Switch eShop Game Reviews
Review Alisa Developer's Cut (Switch) - An Excellent RE Homage That Nails The '90s Vibe
Hey, doll
Some of the best retro-style games are almost indistinguishable from the real deal; games that could have been buried in a time capsule in the ‘80s or ‘90s, long forgotten before being unearthed, completely intact, in the modern day. It’s tough to pull off, though we can say with absolute confidence that Alisa Developer’s Cut is...
Review GRIME Definitive Edition (Switch) - A Poor Port Of A Superb Soulslike Metroidvania
Pretty rocky
The best thing we can ever say about a game is that we wanted to keep playing it on our own time after we’ve wrapped up a review. We wish we could tell you that’s the case with Grime. It should be; there’s a really great Souls-inspired Metroidvania here. But a number of technical aspects turn what should be a chip off the ol’...
Rhythm-based puzzling
This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format. Akihabara - Feel the Rhythm Remixed...
Mini Review Waku Waku Sweets (Switch) - Low-Stakes Baking Minigames With Anime Icing
Baking it
This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format. A port of a 3DS game with some funky new motion...
Mini Review Dexteritrip (Switch) - A Minimalist, Hardcore Platformer With Some Fun Ideas
Trip off the old block
This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format. Note. This game has, unfortunately,...
Mini Review Party Hard (Switch) - A Stealthy Soirée Slasher That's As Dark As It Is Fun
A gory gathering
This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format. Despite the deeply grim premise of...
Mini Review 911 Operator (Switch) - A Call-Based Sim That's Commendable But Dull
Missed call
This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format. Perhaps the most realistic police game ever,...
Mini Review Coffee Crisis (Switch) - A Solid, 16-Bit-Style Beat 'Em Up
Decaf attack
This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format. Fans of both the decaf latte and the beat...
Mini Review Rising Lords (Switch) - Medieval Strategy That Fails To Rise To The Occasion
What is this, the Dark Ages?
There is a king’s ransom of strategy games on Switch, so it takes a lot for one to stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately, Rising Lords from developer Argonwood is memorable for all the wrong reasons. With hollow, tedious gameplay and a combat system that tries to combine too many elements, we were ready to leave...
Review Bahnsen Knights (Switch) - Perhaps The Best Yet Of The Brilliant 'Pixel Pulps'
Demons on the road
Within seconds of starting Bahnsen Knights, the third in LCB Game Studio's ‘Pixel Pulps’ series of games, we found ourselves inspired. We turned the lights down low, put on some headphones and, with the clear aim of savouring every moment, held the Switch’s OLED screen so close to our face that we became fully immersed in...
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Review Hitman: Blood Money - Reprisal (Switch) - Small But Potent QoL Additions Keep 47 Spry
Fibre-wired
Before IO Interactive blew everyone’s socks off with the sublime World of Assassination Trilogy, Hitman: Blood Money was widely considered to be the crown jewel of the stealth franchise. In fact, many consider Blood Money to be the progenitor of World of Assassination; a game that thrives on freedom of choice, offering up a total of 14...
Mini Review Lil' Guardsman (Switch) - A Disarming Fusion Of Classic LucasArts And 'Papers, Please'
Sale of the sentry
When a game cites as inspiration Papers, Please and classic Lucasarts point-and-clicks, it’s hard not to be curious, if a little cautious in your optimism. That’s exactly where Toronto-founded developer Hilltop Studios is coming from with Lil’ Guardsman – and it's come up with something pretty great. The game starts with...
Mini Review Turnip Boy Robs A Bank (Switch) - A Faulty Frame Rate Foils This Fun Caper
Farmed robbery
After getting a taste of the criminal life in Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, the cheeky root vegetable returns in Turnip Boy Robs A Bank to, uh, rob a bank—multiple times. While the original game was a charming action-adventure title, the sequel takes inspiration from the likes of Enter the Gungeon and The Binding of Isaac to...
Mini Review Shinorubi (Switch) - A Curious Shooter That's A No-Go In Docked Mode
Not starring Joe Musashi
Shinorubi feels like a game that came about by providing prompts to an AI specialising in video game building (coming soon, no doubt), feeding it information on various historical works of a particular nature, and then publishing whatever it spat out. That might sound mean to the humans that created it, but it’s an apt...
Mini Review Knights Of The Rogue Dungeon (Switch) - Shallow And Fun, Like Q*Bert
Knight club
Atooi's Knights of the Rogue Dungeon follows closely in the footsteps of Q*Bert, the popular isometric platformer from the golden days of the arcade. The goal of each randomly selected level is to simply hop onto every single tile (changing its color) while avoiding any of the roaming enemies that randomly drop onto the stage as you...
Review Terra Nil (Switch) - Satisfying Climate-Cleansing Strategy, With Some Switch Issues
Make a little life in your spare time
Video games are usually based on a power fantasy. We wish we could slay the dragon, overthrow the evil king, or run faster than any hedgehog ever should. Possibly the biggest power fantasy of all, though, is offered by Terra Nil, which allows you to tackle the overwhelming existential dread of climate change...
Mini Review Chico And The Magic Orchards DX (Switch) - A Cracking Callback To GB Zeldas
In a nutshell
Though retro-styled games are all the rage among indies these days, it's rarer to come across something that could have been released on the hardware it references. Chico and the Magic Orchards DX expertly blends old-school design philosophies and aesthetics with some slight modern touches to make for a compelling and enjoyable little...
Review Hammerwatch II (Switch) - Feels Like A Rough Draft Of A Fantasy Epic
Be ready to fight powerful enemies, and terrible menu design
Gather forth, mighty heroes, for there is a world to be saved. Evil dragons are lording over humanity while a necromancer has usurped his brother’s throne. We need adventurers with great skill and power to fight through dungeons and battle monsters to give the world a spark of hope...
Mini Review Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator (Switch) - A Potent Brew, But An Unrefined Port
Double, double, toil and trouble…
Looking as if it’s been torn straight out of an alchemist’s journal, Potion Craft is a gorgeous simulation game that’s sure to appeal to the mystically inclined, although — oddly — it feels like a bad fit on Switch. Arriving on Nintendo's console one year after its PC and Xbox launch, it puts you in the...
Review Dodonpachi DaiOuJou Blissful Death Re:Incarnation (Switch) - Poetic Bullet-Hell Perfection
Get Hyper
Cave, a shoot-'em-up developer assembled from the ashes of Toaplan, was preparing to fold in 2001. The arcade scene was moving in new directions, relying on increasingly ostentatious Taikan cabinets to compete with the emerging technology of home consoles. For Cave, the 2D shoot 'em up, no matter how unerringly creative, was struggling to...
Review Outer Wilds (Switch) - A Sublime Spacewalk That Stutters Can't Spoil
Loop-the-loop
What’s the meaning of life? Are we alone in the universe? How do you know if the fridge light goes off after you close the door? It’s questions like this that have driven humankind to explore the planet, the cosmos, and ourselves. And the kitchen. This irresistible drive of curiosity and the addictive high of discovery are what...
That's why they call it the blues
What is The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero? That was probably the question on most players’ lips after the Expansion Pass for Pokémon Scarlet & Violet was revealed. Part one, The Teal Mask, was just an appetizer, taking players to a new land in Kitakami and introducing new characters who might just end up being...
Review Born Of Bread (Switch) - An Enjoyable, If Underbaked, Paper Mario Homage
Ma(rio) baker
It’s been rough out there for Paper Mario fans. Over the past several entries Nintendo has tested new ideas that haven’t come together anywhere near as well as the original games did, and there's good reason for the joy surrounding the return of Thousand-Year Door in 2024. Some indie developers, however, have tried to recapture the...
Review Turok 3: Shadow Of Oblivion (Switch) - A Quality Restoration Missing Its Multiplayer
A feather in your cap
Turok first appeared in 1954 in Dell Comics, an American publisher notable for World War II-themed fiction and Warner Brothers licenses. Back then, Turok, dubbed Son of Stone, was indeed a dinosaur hunter, using wit and muscle to overcome a clashing of the species. In 1992, Valiant Comics rebooted Turok with more of a sci-fi...
Review A Highland Song (Switch) - A Beautiful Climb That Doesn't Quite Reach Inkle's Peak
Take the high road AND the low road
Scotland. The final frontier. At least, as far as games go. Despite many games being made in and about the glorious north, very few actually represent its natural wonder without also featuring an embarrassing stereotype of haggis-eating, ginger-bearded, tartan-clad men, and/or clobbering the English (although we...
Review Football Manager 2024 Touch (Switch) - An Impressive Sim With Some Real Pep
Not quite Ten Hag out of Ten though
Football Manager is an obsession for a rather large demographic each year, the sort of game that is nibbling away at the back of your mind when you're supposed to work, do taxes, or just be a grown-up. For some of us the obsession dates back to its Championship Manager days in the early/mid-1990s, and the core of...
Review The Last Faith (Switch) - A Moody, If Stuttery, Blasphemous-Style Soulslike
Cutting open some Cold Ones with the boys
While the world continues to wait in vain for Konami to release another 2D Castlevania, plenty of indie game developers have stepped up to try filling the gap with their own take on the famed formula. Some of these games have almost copied the gameplay beat for beat, such as in Timespinner or Chasm, while...
Review SteamWorld Build (Switch) - A Brilliantly Realised Melding Of Sim Genres
Choo-choo choose me
We live in a blinking lovely time right now. Gone is the notion that genres like real-time strategy (RTS) and management sims can’t be controlled with a standard controller, and we have the likes of Two Point Campus and RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Complete Edition on Switch to prove it. Joining that field is SteamWorld Build, the...
Review ASTLIBRA Revision (Switch) - Flawed, But One Of 2023's Most Intriguing Action RPGs
Worth the wait
Sometimes good things come to those who wait, and few things embody this concept better than ASTLIBRA Revision, the final release of a game that’s been developed by one man for over 15 years. KEIZO, a humble Japanese salaryman, started work on Astlibra because he felt there weren’t enough 2D action RPG games that filled the niche...
Review Irem Collection Volume 1 (Switch) - Three Great Games, But One Slim Package
After image
Founded in 1974, Irem, then known as IPM Co. Ltd, began as a distributor and assembler of arcade machines for general stores and other small independent businesses. It wasn’t until 1978 that the relabelled company released its own software. Despite being shoot-'em-up focused, the Irem Collection Volume 1 sidesteps R-Type, the obvious...
