Switch Game Reviews
Review NBA 2K21 - Ignore The Microtransactions And You've Got The Best Basketball Game On Switch
Hoops: they did it again
Say what you will about 2K Sports, but it certainly knows how to get the most out of the Switch hardware. NBA 2K21 is the fourth of its basketball games to find its way onto Nintendo’s system, and by this point, the spectre of NBA 2K18’s botched launch is a distant memory; these days, the series looks tremendous on...
Mini Review Ary And The Secret Of Seasons - A Cut-Price Zelda With A Unique Mechanic
Not to be confused with Ori
Jumping into Ary and the Secret of Seasons – an action-adventure title – we’re immediately reminded of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. We’re introduced to our heroine Ary, who, by playing with her toy figures, recounts an ancient story of an evil mage vanquished by a legendary warrior. Before too long, Ary is...
Review Jump Force Deluxe Edition - A Textbook Example Of Style Over Substance
Jump Farce
Spike Chunsoft's Jump Force arrives on Switch more than a full year after its release on other platforms and it is, as it was then, a very mixed bag of anime nuts. Jump Force Deluxe Edition is an easy to learn, easy to master button-mashing brawler with a huge roster of over fifty characters from the illustrious archives of Shonen Jump...
Review Captain Tsubasa: Rise Of New Champions - Not Your Typical Football Game, But Fun All The Same
Manga-chester United
Captain Tsubasa has been around for nearly 40 years. Initially appearing as a series in the best-selling manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump in April 1981, he’s seen numerous comics, animated series, movies and, yes, video games over the years. It’s one of the most well-loved series in Japan and is credited with contributing...
Review PGA Tour 2K21 - A Good Starting Point For Golf Fans On Switch
Can't see the Woods for the tees
There hasn’t been an official PGA Tour golf game on a Nintendo system since Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 chipped onto the Wii nine years ago. With Tiger's shine dimming over the years and EA seemingly ending its PGA Tour series in 2015 with an underwhelming Rory McIlroy game, that didn’t look like it was going to...
Review Nexomon: Extinction - An Interesting Pokémon Clone That Doesn't Quite Stick The Landing
Almost the very best
Let's get one thing straight before we begin: we're going to go into this entire review without comparing Nexomon: Extinction to Pokémon. This is a very original RPG with items that have original names such as “Super Potion” and “Max Revive”…actually, who are we trying to kid? We will compare it to Pokémon, because...
Review No Straight Roads - An Inventive Musical Brawler That Hits One Too Many Bum Notes
A hit single?
In the modern gaming industry, new game releases are largely put into one of two groups: Indies and AAA games. This, however, wasn’t always the case. Just a few generations ago, prior to indie games taking the spotlight, you had a lot of games that were often referred to as “AA” games. Such releases didn’t have the production...
Hestia still bestia?
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? - Infinite Combate is a video game adaptation of the popular Japanese light novel, manga and anime series Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, also known as 'Danjon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darō ka', or 'DanMachi' for short to Eastern and Western fans...
Review Skully - More Than Bare-Bones, But Ugly As Sin On Switch
Rolling blunder
When it was originally announced, it was clear that Skully had the potential to be one of the top five greatest ‘reanimated rolling skull puzzle platformer’ games ever made. Sure enough, it manages to accomplish that (purely by existing, to be fair), but that’s not to say it isn’t without severe issues that will greatly...
Review Fairy Tail - A Disappointing RPG That's For Fans Of The Series Only
A passable adaptation of a beloved franchise
Every now and then, it’s nice to have a good cheeseburger. Just a good one. Not one of those fancy burgers that come with everything but the kitchen sink, or those made out of some specially treated beef, but just the bog-standard and no-frills patty that you can get at just about any fast food joint...
Review Rock Of Ages 3: Make & Break - Between A Rock And A Hard Place
Gathers an enormous amount of moss, sadly
Some games just aren't a good fit for the Switch. It's a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless. Rock Of Ages 3: Make & Break falls into that category, we're sorry to say. The most egregious problem to be found in this Nintendo Switch incarnation is, quite simply, a lack of suitability to the handheld...
Review Paper Mario: The Origami King - A Puzzling Battle System Can't Kill This Funny Adventure
You'll be creasing with laughter
The Paper Mario series has seen more ups and downs over the years than the lid of Picasso’s pencil case, with Nintendo and developer Intelligent Systems trying their best to nail the formula again. A large number of Paper Mario fans believe GameCube title Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is the best game in the...
Old friends, new console
Nearly two decades ago, the Nintendo fanbase was graced with Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, the first entry in the series for the Game Boy Advance. Offering up a low-key and easily accessible gateway into the farm sim genre, it quickly garnered a following and earned itself the reputation of being one of the better...
Review Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise - A Fun Game, In Disguise
That game you like is going to come back in style
Let’s get the bad (though perhaps unsurprising) news out of the way first: from a pure technical perspective, Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise is a train wreck. Anyone who can't handle unstable framerates, crude character animation, moiré-like patterns and other visual artifacts or...
Review Catherine: Full Body - The Ultimate Version Of A Surreal Cult Classic
A Rare Vintage
One of our absolute favourite games from the last console generation, Atlus' Catherine is a sublimely stylish mix of visual novel, dating simulation and fiendish block tower puzzler that tells a captivatingly warped story whilst constantly challenging its players with its clever and rewarding platform puzzle elements. Originally...
Class Act
Nihon Falcom’s long-running The Legend of Heroes series finally hits Nintendo Switch in this third entry in the epic Trails of Cold Steel story arc, a direct sequel to Trails of Cold Steel II that takes place less than two years after the Erebonian Civil War portrayed in both that game and its epic predecessor. This is an enormous,...
Sweet victory
The 3D platformer was very much a ‘fad’ genre back in the day, as game companies all over the world figured out ways to get their colourful mascot collecting all sorts of MacGuffins strewn around big playgrounds. During this era, a game based on the popular SpongeBob SquarePants show was released called SpongeBob SquarePants:...
Review Warborn - Solid But Unspectacular Advance Wars-Style Action
Unadvanced Wars
Raredrop Games' Warborn is a traditional turn-based tactics affair that takes the thoroughly tried and tested gameplay of the likes of Advance Wars – and, more recently, Wargroove – and adds great big sexy Gundam-esque mechanised robots and a generous dollop of '90s-style overwrought anime backstory to the mix. Fans of the genre...
Heaven is a race on Earth
If there’s one genre of gaming where the Switch is arguably lacking, it’s open-world racing. In fairness, that’s because there aren’t too many of them in general, but whereas other systems have their Forza Horizons, Need For Speeds and The Crews, the Switch is almost entirely bereft of free-roaming driving. That...
Review Adam's Venture: Origins - Uncharted For Switch? You've Got To Be Kidding
Nothin' Drake
Oof. There's no reason to beat around the bush with this one; Adam's Venture: Origins is an ugly, ugly game. In fact, graphically, it's one of the worst-looking titles we've ever seen on the Switch. It's muddy, glitchy and aesthetically dull. There's constant shimmering, shockingly blurry low-resolution graphics, appalling textures and...
Review BioShock: The Collection - Three Of The Best Single-Player Shooters Ever, All In One Place
"Would you kindly...?"
It’s rather fascinating to see how the first-person shooter genre, which began as a mostly single-player thing, has gone on over the years to become much more focused on multiplayer. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but it’s a little disappointing to see memorable, narrative-driven adventures tossed aside in...
Review Space Invaders Invincible Collection - 40 Years Of History In One Package
Invaders Must Die
Considering we have been shooting them out of our virtual skies for entertainment over the past forty-two years, any sentient extra-terrestrial life form might not be too keen to drop in to say “Hello!” these days, and with good reason – Tomohiro Nishikado's original 1978 Space Invaders didn't just kickstart a cultural...
Review Borderlands Legendary Collection - A Triple-Helping Of Classic FPS Action
Three tickets to the gun show
It's safe to say you've probably already played Borderlands in some form. The open-world looter-shooter franchise has made an appearance on pretty much every console since the original game released in 2009. This isn't even the series' first appearance on a portable system – Borderlands 2 saw release on the...
Review The Outer Worlds - Obsidian's Fallout-Style RPG Is Worth A Look On Switch
Halcyon Days
Obsidian's The Outer Worlds was very well received when it originally launched back in October of 2019; it's a satirical and darkly humorous RPG that takes the first-person Fallout experience and blasts it into orbit. However, as much as it has in common with the Fallout games, it's also very much its own distinct affair; a remarkably...
Review XCOM 2 Collection - Firaxis' Stone-Cold Classic Makes The Leap To Switch Intact
Welcome Back, Commander
2K Games really has gifted Switch owners a smorgasbord of truly excellent games from their back catalogue lately, with the publisher's Borderlands, BioShock and XCOM franchises all exploding onto the eShop in unison. It's certainly going to be interesting to see how successfully they've managed to deal with the technical task...
Review Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics - You Won't Get 'Board' Of These Games Easily
Warning: things get a bit dicey
With much of the world still in some form of lockdown at the time of writing this review, many have resorted to board games or playing cards to keep themselves occupied and help while away the hours. It could be argued, then, that Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics (or 51 Worldwide Games
Review Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath - An Expensive Way To Get The Full Mortal Kombat 11 Experience
I'd buy that for a dollar!
Ever since the launch of Mortal Kombat X in 2015, NetherRealm Studios’ output has continued to soar in quality. The alternate fighting styles of X fed into the impressive facial animation of Injustice 2, with that second round of DC super-fighting leaving its mark on the customisation depth of last year’s Mortal Kombat...
Review Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition - A Timely Update Of One Of The Greatest RPGs Ever
We're (still) really feeling it
If you were around to browse this site about nine years ago, you may have been privy to the rising support for localization of a game called Xenoblade Chronicles. Back then, the title was just a niche Japanese RPG that Nintendo was extremely hesitant to release outside of the country, but the fans saw something in it...
Review TT Isle of Man – Ride on the Edge 2 - Better Than The Original, But With Room To Improve
Manx speed
Racing games have been a staple of the games industry since its inception, but very few of these virtual drivathons have managed to truly capture the heady mix of excitement and outright fear that comes with pushing real-life machines to their absolute limit. Modern superbikes can reach incredible speeds, but most other two-wheeled racing...
Review Shmup Collection - A Solid Collection Of Modern 2D Shooters
Astro Port's maestro ports
It's one of gaming's greatest myths that graphics aren't as important as gameplay. Without the right kind of graphics, it's possible to depth-charge the potential of an otherwise enjoyable experience. Visuals are a crucial part of a game's feel, and a mismatch between what you're doing and how it all looks is a major...