Game Reviews scoring 8/10
Review Wreckfest (Switch) - An Absolute Banger (In A Good Way)
Wreck and ruin
On paper, Wreckfest is one of those games that should never really be possible on the Switch, at least not in a sufficiently playable state. When it came to PS4 and Xbox One in 2019, even though it was widely praised, many noted that it suffered from some technical issues and extremely long loading times. Surely if you’re bringing a...
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...
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...
Devilishly good
Though the manga only started in 2016, Demon Slayer has gone on to become one of the most successful media franchises in existence—even passing up the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog and Minecraft in raw sales. Despite this, Demon Slayer has had shockingly little presence in video games; aside from a Japan-only mobile game that still...
Review PAC-MAN MUSEUM+ (Switch) - A Gaming Legend's Best Collection Yet
Who let the ghosts out?
Pac-Man Museum+ follows Pac-Man Museum (2014), a collection for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. This updated compilation includes some of the titles in the previous release, and adds several new ones, bringing the total count to 14 (although Pac-Man Arrangement is featured twice with arcade and home versions). It comprises...
Review Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards - Kirby's First Brush With 3D Is Still A Charmer
Kirby Sixty-phwoar
Like many of Nintendo's properties during the transition from the SNES to the N64, Kirby underwent a shift from a flat 2D sprite to a fully rendered polygon rendition of himself. Rather than taking Kirby down the route of Mario and Link, however, the pink mascot stuck closer to his origins — mechanically, Kirby 64: The Crystal...
Mini Review Citizen Sleeper (Switch) - A Tabletop RPG-Inspired Gem You Shouldn't Sleep On
A sleeper hit
Citizen Sleeper places you in the role of a synthetic robot-person—called a Sleeper—who awakens on a grimy space station bustling with all kinds of morally and legally grey activities and organizations. Your character escaped from working at a colony for a megacorporation who literally owns their body and now has to contend with...
Send in the Toaplanes
M2’s ShotTriggers series has been an ongoing pilgrimage of preservation for some of the greatest shoot-em-up’s in arcade history. Hishou Same! Same! Same! combines an early Toaplan series of two: Hishouzame and Same! Same! Same!, known in the West as Flying Shark and Fire Shark, respectively. Both original arcade titles are...
A locked-on epic
City Connection, now a fairly prolific shoot-em-up publisher, have been hit-and-miss with its quality control. While some games land fine, others feature severe lag issues, leaderboards that don’t properly differentiate full clears (or disallow auto-fire registries), and usually come devoid of original bonuses. While Layer Section...
Mini Review Arise: A Simple Story (Switch) - An Audiovisual Treat With Emotive, Elegant Storytelling
Arise and shine
Is a platform game a good medium in which to tell a story of agonising tragedy? When the tears fall on the joysticks, is it appropriate to say, “Now, jump from there to there”? It’s hard to see how it wouldn’t be insensitive, after a heart-rending calamity, to chime in, “Chin up! Swing on your grappling hook over that lava...
Mini Review Dungeons Of Dreadrock (Switch) - A Neat Puzzle-Crawler With Zelda: Minish Cap Style
Dread it, run from it...
Dungeons of Dreadrock is a simple little game centering around the efforts of an adventurous girl to save her brother from sacrificing himself in a haunted dungeon. He’s been taken down a hundred floors crawling with goblins, spiders, traps, and other awful things, and you’ll need to overcome it all if you wish to save...
Approach this With Arms Wide Open
Hello, Nintendo fans, and welcome to a review of another Metroidvania. You'll be thrilled to know that this one is good, and if you enjoy the Metroidvania genre, you'll enjoy playing Blast Brigade. Alright, cheers. What?? You want more?!? Oh, god. Okay. It's just that there are so many of these games and so little...
Review Zombie Army 4: Dead War (Switch) - A Sweet Switch Port For This Schlockiest Of Shooters
Dead good
Rebellion has got a pretty great track record when it comes to porting its schlocky range of shooters over to Nintendo Switch, with both Zombie Army Trilogy and Sniper Elite 4 the most recent examples of how this developer manages to successfully squeeze a whole lot of slo-mo headshots, shambling zombie hordes and co-operative carnage onto...
Mini Review Toodee And Topdee (Switch) - Imaginative, Perspective-Shifting Puzzle Platforming
Topdee-turvy
Toodee and Topdee sounds like the output of a rapid innovation brainstorm under game-jam pressure: “What if side-on, but also top-down?” Probably sort of true, as developer dietzribi conjured the game's earliest form for Ludum Dare 41 in 2018. It’s a throwaway idea that they were absolutely right not to throw away. This fully...
Review Mario Golf - Strait-Laced Fun On The Fairway
Mario hits the links
This review originally went live in 2008, and we're updating and republishing it to mark the game's arrival on Switch as part of the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. After Mario's forays into non-platforming genres — you know, the Karting, the Picross-ing, the Dr. Mario...ing — Nintendo realised something: put Mario...
Review Dawn Of The Monsters (Switch) - Superior Co-Op Kaiju Combat With Pacific Rim Vibes
Kaiju feel my heart beat fast, I want this to last
A belt-scroller starring kaiju and Tokosatsu-style giant mecha isn't exactly an original idea. SNK's not-that-great King of the Monsters series did it first, but here's the scoop — Dawn of the Monsters does it better, with a game that'll make you feel five hundred feet tall. And scaly. And...
Review Wife Quest (Switch) - A Bawdy Metroidvania That's Well Worth A Look
Sorry monster girls, but that boy is ours
The world is a dangerous place. One minute you’re out in your fields, farming to provide food for yourself and your wife, and the next you’re being accosted by a gang of monster girls who are dead set on stealing you away for themselves. That’s the fate of poor Fernando, who gets himself snatched away...
Review Young Souls (Switch) - One Of The Best Beat 'Em Ups On Switch, Despite Hiccups
The Young Souls of brawlers
Nearly four years ago, The Arcade Crew and 1P2P revealed Young Souls, a promising new entry in the oft-overlooked beat ‘em up genre. Then in 2021, the game launched as a Stadia exclusive and… well, we all know how that went. Unsurprisingly, the studio soon set about porting the release to other platforms, and it’s...
Review Chocobo GP (Switch) - A Surprising Mario Kart 8 Alternative For Final Fantasy Fans
Tweet Racer
Note. Since this review was published, the game has changed quite a bit as Square Enix removed the Lite version and Mythrill shop microtransactions. While the base karting gameplay remains the same, please be aware that the experience described in the text below may differ in some respects from the game as it stands today. Square Enix...
Review Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist Of The Mysterious Dream (Switch) - Another Intoxicating Blend
Dare to dream
Before Ryza came onto the scene and changed up the Atelier game, many would agree that the previous darling of the series was Atelier Sophie. Evidently, Gust thought so too, as it decided to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the series not with the inevitable conclusion of the Secret trilogy, but with a rather unexpected sequel...
Mini Review Raging Blasters (Switch) - Another Fantastic Shmup We'd Love To See In The West
Compile killer
It’s just as well one can never have too many shoot-'em-ups, because, no bones about it, Raging Blasters is absolutely fantastic. A Japan-only release on Switch (though available on Steam) that's magically entirely in English from top to bottom, this is the kind of indie-gaming labour of love that deserves a great lungful of...
Review Voice Of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden (Switch) - A Fine Follow-Up To Yoko Taro's Cosy Card RPG
Fast and fabulous
Well, that was fast, wasn’t it? Not even four months ago, Square Enix released Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars, which proved itself to be an enjoyable, relaxing, and interesting take on a classic JRPG from creative director Yoko Taro and his team. The title subtly hinted at the possibility that there would be more entries...
Review EarthBound Beginnings - A Charming Curio That Mother Fans Will Cherish
Everybody's gotta start somewhere
This review originally went live in 2015, and we're updating and republishing it to mark the arrival of EarthBound Beginnings in the Nintendo Switch Online NES library. If you were an early adopter of EarthBound fanaticism in the West, you likely caught wind of a previous title made for the Famicom. Translated...
Review Infernax (Switch) - A Great, Gory Throwback That's More Ninja Gaiden Than Castlevania
Bloody. Good. Game.
We'd be lying like filthy, filthy little devils if we claimed that there was any shortage of Castlevania-alikes on the Switch. The likes of Odallus, Aggelos and most prominently the Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon duology are all right there on the eShop to cater for starved fans of Konami's apparently-defunct series - not to...
The Sign of the Eight (Out of Ten)
With an apologetic tip of the long, fancy hat to original author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, we think it's fair to say that Sherlock Holmes' many adaptations have supplanted the original text in terms of prominence. Most luridly, of course, there is Steven Moffat's Sherlock, as well as similarly contemporary take...
Review The Artful Escape (Switch) - A Thrilling Audiovisual Journey From Annapurna
Space jam
The Artful Escape hit Windows and Xbox in 2021, published by Annapurna Interactive. Over Annapurna’s brief 5-year history, its preferred flavour of stylish, quirky, thoughtful games has become well-understood, as has the “triple-I” production and publicity push that sets Indie Devs™ apart from other independent developers. Coming...
Mini Review Shadow Man Remastered (Switch) - A Rich, Inscrutable World To Get Lost In
He's got friends on the other side
There's no sense in pretending that Shadow Man isn't a dated experience. But games like this — originally seen on PlayStation, N64, PC and Dreamcast — rather force a re-examination of the somewhat meaningless criticism "dated". Seriously, what does it mean? A change in standards, perhaps. Differing expectations...
Review Cotton Fantasy (Switch) - A Joyful, Mischievous, And Incredibly Varied Shmup
Any Witch Way
When it comes to the cute-’em-up sub-genre, the characterful witch Cotton and the series to which she lends her name are effectively royalty. There are other games that have been important in defining a niche where shmups’ staple fighter craft, tanks and laser turrets are replaced with kittens, candy canes and cuddly toys, of...
Mini Review Picross S7 (Switch) - Holy Moly, They Only Went And Added Touch Support
THE NUMBERS, MASON! WHAT DO THEY MEAN!
If there’s one Nintendo franchise that has desperately needed a new entry in modern times, it’s Picross. Just nine months on from S6, barely five months since the SEGA-flavoured Picross S Genesis & Master System edition, and after the thrilling cliffhanger ending, we’ve been eager to see how Jupiter...
