Switch eShop Game Reviews
Mini Review Railbound (Switch) - A Cute Locomotive Puzzler On The Perfect Platform
You have to draw the line somewhere
Railbound, the latest title from Polish studio Afterburner, makers of Golf Peaks and inbento, is a super-cute puzzler of polished presentation and deceptively monstrous difficulty. It starts ever so innocently, asking for a little railway line to connect a carriage to its engine, and sings with toots and chuffs as...
Review Front Mission 1st: Remake (Switch) - Impressive Visuals, But A Slog On The Battlefield
Best pray to the RNG gods
As the saying goes, war never changes, but this is only partly true of the Front Mission series, which puts players in control of a group of wanzer pilots as they try to outmanoeuvre the opposing side. The first game in the series has seen a whole host of remakes and releases, with the latest, Front Mission 1st: Remake,...
Review Ship Of Fools (Switch) - Roguelite Deck Defence That's A Blast With A Mate
Cannon fodder
If you’ve ever played a roguelite, you’ve seen it all before. Head out on a run, collect resources and equipment, fail at some point, use those resources to purchase upgrades, and try again and again, getting a little bit further each time until the Big Evil is defeated. In an increasingly crowded genre, Ship of Fools adheres to...
Review Finding Paradise (Switch) - A Wonderful Sequel That Will Linger Long In Your Memory
To the moon and back
The sequel to Freebird Games' superlative To The Moon, Finding Paradise is a game we weren't sure we really wanted or even needed when it first released back in 2017. How on earth could anything be expected to live up to the power and emotion of Kao Gan's wonderful 2011 adventure? Surely any attempt to return to this world and...
Review The Knight Witch (Switch) - An Intense Fusion Of Metroidvania And Bullet Hell
Bewitching
At this point, it’s easy to think that the Metroidvania genre has become played out. The indie community has positively run away with the genre over the past decade, producing projects that need to work increasingly harder to differentiate themselves from the pack. Still, this pressure has also bred some impressive innovation. Who...
Mini Review Just Dance 2023 Edition (Switch) - Some Welcome Changes To The Old Routine
Into the Dancer-Verse
2023 is on the horizon, which, as it turns out, is an entirely different year to 2022, so naturally we've got a brand new Just Dance game to review. Yep, it's time for the annual update to Ubisoft's long-running franchise and, although it's tempting to simply cut-and-paste last year's review in here — these games really don't...
Review Retro Goal (Switch) - An Addictive Slice Of Club Football With A Side Of Management
Or Soccer, if you insist
Back in February we had Retro Bowl, a simple but fantastic take on American Football, right in time for the Super Bowl. It was an accomplished port by New Star Games, which had originally enjoyed success with the release on mobile, and now we get Retro Goal in time for the football/soccer World Cup. Once again it's a light...
Review Resident Evil 3 - Cloud Version (Switch) - Disappointingly Constrained And Very Short
Do the staaaaaars shine?
Note: This Cloud Version of Resident Evil 3 was tested on 100MB UW Broadband over WiFi and wired ethernet cable, along with a 5G mobile connection. Following up Resident Evil 2 — whether it’s the 1998 original or the 2019 remake — is no easy task. Indeed, in the run-up to the launch of the PlayStation 2, Capcom found...
Review RWBY: Arrowfell (Switch) - Passable Action Platforming With Buried Potential
Not the Grimmest of outcomes
About a decade ago, Rooster Teeth launched a new anime web series called RWBY, which went on to spawn a reasonably successful media franchise. Yet—aside from a rather unfortunate hack ‘n’ slash game that bombed—RWBY’s only representation in video games consisted of a handful of mobile games and cameo...
Classic horror reborn
Note: This Cloud Version of Resident Evil 2 was tested on 100MB UW Broadband over WiFi and wired ethernet cable, along with a 5G mobile connection. Capcom is marching on with its plan to release its modern Resident Evil titles as cloud versions on Switch with Resident Evil 2, and while we approach every streaming-only version...
Mini Review A Little To The Left (Switch) - An Evocative, Imaginative Tidy 'Em Up
How’s it hanging?
Trailers, screenshots, and previews of A Little to the Left paint a picture of a tidying game about making things neat – and a cat interferes and cats are nice. That’s not inaccurate, but there’s a lot more going on in Max Inferno’s first game. Presenting you with one-screen scenes of real-life objects like books,...
Rolling the dice
One of the only real criticisms we levelled at the recent Mega Man Battle & Fighters, a re-release of a Neo Geo Pocket Color title included in this new package, was that nobody had bothered to translate the content from Japanese. It was an issue exacerbated by a fan translation already existing online for those willing to go the...
Review Rogue Legacy 2 (Switch) - A Roguelike Legend Returns In Fine Form
Don't Rogue Your Legacy
While not the first roguelike by any means. 2013’s Rogue Legacy — alongside classics like Spelunky and The Binding of Isaac — had a hand in making the now-plentiful genre the huge deal it has become. Nearly a decade later (not counting two years of early access), Cellar Door Games has finally followed up on their...
Mini Review Windosill (Switch) - A Cult Classic Puzzler Gets A Dreamy Switch Port
Flashback
Well, isn't this a nice surprise. Some 13 years after it first released as a Flash game on web browsers, Patrick Smith's delightful Windosill has arrived on Switch, giving players a fresh chance to experience this breezy, playful, and rather magical little journey through a series of enchanting puzzles. Windosill's unique aesthetic has...
Review Lunistice (Switch) - A 32-Bit Platforming Dream That Gives Sonic A Serious Run For His Money
Frontier justice?
Ever since game fans collectively realised that crunchy polygons were worth getting nostalgic over, PS1-core indie games have been growing into the new pixel art. With Lunistice, one-person shop A Grumpy Fox has delivered a shining example of this modernised lo-fi aesthetic. Sparkling in chaotic but coordinated palettes of...
Clever girl(s)
Few franchises captured the minds of children everywhere like the original Jurassic Park film did in 1993; it kicked off an entire dinosaur craze while maintaining much of the novel’s poignant message exploring the perils of genetic engineering. Jurassic World – 2015’s revival starring Mario Chris Pratt – had nowhere near the...
It takes a Lonesome Village
Since the first announcement of this puzzle adventure-slash-social sim, we’ve been keeping our eyes peeled for Lonesome Village. Now that we’ve played it, we can confirm that it requires you to strap on both your exploring boots and your thinking cap, but it’s also a relaxing game that, for the most part, doesn’t...
Mini Review Save Room (Switch) - RE4 'Inventory Tetris' Writ Large, Though Not Large Enough
Packing heat
Ever thought inventory management in 2005’s Resident Evil 4 is like a game in its own right? Well, in the internet age, everything happens eventually, so here's that game. In Save Room from Fractal Projects, you have a limited and specifically shaped inventory space on the left and a load of guns and stuff on the right. Simply slot...
Review Ghost Song (Switch) - A Potent Mix Of Metroid And Dark Souls, But Maybe Not On Switch
Songs of praise
Over the past decade, the Metroidvania has seen a tremendous resurgence in popularity. And yet, it’s easy to forget how far we’ve come. If we rewind the clock back to the year 2013, the Metroid and Castlevania franchises were on ice and the indie Metroidvania scene was only just beginning to take off. That’s when Matt White...
Review Signalis (Switch) - Brilliantly Tense And Surreal Sci-Fi Survival Horror
The signalis good
Survival horror games are tough to get right. Even giants of the genre like Resident Evil find themselves leaning harder into action or simple jump scares over time, but when it is at its best it is more tense than frightening. Signalis is one of the best survival horror games we’ve played and the perfect title for Switch owners...
Review Resident Evil Village Cloud (Switch) - A Solid Streaming Version For Switch Owners
A cloud tech coin flip winner, mostly
Note: This Cloud Version of Resident Evil: Village was tested on 100MB UW Broadband over WiFi along with 5G mobile connection. The Resident Evil series has seen its ups and downs over the years. After a strong start with the original trilogy (and Code Veronica), Capcom’s seminal horror franchise hit what...
A great game to play elsewhere
Note: This Cloud Version of A Plague Tale: Requiem was tested on 450Mb AT&T Broadband over WIFI, with the router directly adjacent to the Switch dock. On paper, it sounds like offering a ‘cloud version’ of a game is a good idea. The Switch’s hardware was relatively underpowered when it was new, so getting...
Review Factorio (Switch) - A Most Engrossing Management Sim, Despite Some Issues
A factory sim that never seems to end
If you’ve ever wanted to harness the power of industrialisation, Factorio is certainly the game for you. Stranded on a strange alien world, you must find a way to survive and escape this place using the vestiges of technology left behind by whoever came here first, as well as your own innovations. This is a...
Mini Review Sophstar (Switch) - A Solid Shmup Bursting With Originality
Soft touch
Following the excellent Star Hunter DX, Raging Blasters, and Crimzon Clover - World EXplosion from Steam to the Switch eShop is Banana Bytes’ Sophstar, a vertically oriented bullet hell shoot-em-up with clearly delineated sprites set against simplistic rolling backgrounds. There are a whopping nine ships to choose from, all with...
Review Beacon Pines (Switch) - An Endearing, Engrossing, Explorative Adventure
Gives you the warm fuzzies – and the chills
Playing Beacon Pines feels a bit like early winter nights, where you’re surprised by how quick the darkness creeps up – yet comfy and warm under a blanket. Coming from indie developer Hiding Spot, the setting might look like your usual cute woodsy town populated by anthropomorphic animals, but...
Review Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher (Switch) - Bigger Means Better In This Monster Raising Sim
Size definitely matters in this one
In the world of Monster Rancher, bigger doesn’t always mean better, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. The newest entry in the series, Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher, takes this philosophy and turns it up to epic proportions, creating a world filled with monsters the size of mountains that need to be fed, trained,...
Still life in the old dog
Chapter 1 - An Overdue Return In the pleasant, reasonably well-kept living room of my small, comfortable home, I sat down on the sofa with a warming mug of strong, milky coffee and booted up my Nintendo Switch. As the main menu flashed into existence before me, a new icon caught my eye. It was bold in its simplicity; a name...
Review Dragon Ball: The Breakers (Switch) - Dares To Be Different From Other Dragon Balls
Survive in the nightmare that is the Dragon Ball universe
Video games based on the Dragon Ball franchise usually have a very specific focus. While there have been the occasional RPGs like Kakarot or The Legacy of Goku thrown into the mix, most have been firmly focused on fighting your way across the series’ story. However, Dragon Ball: The...
Mini Review Dorfromantik (Switch) - A Perfectly Peaceful Puzzler That Soothes The Soul
It means "village romanticization"
In an age where it feels like many big-budget projects are falling victim to 'FOMO mechanics' and stricter price schemes, it can be refreshing to play a game that focuses on simplicity, like Dorfromantik. Here you have a puzzle game that doesn't chase after complex mechanics, cutting-edge design, or intense action;...
Mini Review The Battle Of Polytopia (Switch) - A Gentle Introduction To Turn-Based City Builders
A simplified quest for world domination
We all have big dreams of world domination, but not everyone wants the full Civilization experience. Sometimes, we just want to take over the planet without having to try too hard! For those times, there is The Battle of Polytopia, a scaled-back version of the usual 4X gameplay that we’ve all grown to know...