Latest Reviews
Review Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen (Switch) - Red-Hot Nostalgia In A So-So Wrapper
TPC used Remember! It’s super effective!
Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen is a difficult game to evaluate. Re-released on the Nintendo Switch eShop to celebrate Pokémon’s 30th anniversary, this 22-year-old Game Boy Advance remake of the original Pokémon Red & Blue feels like a lacklustre way to celebrate one of the largest media franchises known...
Review Scott Pilgrim EX (Switch 2) - A Gloriously Entertaining, Fan-Service-Filled Retro Brawler
Sweet! More coins!
Riding the cult success of Edgar Wright’s cinematic adaptation while keeping the aesthetic and charm of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s source material, Ubisoft's Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World game was a smash hit at launch. This gloriously retro co-op brawler still holds up today; its 16-bit charms remain well worth your time,...
Review Pokémon Pokopia (Switch 2) - One Of The Most Enticing Pokémon Games Ever
I'm gonna reconstruct block by block
I feel like I’ve been rebuilding my relationship with Pokémon over the past decade. It’s been a weird experience for me, who’s grown up with the franchise at every stage of my life; taking my toy Pokédex to school; sitting at the top of the stairs, GBA SP in hand and Sapphire on the screen, timidly...
Let's have a rave-up
There's part of me that still can't quite believe I'm playing Rave Racer on a home console. Namco's 1995 sequel to Ridge Racer never made it out of the arcades back in the day, despite promises that it would be ported to PC as part of NEC's push for its PowerVR graphics processor. For years, the game's legacy has been having...
War never changes
When Skyrim featured in the Switch reveal trailer back in 2016, it was a statement of intent for the system. This was a big title in every sense of the word, and for the first time, Nintendo-only console owners could step into a Bethesda RPG and take it on the go, too. Sure, it was yet another version of a terminally re-released...
Review Resident Evil Requiem (Switch 2) - Action And Horror Combine In A Series Highlight
Blood, blood, gallons of the stuff
There’s a moment during Resident Evil Requiem — actually, no, several moments — in which I laid the controller on my lap and just stared at the screen in awe. Over the last decade, the series has reclaimed its throne as the king of the survival horror genre, but Requiem pushes the quality bar higher than...
Review The Disney Afternoon Collection (Switch 2) - A Delightful Yet Difficult '90s Throwback
Good afternoon
It’s been a long time coming — almost nine years, in fact — but Capcom’s The Disney Afternoon Collection is now finally heading to the Switch and Switch 2 under the stewardship of Atari and developer Digital Eclipse. Not to rub it in the faces of PlayStation and Xbox owners (except that’s exactly what I'm doing), but it’s...
Anything Qud happen
The legends of Caves of Qud stretch back into the ancient times, through mists of lore, to a moment of destiny. That’s right – all the way back to 2007, when American team Freehold Games began development on this ambitious roguelike RPG. After a 17-year journey to version 1.0 in 2024, gathering a devoted PC following, this...
Mini Review Rayman: 30th Anniversary Edition (Switch) - Nicely Orchestrated But Misses A Key Note
Ray of light
Rayman was Ubisoft’s first major commercial success, the company going public a year after its release in 1996. A PlayStation launch title, it was originally conceived for the unreleased Super Nintendo CD-ROM before being developed for Atari’s Jaguar. A fantasy platform game that pops with oil paint colour, its stages encompass...
Mini Review Resident Evil Village Gold Edition (Switch 2) - A Solid First-Person Follow Up
Lady D-ecent
With Resident Evil Village, Capcom wisely leaned into the success of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, presenting a direct sequel that continues the story of protagonist Ethan Winters. This time, he winds up in a rural village overlooked by a vast, elegant castle as he strives to locate his kidnapped daughter, Rose. It’s no secret that...
Go tell Aunt Rhody
Just in case you need yet another reminder of how old you’re getting, Capcom first revealed Resident Evil 7: Biohazard all the way back in June 2016 – almost a decade ago. Following its release in 2017 and a rather unsavoury cloud port on the Switch in 2021, Nintendo fans can finally experience Capcom’s soft reboot on Switch...
Review Love Eternal (Switch) - Disturbing, Devilish Platformer Flips A Few Too Many Times
Flipping fun?
Published by Ysbryd Games and developed by brlka, Love Eternal is an arduous platformer presented primarily in a retro 4:3 aspect ratio. It follows a teenage girl named Maya as she wends her way through a lonesome, though artfully-depicted, castle and the surreal, twisted memories that haunt it. The game begins as many platformers do:...
Review BlazBlue Entropy Effect X (Switch) - A Remarkably Over-Ambitious Roguelike That Goes Deep
He fights for the Users
Entropy, a scientific concept defined by randomness and disorder, is a fitting name for a roguelike. Since BlazBlue began as a fighting game series it’s seen a multitude of spin-offs, now finding itself in the realm of 2D platform action and roguelike principles. Its whopping assembly of eighteen-playable-characters helm...
The bomb
One of the most pleasant surprises of this month’s Partner Direct was the reveal and shadow drop of the Super Bomberman Collection, a compilation of some of the eponymous hero’s earliest games with some extra goodies thrown in. Though it’s ultimately little more than the sum of its parts, Super Bomberman Collection does a great job of...
Mini Review Paranormasight: The Mermaid's Curse (Switch) - Plenty To Plunder In This Solid Sequel
Part of your world
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo was one of the most delightful surprises for the Switch; a visual novel that broke the fourth wall in unique ways while telling a compelling story laced with horror. The sequel, Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse, is more of the same, and that’s a good thing. If Square Enix wants...
Review Ys X: Proud Nordics (Switch 2) - The Definitive Version Of Adol Christin's Seafaring Saga
Such is the Norman way
It feels like just yesterday that Ys X: Nordics slashed its way onto the Switch to deliver another one of the series’ action-packed adventures for the ages — and, really, that’s not too far off the mark. The 10th mainline entry in NIS’ seminal RPG franchise made its way westward back in late 2024, which is still plenty...
Mini Review Console Archives Cool Boarders (Switch 2) - Not Up There With 1080, But Still Pretty Rad
'90s snow-back
Hamster Corporation is on something of a winning streak, with the fantastic Arcade Archives series continually dusting off and polishing hundreds of notable games from the annals of history. Well, those wizards are back with the fresh Console Archives brand, and the now 30-year-old ‘radical’ PlayStation sports game
Once upon a time...
While we continue to wait for a true RPG sequel to the early Paper Mario games, many indie developers have attempted to fill the void, and while nobody has quite managed to recapture their magic, Escape from Ever After feels like the closest anyone has gotten yet. It’s got some quirks, but it does a great job of offering an...
Review I Hate This Place (Switch) - A Messy Monster, But With A Certain Charm
A strong word
The way I see it, there are three different versions of I Hate This Place. First, there’s the game as promised in the trailers: a survival horror with some general emphasis on resource management and gunplay, all elevated with some nice-looking cinematic storytelling. Sweeping cameras slowly reveal the ominous presence of creepily...
Review Reanimal (Switch 2) - Little Nightmares Team Delivers Its Darkest, Boldest Vision Yet
Not your average farm sim
If you’re a horror fan and you own a Switch 2, you should play Reanimal. From the moment it pulls you into its bleak, nightmarish world, it’s clear that developer Tarsier Studios is building on everything it learned from the Little Nightmares series while pushing its signature horror sensibilities to unnerving new...
Review Mario Tennis Fever (Switch 2) - Slim For Singles, But An Addictive Core Gives It Online Legs
Nadal it's cracked up to be?
Having never been any sort of tennis fan for my entire childhood — Wimbledon always seemed a bit posh to me — I fell completely and utterly in love with the sport in my teenage years through the medium of video games. Yes. Video games. They're a whole thing! And just as has been the case with American football,...
Death Race 2026
In a cruel twist of irony, those of us who remember the breakneck mayhem of the original Carmageddon are creeping ever closer to our senior citizen bus pass. This will allow us to ride a slow-moving passenger vehicle that gains no extra points for mulching pedestrians. Released in 1997, this classic of vehicular combat arrived with...
Review Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties (Switch 2) - Maybe It's Time To Take A Break
Daddy issues
I’m of the opinion that there are no bad Yakuza games. Although the series has definitely fluctuated in quality over the years, they always offer up something to keep me engaged and satisfied. Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties is still a decent entry, but it’s also bloated, poorly paced, and marred in controversy surrounding the recasting...
Review Hollow Knight (Switch) - One Of The Finest Metroidvanias That's Not A Metroid Or 'Vania
Bugs now available on Switch 2
This review was originally published in June 2018 when Hollow Knight launched on the Switch 1. To celebrate the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, we're republishing it along with some brief impressions of the free upgrade, which is available to download now. The Switch isn't exactly lacking for quirky...
Review Jimmy And The Pulsating Mass (Switch) - The Best EarthBound-Like You've Never Heard Of
Jimmy Dreams World
Early on in Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass, the young protagonist confronts a possessed frog statue in a house surrounded by a bloody lake. The possessor turns out to be a rotten Jack O’Lantern, capable of dangerous fire magic but with a goofy, cheerful grin. Defeating it, Jimmy stands where it used to be, and immediately...
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
The Metroidvania revival (did it ever really go away?) keeps rolling, and here comes another stylised combat-platformer where a strange little hero gets lost in a dark, labyrinthine fantasy world. This time, our protagonist is John, who stumbles into a bizarre realm full of somnambulist weirdos and giant babies. Studio...
Review Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined (Switch 2) - A Fantastic Makeover & The Best-Looking DQ Ever
Let's do the time warp again
Ready to feel old? It’s been about 13 years since the launch of the 3DS remake of Dragon Quest VII, which itself was released about 13 years after the original on the PSX. That means that it’s time for yet another remake of the storied classic, which has been dubbed Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined this time around. This...
May contain nuts
As a big old superhero nerd and a fan of Telltale's narrative adventure games of old, it's fair to say that Dispatch piqued my interest when it made its episodic arrival on PC and PS5 last year. Still, I took a punt and held back on purchasing because it simply had to be coming to Switch at some point in the future. Well, Jim of the...
Vroom, shake the room?
For serious petrolheads, the Switch 1 wasn't exactly a (Burnout) paradise platform. In fact, given the size of the console's library, there's surprisingly little in the way of even semi-serious racing sims for those looking for more than kart racing, smaller-scale experiences that hone in on one aspect and expand (such as the...
Everybody's living in a Materia world
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gawked at the opening sequence to Final Fantasy VII over the years. From a three-year-old, gazing up at the intro for the first time from the carpet of my living room, to watching the camera zoom out and pan across Midgar in Final Fantasy VII Remake back in 2020, I’ve...
