Switch Game Reviews
Review Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Switch) - Still The King Of Mario RPGs
Paper, un-jammed
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has been held as the standard for Mario RPGs for 20 years. It, alongside its N64 predecessor, captured what fans wanted from their turn-based, plumber-starring adventures – silly humour, epic adventures, fantastic combat, and charm. Purists often view the GameCube original as the end of the...
Easy, tiger
We're republishing this 2021 import review because, over two-and-a-half years after its Japanese release, M2 has finally brought Kyukyoku Tiger-Heli to the West, surprise-dropping this Toaplan collection on the US Switch eShop on 16th May. There's no word on a European release just yet, but the base game is available on the US eShop for...
Review Biomutant (Switch) - A Solid Action RPG Marred By A Muddy Port
Biomutant X
It's been a long road for Biomutant's Switch release. The action RPG originally came out almost three years ago, back in May 2021, with the Switch version slowly getting pushed back time and time again. However, Experiment 101’s debut title is finally here, but it maybe should have been held back for the Switch's successor. Biomutant...
Board already
There is no shortage of party games available on Switch – the console was practically made with the genre in mind. Standing out from the crowd requires some careful balancing of the rules or implementing some gimmick to make your game feel unique. Or, in the case of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board, you can let your...
Review Endless Ocean: Luminous (Switch) - A Meditative Marine Milieu, But Incredibly Shallow
Endless, unfortunately
There are a whole bunch of, well, let's say 'Wii-centric' video games from the history vaults that, in theory, seem like they might be a bit of fun to revisit on Nintendo Switch. You know the sort of thing, usually pairing some new-fangled/novelty control scheme with an activity you'd never tried in a game before; making...
Review Slave Zero X (Switch) - Slick, Stylish, But A Hot Mess On Switch
Slice 'n' dice the frame rate
Many games can get away with slightly sketchy performance if the gameplay experience is a bit more laidback and relaxed (or ‘cinematic’, if you like). Others, however, like Slave Zero X, which focus on blistering combat and stylish visuals, can be almost impossible to recommend if their performance isn’t up to...
Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath Of The Mutants (Switch) - Coin-Op Co-Op Cowabummer
Not quite a cowablunder
Can you ever truly have too much of a good thing? If you’re a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, this question must have sprung to mind at least once in recent years. Because in truth, the good things have been coming thick and fast. 2022 brought arguably the series' best beat 'em up ever in Shredder's Revenge and gave us a...
Review MLB The Show 24 (Switch) - A Solid Swinger Emerges After A Laughable Launch
Homerun or dinger?
San Diego Studio returns for a third season of baseball action on Nintendo Switch and it's another fairly solid job all round for 2024, giving fans yet another feature-complete port that manages to get the most important stuff right during its deep and addictive matches. Indeed, whilst MLB The Show 24 has seen plenty of technical...
Review South Park: Snow Day! (Switch) - Glitchy, Clunky Co-op That Should've Stayed Indoors
Grab a shovel
South Park’s history with video games has been a mixed bag for the most part and the latest instalment, South Park: Snow Day!, had a lot to live up to following the critical success of Ubisoft’s The Stick of Truth and its sequel, The Fractured But Whole. A shift in genre and developer — Question LLC is at the helm here — has...
Not so Horrid Henry
Set in the 15th century and taking place in the tumultuous land of Bohemia, Kingdom Come Deliverance follows the exploits of nice-but-dim blacksmith’s son Henry. Struggling through the political and religious machinations of the lords and ladies around him, he seeks to avenge the death of his family and find a place in the...
Review Princess Peach: Showtime! (Switch) - Peach Breaks A Leg In A High-Class Production
Bend and slap
It's kinda hard to believe, especially given how ridiculously popular the whole Mushroom Kingdom thing is, that we've had so few games starring its actual ruler as the protagonist over the years. Yes, there was Princess Toadstool's Castle Run on Nelsonic Game Watch back in 1990, Princess Peach's very first leading role (which you...
Review The Legend Of Legacy HD Remastered (Switch) - A Decent Return For The 3DS Dungeon-Crawler
Not quite legendary, though
A few years ago, FuRyu released The Alliance Alive HD Remastered for Switch—an uprezzed port of a great RPG that was sadly missed by most due to releasing on the 3DS after most players had already moved on to Switch. Yet The Alliance Alive was not the company’s first release on Nintendo’s old handheld; that honor...
Review Contra: Operation Galuga (Switch) - Does The Series Proud, But Best Played Elsewhere
Aggressively attacked
With Konami seemingly devoid of both in-house developers and any kind of passion to revive their beloved IPs, WayForward, predominately a licence mule during the '00s, is by far the best option for a new Contra entry. Its work on 2007’s brutally hardcore Contra 4 cemented the developer's prowess, allowing the player to...
Review Expeditions: A MudRunner Game (Switch) - Performance Bumps Can't Run This Sim Off The Road
Fancy a winch? Oh, you call it a shift? Same difference, baby.
When we first got wind that Expeditions: A MudRunner Game was on its way to Nintendo Switch, we gotta admit, we were a little bit surprised. This new entry in Saber Interactive's superb off-road sim series takes the whole mud-running malarkey to a new level, with larger maps, loads more...
Review Unicorn Overlord (Switch) - A Crowning Tactical RPG Achievement For Vanillaware
My kingdom for a unicorn
How do you follow up a game like 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim? Before that ambitious, phenomenal sci-fi adventure, developer Vanillaware found its niche in creating rich, beautiful-looking worlds with a magical, medieval twist. Sometimes it was traditional Western fantasy, while others it jumped back to Edo Japan.
Review Ufouria: The Saga 2 (Switch) - A Cheerful Throwback To Sunsoft's '90s Platformers
At your leisure
This is, for lack of a better descriptor, charming; a rekindling of an IP and a platforming vibe not seen rendered in such authentic fashion for some time. Ufouria: The Saga 2’s simplicity is to its credit, keeping it real to the source material and the vast catalogue of action platform games that informed much of the Nintendo...
Sweet little mystery dungeon
It’s nearly guaranteed that during any online discussion about a game of the ‘rogue’ genre, at least one sweaty person will eagerly emerge from the woodwork to say, “Well, ackshually, this game is a roguelite, not a roguelike.” Eyerolls aside, the distinction isn’t without merit, though ‘pure’ roguelikes...
Review Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Switch) - An Easygoing, Kid-Friendly Remake That's Just Fine
Junior Jungle Japes
Ok, let's see. The original Donkey Kong first released into arcades in 1981, where it became a smash hit that also happened to introduce us to two of Nintendo's most enduring mascots in the form of a great big agitiated ape and some springy little plumber guy. The game, in this very first incarnation, involved bounding around...
Go, ninja, go!
Nintendo fans may be familiar with Good-Feel, a Japanese developer that collaborated with the Big N to produce titles such as Wario Land: Shake It!, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, and Yoshi’s Woolly and Crafted Worlds. Yet despite its work with Nintendo, Good Feel is still an independent company and occasionally produces new games with its...
Review UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH II Sys:Celes (Switch) - A Deep, Addictive Anime Fighter
EXS to impress
Japanese developer Frenchbread's phenomenal anime fighter, Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late, impressed the heck out of us when it dropped in its final revised form on Switch back in 2020. Nabbing a 9/10 score in our review, it quickly became one of those very special games that we just straight-up refuse to ever delete off our SD cards...
Review The Legend Of Steel Empire (Switch) - A Classic Steampunk Shmup Gets A Lick Of Paint
Full steam ahead!
We believe it quite impossible to be a shoot-'em-up lover and not have stumbled upon HOT-B’s cult classic Steel Empire, the 1992 Mega Drive-exclusive horizontal shmup that mesmerised players with incredible steampunk aesthetics, an epic soundtrack, and a stiff challenge. Far from forgotten, there have been in the past two...
Does Apollo justice
After the success of the original three Ace Attorney games, series creator Shu Takumi was ready to end Phoenix Wright's story. But the world wasn't done with these surprisingly intriguing lawyer games, and so he had to figure out how to make a new game without re-treading old ground. Thus, Apollo Justice, pointy-haired greenhorn...
Review Another Code: Recollection (Switch) - A Welcome Return For A Pair Of Cult Classics
Another chance
Our first big Switch exclusive of 2024 arrives nice and early and, rather than assuming the form of one of Nintendo's bigger franchises — we got Fire Emblem Engage this time last year — we are instead winding the clock back to 2005 and 2009 respectively, to dive into swish remakes of a pair of cult classic adventures from the DS...
Review Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown (Switch) - Slick, Stylish, And 2024's First Must-Play
The original Fresh Prince returns
Way back in 1989, Jordan Mechner's original Prince of Persia represented one of the first and best examples of what's become known as the 'cinematic platformer'. It's a traditionally challenging genre, one that combines strong art, fun storylines, and fluidly animated protagonists to bring us adventures that test...
Mini Review Batman: Arkham Knight (Switch) - One Of The Worst Ports We've Ever Played
Chicks dig the car
The final game in the Batman: Arkham Trilogy is Batman: Arkham Knight, which launched on the PS4 in 2015. This entry expands further upon its predecessor, Arkham City, taking a game which was already plenty big enough thank you and adding a little more of everything. Although the series' combat has seen some more refinement here,...
Mini Review Batman: Arkham City (Switch) - The Best Port Of The Trilogy
P.N. Guin? Wait a minute... the Penguin!
With Batman: Arkham City, the second game in the Batman: Arkham Trilogy, Rocksteady finally allowed players to freely soar above the streets of Gotham, providing the full Batman experience that we didn't quite get with its predecessor. The Switch port provides the biggest positive shock of the package with...
Mini Review Batman: Arkham Asylum (Switch) - A No-Frills Port Of A Superhero Classic
Gotham's Finest
2009's Batman: Arkham Asylum laid the foundations for Rocksteady's incredible trilogy, introducing us to the series' iconic combat, which combines slick parries, dodges, blocks and countermoves into a stylish and super-fun combo-based system that makes you feel like the Dark Knight at his most badass. Add in a novel detective mode...
Review Batman: Arkham Trilogy (Switch) - Two Solid Ports, One Technical Disaster
Hand me the bug repellent bat-spray, Robin
When it comes to superhero games, Rocksteady Studios served us up a trio of the very best examples of the genre with its superlative Batman: Arkham Trilogy. Whether you prefer the smaller scale and comparative intimacy of Batman: Arkham Asylum, the vast open world of Arkham City or the Batmobile-powered...
Gotta scout 'em all
While Pokémon has long been the undisputed king of the monster-catching RPG niche, there have always been other releases that have offered up their own distinct take on that unique brand of recruitment gameplay. Megami Tensei, for example, pioneered the concept with ‘Demon Negotiation’ in 1987 and Dragon Quest took a crack...
Review The Walking Dead: Destinies (Switch) - One Of The Worst Games Of The Year
Integrity Gone Bye
There’s a moment during a particularly grueling fourth-season episode of The Walking Dead in which our protagonist, Rick Grimes, is appealing to the humanity of a man holding a samurai sword against a kind, gentle farmer’s throat. Getting more desperate by the second, he says “We can still come back, we’re not too far...