Game Reviews scoring 9 or 10/10
Review The Touryst (Switch) - A Visually Stunning Island-Hop That's Loads Of Fun
We're Going To Ybiza
Shin'en Multimedia seem to wield some sort of superpower when it comes to pulling perfect performance out of the Switch. Fast RMX, Its superb Wipeout-style future racer – which helped fill a gap in the console's launch when Mario Kart 8 Deluxe arrived late – was, and still is, a dazzlingly handsome beast that runs at a...
Review Luigi's Mansion 3 (Switch) - Gooigi Takes Ghost Busting To The Next Level
Drop dead gorgeous
Despite being the glimmering jewel of the GameCube’s launch, Luigi’s Mansion has enjoyed relatively few sequels for such a beloved Mario spin-off. The 3DS had a pop with a well-liked sequel, and the original got a second chance on the same system with a remake. Now it’s time for a true home console follow-up with Luigi’s...
Review Return Of The Obra Dinn (Switch) - A Beautifully Crafted Detective Mystery
Absolutely Kraken
Released to critical acclaim last October, Papers, Please creator Lucas Pope’s Return of The Obra Dinn finally arrives on consoles with quite the fanfare. After finding a dedicated audience willing to get on board with a game that on paper, probably shouldn’t ever have been as popular as it was, Pope’s narrative-based...
Return of the White Frost
Originally released on other platforms back in 2015, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt arrives on Nintendo Switch over four years later, and it's somewhat surreal to hold such a gigantic game in the palm of your hands. Ported over by Saber Interactive, this is The Witcher 3 in almost all of its glory. The same brilliant base game,...
Review The Alliance Alive HD Remastered (Switch) - This 3DS Classic Is Worth A Second Look
Back from the dead
Back in 2018, the 3DS was still receiving a slow, but steady trickle of new releases despite the Switch stealing the spotlight with its runaway success. Though many put away the old handheld in favour of bigger and better things, there were still plenty of excellent titles released in this period, one of them being The Alliance...
Review Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair (Switch) - A Delicious Mix Of Donkey Kong And Zelda
Lair today, Kong tomorrow
It’s possible to beat Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair in under half an hour. Now, hold on a minute. Before you make a beeline for Amazon to start pricing pitchforks (it’s about £25 for a good one, if you’re asking), let us clarify. We said it’s possible. But there’s no way you’ll be able to manage it right...
Review Fight'N Rage (Switch) - Who Said The Side-Scrolling Brawler Is Dead?
Golden Act
As Fight'N Rage loads up, it mimics the boot sequence of an old arcade cabinet, going through its various system checks, verifying and okaying its RAM before throwing up its ROM number and region version. It’s a nice little touch in a game jam-packed with nice little touches. With a heavy (and totally optional) CRT post-effect that...
Review Ori And The Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (Switch) - An Unmissable Experience
A light shining the way
There was a time when a platform holder publishing games for a rival format would have been completely unheard of. Unthinkable, even! Yet, a bizarre chain of events has seen Microsoft Studios release a handful of games for our beloved Switch, including the likes of Minecraft and, surprisingly, even Cuphead. While Microsoft...
One for the ages
It’s fascinating to see how much the JRPG genre has changed over the years, as countless new studios and designers have come up with a seemingly bottomless amount of ways to riff on battle systems, narrative styles, and world designs. In many ways, one could say that a JRPG is judged by how well it subverts genre expectations, but...
Review Super Mario World - Phenomenal Platforming Perfection
It's-a Mario masterpiece
Impressive software is vital for a console's launch, and the powerful one-two combination of the Mode 7 razzmatazz in F-Zero and sublime gameplay in Super Mario World ensured that Nintendo's November 1990 Japanese launch of the Super Famicom would sting its Mega Drive and PC Engine competition from the outset. Since then...
Review The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch) - A Magical Remastering Of A Series Highlight
Re-awakening
Originally released way back in 1993 for the good old Game Boy, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening has always been a little bit of a curio in the history of the long-running Zelda franchise. Originally planned as a straight-up port of the Super Nintendo’s monstrously successful A Link To The Past, this very first portable Zelda...
Review Sayonara Wild Hearts (Switch) - A Marvellous, Music-Driven Masterpiece
Pop goes the gleeful
The Switch isn’t exactly lacking in short, artistic games that grab your attention for a scant couple of hours, unleash all ‘the feels’ (as the kids say) then wander off into the sunset, leaving you dumbstruck at what you’ve just played. Gris, Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch are just three examples of Switch...
Review Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition (Switch) - A Pure Work Of Magic
A Switch port that Bellegar's belief
Divinity: Original Sin 2 begins with your character, a 'Sourcerer', facing a pretty difficult decision when the ship transporting them to the Divine Order-controlled prison island of Fort Joy is attacked by a huge Voidwoken Kraken and left floundering. You fight your way to the upper deck and, upon arriving at...
Review F-Zero - The Game That Sold Us Mode 7
What a way to launch a console
At their very core, futuristic racing games should have visual flair, and there was already an early history of this sub-genre before F-Zero released – including Nintendo's Mach Rider on NES in 1985, Powerdrome on 16-bit computers, and Atari's arcade S.T.U.N. Runner in 1989. Following these games, late 1990 became an...
Review NBA 2K20 (Switch) - An Impressive Port That Delivers The Full Experience On Switch
Shine bright
Once upon a time, the thought of a handheld device getting a fully-featured sports simulator seemed like an impossible goal. NBA 2K18 almost scuppered that dream with a disastrous launch in 2017, but a raft of support post-launch and a (mostly) issue-free follow up in NBA 2K19 proved the franchise can run on Switch, and do so with full...
Review Blasphemous (Switch) - A Nightmarishly Good Mix Of Metroid And Dark Souls
Witness the sickness
The Game Kitchen's Blasphemous opens with its central protagonist, the metal-masked Penitent One, last survivor of the Silent Sorrow Massacre, staggering to his feet atop a mass grave of bodies, each one an exact replica of himself. Here is a hero caught in an endless cycle of death and rebirth, charged with lifting a great...
Review River City Girls (Switch) - Streets Of Rage 4 Has Some Real Competition
A girls' fight out
The Kunio-kun series has been around for more than three decades in Japan, delivering a steady stream of quality titles mostly featuring its trademark art style: chunky characters with big heads. Some of the games made it to the west under various guises – Renegade, Super Dodge Ball, Crash ‘n The Boys, Nintendo World Cup and...
Review Astral Chain (Switch) - Platinum's Best Game Ever? You'd Better Believe It
In the chain gang
With games like Bayonetta, Vanquish, Wonderful 101 and MadWorld in its back catalogue, it's little surprise that Japanese developer PlatinumGames has gained a reputation for tight, action-packed titles that mix stunning visuals with intricate and rewarding gameplay mechanics. While its games haven't always been the commercial smash...
Review FAR: Lone Sails (Switch) - A Glorious Mix Of Genres That Captivates Without Saying A Word
Ship-shape
The terrain is cold and unyielding here, the horizon sprinkled with the snapped struts of an industrial era gone by, resentful reminders of what used to be but is unceremoniously no more. As you journey onward – because that's all you do here; you just journey onward, forever rumbling towards the right of your screen – you'll see them...
Review Pillars Of Eternity: Complete Edition (Switch) - The Game That Saved Obsidian
To Infinity and Beyond
The game that saved Obsidian, Pillars of Eternity was originally released back in 2015. It quickly broke records for a crowdfunded title when it was first announced, with over 77,000 backers raising a cool $1 million in the first 24hrs of its Kickstarter campaign to put the studio – which had been limping along after a...
Review The Ninja Saviors: Return Of The Warriors (Switch) - A Masterclass In SNES Revival
Ninja Warriors 3.0
The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors is not so much the third game in a series as the third attempt at the same game. The first go was in 1987 when Taito looked at its revolutionary Darius arcade cabinet – which used three monitors and two mirrors to fake a triple-wide screen – and decided it needed some ninjas. It...
Review Forager (Switch) - A Delightful Fusion Of Stardew Valley And Harvest Moon That You Should Own
What a wonderful world
You wake up on an isolated, deserted island. It's quiet. There are only a few rocks and trees to keep you company. But you have a pickaxe. Let's break up this rock, see what you get. Oh, a few bits of coal. Okay, let's smash up some more stuff. Now you can build a furnace. Good, let's get crafting. You've levelled up too –...
Review Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch) - The Zenith Of A Legendary SRPG Series
House party
Fire Emblem has been through quite a rollercoaster journey on its path to success. After an initial debut on the Famicom in 1990 with Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, the series remained a niche exclusive of the Land of the Rising Sun for thirteen years until it made its way westward, spurred on by the appearance of...
Review Tiny Metal: Full Metal Rumble (Switch) - Finally, A True Successor To Advance Wars Emerges
The tiny student becomes a metal master
It’s now been eleven whole years since we’ve had a new Advance Wars game, with Nintendo seemingly happy to let its successful SRPG series slide into oblivion since 2008’s Dark Conflict on the DS, disregarding the pleas of fans whilst instead turning its attention to the more story-oriented and emotional...
Review Blazing Chrome (Switch) - A Truly Amazing Contra Tribute That 2D Fans Will Adore
I need your clothes, your boots, and your hover-bike
When Konami announced Contra: Rogue Corps – the latest entry in the Contra series – during Nintendo's E3 2019 Direct, you could almost hear a collective groan of disappointment worldwide. Of course, the realisation that Konami is actually still investing in console games was an absolute...
Review What Remains Of Edith Finch (Switch) - One Of The Most Unforgettable Games On Switch
Sugar, we're going down swinging
The haphazardly-built house of the Finch family is far from just a location in What Remains of Edith Finch. With the entirety of developer Giant Sparrow’s game taking place in and around this singular family residence, it’s obvious that a lot of work has gone into making the house its own standalone character...
Review Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch) - The Last 2D Mario Game You'll Ever Need
Build your own adventure
If there was one game designed with the Wii U Gamepad in mind right from the very start and used it to its fullest potential, it was ZombiU. If there were two games that did that, it would be ZombiU and Super Mario Maker. Everything about the feel of the game and the interface screamed that this is a title that is best...
Bullet Heaven
The year is 2061 and a fully automated energy system known as BAC has gone rogue, mankind teeters on the brink of extinction unless one hero pilot, (that’s you by the way), can manoeuvre their STORK fighter, equipped with the newly developed Rolling Gun, deep into enemy territory to face off against a sentient robotic terror and save...
Review Contra Anniversary Collection (Switch) - Run 'N Gun Perfection
Gunning for glory
And so we come to the end (for now) of Konami’s triple helping of retro compilations. After giving us an arcade collection that was heavy on the shooters and a Castlevania collection that celebrated the spooky series’ early days, the same treatment has now been given to the Contra series, which offers some of the finest run...
Striking a chord
From the opening menu that uses not the rousing Zelda overworld music but the understated theme from Ocarina of Time's title screen, you know you’re about to go on a special journey. Cadence of Hyrule (we won’t bother with its ludicrously long official moniker) takes the music we all know and love and remixes it with the...
