Sol Cresta can be a little annoying with its mechanics for anyone who is willing to take the time to get good at it. There are way better scrolling shooters already on Nintendo Switch and the one thing that makes this one notable is the pedigree behind it. At the very least, the music is pure fire and energy - some of Koshiro's best work to date.
Cuphead & The Delicious Last Course is absolutely recommended to anyone who never played the original when it came out. Everyone else will get lots of fun out of the DLC, but it all depends on how much the vanilla game was enjoyed. Cuphead & The Delicious Last Course is more of the same, and for some people, Cuphead is already an acquired taste.
The online module of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R is effectively broken and useless. Everything feels way too slow and unresponsive. Matches will also end randomly or never happen at all. However, the local play works exactly as intended and the story mode is as entertaining as the goofy and boisterous manga that it is based on. At the end of the day, Araki's style and the strong JoJo flavour is what elevates this Tekken-like fighting game from being completely average.
Somerville's greatest flaw is just how boring it is. It is more of a walking-sim than a platforming-adventure game. Reactive objects are also colour-coded yellow, so there is never any question about what to do. This robs any sense of discovery in a title that is already so tightly focused on pushing players forward. The terribly slow walking speed will pad out Somerville's length to around four to five hours, when there is maybe only two hours of actual substance. Traditionally, these kinds of games are short but make up for it with excellent pacing. Somerville feels like a flatline for most of the entire run.
Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary goes for a stark and minimalistic style. This is still present in the more detailed and gritty look of this re-release and the new details elevate the ambiance. There isn't much that could have been done to what could laughingly be referred to as the "story". The plot is exactly the same as it was, recycling the exact voice over narration of two characters. Interestingly, Q.U.B.E. 10th Anniversary offers a mode that edits out all story development involving characters and background music that drives the narrative. This mode borders on being pointless, but playing the game in this manner does change the atmosphere and adds a stronger sense of mystery due to the lack of explanation of everything.
Super Kiwi 64 is a very pleasant and cathartic experience for anyone who grew up playing Nintendo 64 or for children who are learning to play 3D games. There are not too many obstacles, most threats aren't threatening, and Kiwi's mobility and tight controls make him manageable for neophytes.
Yomawari: Lost in the Dark is more of the same. The custom avatar was an almost meaningless addition and it plays itself extremely safe. Fortunately, those who are looking to play an atmospheric and moody horror game will find that this latest entry is just as scary as the rest. There are some choice jump moments and the ambiance keeps players in a constant state of dread and unease.
For a game called Buddy Simulator 1984, the "1984" part is not as crucial an aspect as one would think. The game transforms and reinvents itself several times over as the story unfolds, and a majority of these are nowhere near as crude as actual computer software from the mid 1980s. There are some genuinely fun scares to compliment a clingy and abusive AI friend. The command line mechanic may not work as intended on a console controller, but at least the soundtrack is incredible.
Like The Orange Box before it, Portal: Companion Collection is one of the greatest compilations assembled. It is the complete Portal experience, with all the fixings and extras one would hope for and then some. Both titles are excellent, and still hold up better than one would think. They always felt like they belonged on a Nintendo console. They embody its spirit of innovation and creativity, while being wrapped in a comfy sardonic blanket, which feels right at home on Switch, be it on the big screen or on-the-go.
By the time A Plague Tale: Requiem concludes, it will feel like being dragged by a pick-up truck across miles of concrete. The world depicted is a bleak and cruel one with no light at the end of the tunnel. Players will be getting their money's worth, as this is a very long game that is punctuated with lots of gimmicky sequences that add value to the package. The story does have a lot for fans to discuss, and the visuals are amazing, even if they came at the cost of a high frame rate. The gameplay is technically better than the first, but it was never amazing to begin with. The over-reliance on prebaked contextual actions and the rigidness of simplistic stealth is something most could expect from a seventh gen console title, not a ninth gen console release.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero is a very beefy RPG that is way longer if the speed-up functions are never used. The imaginative premise and complex battle system are what makes it stand out. The text can be really long-winded, even for RPG fans, but it all pays off for the diligent reader with patience to parse it all. Regretfully, there is no English voice acting - a first for The Legend of Heroes. While that is initially disappointing, the realization of the voice acting padding out an already very long RPG quells the desire.
Not being content with being one of the most soulless products released under the Warner Bros. label, it is also extremely underwhelming from a technical point of view. Gotham Knights was originally developed as a multi-gen title, but PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions got cancelled. Despite this, the visuals underwhelm and fail to impress and manage to look worse than the last major Batman instalment released seven years prior. Capping at a mere 30fps might be excusable if this boasted the most cutting edge visuals on the market, but it manages to look cheap and dated. For a AAA production from Warner Bros., this should have been a visual tour de force, with top writing talent, and have evolved the gameplay to compete with its contemporaries. Maybe it can be salvaged over time with updates, but currently it's one of the most droll and sloppily designed triple-A products of 2022.
Judgment is by far one of the better entries in the Yakuza franchise. It is a gritty detective story, with a killer in it that is legitimately scary, thanks to the performances. The Dragon Engine getting a boost from the new generation of consoles shows how Judgment was meant to be played, with extremely short load times and buttery smooth 60 frames per second that is unwavering. Judgment may be second to Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but being second to the best is a great place to be.
Gungrave G.O.R.E.'s gameplay won't be for everyone and most gamers who never played the last few games on PlayStation 2 will be lost. The constant combat can wear some people down and the sound of guns blazing becomes white noise after several minutes. Replay value is high - Grave's stats and abilities can be upgraded and there is more than just Grave to play as. Gungrave G.O.R.E. is definitely an acquired taste, but gamers who do have a taste for this brand of carnage will be in for a feast. This is the biggest and longest entry in the series, easily clocking past the 15-hour range. It borders on being excessive with how many stages there are, but this may be the final Gungrave, and it's great to carry that coffin again.
The Chant is a surprising and impressive experience. It runs tight and brief; rarely wasting time but allowing enough breathing room for the player to explore at their own pace. It looks amazing, has excellent acting and a compelling narrative that explores some unconventional topics for a horror game. It is too bad it rarely is scary and is too easy. Making Jess a terrible fighter would probably be a worse design choice, but The Chant really needs to have more threatening foes and redesign them to be scarier. Fighting a massive toad that has a shark-like head feels more like something out of an off-brand Resident Evil than a 70s-inspired horror game with a new-age mysticism bent to it.
Poker Club is good for anyone interested in a very realistic looking poker sim with a big emphasis on tournament play. What you see is what you get, but it is much slower and more flashy than one might expect. The customisation options are impressive, but the beauty only goes skin deep.
Sanity of Morris is going to be remembered as one of those kinds of ironic and unintentionally funny video games. While it is not quite Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, the lack of quality control and effort suggests the developers leaned heavily on their concept. The idea of a grounded stealth/horror experience, with adventure-style puzzle-solving is an easy sell to a lot of people. The only problem is that Sanity of Morris does not even try.
Dungeon Encounters is a very difficult game to fault for its premise. It has very specific goals and it achieves them, much to the chagrin of the player and it achieves its goals thoroughly. This is definitely not something for the average Square Enix fan and caters more towards gamers who enjoy the likes of The Dark Spire or very old dungeon crawlers. Expect to have to rely on imagining the adventure and the battles, because of how nothing is ever realised in text or visuals. This is a hard title to recommend to general audiences, but for those who are truly hardcore RPG maniacs, Dungeon Encounters might be worth exploring.
Rekt! High Octane Stunts is a very lightweight stunt game. The casual play style, and easy to grasp controls, make it a decent option for children. There is very little penalty for failure, and the package is dense with unlockable content. It is a humble, often boring, yet endearing title that is easy on the eyes. The most challenging quality within, is playing for long sessions. Rekt!'s style is only enjoyable in short bursts and anything more than two hours will make players enter an existential fugue state.
Fez is a very easy-going experience for the most part, but it is also very capable of presenting a diabolical challenge to anyone looking for one. The descent to an otherworldly nightmare glitch-world is something that is not often done in video games, yet it makes a lot of sense; especially for something that focuses on a theme of perception and dimension. While the creator of Fez may have his issues, his game has very few and is very pleasant to play.