Switch Game Reviews
Just deserts
Fans of Rebellion’s period sniper simulator often look to Sniper Elite V2 (which also got a Nintendo Switch re-release earlier this year), with its campaign through the ruins of Berlin, as the moment the series really found its groove, but it’s the sequel that followed two years later that truly took all the things we love about...
Review FIFA 20 (Switch) - A Shamelessly Cynical Attempt To Swindle Switch-Owning Footy Fans
This can't Coutinho happening
When EA released FIFA 18 on the Switch, it was missing a number of modes and features. Given that the game was being handled by another studio in Bucharest – and given that one of the game’s producers gave the (rather fishy) excuse that they didn’t want to overwhelm Switch players with every option at once – we...
One for the ages
It’s fascinating to see how much the JRPG genre has changed over the years, as countless new studios and designers have come up with a seemingly bottomless amount of ways to riff on battle systems, narrative styles, and world designs. In many ways, one could say that a JRPG is judged by how well it subverts genre expectations, but...
Review Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition (Switch) - Death’s A Fine Way To Make A Living
Link and Kratos, sitting in a tree...
There’s something to be said for how the Switch became the go-to console for remasters; titles that have already seen the light elsewhere and are getting a new lease of life thanks to Nintendo’s console. It’s something to be celebrated when a port appears as if from nowhere, nearly four years after its...
Review Contra: Rogue Corps (Switch) - An Ugly And Unfocused Mess That Shames The Contra Name
A very shattered soldier
Contra: Rogue Corps sets itself some seven years after the cataclysmic events of 1992’s Contra III: The Alien Wars, one of the very best entries in the franchise. It’s certainly a bold move to tie yourself so directly to such a beloved game; a sign of supreme confidence, you might think. Well, if it was confidence, it...
Review The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch) - A Magical Remastering Of A Series Highlight
Re-awakening
Originally released way back in 1993 for the good old Game Boy, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening has always been a little bit of a curio in the history of the long-running Zelda franchise. Originally planned as a straight-up port of the Super Nintendo’s monstrously successful A Link To The Past, this very first portable Zelda...
Review LEGO Jurassic World (Switch) - A Recooked Package That's Right At Home On Switch
That is one big pile of bricks
Back in the day, handheld platforms were where you took a new LEGO game and hacked it to be bits in order to make it fit. From missing multiplayer modes and chopped-down level sizes to outright performance issues, it felt like you were getting punished for daring to smash Danish bricks anywhere other than a home...
Review Gun Gun Pixies (Switch) - A Pitiful Perv-Fest That Also Fails As A Video Game
Space Oddity
Originally released for PS Vita in Japan back in 2017, Gun Gun Pixies tells the story of two intergalactic hornballs, Kame Pon and Bee Tan, otherwise known as Pixie Team, who are sent to earth on a secret mission to observe the interactions of a bunch of teenage girls living in a dormitory. Pixie Team’s home planet Pandemo is in the...
"It's flippin' finally on the Switch, en't it?"
In 2008, Level-5 was coming up on its tenth anniversary and wanted to produce a project that its staff was passionate about, regardless of how well it would sell, and the world was introduced to Ni No Kuni: The Another World. A two-pronged project, one version of it came to the Nintendo DS as the...
Review Star Wars Pinball (Switch) - A Silly Yet Authentic Ode To All Things Star Wars
I am a pinball wizard, like my father before me
Do you like Star Wars? Do you like pinball? If your tastes happen to fall into one of these categories, you’re likely to get some enjoyment out of this themed collection of tables from virtual pinball wizards Zen Studios. If you happen to like – nay, love – both, well, you’re about to receive a...
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Review AI: The Somnium Files (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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! (Switch) - 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! (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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...
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 Lor
Review Astral Chain (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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...
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 (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - 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...
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 (Switch) - 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...
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...
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 (Switch) - 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...
