Switch eShop Game Reviews
Review Monster Crown: Sin Eater (Switch) - A Satisfyingly Deep And Open-Ended Pokémon-Like
Go on, eat the sin cake
In 2021, a monster-catching RPG called Monster Crown hit the eShop, a one-man project aiming to emulate the glory days of Pokémon. Though it had its shortcomings, it mostly captured the essence of its inspiration and evidently it garnered enough of a following to justify the launch of a sequel after a successful Kickstarter...
Mini Review GRIDbeat! (Switch) - A Brutal Yet Absorbing Rhythm Experience
Don't skip this beat
I love a good rhythm game, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how quickly GRIDbeat! would grab (and hold) my attention. As one of the first titles from the newly revived publisher Acclaim, it makes a strong, bold entrance with unique, stylised visuals, razor-sharp gameplay, and excellent music. The aim of the game is simple:...
Review ZPF (Switch) - A Unique-Feeling Mega Drive Shooter With Some Switch Issues
Heavy metal fantasy
“Zone Profile Fantasy”? “Zoom Port Focus”? Nobody knows whether ZPF is an acronym or not, except perhaps the three-man development team behind it: Perry Sessions, Mikael Tillander, and Jamie Vance. Prior to ZPF, Sessions and Vance created a contra-style NES demo called Cavity Destroyer for Vance’s brother’s dental...
Sucking blood and free time once again
Sometimes a game is so good it creates its own genre. Whether you call it a survivorslike, bullet heaven, or something else entirely, Vampire Survivors pretty much invented an entire roguelite subgenre. So, when your game creates a whole new genre, where do you go next? Cards, of course. Vampire Crawlers is...
Review Pokémon Champions (Switch) – The Most Accessible & Flawed Competitive Pokémon Has Ever Been
More bugs than Viridian Forest
Keeping up with competitive Pokémon battling has always been a hassle. As the mainline series shifts from generation to generation, so does which Pokémon are available, access to specific Pokémon, methods for training those Pokémon, the introduction of new moves, abilities, and held items, as well as a continued...
Mini Review Easy Delivery Co. (Switch) - A Mysterious Gig-Economy Sim With Immaculate Vibes
Clock in, zone out
When a video game's biggest selling point is that it's perfect for zoning out to, it could sound like faint praise. Yet the fact that I still wanted to deliver stuff and poke around for secrets in Sam C.'s Easy Delivery Co. — a low-poly delivery simulator that's equal parts cosy and dreary — after the credits rolled speaks...
Upping the ante
Back in 2024, Balatro made big waves in the indie roguelike space, offering a relatively simple but incredibly addictive take on the age-old game of poker. After selling millions of copies, it’s now spun off its own sort of sub-genre inspired by its mechanics, and one such game is called Beyond Words from MindFuel Games, a new...
Review Marvel Maximum Collection (Switch) - A Decent Nostalgia Cake With A Konami Cherry On Top
"Welcome to die!"
The prize in Limited Run's Marvel Maximum Collection, unquestionably, is Konami’s 1992 X-Men: The Arcade Game. Famously, it holds a Guinness World Record for being the only arcade beat ‘em up to support six simultaneous players. This port allows you to switch between two, four and six player options — in line with its...
Review Ratcheteer DX (Switch) - A Bite-Sized Zelda-Like That Feels Right At Home On Nintendo
A (play) date with destiny
Faced with a world-ending winter, would you endure the cold and risk freezing to death, or freeze yourself to survive it? That's the dilemma at the heart of Ratcheteer DX, a compact Zelda-like set in subterranean cryo colonies during an extinction-level ice age. It's a thoughtful premise for what is, at its core, a...
Review Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen (Switch) - Red-Hot Nostalgia In A So-So Wrapper
TPC used Remember! It’s super effective!
Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen is a difficult game to evaluate. Re-released on the Nintendo Switch eShop to celebrate Pokémon’s 30th anniversary, this 22-year-old Game Boy Advance remake of the original Pokémon Red & Blue feels like a lacklustre way to celebrate one of the largest media franchises known...
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Anything Qud happen
The legends of Caves of Qud stretch back into the ancient times, through mists of lore, to a moment of destiny. That’s right – all the way back to 2007, when American team Freehold Games began development on this ambitious roguelike RPG. After a 17-year journey to version 1.0 in 2024, gathering a devoted PC following, this...
Review Love Eternal (Switch) - Disturbing, Devilish Platformer Flips A Few Too Many Times
Flipping fun?
Published by Ysbryd Games and developed by brlka, Love Eternal is an arduous platformer presented primarily in a retro 4:3 aspect ratio. It follows a teenage girl named Maya as she wends her way through a lonesome, though artfully-depicted, castle and the surreal, twisted memories that haunt it. The game begins as many platformers do:...
Mini Review Paranormasight: The Mermaid's Curse (Switch) - Plenty To Plunder In This Solid Sequel
Part of your world
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo was one of the most delightful surprises for the Switch; a visual novel that broke the fourth wall in unique ways while telling a compelling story laced with horror. The sequel, Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse, is more of the same, and that’s a good thing. If Square Enix wants...
Once upon a time...
While we continue to wait for a true RPG sequel to the early Paper Mario games, many indie developers have attempted to fill the void, and while nobody has quite managed to recapture their magic, Escape from Ever After feels like the closest anyone has gotten yet. It’s got some quirks, but it does a great job of offering an...
Review I Hate This Place (Switch) - A Messy Monster, But With A Certain Charm
A strong word
The way I see it, there are three different versions of I Hate This Place. First, there’s the game as promised in the trailers: a survival horror with some general emphasis on resource management and gunplay, all elevated with some nice-looking cinematic storytelling. Sweeping cameras slowly reveal the ominous presence of creepily...
Review Hollow Knight (Switch) - One Of The Finest Metroidvanias That's Not A Metroid Or 'Vania
Bugs now available on Switch 2
This review was originally published in June 2018 when Hollow Knight launched on the Switch 1. To celebrate the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, we're republishing it along with some brief impressions of the free upgrade, which is available to download now. The Switch isn't exactly lacking for quirky...
Review Jimmy And The Pulsating Mass (Switch) - The Best EarthBound-Like You've Never Heard Of
Jimmy Dreams World
Early on in Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass, the young protagonist confronts a possessed frog statue in a house surrounded by a bloody lake. The possessor turns out to be a rotten Jack O’Lantern, capable of dangerous fire magic but with a goofy, cheerful grin. Defeating it, Jimmy stands where it used to be, and immediately...
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
The Metroidvania revival (did it ever really go away?) keeps rolling, and here comes another stylised combat-platformer where a strange little hero gets lost in a dark, labyrinthine fantasy world. This time, our protagonist is John, who stumbles into a bizarre realm full of somnambulist weirdos and giant babies. Studio...
Review Cassette Boy (Switch) - A Dimension-Flipping Zelda-like With A Unique Hook
Let’s twist again
While it presents itself as a chilled-out ode to Legend of Zelda–style adventuring and the Game Boy aesthetic, Cassette Boy is more than meets the eye. It opens with an ominous dream in which your protagonist is told, “If it can’t be seen, it does not exist.” From there, the game drops you into a very familiar scenario...
Review Stray Children (Switch) - A Surreal, Captivating, Undertale-Inspired RPG
Don’t talk to strangers
Stray Children launched on the Japanese eShop on 26th December 2024. We weren't able to review it back in October when it arrived in the West, but we've now managed to catch up with Onion Games' latest... Your dad’s missing and some weird “uncle” is at the door, claiming to know you. Stray Children just chucks you...
Review Despelote (Switch) - An Irresistible And Appropriately Beautiful Game
Back of the net
Editor's note: This game launched in North America on 11th December, but won't hit European eShops until 13th January. For some, football is something to play; for some, it’s something to watch; for others, it’s something to be scared of in the playground. But in 2001, in Ecuador, football meant just about everything to just...
Review Marvel Cosmic Invasion (Switch) - Up There With Best-Ever Arcade Marvel Games
The prequel to the sequel to the sequel to the prequel
It’s been over three years since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge was released, and Tribute Games has been really busy. Stuffed like a return-trip suitcase, Marvel Cosmic Invasion’s enormous cast of heroes and villains is here united in a rapturous beat-'em-up fanfare. Its...
Searching for scraps
A scared mouse scurries through an unforgiving landscape packed with abominations that may be friend or foe. This timid squeaker can join forces with Morsels, strange creatures with offensive abilities that fight at their side. With this help, the mouse travels upward toward the domain of the evil overlords who control this...
Review Viewfinder (Switch) - Reality-Shifting Puzzler Is A Chilled, Mind-Bending Experience
From a certain point of view
With a name like Viewfinder, you might be forgiven for thinking that somebody finally decided to capitalise on the picture-hunting format perfected by Pokémon Snap. Perhaps a chilling new instalment in the Fatal Frame series? Developer Sad Owl Studios is going for a different vibe here. The viewfinder in question is a...
What do you see?
Note. Following a delay to Forestrike's planned Switch release date, the game finally arrived in early December. Forestrike is yet another roguelite to add to the Switch pile, albeit one that sets itself apart by focusing on slower, meticulous gameplay. Taking on the role of martial artist Yu, you
Review Demonschool (Switch) - Jokes, Gore, And '90s Vibes Set Necrosoft's Tactical RPG Apart
School's out for the apocalypse
Demonschool is a tactical RPG that follows a demon hunter named Faye and her collected companions as members of the Black Magic Club at a poorly-ranked university on a peculiar island by the same name. The school element of Demonschool should be taken with a big grain of salt, as Faye and her group of weirdos find...
Review Blippo+ (Switch) - An Uncanny Channel-Surfing Sim That Perfectly Captures '90s TV
Surprise and Deee-Lite
If you want to really understand (or remember) what TV looked like before the internet, Blippo+ is just the ticket. This unique little time capsule launched on Panic's Playdate in May and landed on Switch and PC in September. Now in full colour, this remarkable collaboration between the band Yacht, Telefantasy Studios,...
Mini Review Hitman: Absolution (Switch) - A Decent Port Of The Series' Black Sheep
Sins absolved?
Hitman: Absolution is widely regarded as the ‘black sheep’ of the series thanks to its focus on cinematic storytelling over player freedom. This is very much still the case with this fresh release on Switch from Feral Interactive, but now that original developer IO Interactive has righted the ship with the excellent World of...
Review Videoverse (Switch) - Miiverse-Inspired Visual Novel Is Beautifully Human
Chapter and Videoverse
Video games are good. The internet is good. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that nowadays, but Videoverse — the second visual novel from Kinmoku — is determined to remind us of the impact of online communities and the relationships we forge through playing video games. It’s also the most accurate depiction of online...
From Puck to Pac
In my review for Atari 50’s ‘The First Console War’ DLC, I said that Digital Eclipse had “seemingly completed its mission to present the most comprehensive interactive documentary on Atari possible”. Note the word “seemingly”! Yes, we’re back with another expansion – The Namco Legendary Pack – which adds a...
