Latest Reviews
Review Borderlands 3 Ultimate Edition - Makes The Jump To Switch Almost Entirely Intact
"Do you hear screaming, or am I having another one of my episodes?"
A little less than ten years ago, a port of Borderlands 2 famously launched for Sony’s ailing PS Vita to middling reception. The fact that a then-current game could run at all on a portable was remarkable, but the flat visuals, crashing, and consistently sub 30 FPS performance...
Great gameplay never goes out of style
Great games are great no matter how much time has passed, and that remains true of Company of Heroes. The RTS classic that robbed us of our evenings and weekends back in 2006 has returned to the Nintendo Switch in the form of the Company of Heroes Collection and despite an updated control scheme for the...
Review Dementium: The Ward - A Safe Switch Return For A Creepy Cult Classic
Before the Lobotomy
Bringing cult classics to a more modern, updated platform can be a risky proposition. What, if anything, do you change, and what do you keep the same? When the game you happen to be porting originated on the DS, a certain degree of change is inevitable given the shift from a two-screen to a single-screen format, so naturally, a...
Review Wild Card Football (Switch) - An Ambitious Take On Gridiron Lacking A Full Deck
Missing the Playoffs
While the Nintendo Switch has never had the prominent American Football video game series, it has had some notable efforts in the Indie and retro spaces. Now we can add Wild Card Football to the mix, and it's certainly an ambitious release in comparison to its contemporaries on the system. From Saber Interactive, it follows a...
Review Fate/Samurai Remnant - Musou Evolved, With Patchy Switch Performance
Your wish is granted
For several years, it felt like if you’ve played one of Omega Force’s famed Musou action games, you’ve played them all. It seems the team took note of this souring sentiment, however, resulting in more nuanced takes on the formula in more recent titles such as Fire Emblem: Three Hopes and Persona 5 Strikers (the latter...
Mini Review Escape Doodland (Switch) - A Tricky, Tongue-In-Cheek Runner, With Dash Farts
Dood for thought
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 unexpected gem, Escape Doodland is an...
Mini Review RocketsRocketsRockets (Switch) - Simple But Surprisingly Addictive With Friends
Triple threat
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. Well, you can’t say it doesn’t do what...
Mini Review The Bug Butcher (Switch) - An Enjoyable But Forgettable Shootathon
Time to call in the bug guns
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 standard arcade...
Review COCOON (Switch) – A Unique, Worlds-Within-Worlds Puzzler That Left Us Buzzing
Into the hive mind
2023 has swarmed us with quality games. So many that there aren’t enough hours in the day to play them all — and now, Cocoon has crept onto our screens to buzzing acclaim. Fortunately, if you’re busy as a bee, and can’t dedicate time to a marathon game, this is a nice quick one. Jeppe Carlsen, lead gameplay designer of...
The jump hasn't been smooth
The Dragon Quest series is no stranger to spin-off titles, but few are as confusing as Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai. This action RPG is based on an anime adaptation of a manga based on the world of Dragon Quest, but it is never clear who the game is designed to appeal to. The few things it does well...
Review Detective Pikachu Returns (Switch) - Drab-Looking But Fun Forensics For The Fam
Sherlock Ho-Oholmes
It's been over seven years since we got our first helping of the wise-cracking, coffee-addicted Detective Pikachu on 3DS and, in the time since, the gruff private investigator has gone on to star in his very own big-screen adaptation voiced by the one and only Ryan Reynolds. Well, excuse us, Mr Hollywood! The first Detective...
Mini Review Super Adventure Hand (Switch) - Uncanny Platforming With A Flip-The-Bird Button
Gripping
It feels like 3D platformers have come back in a big way these last few years, and some of the most memorable entries have been the most unconventional. Demon Turf utilized a fascinating hand-drawn 2D art style. Tinykin had you leaping and exploring bedrooms and kitchens while commanding a small army of not-Pikmin. Snake Pass tasked you...
Review Horizon Chase 2 (Switch) - More Arcade Racing, With Some Bumps In The Road
Follow the speeder
Horizon Chase 2 isn't the most interesting racing game out there, but damn, if it isn't hard to put down! It may not match the high-speed hijinks of kart racers starring Mario, Crash Bandicoot, or Sonic the Hedgehog, nor does it hit the same destructive highs of Burnout or the high-fidelity, simulative thrill found in other...
Review Mineko's Night Market (Switch) – Cosy Fun With A Few Knots In The Fur
This little kitty went to market
Editor's Note: As described in the text below, a glitch towards the end of Mineko's Night Market prevented us from 100% completing the Switch review build at launch. An update for the game has reportedly fixed the issues we encountered, so while the text should be accurate for the most part, your experience may...
Review Gloomhaven (Switch) - A Cumbersome But Deep (And Hard-As-Nails) TTRPG Adaptation
No safe haven here
As anyone who plays board games (or with friends who like board games) can attest, an involved, TTRPG-style board game can be cumbersome. From in-depth rules and systems, it takes a while to get into Gloomhaven and introducing new players to its dense combat can make multiplayer challenging. But also like a dense board game,...
Review Kirby & The Amazing Mirror - Messy With Metroid Influences, Better With Buddies
Oh, Kirby, you blowhard...
This review, penned by Philip J Reed — our much-missed friend and Nintendo Life contributor — was originally published in January 2012. We're updating and republishing it to mark the game's arrival in the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack GBA library. We have to hand this much to
Review Rise Of The Triad: Ludicrous Edition (Switch) - Definitive, Though Undeniably Dated
Oh my Dog
The '90s was a decade-long blitz of out-there marketing campaigns, lads mags, and PlayStation; rich experimentation with the polygon and a concerted effort to push the boundaries of bad taste. Rise of The Triad, based on a modified version of ID’s Wolfenstein engine, was initially pitched as a sequel before becoming a standalone PC title...
Review EA Sports FC 24 (Switch) - The Best Football Game On Any Nintendo System, Finally
We Kanté believe they finally did it
Long-time Nintendo Life readers will be aware of the love-hate (mainly hate) relationship we’ve had with the FIFA series over the course of the Switch’s life. The first Switch entry, FIFA 18, was considered a positive start, even though it felt feature-light compared to other consoles and was clearly based...
Mini Review Afterdream (Switch) - Beautifully Haunting Pixel Art Horror With Perfect Puzzles
Say cheese
Afterdream is a pixel art horror title that puts atmosphere and puzzle-solving above all else. Taking place within the psyche of our protagonist as she recounts her vivid dreams, this format allows Afterdream to make liberal use of weird imagery to tell an intriguing and engaging story. Drawing inspiration from classic survival horror...
Review Wargroove 2 (Switch) - A Must-Play Tactical RPG And A Worthy Successor To Advance Wars
Warfare has never been this cozy
2023 has been a good year for tactics games on the Switch. Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot marked the return of two classic GBA games while Fire Emblem Engage brought the series's focus to its strategic roots. Chucklefish and Robotality's Wargroove 2 is the next SRPG joining the fray, and while its adorable pixel-art...
Fair dinkum, mate
Back when the 3D mascot was in its prime in the early noughties, Aussie developer Krome Studios' Ty the Tasmanian Tiger was going up against big shots like Mario, Sonic, and Crash Bandicoot thanks to the backing of third-party powerhouse Electronic Arts and, eventually, Call of Duty publisher Activision. TY would fall out of favour...
Review Disgaea 7: Vows Of The Virtueless (Switch) - Superb, Supersized Strategy RPG Is A Series Best
A vibrant and violent volume
A few years ago, Nippon Ichi produced Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny, a new entry in the long-running series that aimed to shake up series conventions by introducing auto-battling and transitioning to a 3D art style. Not all the changes it brought were positively received, but fortunately, the game sold well enough to...
God Forgives… I Don’t
There’s going out on a limb and then there’s blind faith, and while the Bud & Terence games fall into the latter of the two, they are at least a labour of love. If you don’t know — and there’s a good chance you don’t — Bud Spencer and Terence Hill were a movie duo popularised in the '60s and '70s for their...
Pick a card, any card
These days, Monolith Soft is well known for being one of Nintendo’s finest internal teams, with the Xenoblade Chronicles games delivering some of the finest open-world JRPG goodness available. Long before the company was acquired by Nintendo, however, some of the first projects it produced were the two Baten Kaitos games,...
Review MythForce - A Decent Roguelite Buried By An Absolutely Dire Switch Port
MythFarce
With its bright, cel-shaded models and notably more tame environments, MythForce targets nostalgia for Saturday Morning cartoons from the 1980s like He-Man and Thundercats. A lot of people don't remember just how poorly a lot of those cartoons hold up, though. They have their die-hard fans, and they're fun to look back at with your tongue...
Review Trombone Champ (Switch) - A Hilarious Party Game That Blows A Big Raspberry At Perfection
Night bird
The 17th-century German rationalist philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz wrote that “Perfection is the harmony of things.” If that’s the case then our discordant parping in Trombone Champ is far from perfect – despite the multipliers received on maxing out our 'Champ' gauge. But you don’t need to achieve perfection to enjoy...
Review F-Zero 99 (Switch) - A Brilliant Battle-Royale Revival That Plays To The Series' Strengths
Got 99 problems, but F-Zero ain't one
What do you get when you take the first entry in one of Nintendo's most overlooked franchises and cram it with battle royale mechanics after nearly 20 years of dormancy? You might expect a shambling Frankenstein's monster of a game held together by nostalgia-baiting stagnancy. Instead, F-Zero 99 is a clever...
Review Mortal Kombat 1 - A Superb Fighter, But Severely Kompromised On Switch
Testing the Switch's might
NetherRealm Studios has been on a real hot streak with the Mortal Kombat franchise ever since it dropped its first game, the sublime Mortal Kombat 9, all the way back in 2011. The studio has always focused on bringing a top-notch narrative experience to the table, supported by a laundry list of single-player arcade and...
Mini Review The Many Pieces Of Mr. Coo (Switch) - Short, Obtuse, But Spectacularly Presented
Surreal Madrid
Games have, over their history, often sought to become interactive movies or cartoons. There is the general decades-long race towards realism in Triple-A games running on higher and higher-specced hardware, the labour-intensive, hand-drawn aesthetic of many indie games like Cuphead or Hoa and, of course, that art form traditionally...
Mini Review Raindrop Sprinters (Switch) - A Compellingly Pure (And Brutal) Arcade Throwback
Crying's not for me
In the most positive sense, it’s amazing what gets approved for release on the Switch. Raindrop Sprinters is an indie title that could well be a mobile phone game in everything except its aesthetic, which accurately resembles an early '80s arcade title. You play a cat represented by a bobbing paw, tasked only with crossing a...
