Latest Reviews
Review Baldo: The Guardian Owls - Exquisite Ghibli-Esque Art Can't Hide Tortuous Gameplay
You Died
Excruciating. It's not a word you ideally want to have in your head when you sit down to write a review but, in the case of Baldo: The Guardian Owls, it's the one that most accurately describes the situation we find ourselves in. NAPS Team's action-adventure RPG, some fifteen years in the making, is excruciating on so many levels. It's...
Mini Review Necrobarista: Final Pour - Decaf On Switch, But Still A Potent Blend
Could be robusta, but has strong notes
While video games often provide a very different storytelling experience to books and of course TV / cinema, the continual growth in the popularity of visual novels demonstrates that different mediums can blend to excellent effect. Necrobarista: Final Pour is another welcome entry in the genre on Switch, and it...
Review Dodgeball Academia - Impressive Presentation, But Lacks Depth On Court
A True Underdog Story
It's very difficult to make school appealing. Persona gave it a go, and Lego Harry Potter took its best shot, but in general we just don't want to go to school ever. Dodgeball Academia is up against it from the off, but compelling gameplay could have brought it back from the brink of enforced educational apathy. Sadly, it's...
Mini Review Golf Club: Wasteland - Surprisingly Engaging Post-Apocalyptic Putt Putt
Not a birdie in sight
If the world were to become a wasteland, chances are your main priorities will be obtaining food, water, shelter, and perhaps an abandoned Game Boy to pass the time (because you know those puppies can last for decades). It’s unlikely that playing golf would be at the top of your bucket list at that point, so it’s a good...
Review Sonic Colors Ultimate - The Best 3D Sonic Game Gets A Respectable Remaster
Just take my hand, we're gonna reach for the stars
Being a Sonic fan is hard. The Blue Blur has starred in quite a few legitimately great games over the years, but he’s also been in just about as many clunkers that tanked his reputation. Sonic has especially struggled when it’s come to his forays into 3D environments, yet there was an all too...
Mini Review Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins - The Best Doctor Who Game Ever Made
You were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.
Have you ever wanted to receive text messages from the Doctor Who universe? No, us neither. That’s not to diminish the long-running sci-fi telecast as a whole; more of a sad acknowledgement that its current incarnation perhaps doesn’t represent the programme at its best. We were surprised, then, to find...
Review Super Animal Royale - Fortnite X Animal Crossing + Skunk Gas = What's Not To Like?
Mortal wombat
Super Animal Royale is an animal-based, free-to-play, 2D, top-down, 64-player, crossplay battle royale with premium cosmetics. That’s a lot of concepts piled up on top of each other – and it shows how our gaming vocabulary has expanded over the last decade or so. There are notions here that you would have had to explain in detail...
Review Rustler - GTA Goes To The Ren Faire And Makes A Medieval Mess
Medieval times
Editor’s note: Having been informed of a launch day patch (not made known to us prior to publication of this review) that improves various performance and stability issues on Switch, a reviewer's note has been added to the end of the text below. Jutsu Games' Rustler attempts to take us back to the chaotic top-down craziness of...
Review Secret Neighbor - An Intriguing Premise, But Unbalanced And Tedious
If it weren’t for those meddling kids...
Of all the indie games released over the last decade, you’d be forgiven for thinking of stealth horror game Hello Neighbor is one of the lesser-known creations, one which was engulfed in the flood of — let’s face it — better games. Yet despite the poor critical reception, Hello Neighbor found its...
Mini Review Mayhem Brawler - A Surprisingly Accomplished Beat 'Em Up
In it for the long brawl
It may seem uncharitable to begin a review this way, but Mayhem Brawler is a terrible title for a game. It may as well be 'Fast Driver' or 'High Jumper'. It honestly makes it sound like the laziest, perpetually 89p-in-an-eShop-sale shovelware rubbish. It also does the game a vast disservice, because Mayhem Brawler is a...
Mini Review Townscaper - A Peaceful, Pretty, City-Building Plaything
If you build it, they will come
They say only the boring are ever bored. Back in the day you’d have been lucky to have a wooden stick to play with – unless it was sunny, in which case you could have the shadow as well. Kids these days with their mobile phones… where’s the imagination? It’s here! In Townscaper, a game which publisher Raw...
Review Prinny Presents NIS Classics Volume 1 - Cult Classic Tactics RPGs, But Undeniably Dated
Brave Souls and the Phantom Nomad Eaters
We live in a golden age of remasters and remakes when it comes to video games. It seems like every week there are more classic games that are getting new life on a current gen console. This might seem like a crass attempt to squeeze a few more pennies out of gamers (and in many cases it is), but it is also...
Review No More Heroes III - A Swaggering Joke Of A Game That Suda51 Fans Will Love
FU Fighters
It's certainly a relatively novel take on the whole E.T. thing. You all saw that instantly iconic "Goddamn Superhero" trailer back at the 2019 Game Awards, right? Cute little alien FU (pronounced "foo" - careful now) returns to earth 20 years after he was taken in and cared for by hapless Elliott-alike Damon Ricitiello (last seen in...
Mini Review Spelunky - An Indie Icon And Roguelite Royalty, Finally On Switch
"I am a man of fortune, and I must seek my fortune."
These days, it feels like every other indie game released is some take on the roguelite genre, but it wasn’t always like that. At one point it was even considered a relatively fresh take on game design, and one of the games to blaze the trail in this regard was Spelunky. After receiving an...
Review Spelunky 2 - A Masterclass In Great Roguelite Game Design
"I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed."
It’s sometimes tough to decide what you want out of a sequel of a beloved game. On one hand, you want something fresh and new that builds on and surpasses what came before. On the other, you kind of want things to stay mostly the same, because you liked what you already...
Mini Review Hoa - A Gentle Platformer With Stunning Studio Ghibli-Esque Art
Lovely Ghibli
Those of us who played Super Mario Bros. as kids had our minds blown the first time someone pointed out that World 1-1 taught you how to play the game. The Goomba comes along and makes you jump; you’re likely to bump your head and discover a mushroom; the pipe helps you jump onto the blocks and so on. Who’d have thought there was...
Review Quake - The Definitive Version Of An Iconic, Flawless FPS
Gothic Revival
What is there left to say about Quake at this stage really? Arriving on the FPS scene some 25 years ago as a successor to iD Software's phenomenal DOOM, it single-handedly revolutionised a genre with its real-time 3D rendering ushering in a new era of immersion that left its storied predecessor feeling resolutely old-school by...
Review Garden Story - A Flawed But Charming RPG In Farm Sim's Clothing
Role Playing Grape
Games are often about escapism, and Garden Story offers yet another way to lose yourself in the virtual world: the hero protagonist is a grape, burdened with great purpose. Concord (see what they did there) is but a youngling, wrenched from the Kindergarden to fulfil the role of Guardian after their predecessor decides to leave...
Review Slime Rancher: Plortable Edition - A Solid Plort Of A Superb Slime Sim
Your next farming Plort of call
Upon hearing the title of Slime Rancher: Plortable Edition you might be forgiven for imagining a dozy, snoozy farm simulator that bears a striking resemblance to Stardew Valley with some Dragon Quest Slimes and a first-person perspective thrown in. If that’s you, well you’re only half right, or maybe a quarter...
Review Love Esquire - A Fantastic Voice Cast Elevates This Seductive Romp
Looking for love in all the right places
Visual novels and dating sims used to be hard to come by here in the West, especially on consoles. However, the Switch, with its portability and vibrant screen, has enjoyed a wealth of games in these genres over the years. One of the latest to make its way to the console is Love Esquire from publisher Mama...
Mini Review Rush Rally Origins - An Easygoing, Accessible Rallying Remake
Rushing back to the start
With each iteration of Rush Rally, the series has assuredly improved with more detailed cars and environments, sharper controls, and an overall cleaner experience. In hindsight, then, the original Rush Rally can seem a tad dated in comparison to later entries, so developer Brownmaster has gone back and effectively remade...
Review Boyfriend Dungeon - A Fun But Ultimately Shallow 'Dating Crawler'
Knee deep in dunj
Sometimes you come across a game that really makes you curious what the developers were thinking when they were first drafting it. Boyfriend Dungeon is one such game. It’s a dungeon crawler, rather like Hades or Diablo, with the twist that your character is probably dating the weapon they’re using to kill baddies. As ridiculous...
Mini Review art of rally - Stylish Driving With Plenty Of Substance
Vincent van Go Go Go
Funselektor Labs’ art of rally looks like it should be the most accessible rally sim of all time. Its bright colours and abstract environments almost create a false sense of security, distracting from an otherwise remarkably deep and challenging rally title. It retains the same authentic gameplay from its original PC release,...
Mini Review ISLANDERS Console Edition - Serene, Superb, And More 'Tetris' Than 'SimCity'
There can be only one
What’s the meaning of a game? Is it the essentially human nature of interaction? The intricacies of the universe’s fundamental laws? What does it mean to be human? What is the universe? What’s the meaning of life? These are the questions Islanders Console Edition came to us to answer. Woah. In Islanders, you build mellow...
Review The Silver Case 2425 - Style Over Substance In This Pair Of Early Suda51 Epics
Case closed
Every now and again, we review a game that's just absolutely no fun. The review process can sometimes be a bit of a drag — we know, complaining about a job where you play games for a living is like being annoyed that your career as a biscuit taster is making you put on weight — and unfortunately, The Silver Case 2425, a two-in-one...
Review Greak: Memories of Azur - A Gorgeous Platformer Crying Out For Co-op
The tri-force
The Switch is no stranger to quirky 2D platformers at this point. With so many quality titles to choose from, it can be tough for newcomers to stand out from the crowd. Greak: Memories of Azur is a solid 2D adventure game that, visually at least, can stand proud amongst some of the best examples of the genre, but with few original...
Review Shadowverse: Champion's Battle - Switch's Best Card Battling RPG Yet
The game based on the anime based on the game!
It’s rather shocking to consider how few card games there are on the Switch today. Sure, there are quite a few deck-building roguelites that incorporate elements of card games into their design, but these don’t quite manage to scratch that same itch. Luckily, Cygames has seen fit to bring over its...
Review Axiom Verge 2 - A Fantastic Follow-Up To A Classic Metroidvania
Gone without a Trace
In the comparatively dark days of the Wii U, we often had to focus more on indie games to get us through the worst of the months-long droughts between major first-party releases. Fortunately, various smaller studios stepped up and one such gem was Axiom Verge, an absolutely incredible Metroidvania that was produced in its...
Review Fire Tonight - Inspired By A Song, This Puzzler Is A '90s Nostalgia Trip
Video flames
Well, there's a hot wind blowing tonight in the east And I heard that the park is filled tonight with police On the radio there's nothing but a man saying to stay inside Well, I remember what you said on the telephone That you didn't feel like it was safe to stay alone And you would get yourself to me if you could find a way across the...
Mini Review Last Stop - Touching Tales Of London Life In Annapurna's Latest
The Tube is out there
As a storyteller, gaming has several personalities. Sometimes we go story-game-story-game with cutscene 'movies', or we pick through branching prose with interspersed decisions, or we read out comic book narratives interrupted by puzzle breaks. Sometimes the action is the story, like Breath of the Wild’s millions of private...
