Game Reviews scoring 8/10
Havoc go if you think you're hard enough
The Danganronpa franchise is a twisted, vulgar little thing. Rife with problematic politics, egregious erotic fanservice and some truly breathtakingly ill-judged swings at far heavier themes than it really has any right to tackle, it is in many ways a reprehensible, amoral and quite appalling series of games...
Review The Wild At Heart (Switch) - A Gorgeous, Potent Mix Of Pikmin And Luigi's Mansion
Something borrowed, something new
The Wild at Heart feels like an amalgamation of some of Nintendo’s most unique gaming mechanics. Such a statement might strike fear into your heart, and we wouldn’t blame you. After all, many attempts by third-parties to imitate Nintendo’s design traits and tricks have fallen flat thanks to poor execution or a...
A chaser
The weight of expectation can be a terrible thing for a game. When you expect nothing, every moment has the potential to offer a surprise and an unanticipated feeling of discovery, and the original Toree 3D benefited from absolute zero expectations when it launched back in April. Releasing out of nowhere for a bargain basement price,...
Review A Boy And His Blob (Switch) - An Experience That Has Aged Gracefully
A solid re-released remake
For anyone not in the know, A Boy and His Blob has a surprisingly deep history, going all the way back to 1989. Originally released on the NES under the title A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia, it was since re-imagined for the Wii by developer WayForward, dropping the subtitle in the process. As far as reboots go...
Mini Review Gynoug (Switch) - Switch Takes Another Fine Shmup Under Its Wing
Flappy bird[man]
It’s obvious from the moment you start Gynoug that this is another release from the same team that recently re-gifted the world Gleylancer, presenting players as it does with the same options using the same interface, just with a different Mega Drive shmup running underneath it all. This is great. As we mentioned in our other...
Review Voice Of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars (Switch) - Yoko Taro Deals An Impressive Card-Based RPG
A royal flush
Especially in more recent years, the eccentric Yoko Taro of Nier fame has made quite a name for himself as a game designer simply without an equal. Any project he works on is sure to be interesting and experimental in certain ways, and this trend has continued with his latest release: Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars. Though this...
Mini Review TOEM (Switch) - A Relaxing, Snap-Happy Delight
Capture the moment
Toem is a charming photography game that’s full of great moments, a lot of heart, and clever puzzles. You’ll travel around the black and white world, encountering interesting characters, all set in diorama-style levels that are begging you to explore them. By solving their problems with your trusty camera, you’ll earn stamps...
Mini Review Circa Infinity (Switch) - Concentrated Concentricity Is Confoundingly Circular
Be there or be square
For centuries, the circle has left indelible marks on our culture: Wagner’s Ring cycle; Dante’s Inferno; Pythagoras’ Theorem; Domino’s Pizza. And now Kenny Sun’s Circa Infinity arrives on Switch to distract us from all of them – except maybe the pizza. Fresh on console, this puzzle/action indie platformer hit PC in...
Review Demon Turf (Switch) - A Tight, Stylish 3D Platformer With Plenty Of 'Tude
Off the hook
If there’s one thing gamers constantly crave, it’s a decent 3D platformer. Though the genre has seen its fair share of all-time classics, it’s safe to say its popularity waned as shooters and action-RPGs ascended through the 2000s. Indeed, unless a 3D platformer comes bearing the name ‘Mario’, ‘Crash’, or ‘Spyro’,...
Review Pikmin Bloom - Pokémon GO's Sister Title Is A Glorious, Glorified Pedometer
These blooms were made for walkin'
While fans of Nintendo's delightful Real-Time Strategy series patiently await the long-rumoured next mainline entry, Niantic has served up a new mobile Pikmin experience to while away the time, an application that looks suspiciously similar to the company's previous project involving Nintendo (or a Nintendo-aligned...
Review Blazing Rangers (NES) - A New NES Game In 2021? Youbetcha, And It's A Good 'Un
Toasty!
Gaming is not short of NES-like experiences these days; titles filled with 8-bit-style blocky pixels, beepy music, and some controllable character for you to take from the left side of the screen to the right. These games tend to chase the past from a comfortable distance, the harsh technical restrictions of almost 40 years ago something to...
Review Mario Tennis (N64) - The Game That Gave Us Waluigi
Ace
This review originally went live in 2010, and we're updating and republishing it to mark the arrival of N64 games on Nintendo Switch Online. When Mario Golf was released back in 1999, it was already known that Camelot was working on another Mario sports title for the N64, and following a decent title released for the sadly ill-fated Virtual...
Review LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (Switch) - Still One Of The Best Lego Games
With great power comes absolutely no responsibility
Long before Fortnite's metaverse and brands talking to each other on Twitter, there were the Lego games: winning combinations of a world-favourite kids' toy and some of the biggest movie franchises in the world. Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, and Batman were all Lego-ified by UK-based...
Review Mario Kart 64 (N64) - Frantic, Formative Four-Player Karting Chaos
Welcome to Mario Kart
This review originally went live in 2016, and we're updating and republishing it to mark the arrival of N64 games on Nintendo Switch Online. Taking a bunch of Mario characters and having them speed around race circuits using a range of special items to rush or smash past each other is something that has worked very well since...
Review Mario Party Superstars (Switch) - A Party Most Hearty
Dad dancing mandatory
For years now fans of the Mario Party series have been pleading with Nintendo to just go back to the roots of what made the series great; no cars, no bizarre new modes, not just a collection of minigames that when presented in a vacuum lose all context or purpose — just Mario characters running around a board grabbing stars...
Review Fatal Frame: Maiden Of Black Water (Switch) - A Ghostly Wii U Treat Resurfaces On Switch
Maiden voyeurage
Were you to see a ghost cutting about, what would be your first instinct? Forgive us for this assumption, but we imagine it's probably not "take a polaroid of it", right? Tell that to the various heroes of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water — Project Zero in Europe — who seem to fancy themselves budding Sir Donald McCullins and...
Exactly what it says on the tin
We all worship the deluxe son et lumière of today’s games. Battles suck us in with explosive imagery, lavish cutscenes frame every encounter and voice artists declaim stories to rend our hearts. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing, then, if that were all shown to be a charade? If a game came along that created more...
Review Dying Light Platinum Edition (Switch) - A Solid Switch Port That'll Please Portable Players
Dead good
Note: Dying Light Platinum Edition is unavailable on Switch eShop in Europe at the time of writing pending an issue with the game being banned in Germany. In 2011, Techland released Dead Island on most seventh-generation consoles to mostly positive reception. Still, Dead Island had never quite been the game that Techland envisioned it to...
Mini Review Evertried (Switch) - An Engaging Roguelite, Half Tactics, Half Puzzler
Try, try again
Some games just cut right to the chase. No set up, no indulgent intro, just a fast cutscene and you’re tossed in the deep end. Evertried is one of those games. Here you’re placed in the role of a cute little undead creature with a scythe who has to climb “The Tower”. See, in this world, lost souls that haven’t proven...
Review Crysis 2 Remastered (Switch) - A Solid Port Of A Spectacular Shooter
The Manhattan Project
After surprising us in the best possible way with a thoroughly impressive Switch port of 2007's original Crysis, Saber Interactive return with this remastered version of Crytek's second Nano-suited super soldier adventure. But can the Switch handle the stress of this big budget sequel? Well, yes it can. In fact this is a...
Review Crysis Remastered Trilogy (Switch) - A Slick FPS Package That Runs Fine On Switch
Nothing to cry about
When we first heard that Crytek was bringing Crysis to Switch in remastered form, we seriously doubted that Nintendo's dinky little console could handle the stress of running this PC-melting behemoth, even if it was now 13 long years down the line in terms of technology. As our review of that game points out, however, we were...
Mini Review Inked: A Tale Of Love (Switch) - A Beautifully Drawn Experience
Ink between worlds
In the current era of impressive development tools and talented studios of all sizes, there can be download-only games that are just as eye-catching as big-budget contemporaries while having a focus on a small, carefully constructed experience. Inked: A Tale of Love is a good example of what can be achieved by small but talented...
Mini Review DELTARUNE Chapter 2 (Switch) - Undertale's Successor Continues In Thrilling Style
"Wow, peachboy, you went all out!!!"
Nearly three years on from the release of Deltarune Chapter 1, the long-awaited release of Chapter 2 is finally here. Available as a combined download on the eShop with the previous chapter, it’s far from a conclusive follow-up, and it introduces more questions than answers, but this generally feels like a...
Review Lost In Random (Switch) - A Rich Audiovisual Treat With Inventive But Limited Combat
Finely diced
Lost in Random tells a story of two sisters, Even and Odd, who inhabit a fantastical storybook world of woollen chess pieces and steampunk teapots and the like. They’re separated by the Queen in accordance with a draconian tradition that sees children roll a dice on their twelfth birthday to determine their station for the rest of...
Review Steel Assault (Switch) - A Quick Bite To Savour With Classic Castlevania Flavour
*furiously shreds guitar*
Steel Assault is a pretty simple game. You play as a badass good guy whose job is to kill the badass bad guys, and you do so by violently blowing up a lot of minions, ninjas, and mech suits with the power of a lightning whip. It’s hard. Like, really hard. And just when it feels like it’s running short on ideas, the...
Review Actraiser Renaissance (Switch) - A Noble Attempt At Resurrecting The Godly 16-Bit Classic
In the lap of the gods
The original Actraiser was a truly seminal release. Launched alongside the Super Famicom at the close of 1990, Quintet's skilful blend of platforming action and Populous-style world-building was immediately lauded as a stone-cold classic, and it's striking that in the 30 years that have passed since, it has never been...
Review Metallic Child (Switch) - A Robot Smashing 'Roguelite' Anime Adventure
Isometric action inspired by Mega Man
The venerable hobby of “games” has borne witness to innumerable robotic sprogs. Metallic Child attempts to be a definitive answer to the likes of Mega Man, Astro Boy and - most formidably of all - Mighty No. 9. We jest, of course. Inafune's infamous crowdfunded project (resulting in an incredibly mediocre...
Review Kitaria Fables (Switch) - A Delightfully Cute, Fantasy Life-Style RPG Adventure
One for the grinders
It's been seven years since Level-5's toylike RPG masterpiece Fantasy Life came to the 3DS in the West, and like addicts seeking our next hit we've been searching for something that replicates that feeling ever since. Between games like Ni No Kuni (also Level-5) and cutesy Rune Factory-likes such as Littlewood, we've come...
Review Eastward (Switch) - A Creative Zelda-Like Adventure With Absolutely Killer Art
East? I thought you said Weast
The line between an homage and a copycat can often be a blurry one, and it feels like all too often that new games borrowing ideas from old games fall on the wrong side of it. Instead of offering creative new takes on favored concepts, these games are more content to prod you with a sharp elbow as they say...
Review NBA 2K22 (Switch) - Loading Aside, This Baller's Got It Where It Counts
Hoop Dreams?
With another year's NBA season not too far away, a brand new edition of NBA 2K makes its way onto Switch just in time to give b-ball fans a wealth of slam-dunking sports action to get stuck into. This time around developer Visual Concepts has made a few neat changes to shooting and defence, improved upon last year's controversial shot...
