Switch eShop Game Reviews
Review Nairi: Rising Tide (Switch) – A Satisfying Point-And-Click Sequel With A Few Bugbears
Two-point(-and-click) perspective
Back in 2018, the Switch’s touchscreen functionality made point-and-click games, once best played on PC, much more accessible for console players. In fact, many games on our list of Best Point And Click Adventure Games launched in the hybrid console’s second year – NAIRI: Tower Of Shirin among them. Six years...
Time to rewrite history
Running a budding kingdom is hard, but it is made even more difficult by being surrounded on all sides by a host of potential enemies, all vying for land, resources, and power. Few video games have managed to recreate that pressure as well as Koei Tecmo’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, with Romance of the Three...
Mini Review Miniatures (Switch) - A Wonderfully Strange Little Narrative Trip
Short 'n' surreal
Experienced across four beautifully rendered vignettes, Miniatures is a short game that leans as much into the shadows as it does into the charming strangeness at the core of each narrative. Miniatures doesn’t take great pains to explain or justify itself, leaving us somewhat mystified by the sparse tales. The connections...
Review Rage Of The Dragons NEO (Switch) - A Fabulous Version Of A Fantastic Fighter
Hey! Broom heads!
With the original Double Dragon, Yoshihisa Kishimoto realised a dramatic, violent expedition to save a kidnapped girl from a miscreant petrol gang. Although the genre had already been established by Irem’s Kung-Fu Master several years earlier, the scores of enemies, weapons, multi-plane scenery, two-player functionality, and...
Mini Review Airheart - Tales Of Broken Wings (Switch) - Charmingly Layered Twin-Stick Shooting
Learn to fly again
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. Taking us to the skies, Airheart –...
Mini Review Bad Dream: Coma (Switch) - Nightmarishly Immersive Point-And-Click Horror
Bad times good
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. Horror and point-and-click adventures go...
Mini Review Bleep Bloop (Switch) - A Fun Little Puzzler For A Lazy Afternoon
Don't bleep on 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. Don’t let looks fool you; despite its...
Mini Review Pumped BMX Pro (Switch) - Bland, Forgettable Biking
Flat tyre
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. Pumped BMX Pro is an arcade sports game and,...
Mini Review Big Crown: Showdown (Switch) - Good, Clean, Party-Gaming Fun
Turn that crown upside down
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,...
Legend Of The Zone
The third and strongest instalment of GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy brings this excellent set of Switch remasters to a close. In some ways, it feels inaccurate to say Call of Prypiat is the best of the three because it so effectively capitalises on the groundwork laid by Shadow of Chornobyl, but it’s a brilliant,...
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Review Tetris Forever (Switch) - The Best Breakdown Of A Legendary Franchise
The building blocks of history
How many times do you think we can say the word ‘Tetris’ in a single review? Well, since Tetris Forever contains a total of 18 games based on the original 1985 title, you’d best strap yourselves in, because we’re going to be saying it a lot. Well, okay, we might mix things up a bit with the odd sprinkling of...
Review Angel At Dusk (Switch) - A Magnificent, Grotesque Gateway To An Entire Genre
A universal horror
Indie developer Akiragoya doesn’t just want you to get better at their latest shmup Angel at Dusk. They want to improve your prospects across the entire genre. Though taking a glance at the new Switch port of their distinctly grotesque work, you’d be forgiven for thinking the opposite is true. Set deep in a future where...
Review Vengeance Hunters (Switch) - A Decent Swing At A Neo-Neo Geo Beat 'Em Up
Combos of industry
With the belt-scrolling beat 'em up undergoing something of a renaissance of late, it feels like a new title enters the fray every other week. While some efforts utilise IPs like Double Dragon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to garner attention, others are rekindling the genre’s magic with original ideas. Enter Nuala Studio...
Let battle commence
With the release of The First Console War, the second DLC expansion for Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, developer Digital Eclipse has seemingly completed its mission to present the most comprehensive interactive documentary on Atari possible. Much like the previous expansion, this latest release lacks some of the cohesion...
Review Metal Slug Tactics (Switch) - A Good Shot At Trying Something New
Tactically at odds with itself
Metal Slug Tactics has felt like it has taken way too long to finally release. More than three years after its initial reveal, the game is finally here and it’s a bold but confused take on the tactics genre that has some big strengths. But, those are counterbalanced with a number of roadblocks and obstacles that...
Review Broken Sword - Shadow Of The Templars: Reforged (Switch) - A Classic Adventure Returns Intact
If it ain’t Broken…
Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars is a big deal in the world of graphic adventures. Ever since its release on PC in 1996, it has jostled for the top spot on best-ever lists around the internet. It’s landed on consoles and early mobile platforms, including a Director’s Cut that reached Wii and DS. Now, nearly three...
Mini Review STALKER: Clear Sky (Switch) - Tighter Shooting But Less Atmosphere
Faction Wars
Despite releasing just a year after its predecessor, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky makes significant changes to the formula of GSC Game World’s venerable series. There are tweaked visuals, improved shooting, and some added systems crammed into this prequel. As a result, it feels markedly different to Shadow of Chornobyl, but not always in...
Mini Review STALKER: Shadow Of Chornobyl (Switch) - Legendary Series Stalks Switch With A Solid Port
In the Zone
Lauded on its original 2007 release, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow Of Chornobyl dropped players into a stark world, filled with effective horror and precision combat. It spawned two sequels, both of which refined and improved on the model of their predecessor. Ukraine-based GSC Game World’s Legends Of The Zone bundle squeezes all three...
Mini Review Vampire Survivors: Ode To Castlevania (Switch) - Divine DLC Is Absolutely Essential
Finally, some vampire killers
Ode to Castlevania is a full-circle moment for Vampire Survivors. Heavily inspired by the franchise, and originally built with assets influenced by Konami’s whip-cracking series, Luca Galante and Poncle have blown all of their other excellent DLC out of the water. If your jaw isn’t on the floor by the time you roll...
Review Clock Tower: Rewind (Switch) - Pre-RE Survival Horror That's Elevated By Extras
Snip, snip
Video game preservation still has a long way to go, but it’s difficult to imagine a re-release of Human Entertainment’s Clock Tower ten, or even five years ago. Yet thanks to rapidly growing interest in retro gaming and the resulting explosion of compilations and re-releases over the last few years, this curious SNES survival horror...
Slay, bestie!
Saving a princess has to be the most overused trope in the fantasy playbook. If pixelated plumbers and heroes clad in green tunics have taught us anything, it’s that princesses need rescuing – right? Not if Slay the Princess has anything to say about it. In this psychological horror visual novel, you're tasked with killing a...
Can open, worms... nowhere?
Right. There's a whole backstory — a whole mess of lore, as we like to call to it — with regards to Atooi's Hatch Tales. You can read about it in detail here or, TL;DR, it's six years late releasing and its Kickstarter backers have been rightly miffed, and more than a little concerned. Anyway, it's here now, and when
Review Raiden Nova (Switch) - A Fun But Limited Twin-Stick Twist On A Shooter Favourite
Nova say Nova Again
Some in the UK may know comedy TV personality Adam Buxton, who was once the counterpart of Joe Cornish in the Adam and Joe Show (1996-2001), and, as recently as 2020, was still guesting on popular Channel 4 panel shows. Nowadays, he's more well-known for The Adam Buxton Podcast, but in 1999 he walked into a London-based video...
Damned if ya do
When it was announced back in 2010, Shadows Of The Damned seemed too good to be true. A supergroup of creators teaming up to make a game in the genre they helped define. Shinji Mikami, father of the Resident Evil franchise, joining Suda51, one of Japanese game development's most unique voices. Akira Yamaoka, beloved composer of the...
Review Yakuza Kiwami (Switch) - A Decent Port Of An Ambitious, Frustrating Game
Like a drag-on
Open-world games have evolved a lot in the 19 years since the original Yakuza was released. Quirky fetch quests and meandering storytelling were often characteristics of the genre, as was the sense that the developers were gleefully mashing together ideas and holding everything together with an offbeat sense of humour. It’s a...
Trolley dash
Shin chan: Shiro and the Coal Town is based on the long-running manga and anime series, Crayon Shin-chan (Kureshin in Japanese), about a peculiar five-year-old named Shinnosuke (Shin-chan) and his family. The game follows up on the successful 2022 Western release of Shin chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation - The Endless...
Review Nikoderiko: The Magical World (Switch) - A Gleeful DKC Tribute, But Light On New Ideas
Nik from the best
It’s now been over a decade since the last new Donkey Kong Country game released (yes, you’re that old), and while the world continues to wait for Nintendo to remember that its beloved ape used to star in a really good platforming series of his own, other developers have stepped up to try to fill the void. Indie releases such...
Review Fear The Spotlight (Switch) - A Retro-Styled, Narrative Horror Gem & A Must-Play
The spotlight fantastic
When Blumhouse Productions announced its venture into the video game industry with Blumhouse Games, it would have been all too easy for the company to lean on some of its most recognisable IPs for its first release. Franchises such as Insidious, The Purge, Sinister, and Paranormal Activity certainly have strong potential...
Reach out, touch faith
Fancy learning Latin? Well, you’re guaranteed to learn at least one word in the classical language by playing Faith: The Unholy Trinity: Mortis, or “death”, which flashes on screen every time you succumb. Facing off against legions of the damned armed with only a wooden crucifix and, well, your faith, it’s a given...
Review Killing Time: Resurrected (Switch) - Nightdive Revives A Weirdly Alluring 3DO Curio
Send in the Murder Clowns
Nightdive Studios’ quest to revive some of gaming’s most bizarre and long-forgotten treasures shows no signs of slowing down. With the release of PO’ed: Definitive Edition earlier this year, it was a clear-cut signal that the team is ready and willing to embrace titles that may not be the most recognisable in an...
