Switch eShop Game Reviews
Review Missile Command Delta (Switch) - Good Foundations Lost In The Narrative Rubble
Debunker'd
Missile Command Delta, from developers Mighty Yell (The Big Con) and 13AM Games (Runbow), is an experience of two halves. The first is a turn-based strategy take on the classic Dave Theurer-developed arcade game Missile Command; one that shouldn’t work in theory, but genuinely does. The second is a misguided attempt to add context to...
Mini Review Until Then (Switch) - A Relatable Yet Ethereal Narrative Adventure
Glitch in the Matrix
Until Then is a visual novel that tells the story of Mark Borja, a high school student who grapples with the usual day-to-day of teenage life while trying to figure out why he’s experiencing weird cases of déjà vu. It’s a slow burn; one that relishes in the quieter, mundane aspects of life that many TV shows and movies...
Review Tron: Catalyst (Switch) - A Repetitive & Forgettable Time On The Grid
Needs more time to compile
No matter how much I learn about the workings of computers, it will always be Tron in there. Little programs, running around on the Grid, trying to keep the whole system from falling apart. So, Tron: Catalyst felt right up my street. It does a great job of visually replicating that digital world and there is a great idea...
Review Ruffy And The Riverside (Switch) - An Inventive Platformer That's More Than Copy-Paste
The right Ruff
Sometimes I'll get asked to review a game that doesn't immediately feel as though it really falls within my wheelhouse. At all. And I have to admit, as much as I do love the look of Ruffy and the Riverside, with its 1980's kids-TV-show-styled characters, replete with visible marker strokes from having been coloured in, I definitely...
Plenty of bugs
Date Everything! is a dating simulator where the dateable people are actually objects, or inanimates, that exist around your home. You begin Date Everything at work, where you are a recent customer service hire at Valdivian, a major tech company. Almost as soon as your work day begins, you’re informed that your job is being made...
Review Wobbly Life (Switch) - Kid-Friendly Open-World Sandbox Is Frustrating Fun
It's a wobbly life
Editor's note: What's this? A non-Switch 2 game?!? Variety, my friends, is the spice of Nintendo Life... A goofy life sim set in a physics-based sandbox, Wobbly Life by RubberBandGames is an entertaining amalgam of open-world adventure and indie party games. With its cartoonish tone and compulsive gameplay, it's clearly...
Review Pipistrello And The Cursed Yoyo (Switch) - A Masterclass In Retro, Zelda-Style Game Design
Check out this next trick
Though the latest 3D Zelda releases have unmistakably taken the already popular series to all-new heights, there are still some fans who miss the ‘old’ way Nintendo used to design its popular green-hatted protagonist’s adventures. Such fans will want to pay attention to Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo from...
Larger than (Fantasy) Life
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time knows which side its bread is buttered. The original Fantasy Life on 3DS is a cult favourite, but not a bestseller by any means — yet its dedicated fanbase has been proselytising about the game for well over a decade, and it's those fans that have been hoping for this sequel for...
Real steamy
Steam-Heart’s is a most curious Saturn Tribute release, for two significant reasons: Firstly, it was conceived many moons ago as hardcore hentai erotica; and secondly, it was never particularly great. It first appeared in all its grammatically incorrect glory on the NEC PC-98 home computer in 1994. Compared to the console market,...
Review Old Skies (Switch) - A Slow But Satisfying Time-Hopping Adventure
Nozzotalgia
If you're a point-and-click fan — particularly of the '90s LucasArts-y variety — then you're likely familiar with Wadjet Eye Games. This is the team that brought us back to the genre's golden age with the likes of Unavowed and The Excavation Of Hob's Barrow (on which it served as publisher), and its latest slice of nostalgia pie is...
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Mini Review Duck Detective: The Ghost Of Glamping (Switch) - A Quacking Little Mystery
I suspect fowl play
A duck stands in a fedora and a trench coat, delivering a noir-style monologue about how his recent divorce has fueled his bread addiction. If this image doesn't tickle you, then you'd better give Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping a miss. If it does, oh boy, do we have the recommendation for you. Much like developer Happy...
Blade of glory
When Onimusha: Warlords launched for Switch all the way back in 2019, we had optimistically assumed that its sequel would be right around the corner. How naïve. A bit of patience has been required, but now, more than six years later, Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny has finally been given the same remaster treatment. We can’t be too...
Review Arcade Archives NebulasRay (Switch) - A CGI Deep-Cut After Decades Of Waiting
Namco's 1994 shmup has never been ported previously
Namco's 1994 shmup NebulasRay is one of those games which arrived at an odd point in the history of arcade gaming. Launching many months before Rare stunned the world with the CGI sprites of Donkey Kong Country, it was one of the earliest examples of a 2D video game built around pre-rendered...
Review Into The Restless Ruins (Switch) - A Marvellous Meld Of Dungeons, Deckbuilding & Auto-Combat
Celtic connections
It's possibly becoming a bit of a hard sell these days, the old roguelike dungeon-crawling adventure, replete with retro/pixel visuals. We know it. However, as busy and as overstuffed with pale imitators to the greats as this genre is, it's still well worth keeping an eye out for the odd gem. And here we have an example of said...
Review Labyrinth Of The Demon King (Switch) - FromSoft & Horror Vibes Straight Out Of '97
Not for the faint of heart
Retro-inspired games have reigned supreme for some time now in the indie scene, but one niche that’s been getting increasingly more attention in recent years is modern projects that aim to replicate the primitive 3D games of the fifth console generation. There’s something distinctly appealing about the roughness of...
Mini Review Please, Touch The Artwork 2 (Switch) - Another Absurd Little Art Exhibit
Touch, I remember touch
The first Please, Touch The Artwork was a stylish puzzler inspired by Piet Mondrian and De Styjl, the Dutch abstract art movement that reached its height around a century ago. We enjoyed Belgian dev Thomas Waterzooi's cracking little curio immensely back in 2022, and this follow-up (which has been available elsewhere since...
Review Dunk Dunk (Switch) - An Affordable, Enjoyable, But Flawed Twist On Basketball
Not quite a slam dunk
Remember when local, arcade party games were a dime a dozen? The late 2000s and early 2010s were filled with bite-sized, fun, and digestible experiences you could hop in and out of or sit down to play with friends. Well, Dunk Dunk revitalises that spirit in 2025 with a fun local co-op, action-platforming twist on basketball...
Review 1000xRESIST (Switch) - A Sci-Fi Narrative Masterpiece, Hair To Hair
You can (not) Resist
We know. We’re pretty late with this one, but this bears talking about. Cast your mind back to 9th May 2024 and "Indie Game Day", with multiple outstanding games dropping simultaneously, demonstrating the variety, beauty, and necessity of independently-owned game studios. We covered several of them
Review Shotgun Cop Man (Switch) - Move Over, Meat Boy, There's A New Sheriff In Town
Devilishly good
Gun recoil (or kickback) has often been viewed as a negative in gaming; something that, through the application of unlockable perks, can be lessened or even eliminated entirely. Yet with Shotgun Cop Man, recoil is fundamental to both combat and traversal. Created by Swedish developer DeadToast Entertainment (Victor Ågren), Shotgun...
Review I, Robot (Switch) - Another Psychedelic Success For Llamasoft & Atari
Proper bangin'
If you looked at the title of Atari’s latest release and thought, 'The Will Smith movie?', don’t worry. I, Robot has nothing to do with the 2004 sci-fi film, nor the original Isaac Asimov short stories upon which it was based. Instead, this is a Llamasoft-developed remake of the 1984 arcade title I, Robot from Dave Theurer...
Review Rusty Rabbit (Switch) - A Hop, Skip & Some Junk Away From Greatness
More rabbit than Sainsbury′s
We always find it a bit trite to start a review with comparisons, but humour us. Rusty Rabbit is a bit like SteamWorld Dig 2 mixed with Sylvanian Families. Or, it’s somewhere between Drill Dozer and Star Fox. Umm, Dig Dug mixed with Conker’s Bad Fur Day? We might be losing steam here… From developer SoFun,
Review SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered (Switch) - A Solid Port Of A Great JRPG
It's about family
Families, huh? They can cause us all manner of headaches. Sometimes they invade your personal space or take your favourite shirt without asking, and sometimes they get banished as a child and return home to try to take their rightful place on the throne. Between all of the turn-based combat and extended cutscenes, SaGa Frontier 2...
Review Rift Of The NecroDancer (Switch) - Imagine If Guitar Hero & Ikaruga Made A Baby
Slimes to the left of me, zombies to the right
Canadian developer Brace Yourself Games first hit the spotlight with Crypt of the NecroDancer, a rhythm-based roguelike, all the way back in 2015. Dungeon crawling to a relentless beat became the new dance craze sweeping the nation, and it was warmly welcomed into the Switch indie canon with the 2019...
Review Croc: Legend Of The Gobbos (Switch) - A Solid, If Unspectacular Retro Adventure
The closest we've ever gotten to a 3D Yoshi game
Back in the mid to late ‘90s when the fifth generation of consoles was still going strong, mascot platformers were all the rage. Hoping to take advantage of the then-growing trend, Argonaut Software—best known for its work on Star Fox and the Super FX chip for the SNES—made a pitch to Nintendo...
Now rendering
Rendering Ranger R2's original release is a layered story of mystique and intrigue. Developed by Manfred Trenz of Turrican fame, it was only ever released in Japan after its American and European incarnation, Targa, was cancelled. With only 10,000 copies produced, it’s one of the rarest Super Famicom games and by far the most...
Mini Review Breakout Beyond (Switch) - A Thrilling Iteration On An Arcade Classic
Breaking the mould
Breakout Beyond comes from Bit.Trip developer Choice Provisions and sees you paddle your way through a total of 72 levels (plus an unlockable ‘Infinite Mode’), most of which are based on iconic Atari developers or IP, like ‘NOHLENN’ (Nolan Bushnell) and ‘RAH-BAHNET’ (Warren Robinett). With plentiful neon and a gentle,...
Review On Your Tail (Switch) - A Charming Detective Story Stumbles On Switch
A tail of mystery
In this charming indie, an aspiring writer gets lost in a scenic coastal destination while searching for inspiration. Diana Caproni wanders Borga Marina, making friends and solving mysteries in this low-intensity detective story. Italian developer Memorable Games has crafted a gorgeous setting that serves as an ode to Ligurian...
Mini Review Mainframes (Switch) - A Fun But Frustrating PC-Inspired Platformer
No doomscrolling here
Mainframes presents an intriguing premise: What if your PC desktop was its own game world? Taking on the role of a cute, anthropomorphic floppy disk called, uh, Floppy, you set off on a journey through multiple ‘biomes’ of increasing complexity in which PC windows (or frames) are traversed to reach your goal. Though very...
Review Sorry We're Closed (Switch) - An Ethereal, Colourful Survival Horror Like No Other
Love is hell
To call à La Mode's Sorry We’re Closed a survival horror is certainly accurate in many ways, but it also does a disservice to just how unique and fresh this debut title really is. While it absolutely borrows a few elements from genre classics like Resident Evil and Silent Hill (including the obvious PS1-inspired visuals), Sorry...
Review Everhood 2 (Switch) - A Subversive, Surprising Yet Shallow Undertale-Inspired RPG
Buckle up
In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, there’s an oft-quoted interaction in which the titular character, having fallen down the rabbit hole and become trapped in a dreamlike world, complains to the Cheshire Cat that she doesn’t want to be among mad people. “Oh, you can’t help that,” says the Cat. “We’re all mad here.”...
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