Switch eShop Game Reviews scoring 9 or 10/10
I choose you!
Fun fact: at this time last year, we had only just learned of the existence of Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars. Not only has that game and its sequel—Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden—come out since then, but we’ve now received yet another sequel in Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden. As you’d probably expect, this...
Review Radiant Silvergun (Switch) - A Superb Shmup That's Still One Of The Very Best
No refuge
Making it business to boycott sensible business practices, Treasure’s commitment to dying consoles once cemented it as Japan’s most revered boutique developer. A practice that gave rise to some of gaming’s most significant works, Radiant Silvergun is a product of both spectacular overachievement and unapologetic showboating. Once...
Review Jack Move (Switch) - A Short, Sharp, And Utterly Gripping Cyberpunk RPG
In bird culture, this is considered a Jack Move
It feels like most JRPGs these days don’t really tread much into hard science fiction. Sure, big franchises like Final Fantasy or Xenoblade aren’t afraid to mix in some tech alongside their magic, but it’s rare that you’ll see developers fully commit to a world that’s all robots and...
Lost in plaaaaaaaay
Graphic adventures can’t seem to settle themselves. Most new games seem to have to start at first principles and decide on their own verbs, loops, control scheme, puzzle types, difficulty, hint system… and it feels like there are more misses than hits. Which makes it all the more impressive that developer Happy Juice Games...
Mini Review RITE (Switch) - A Short And Very Sweet Precision Platformer
A platformer done Rite
Precision platformers—such as Slime-San, The End is Nigh, or Celeste—can be tough to pull off given their razor-sharp requirements. Make the game too frustrating, and most players won’t even try to overcome the devilish challenges laid out for them. Make the game too easy, and it’ll lose a lot of its ‘hardcore’...
Mini Review Hindsight (Switch) - Another Beautifully Moving Hit For Annapurna
Don’t look back in anger
If you played the excellent Neon White recently and were surprised to learn it was published by Annapurna Interactive, brace yourself to be completely unsurprised with this one: they don’t come much more Annapurna-y than this. Hindsight is a story that plays out through gentle interactions, with no complex objectives or...
Review Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course (Switch) - Short, Sweet, And Utterly Essential
You'd be a mug to ignore it
There’s a section near the end of one of the new stages in Cuphead’s DLC that made us shout a four-letter word at the screen extremely loudly, and that word wasn’t ‘cups’. Being the level-headed types we are, it’s very rare for a game to make us resort to such outbursts, but there we were, bellowing the sort...
Review Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak (Switch) - A Deliciously Difficult, Must-Have Expansion
An expansion with bite
Monster Hunter Rise has proven to be a welcome continuation of the IP's global growth in popularity, following the breakout mainstream success of 2018's Monster Hunter: World and its Iceborne expansion on non-Nintendo platforms. Rise itself brought some interesting evolutions from World, retaining more of the quirky charm we...
Review Portal: Companion Collection (Switch) - A Nintendo Debut For Two All-Time Greats
This was a triumph ♫
When it was announced that Portal and Portal 2 would be making their way to the Nintendo Switch as part of the Portal: Companion Collection, fans collectively choked on their cakes. Two of the best puzzle games of all time on the go, you say? Yes, please! Naturally, when certain games get ported to Nintendo’s hybrid system,...
Review Neon White (Switch) - A Thrilling, Hilarious Genre Hybrid That You Simply Must Check Out
Neon dreamin'
Ben Esposito has become somewhat of a star in the indie game scene over the last decade. From his work on Giant Sparrow’s The Unfinished Swan and What Remains of Edith Finch, to his part in Arkane Kids’ bizarro titles like Sonic Dreams Collection, you’ve likely come across him somewhere. However, Esposito is probably best known...
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This is serious, so give me a quarter
The energy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, one of the biggest crazes of the '80s, has endured for 35 years. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s initially dark comic creations — later given a kid-friendly refashioning — spearheaded Turtlemania: a toxic-waste fusion of martial arts and mutant teen reptiles that...
Review Card Shark (Switch) - A Wonderfully Witty WarioWare-Esque Affair, With Cards
It's not about a shark
They say cheaters never prosper, but clearly they’ve never played Card Shark, a wonderfully tense, goofy little game that’s all about keeping your cool under tremendous pressure as you basically rob people blind. The act of pulling off the con is shockingly simple, but maintaining one’s composure to ensure that...
Review OPUS: Echo Of Starsong - Full Bloom Edition (Switch) - Evocative And Shockingly Well-Realised
Blooming brilliant
OPUS: Echo of Starsong is intimidating. Not so much in terms of difficulty — there's very little of that in what's largely a visual novel-esque sort of business — but in terms of story, there's so much to take in. Even with the preceding two games (OPUS: The Day We Found Earth and OPUS: Rocket of Whispers) in your back pocket,...
Review The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (Switch) - A Mind-Bending Mess Of Wonderment
The end is never the end is never the end is never
This is the story of a man named Alex. Alex was employed by a company called Nintendo Life, and one of his many duties was to review video games. One day when at his desk Alex heard the news that The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe would be releasing on the Nintendo Switch, the games console which...
Mini Review The Last Friend (Switch) - Fantastic, Fast-Paced Tower Defense, With Pettable Good Boys
Me and the bois
The Last Friend places you in control of Alpha, a strong and silent protagonist who travels a wasteland in a decked-out RV with a pack of his best friends. His best friends, of course, are dogs. Their leader is a spicy little chihuahua named T. Juan who does all the talking on behalf of the gang, and together Alpha and the pack fight...
Mini Review Demon Turf: Neon Splash (Switch) - A Brilliant Platforming Spin-Off Full Of Colour
Devilishly good platforming
When Demon Turf launched at the tail end of 2021, it left a positive impression on us thanks to its solid platforming gameplay, retro aesthetic, and focus on speedrunning. The game fell short of true greatness due to its less-than-stellar combat mechanics, which frankly brought the whole experience down a few pegs. In a...
Review Nobody Saves The World (Switch) - A Thrilling Action RPG For Fans Of Old-School Zelda
Nobody saw it coming
The recent release of Triangle Strategy raised an interesting conversation about the role of customization in RPGs. For those of you who didn’t pick it up, progression there is almost entirely linear, with each character having a predefined class that remains rather rigid throughout the whole experience. Some enjoyed having...
Review Gotta Protectors: Cart Of Darkness (Switch) - An Inventive, Hilarious Action-Strategy Blend
Cowabunga!
Gotta Protectors: Cart of Darkness starts as it means to go on — with a warm-hearted parody of something only gamers of a certain age are likely to remember. Ancient's logo appears and then… nothing happens — not until you hammer the 'A' button on the side of the screen as though your Switch is a temperamental CRT TV that's seen...
Review Andro Dunos 2 (Switch) - A Knockout Shmup Success That Nails The '90s Arcade Feel
Pro-Gear Spec
The recent trend of resurrecting long-ceased shoot-em-up IPs from the dead, usually when the original developer has shuffled off its electronic coil, is a welcome one. M2 revived Aleste, Platinum Games reanimated the Crestas, and now small indie outfit Picorinne Soft — comprised of brothers Ryo and Satto — has ventured a sequel to...
Review FAR: Changing Tides (Switch) - Mindblowing Moments Of Scale, Detail, And Discovery
Sail away, sail away, sail away
As game fans, we all believe deeply in going from left to right. If we waste a whole day gaming, and feel like we’ve got nothing done, no one can deny we did at least go from left to right. And if a game’s story is limp and can’t find any import for its platform contrivances, it can at least fall back on the old...
Mini Review Grapple Dog (Switch) - A Cracking GBA-Style Platformer, With Echoes Of Go! Go! Beckham!
"What's Updog?" finally has a coherent answer
A long time ago in 2002, long before many of you were even born, there was an obscure little Game Boy Advance platform game developed by Denki based on the football man David Beckham. It was called Go! Go! Beckham! Adventure on Soccer Island and, quite frankly, it was magnificent. Why are we bringing up...
Review PowerSlave Exhumed (Switch) - An Old-School FPS That's Absolutely Worth Digging Up
We're not doing an Iron Maiden reference. Way too obvious.
Not content with finally getting seminal Build engine classic Blood back on digital storefronts (Switch port, please!), as well as the first two Turoks, Doom 64, Quake and Shadow Man, Nightdive Studios have finally got Ancient Egyptian FPS Powerslave (known in the UK as Exhumed) out of its...
Mini Review Retro Bowl (Switch) - An Addictive 8-Bit Throwback That's Appropriately Super
The Bears' offence is rubbish in this, too
(American) Football is a surprisingly complicated sport; it may not look like it as we watch enormous humans endanger themselves while wearing a lot of padding, but it's a game with playbooks and elaborate calls that sound to the uninitiated like the outbursts of lunatics. For most of us fans it's a simple...
Review OlliOlli World (Switch) - A Radical Departure And A Must-Play
It's an Olli, Olli, Olli, Olli World
A little over 8 years ago, Roll7 first introduced the world to OlliOlli, a fun little take on a 2D platformer that centered around skating. Barely a year later, the studio then released OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood, which built on the mechanics and scope of the original in nearly every way. With that last...
Review Eschatos (Switch) - A Boldly Unique And Historical Shmup Package
Here comes the judgement
M-KAI began his game development life on the MSX with RPG Izumic Ballade, before moving into the shoot-em-up arena with Kanzen Kouryaku Kyokugen and Pleasure Hearts. The distinct design hallmarks of these early works — leaning toward lightweight, unpretentious fun — have remained present throughout his commitment to the...
Review Windjammers 2 (Switch) - Sweaty, Strategic, And Better Than The Near Perfect Original
We hope you like jammin' too
Update: We've now managed to play some Windjammers 2's online since the game went live yesterday and, we're pleased to say, it all seems to be working fine and dandy on Nintendo Switch, with a solid connection maintained during matches which we were able to jump into instantly. Good news, as this one really is all about...
Review SNK VS. Capcom: Card Fighters' Clash (Switch) - An Utterly Essential Card-Battler
Now this is a Brucie bonus
It's a result we had previously only dared to hope for. When SNK Vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium dropped on Switch almost a year ago, the fruits of the two fighting game companies' all-too-brief alliance were once again deemed "potentially in play". But when the labelled "Volume 1" of the wonderful Neo Geo Pocket Color...
Is it worth the hype?
Well, here we are. Eight months after The House In Fata Morgana's release, and six months since our first diary entry of "the game better than Breath of the Wild", it's finally time to actually, finally review it. Fata Morgana is an subject of bafflement, a tantalising enigma, and a frequent point of mocke
Review Chicory: A Colorful Tale (Switch) - A Masterful Marriage Of Mechanics, Themes And Visuals
Available handheld or Chicory dickory docked
There are few things more personal than art. That is, the art produced by an artist. Obviously. Even in its most commercial, populist form — including when it’s a small part of a much larger product — the work of an individual artist is ultimately recognisable, whether from obvious sweeping traits...
Review Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon (Switch) - A Super Addictive, Combat-Driven Puzzler
Diggin' it
Sometimes just before his boss battle, Specter Knight will warn you, “All who play Pocket Dungeon’s deadly game will be consumed by it.” He’s certainly right. Yacht Club’s newest spin-off of its critically lauded Shovel Knight franchise is, in a word, addictive. It’s easy to look at Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon and think...
