Switch Game Reviews
Review Toaplan Arcade Garage (Switch) - Two Historic Shmups Archived By Arcade Port Masters M2
Easy, tiger
In recent years fans of the 2D shooter form have had to adjust their expectation of what a port can be, largely thanks to the sublime M2 ShotTriggers series. Indeed, we’ve been rather spoiled by that particular run of games. A long-established convention across gaming’s history states that console ports never quite meet the quality...
Review NASCAR Heat Ultimate Edition+ (Switch) - An Ugly, Unremarkable Racer
Racing to leave you cold
By now, Nintendo fans must be used to drawing the short straw when it comes to multi-platform games. With the Switch containing objectively weaker innards than its closest competitors, many third-party devs will need to cut a few corners in order to allow their games to run on the hybrid console. This might come in the form...
Review The Wild At Heart (Switch) - A Gorgeous, Potent Mix Of Pikmin And Luigi's Mansion
Something borrowed, something new
The Wild at Heart feels like an amalgamation of some of Nintendo’s most unique gaming mechanics. Such a statement might strike fear into your heart, and we wouldn’t blame you. After all, many attempts by third-parties to imitate Nintendo’s design traits and tricks have fallen flat thanks to poor execution or a...
Review Pokémon Brilliant Diamond And Shining Pearl (Switch) - A Middling Pair Of Remakes
Not so shining
It’s always difficult to know just how much of a game to change when you’re remaking it, and that is certainly true when it comes to the insanely-popular Pokémon series. Go too far, and you risk alienating the audience, as was evident with the enjoyable but somewhat simplified Let’s Go! Pikachu and Eevee Switch remakes of the...
Wasted
Since this review was originally published, updates have reportedly addressed or improved one or more of the issues cited. Unfortunately, we cannot revisit games on an individual basis, but it should be noted that the updated game may offer an improved experience over the one detailed below. <related ids="151863"> It sho
Mini Review Heaven's Machine (Switch) - Short, But Unfortunately Not Sweet
A bullet hellish experience
Heaven's Machine is the first of Super Rare Games’ ‘Super Rare Shorts’ series; brand new indie games only released on the Switch in physical form and only available to buy during a short open preorder window. It's certainly an unusual idea but, unfortunately, this is probably not the start they were hoping for...
Review My Singing Monsters Playground (Switch) - A Fun, Minigame-Only Alternative To Mario Party
Monster Mayhem
Party games feel right at home on the Switch, don’t they? With the recent launch of games like Mario Party Superstars and Fisti-Fluffs, it feels like there’s always something new to play within the multiplayer genre. Tossing its hat into the ring, My Singing Monsters Playground shares much of the same DNA as Nintendo’s own Mario...
Review Blue Reflection: Second Light (Switch) - A Stunning-Looking Anime Adventure
Back-to-school days have never been this weird
There are few joys in life greater than a good mystery, but a mystery surrounding cute anime girls? That is even better. Blue Reflection: Second Light is the sequel to 2017’s Blue Reflection from developer Gust and publisher Koei Tecmo. This game sees a fresh cast of characters thrust into a new...
Review Just Dance 2022 (Switch) - Still Fun, But Feels More Like An Ad Than A Game
Love Story?
Ubisoft's Just Dance returns once again to give us our annual dose of disco boogie action, and there's absolutely zero surprises in Just Dance 2022 if you've ever played an entry in this series before. There's a fairly solid bit of dance fun to be had with this one, but it's also overwhelmingly familiar stuff that takes every opportunity...
Yawn of the Dead?
Saber Interactive's World War Z is the very definition of a bland, middle-of-the-road game that takes very obvious inspiration from much better titles – in this case the Left 4 Dead series – and serves up a rather lazy rehash, excelling at nothing in particular while still providing a reasonably breezy good time, so long as...
Review Shin Megami Tensei V (Switch) - The Best Entry Yet In This Dark, Engrossing RPG Series
A HEE-HOme run
Shin Megami Tensei V has been a long time coming. The last mainline entry in the series was released over eight years ago for the 3DS, while the last home console entry was another ten years before that. Moreover, Shin Megami Tensei V was one of the first games ever revealed for the Switch, mere months after the console itself was...
Review Demon Turf (Switch) - A Tight, Stylish 3D Platformer With Plenty Of 'Tude
Off the hook
If there’s one thing gamers constantly crave, it’s a decent 3D platformer. Though the genre has seen its fair share of all-time classics, it’s safe to say its popularity waned as shooters and action-RPGs ascended through the 2000s. Indeed, unless a 3D platformer comes bearing the name ‘Mario’, ‘Crash’, or ‘Spyro’,...
Review LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (Switch) - Still One Of The Best Lego Games
With great power comes absolutely no responsibility
Long before Fortnite's metaverse and brands talking to each other on Twitter, there were the Lego games: winning combinations of a world-favourite kids' toy and some of the biggest movie franchises in the world. Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, and Batman were all Lego-ified by UK-based...
Review Mario Party Superstars (Switch) - A Party Most Hearty
Dad dancing mandatory
For years now fans of the Mario Party series have been pleading with Nintendo to just go back to the roots of what made the series great; no cars, no bizarre new modes, not just a collection of minigames that when presented in a vacuum lose all context or purpose — just Mario characters running around a board grabbing stars...
Review Dying Light Platinum Edition (Switch) - A Solid Switch Port That'll Please Portable Players
Dead good
Note: Dying Light Platinum Edition is unavailable on Switch eShop in Europe at the time of writing pending an issue with the game being banned in Germany. In 2011, Techland released Dead Island on most seventh generation consoles to mostly positive reception. Still, Dead Island had never quite been the game that Techland envisioned it to...
Review Cotton Guardian Force Saturn Tribute (Switch) - Great Games Let Down By Poor Ports
A slightly troublesome trio of tributes
This trio of retro shmups — Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang and Guardian Force — have released under the “Saturn Tribute” umbrella (bundled together on a physical cartridge in Japan that's recently been announced for the West, or available individually via your local eShop at the time of wr
Review Astria Ascending (Switch) - A Solid JRPG Salvaged With The Help Of Final Fantasy Veterans
Second time's the charm
In late 2015, a new game came to iOS called Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey, offering up a reasonably high-quality classic JRPG experience. Though it was originally slated to arrive in some form on the PlayStation consoles of the time, this console project never got off the ground and was subsequently cancelled. Now, that project has...
Review Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (Switch) - A Strong Platform Fighter With Polish Problems
It's better than bad, it's good
Licensed games have a history of being largely a bit pants. There are notable exceptions of course, but for every Goldeneye 007 or SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom there’s fistloads of the likes of M&Ms Kart Racing, Superman 64, and the Wii version of Iron Man.
Review Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases (Switch) - More Visual Novel Than Puzzler
Compels me, though
Mystery fans will have been keeping an eye on Hercule Poirot: The First Cases following the frightful crime scene that was The ABC Murders. The Belgian detective’s latest arrival on Switch is again courtesy of French publisher Microids, but the developer this time is Blazing Griffin, who have engaged with the Ardennian gumshoe...
Review Metroid Dread (Switch) - Quite Possibly The Best Metroid Game Ever Made
And the E.M.M.I. goes to...
After absolutely nailing its first shot at a Metroid adventure with 2017's Metroid II 3DS remake Samus Returns, Nintendo has given MercurySteam another bite at the cherry in which they've chosen to retain many of the unique gameplay elements of their last outing whilst adding a bunch of stealth. It's a risky manoeuvre,...
Review Monster Crown (Switch) - Enjoyably Old-School Monster Battling For Pokémon Lovers
"I choose you... to read this contract!"
About three years ago, Studio Aurum pitched Monster Crown on Kickstarter, a monster-battling RPG which wasn’t shy about taking inspiration from a certain popular Game Freak franchise. After making over nine times as much money as the initial goal, the title then shifted to Early Access on PC, where it was...
Review FIFA 22 (Switch) - Another Match Abandoned
Getting a new game? Neuer not
“Fool me once,” the famous phrase goes, “shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” With FIFA 22, EA is attempting to fool us thrice, and although we haven't been able to find any official ruling on what this means, we’ve come to the conclusion that it basically rolls back to “shame on you” again...
Review Embr (Switch) - A Spark Of Co-Op Potential, But Never Catches Fire On Switch
In the line of fire
At first blush Muse Games' Embr put us in mind of riotous slapstick comedy titles such as Overcooked and Tarsier Games' excellent The Stretchers. This is a bright and colourful multiplayer-focused mess of firefighting carnage that also presents itself as a wry satirical take on the state of 21st Century capitalism. It's got the...
Review Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot + A New Power Awakens Set (Switch) - An Iconic Story Retold Well
A pleasant trip down Memory Lane
There are few characters in the world of anime more iconic than Goku, the Saiyan sent to Earth as a baby who eventually becomes one of the most powerful beings in the universe. His story has been told across almost every medium imaginable since his manga debut in 1984, including anime, video games, and the terrible...
Review Darksiders III (Switch) - A Poor Switch Port Of A Distinctly Average Series Entry
Hellish
We're pretty big fans of the Darksiders franchise here at Nintendo Life. These games may pilfer their core mechanics from all over the shop, and make no attempt to hide the fact in the process, but they're pure comfort food; cosy, familiar, resolutely old-fashioned in how they go about their business, and for the most part a lot of...
Review Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania (Switch) - Feature-Packed, But Far From Top Banana
"I really love bananas!" - AiAi
Super Monkey Ball is an incredibly simple idea: poor little monkeys are trapped in air-tight balls. They can probably breathe but it isn't specified, and all you have to do is roll them to the goal. Yet somehow the original two games and the expanded Deluxe compilation managed to take that premise and mould it into...
Review Knockout Home Fitness (Switch) - Too Limited And Lightweight To Be A Contender
Fails to pack a punch
The Switch is slowly but surely becoming home to a new dawn of fitness games. The success of Ring Fit Adventure has clearly inspired a new batch of keep-fit titles, with the likes of Fitness Boxing 2, Active Life Outdoor Challenge and even Nintendo’s limited release Jump Rope Challenge all vying for a piece of the fitness...
Review Hot Wheels Unleashed (Switch) - Probably The Best Hot Wheels Game Ever
More die-cast fun than a game of D&D
There are few licences out there that are better suited to a video game than Hot Wheels. After all, when the whole brand revolves around collecting a wide variety of tiny cars then creating over-the-top tracks for them to race on, it’s fair to say that any game that manages to capture that essence of pure fun...
Review Colors Live (Switch) - A Basic Art Application Elevated By Clever Hardware
The Sonar Pen is mightier than the thumb
Note: Special thanks to Sasha Stowe for acting as consultant for this review. You can find her art on Instagram and Twitter. A fair few ‘applications’ have made their way to the Switch, usually just stuff like YouTube, Calculator, Netflix, that sort of thing, but now we have a full-blown digital art...
Review RiMS Racing (Switch) - A Poor Switch Port Makes For An Uneasy Rider
Brake drag
In order to very quickly condense exactly what kind of motorcycle sim RiMS Racing is, consider this: There are over 500 fully licenced vehicle parts in this game and just eight actual bikes. This isn't a sleight on Raceward Studio's game, far from it, the eight bikes here are very obviously authentically detailed and lovingly crafted,...