Switch eShop, Switch Game Reviews from 2020 scoring 8/10
Review Dex - A Compelling Cyberpunk Mash-Up
Augment your Switch with this cracking cyberpunk chronicle
Gaming and cyberpunk go hand in cybernetically-augmented hand. Like dystopian peanut butter and electric jelly. Our beloved medium has always been well-served with the genre, from Megami Tensei to Shadowrun to Deus Ex all the way up to the forthcoming Cyberpunk 2077. While it's not
Review Panzer Paladin - A Joyfully Unpretentious And Exuberant Action Title
Battling mythical creatures? That's a paladin
Big. That's probably the best word to describe Tribute's latest action platformer. Big and chunky. Everything's bold, brash and refreshingly straightforward. Of course, there's no shortage of pixel-heavy games on the Switch, but there are few that feel quite so immediate and responsive. Joymasher's...
Review Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus - A Rare Gem In The 40K Video Games Catalogue
In the grim darkness of 2020, there are still good games
Bulwark Studios' Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus throws players into the great big metal shoes of Magos Dominus Faustinus, chief commanding Tech-Priest aboard the monolithic Ark Mechanicus, who's just discovered a mysterious signal emanating from deep within the bowels of the planet Silva...
Review CrossCode - The Zelda-Like RPG You Never Knew You Wanted
A Role Playing Game Game
A little over five years ago, a new studio named Radical Fish Games unveiled its dream concept for a new game. Called CrossCode, it promised to merge the RPG trappings and graphical style of '90s SNES RPGs with the world and puzzle design of the Zelda series. An ambitious goal, to say the least, and one that approximately...
Review Paper Mario: The Origami King - A Puzzling Battle System Can't Kill This Funny Adventure
You'll be creasing with laughter
The Paper Mario series has seen more ups and downs over the years than the lid of Picasso’s pencil case, with Nintendo and developer Intelligent Systems trying their best to nail the formula again. A large number of Paper Mario fans believe GameCube title Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is the best game in the...
Review Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 - Another Faithful Tribute To The Classic 2D Castlevanias
A classic Castlevania by any other name
During the 2015 Kickstarter campaign for Castlevania spiritual successor Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, one of the reward tiers promised a retro-styled prequel minigame. Nobody really knew what to expect at the time, but three years later it resulted in Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. Developed by Inti...
Old friends, new console
Nearly two decades ago, the Nintendo fanbase was graced with Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, the first entry in the series for the Game Boy Advance. Offering up a low-key and easily accessible gateway into the farm sim genre, it quickly garnered a following and earned itself the reputation of being one of the better...
Mini Review kuso - An Accessible Yet Challenging eShop Gem
The least appropriately-named game of all time?
The sheer purity of kuso is almost disconcerting. A simple 2D platformer with no major traversal mechanics besides running and jumping, it's quite a difficult sell to the seasoned platform veteran. You have the ability to drop checkpoints instantly (a little like Ori and the Blind Forest), which means...
Mini Review Superliminal - A Mind-Bending Visual Puzzler With A Powerful Message
Well seasoned perspective
Ever since Valve’s iconic puzzler Portal launched back in 2007, we’ve seen a number of developers put their own spin on the genre, including ChromaGun, The Witness, and The Talos Principle. Superliminal is one of the more successful efforts; a mind-bending jaunt into a mysterious facility that turns out
Mini Review The Almost Gone - An Abstract Experience You Won't Be Able To Put Down
When life flashes before your eyes
The Almost Gone is a point-and-click puzzle game in which you investigate a variety of different locations presented as miniature dioramas. The story plays out as you piece together clues and examine objects, and it’s one that doesn’t shy away from tough subjects, such as alcoholism. It’s an abstract...
Review Urban Flow - An Accessible And Absorbing Traffic Toy Box
We like traffic lights
Traffic is stressful. A game about directing traffic should be stressful. Urban Flow isn't. If anything, it's quite a zen experience; more so with each additional player you bring into the game. It's a game that anyone can play, with a premise that can be explained to anyone in a matter of seconds. This is a tremendous...
Get it locked in
Taking inspiration from the likes of Eighting's Soukyugurentai and Taiti's 'Storm' series of shooters, Missile Dancer is a vertically-scrolling shmup with simple yet addictive mechanics; holding down your shot button causes a targeting circle to expand around your craft, and any enemies caught in this circle will be considered...
Class Act
Nihon Falcom’s long-running The Legend of Heroes series finally hits Nintendo Switch in this third entry in the epic Trails of Cold Steel story arc, a direct sequel to Trails of Cold Steel II that takes place less than two years after the Erebonian Civil War portrayed in both that game and its epic predecessor. This is an enormous,...
Review Colt Canyon - A Twin-Stick Roguelike With Razor-Sharp Gameplay
A Fistful of Bullets
Twin-stick shooters generally have a lot in common with one another. Most of the time, they’ll throw an absurd amount of enemies in your direction, and it’s often an exercise in basic survival against the odds, with bullets flying in every direction possible. Colt Canyon certainly displays aspects of this, but it’s an...
Mini Review Jump Rope Challenge - A Noble Attempt To Get Switch Owners Active
Jump up in lockdown
Reviewing and putting a score on a free game that’s been created in a limited environment with the sole purpose of helping the public improve their physical well being during a global pandemic is… well, it’s a tough one. Do you critically analyse it and pick apart its faults and limitations? Or do you simply view it for...
Review Pokémon Sword & Shield - The Isle of Armor - A New Wild Area Worthy Of Your Interest
Fits the base game to a TT
Whenever a series attempts DLC for the first time, you’re sure to find a select few individuals pining for the olden days when you got a whole game in a single package – conveniently forgetting the fact that Street Fighter II had no less than seven different iterations – but if a game sells well and there’s enough...
Review Ruiner - An Exceptionally Stylish, Brutal And Bloody Top-Down Shooter
Get them, Puppy!
Originally released back in September of 2017, Reikon Games' Ruiner is an ultra-stylish, ultra-violent isometric action affair than flings its players unceremoniously into the role of a nameless, faceless cyborg assassin on the trail of his missing brother in the future metropolis of Rengkok. This is Hotline Miami filtered through...
Review Project Warlock - A Fantastic Tribute To The Very Best '90s FPS Classics
Retro Witchcraft
Originally released on PC back in October of 2018 and the brainchild of high school student Jakub Cislo – who saw his game through several early iterations before putting together the small team that make up Buckshot Software in order to get things polished to the standard we see here – Project Warlock is very obviously a true...
Review Borderlands Legendary Collection - A Triple-Helping Of Classic FPS Action
Three tickets to the gun show
It's safe to say you've probably already played Borderlands in some form. The open-world looter-shooter franchise has made an appearance on pretty much every console since the original game released in 2009. This isn't even the series' first appearance on a portable system – Borderlands 2 saw release on the...
Review The Outer Worlds - Obsidian's Fallout-Style RPG Is Worth A Look On Switch
Halcyon Days
Obsidian's The Outer Worlds was very well received when it originally launched back in October of 2019; it's a satirical and darkly humorous RPG that takes the first-person Fallout experience and blasts it into orbit. However, as much as it has in common with the Fallout games, it's also very much its own distinct affair; a remarkably...
Review XCOM 2 Collection - Firaxis' Stone-Cold Classic Makes The Leap To Switch Intact
Welcome Back, Commander
2K Games really has gifted Switch owners a smorgasbord of truly excellent games from their back catalogue lately, with the publisher's Borderlands, BioShock and XCOM franchises all exploding onto the eShop in unison. It's certainly going to be interesting to see how successfully they've managed to deal with the technical task...
Review Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling - A Lovely Indie Tribute To Paper Mario
Fly paper
It's no huge revelation that Nintendo's refusal to return the Paper Mario series to its RPG roots has alienated a lot of players. The exploration and puzzle-solving of the latest entries Sticker Star and Colour Splash is an acquired taste, and many gamers lament the fact that the big N chose this direction for the franchise. Consequently...
Review Liberated - An Atmospheric Comic Book Take On Grim Dystopia
Liberated, rated
Imagine a world in which a totalitarian government exploits our reliance on social media to take control of every aspect of our lives. It's not a particularly radical thing to conceive of, is it? You could even be forgiven for calling it a fairly clichéd premise. But as Liberated demonstrates, there's a reason why clichés become...
Review Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics - You Won't Get 'Board' Of These Games Easily
Warning: things get a bit dicey
With much of the world still in some form of lockdown at the time of writing this review, many have resorted to board games or playing cards to keep themselves occupied and help while away the hours. It could be argued, then, that Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics (or 51 Worldwide Games
Review The TakeOver - A Worthy Companion Piece To Streets Of Rage 4
This town IS big enough for the both of us, actually
Scrolling fighting games on Switch are clearly like buses; you wait years for a decent one to arrive and two come along at once. We've recently been blessed with the long-awaited Streets of Rage 4, an officially-sanctioned sequel created by DotEmu, Lizardcube and Guard Crush Games, and just a...
Review Journey To The Savage Planet - No Man's Sky Meets Metroidvania
Kindred Spirits
Typhoon Studios' Journey to the Savage Planet was very well received when it originally released back in January of this year on PC and consoles; it's a genuinely funny and supremely well designed title that combines Metroidvania elements with No Man's Sky-style procuring of resources on a bizarre alien planet filled with slick...
Review Super Mega Baseball 3 - Step Up To The Plate In This Slugfest Sequel
Hitting it out of the park
For the initiated, baseball is the great American pastime. From the pang of a freshly struck home run to the smell of hot dogs wafting down from the stands, it’s the quintessential U.S. sport. Much like gridiron and basketball, the sport’s recent video game recreations have also become more focused on hyper-accurate...
Review Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix - This Digital Diva Is Perfectly At Home On Switch
Sweet Devil
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix sees the world's most famous virtual Vocaloid pop idol finally arrive on Nintendo Switch in an excellent portable version of the hit rhythm game series that includes a brand new Switch-exclusive art style, motion-control Mix Mode and touchscreen options that give players more ways than ever to bash...
Review SEGA AGES Thunder Force AC - Another Sega Rarity Comes To Switch
AC what they did there
In the early ‘90s, it was believed by many Mega Drive / Genesis fans that Thunder Force II, III and IV were the best examples of the shoot ‘em up genre on their system. It was hard to argue with them: the Thunder Force games delivered an awesome combination of constant action, impressive graphical trickery, ridiculous...
Review The Persistence - Firesprite's Likeable VR Horror Has Survived The Shift To Switch Perfectly
Xeroxmorph
The idea of taking a game that's been originally designed as an all-encompassing virtual reality experience and expecting it to stand tall when unplugged from that impressive virtual realm – played instead on the Nintendo Switch's dinky little portable screen or a bog-standard telly – isn't one that really fills us with much...