disingenuous, it does comfortably sum up the core tenets of its gameplay. Much like Capcom’s seminal slaying series, you’ll explore pre-defined areas and face off against monsters of varying sizes. You’ll hack off body parts and use the resources you...
Review Attack on Titan 2: Final Battle - An Expansion With Real Depth And Some Odd Decisions
Giant killer
With a distinct lack of Spider-Man games on Nintendo Switch (we can’t help but look longingly at Insomniac’s stellar PS4 exclusive from last year and quietly weep), it fell to the most unlikely of sources to bring city-swinging and verticality to the console: Attack on Titan 2. The original base game has a few issues (check out our...
Review Terraria - A Fine Switch Port That’s Missing One Key Ingredient
A decent port of a legendary game
If there’s one game in the world that has been cloned to death, it’s Mojang’s seminal sandbox block-builder, Minecraft. Most of the ‘me-too’ versions of it have been content with simply offering a vastly inferior experience that seldom adds much, if any, interesting new content to the tried and true...
Review Dragon Quest Builders 2 - Beating Minecraft At Its Own Game
Building a new legacy
Though the Minecraft formula has been iterated on to hell and back, Square Enix managed to offer up an interesting take on the sandbox classic with Dragon Quest Builders. All the blocky aesthetics and open-ended crafting were present and accounted for, but these things were all couched within a wider narrative arc that included...
Review Senran Kagura: Peach Ball - A Shiny Casing Full Of Used Pinball Machine Parts
Pinball X jiggle
In the annals of video game history there have been a great many iterations of the classic arcade game of pinball, whether traditional 'realistic' recreations of tables or fresh digital spins on the genre. Pokémon Pinball, for example, built on the foundation of Kirby’s Pinball Land and added an addictive ‘catch ‘em all’...
Review Psyvariar Delta - A Classic Shooter That Will Leave You Buzzing
The definitive (psy)variation
The original Psyvariar was released nearly two decades ago, developed by Success Corporation (of Cotton fame) and taking full advantage of Taito’s G-NET arcade board to effortlessly shift around simple polygonal models and hundreds of bullets on screen; any freeze frame taken could have passed as an impressionist...
Review Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered - Blowing Things Up Never Gets Old
Guerrillas in the mist
When the original Red Faction dropped in 2001, it was kind of a big deal. Sure, it wasn’t the best first-person shooter we’d ever played, but its destruction physics really were something else. Corridor shooters could often be stifling and claustrophobic affairs, but Red Faction just pointed a grenade launcher at the walls...
The ultimate sacrifice?
Since this review was originally published patches have reportedly addressed or improved one or more of the issues cited. While we unfortunately cannot revisit games on an individual basis, it should still be noted that the updated game may offer an improved experience over the one detailed below. The product of one of the...