Switch Game Reviews
Review Among the Sleep: Enhanced Edition - Has Some Growing Up To Do
Creepy crawling
If games like Firewatch and Gone Home typify what has come to be known as the 'walking simulator,' then Among the Sleep is more of a 'tottering simulator'. You could take that as a reference to its implausibly youthful protagonist, but it just as easily applies to the game's uneven tone and shaky gameplay. You could probably describe...
Review Crystal Crisis - A Falling Block Puzzler That Fits Perfectly On Switch
But can it run Crystal Crisis?
Everyone has dabbled in some form of a falling block puzzle game at some point in their life. For most people, it’s probably some form of Tetris. For others, it may be Dr. Mario, or Puyo Puyo, maybe even Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. Years upon years of formula tweaking and innovative twists on the simple...
Review Little Friends: Dogs & Cats - Not Quite The 'Nintendogs On Switch' You're Looking For
In the Nintendoghouse
“Finally, somebody made a new Nintendogs!” rejoices every preview, news article and comments section about Little Friends: Dogs & Cats on the internet. And they’re not wrong – from the moment you start Imagineer’s pet simulator and choose one of six dog breeds (Shiba Inu, Chihuahua, Toy Poodle, Labrador Retriever,...
Review Death Mark - An Excellent Horror-Adventure Fusion
A supernatural spectacular
Death Mark's developer Experience has an odd history of creating games for what could charitably be called the "wrong" formats; putting out great dungeon crawlers (Stranger of Sword City and Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy, for example) for relative underdogs like the Vita and Xbox One. Death Mark is something of a shift...
Review Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland - A Captivating Concoction That JRPG Fans Will Adore
Double, double, toil and trouble...
In 1997, Gust corporation kicked off the Atelier series, which would go on to span a whopping twenty-two platforms (including the WonderSwan) across the thirty-seven titles that comprise the series. Unlike your standard JRPG, Atelier games are typically not concerned about the fate of the world or something...
Review Guilty Gear 20th Anniversary Edition - An Essential Purchase For Fighting Game Fans
Heaven or Hell?
Arc System Works’ Guilty Gear series first chaos-attacked its way onto the gaming scene back in 1998, immediately making a name for itself amidst the more established giants of the fighting game genre with its beautiful hand-drawn roster of twisted manga combatants, hardcore rock soundtrack and insanely fast, combo-based pugilism...
Review Resident Evil Origins Collection - Old-School Survival Horror Stands Up On Switch
Zero on the cart
With the original Resident Evil, its prequel and Resident Evil 4 all arriving as separate digital releases on the Switch eShop, survival horror fans have a bumper helping of the seminal series’ back catalogue to enjoy on-the-go. North American and Japanese gamers (tough luck, Europe) also have the option of getting two of those...
Review Redout - A Slightly Rough Port Of An Otherwise Decent Wipeout Wannabe
Seeing Red
One of Nintendo’s most popular (and amusingly, least supported) franchises is the F-Zero series, which popularized the concept of high-intensity, low-gravity racing. In the void created due to Nintendo’s reluctance to release more games in the series, plenty of other ‘me-too’ titles have released, such as Wipeout and FAST, and...
Review Team Sonic Racing - A Safe Effort Which Lags Well Behind Mario Kart 8
Triple Trouble
It’s all well and good releasing karting games on Sony and Microsoft’s consoles, but it takes a big old set of Sonic Spinballs to try launching one on Mario’s home turf. If anyone’s shown it’s capable of this, though, it’s Sheffield-based studio Sumo Digital. Very few developers have perfected the art of arcade-style...
Review Assassin's Creed III Remastered - The Franchise Runt Gets A Clunky Switch Port
Nothing is true, everything is permitted?
When we consider the Assassin’s Creed franchise, the first thing that jumps into our minds is scale. The grandiose size and scope of each entry’s setting, each new game containing a more epic, fully-realised world than the last. More content, more history, more characters and adventure; in this way the...
Review Lapis x Labyrinth - A Cavalcade Of Colour And Complex Systems
Jump, magic, jump
Lapis x Labyrinth is a lot. From the crowded HUD and gem-filled explosions of its 2D action gameplay to the procession of stat boosting systems and vast item lists of its role-playing layers, Nippon Ichi Software’s cute and colourful dungeon platformer threatens to overwhelm, but nonetheless skilfully onboards players for a...
Review For The King - A Roguelike RPG That's Best Played With A Friend
By royal decree
Don’t let the beguiling art style of For The King fool you. It might look like a children’s book that’s been conjured to life, bathed in the soft autumnal light of a European fairy tale, but beneath the funny hats and cute character designs sits a roguelike RPG with teeth. Underestimate the challenge of its procedural maps and...
Review Deponia - An Amusing Graphic Adventure Which Is Totally Overpriced On Switch
The Simpsons meets Monkey Island?
In its third year, the Nintendo Switch has gained a somewhat justified reputation as a ‘port machine’, and while games such as Onimusha and DOOM have been welcomed with glee and enjoyment, others have arrived with an Alan Partridge-style shrug and a ‘How Much?!’ shouted from the garden. With that, we have...
Review Girls Und Panzer: Dream Tank Match DX - Yet Another Half-Hearted Anime Tie-In
A bit of a mis-fire
For the uninitiated, Girls und Panzer is the sole manga/anime series brave enough to tackle an issue we've all been searching for an answer for but until now were too afraid to ask: What would happen if girls practised tank-based martial arts as a school sport? Dear readers, wonder no more. Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank Match DX...
Review Silence - A Gorgeous Point-And-Click Adventure For Genre Newcomers
Bringing some noise to the genre on Switch
To slightly quote Sundar Pichai’s opening line at the Google Stadia event; ‘I don’t play point-and-click games’, but for many, Silence can become the exception and one that players new to the genre will come back to time and time again. It’s a part-spinoff, part-sequel to The Whispered World, a...
Review Super Robot Wars T - Enjoyable Tactical Mecha Goodness For Returning Fans And Newcomers Alike
The T is for ‘Terrific’
Super Robot Wars T is the most recent entry (and the first on Switch) in Bandai Namco's very successful series of tactical mecha adventures that stretch all the way back to deepest darkest 1991. With dozens upon dozens of previous entries under their belt you'd imagine they'd have exhausted Japan's supply of pilotable...
Review Sniper Elite V2 Remastered - The Ball-Busting Shooter Is Back, Warts And All
Reich on target?
It's 1945. The Second World War is drawing to a close as Hitler's Reich is forced further into retreat. The streets of Berlin have become a warzone with Allied and Nazi forces wrestling for control of the city. But the Germans have one last card to play. The V2 rocket program is one of the most advanced weapon systems of its time,...
Review Saints Row: The Third - The Full Package - The Next Best Thing To Grand Theft Auto On Switch?
Purple reign
Once upon a time, Saints Row was tipped as the ‘new’ Grand Theft Auto, with its sprawling urban open-world and a big focus on gang warfare – and while it didn’t take long for us to realise developer Volition didn’t quite have the pedigree of Rockstar, once the series started embracing its over-the-top action and violence, it...
Review Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age - This Is How You Handle A Remaster
Vaanderful
2006 was an interesting time for the Final Fantasy series, as Square returned to a single-player driven entry in the series after the MMO experiment of Final Fantasy XI. The development of Final Fantasy XII was rocky to say the least, as its protracted five-year development cycle cost Square close to thirty-five million dollars and its...
The Starter's the best part of this virtual meal
It would be fair to say that the initial Labo kits divided Nintendo fans. The company’s cardboard caper seemed, on the one hand, to be utterly, uniquely Nintendo, but also exasperated some gamers who saw Switch as a belated return to ‘proper’ games after a decade of Wii-based whimsy. When...
Review Mortal Kombat 11 - A Satisfying Dose Of Comic Hyper-Violence Despite Loot Balance Issues
Fighting dirty
It's bizarre to think that it's been 13 years since the likes of Scorpion, Kung Lao and Raiden spilled blood on a Nintendo platform with 2006's Mortal Kombat: Armageddon on Wii, but that absence has enabled NetherRealm Studios to finally bring the quality of its combat model to the level that reflects its devotion to slapstick gore...
Review Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - Monster Hunter Meets Darks Souls
Hardcore Pawn
While Capcom actually has a firmer grounding the world of RPGs than we give it credit for – Breath of Fire, anyone? – the company's name doesn't instantly spring to mind when discussing the genre; that's what made the release of Dragon's Dogma in 2012 such an unusual event. Following hot on the heels of FromSoftware's...
Review Final Fantasy X | X-2 HD Remaster - Two Games In One Remarkable Switch Collection
The final word on these fantasies
2001 represented an exciting time in video games, as the industry began a shift to newer hardware and started to move past the growing pains of figuring out 3D game development in the previous generation. As the tenth mainline entry in the series, Final Fantasy X had a lot riding on it, as all waited with...
Review Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission - A Shallow But Satisfying Arcade-Style Card Battler
Card-carrying heroes
By now there have been so many Dragon Ball games that they’ve practically ticked off every genre there is. So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to know that this isn’t the first time Goku and co. have taken their war of fisticuffs to the world of card-based battles. The franchise has one of the most successful TCG...
Review My Time At Portia - An Engaging Life Sim That Will Eat Up Your Spare Time
Take a load on
The life sim genre is fairly under-represented on Switch. We’re still eagerly awaiting the arrival of Animal Crossing, and the only Harvest Moon game on the system is a half-hearted affair that doesn’t really do the old Marvelous-developed games justice. At the moment, the only real heavyweight available is Stardew Valley, but...
Review Darksiders: Warmastered Edition - The End Of The World Comes To Nintendo Switch
War (mostly) never changes
If you’re going to strap on the shoes of anyone during the end of the world, who better than one of the Four Horsemen of Said Apocalypse? The end times have unexpectedly been unleashed, and as the armies of Heaven and Hell go to war on a ruined Earth, all the fingers are pointing to moody horseman War as the instigator...
Review Xenon Racer - A Spluttering Speed-Fest That Lags Well Behind Its PS4 And Xbox One Siblings
Stalled effort
By now, we're all pretty smart to the realities of porting a game from other consoles to Nintendo Switch – especially when that game has arrived within the last year or so. Unless you're working with a particular art style or setup that's purposefully easy to render, most Triple-A games are going to take a knock to both performance...
Review Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Scarlet - A Sun-Soaked Romp That Loses Its Appeal Too Soon
Leer, there and everywhere
Welcome, one and all, to this beautiful tropical retreat – a place where weary people come to unwind with a host of activities including ball sports, endurance races, knocking opponents off platforms or simply relaxing on the beach. Oh yes, you can do all this and more on wonderful Wuhu Island... Hang on, that’s not...
Review Yoshi's Crafted World - A Charming Construction Made From Familiar Materials
5.2 gigabytes of beautiful bog rolls and bottle tops
The Yoshi games have carved a niche for themselves as colourful, mostly frictionless experiences well-suited to younger gamers or anybody after some cute low-pressure platforming. Completionists may find challenge in hunting down every last collectible, but these games are built to be approachable...
Review Unravel Two - Another Confident Switch Port, Perfect For Platforming Fans
Wool you bring a friend?
If video games have taught us anything over the years, it’s that adventures are always better when undertaken with a friend. Experiencing a challenging mission for the first time. Overcoming a boss with hard-fought teamwork. Solving a puzzle at the exact same moment. Co-op can often give us some of gaming’s most...