A slice of Viking strategic combat right out of the heart of Scandinavia's indie development scene, Bad North joins the likes of Element at the vanguard of a new wave of smart yet intrinsically accessible real-time strategy titles. With enough enemy variance to convince you you're playing an interactive episode of the Vikings TV show, this endlessly entertaining sea of bitesize battles will teach you to fear - and love - the sound of the oncoming horde.
Four years on, and Kero Blaster is just as engaging and rewarding as it was when Pixel first unleashed from within the Japanese indie scene. It doesn't just look like the classics that made the genre such a pillar of gaming three decades ago, it confidently recreates the deep mechanical prowess of Contra and its ilk, with just a sprinkling of modern persistent systems to make it more palatable to newcomers and replayable far beyond those first few hours of froggy firefights.
While Morphies Law lacks the grandeur of Splatoon 2 and the F2P gratification of Fortnite, there's no denying that its mass-shifting gimmick has legs - giant ones, at that. It just needs the right kind of post-launch TLC from its developer and some smart adjustments to both net code and player progression. With added gyro controls making the most of those Joy-Cons (should you want to gather mass via motion controls) and support for local play with up to eight players (as opposed to online's four), this indie shooter has the potential to grow into a genuine sleeper hit.
The Walking Dead: The Final Season - Episode One's pacing might be all over the place - leaping from intense walker showdowns to sombre moments of reflection, and back again - but it's still the best the series has been in years. Clementine's character continues to evolve and grow with nuance, and the changes to character controls make navigation and combat far more palatable. While it'll be a bittersweet goodbye to Clem and AJ when we reach the final episode later this year, it looks like Telltale could be giving one of gaming's most nuanced and well-developed heroines the farewell she deserves.
There's plenty to like about Next Up Hero. Turning death into an applicable AI co-op mechanic is a neat spin on a game with a high death turnover, and its cartoon art style complements an impressively large menagerie of monsters to kill. Unfortunately, there are inherent problems with balancing and some disastrous technical problems. Its grinding takes too long, melee characters are all but pointless due to the high damage output of enemies, and those technical issues make committing time and effort a constant risk.
Don't let Polygod's low-poly aesthetic fool you - this is no amateur hour shooter experience.
If you're looking for a family-friendly puzzle/platformer that offers a mixture of quick satisfaction and gradually building difficulty, Tetra's Escape will certainly appeal. Its soundtrack, graphical style and general presentation are a little rough around the edges, but look past those visual first impressions and you'll find a cute little indie with puzzle chops that are more than skin deep.
While it's as much a tribute act to Bubble Bobble as it is a game in its own right, Robbotto still manages to offer a fun trip down retro memory lane.
State of Mind has its moments to shine - certain plot beats in the final act do offer some genuine payoff, and some of those visuals are a joy to see running in docked mode or in handheld - but they're too often lost in a mire of storytelling cliche and science fiction tropes you've seen done better countless times before. A set of in-game achievements do help break up the lengthy plot, but the awkward voice acting and lack of cohesion between its gameplay ideas ultimately make for a muddled experience at best.
While its overly simplistic art style isn't going to linger long in the memory, Unexplored's unusual approach to balancing combat and map generation certainly will. There's very little story here to be had, but like any great dungeon crawler, the real adventure is the one you write yourself. With plenty of scope for weaponsmithing and all plenty of permanent perks to unlock to help negate the sting of its permadeath, Unexplored: Unlocked Edition offers danger and delight in equal measure.
Created by a one-person team based out of Madrid, Megaton Rainfall is, at the very least, a technical marvel. It's very much comparable to No Man's Sky; an indie hit that wows with its sheer scale and the breadth of its ambition. But much like Hello Games' oft-maligned space explorer, this superhero simulator struggles to maintain the impressive impact of its first hour, or live up to the lofty heights of those dangerously high ambitions.
There's no getting away from the fact that Not a Hero: Super Snazzy Edition is a reissue of a game that's already been out for years on other platforms, so if you've already emptied its virtual clips before there's not much here to coax you back in (bar the fact you can now enjoy it on a portable console). However, if you've yet to sign up to BunnyLord's mayoral bloodbath you're in for an ultraviolent treat. With an enjoyable, if brief add-on campaign to boot, this little side-scrolling platformer is a blast whether played on the go or blown-up on your TV. Canvassing has never been so much fun.
Flipping Death does share plenty of DNA with Stick it to the Man! - ranging from the floatiness of its platforming to the ability to read the minds of other characters - but that doesn't stop it from being a far superior offering in almost every way. We're still not quite sure why Death is possessing the souls of the living and sorting out the loose ends of the dead, but it makes for a memorable black-humoured adventure that deserves to haunt your Nintendo Switch immediately.
There's a chance Crush Your Enemies' toilet humour and machismo gags won't be for everyone - in fact, if you're easily offended this definitely isn't for you - but beyond its irreverence lies another successful attempt to transform the often complex RTS into a digestible format. The game's seemingly unnatural difficulty spikes can get a little tiresome, especially when you're overwhelmed so quickly, but with plenty of nuance stemming from its simple mechanics (and a really catchy little soundtrack), you'll soon find yourself managing your barbarian horde like a true chieftain.
Mixing the shapely looks of Thomas Was Alone with the speed of 10 Second Run Returns and the brutal difficulty of Super Meat Boy, Flat Heroes fits the Nintendo Switch like a glove. If you're playing solo you've got a solid (and lengthy) Campaign as well as bot support for its mini-games, but it's the electric excitement of the game's local multiplayer mode where Flat Heroes right-angled, platforming madness makes the biggest impact. Don't be a square - get this in your digital collection right now.
There's a lot to like about Tanzia. It's an indie game that's set its ambitions high, boasting DNA from action-RPGs, 3D platformers and more. It's very much a throwback to a time when those genres were very different beasts, but it's a love letter riddled with many of the problems modern iterations have shed. However, if you can look past the fact it often looks and plays like an HD remaster, you'll find some creative monster designs and a fantastical world bursting with heartfelt charm.
While Nintendo Switch doesn't have many real-time strategy games to its name at the moment, Element could well be the flashpoint that finally shows just how well the genre can work when reinterpreted in the right way.
Almost impossible to categorise yet utterly compelling as a result, Hand of Fate 2 brings a new and unique RPG experience to Nintendo Switch. There's just so much to enjoy here; the rewarding premise of its deck-building, the endless depth of its questing, the simple pleasure of its combat. It's taken a little while to make the transition to Switch, but the wait has been worth it; this is a mobile port that's practically indistinguishable from the version you can play elsewhere. Do yourself a favour and get this fantasy romp in your digital library right now.
Guts and Glory is a really fun little indie that's burst out of the gates and onto Nintendo Switch, but the porting process has taken its toll. The basic rinse and repeat nature of its challenges and the madcap bloodbath of its physics are a laugh-out-loud combination while they last, but without the long-term appeal of the map editor and its library of user-generated content, the Switch version suffers as a result.
Semblance offers an intriguingly fresh take on the age-old 2D platformer. Its story may be all visual and very much open to interpretation, but what it lacks in narrative density it more than makes up for with a generous helping of levels to explore where the platforming itself is a vital part of the puzzle to be solved. While it's lacking in long-term replay value, it's a definitely worth your time if you're looking for a new 2D challenge.