Game Reviews scoring 8/10
Review ITTA (Switch) - Beautifully-Designed Bullet-Hell Brilliance
What a rush!
ITTA is the kind of game that will make you scream with frustration as much as it’ll make you’ll whoop with joy. One of those interactive experiences that gets your adrenaline pumping like a shot of epinephrine to the heart, while simultaneously putting your Nintendo Switch at risk of being smashed to smithereens. That, of course,...
Review Shovel Knight: Shovel Of Hope (Switch) - Seven Years On, This Action Platformer Still Dazzles
Strike the earth!
About seven years ago, a small indie studio comprised of some ex-Wayforward staff began the Kickstarter campaign for Shovel Knight, a delightful love letter to fans of 8-bit gaming. The project was a fairly big deal at the time, but few could have guessed just how much staying power it would prove to have. Several spinoffs and...
Review Ministry Of Broadcast (Switch) - A Grim But Enjoyable Cinematic Platformer
"I'm not into politics. I'm into survival"
Charm goes a long way in our illustrious hobby. A game with – let's be generous – difficult mechanics can be forgiven quite a lot of sins if it's got plenty of character. Ministry of Broadcast most certainly has difficult mechanics, but it positively oozes charm. Almost every screen is interesting, the...
Review Telling Lies (Switch) - Sam Barlow's FMV Detective Thriller Translates Smoothly To Switch
Virtual desktop
Chances are that the very screen you're reading this review on has a camera either built into the shell or sitting in close proximity, and its the notion that government agencies are capturing our every action through the devices we use everyday that gives Sam Barlow's Telling Lies its central conceit. Following the static,...
Review MotoGP 20 (Switch) - Tremendous Two-Wheeled Racing Action On Your Switch
Hello, Moto
With over 25 years of experience in the racing game development scene, it’s safe to say Italian studio Milestone has cemented its place as one of its most prevalent developers. Outside of the official F1 and WRC games, it’s established a foothold in almost every facet of modern motorsport and while double-A budgets haven’t always...
Review Picross S4 (Switch) - More Of The Same, But That's Fine
The strongest entry yet
The Picross series has become a rather expected staple of Nintendo’s digital release schedule by now. Every few months, you can reasonably expect another mainline entry or spin-off to show up, and you more or less know exactly what that next new entry will be offering: a substantial new set of nonagram puzzles for you to...
Review Trials Of Mana (Switch) - Old And New Combine To Create A Fine RPG Adventure
A potent blend
It seems that Square’s cult favourite Mana series has been enjoying something of a renaissance of late, and the latest product of this resurgence is a new remake of Trials of Mana. Seiken Densetsu 3 – as it’s known in Japan – never saw a release in the west when it first debuted in the ’90s, and only got introduced to...
Mini Review Anodyne (Switch) - A Unique Zelda-Style Adventure That Keeps You Guessing
High-rule
We recently asked if there were any Switch games we'd missed which you thought were worthy of a review. Anodyne was one of the most-requested games, so there we are! Anodyne may at first glance look like just another retro dungeon crawler; a Legend of Zelda tribute act designed to scratch a particular old-school itch, however, getting to...
Mini Review Songbird Symphony (Switch) - Platforming And Music Take Flight Together
Cheep thrills
Songbird Symphony is an indie rhythm-action platformer by three-person team Joysteak Studios. You play as Birb, an adopted chick in search of its birth parents. Birb runs, jumps and floats around a more or less coherent, Metroidvania-lite platform world covering the realms of various bird species. The rhythm action comes in at the boss...
Mini Review Cat Girl Without Salad: Amuse-Bouche (Switch) - A Surprisingly Fun Shooter
You want fries with that?
Boasting what is quite possibly one of the most ridiculous titles ever, Cat Girl Without Salad: Amuse-Bouche actually started life as an April Fool’s joke back in 2013. Skip ahead seven years, and it’s now an actual, tangible game; a really good one at that. It’s a shoot-em-up at heart, but its gameplay is also...
Review Shinsekai: Into The Depths (Switch) - A Watery Twist On The Metroidvania Format
Unsplashy adventure with hidden depths
We shouldn't be surprised any longer when a mobile-to-Switch port turns out to be decent. There are far too many examples to list here, but just recently both Exit The Gungeon and Oddmar have acquitted themselves admirably. Even so, we're as surprised as you are to note that the latest must-have Metroidvania...
Review Operencia: The Stolen Sun (Switch) - A Rich And Satisfying Dungeon Crawler
Dungeon Master
Zen Studios' Operencia: The Stolen Sun doesn't really get off to the brightest of starts on Nintendo Switch. Opening with a prologue that sees you assume control of King Attila and his wife Reka as they attempt to close a portal between their land and the underworld, things kick off here with a ten-minute introduction that highlights...
Review SeaBed (Switch) - A Moving Visual Novel Masterpiece, If You Give It A Chance
Ooh, mysterious girls
Anyone who has ever studied literature will know all too well that even works universally agreed to be timeless classics don’t necessarily appeal to everyone in the general public. Such will doubtless be the case with SeaBed, a visual novel developed by Paleontology Soft and brought West by localisation specialists Fruitbat...
Review La-Mulana (Switch) - Packed With Peerless Puzzles That Demand Dedicated Players
It belongs in a museum!
If there’s one element that it feels modern game design has largely left in the past, it’s mystery. There are some bastions of it still around today, such as the delightfully esoteric Dark Souls series, but most games these days just aren’t made to have impenetrable secrets. By that, we mean of the sort that can grind...
Review Wunderling (Switch) - A Fun And Fresh New Take On The Typical 2D Platformer
Wunderfully addictive
Since the advent of platform gaming, the genre has come on leaps and bounds. Although some (this writer included) would argue that many titles overcomplicate their gameplay, introducing unnecessary additions that threaten to overwhelm younger gamers. Thankfully then, Wunderling is perhaps one of the most accessible platform...
Review Saints Row IV: Re-Elected (Switch) - Marvellously Madcap Open-World Fun
POTUS power
Few games do ‘fun’ with as much enthusiasm and self-awareness as Saints Row. While GTA tempers its acerbic tone and pop culture devotion with a firm set of in-game rules, Volition’s open-world series has always aired towards the silly and the slapstick. Want to throw yourself into oncoming traffic and ragdoll your way to insurance...
Mini Review Talisman: Digital Edition (Switch) - A Superb Adaptation Of A Board Game Classic
You won't be bored board gaming on the go
Talisman is a superb board game that conjures forth innumerable fond memories. The vast multitude of characters to choose from, each more unbalanced than the last. The hundreds upon hundreds of Adventure Cards offering something new to see on every play. Spellcasting battles leading to pure salt from the...
Mini Review ibb & obb (Switch) - Another Co-Op Gem For The Switch
To ibb, to obb
Ibb & Obb is a clever 2D puzzle platformer in which you and a friend (or an online stranger) must work closely together in order to successfully navigate a series of increasingly complex levels. The twist here is that the levels take place across two opposing planes, each with their own gravitational pull. The two playable...
Review DOOM 64 (Switch) - A Classic Retro Shooter That Deserves A Little More Love
Eternal doom
Players of a certain generation might recall just how special it was having an actual Doom on Nintendo 64. The FPS that put corridor shooters firmly on the map was pretty ubiquitous in its ports – even back in 1997 – but having a graphically superior take with bigger levels, more guns and even more challenging demons to slay made...
Review Dead Or School (Switch) - Mutant-Slaying With A Sense Of Style
A diamond in the rough
Dead or School is a game full of obvious jank: likely the product of a tiny team of three working on a very tight, crowdfunded budget to realise a very – perhaps overly – ambitious creative vision. It’s questionably optimised, particularly in handheld mode, where it chugs quite a bit. Its 2D sprites appear obviously...
Mini Review Half Past Fate (Switch) - A Great-Looking Rom-Com Adventure Brimming With Personality
NOT a Steven Seagal movie
If you’re in your teens or beyond, chances are you’ve probably found yourself falling head over heels in love with someone at least once in your life. We all know the feeling: you see a stunning stranger out of the corner of your eye, someone who you’re absolutely sure is way out of your league, but your eyes lock,...
Review Murder By Numbers (Switch) - Ace Attorney Meets Picross In This Engaging Detective Adventure
Holmes and Robotson
There's a lot going on in Murder By Numbers. Mediatonic's rather mad mashing together of Ace Attorney-esque sleuthing and Picross-style pixel puzzles manages to cover sexism in the workplace, divorce, suicide, overbearing parents, the dangers of social media, the vacuous and often sleazy nature of the Hollywood TV industry and,...
Review Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun Retro Brawler Bundle (Switch) - A Stunning Retro Collection
Come for the Dragons, stay for the Kunio
Being a Kunio fan in the West is tougher than the mean streets Kunio and his friends come from. We've had to endure butchered localizations and dozens of titles being missed because they were simply deemed “too Japanese for Western consumption”. In fact, even nowadays, few Western gamers might realise the...
Review Bloodroots (Switch) - Wonderfully Flowing Combat Makes This 'Hotline Miami' Rival Stand Out
Blood sport
Games like Hotline Miami and Katana Zero have become instant modern classics thanks to their razor-sharp and utterly addictive gameplay loops. Following hot on their heels is Bloodroots from developer Paper Cult, a supremely stylish, confident action title that encourages improvisation and experimentation at every turn as you take down...
Review SEGA AGES Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Switch) - A Fantastic Game, But Who Hasn't Played It By Now?
Hogging the limelight
The Sega Ages series can evoke some strange reactions when it comes to game selection. There can be little denial that the series is at its best when it’s bringing us fantastic ports of Sega classics that don’t usually get the attention they deserve; the likes of Virtua Racing and Fantasy Zone are clear highlights so far...
Review Metro: Last Light Redux (Switch) - A Big-Budget FPS That's Right At Home On Switch
Half Light
Metro: Last Light Redux sees the first-person survival horror adventures of post-apocalyptic Metro ranger Artyom continue in a sequel that seeks to up the ante in terms of big-budget bombast. There are lots of OTT on-rails sections here and even a couple of traditional boss battles thrown into the traditional Metro mix, but it's when it...
Review Samurai Shodown (Switch) - This Blade Is Still As Sharp As Ever
Another 'victoly' for SNK
When Street Fighter II arrived in arcades in the early '90s and turned the one-on-one fighter into the genre of choice for millions of players, it predictably caused a deluge of copycat clones to flood the market, each offering a slightly different take on the concept. Few of these could hold a candle to Capcom's effort,...
Review Pop'n TwinBee (Switch) - Konami's Colourful 16-Bit Shmup Shines With Couple Mode Co-op
Colour me glad
The TwinBee series enjoyed relative success in Japan throughout the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Pop’n Twinbee was the sixth game in the series, and the last proper shoot ‘em up entry before Konami took it in a different direction with things like spin-off platformer Rainbow Bell Adventures. Because it was never released in...
Review Smash Tennis - One Of The Best Sports Games Of The 16-Bit Era
A stroke of genius
There have been plenty of underrated games over the years, but every now and then you get an entire series that hasn’t enjoyed the level of success and attention it deserves. That’s the case with Namco’s Smash Court Tennis franchise, which has consistently served up (ahem) some top-quality arcade-style tennis action, but –...
Review Knights And Bikes (Switch) - A Zelda-Style Adventure That's Perfect For Couch Co-Op
A Nessa-sary buy
There are few things on this earth as expansive and wonder-filled as the imagination of a child, and there are few games that can communicate this concept as effectively as Knights and Bikes. The latest release from Foam Sword – a studio comprised of some ex-Media Molecule staff – manages to perfectly convey the carefree and...
