Latest Reviews
Review Rain On Your Parade (Switch) - A Refreshingly Brief But Saccharine Shower
Cloud strife
Rain On Your Parade wants very much to be the next Untitled Goose Game. It so desperately needs to be that quirky breakout hit, the virtual talk of the water cooler, the “have you seen that cloud game?” game, spawn of a trillion thinkpieces. To be fair, it’s a strong concept. You take control of a rain cloud and, er, rain on...
Review There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension (Switch) - Don't Let The Title Fool You
Follow the white rabbit
What are you doing here? We assume you’ve clicked a link under the assumption that you’re going to find a review of a game, but as you can quite clearly see from the title, there is no game. So we’d like to apologise for wasting your time here, and we’ll catch you on the next one! Okay, we’re joking - obviously. We...
Best in class
Much like Koei’s Atelier series, Nihon Falcom’s Legend of Heroes games are some of the best RPGs that you’ve never played. Engrossing storytelling is one of the cornerstones of the RPG genre, and no other series exemplifies this as well as the Legend of Heroes. The story began with Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes way back in...
Review Battle Axe (Switch) - A Battling Throwback That Doesn't Land All Its Hits
Lord have Mercia
Veteran pixel artist Henk Nieborg's old-school throwback, Battle Axe, seeks to replicate the classic top-down hack and slash action of arcade classics such as Gauntlet, Knights of the Round and Golden Axe. With Nieborg himself on graphical duties and legendary composer Manami Matsumae (Mega Man, Final Fight, Shovel Knight) providing...
Mini Review Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (Switch) - Witty Zelda-Inspired Top-Down Tax Avoidance
Vegan-friendly
No one likes paying taxes. Unfortunately, it’s something we all have to do and wilfully committing tax evasion is not something we would ever encourage anyone to do. Isn’t it wonderful, then, that you can evade as much tax as you like in Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, an action-RPG from developer Snoozy Kazoo. It may well be one...
Review The Darkside Detective: A Fumble In The Dark (Switch) - A Welcome Return To Twin Lakes
It is happening again
Sequels generally need to accomplish two things: they need to be bigger and better than their predecessors. Okay, if we’re being picky, they don’t necessarily need to be bigger, as such, but certainly better. Released back in 2017, The Darkside Detective was a surprise hit, boasting gorgeous pixelated visuals, a stellar...
Review Atelier Mysterious Trilogy Deluxe Pack (Switch) - A Nicely Crafted RPG Marathon
Baby, you've got a stew going!
Practically speaking, the Atelier series is probably among the best collection of RPGs that you’ve never played. This low-key and generally bubbly franchise seems like it hasn’t quite managed to shatter that ‘glass ceiling’ into mainstream appeal, but that hasn’t stopped Gust from lovingly improving upon the...
Mini Review Picross S6 (Switch) - A Bold New Direction? A Fresh Take? Eat Your Picross, Son
Here we go again!
Let’s get one thing out of the way upfront: Picross S6 is just more Picross. No unique bells or whistles, no interesting gameplay hooks or gimmicks to make this sequel ‘different’, no bold new direction for the franchise. It is simply a new collection of almost 500(!) puzzles for you to solve, all of which are completed in...
Review Smelter (Switch) - Strong Mega Man X-Style Platforming Forged With Extract Of ActRaiser
Would you Adam and Eve it!?
Now you’re talking. Indie games have been imitating classics of the past for years and years now, and it’s about time that one of them had the cajones to take a run at the seminal ActRaiser, Quintet’s 1990 genre-melding masterpiece. To be fair, SolSeraph had a crack at combining top-down elements with platforming,...
Review SaGa Frontier Remastered (Switch) - A Cracking Update Of An Infuriating Cult Classic
Only For The Hardcore Frontier Raver
SaGa Frontier, Square Enix’s idiosyncratic JRPG classic, arrives on Nintendo Switch in a lovingly crafted remaster that gives long-time fans plenty to get excited about whilst fully retaining the ability to absolutely infuriate and bewilder anyone who isn’t au fait with its many, many eccentricities. This is...
Mini Review Toree 3D (Switch) - Low Poly, Pint-Sized Platforming For Pennies
Nostalgic 3D platforming? Balan Wonderworld, take note
Say what you like about fancy level design and clever mechanics that turn everything you know about the genre on its head, but when it comes to 3D platformers there's really only one reason we return to our favourites again and again: throwing Mario around a course feels fun on an instinctual,...
Mini Review Angry Golf (Switch) - Novelty Arcade Golfing That Lives Up To Its Name
Triple-bogey
Angry Golf is perhaps the most apt title for a video game ever. This isn’t because the main character has a permanently furrowed brow, but rather for how the game makes you feel while you’re playing it. It’s one of the most poorly designed, unfinished games we've played on the Switch, and the golf gameplay feels like it’s almost...
Mini Review Kingdom Of Arcadia (Switch) - A Pleasant Little Not-Quite-Metroidvania
Metroidvania-lite
Kingdom of Arcadia’s premise should be familiar to everyone who loves gaming. Admit it, we’ve all imagined being sucked into one of our favourite gaming worlds at one point or another. That’s exactly what happens to Sam, a normal boy who is suddenly pulled inside his father’s arcade cabinet. Now stuck inside the Kingdom of...
Mini Review Future Aero Racing S Ultra (Switch) - Clever Ideas, But FAR From A New F-Zero
We want to WipEout its music from our memory, too
It’s not exactly the best time for fans of futuristic racing. With no new F-Zero on the horizon and the WipEout series seemingly dead, too, fans have to turn to the independent scene in the hope that something almost as good will do the trick. The Switch has a couple of decent options already...
Review Stitchy In Tooki Trouble (Switch) - Pretty But Painfully Average DKC-Inspired Platforming
Sure to cause a straw man argument
A scarecrow is a creation built to deceive. A visual signifier of something greater. A simulacrum intended to impress, but when approached, the illusion shatters. Conveniently, Stitchy in Tooki Trouble is much the same. At first glance, it’s a rather attractive pillaging of Donkey Kong Country Returns, borrowing...
Review FEZ (Switch) - A Mind And World-Bending Puzzle Platformer That Deserves A Second Look
Like an oblong in a rhombus, like a cube within a cube
One of the original indie darlings in the eyes of many, FEZ is a game steeped in a whole bucket’s worth of history and intrigue. Nine years after its initial release and no sign of a sequel (as promised by its creator before getting abruptly cancelled), can FEZ still dazzle the new generation...
Review Godstrike (Switch) - A Frustrating Time Mechanic Scuppers This Twin Stick Shooter
Not quite god-tier
A little over a year ago, a new bullet hell game called Profane released on the eShop and was swept away almost immediately in the constant stream of other new titles. Due to disputes with the publisher, Overpowered Team decided to have the game taken off the eShop a few months later, while it worked on re-releasing a new version...
Mini Review Astro Aqua Kitty (Switch) - A Visually Sumptuous Shmup Sequel
Fur-miliar shoot-em-up gameplay
Astro Aqua Kitty is the direct sequel to the enjoyable arcade shoot-em-up Aqua Kitty UDX, featuring immediately familiar gameplay and mechanics, albeit presented in a far more ambitious package. Where Aqua Kitty UDX had your feisty felines battling underwater creatures in small, looping spaces, Astro Aqua Kitty breaks...
Review Poison Control (Switch) - Entertaining To A Point, But Lacking Where It Counts
To Hell and back
Sometimes the only way to get to Heaven is to go to Hell. At least, that’s the case in Poison Control, the newest game from Nippon Ichi Software to make it to western shores. This single-player action-RPG/shooter has a lot of charm and characters with real personality, though they are a bit cliché at points. Poison Control...
Review TY The Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue HD (Switch) - An Enjoyably Old-School Aussie Romp
Da doo rang rang rang, da doo rang rang
We have to admit, it’s been something of a surprise to us that Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, of all franchises, has sustained the limelight for so very long. That the series made it to six (six!!) games was a shock in the first place – three main GameCube entries, a fourth game for PC and two excellent GBA...
Review Moorhuhn Kart 2 (Switch) - A Poultry Offering
Needs to offer moor than this
Metroid Prime Trilogy? Garbage. Super Mario Galaxy 2? Forget it. There’s only one Switch remaster this world needed, and that’s Moorhuhn Kart 2. And when we say “this world”, we clearly mean Bizarro World, where cats chase dogs, cows milk humans and seventeen-year-old PC racing games get ported to Switch for...
Review Cozy Grove (Switch) - A Great-Looking But Flawed Animal Crossing-Alike, With Ghosts
Animal Crossing over to the other side
Back in the Wii and DS era, Nintendo tried something new: telling its players to take breaks. We're no strangers to the Animal Crossing all-nighter, and it seemed like Nintendo was finally starting to worry about our health, but very few people actually heeded the gentle warning. You're not our mum, Nintendo...
Review RetroMania Wrestling (Switch) - A Faithful But Limited NostalgiaFest
Here comes the plain
The search for a truly wonderful wrestling game on Switch has been one fraught with disappointments, and one that’s still yet to result in an absolute gem. WWE 2K18 was such a shocking, glitch-riddled port that 2K Sports declined to bring the 2019 and 2020 offerings to Nintendo’s console. Its arcade-style spin-off WWE 2K...
Review PAC-MAN 99 (Switch) - The BR Formula Freshens Up Another Timeless Classic
Waka waka eh eh
The crusade to make all of gaming's tentpole titles into battle royales continues and following Tetris and Super Mario Bros., what classic game is more iconic than PAC-MAN? Perhaps we should have seen this one coming. What makes the "99" series ingenious is it takes the foundation of games that have proven their timelessness over...
Mini Review Moon Raider (Switch) - Cute Visuals Mask A Mediocre Metroidvania
Lara Croft goes ‘Jason X’
Another day, another attempt to replicate the Metroidvania titles of yore. Moon Raider is an attractive, yet wholly unremarkable game with barely a sliver of originality. Taking place on, well, the moon, you take on the role of Ava, whose mother has fallen ill. In a brief, rather poorly constructed introductory cutscene...
Review Star Wars: Republic Commando (Switch) - Not An Elegant Weapon, But Still A Blast
Super Troopers
A long time ago...well, in 2005, LucasArts took a bit of a risk and threw us all a curveball with a Star Wars offering that eschewed Jedis and lightsabers, the Force, epic dogfights and much of the fantastical heroics that fans expect from the series, in favour of a dark and gritty tactical take on everyone's favourite space opera...
Review Genesis Noir (Switch) - This Indie Gem Deserves A Better Switch Port
Shouldn't that be Mega Drive Noir?
The Switch is a truly marvellous machine. The first ever hybrid console, it's the handheld capability of the system that makes it so irresistible. Its versatility and convenience are such that even when a game is technically better on the more powerful home consoles, we'll often wait for the Switch version just to...
Review Arcade Archives Haunted Castle (Switch) - The Worst Castlevania? Quite Possibly
Sucks to be you
Back in the early '90s, Castlevania was mostly known for being a console series, with three entries on the NES, three on the Game Boy, and four total across the 16-bit platforms (assuming, of course, you consider the PC Engine to be a true 16-bit system). But early in the series’ life, Konami released an arcade game, known as...
Mini Review Densha de Go! Hashiro Yamanote Line (Switch) - Yes, You Just Drive A Train
Come on, baby, do the locomotion
The eShop trailer for Densha de Go!! Hashirou Yamanote Sen (“Go by train! Drive the Yamanote line”) is just a guy singing “Densha de Go!” repeatedly while trains drive. For series fans, nothing else need be said. But let’s fill in the blanks. Densha de Go! is a Japanese train driving series that started in...
Review Doshin The Giant (GameCube) - A Chilled-Out Cult Classic That's Still Fresh
Sorry America
God simulators were a big deal back in the day, but it has to be said that in recent years they’ve not been as prevalent. That's not about to change with this game either, because Doshin the Giant is a GameCube game from the space year 2002 exclusively released everywhere except the US. As this rare and oft-forgotten game reaches its...