Tag: Reviews - Page 40
Review Starlink: Battle For Atlas - A Shining Example Of Open World Star Fox Done Right
Ubisoft’s new odyssey will have a Mass Effect
It takes guts to try and revive a dormant genre, especially one that burned bright in the zeitgeist before extinguishing itself just as fast. Activision and Harmonix tried such a feat with Guitar Hero Live and Rock Band 4 back in 2015, but their hopes of a resurgent rhythm-action craze never found the...
Review The World Ends With You: Final Remix - A Stylish Reimagining Of The DS Cult Classic
That power is yet unknown
Nintendo certainly transformed the gaming landscape when it launched the Nintendo DS line of systems, offering up a distinct two-screen experience that had seldom been attempted before in hardware. Though there were plenty of first-party releases through the years that did a great job of showing off the dual-screen concept,...
Review Luigi's Mansion - Experience The GameCube Classic The Way It Was Meant To Be Played
3D support only took 17 years!
In the most recent Nintendo Direct, the Big N shocked plenty of fans by announcing a third entry in the Luigi’s Mansion series; while the franchise enjoys a loyal fan base, it was nevertheless a very pleasant surprise. Alongside Luigi’s Mansion 3, a port of the original title to 3DS was announced as well - the...
Review Chasm - A Procedurally-Generated Metroidvania That Pleases Rather Than Dazzles
If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you
Procedural generation is something that can be tough to balance when developing a game; too much reliance on it can make for a game that feels insincere, like it was artificially churned out by an algorithm, while too little can often extend the development time considerably to reach a...
The main event
If you’ve ever descended into the deep well of professional wrestling, you’ll know Mexico has produced a scene unlike any other. South of the border, lucha libre is more than an oily entertainment form - it’s a mystical fiction full of real-life superheroes and villains who do battle every week in the ‘squared circle’. From...
Review Child of Light: Ultimate Edition - A Painterly Action RPG Which Still Shines Four Years On
Roses are red, Violets are blue, Switch ports are hot, Here’s one for you
In 2014 Ubisoft released this striking platform/RPG hybrid across a whole bunch of platforms, including the plucky Wii U, and now it’s coming to Switch. This 'ultimate' edition contains all the extra content previously released, including the Golem’s Plight mission, a...
Review Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Owltimate Edition - Still A Real Hoot Five Years On
Sister act
Five years on from its original release on Wii U, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is doing the fashionable thing and making the jump to Nintendo Switch. Now with a fancy new Owltimate Edition tagline and some extra content, this 2.5D platformer is looking to bring its creative brand of leaping and running to another generation of Nintendo...
Review Super Mario Party - The Life And Soul Of The Party Once More
It's back again, and about time too
To say that the Mario Party series has had a turbulent history would be an understatement; what started out as the palm-breaking king of all party video games has lost a great deal of its reputation in recent years due to a number of less-than-stellar design decisions. Super Mario Party presents itself as a return...
Review Disgaea 1 Complete - The Best Way To Rediscover This Turn-Based Tactical Triumph
Aye Aye Dood!
Shortly after Switch’s launch, Disgaea 5 Complete brought the tactical RPG series’ unique brand of colour, combos and comically excessive levelling-up to the console. A year and a half later it’s joined by an HD remaster of the game that kicked things off fifteen years ago, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness – now rechristened Disgaea 1...
Review SEGA AGES Thunder Force IV - The Mega Drive's Most Impressive Shmup Hits Switch
Like greased lightening
While the series has its roots on Japanese computers and there have even been entries on the SNES, PlayStation and PlayStation 2, Thunder Force has always felt like a Sega series – and as of 2016, that's officially the case as the company now owns the rights to all of Tecnosoft's back catalogue. It's perhaps unsurprising...
Review Dragon Ball FighterZ - A Stunning Switch Port That Will Leave You Breathless
What you Super Saiyan?
Nine months after release on competing platforms, Dragon Ball FighterZ has finally made its way to Switch. Back in January, when our sister site Push Square reviewed the original release, they gave it a glowing 9/10 score, and for good reason. Even by PlayStation 4 standards, FighterZ is breathtaking. So, how does one of...
Review Mega Man 11 - A Glorious Return To Form For One Of Gaming's Greatest Heroes
Return of the king
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Mega Man in action. 2010’s retro revival Mega Man 10 was the last time the Blue Bomber received a new release, with Capcom being seemingly hesitant to give the character a spotlight after the very public departure of Keiji Inafune, the iconic designer of the robotic hero. Since the...
Review SEGA AGES Sonic The Hedgehog - Feel The Need For Speed (Yet Again) On Switch
But how many versions do you really need?
If you're a gamer of a certain age, then you're bound to have played the original Sonic the Hedgehog. Even if you weren't a Mega Drive / Genesis owner back in the day, the Blue Blur's blistering debut has been ported to a wide range of Nintendo systems over the years, including GameCube, Game Boy Advance,...
Review The Escapists: Complete Edition - A Likeable Prison Caper Rendered Irrelevant By Its Sequel
Old con
"I can't go back" is the common refrain of the ex-con in crime fiction. And while it remains a fine game in and of itself, Switch owners might find themselves expressing a similar sentiment about The Escapists. Team17 made the curious decision to launch The Escapists 2 prior to The Escapists on Nintendo's hybrid platform. It's a piece of...
Review Banner Saga Trilogy (Switch)
A banner day
As hinted by the title, Banner Saga Trilogy is an epic Viking story where every choice you make directly impacts how your journey unfolds. It combines strategic turn-based combat with gripping text-based decision-making to draw you into a fictional world inspired by Norse mythology and filled with rich lore, as well as plenty of...
Review South Park: The Stick of Truth - Blame Canada For This Excellent Switch RPG
Super cereal
With South Park: The Fractured But Whole proving that turn-based RPGs set in Colorado’s most famous made-up town really can work - and work really well, at that - it was only a matter of time before the original made its way onto Nintendo Switch. Originally developed by Obsidian - of Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity fame -...
Review FIFA 19 - The Best Soccer Game On Switch, But It's Hard Not To Feel Short-Changed
Here we go Higuain
Last year, EA Sports reignited its relationship with Nintendo by bringing a FIFA game to one of its home consoles for the first time in half a decade. FIFA 18 delivered a solid football experience on Switch, causing us to confidently declare it “the best Nintendo FIFA ever”. This wasn’t exactly difficult to achieve, though...
Review Alwa's Awakening - An Authentic Throwback To Gaming's 8-Bit Past In More Ways Than One
Short, but sweet
There’s a fine line being walked nowadays with the proliferation of indie games modeled after the 8 or 16-bit releases of the good ol’ days. On one hand, it allows for retro games to rise above the limits of their time so that their full potential can be realized through weaving in modern game design where needed, such as in...
Review Arena of Valor - China's Megahit MOBA Shines On Nintendo Switch
A valiant effort
Mobile game ports are no stranger to Nintendo Switch. The hybrid console is practically swimming in titles that first drew breath on smartphones, but few of these touchscreen-focused pieces of software can hold a torch to the sheer significance of MOBA superhit, Arena of Valor. It is, arguably, one of - if not the - biggest game in...
Review TowerFall - This Couch Co-Op Classic Is Perfectly Suited To Nintendo Switch
Towering over the competition
Back in 2012, the gaming world was taken by storm by the announcement of the OUYA, a crowdfunded attempt at creating a major console platform geared specifically towards indies. Though we could easily write a thesis on all the reasons why the OUYA ended up being an enormous failure, the hardware did have some saving...
Review Armello - Anthropomorphic Antics In A Lush Board Game World
Crowning glory
Board games have long remained a physical alternative to the digital delights of video games, with their multi-coloured dice, cardboard pieces and overly-complicated rules, but the news that much-loved classics such as Carcassonne and Pandemic are Switch-bound means we're finally seeing the mediums united once and for all. However,...
Review This Is The Police 2 - An Uncompromising Look At Law Enforcement That Often Misses The Mark
Police brutality
New Sharpwood sheriff Lilly Reed is way out of her depth. She's conscientious and competent, but far too meek to corral the motley crew of misogynistic knuckleheads that make up her police force. Sheriff Reed soon makes the fateful decision to enrol the assistance of one Jack Boyd, the corrupt cop you controlled in the first This Is...
Review Hover - The Closest You'll Get To Jet Set Radio On Switch
Jet, Set, go!
It’s telling that French indie studios Fusty Game and Midgard dropped the Revolt of Gamers subtitle for Hover. For all its attempts at coolness and swaggery, nothing screams ‘How do you do, fellow kids?’ like the use of the word ‘gamer’. It’s a term this game uses a lot in its story to denote a team of young rebels hoping...
Review STAY - An Intriguing Concept That Might Just Outstay Its Welcome
One is the loneliest number
We’re all a little guilty of peering into the stats screen of a game to see our overall playtime. Sometimes it’s out of pride, providing a glimpse into the sheer dedication you’ve put into your favourite new obsession, or perhaps you’re simply morbidly curious to discover how much of your life you’ve spent doing...
Review Velocity 2X - A Finely-Tuned Arcade Extravaganza That Will Seriously Test Your Talents
Faster than greased lightning
In 1975, a Hungarian psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (try pronouncing that one out loud) coined the term 'flow', referring to a state of mind in which one becomes so enchanted or focused on something that all sense of space and time outside of that focus point essentially seems to disappear. The state of flow...
Review Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse - An Old-School Point-And-Click Adventure In Every Sense
Puzzlingly pedestrian
The Switch isn’t short of superb narrative adventures. From Night in the Woods to Thimbleweed Park, via Oxenfree and Gone Home, the platform’s got fans of loquacious conversation and perplexing puzzles pretty well covered. Now, into this mix, comes another blast from the recent past (something the Switch sees a lot of, of...
Review Scribblenauts Mega Pack - Two Amazing Games That Are Worth Revisiting On Switch
Word play
It’s safe to say the Scribblenauts franchise hasn’t had the best of starts on Nintendo Switch. Despite all the charm and charisma in the world, the lifeless Scribblenauts: Showdown somehow took all those likeable qualities, boiled them down to their bare mechanics and packaged them up as a boring party game. Would that be it for...
Review The Gardens Between - A Chilled-Out Puzzle Title That Plays With Time Itself
Island time
For most games, it takes a little while for you potentially discover a moment that makes you exclaim out loud or grin like an idiot from ear to ear. But for The Gardens Between, that first ‘wow’ experience comes in its opening few minutes, and more keep coming thick and fast as you realise just how clever the time-bending nature of...
Review Cities: Skylines - A SimCity Successor That Struggles To Shine On Switch
The sky has a limit
Have you ever aspired to a seat of mayoral power? Fancy yourself as the next Mayor Quimby? Okay, perhaps he’s not the best example of how to run a town, but spend a few hours with the power Cities: Skylines bestows upon you and you’ll begin to understand why Diamond Joe so often ran away from his duties. There’s just so...
Review Reigns: Kings & Queens - It's Like Game Of Thrones Meets Tinder
Swipe right to smite
T’was the year 600 and King James did sit upon the accursed throne and verily decree that the age of darkness was at an end; henceforth, he would steer the kingdom away from the rocks of corruption toward prosperity. Forsooth, a kind and noble sovereign was he! Unfortunately, the harvest was an absolute disaster, all his...
Review Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition HD - An Inferior Clone Of An Already Divisive Game
Not quite fit for a king
It took Square Enix twelve years to finally finish development on Final Fantasy XV, and while the end result was a good game by many measures, it also felt needlessly bloated and meandering in many ways. There’s a saying going around now that Final Fantasy XV went from being the game that would never come out, to being the...
Review Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle - Nirvana For Side-Scrolling Fighter Fans
Coins not required
While it can't take credit for creating the genre, Capcom is arguably one of the most important companies ever to work in the realm of side-scrolling beat 'em ups. Entries like Renegade, Double Dragon and Golden Axe may have established the template of the humble 'belt scroller', but it was Capcom's seminal 1989 effort Final Fight...
Review Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country - So Much More Than Just DLC
Golden time
By the time Xenoblade Chronicles 2 launched in December 2017, Switch fans were near exhausted with content. Less than a year into its launch, Nintendo’s burgeoning new hardware had the best Zelda yet, the return of its most-lauded Mario Kart, the glorious multiplayer action of Splatoon 2
Review Dust: An Elysian Tail - Another Classic Indie Gem Makes Its Way To Switch
Dust to dust
It’s crazy to think it’s been six years since Dean Dodrill’s enchanting anthropomorphic action-RPG first slashed its way into our lives. Back when Xbox 360 - of all places - was the place to be for up and coming indie talent, Dust: An Elysian Tail emerged as a bright new addition to the Metroidvania genre long before it became the...
Review Surgeon Simulator CPR - You'll Never Look At Hospitals In The Same Way Again
Medical malady
This operation isn’t going well. It was meant to be a ‘simple’ heart transplant. Take the old ticker out, pop in the new one. Easy. This isn’t brain surgery after all (well, not yet, at least). But what should be a routine procedure in the theatre turns into a bloodbath of Eli Roth-style proportions. We’ve smashed the poor...
Review Wasteland 2: Director's Cut - A Less-Than-Perfect Port Of A Turn-Based Tactical Classic
Your choice of beige, brown or rust
You hear that? That is the sound of companies scrambling to flog their back catalogue on Switch before the eShop becomes oversaturated. You might think that ship has sailed, but publishers continue to tout impressive sales figures on Nintendo’s ‘homeheld’, so next up is inXile’s Wasteland 2: Director’s...
Review Undertale - A Postmodern RPG Classic That Every Fan Of The Genre Should Play
"Aren't you happy?"
RPGs have been around for nearly as long as the modern gaming industry has, and though genre standards are constantly being raised through the generations, there tends to be a homogenous sameness that many RPGs inevitably fall victim into. Octopath Traveler, for example, is a fantastic game, but it’s about as firmly traditional...
Review Haunted Dungeons: Hyakki Castle - Interesting Ideas Squandered By Dull Design
Crawling in the dark
First-person dungeon crawlers have been around for a long time, and like most genres, they’ve evolved over the years in order to find new relevance. Some have stuck to the classic turn-based RPG model and thrown in modern visuals and humour - such as the recent Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk - while others have followed...
Review Broforce - Infectious Low-Brow Blasting Fun With Your Favourite Movie Heroes
Bros before foes!
Switch owners have binged on a rich diet of sophisticated 2D platformers of late, and sometimes what's needed is a gaming palette cleanser before you dive back in. In that regard, Broforce is like an action-platforming sorbet in between meaty courses of Dead Cells and Hollow Knight. It's big, dumb, disposable fun in the best...
Review Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 03: Vehicle Kit - Death By Cardboard Or The Best Labo Kit Yet?
You'll need to be a master builder for sure
The first two Nintendo Labo kits offered two very different takes on what was – and still is – a groundbreaking concept. The Variety Kit allowed you to create a whole host of gadgets each backed by their own interactive experiences, while the Robot Kit had a sharper focus and arguably presented a more...
Review The Spectrum Retreat - A Portal-Style Puzzler Worthy Of Your Attention
Four stars on TripAdvisor!
If we were to knock together an old-fashioned ‘someting meets something’ comparison to describe The Spectrum Retreat, ‘Gone Home-meets-Portal in the hotel from The Shining’ would probably fit the bill. That conveys the tone of this FPS narrative puzzler but saddles it with expectations any developer would struggle...
Review NBA 2K19 - Effortlessly The Best Basketball Sim On Nintendo Switch
Court is in session
It’s no coincidence that this NBA 2K19’s MyCareer story is called ‘The Way Back’. Following on from the issues that dogged last year’s entry on every platform - namely the heavy-reliance on microtransactions and glacial pace of progression for those not willing to sink extra money into it - developer Visual Concepts is...
Review Senran Kagura Reflexions - Cheap Titillation Masquerading As A Love Story
A massage simulator that’s strictly NSFW
With so many unique hardware features at its disposal, Nintendo Switch has given developers plenty of inspiration when it comes to using the HD Rumble and gyro-controls of the Joy-Cons. We’ve aimed down imaginary sights with triple-A first-person shooters, pulled off many a routine with dancing simulators...
Review Time Carnage - A Silly But Mildly Enjoyable Tribute To Classic Light Gun Shooters
Time to kill
It’s surprising there aren’t more VR ports on Nintendo Switch. Sure, you can’t enjoy the sensory immersion of wearing a headset, but with the support for motion-controls via the Joy-Cons there’s a huge amount of potential to utilise the console’s unique hardware features. Thumper made a fine port from VR to Switch and Surgeon...
Review Bastion - A Captivating Indie Gem That Hasn't Been Dulled By The Passage Of Time
You've done good, Kid
The debate over whether or not video games should be considered an artform will likely never reach a firm conclusion, but that doesn’t stop developers from trying to show how a game can be something more meaningful and touching than mere disposable entertainment. Enter Bastion, the debut release from Supergiant Games, which...
Review Labyrinth Of Refrain: Coven Of Dusk - A Dungeon-Crawling RPG That's Not For Kids
Puppet power
The classic dungeon-crawling RPG has been around for a long time. From the Ultima games right through to the Wizardry series, we’ve been treated to a genre that’s remained very niche, but still incredibly compelling when in the hands of the right developer. So when Nippon Ichi - the Japanese studio most commonly known for...
Review Gone Home - A Peerless Masterclass In Interactive Storytelling Comes To Switch
Family values
We’re all happy at how well Nintendo Switch is performing - not just because we’re obvious Ninty fans, but because such success has opened the door to a much wider and diverse range of titles than any other platform in the Big N’s history. So it’s fitting that something as niche and avant-garde as the 'walking simulator' is...
Review Valkyria Chronicles 4 - A Sublime Strategy Experience On Switch
At ease, soldier
Suffice to say, the release history of Sega’s Valkyria Chronicles series has been uneven, both in terms of quality and availability. After the original game — which is due to arrive on Switch later this year —successfully kicked the series off on home consoles, the sequel only saw a release on PSP, while the third game (also...
Review Azure Reflections - Bullet Heaven Or Hell?
Touhou time
There’s nothing quite like a good bullet hell game. Done right, it can be the perfect marriage of chaos and order, where lightning-quick reflexes, a constant sense of spacing and a bucketful of luck can be all that stands between you and a hell of bullets. Switch already has a handful of great examples to its name - including Danmaku...
Review Fernz Gate - A Retro-Style RPG With Some Interesting Ideas
When worlds collide
You’ve really got to feel sorry for developer releasing a traditional RPG on Nintendo Switch in the wake of Octopath Traveler. Square Enix’s throwback summer release may have had a few niggling issues, but it took all the things we loved from the glory days of Final Fantasy and made them feel fresh and new once more. Fernz...