Switch eShop, Switch Game Reviews scoring 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6/10
By the numbers
Early this year, when the three Mercenaries Saga games were brought together in the Chronicles collection on Switch, it offered impressive value for money if you were hungry for some Final Fantasy Tactics/Tactics Ogre-esque gameplay – although there were already other options. An absolute deluge of software in the intervening...
Review Sports Party - A Wii Sports-Style Social Experience That Sadly Lacks Depth
Party pooper
Once upon a time, recreational sports games with motion controls were all the rage. A decade ago, when the Wii was at the height of its mainstream popularity, there was a glut of forgettable and downright terrible games that somehow turned using a Wii Remote from a fun social experience into an exercise in unresponsive torture. Sports...
Review Nickelodeon Kart Racers - A Poor Man's Mario Kart That Squanders Its Potential
"I'm ugly and I'm proud"
Over the years, Nickelodeon has amassed quite a varied and deep stable of entertaining cartoon franchises, with characters like Spongebob Squarepants and Aang becoming cultural icons that are recognized the world over. It stands to reason, then, that the company could produce a solid kart racer in the vein of Mario Kart;...
That quarterback is toast
Mutant Football League: Dynasty Edition is a weird depiction of arcade football. In many ways, it's nothing like an actual game of football due to (cheap) dirty tricks and on-the-field obstacles that greatly change the course of a contest. Unfortunately, these additions mar the experience, turning it into a frustrating game...
Review My Hero One's Justice - In-Your-Face Fighting Fun That Might Be Too Shallow For Some
Quirks of the job
2018 hasn’t just been a golden year for fighting games - with everything from Blade Strangers to the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate laying the smacketh down on consoles - it’s also been a cracker for anime adaptations making themselves welcome on Nintendo Switch. So what happens when these two potent streams collide? Well,...
Review Yomawari: The Long Night Collection - Fear And Frustration In Equal Measure
Alone in the dark
Horror of the simplest form is often the scariest. The danger that lurks unseen. The shifting darkness that stirs only in the corner of the eye. A distant scream or a whisper that’s impossibly close. It’s this ideal that’s helped games of a terrifying persuasion extend their roots among the small budgets and remits of the...
Review Super Hyperactive Ninja - Even A Massive Cup Of Joe Can't Save This Middling Effort
Far too bitter
Back in its heyday, Super Mario Maker was notorious for the proliferation of ‘Kaizo’ stages in its community; these were hyper-difficult platforming gauntlets that required dozens if not hundreds of tries and usually had only one successful route to completion, eliminating any margin for error. Games such as Super Meat Boy and...
Like a boss?
FromSoftware's ‘SoulsBorne’ series has plenty of defining features that set it apart from its contemporaries. Obtuse storytelling. Mercilessly precise combat models. Mazelike hubs to explore. But none of these elements hold quite as much tangible power as the series’ (mostly) breathtaking bosses. From the tag-team nightmare of...
Review Warriors Orochi 4 - A Boisterous But Samey Sequel That Won't Win Over Naysayers
They did the Musou Mash
Developer Omega Force’s hack and slash Warriors games have become a genre in themselves with a fiercely dedicated following and more spin-offs than you’ve had hot dinners. Versions with famous properties – including One Piece, Gundam and Dragon Quest, to name a few – have helped widen the audience but Nintendo gamers...
Review The Escapists: Complete Edition - A Likeable Prison Caper Rendered Irrelevant By Its Sequel
Old con
"I can't go back" is the common refrain of the ex-con in crime fiction. And while it remains a fine game in and of itself, Switch owners might find themselves expressing a similar sentiment about The Escapists. Team17 made the curious decision to launch The Escapists 2 prior to The Escapists on Nintendo's hybrid platform. It's a piece of...
Review This Is The Police 2 - An Uncompromising Look At Law Enforcement That Often Misses The Mark
Police brutality
New Sharpwood sheriff Lilly Reed is way out of her depth. She's conscientious and competent, but far too meek to corral the motley crew of misogynistic knuckleheads that make up her police force. Sheriff Reed soon makes the fateful decision to enrol the assistance of one Jack Boyd, the corrupt cop you controlled in the first This Is...
Review Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse - An Old-School Point-And-Click Adventure In Every Sense
Puzzlingly pedestrian
The Switch isn’t short of superb narrative adventures. From Night in the Woods to Thimbleweed Park, via Oxenfree and Gone Home, the platform’s got fans of loquacious conversation and perplexing puzzles pretty well covered. Now, into this mix, comes another blast from the recent past (something the Switch sees a lot of, of...
Review Cities: Skylines - A SimCity Successor That Struggles To Shine On Switch
The sky has a limit
Have you ever aspired to a seat of mayoral power? Fancy yourself as the next Mayor Quimby? Okay, perhaps he’s not the best example of how to run a town, but spend a few hours with the power Cities: Skylines bestows upon you and you’ll begin to understand why Diamond Joe so often ran away from his duties. There’s just so...
Review Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition HD - An Inferior Clone Of An Already Divisive Game
Not quite fit for a king
It took Square Enix twelve years to finally finish development on Final Fantasy XV, and while the end result was a good game by many measures, it also felt needlessly bloated and meandering in many ways. There’s a saying going around now that Final Fantasy XV went from being the game that would never come out, to being the...
Review Wasteland 2: Director's Cut - A Less-Than-Perfect Port Of A Turn-Based Tactical Classic
Your choice of beige, brown or rust
You hear that? That is the sound of companies scrambling to flog their back catalogue on Switch before the eShop becomes oversaturated. You might think that ship has sailed, but publishers continue to tout impressive sales figures on Nintendo’s ‘homeheld’, so next up is inXile’s Wasteland 2: Director’s...
Review Haunted Dungeons: Hyakki Castle - Interesting Ideas Squandered By Dull Design
Crawling in the dark
First-person dungeon crawlers have been around for a long time, and like most genres, they’ve evolved over the years in order to find new relevance. Some have stuck to the classic turn-based RPG model and thrown in modern visuals and humour - such as the recent Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk - while others have followed...
Review Senran Kagura Reflexions - Cheap Titillation Masquerading As A Love Story
A massage simulator that’s strictly NSFW
With so many unique hardware features at its disposal, Nintendo Switch has given developers plenty of inspiration when it comes to using the HD Rumble and gyro-controls of the Joy-Cons. We’ve aimed down imaginary sights with triple-A first-person shooters, pulled off many a routine with dancing simulators...
Review Time Carnage - A Silly But Mildly Enjoyable Tribute To Classic Light Gun Shooters
Time to kill
It’s surprising there aren’t more VR ports on Nintendo Switch. Sure, you can’t enjoy the sensory immersion of wearing a headset, but with the support for motion-controls via the Joy-Cons there’s a huge amount of potential to utilise the console’s unique hardware features. Thumper made a fine port from VR to Switch and Surgeon...
Review Azure Reflections - Bullet Heaven Or Hell?
Touhou time
There’s nothing quite like a good bullet hell game. Done right, it can be the perfect marriage of chaos and order, where lightning-quick reflexes, a constant sense of spacing and a bucketful of luck can be all that stands between you and a hell of bullets. Switch already has a handful of great examples to its name - including Danmaku...
Review Moonfall Ultimate - A Failed Attempt To Update Sega's Golden Axe For The Modern Age
Hack. Slash. Repeat.
A good 18 months in and Nintendo Switch isn’t struggling for content - especially when it comes to role-playing games. Be they turn-based affairs or action-RPG romps, owners of this plucky hybrid machine have a buffet of long-form adventures to gorge on. So when a new entry tries to hack and slash its way into this packed...
Review Fall of Light: Darkest Edition - A Shambling Dark Souls Wannabe You'll Want To Avoid
The night is dark and full of errors
A dark and dreary medieval world. Lots of obtuse and cliched references to dark forces and evil people doing predictably evil things. Slow melee combat with a focus on stamina management. Shrines that become spawn points when you die. Enemies that revive every time you’re resurrected. Sound familiar yet?...
Review Out of The Box (Switch eShop)
If your name's not down, you're not coming in
Video games revolving around performing a day job - and one that’s very likely to be different to a real-life profession, to boot - have proven to be popular with well-known franchises keeping the genre alive year on year. Ever fancied being in charge of a whole medical unit? Then check out Theme...
Review Lifeless Planet: Premiere Edition (Switch eShop)
Lost in space
On its barren surface, Lifeless Planet: Premiere Edition is a difficult game to quantify. Is it a sandbox exploration title? A walking simulator? A puzzle-platformer? A sci-fi adventure with a splash of horror? In truth, it’s an amalgamation of all these things, but it only ever dips its toes into these creative sources and ends...
Review Little Dragons Café (Switch)
Lovable Characters, lengthy Load Times
For some time now, the Nintendo Switch has been sorely lacking in the life simulation game department. Of course, there’s Stardew Valley – easily one of the greatest titles to grace the console – but the obvious absence of instalments in the “relaxation” genre has left many fans feeling disenchanted...
Review Realpolitiks (Switch eShop)
Diplomatic impunity
If the recent successes of Element and Bad North have taught us anything, it’s that the deep mechanical function of strategy games doesn't often work well when ported wholesale to a new platform. When you’re porting such a title, you really need to keep in mind the technical restraints of a console - and especially the...
Review Spectrum (Switch eShop)
Limited palette
Is a platformer still a platformer when you don't actually jump on any platforms? That's just one of the (rather pointless) questions we found ourselves pondering whilst playing Spectrum. It says a fair amount about the general Spectrum experience. For one thing, that question references the fact that this is an odd sort of...
Review God Wars: The Complete Legend (Switch)
Strategy? Tactics? Stractics!
As we await next year’s ‘proper’ Fire Emblem entry on Switch, strategy and tactics fans have several alternatives in that nebula of sub-genres to tide them over. Between games like Mercenaries Saga Chronicles, Disgaea 5 Complete and The Banner Saga trilogy (or even Mario + Rabbids
A game of cat and meow-se
The indie boom of recent years has opened the doors for smaller studios to swoop in to the weird and wonderful spaces once occupied by the vibrant but now tragically dormant gems that larger studios were willing to take creative gambles on. Farewell Advance Wars, and hello WarGroove. Sayonara WipeOut, and Konichiwa, FAST...
Review Space Ribbon (Switch eShop)
Gotta go... slow?
Imagine firing up Mario Kart (pick one) for the first time and being dropped directly onto Rainbow Road, but a 25cc version with no items. And you’re driving a Morris Minor. Welcome to the opening of Space Ribbon. Released on PC in 2016 by Liverpool-based developer Onteca, this racer’s biggest problem is the first impression it...
Review Tiny Hands Adventure (Switch eShop)
A true dinosaur
In recent years, 3D platformers have experienced something of a renaissance in the modern game industry, with the likes of Yooka-Laylee, Super Mario Odyssey, and Crash Bandicoot: N-Sane Trilogy making a notable impact on sales charts and the general conversation surrounding games. Though the appetite is clearly there for these sorts...