Switch Game Reviews
Review World End Syndrome - A High School Summer Holiday Murder Mystery Love-In
The world ends with you
Ah, young love! Fixing eyes in freshman class… Inventing excuses to meet your crush… Daring to hope they like you back… Collecting and cataloguing candid photos of every girl you know… World End Syndrome successfully bottles the bristling potential of the summers of youth: before school’s back, perhaps you’ll...
Review Super Mario Maker 2 - The Last 2D Mario Game You'll Ever Need
Build your own adventure
If there was one game designed with the Wii U Gamepad in mind right from the very start and used it to its fullest potential, it was ZombiU. If there were two games that did that, it would be ZombiU and Super Mario Maker. Everything about the feel of the game and the interface screamed that this is a title that is best...
Review Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled - A Karting Treat For Fans And Newcomers Alike
It’s got loads in it (literally)
Although it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a Mario Kart 9 any time soon, the Switch is starting to grow its own roster of licensed karting games in a way not seen since the GameCube days. Just last month we got Team Sonic Racing, for example, and even though the likes of Nickelodeon Kart Racers and Hello...
Review Super Neptunia RPG - An Easygoing Take On A Cult JRPG Series
The Console War rages on
For those that haven’t stumbled across this side-scrolling RPG series, the Neptunia games have been knocking around since 2010. Originally created by Compile Heart, Idea Factory and various other Japanese studios since, the adventures of chirpy goddess Neptune and the ongoing Console War have been a PlayStation console...
Review Collection of Mana - Expensive, But Ultimately Worth Every Penny
It's Mana from Heaven
While Square's Seiken Densetsu series continues to this very day, it's the two SNES / Super Famicom outings on which the franchise arguably built its enviable reputation. Seiken Densetsu 2 – better known in the west as Secret of Mana – is one of the finest RPGs ever made, while its sequel has only been held back from global...
Nothing hollow about this one
Sword Art Online has been around for quite a while now; what started in 2002 as a simple light novel series has gone on to span a multimedia franchise including several books, manga adaptations, video games, movies, and – yes – an impending live-action Netflix series. It was only a matter of time before the...
Review Battle Worlds: Kronos - A Hex-Based Tactical Title That's Tough As Old Boots
When worlds collide
“Battle Worlds: Kronos is a hard game,” reads an ominous opening message. “But if you can’t beat it, that’s not because it is too hard.” That warning might sound a little cocky, but there’s truth to it, too. Because beneath its wonky CGI cutscenes and well-worn sci-fi setting lies a turn-based strategy game that...
Review PixARK - A True Survival Horror, And Not In A Good Way
Let this one go extinct
In 2009, the gaming industry was forever changed when a humble indie game called Minecraft was first made available to the public, introducing the world to a new genre of sandbox gaming that would go on to be cloned and mimicked to death in the ensuing decade. One of the most recent offshoots of this concept is PixARK, a...
Review Cricket 19 - Performance Woes Can't Dampen This Decent Sports Sim
Bowled over
While cricket may have spawned a few video game duds over the years, we’ve also been treated to some of the best sports sims ever made. Super International Cricket set the standard early on with some fine form on SNES, Brian Lara Cricket on PlayStation rounded off ’90s era crease battling with style and Ashes Cricket proved a decent...
Review TT Isle Of Man - The Safest Way To Experience The World's Deadliest Motorsport Race
Mad Manx
In the motorsport racing calendar, few courses hold quite as much infamy as the Isle of Man TT. Described as "38 miles of terror" by one Sports Illustrated reporter in 2003, the time trial course has been running on and off since 1907 and sees superbikes racing past front doors and around country lanes at breakneck speeds. It’s one of the...
Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube773k Watch on YouTube Review Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa - A Laughably Limp Attempt At Titillation
A big booby
You are a new transfer student to Fujisawa Academy, an unseen blank avatar with no particular name or gender beyond the one you choose for yourself at the start of the game. Like a bad teen fan fiction, your entire personality can easily be summed up as "sarcastic and horny", while your sole skill of note is the ability to force people...
Review Among the Sleep: Enhanced Edition - Has Some Growing Up To Do
Creepy crawling
If games like Firewatch and Gone Home typify what has come to be known as the 'walking simulator,' then Among the Sleep is more of a 'tottering simulator'. You could take that as a reference to its implausibly youthful protagonist, but it just as easily applies to the game's uneven tone and shaky gameplay. You could probably describe...
Review Crystal Crisis - A Falling Block Puzzler That Fits Perfectly On Switch
But can it run Crystal Crisis?
Everyone has dabbled in some form of a falling block puzzle game at some point in their life. For most people, it’s probably some form of Tetris. For others, it may be Dr. Mario, or Puyo Puyo, maybe even Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. Years upon years of formula tweaking and innovative twists on the simple...
Review Little Friends: Dogs & Cats - Not Quite The 'Nintendogs On Switch' You're Looking For
In the Nintendoghouse
“Finally, somebody made a new Nintendogs!” rejoices every preview, news article and comments section about Little Friends: Dogs & Cats on the internet. And they’re not wrong – from the moment you start Imagineer’s pet simulator and choose one of six dog breeds (Shiba Inu, Chihuahua, Toy Poodle, Labrador Retriever,...
Review Death Mark - An Excellent Horror-Adventure Fusion
A supernatural spectacular
Death Mark's developer Experience has an odd history of creating games for what could charitably be called the "wrong" formats; putting out great dungeon crawlers (Stranger of Sword City and Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy, for example) for relative underdogs like the Vita and Xbox One. Death Mark is something of a shift...
Review Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland - A Captivating Concoction That JRPG Fans Will Adore
Double, double, toil and trouble...
In 1997, Gust corporation kicked off the Atelier series, which would go on to span a whopping twenty-two platforms (including the WonderSwan) across the thirty-seven titles that comprise the series. Unlike your standard JRPG, Atelier games are typically not concerned about the fate of the world or something...
Review Guilty Gear 20th Anniversary Edition - An Essential Purchase For Fighting Game Fans
Heaven or Hell?
Arc System Works’ Guilty Gear series first chaos-attacked its way onto the gaming scene back in 1998, immediately making a name for itself amidst the more established giants of the fighting game genre with its beautiful hand-drawn roster of twisted manga combatants, hardcore rock soundtrack and insanely fast, combo-based pugilism...
Review Resident Evil Origins Collection - Old-School Survival Horror Stands Up On Switch
Zero on the cart
With the original Resident Evil, its prequel and Resident Evil 4 all arriving as separate digital releases on the Switch eShop, survival horror fans have a bumper helping of the seminal series’ back catalogue to enjoy on-the-go. North American and Japanese gamers (tough luck, Europe) also have the option of getting two of those...
Review Redout - A Slightly Rough Port Of An Otherwise Decent Wipeout Wannabe
Seeing Red
One of Nintendo’s most popular (and amusingly, least supported) franchises is the F-Zero series, which popularized the concept of high-intensity, low-gravity racing. In the void created due to Nintendo’s reluctance to release more games in the series, plenty of other ‘me-too’ titles have released, such as Wipeout and FAST, and...
Review Team Sonic Racing - A Safe Effort Which Lags Well Behind Mario Kart 8
Triple Trouble
It’s all well and good releasing karting games on Sony and Microsoft’s consoles, but it takes a big old set of Sonic Spinballs to try launching one on Mario’s home turf. If anyone’s shown it’s capable of this, though, it’s Sheffield-based studio Sumo Digital. Very few developers have perfected the art of arcade-style...
Review Assassin's Creed III Remastered - The Franchise Runt Gets A Clunky Switch Port
Nothing is true, everything is permitted?
When we consider the Assassin’s Creed franchise, the first thing that jumps into our minds is scale. The grandiose size and scope of each entry’s setting, each new game containing a more epic, fully-realised world than the last. More content, more history, more characters and adventure; in this way the...
Review Lapis x Labyrinth - A Cavalcade Of Colour And Complex Systems
Jump, magic, jump
Lapis x Labyrinth is a lot. From the crowded HUD and gem-filled explosions of its 2D action gameplay to the procession of stat boosting systems and vast item lists of its role-playing layers, Nippon Ichi Software’s cute and colourful dungeon platformer threatens to overwhelm, but nonetheless skilfully onboards players for a...
Review For The King - A Roguelike RPG That's Best Played With A Friend
By royal decree
Don’t let the beguiling art style of For The King fool you. It might look like a children’s book that’s been conjured to life, bathed in the soft autumnal light of a European fairy tale, but beneath the funny hats and cute character designs sits a roguelike RPG with teeth. Underestimate the challenge of its procedural maps and...
Review Deponia - An Amusing Graphic Adventure Which Is Totally Overpriced On Switch
The Simpsons meets Monkey Island?
In its third year, the Nintendo Switch has gained a somewhat justified reputation as a ‘port machine’, and while games such as Onimusha and DOOM have been welcomed with glee and enjoyment, others have arrived with an Alan Partridge-style shrug and a ‘How Much?!’ shouted from the garden. With that, we have...
Review Girls Und Panzer: Dream Tank Match DX - Yet Another Half-Hearted Anime Tie-In
A bit of a mis-fire
For the uninitiated, Girls und Panzer is the sole manga/anime series brave enough to tackle an issue we've all been searching for an answer for but until now were too afraid to ask: What would happen if girls practised tank-based martial arts as a school sport? Dear readers, wonder no more. Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank Match DX...
Review Silence - A Gorgeous Point-And-Click Adventure For Genre Newcomers
Bringing some noise to the genre on Switch
To slightly quote Sundar Pichai’s opening line at the Google Stadia event; ‘I don’t play point-and-click games’, but for many, Silence can become the exception and one that players new to the genre will come back to time and time again. It’s a part-spinoff, part-sequel to The Whispered World, a...
Review Super Robot Wars T - Enjoyable Tactical Mecha Goodness For Returning Fans And Newcomers Alike
The T is for ‘Terrific’
Super Robot Wars T is the most recent entry (and the first on Switch) in Bandai Namco's very successful series of tactical mecha adventures that stretch all the way back to deepest darkest 1991. With dozens upon dozens of previous entries under their belt you'd imagine they'd have exhausted Japan's supply of pilotable...
Review Sniper Elite V2 Remastered - The Ball-Busting Shooter Is Back, Warts And All
Reich on target?
It's 1945. The Second World War is drawing to a close as Hitler's Reich is forced further into retreat. The streets of Berlin have become a warzone with Allied and Nazi forces wrestling for control of the city. But the Germans have one last card to play. The V2 rocket program is one of the most advanced weapon systems of its time,...
Review Saints Row: The Third - The Full Package - The Next Best Thing To Grand Theft Auto On Switch?
Purple reign
Once upon a time, Saints Row was tipped as the ‘new’ Grand Theft Auto, with its sprawling urban open-world and a big focus on gang warfare – and while it didn’t take long for us to realise developer Volition didn’t quite have the pedigree of Rockstar, once the series started embracing its over-the-top action and violence, it...
Review Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age - This Is How You Handle A Remaster
Vaanderful
2006 was an interesting time for the Final Fantasy series, as Square returned to a single-player driven entry in the series after the MMO experiment of Final Fantasy XI. The development of Final Fantasy XII was rocky to say the least, as its protracted five-year development cycle cost Square close to thirty-five million dollars and its...