Game Reviews scoring 9/10
The long-awaited remaster of the remake
Way back in 1989, Nihon Falcom released Ys III: Wanderers from Ys for various PC-based platforms and eventually consoles like the Genesis and SNES. This 2D side-scroller was well-respected in the community and eventually acted as the basis for 2005's 3D reimagining, Ys: The Oath in Felghana, though this...
Review DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou (Switch) - Cave's Vicious Shooter Is Close To The Series' Best
Elemental rage
Holding the Guinness World Record for "Most prolific developer of danmaku shooters” — a tenuous plaudit seemingly concocted entirely for their receipt — Cave’s five DonPachi entries form bullet points in the company’s evolution, from Toaplan-esque beginnings to a full-blown, bullet hell renaissance. SaiDaiOuJou, the...
Review Rage Of The Dragons NEO (Switch) - A Fabulous Version Of A Fantastic Fighter
Hey! Broom heads!
With the original Double Dragon, Yoshihisa Kishimoto realised a dramatic, violent expedition to save a kidnapped girl from a miscreant petrol gang. Although the genre had already been established by Irem’s Kung-Fu Master several years earlier, the scores of enemies, weapons, multi-plane scenery, two-player functionality, and...
Legend Of The Zone
The third and strongest instalment of GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy brings this excellent set of Switch remasters to a close. In some ways, it feels inaccurate to say Call of Prypiat is the best of the three because it so effectively capitalises on the groundwork laid by Shadow of Chornobyl, but it’s a brilliant,...
Review Angel At Dusk (Switch) - A Magnificent, Grotesque Gateway To An Entire Genre
A universal horror
Indie developer Akiragoya doesn’t just want you to get better at their latest shmup Angel at Dusk. They want to improve your prospects across the entire genre. Though taking a glance at the new Switch port of their distinctly grotesque work, you’d be forgiven for thinking the opposite is true. Set deep in a future where...
Mini Review Vampire Survivors: Ode To Castlevania (Switch) - Divine DLC Is Absolutely Essential
Finally, some vampire killers
Ode to Castlevania is a full-circle moment for Vampire Survivors. Heavily inspired by the franchise, and originally built with assets influenced by Konami’s whip-cracking series, Luca Galante and Poncle have blown all of their other excellent DLC out of the water. If your jaw isn’t on the floor by the time you roll...
Review Mario & Luigi: Brothership (Switch) - Easily The Best Mario & Luigi RPG Yet
Gonna get yourself connected
As the very first Mario & Luigi RPG to be released on a full-fat home console, we've been champing at the bit to discover whether or not Nintendo would capitalise on the extra grunt of the Switch to serve us up the biggest and best turn-based Bros. romp yet in the form of Mario & Luigi: Brothership. We had some...
Review Core Keeper (Switch) - Mysterious, Addictive & Beautifully Presented Sandbox Survival
Creating core memories
About a decade ago, not long after Minecraft was discovered by mainstream audiences, it felt like every other week you’d see another new sandbox survival project from developers both large and small looking to cash in on the craze. Now that’s been replaced by new trends like deckbuilders and extraction shooters, though...
Review Sonic X Shadow Generations (Switch) - A Blistering Return To Form For Both Hedgehogs
The best 3D Sonic game..? Yes
Holy moly folks, Sega actually did it. After the disappointment of Sonic Forces, the glitchy mess of Sonic Colors Ultimate, and the divisive nature of Sonic Frontiers, the publisher has delivered what is undoubtedly the very best 3D Sonic game yet with Sonic X Shadow Generations. It gracefully revisits a beloved modern...
Review Banjo-Tooie (Nintendo 64) - An Enormous Adventure With Charm Up The Kazoo
Can you bear second helpings?
This review was originally published in October 2009. We're updating and republishing it to mark the arrival of the game in the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack N64 library. <related ids="106839"> Banjo-Kazooie was a game that revolutionised platforming on the N64: Rare's off-the-wall-humour, creative...
Review Fear The Spotlight (Switch) - A Retro-Styled, Narrative Horror Gem & A Must-Play
The spotlight fantastic
When Blumhouse Productions announced its venture into the video game industry with Blumhouse Games, it would have been all too easy for the company to lean on some of its most recognisable IPs for its first release. Franchises such as Insidious, The Purge, Sinister, and Paranormal Activity certainly have strong potential...
Review Super Mario Party Jamboree (Switch) - Only The Best Game In The Series
Family-friendly good times ahead
Listen! Nintendo has been doing a smashing job recently, in going back to some of its long-running franchises, stuff like Metroid and Pikmin, to bring us new entries that lean into the core strengths of what made us love them in the first place, instead of just continuing to bloat them with fluff and distractions...
Review Neva (Switch) - A Raw, Engrossing Platformer That Looks Incredible
Press 'X' to Neva
In the first couple years of the Switch, one of the standout indie games was an artsy little platformer called GRIS, which combined simple gameplay with incredible visuals to make for a memorable and touching experience. It feels fitting, then, that developer Nomada Studio has managed to produce and release a spiritual successor...
This is war
Note. In addition to the games discussed below, Team17 released a free "Backworms Compatible" update in June 2025, which added the GBC version of Worms Armageddon, the SNES and Mega Drive versions of Worms, and Worms World Party for GBA. Despite the sheer wealth of Worms titles over the years (most of which are, at the very least,...
Linking to the past
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom contains many great life lessons we should all take into consideration: get others to do all the work for you; talking to cats is worth your time; making friends with spiders is good; horses can smell carrots from hundreds of miles away. Oh, and beds solve all problems. Okay, in all...
Review Beyond Galaxyland (Switch) - A Lovingly Crafted, Nostalgia-Fuelled Space Adventure
A galaxy pretty far away
An ode to science fiction media and RPGs of the '90s, Beyond Galaxyland is a charming and beautifully presented adventure. It’s all the more impressive that it's the creation of a single developer. Sam Enright has crafted meticulous pixel worlds, a strong script, and a truly infectious musical score. He also made one of...
Review Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines (Switch) - A Purebreed Platformer & Fantastic Follow-Up
Old dog, new tricks
A couple years ago, a small studio called Medallion Games released a cute platformer called Grapple Dog, which as you could probably guess, is a platformer about a dog with a grappling hook. The simple premise played host to an impressively well-made and enjoyable adventure that felt like a meaningful homage to — and evolution...
Wanna take you for a ride
There was some deserved hype surrounding Capcom’s first Fighting Collection, preserving the best of Street Fighter and Darkstalkers, and including a delicious Red Earth bonus for good measure. The furore across the internet upon the announcement of the Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, however, seemed...
Review Shogun Showdown (Switch) - A Turn-Based Roguelike Masterclass
To the left, to the right, slash em'up, dodge and cut, s'alright
Listen. If you're fed up with roguelikes, deckbuilders and the like, we feel you. In the indie sphere in particular, there are an awful lot of games in these genres right now, enough to have us auto-glaze over anytime we see the words mentioned, and even though there are plenty of good...
Review Pizza Tower (Switch) - An Ingenious Platformer That Beats Wario At His Own Game
Wario would be proud
Nintendo’s Wario Land series has always occupied a unique niche in the company’s extensive catalogue with its weird humour and unconventional approach to platforming tropes, which is why fans have been greatly let down by the fact that there hasn’t been a new entry in over 15 years. To fill the gap, an indie team called...
Mini Review Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight (Switch) - Another Marvellous Metroidvania
Moonlight serenade
This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format. The fourth in this series of 2D...
Mini Review Can Of Wormholes (Switch) - A Very Worm Welcome For This Ingenious Puzzler
Roll tape
Greetings, worms! Finally, for all you readers who are worms, scouring Nintendo Life for worm-related content, here’s a game that puts annelids front and centre. Wiggling onto Switch from solo dev Munted Finger, Can of Wormholes dares to open that proverbial can and launch squiggly bird food – if we may call you that – straight at a...
Review Castlevania Dominus Collection (Switch) - The Strongest Konami Compilation Yet
Glyph I could turn back time ♫
Konami has been making waves this year with its upcoming duo of high-budget remakes of Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. For Castlevania fans, however, it’s been a bit of a quiet one, with seemingly no sign of any new entry in the long-running gothic franchise. Despite this, the publisher has been...
Review Cat Quest III (Switch) - A Pretty Much Purrfect Pirate Adventure
Pi-rats of the Purribean
Cat Quest has been a beloved series for close to a decade now. From offering a unique world in the first game to adding co-op in the second, it has always tried to shake things up for the action-RPG genre. Cat Quest III feels like another switch-up for the series, taking what felt great about previous games and seeking to...
Review Volgarr The Viking II (Switch) - One Of The Switch's Best 2D Action Platformers
Entry to Valhalla secured
Since the release of Volgar the Viking in 2013, fans have been itching for a full sequel to the Rastan-inspired action platformer for over a decade at this point. Now the time has finally arrived. Thanks to a partnership between developer Crazy Viking Studios and retro specialist Digital Eclipse, we can step back into the...
Review Thank Goodness You're Here! (Switch) - A Face-Achingly Funny British Romp
A Grand Day Out
You don’t know who you are, you don’t know fully why you’re going where you’re going, and everyone around you just assumes you’re the solution to all their problems. You could argue that this idea describes an unusually vast number of games, but Thank Goodness You’re Here! takes that notion to its logical conclusion. You...
In the Summer skies, flying high!
Did you know the F-16 first took flight 50 years ago a few months back? It is currently enjoying its Block 70 revision in case you were fearing that air forces around the world are still flying half-century-old technology. Meanwhile, Ace Combat is turning 30 next year and, much like an airplane block revision, it...
Review Tchia (Switch) - A Brilliantly Fun (And Surprisingly Adult) Animal-Hopping Adventure
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Tchia!
Tchia is incredible. If that's all you need to know, then good — this game is best played, in our opinion, completely blind. That's how we went into it, and it was all the better for it. Every strange, unexpected twist was a delight, and we never knew where the game would take us next. So, please, if...
Blood-meltingly beautiful
Tsukihime is responsible for a lot of things. Back in 2000, Type-Moon’s classic visual novel captivated audiences with a story crammed full of occult mystery, thrilling action, and heart-pounding character drama. Like jagged lines splintering out of a unified core, its success spread out in many different directions:...
Review Perfect Dark (Nintendo 64) - Perhaps Not Perfect, But Still A Remarkable Achievement
Suck it, Bond
This review was originally published in March 2010. We're updating and republishing it to mark the game's arrival in the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack N64 library. From its debut in 1997, developer Rare and the terrifying digital avatar of Pierce Brosnan ruled over the console shooter space with the Nintendo 64 tie-in of a...
