Tag: Reviews - Page 16
Review Out Of Line (Switch) - A Gorgeous Puzzle-Platformer That Doesn't Quite Pay Off
A game stuck in limbo
Out of Line really could have been so much more. Developed by Nerd Monkeys, it’s a puzzle platformer that feels like a riff on earlier modern classics such as PlayDead’s Limbo and Inside; it’s a linear experience that features action set-pieces and copious puzzles to drive its narrative, but never really capitalises on...
Review The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD (Switch) - A Remaster That Truly Soars
A Legend Reborn
Returning to The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword some ten whole years down the line from its original release, you may be expecting, as we certainly were, to be greeted by a core game that's unavoidably, naturally, beginning to show its age in some regards. It stands to reason, this is an entry in Nintendo's storied franchise that's...
Review Boomerang X (Switch) - Frantic First-Person Action That'll Keep You Coming Back
Ninja glidin’
Boomerangs are cool, right? Over the last few decades, we’ve seen a number of bonkers-looking video game weapons such as Cloud Strife’s Buster Sword, Samus’ hand cannon, and even Mario’s very own F.L.U.D.D device. But when it comes to real-life weapons, nothing quite screams cool like a deadly, razor sharp boomerang. It’s a...
Review Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (Switch) - A Fine Action-RPG With Performance Issues On Switch
Ysy like Sunday morning
It’s been a little over three years since we last saw a new entry in the Ys (rhymes with “geese”) franchise, when Lacrimosa of Dana broke the nearly twenty-year period where new entries skipped Nitnendo consoles. We absolutely loved that release, and now that Ys IX: Monstrum Nox is out, we can confidently say that it...
Review Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings Of Ruin (Switch) - A Franchise Riding High
An ideal introduction to the series
Monster Hunter is a series with a longstanding tradition of being impenetrable to casual first-time players, with systems layered upon systems and tricky combat. In the mainline series Monster Hunter: World provided a multi-platform mainstream breakthrough, while on Switch the recent Monster Hunter Rise followed...
Review Sky: Children Of The Light (Switch) - An Experience That Soars On Switch
A mobile marvel
When Sky: Children of the Light (or just ‘Sky’ in-game) launched back in 2019 on iOS, it was met with well-deserved critical acclaim. Some were dismayed that the follow-up to the iconic adventure title Journey would be shackled to the mobile world, but after laying eyes on the gorgeous visuals, simplistic gameplay, and inspired...
Review Zombies Ate My Neighbors & Ghoul Patrol (Switch) - A Classic That Deserves Better
Zombie. Zombie. Zombie. Compilation.
Well, this has been a long time coming. Lucasarts’ beloved top-down ghoul-‘em-up Zombies Ate My Neighbors has finally come to Switch, missing in action since its release on the Wii Virtual Console back in 2009. And this time it’s brought its follow-up, the somewhat-maligned Ghoul Patrol, in a...
Review Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! (Switch) - A Cute And Absolutely Horrifying Dating Sim
Thus with a kiss I die
You've probably heard of Doki Doki Literature Club. The anime dating simulator achieved massive popularity largely through word of mouth, and the Switch version — which this review is about, obviously — comes almost four years after its debut, which means you've either already played it, or you've heard about it and not...
Review Worms Rumble (Switch) - Fun Traversal, But A Limited Battle Royale Spin-Off
War has changed
If you’ve ever played a Worms game, chances are you know more or less how it works by now. Two or more teams wage war within the confines of a 2D destructible arena, each taking turns to make their move in a strategic battle of wits and firepower. It’s a formula that, despite some missteps here and there, simply works. So when...
Review Destroy All Humans! (Switch) - Ray Guns And Probes Abound In This Silly, Simplistic Remake
Alien Resurrection?
Black Forest Games' remake of 2005's Destroy All Humans! issues a warning to players upon launching into its campaign for the very first time. The overall experience, it says, has been upgraded but the content, the story, words and images, remain the same and may be shocking to modern human brains. It's an honest acknowledgement...
Review Mushihimesama (Switch) - A Cave Classic With The Right Kind Of Bugs
A bug's life
Arcade shoot-em-ups in the 1980s may have started out as largely science fiction, but there have long been efforts in the genre to differentiate games with unique themes. One of the most interesting of these is Cave’s Mushihimesama (“Bug Princess”), which takes place in a world filled with enormous insects. It was initially...
That’s the spirit
Just how many Metroidvanias is too many? It really feels at this point like the Switch is being completely overloaded with titles from the genre, but if we continue to receive quality experiences like Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights, then that’s a-okay with us! Despite its odd title (which is also a blatant nod to the...
Review Disgaea 6: Defiance Of Destiny (Switch) - A Series High Point, Just Not For Performance
Zed's dead, dood. Zed's dead.
Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny feels like an oddly topical title for Nippon Ichi Software. About two years ago, the company effectively ran out of money following a catastrophic mobile game launch, and it certainly appeared for a while that Nippon Ichi was going to go under. Somehow, the publisher managed to weather the...
Review Mario Golf: Super Rush (Switch) - A Solid Swing, But Par For The Course
Don't worry, not a fore out of ten
Camelot is a studio that has, for many years, dutifully churned out mascot sports games for Nintendo. Players often go back to the retro days when pinpointing the company's best efforts, though if you go by most recent form — Mario Tennis Aces — the studio is still doing good work. After serving up court-based...
Review Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (Switch) - A Rock Solid Switch Port For A Pair Of Pros
Vertuous Mission
If there's ever been a pair of videogames that need little to no introduction, whose glowing reputations proceed them to the extent that everyone from tired old pros to fresh-faced newcomers has surely heard of them by this point, it's the genre-defining Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and its sublime sequel. The first two entries in a...
Review Legend Of Mana (Switch) - The Best Way To Play A 21-Year-Old RPG Experiment
Confusing, but charming
It’s interesting to see how the Mana series has been treated over the years, both by Square and the general public. Secret of Mana was widely considered one of the best RPGs of its time and even today carries quite a bit of clout, but many of the other titles either didn’t get localized or arrived overseas years after...
Review LEGO Builder's Journey (Switch) - A Chill, Beautiful Building Experience
New kid on the block
As an adult, LEGO usually means a busy Sunday afternoon spent with a chunky manual, tons of tiny plastic bags, and liberal use of the brick separator tool, because you accidentally skipped ten steps and now the thing is stuck to the other thing and you tried to pry it off but your nails are too short and maybe you need to take a...
Review Alex Kidd In Miracle World DX (Switch) - Vintage Sega Hero In Mediocre Remake
Putting the sham in Roshambo
We know we're risking the ire of several hundred very cross Sega Master System fans by saying this, but we have to be blunt — the original Alex Kidd in Miracle World, while inarguably an important and formative classic, is and always has been an exceptionally flawed game. Don't get us wrong, there's plenty to like and...
Review Overboard! (Switch) - Get Away With Murder In This Thrilling 'Youdunnit'
Murderer's Mask
Veronica Villensey is many things: a former actress, a wife to a wealthy husband, and now, her biggest role of all: a murderer. But, to be fair, the bastard deserved it. When Veronica pitches her dear husband Malcolm over the side of the cruise ship, she sets in motion events that she could neither have predicted nor evaded —...
Review Beautiful Desolation (Switch) - Good Ideas Lost Down Obscure Pathways
Possibly the most aptly-named game ever
At first, we assumed that Beautiful Desolation was some kind of lost late-nineties PC game. Its isometric perspective and visually spectacular pre-rendered scenes immediately called the likes of the original Fallout and Planescape: Torment to mind, and this comparison was cemented with the user interface,...
Review Winds Of Change (Switch) - A Polished, Absorbing, Animal-Filled Visual Novel
Do you hear that?
Shall we get this out of the way up front? This game features 'furry' characters. If you're already heading to the comments to issue a humorous barb, please re-examine your life. Winds of Change is an accomplished, heartfelt and enjoyable visual novel that does not deserve to be held up against the invented, ludicrous stigma of...
Review Mundaun (Switch) - A Rich, Sepia-Toned First-Person Horror Show
There's evil resident in this village
Take our advice: if you ever receive a suspiciously detail-light missive informing you that a loved one has passed away and urging you not to return to your home village, trust us on this one – just let it lie as advised. Let them lie, we suppose, because no good has ever come from going to a village, as...
Review Game Builder Garage (Switch) - A Toolbox Of Terrifying Potential
Make your own damned games
Game Builder Garage is a game where you make games yourself rather than letting trained developers do it for you. If that sounds like a lot of hard work then Game Builder Garage probably isn’t going to be your flavour of choice. But if that sounds like a lot of hard work that you’d actually like to have a pop at, the...
Review Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection (Switch) - Ryu Hayabusa Deserves Better Than This
Ninja Gaiden Whack
Whether you prefer Ninja Gaiden Sigma over Ninja Gaiden Black, or 'vanilla' part two over its enhanced edition, or don’t really care either way and just wanna get on with slicing and dicing everything in your path, the prospect of enjoying Team Ninja’s legendary action series on Switch is a pretty tantalising one. Here is a...
Review Warhammer Age Of Sigmar: Storm Ground (Switch) - Ruined By Roguelike Repetition
Flawhammer
Games Workshop – where nobody has a nice time. Okay, let us clarify; it’s entirely possible to have a nice time playing their games or painting their models or – heck – even chatting to their legendarily helpful and inclusive staff. But pick a world, pick a game and we’d be hard-pressed to say that any character is having a...
Review DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power (Switch) - A Kid-Friendly Alternative To Grimdark DC
These girls just wanna have fun
These days, when the average person thinks of DC, they tend to picture the dark, ‘gritty’ tone of the DCEU movies (along with the infamous ‘Martha’ scene, of course). Despite attempts to break away from this with the mildly enjoyable Shazam! and the frankly dire theatrical cut of Justice League, miserable...
Review World's End Club (Switch) - A Real Looker Spoiled By Hit-And-Miss Storytelling
"I said I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard."
Zero Escape and Danganronpa are two of the most notable names in the visual novel space, so fans were understandably excited when the creators of these two juggernauts were revealed to be teaming up for a new project: World’s End Club. After a soft launch on Apple Arcade,...
Mini Review Astalon: Tears Of The Earth (Switch) - Likeable, High Fantasy Metroidvania Action
The Three Musketeers
Astalon: Tears of the Earth is yet another retro-inspired action platformer on Switch eShop, with a sprinkling of light RPG elements. It tells the tale of an unspecified planet that falls into chaos after an endless battle between its many kingdoms. After decades of surviving in the wasteland, a band of three heroes journey into...
Layer scrape
Back in the mid-1990s, when Capcom was feeling pressure from 3D fighters like Tekken and Virtua Fighter, they published their own 3D version of Street Fighter called Street Fighter EX. It was actually outsourced to a company called Arika, founded by ex-Capcom employee Akira Nishitani, who had previously worked as a designer on Street...
Bombs Away! ...Eventually
With an influx of incredible modern takes on classic titles such as Tetris 99, Pac-Man 99, and the short-lived Super Mario Bros. 35, Super Bomberman R Online feels like the video game equivalent of a kid picked last for the sports team; an altogether scrappier, less elegant battle royale title than its peers, but one that...
Review Sludge Life (Switch) - A Crude, Delightfully Disposable First-Person Graffiti-'Em-Up
Basic sludgeanomics
Thug life. Slug life. Thudge life. Sludge Life. It’s a pretty simple A-to-B transition when you really look at it. Okay, it’s not. At all. But you try and open a review for a game like this... and what is there to say? Sludge Life is a game where you do stuff. Exist at your own pace. In this game, you — as Marge Simpson...
Review Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (Switch) - A Punishing But Pleasurable Vintage Dungeon Crawler
Baldur? Well, it has been twenty years...
It's been twenty long, long years since this Gamecube classic thrilled us all with its quasi top-down hack-and-slash dungeon crawling action. And time has not been kind... to us. This game is really hard! Have we been spoiled by much friendlier, less aggressive takes on the genre that have proliferated in...
Review Pathway (Switch) - Competent XCOM-Style Combat, But Is That Enough?
It belongs in a museum
Every now and then, you play one of those games that just feels a little bit too late. It’s not that a game in this category is bad or doesn’t have good ideas, but sometimes it’s just a victim of the current gaming landscape. How many Metroidvanias have you played by now? What about roguelites or 2D
Review Maneater (Switch) - You're Gonna Need A Better Combat System
Calamity Island?
Tripwire Interactive’s Maneater really does have itself a pretty killer premise. Letting players loose on its open world setting of Port Clovis as a deeply scarred bull shark in search of revenge, it’s an unashamedly silly, hyper violent and completely throwaway experience that should make for a pretty great videogame. It...
Review Wonder Boy: Asha In Monster World (Switch) - A Fine Revival, Faithful To A Fault
No boys allowed
It’s been a beautiful time for Sega revivals as of late, with games like Streets of Rage 4 and Panzer Dragoon: Remake bringing back old classics. One of the most prolific has been Westone’s Wonder Boy/Monster World series, which has seen no less than three entries – first, a remake of the Master System game The Dragon’s Trap...
Review King Of Seas (Switch) - Naval Combat Gets Grindy After A Promising Start
Yo, ho! (a grinder's life for me)
3DClouds, the studio behind racers such as All-Star Fruit Racing, Xenon Racer, and Race With Ryan have taken time away from the circuit and are back with a procedurally generated pirate adventure that charges players with becoming the one true King of the Seas. There's a touch of Sid Meier's Pirates here, a dash of...
Review Knockout City (Switch) - Dodge This Superb Squad-Based Arcade Action At Your Peril
Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge
As seasoned dodgeball professionals over here at Nintendo Life, we're well aware that the most important aspect in creating a successful video game based on this king of sports is nailing the sound that a ball makes as it smashes powerfully into the face and/or body of your opponent. It really needs to get that...
Review Rise Of The Slime (Switch) - Slay The Spire Lite, With Tiddly Text
It's time to slime
Forget the Age of Aquarius (what do you mean, you already did?) — this is the age of the roguelike deckbuilder. If you're into cards, procedural generation, dungeon crawling and turn-based combat, then buddy, you've come to the right review, because Rise of the Slime is all of those things. Yes, if you've enjoyed the likes of...
Review Miitopia (Switch) - A Daft DIY Adventure With Boundless Appeal, If You Make The Effort
RPGii
If there’s one 3DS exclusive we didn’t expect to make the leap to the Switch, it’s Miitopia. The oddball RPG starring you and your friends has been given the HD treatment, but does it really have a place on a system so much more powerful than the 3DS? The story of Miitopia is nothing too extravagant: the appropriately named Dark Lord...
Review SnowRunner (Switch) - A Slow And Steady Off-Road Trucker
An ice change of pace
The arrival of MudRunner on the Switch in 2018 was a pleasantly surprising one. The game had previously been released on other formats a year earlier, and developer Saber Interactive did a surprisingly decent job of porting it over to the Switch, even chucking in its American Wilds expansion as part of the package. Its sequel,...
Review Layers Of Fear 2 (Switch) - A Decent Premise, But A Disappointing Sequel
Layers of Persevere
Polish developer Bloober Team has produced something of a mixed bag thus far when it comes to their horror/psychological thriller game output, with the likes of Observer and the first Layers of Fear definitely feeling like their most successful efforts to date. However, for every riveting, Rutger Hauer-flavoured cyberpunk horror...
Review Aerial_Knight's Never Yield (Switch) - A Super Stylish Yet Straightforward Runner
Super style over substance
If there's one thing that Aerial_Knight's Never Yield has got totally nailed down, it's a seriously funky sense of style. This is a super cool side-scrolling runner from Neil "Aerial_Knight" Jones that really does look and sound the absolute business. However, it's also one that's somewhat lacking in the gameplay...
Review Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster (Switch) - The Best Version Of An Ageing Classic
A Demi-fiendishly good time
By this point in time, it’d be easy to believe that the Persona series is Atlus’ flagship franchise due to how easily audiences seem to have connected with the lighthearted high schooler antics featured there. In actuality, Persona is itself a spin-off of Shin Megami Tensei, Atlus’ true flagship franchise which has...
Review Deiland: Pocket Planet Edition (Switch) - Princely Patience Is Required
Waiting for Space-Godot
Another day, another Animal Crossing-meets-Harvest Moon-with-a-twist game. Deiland: Pocket Planet Edition is a farming, fighting, fishing and foraging game set in space, with a tiny, spherical planet upon which to do all of those activities: New Leaf by way of Le Petit Prince, if you will. And you are, in fact, a petit...
Review Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind (Switch) - This Is The Spooky One
A game about murder, and proper queueing technique
We've already covered a lot about the history and provenance of the Famicom Detective Club remakes in our review for The Missing Heir — the first game in the duology, released solely in Japan in 1988 — so you might want to read that review as well if you want the full picture, or you're...
Review Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir (Switch) - A Delightful And Silly Mystery
Ace Attorney's grandfather returns triumphant
Famicom Detective Club is brilliant. Famicom Detective Club is also incredibly stupid, sometimes. But it's still brilliant. It's both, at the same time, like a child who's just argued that, if glue is non-toxic, then there's really nothing wrong with them eating a whole cup of it. Sure, sticky child!...
Review Subnautica + Subnautica Below Zero Double Pack (Switch) - An Accomplished Double Dive
What Lies Beneath
One of the very best survival titles currently available on any platform, Subnautica is a hugely immersive underwater epic that combines survival, crafting, open world exploration and an intriguing narrative to truly spectacular effect. It's one of our all-time favourite games and so, when we heard that both the original and it's...
Review Raiden IV x Mikado Remix (Switch) - Another Astoundingly Good Shmup For Switch
Mix it up
Back in the late eighties when 2D shooting games were a dominant form rather than a somewhat niche genre, a particular kind of shmup became very popular indeed. While the likes of Capcom’s 1942 certainly set the groundwork, the success of Toaplan’s separate 1987 arcade releases Twin Cobra and Flying Shark made hard-nosed, unembellished...
Review Before I Forget (Switch) - A Poignant Portrayal Of Dementia
Full of colour and emotion
It's not often that a game with a high profile tackles a particularly difficult and emotive illness, though when they get it right they're rightly lauded for bringing these topics into the gaming medium. Before I Forget earned attention and headlines - with some notable award nominations - for its portrayal of dementia,...
Review SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off (Switch) - A Bit Undercooked
We do this for forty years, and then we die
Though not always deserved, mobile games have long since obtained a reputation for being rather shallow and money-grubbing affairs. And though the mobile space actually accounts for the lion’s share of the profits raked in by the game industry year over year, this monetary growth is seen by many to come...