Game Reviews scoring 8, 9 or 10/10
Review Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance (Switch) - Even Better Than The Stellar Original
Another HEE-HOme Run
It’s been nearly three years now since the launch of the original Shin Megami Tensei V and as is tradition at Atlus, the obligatory enhanced re-release (complete with a new storyline centered around a new girl) has now come to all modern platforms in the form of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. Boasting a full-length,...
Review Star Wars: Hunters (Switch) - A F2P Hero Shooter That's Fast, Fun, And Force-ful
Drop it like it's Hoth
You would be forgiven for having a bad feeling about Star Wars: Hunters. This free-to-play, class-based, hero shooter was announced by FarmVille developer Zynga in 2021, but a duo of delays and its appearance in the already stacked genre of '
Review Picross S Namco Legendary Edition (Switch) - Picross Gets Pac-Man Fever
A nest of Namco nonograms
It’s been rough out there for poor Picross fans during this generation, as they’ve been cruelly starved for content with only 23 game releases on Switch (if you count the 'e' series) that offer up a paltry sum of over 5,000 puzzles to solve. Those puzzles aren’t even all original either—if you really want to be...
Review Capes (Switch) - Solid Superhero Strategy That Channels XCOM
Not all heroes wear them
In a dark, futuristic world, being a superhero has been outlawed. Not by the government, but by the only force in King City that matters – The Company. Capes takes the turn-based strategy genre and gives it a comic book feel, putting you in the control of a fledgling group of superheroes trying to dish out justice in a...
Review Wizardry: Proving Grounds Of The Mad Overlord (Switch) - A Grand Remake Of An Iconic Game
Trebor SUX
You don’t get ‘lucky’ in Wizardry, not like you can do in other games. You might run into an easy enemy once in a while, but if you decide to take a chance during an expedition and descend a floor ‘just to see’ how it goes, it will not go well. "Your entire party has been slaughtered." Again. This remake of Sir-Tech's formative...
Review Paper Trail (Switch) - A Storybook Puzzler That Folds Up Beautifully
Turn the Paige
Though plenty of Paper Mario fans are eagerly awaiting the return of one of the greatest games in the series at the time of writing, there’s another new game set in a papery world that we’d suggest you pay attention to. Newfangled Games’ Paper Trail is the debut release of the boutique London-based studio, and its smart mixture...
Review Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Switch) - Still The King Of Mario RPGs
Paper, un-jammed
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has been held as the standard for Mario RPGs for 20 years. It, alongside its N64 predecessor, captured what fans wanted from their turn-based, plumber-starring adventures – silly humour, epic adventures, fantastic combat, and charm. Purists often view the GameCube original as the end of the...
Review Lorelei And The Laser Eyes (Switch) - An Excellent Puzzle-Filled Homage To Resident Evil
The Eyes have it
It’s fair to say at this point that Annapurna Interactive has one hell of an eye for a good game. A laser eye, if you will. The odd stumble aside – Twelve Minutes was a bit rubbish and the likes of Last Stop and Open Roads were perfectly fine, but not quite masterpieces – for the most part, Annapurna has an exceptional track...
Review Braid: Anniversary Edition (Switch) - Exquisite Commentary Elevates This Indie All-Timer
If I could turn back time
What is time? Does the future come into existence, become the present, then vanish into the past? Or are all times equally real, only our perspective on them changing as we travel towards our destinies? And while we’re on the subject, why is it taking so much time to get a “Switch 2”? Not to worry: Braid, Anniversary...
Review Animal Well (Switch) - An Exceptional Metroidvania That Stands Out From The Pack
Zoophoria
From the moment we got a glimpse of Animal Well during an Indie World Showcase last April, it sent tongues wagging with its unique premise and visual identity, becoming an easy add to plenty of ‘Most Anticipated’ lists. Its association with indie publishing label Bigmode, run by popular YouTuber Jason 'Dunkey' Gastrow, added to the...
Review CorpoNation: The Sorting Process (Switch) - A Corporate Conspiracy Worth Getting Embroiled In
Work hard and carry on
‘Cost of living multiplier’ is not a setting you expect to see in an options screen, but this is one of the numerous difficulty tweaks in CorpoNation. Canteen Games' dystopian employment simulator deftly balances mundane repetition and creeping dread. It looks and feels like a shadowy corporate follow-up to Lucas Pope’s...
Review Megaton Musashi W: Wired (Switch) - Good Old-Fashioned Mech-Battling Fun
Level-5 is back!
In late 2020, Level-5 shuttered its operations in the West and effectively ended its business outside of Japan, leaving Western fans of franchises such as Yo-Kai Watch and Professor Layton wondering if they would ever see English versions of new entries in their favorite series. Fortunately, the company has since reinvigorated its...
Review Cavern Of Dreams (Switch) - A Rich, Rare Homage To The N64's Finest 'Formers
Clanker's Cavern of Dreams
Cavern of Dreams leapt to the Switch eShop on 29th February 2024. We weren't able to review the game at the time but managed to catch up with it recently. And it's good! If you like that sort of thing... Talk to any video game fan over 30 about 3D platformers and they're liable to stare wistfully into the middle distance...
Mini Review Desert Child (Switch) A Hilariously Offbeat, Indie Hovercycle Racer
I need to borrow your... hoverbike
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. Fast-paced and frantic,...
Mini Review Please, Don't Touch Anything (Switch) - An Inviting Puzzler That Begs You To Play Up
Look with your eyes
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. 'Cryptic' is the name of the game in...
Praise be to HD
El Shaddai is an artistic endeavour in the same vein as Rez or Thatgamecompany’s Journey, taking action genre norms and weaving them into an avant-garde, visual tour de force. Anyone familiar with the ill-fated Clover Studio, a Capcom subsidiary that started out in 2004 developing for the GameCube, will likely have encountered the...
Review Planet Of Lana (Switch) - A Gentle Puzzle-Platformer With Sparkling Presentation
Out of this world
The cinematic platformer: although some great examples have emerged over the decades, the genre perhaps under-celebrated, with its fans especially under-served for a long stretch in the 2000s. It has nonetheless provided some truly legendary games: Prince of Persia, Another World, Flashback, and Inside. Planet of Lana gathers...
Review Botany Manor (Switch) - Cosy Yet Challenging, This Puzzler Is Quite Beautiful
Bloomin' lovely
When cosy and wholesome games first stepped onto the scene, they were counter-culture — created in response and in resistance to an industry that churned out violence, conflict, and a particular type of masculinity that wasn't keen on things like emotions or intimacy. Some people were tired of this monolithic and exclusionary idea...
Review Freedom Planet 2 (Switch) - A Sonic-Style Platformer Exuding Passion & Quality
He better watch out
Back in 2014, a team of new developers calling themselves GalaxyTrail released Freedom Planet—a retro style platformer that captured the hearts of many classic-era Sonic the Hedgehog fans. Freedom Planet, in fact, started life as a Sonic fan game, though it established a unique identity for itself as development wore on, and...
Mini Review Screencheat: Unplugged (Switch) - Turns An Old Problem Into A Great Game
Who watches the watchers?
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. An old Steam favourite comes to...
Review F-Zero Maximum Velocity (GBA) - The First Portable F-Zero Still Holds Up
Back to the future
This review originally went live in 2014, and we're updating and republishing it to celebrate the game's arrival in Switch's Game Boy Advance library via Nintendo Switch Online. Ah, F-Zero. The futuristic racing series that’s so fast that even Nintendo lost track of it for years. Since it released the Japanese exclusive...
Review Pepper Grinder (Switch) - A Cracking Platformer That Drills Down & Strikes Gold
All driller, no filler
Way back in the ancient days when the Game Boy Advance was Nintendo’s main handheld, Game Freak (yes, the Pokémon people) released a creative little platformer called Drill Dozer. Placing you in the role of a slightly crazed girl who tears through stages and foes alike with a powerful drill, it quickly established itself as...
Review Princess Peach: Showtime! (Switch) - Peach Breaks A Leg In A High-Class Production
Bend and slap
It's kinda hard to believe, especially given how ridiculously popular the whole Mushroom Kingdom thing is, that we've had so few games starring its actual ruler as the protagonist over the years. Yes, there was Princess Toadstool's Castle Run on Nelsonic Game Watch back in 1990, Princess Peach's very first leading role (which you...
Review Rebel Transmute (Switch) - A Brutally Brilliant Metroid-Like
There's always room for one more good one
About five years ago, solo developer Evan Tor set out to make a new game in the crowded Metroidvania genre called Rebel Transmute. Tor launched a Kickstarter in 2022 to secure the funding to get the game over the line, and after a successful campaign and development period, the title has finally made it to...
Review Mario Tennis (GBC) - Camelot's Ace Little Tennis RPG Is Hard To Fault
Courts of appeal
This review originally went live in 2014, and we're updating and republishing it to celebrate the game's arrival in Switch's Game Boy (Color) library via Nintendo Switch Online. For whatever its name is worth, Mario Tennis doesn’t feature a lot of the red guy — at least at first. That may come as an initial disappointment to...
Review Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story (Switch) - A Dazzling Trip Into A (Gold) Master's Mind
Yak in time
With its efforts on Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration and The Making of Karateka, developer Digital Eclipse is cementing itself as a true pioneer in the interactive documentary space. Truth be told, it’s a niche that the studio completely owns at this point, and though we’re surprised other major players in the video game...
Review Snufkin: Melody Of Moominvalley (Switch) - A Joyful, Dreamlike Adventure With An Edge
Snufkin compares to you
Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley opens with a goodbye. The music swells and this goodbye pulls hard on the heartstrings. It’s a goodbye to a Moomin, so perhaps you’d think it’s not an important goodbye – just a Moomin, after all. But it sets up the main arc of a well-paced and imaginative musical adventure. For the...
Review Unicorn Overlord (Switch) - A Crowning Tactical RPG Achievement For Vanillaware
My kingdom for a unicorn
How do you follow up a game like 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim? Before that ambitious, phenomenal sci-fi adventure, developer Vanillaware found its niche in creating rich, beautiful-looking worlds with a magical, medieval twist. Sometimes it was traditional Western fantasy, while others it jumped back to Edo Japan.
Review New Star GP (Switch) - A Stylish, Moreish Homage To The Likes Of Virtua Racing
We've certainly Senna lot worse
Every now and then you get an indie developer who you can rely on to deliver a banger pretty much every time. New Star Games is one such developer, having already scored healthy scores on Nintendo Life in the past for New Star Manager (which scored 8), Retro Bowl (9), and Retro Goal (8). Alongside its Switch...
Review Berserk Boy (Switch) - An Upbeat, 16-Bit Throwback, Not As 'Mega Man' As It Looks
Maddeningly good fun
Berserk Boy has been tipped as a Mega Man-inspired 16-bit adventure, but it’s actually closer to Inti Creates Gunvolt series, and even then feels markedly different. Taking place in a future world where a scientist named Dr. Genos has gone rogue, you play Kei, a young boy who teams up with firebird Fiore to battle his way to...
