Tag: Mini Reviews - Page 3
Mini Review Dr. Mario 64 - Diagnosis: A Bit Rubbish
One to strike from the Medical Register
There's a sort of... B-tier of Nintendo puzzlers, isn't there? Stuff like Yoshi's Cookie and Wario's Woods. We'd argue, perhaps fruitlessly, that Dr. Mario slots into this little group rather better than the truly A-grade stuff. On Switch, in particular, there's an embarrassment of puzzling riches that we'd...
Mini Review Klang 2 - A Noisy But Satisfying Rhythm Adventure
Pitch please
There isn’t exactly an abundance of rhythm games available on the Switch (certainly not recently), so it goes without saying that Klang 2 sticks out a bit from the pack simply by catering to this oft-overlooked genre. We’re not sure why Tinimations decided to bring Klang 2 over to the Switch before its predecessor, but from what...
Mini Review Toree 2 - A Second Shot Of Low-Poly Platforming That Puts Some Bigger Games To Shame
A chaser
The weight of expectation can be a terrible thing for a game. When you expect nothing, every moment has the potential to offer a surprise and an unanticipated feeling of discovery, and the original Toree 3D benefited from absolute zero expectations when it launched back in April. Releasing out of nowhere for a bargain basement price,...
Mini Review Heaven's Machine - Short, But Unfortunately Not Sweet
A bullet hellish experience
Heaven's Machine is the first of Super Rare Games’ ‘Super Rare Shorts’ series; brand new indie games only released on the Switch in physical form and only available to buy during a short open preorder window. It's certainly an unusual idea but, unfortunately, this is probably not the start they were hoping for...
Mini Review Gynoug - Switch Takes Another Fine Shmup Under Its Wing
Flappy bird[man]
It’s obvious from the moment you start Gynoug that this is another release from the same team that recently re-gifted the world Gleylancer, presenting players as it does with the same options using the same interface, just with a different Mega Drive shmup running underneath it all. This is great. As we mentioned in our other...
Mini Review Tunche - A Quality Beat 'Em Up That'll Make You Fight Through Its Flaws
Ninja (side) scroll
Are you looking for a fight, mate? Are you looking for a fight? Sounds like the threatening enquiry of a ne'er-do-well, but it’s the height of decorum compared to the typical inhabitant of a scrolling beat 'em up. Tunche is no different, as its assorted jungle pests don’t stop to ask how you feel about being licked, whomped,...
Mini Review TOEM - A Relaxing, Snap-Happy Delight
Capture the moment
Toem is a charming photography game that’s full of great moments, a lot of heart, and clever puzzles. You’ll travel around the black and white world, encountering interesting characters, all set in diorama-style levels that are begging you to explore them. By solving their problems with your trusty camera, you’ll earn stamps...
Mini Review Circa Infinity - Concentrated Concentricity Is Confoundingly Circular
Be there or be square
For centuries, the circle has left indelible marks on our culture: Wagner’s Ring cycle; Dante’s Inferno; Pythagoras’ Theorem; Domino’s Pizza. And now Kenny Sun’s Circa Infinity arrives on Switch to distract us from all of them – except maybe the pizza. Fresh on console, this puzzle/action indie platformer hit PC in...
Mini Review Evertried - An Engaging Roguelite, Half Tactics, Half Puzzler
Try, try again
Some games just cut right to the chase. No set up, no indulgent intro, just a fast cutscene and you’re tossed in the deep end. Evertried is one of those games. Here you’re placed in the role of a cute little undead creature with a scythe who has to climb “The Tower”. See, in this world, lost souls that haven’t proven...
Mini Review A Little Golf Journey - A Relaxing If Repetitive Round
Just over par
Golf games tend to come in a variety of flavours. You’ve got the realistic sim games such as PGA Tour 2K21, the more arcade focused romps like Mario Golf: Super Rush, and abstract, minimal titles like Golf Club: Wasteland.
Mini Review Inked: A Tale Of Love - A Beautifully Drawn Experience
Ink between worlds
In the current era of impressive development tools and talented studios of all sizes, there can be download-only games that are just as eye-catching as big-budget contemporaries while having a focus on a small, carefully constructed experience. Inked: A Tale of Love is a good example of what can be achieved by small but talented...
Mini Review Gleylancer - A Brilliant 16-Bit Shmup Sparkles With Mod Cons
Stick to it and believe in your power!
Retro re-releases falling outside the familiar safety of the M2, Hamster, or Code Mystics stables are usually one thing and one thing alone — a plain ROM bundled with some inoffensive but unspectacular emulation options. It’ll work, it’ll be official, and... that’s about it. If those bland goals had...
Mini Review Beast Breaker - A 'Pinball RPG' With Surprising Depth
A breakout hit
Beast Breaker places you in the role of Skipper, a brave little mouse who’s tasked with killing giant (well, to a mouse anyway…) beasts that threaten the peaceful lives of the towns and settlements populated by other adorable animals. You do so by engaging with gameplay which is one part pinball game, one part strategic RPG, which...
Mini Review Antonball Deluxe - Fun With Friends That Like Arkanoid
Wario Meh
Simpler, smaller games live or die on the strength of their central gimmick, an idea to grab hold of the player and force them to pay attention. Sadly, Antonball Deluxe's grand design doesn't quite live up to its WarioWare-esque presentation. So what’s the deal? You’ve got a pretty strong central idea in Antonball; think Arkanoid, but...
Mini Review DELTARUNE Chapter 2 - Undertale's Successor Continues In Thrilling Style
"Wow, peachboy, you went all out!!!"
Nearly three years on from the release of Deltarune Chapter 1, the long-awaited release of Chapter 2 is finally here. Available as a combined download on the eShop with the previous chapter, it’s far from a conclusive follow-up, and it introduces more questions than answers, but this generally feels like a...
Review Steel Assault - A Quick Bite To Savour With Classic Castlevania Flavour
*furiously shreds guitar*
Steel Assault is a pretty simple game. You play as a badass good guy whose job is to kill the badass bad guys, and you do so by violently blowing up a lot of minions, ninjas, and mech suits with the power of a lightning whip. It’s hard. Like, really hard. And just when it feels like it’s running short on ideas, the...
Review Actraiser Renaissance - A Noble Attempt At Resurrecting The Godly 16-Bit Classic
In the lap of the gods
The original Actraiser was a truly seminal release. Launched alongside the Super Famicom at the close of 1990, Quintet's skilful blend of platforming action and Populous-style world-building was immediately lauded as a stone-cold classic, and it's striking that in the 30 years that have passed since, it has never been...
Mini Review Project Winter - Social Deduction That Survives But Doesn't Thrive On Switch
Snow close, yet snow far
Project Winter is an interesting combination of survival and social deduction — think Among Us mixed with The Long Dark — that's brilliant in its best moments, but sadly kneecapped by the compromises you'll have to make to play it on Switch. The pitch may sound familiar: a team of between five and eight people, a few of...
Mini Review Fisti-Fluffs - A Cute But Limited Kitty Brawler With Control Issues
A whisker away from competent
Cats can be devilish creatures. They can be cool as a cucumber one moment, nuzzling their squishy faces into their owners’ neck, before flipping and ripping the furniture apart in a rage that would make even Gordon Ramsay quiver in his boots. Fisti-Fluffs is the latest game to feature the furious felines, focusing on...
Mini Review The Magnificent Trufflepigs - A Metal-Detecting Sim Short On Magnificence
beep beep beep BEEBEEBEEBEEP
From day one, The Magnificent Trufflepigs — a game about metal-detecting and romance — came out swinging for the fences with prestige TV powerhouse AMC (of Walking Dead, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad fame) as publishers. But is it the equivalent of a stash of rare Roman coins, or just another rusty bottlecap? The story...
Mini Review Necrobarista: Final Pour - Decaf On Switch, But Still A Potent Blend
Could be robusta, but has strong notes
While video games often provide a very different storytelling experience to books and of course TV / cinema, the continual growth in the popularity of visual novels demonstrates that different mediums can blend to excellent effect. Necrobarista: Final Pour is another welcome entry in the genre on Switch, and it...
Mini Review Golf Club: Wasteland - Surprisingly Engaging Post-Apocalyptic Putt Putt
Not a birdie in sight
If the world were to become a wasteland, chances are your main priorities will be obtaining food, water, shelter, and perhaps an abandoned Game Boy to pass the time (because you know those puppies can last for decades). It’s unlikely that playing golf would be at the top of your bucket list at that point, so it’s a good...
Mini Review Mayhem Brawler - A Surprisingly Accomplished Beat 'Em Up
In it for the long brawl
It may seem uncharitable to begin a review this way, but Mayhem Brawler is a terrible title for a game. It may as well be 'Fast Driver' or 'High Jumper'. It honestly makes it sound like the laziest, perpetually 89p-in-an-eShop-sale shovelware rubbish. It also does the game a vast disservice, because Mayhem Brawler is a...
Mini Review Townscaper - A Peaceful, Pretty, City-Building Plaything
If you build it, they will come
They say only the boring are ever bored. Back in the day you’d have been lucky to have a wooden stick to play with – unless it was sunny, in which case you could have the shadow as well. Kids these days with their mobile phones… where’s the imagination? It’s here! In Townscaper, a game which publisher Raw...
Mini Review Spelunky - An Indie Icon And Roguelite Royalty, Finally On Switch
"I am a man of fortune, and I must seek my fortune."
These days, it feels like every other indie game released is some take on the roguelite genre, but it wasn’t always like that. At one point it was even considered a relatively fresh take on game design, and one of the games to blaze the trail in this regard was Spelunky. After receiving an...
Mini Review Hoa - A Gentle Platformer With Stunning Studio Ghibli-Esque Art
Lovely Ghibli
Those of us who played Super Mario Bros. as kids had our minds blown the first time someone pointed out that World 1-1 taught you how to play the game. The Goomba comes along and makes you jump; you’re likely to bump your head and discover a mushroom; the pipe helps you jump onto the blocks and so on. Who’d have thought there was...
Mini Review Rush Rally Origins - An Easygoing, Accessible Rallying Remake
Rushing back to the start
With each iteration of Rush Rally, the series has assuredly improved with more detailed cars and environments, sharper controls, and an overall cleaner experience. In hindsight, then, the original Rush Rally can seem a tad dated in comparison to later entries, so developer Brownmaster has gone back and effectively remade...
Mini Review art of rally - Stylish Driving With Plenty Of Substance
Vincent van Go Go Go
Funselektor Labs’ art of rally looks like it should be the most accessible rally sim of all time. Its bright colours and abstract environments almost create a false sense of security, distracting from an otherwise remarkably deep and challenging rally title. It retains the same authentic gameplay from its original PC release,...
Mini Review ISLANDERS Console Edition - Serene, Superb, And More 'Tetris' Than 'SimCity'
There can be only one
What’s the meaning of a game? Is it the essentially human nature of interaction? The intricacies of the universe’s fundamental laws? What does it mean to be human? What is the universe? What’s the meaning of life? These are the questions Islanders Console Edition came to us to answer. Woah. In Islanders, you build mellow...
Mini Review Last Stop - Touching Tales Of London Life In Annapurna's Latest
The Tube is out there
As a storyteller, gaming has several personalities. Sometimes we go story-game-story-game with cutscene 'movies', or we pick through branching prose with interspersed decisions, or we read out comic book narratives interrupted by puzzle breaks. Sometimes the action is the story, like Breath of the Wild’s millions of private...
Mini Review Ayo The Clown - A Breezy Platformer That Yoshi Fans Will Enjoy
We all float down here
Ayo the Clown is something of a rarity; a pure 2.5D platform game set across bite sized linear stages. It owes a lot of its core gameplay ideas to classic Mario titles — and quite explicitly takes inspiration from various entries in the Yoshi series — with cute character design, levels that promote exploration and...
Mini Review Trigger Witch - Guns And Witchcraft Of A Different Type
Fly me to the moon
Ever found yourself wishing that games like The Legend of Zelda featured a boatload of badass guns in addition to its staple Master Sword? Well, no, neither have we, if we're being honest. But there's clearly a market for such a game, as eastasiasoft's Trigger Witch proves. Part adventure RPG, part twin-stick shooter, this...
Mini Review Unbound: Worlds Apart - All The Portals You Need
Is this cake a lie..?
Portals have always been cool, right? Valve's own genre-defining Portal remains to this day one of the greatest FPS games of all time, and we're sure even the most firm critic of the MCU can't watch the Endgame portal scene without feeling just a little bit emotional. Unbound: Worlds Apart makes smart use of portals as a...
Mini Review DOOM Eternal: The Ancient Gods - Part One - Rip, Tear, Repeat
Ah Hell, here we go again
It’s been eight months since the first expansion DLC for Doom Eternal launched on other systems and now it’s finally here on Switch. If that feels like a long time, consider that the main game took nine months to come to Switch: if anything, things are getting better! Sort of. The Ancient Gods Part One is a standalone...
Mini Review Alba: A Wildlife Adventure - A Relaxing, Off-Rails Pokémon Snap-Alike
A natural beauty
Alba: A Wildlife Adventure started its life as an Apple Arcade exclusive back in 2020 and launched to much critical acclaim. UsTwo's game tells the story of Alba, a curious young girl with a love for animals and nature. Vacationing with her grandparents on an idyllic island full of diverse wildlife, Alba and her best friend suddenly...
Mini Review Super Soccer Blast: America VS Europe - Simple But Sloppy Soccer
Boot it
The heavily delayed Euro 2020 tournament is just around the corner, and football fever is once again permeating the homes of countries worldwide. The Switch has several decent football games, but with EA launching frankly embarrassing yearly 'legacy' updates to its FIFA series on Switch, there are certainly gaps in the field for a midfield...
Mini Review Mighty Goose - Have A Gander At This Stylish Run 'N' Gunner
Come with us now, on a journey through time and space
Geese are really going from strength to strength, aren’t they? After conquering the indie scene in House House's Untitled Goose Game, the species is now taking to the sky with Mighty Goose, a side-scrolling shooter that offers a flavour of games like Metal Slug and Mercenary Kings. With minimal...
Mini Review Subnautica: Below Zero - A Rather Cool Sequel
Deep Blue Sequel
In Subnautica: Below Zero, the sequel to Unknown World's superlative Subnautica, you're once again back on planet 4546B, crash-landing rather spectacularly on the frozen far side of the alien world this time around where you're immediately thrown into a mystery surrounding the fate of your missing sister, Sam. It may have a slightly...
Mini Review Subnautica - A Wondrous Trip Under The Sea
The Life Aquatic
Subnautica really is one of the great indie early access success stories, a game honed to near perfection during a long gestation period on PC, with lots of input from avid fans helping to shape the core experience as it exists today. As a result what we've got here is a confident and constantly thrilling marriage of addictive...
Mini Review Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion - Witty Zelda-Inspired Top-Down Tax Avoidance
Vegan-friendly
No one likes paying taxes. Unfortunately, it’s something we all have to do and wilfully committing tax evasion is not something we would ever encourage anyone to do. Isn’t it wonderful, then, that you can evade as much tax as you like in Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, an action-RPG from developer Snoozy Kazoo. It may well be one...
Mini Review Picross S6 - A Bold New Direction? A Fresh Take? Eat Your Picross, Son
Here we go again!
Let’s get one thing out of the way upfront: Picross S6 is just more Picross. No unique bells or whistles, no interesting gameplay hooks or gimmicks to make this sequel ‘different’, no bold new direction for the franchise. It is simply a new collection of almost 500(!) puzzles for you to solve, all of which are completed in...
Mini Review Toree 3D - Low Poly, Pint-Sized Platforming For Pennies
Nostalgic 3D platforming? Balan Wonderworld, take note
Say what you like about fancy level design and clever mechanics that turn everything you know about the genre on its head, but when it comes to 3D platformers there's really only one reason we return to our favourites again and again: throwing Mario around a course feels fun on an instinctual,...
Mini Review Angry Golf - 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...
Mini Review Kingdom of Arcadia - A Pleasant Little Not-Quite-Metroidvania
Metroidvania-lite
Kingdom of Arcadia’s premise should be familiar to everyone who loves gaming. Admit it, we’ve all imagined being sucked into one of our favourite gaming worlds at one point or another. That’s exactly what happens to Sam, a normal boy who is suddenly pulled inside his father’s arcade cabinet. Now stuck inside the Kingdom of...
Mini Review Future Aero Racing S Ultra - Clever Ideas, But FAR From A New F-Zero
We want to WipEout its music from our memory, too
It’s not exactly the best time for fans of futuristic racing. With no new F-Zero on the horizon and the WipEout series seemingly dead, too, fans have to turn to the independent scene in the hope that something almost as good will do the trick. The Switch has a couple of decent options already...
Mini Review Astro Aqua Kitty - A Visually Sumptuous Shmup Sequel
Fur-miliar shoot-em-up gameplay
Astro Aqua Kitty is the direct sequel to the enjoyable arcade shoot-em-up Aqua Kitty UDX, featuring immediately familiar gameplay and mechanics, albeit presented in a far more ambitious package. Where Aqua Kitty UDX had your feisty felines battling underwater creatures in small, looping spaces, Astro Aqua Kitty breaks...
Mini Review Moon Raider - Cute Visuals Mask A Mediocre Metroidvania
Lara Croft goes ‘Jason X’
Another day, another attempt to replicate the Metroidvania titles of yore. Moon Raider is an attractive, yet wholly unremarkable game with barely a sliver of originality. Taking place on, well, the moon, you take on the role of Ava, whose mother has fallen ill. In a brief, rather poorly constructed introductory cutscene...
Mini Review Densha de Go! Hashiro Yamanote Line - Yes, You Just Drive A Train
Come on, baby, do the locomotion
The eShop trailer for Densha de Go!! Hashirou Yamanote Sen (“Go by train! Drive the Yamanote line”) is just a guy singing “Densha de Go!” repeatedly while trains drive. For series fans, nothing else need be said. But let’s fill in the blanks. Densha de Go! is a Japanese train driving series that started in...
Mini Review Later Alligator - A Big Goof Of A Game That'll Make You Smile Like A Crocodile
Snappy comedy in a bite-sized package
What do you get when you mix Professor Layton with Adventure Time? The comparison doesn't even begin to do it justice, but that's vaguely what to expect from the brilliant Later Alligator, brought to you by the brains and pens that made Baman Piderman (as well as a couple of episodes of the aforementioned
Mini Review Can't Drive This - A Unique Co-Op Experience That Runs Out Of Gas Too Soon
It’s gonna be a bumpy ride
Backseat drivers are just the worst, aren’t they? Constantly berating you for your driving skills (or lack thereof, in their eyes), gripping their knees, and inhaling through their teeth at every speed bump and sharp turn. If you happen to be one of these people (and look, that’s okay, we’re all friends here), then...