Game Reviews scoring 3/10
Review Tamagotchi Plaza Nintendo Switch 2 Edition - Well, At Least It Looks Great
A rotten egg
Back in the mid-to-late '90s, Tamagotchi virtual pets were a massive fad, with kids around the world eagerly raising and interacting with cutesy animals on their tiny pea-green screens. Though the fad inevitably died out, Tamagotchi continued to exist in various forms across the next couple of decades, including a handful of video games...
Review Sky Oceans: Wings For Hire (Switch) - A Pale Imitation Of The JRPG Classics That Inspired It
Sky dive
Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire makes plenty of promises, billing itself as an homage to classic JRPGs like Skies of Arcadia. It ticks plenty of the boxes to appeal to fans of those games, offering a colourful cast of characters, an ambitious narrative, and classic turn-based combat, but there is a lack of polish that keeps this story of sky...
Mini Review Unicornicopia (Switch) - Nope, Not Even For The Kids
Nah, you're alright
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. Unicornicopia is a maddeningly simple...
Mini Review Cake Laboratory (Switch) - Mind-Numbing, Mobile-Style Filler
Tiering up
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. Ah, the food-based mobile arcade game. When...
Mini Review Batman: Arkham Knight (Switch) - One Of The Worst Ports We've Ever Played
Chicks dig the car
The final game in the Batman: Arkham Trilogy is Batman: Arkham Knight, which launched on the PS4 in 2015. This entry expands further upon its predecessor, Arkham City, taking a game which was already plenty big enough thank you and adding a little more of everything. Although the series' combat has seen some more refinement here,...
Review MythForce - A Decent Roguelite Buried By An Absolutely Dire Switch Port
MythFarce
With its bright, cel-shaded models and notably more tame environments, MythForce targets nostalgia for Saturday Morning cartoons from the 1980s like He-Man and Thundercats. A lot of people don't remember just how poorly a lot of those cartoons hold up, though. They have their die-hard fans, and they're fun to look back at with your tongue...
Review Clive 'N' Wrench (Switch) - A Banjo-Kazooie-Style Throwback That Hits All The Wrong Notes
Monkey see, monkey don’t
There is little argument that Switch has become one of the premier consoles for 3D platformers. From a host of classics from the 'Golden Age', such as Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64, to incredible brand new experiences, like Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and brilliant indies such as Lunistice, there is a 3D platformer...
Mini Review Resident Evil 7 Biohazard Cloud (Switch) - Pretty Horrific
Cloudy with no chance of fun
Note: This Cloud Version of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was tested on 100MB UW Broadband over WiFi and wired ethernet cable, along with a 5G mobile connection. The launch of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard back in 2017 was a revelation for fans of the franchise. After the lukewarm reception to Resident Evil 6 and decidedly...
Review Cobra Kai 2: Dojos Rising (Switch) - A Good Idea Very Poorly Executed
Full of Kreeses
The magical appeal of Cobra Kai as light entertainment is that it’s totally aware of what it is: garbage. It’s Sunset Beach crossed with Saved By The Bell, driven by the one-note parody of Johnny Lawrence being stuck in the '80s. For anyone old enough to remember the original Karate Kid movies, there’s a throwback attraction...
Review Thymesia - Cloud Version (Switch) - A Soulslike That Shows Some Promise, Just Not On Switch
Does Hermes deliver?
Note: This Cloud Version of Thymesia was tested on 100Mb Superfast Broadband using both a 5G WIFI and wired LAN connection. The Kingdom of Hermes has fallen into an age of calamity. In a world where the use of powerful alchemy was once widespread and welcomed, things have gone terribly wrong. The now blood-soaked streets are...
Mini Review Waifu Impact (Switch) - Single-Player 'Fortnite With Fan Service', Minus The Fun
Sometimes fan service just isn't enough
When something becomes popular enough, it is bound to attract imitators. Sometimes those imitators will smash as many different genres together to try to capitalise on multiple other games' popularity. In the case of Waifu Impact, the developers took the principles that have made Fortnite a bewildering success...
Review Hollow 2 (Switch) - A Sequel That Shoots Itself In The Foot
Game over, man, game over!
Sequels are supposed to be better than their predecessors. Although such a statement doesn’t always ring true (plenty will have a lot to say about which of the Metroid Prime games is their favourite) the intention behind a sequel is to learn from and improve upon previous works - that’s the theory, at least. When...
Review BloodRayne ReVamped (Switch) - A Joyless, Frustrating Port That Shows How Far We've Come
Dhampir squib
These days, it feels like every other ‘new’ game being released is a remake or a remaster of some old game. There’s value in this, however, as it’s wonderful to have great games that were previously locked to old platforms brought onto modern devices with improvements and additions. But, just because a game is retro, doesn’t...
Review Aeon Must Die! (Switch) - An Aggressively Repetitive Beat 'Em Up That Tries Way Too Hard
As long as it DOES die
Do you have that friend who'll compromise the enjoyment of the group in order to indulge their own ego? You know, the 'wacky' friend who not only has to do everything just a little differently, they need you to know that they're special and unique and out there and WILL YOU JUST ORDER A NORMAL COFFEE, CLIVE? Ahem, sorry...
Review The Silver Case 2425 (Switch) - 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...
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...
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 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...
Review Balan Wonderworld (Switch) - A Charmless, Confusing Fossil From The Creators Of Sonic
A relic of another age
Balan Wonderworld is a strange game. Mascot platformers were all the rage around the turn of the century, but that fad has long since died off. Yet here comes a brand-new seemingly high budget entry in the genre that feels straight out of 2001 (not in a good way) and it’s produced by Square Enix no less. Unfortunately, Balan...
Stub it out
It would probably be the most clichéd thing in the world to make this observation, but Stubbs the Zombie In Rebel Without a Pulse is something of a zombie itself; a game that wouldn’t die, despite widespread apathy. It has something of a reputation as a “cult” hit, but we’re not entirely sure that’s justified. The main selling...
Review Harvest Moon: One World (Switch) - A Poor Imitation Of A Once-Great Series
Time to take this old horse out to the back of the barn
Harvest Moon: One World, to summarise the next few hundred words of complaining, is a badly-paced, unattractive, hollow facsimile of a Harvest Moon game. And yes, we're well aware of the Natsume/XSEED schism, and that Story of Seasons is the "true" Harvest Moon game, but even still, how the...
Review Skyforge (Switch) - A Disastrous MMORPG Cursed With Technical Faults And Dire Gameplay
Godawful
Editor's note: The developer claims that a patch is currently awaiting certification with Nintendo which aims to improve the performance of Skyforge on Switch. However, it would seem the availability of this patch is still unknown at present. With that in mind, we're publishing our review ahead of the patch going live, so please keep in...
Review Bakugan: Champions Of Vestroia (Switch) - The Kids Deserve So Much Better
Pokemon: Let's No
The great big battle beasts of Bakugan, alongside their pint-sized schoolkid handlers, have been doing the rounds on TV and in various video/card games since 2007's Bakugan: Battle Brawlers series. This latest outing sees developer Wayforward attempt to shoehorn this universe into a Pokémon: Let's Go-style monster collectathon...
Mini Review Macbat 64 (Switch) - A Pitifully Weak Clone Of Those N64 Platformers You Know And Love
An utterly mediocre journey
Nostalgia is a powerful motivator in gaming. Providing a sense of comfort and familiarity, developers often target this feeling through sequels and remakes, but in the last decade, we’ve seen a greater rise in spiritual successors and that’s been particularly prominent for early 3D platformers, Yooka-Laylee and A Hat...
Review Summer In Mara (Switch) - Alluring Presentation Hides A Fundamentally Flawed Adventure
A bit of a shipwreck
In February of last year, a promising project called Summer in Mara was released on Kickstarter. Appearing as something of a cross between The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and the Harvest Moon games, many fans were quickly enamoured by the cute art style and seemingly wholesome story. A little over a year later, Summer in...
Mini Review Indiecalypse (Switch) - A Deeply Unpleasant Game About Games
That joke isn't funny any more
Humour is highly subjective, so we're quite willing to concede that you might – might – find Indiecalypse hilarious. We only wish we could say that you'll find it fun to play with the same level of confidence. This bawdy adventure sees you taking control of three nerds as they bid to make a video game. It's a...
Review Five Nights At Freddy's: Help Wanted (Switch) - A Largely Pointless Cash-Grab
Freddy Faz-bleh
It's often entirely possible for games designed to be played in virtual reality to be played outside of the VR headset. Trover Saves the Universe, for example, is quite plainly designed for VR, but is both playable and enjoyable without it – likewise The Persistence. But having said that, it is usually a matter of compromise...
Only fit for Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls: Blades is a pretty misguided attempt on the part of Bethesda to transfer its beloved RPG franchise to the mobile, free-to-play arena. It may have been touted as something resembling a full-fat entry in the franchise prior to its initial early access release last year, but it falls far short of being anything...
Super Meh Oddysee
The eagerly-awaited second game in the Oddworld Quintology, Xbox launch title Munch's Oddysee had a lot riding on it. Poached by Microsoft to bolster their hard-sold new console, much was expected of this long-awaited adventure; previous acclaimed title Abe's Exoddus promised Munch coming up next, with Squeek's Oddysee to follow...
Review Cooking Mama: Cookstar (Switch) - Definitely Needed More Time In The Oven
Undercooked
It’s been rather fascinating to follow the slowly unfolding trainwreck of Cooking Mama: Cookstar over the past week or so. What began as an innocuous and unassuming new release in a beloved series has quickly grabbed headlines after its mysterious and sudden disappearance from storefronts. Conspiracy theories around copyright...
