Tag: Mini Reviews
Well, at least it looks a little nicer
Believe it or not, Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age was the first title ever announced for the original Switch, back when it was only known publicly as the mysterious 'NX' project. When it came out in 2019, it quickly asserted itself both as one of the finest RPGs on the system and as further proof of...
Mini Review The Immortal John Triptych (Switch 2) - One Of The Funniest Games You'll Ever Play
So sayeth me
The Immortal John Triptych is one of the funniest games I’ve ever played – certainly the funniest since Thank Goodness You’re Here. It compiles three titles from developer Joe Richardson: Four Last Things, The Procession To Calvary, and Death of the Reprobate. All were released between 2017 and 2024, but including them in one...
A fulton of fun
Note: If you want to check out our thoughts on Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, head over to our Mini Review. We've also provided a full review of Master Collection Vol. 2 if you want a mor
Prettyyy, prettyyy, prettyyy, pretty good
Note: If you're looking for our verdict on Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, you can check out our Mini Review right now. Similarly, we've also provided our thoughts on the complete
Orcs and trolls galore
In today’s world of expiring rights deals and IP constantly changing hands, it’s an unfortunate reality that many licensed games are doomed to forever languish in the gaming world of yesteryear. That’s what makes moments like the return of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game or the remastered SpongeBob SquarePants:...
Mini Review Project Neon (Switch) - A Capable New Neo Geo Shmup To Test Your Mettle
Neon Geo
Project Neon is a Neo Geo game that was successfully Kickstarted in 2019. A vertically scrolling, arcade-style shoot 'em up that will feel familiar to those ingratiated with CAVE and Toaplan, its frontend presentation is simple and to the point. There are no difficulty settings, a single, non-configurable CRT filter, and some rotation and...
Mini Review Future Knight (Switch) - Channels The Spirit Of Tiger Handhelds To Great Effect
Don't worry about your grandma. She can live with me, be my maid.
Do you remember those Tiger handheld LCD games, extremely limited and mostly rubbish, that you used to love so much? Future Knight’s styling is exactly, and uniquely, that: its foreground sprites crisp, black and inky; its backgrounds lucent, pastel-hued imprints. Charming,...
Mini Review Dragon Hopper (Virtual Boy) - A Zelda-Like With Height, Heart, And A Spring In Its Step
Worth hopping into
Editor's note: Due to the low resolution and peculiarities of how screengrabs display for Virtual Boy games on NSO, all the screens here are Nintendo press shots. When Nintendo pulled the plug on 1995’s Virtual Boy after roughly a year on the market, Dragon Hopper was one of its immediate casualties. Developed by Intelligent...
Mini Review Zero Racers (Virtual Boy) – Is This F-Zero Spin-Off The VB's Long-Lost Killer App?
From zero to hero
Editor's note: Due to the low resolution and peculiarities of how screengrabs display for Virtual Boy games on NSO, all the screens here are Nintendo press shots. I can honestly say that Zero Racers is the most fun I have ever had in a Virtual Boy headset. In fact, the more I play it, the more it feels like it could have been a...
Mini Review Turnip Mountain (Switch) - A King Of Swing-Style Climbing Puzzler With Charm & Challenge
Reach for the stars
The 2026 bingo card continues to expand with another unexpected surprise: a spiritual successor to Donkey Kong's King Of Swing. Released on Game Boy Advance in 2005, this beloved puzzle platformer saw DK traversing vertical walls and avoiding hazards along the climb. Luke Sanderson's Turnip Mountain takes that idea and adds...
Mini Review Arcade Archives 2 TEKKEN (Switch 2) - A Welcome Throwback To The Iconic Original
Still the King?
It’s been 14 years since Tekken last showed up on a Nintendo console. Yet despite supporting the Wii U and 3DS with Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Tekken 3D: Prime Edition, Bandai Namco has yet to grace the Switch 1 or 2 with a new entry or port. Enter Hamster. The company’s latest Arcade Archives 2 release revives the original...
Hauer you doin'?
A dystopian cyberpunk future bombarded with rain? Check. Working-class people turning to body augmentations and drugs? Check. Rutger Hauer? Also check. Yeah, so far, so Blade Runner. Observer: System Redux isn’t shy about its influences, nor should it be, as this short-but-sweet homage to sci-fi murder mystery films delivers a...
Mini Review to a T (Switch 2) – Cute Narrative Sim Loses Its Teachings To Tittering
Tickling, not tremendous
When they’re done well, games with a message can be so effective, balancing the scale between teaching and transfixing you. to a T is a narrative game wrapped in a cute art style courtesy of designer Keita Takahashi (Katamari). It touches on an important theme, but that touch is light. Your happy-go-lucky character’s...
Mini Review Kabuto Park (Switch) – Gotta Catch 'Em All In This Cosy, Bug-Battling Deckbuilder
Fight and flight
Reading the description for Kabuto Park, I imagined it would be like Animal Crossing’s Bug-Off. But this quick, cosy beetle-collecting game from French developer Doot Tiny Games presents a concept that’s closer to another Nintendo series: Pokémon. The story is pretty light. Your character, Hana, visits the eponymous park for a...
Mini Review Total Chaos (Switch 2) - Performance Woes Tarnish Fort Oasis
Chaotic frame rates
Released on other platforms in November 2025, Total Chaos is an intriguing first-person survival horror in which you explore the mysterious island of Fort Oasis. Once a bustling community of industry, it’s since fallen into ruin, and it’s your job to explore the environment, piece together fragments of the past, and...
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:...
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...
Ganon fire
I’ve seen lots of games try to emulate top-down Zelda over the years; some to great success and others, well… not so much. Minishoot’ Adventures - NIntendo Switch 2 Edition falls into the first camp, and although it’s not as grand in scale as your average Hyrulian quest these days, it nevertheless nails the feel of a great Zelda...
Let's have a rave-up
There's part of me that still can't quite believe I'm playing Rave Racer on a home console. Namco's 1995 sequel to Ridge Racer never made it out of the arcades back in the day, despite promises that it would be ported to PC as part of NEC's push for its PowerVR graphics processor. For years, the game's legacy has been having...
Mini Review Rayman: 30th Anniversary Edition (Switch) - Nicely Orchestrated But Misses A Key Note
Ray of light
Rayman was Ubisoft’s first major commercial success, the company going public a year after its release in 1996. A PlayStation launch title, it was originally conceived for the unreleased Super Nintendo CD-ROM before being developed for Atari’s Jaguar. A fantasy platform game that pops with oil paint colour, its stages encompass...
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...
Mini Review Console Archives Cool Boarders (Switch 2) - Not Up There With 1080, But Still Pretty Rad
'90s snow-back
Hamster Corporation is on something of a winning streak, with the fantastic Arcade Archives series continually dusting off and polishing hundreds of notable games from the annals of history. Well, those wizards are back with the fresh Console Archives brand, and the now 30-year-old ‘radical’ PlayStation sports game
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...
Mini Review Stardew Valley: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition - Almost The Cream Of The Crop
A farm where you'll want a mouse
I’ve spent close to 300 hours with Stardew Valley since it landed on Switch in 2018. That feels like rookie numbers compared to other people, but even with the portability, the Switch version has always been slightly behind other versions in the multiplayer department, which is where ConcernedApe’s surprise...
A load of pollocks, or did they krill it?
Cast n Chill is one of those games that, the instant I clapped eyes on it, and even with other people telling me that it's real good, I got the feeling I'd just never get around to it. That's not to say fishing isn't for me or anything. I have fished in real life. Oh yes. My dad used to take me when I was a...
No mice, no dice?
I'm not sure how many times I've played through the opening hours of Divinity: Original Sin 2, but it's a lot, and it's been across a long period of time via various platforms. What I'm saying is that I've experienced this all-timer during phases of janky performance, and whilst it's a game that still shines, no matter the...
Start your engines...
A couple of months ago, Sega released Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds for the Switch 1, bringing a generally solid kart racer that gave Mario Kart a run for its money. Yet, what held it back from greatness was the overall poor performance, whether you played it on Switch 1 or via backwards compatibility on Switch 2, with each system...
Mini Review The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition (Switch 2) - Just Hugely Disappointing
"If I had a sister, I'd sell her in a second"
Since this review was originally published, patches has improved one or more of the issues cited, including the addition of a 60Hz performance mode. While we unfortunately cannot
Mini Review Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (Switch 1) - An Impressive Version If You've Yet To Upgrade
Smooth as a Morph Ball 'round a half pipe
After having completed Metroid Prime 4: Beyond on Switch 2, booting the game up on the original Switch was an immediately familiar, if bizarre experience. The game was almost certainly made with Nintendo’s 2017 system in mind from the off given how long it’s been in development, and yet there’s...
Mini Review Red Dead Redemption: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition - The Update That This Epic Deserved
"It's wanting that gets so many folk in trouble..."
The first time I played Red Dead Redemption was, of course, the day it launched. 2010 really doesn't seem all that long ago at all, but there was a level of expectation and excitement to those opening moments in Rockstar's utterly wild West that I do feel I haven't experienced in a very long time...
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...
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
Mini Review Arcade Archives 2 TOKYO WARS (Switch 2) - Another Polished But Wafer Thin Hamster Port
Tanks for the memories
Hamster Corporation's Arcade Archives series is back with another cabinet classic on Switch 2. I got to check out Jet Ski racer Aqua Jet back in August, which was a lovingly crafted port. This time I'm revisiting the destructive tank combat of Namco's Tokyo Wars, which served as inspiration for The 3DO Company's N64 classic...
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...
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...
Mini Review Yakuza Kiwami (Switch 2) - Kiryu's Debut, Smoother Than Ever
Majima magic
It only feels like yesterday that Yakuza Kiwami finally made its way onto the Switch, and yet here we are with a beefed-up Switch 2 version. This new release is effectively the same game, but Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio have taken advantage of the newer console’s specs for a much smoother, crisper experience. Crucially, the frame...
Mini Review Simon The Sorcerer Origins (Switch) - A Faithful Return To A Classic Adventure Series
Simon says spells
If you're an adventure game fan of a certain age, you’ll have a place in your heart for Simon the Sorcerer. Part of the first major wave of point-and-click adventures back in the late '80s and early '90s, Simon offered a goofy British counterpart to Monkey Island’s swashbuckling comedy. The series now returns with a faithfully...
Mini Review Silver Bullet (Switch) - A Gothic Arcade Shooter Full Of Tricks
Treat or Treat?
Silver Bullet’s aesthetic is dark, cartoony, and full of Halloween charm. But beneath its playful premise of a pint-sized Van Helsing rescuing puppies from the forces of darkness lies a razor-blade-stuffed apple - an arcade game with a wicked edge. Mashing genres into something unique, its crosshair shooting setup is reminiscent...
Mini Review Lumo 2 (Switch) - A Delightful Celebration Of British Retro Gaming
An Impossible Mission?
Sitting down to play Lumo 2, as a gamer of a certain vintage, I fully expected to be treated to a few touching moments as developer Triple Eh? transported me back to the sweet innocence (and unbelievable stupidity) of my gaming childhood. A few nostalgia button pushes and I'd be happy enough. Sit that alongside some decent...
Mini Review Xenotilt: Hostile Pinball Action (Switch) - The Balatro Of Pinball Games
Cyber-nudge
Demon’s Tilt deservedly received praise for its occult-themed gameplay, with many deeming it a worthy spiritual successor to Devil’s Crush. Now, sole developer WIZNWAR is back with Xenotilt: Hostile Pinball Action, a cyberpunk-inspired twist that improves upon its predecessor in almost every conceivable way. Simply put, this is one...
Mini Review Pokémon Legends: Z-A (Switch) - Mostly Stable, Much Less Shiny
An evolution on Switch 1, but not a Mega one
Pokémon Legends: Z-A on Switch is 'fine'. For a lot of people, that'll be enough. And certainly, even I'm surprised it's as stable as it is after Legends: Arceus and Scarlet & Violet had more than their fair share of performance woes — the latter of which is almost a completely different game with the...
Mini Review The Touryst: Deluxe (Switch 2) - An Upgrade To First Class For The Return Trip
Has it all gone Pete Tong?
It feels like absolutely ages ago that I first reviewed The Touryst on Switch, and returning to it so far down the line, and on the Switch 2 no less, I've been excited to see just how it's held up in the six years since I last took a vacation. Seriously, though. I was bowled over back in the day, giving Shin'en's...
Mini Review Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Switch) - The Stars Align Again In This Cosmic Sequel
More is more
How do you follow up a game like Mario Galaxy? Well, with its direct sequel, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Nintendo refined and expanded upon the original’s outrageous gravity-based gameplay. The result is one of the finest 3D platformers of all time; one that constantly pushes you down surprising and thrilling new paths. After its exclusion...
Mini Review Super Mario Galaxy (Switch) - Still A Stellar Achievement
Defying gravity
Super Mario Galaxy is one of those games that doesn’t need a whole lot of work done to update it for modern platforms. It’s a sublime experience with timeless gameplay and visuals that still look magical to this very day. So booting it up on Switch or Switch 2, you might be hard-pressed to find anything ‘new’ here...
Mini Review Gloomy Eyes (Switch) - If Captain Toad Were A Cosy Horror Game
Zom-besties
Growing up, I absolutely loved MediEvil on the PS1. The spooky yet lighthearted aesthetic really spoke to me as a child and would ultimately help foster a lifelong passion for the horror genre. So when I saw trailers for Gloomy Eyes from developer Fishing Cactus, I was instantly enamoured with the Tim Burton-esque vibes. Drawing...
Mini Review Dead Reset (Switch) - A Gory, Sci-Fi Take On Groundhog Day
What if there were no tomorrow?
Developer Wales Interactive is back with another FMV game, this time joining forces with movie studio Dark Rift Horror to present an Alien-inspired sci-fi romp with Dead Reset. Much like previous titles such as The Bunker and Five Dates, this latest effort has you make key choices at frequent intervals to influence...
Mini Review The Exit 8 - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition - Unnerving Horror Loop Is Worth The Budget Price
Loop de loop
To celebrate the newly released movie adaptation of The Exit 8, the Switch version has received a minor, yet welcome upgrade for the Switch 2. If you're unaware of the premise, The Exit 8 takes place in a looping corridor within a Japanese metro station. Your job is to escape, but to do so, you’ll need to keep an eye on your...
Mini Review Arcade Archives 2: Aqua Jet (Switch 2) - Classic Aquatic Racer Lags Behind Wave Race
Let’s Jet
Once upon a time, Jet-Ski games were all the rage. Arcade cabinets and fifth generation consoles were replete with these high-speed polygonal racers that sent you careening around tracks set in sunny locales with bobbing water physics. Aqua Jet was an early example of the trend and released the very same year as Wave Race 64. Now, you...
Mini Review Is This Seat Taken? (Switch) - Sit Down And Get Comfy With This Short, Simple Puzzler
Someone's sitting there, mate
I'm the type of introvert who's made an art of choosing the right seat in public places. With such honed skills, I assumed a puzzler like Is This Seat Taken? would be second nature, and I was mostly right. This adorable indie might not bring anything radical to the table, but it's a perfectly pleasant pick-up-and-play...
