Switch eShop Game Reviews
Review Omori (Switch) - An Emotional, EarthBound-Inspired RPG That's Not Afraid To Shock
"Oh, you can't help that. Most everyone's mad here."
It’s been a long journey for Omori — the first video game from OMOCAT — on its way to the land of Nintendo. After a successful Kickstarter campaign all the way back in 2014, the game was originally slated for release on the 3DS, though this was later cancelled as development wore on and...
Mini Review Redout 2 (Switch) - A Fast-Paced Blend Of F-Zero And Simulation Racing
Big Red
Futuristic racing games haven’t had the easiest go of things over the years. It’s been ten years since the last new Wipeout game, and the newest F-Zero entry, F-Zero Climax, is almost old enough to buy a pint. Luckily, independent developers have been carrying that torch a bit in recent years, with games like Fast RMX filling the void...
Review Coromon (Switch) - A Charming Pokémon-Style Quest To Catch All Of 'Em
That's the line, right?
If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then Coromon is the greatest love letter ever written. It makes no secret that it has been inspired by classic Pokémon titles, particularly those from the Game Boy Advance era. It stops just short of being a direct imitation of those games but was clearly created to cater to fans...
Review Bright Memory: Infinite (Switch) - A Chaotic, Crysis-Style FPS, But Messy And Very Short
Micro-Crysis
Everyone has that movie, album or game that despite how objectively flawed it is, you can’t help but love it. Sure, something like Tenacious D in The Pick Of Destiny isn’t by any means a masterpiece, but that didn’t stop us from watching it countless times. Bright Memory: Infinite fits into that guilty pleasure camp so well. We...
Mini Review Growbot (Switch) - A Musical Point-And-Clicker, Superficial But Sumptuous
The Tree Laws of Robotics
Growbot is a good old point-n-clicker in the classic style: screen-sized scenes to be pixel hunted, each one providing some combination of puzzles, items for solving puzzles, world-building, and story progression. The loop is “solve puzzles, unlock more puzzles”, with the added pay-off of the explorable world growing as...
Review XEL (Switch) - Promising Zelda-Style Sci-Fi Adventuring That Falls Short On Switch
Taking the Zelda formula into space
Zelda games have laid out a comfortable roadmap for developers to follow when making action-adventure games, and there's no shortage of Zelda-likes to enjoy on Switch and elsewhere. Tiny Roar evidently took heavy notes from Nintendo’s storied franchise when putting together XEL, which takes cues from both...
Review Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium (Switch) - Captures That Arcade Magic In A Quality Package
Insert coin
Since there’s little 'wrong' with Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium, what’s right with it will depend on the sensibilities and interests of the player. The second of Capcom’s superbly curated compilations following on from Capcom Arcade Stadium, its 32 arcade titles (one of which is free) now feature a greater emphasis on action and...
Review Spidersaurs (Switch) - A Love Letter To Contra And A Fun Ride While It Lasts
Contrasaur
WayForward Technologies has made a name for itself as one of the best developers out there when it comes to retro-flavoured projects, from their excellent beat-em-ups like Double Dragon Neon and River City Girls to Metroidvanias like The Mummy Demastered and its signature Shantae series. The studio excels at that throwbac
Review F.I.S.T.: Forged In Shadow Torch (Switch) - Frustratingly Close To Metroidvania Greatness
And here comes a giant fist!
Let’s get it out of the way. FIST: Forged in Shadow Torch on the Nintendo Switch is a frustrating game. Not in the sense that it’s difficult, but rather that it is so frustratingly close to being something great and doesn't quite make it. Like doing a pole vault and you crack your ankle on the pole. There’s a lot...
Review Little Noah: Scion Of Paradise (Switch) - A Fun, Formulaic Roguelite In The Dead Cells Vein
Size isn't everything
Cygames may be known for its success in the mobile space with titles like Granblue Fantasy, Shadowverse, and Dragalia Lost (with which the developer partnered with Nintendo) but the company seems like it has an interest in translating these IPs into more traditional console games. Last year’s excellent Shadowverse: Champion's...
Review Zero Tolerance Collection (Switch) - A Significant 16-Bit FPS That's Hard To Take These Days
Virtual neutrality
Thanks to ray casting, an early form of graphics processing that allowed the rendering of a 2D map as a pseudo-3D environment, Zero Tolerance, a true First-Person Shooter, arrived on Sega’s Mega Drive in 1994. What makes Zero Tolerance Collection significant — particularly for fans of the original — is its boast of...
Review Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition (Switch) - A Cyberpunk Classic, Compromised On Switch
Zoom and enhance… Yuck! Zoom out!
Cyberpunk is an inherently old-fashioned genre. Its iconic works draw on futuristic ideas that have either become unremarkable, like essential spheres of life based on tech owned by megalomaniacal corporations, or been superseded, like an obsession with cybernetic enhancements instead of codified social status...
Review Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course (Switch) - Short, Sweet, And Utterly Essential
You'd be a mug to ignore it
There’s a section near the end of one of the new stages in Cuphead’s DLC that made us shout a four-letter word at the screen extremely loudly, and that word wasn’t ‘cups’. Being the level-headed types we are, it’s very rare for a game to make us resort to such outbursts, but there we were, bellowing the sort...
Review Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak (Switch) - A Deliciously Difficult, Must-Have Expansion
An expansion with bite
Monster Hunter Rise has proven to be a welcome continuation of the IP's global growth in popularity, following the breakout mainstream success of 2018's Monster Hunter: World and its Iceborne expansion on non-Nintendo platforms. Rise itself brought some interesting evolutions from World, retaining more of the quirky charm we...
Mini Review ElecHead (Switch) - Smart, Surprisingly Deep, And Very Satisfying
Alone in electric dreams
Isolation is a weird thing; we’re all a little accustomed to it now, but having to figure out things on your own can be pretty daunting. Elechead revels in isolation; it was made by a sole developer, NamaTakahashi (Developer of 2019’s eShop game Battlloon), and during the course of the game all you have is yourself, and...
Review Gamedec (Switch) - A Gripping, Gritty Cyberpunk Detective Adventure
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel..."
It’s interesting to consider how the role-playing genre has grown over the years, changing expectations around what somebody can expect from one. These days, an RPG usually consists of a relatively big fantasy or sci-fi world, a deep narrative, and a combat system...
Review Portal: Companion Collection (Switch) - A Nintendo Debut For Two All-Time Greats
This was a triumph ♫
When it was announced that Portal and Portal 2 would be making their way to the Nintendo Switch as part of the Portal: Companion Collection, fans collectively choked on their cakes. Two of the best puzzle games of all time on the go, you say? Yes, please! Naturally, when certain games get ported to Nintendo’s hybrid system,...
Review Roller Champions (Switch) - Passable F2P Action, But Barebones And Sorely Lacking On Switch
Rocket... Beague???
Everybody has to have their own, right? Once a breakout game becomes a huge sensation, everyone scrambles to have their own version. PUBG did it for Battle Royales and Overwatch for Hero Shooters; these are a dime a dozen now, with series like Call of Duty and Resident Evil having their own takes of varying quality (or sometimes,...
Review Sonic Origins (Switch) - A Fine Collection For New Fans, Less So For The Hardcore Sonic Crowd
COPE
One particularly bright spot in Sonic's recent history was the release of Sonic Mania. One part sequel and one part reimagining of the 2D classics, that retro revival proved to be one of the best-rated and best-selling Sonic projects in recent years. In the (frankly baffling) absence of a true follow-up to Sonic Mania, Sega has instead opted to...
Review Steve Jackson's Sorcery! (Switch) - One Of Switch's Very Best Narrative Games
Steve Jackson will remember that
Way back in the day, long before video games were any good, the cool new narrative mechanic was Choose Your Own Adventure books. Wildly popular back in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, the CYOA genre died off sharpish with the invention of point-and-click games, text adventures, and video games with vast, sprawling...
Mini Review Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition (Switch) - Tough To Recommend At Launch
Cyberflunk
The final entry in Harebrained Schemes' delightful Shadowrun Trilogy sees players thrust into the shadowy underworld of 2056 Hong Kong in a game that doesn't take many risks, sticking closely to the formula of Shadowrun: Dragonfall, whilst serving up another intriguing slice of cyberpunk/fantasy action that's packed full of strong writing...
Mini Review Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut (Switch) - A Cracking Game That Deserves Better
Cyberjunk
Originally released as the first slice of DLC expansion sweetness for 2013's Shadowrun Returns, Shadowrun: Dragonfall sees players return to an all-new adventure with a brand new set of protagonists taking to the deadly streets of near-future Berlin, where a botched data theft has left one of your team dead as a legendary dragon, the...
Review Shadowrun Returns (Switch) - A Fine Game Scuppered By A Poor Switch Port
Cyberjank
Harebrained Schemes' Shadowrun Returns first released back in 2013 after a successful Kickstarter campaign that saw its intriguing cyberpunk-meets-fantasy world drop onto PC and mobile devices, indeed we first played through this one and its superior sequel on our phones and they were an absolute delight. Set in the same universe as the...
Review Shadowrun Trilogy (Switch) - A Fantastic Trio Utterly Let Down By Shoddy Ports
Run down
Harebrained Schemes' superlative Shadowrun Trilogy first released back in 2013 after a successful Kickstarter campaign that saw its intriguing cyberpunk-meets-fantasy world drop onto PC and mobile devices. Set in the same universe as the long-running Shadowrun tabletop RPG series, this is a trio of games that take place in a delightfully...
Review Capcom Fighting Collection (Switch) - An Essential Buy For One-On-One Fighting Fans
It’s a Graveyard Smash
Capcom was a king of the nascent arcade industry back in the 1980s. An innovator, a game-changer, its invention within the fighting game genre remains unsurpassed. The company isn't new to releasing retro collections, with close to 30 compilations across various platforms. With newer hardware, however, there’s a more...
Review Fall Guys (Switch) - The World’s Most Chaotic Game Show Lands On Switch, Now F2P
Beyond Blunderdome
Fall Guys was a surprise hit back in 2020. The then-indie developer Mediatonic’s take on the battle royale genre starring those funny little jellybean characters took the world by storm during the height of the COVID pandemic. After an almost two-year wait and coinciding with its free-to-play launch, Fall Guys has finally landed...
Review Final Vendetta (Switch) - A Violent Love Letter To '90s Arcade Brawlers
Those fists were fast as lightning
Do you wake up each morning with a desire to beat the living hell out of street-roaming criminals? Don’t do it, we implore you. Prison isn’t worth it. While Final Fight and Streets of Rage may have been the violent video games that made you the addict to barbarism that you are today, take heart in the knowledge...
Review The Hand Of Merlin (Switch) - Roguelite Strategy That Grabs Hold Of You
These hands are rated E for Everyone
A couple years ago, a small Croatian development team called Room-C set out to create a new game set in Arthurian mythology called The Hand of Merlin. Following a roguelite structure and based around high-difficulty, tactical gameplay, the release quickly gained a passionate fanbase that eagerly awaited each new...
Review Neon White (Switch) - A Thrilling, Hilarious Genre Hybrid That You Simply Must Check Out
Neon dreamin'
Ben Esposito has become somewhat of a star in the indie game scene over the last decade. From his work on Giant Sparrow’s The Unfinished Swan and What Remains of Edith Finch, to his part in Arkane Kids’ bizarro titles like Sonic Dreams Collection, you’ve likely come across him somewhere. However, Esposito is probably best known...
This is serious, so give me a quarter
The energy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, one of the biggest crazes of the '80s, has endured for 35 years. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s initially dark comic creations — later given a kid-friendly refashioning — spearheaded Turtlemania: a toxic-waste fusion of martial arts and mutant teen reptiles that...