The game might be dated in some respects, with a punishing difficulty and steep initial difficulty curve, but it's worth powering through to learn the intricacies. Aside from that, since it does have an arcade background, it's a tiny bit on the short side with the only carrot on the end of the stick being online leaderboards. Wild Guns Reloaded might still sidle into cult classic status on Switch, but at least if you do dive into it now, it'll be with the novel new characters, stages, and polish.
A digital board game that lives up to the real deal.
Whether your throughline with Streets of Red is roguelike beat-'em-up or throwback to arcade brawlers, it's a great time. While it works best in co-op, overall this is a game with easy-to-grasp controls that builds out a wealth of variety with numerous characters and upgrades.
Regardless of the overall simplicity or the uncomplicated design, The Adventure Pals is a really charming platformer that is a joy to play whether by yourself or with a friend in co-op. It's a lighthearted, jokey journey filled with a plethora of fun ideas that is eminently enjoyable, especially with a younger gamer.
Penny-Punching Princess might have its issues, but it's a nice lightweight brawler that mixes together quick levels and a focus on grinding for items to make for a good home and portable experience on Switch, even if sometimes that expedient pace can be thwarted by some choke points. The issues might drag it down overall, but enough clever ideas make this a game worth checking out, as long as you're not that much in debt to the Dragoloans.
It takes a basic concept and never lingers too long on one idea, continually adding new and novel twists. For the several hours it will take you to finish, Slayaway Camp stays fresh, avoiding the common problems of the horror movies it draws influence from. Even when mimicking the absurdity of later Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies, it stays inventive and fun.
While cool concepts and ideas are awash throughout Swim Out, the dawdling pace of the 100+ puzzles drowns the more novel ideas. This is, for better or worse, an alright puzzle game that just happens to be in a sea of better ones. Good for a laidback romp, but not for much else.
The update is totally fine - the sprite graphics look great, the music is good - but the gameplay is an artifact of older days. That's fine if you just want to sit down for a challenging beat-'em-up with a friend, but if you're looking for something modern and fresh, Gekido isn't that. It's just an alright retro remake.
The roguelite design leads to some repetition, but the gorgeous art and great style (even in the face of well-worn scenery) helps make up for that and other shortcomings. Be prepared to die a lot, but if it clicks for you, be prepared to want to jump right back in for another go. That's what happened to me, and I had a fantastic time with Flinthook in spite of bothersome issues.
A good game exists in the overburdened chaos that is TurtlePop, but as it stands, this is all far too convoluted to be something worth sinking a lot of time into. Charm can only go so far when strangled by numerous and conflicting ideas.
Unfortunately, the botched offline score uploading, minor technical issues, and disappointing Adventure mode drag the entire experience down. If you have friends locally to play the two-player mode or friends online to score chase with, this is a fine game, at least as long you're always near WiFi when you get high scores. Without the well-implemented high score chases, it's still fun, just maybe more fleeting than it could have been.
Fortunately on top of that, the gameplay is also sound, delivering a nice puzzle platforming experience with a wealth of variety and distinctive elements. That being said, the Switch version is rough around the edges right now. It's still possible to play through and enjoy, but it might be worth holding out for the patch (or even the physical version in May).
The entirety of Disc Jam depends on if you're into playing Disc Jam competitively online. If you're not into that, then this game is probably not for you.
Dripping with a fanciful charm, Aegis Defenders is a joyous blend of puzzle platforming and tower defense. While it starts slow, it's an artful fusion of two somewhat disparate genres that comes together as a beautiful whole near the end, making it well worth a look in the crowded Switch eShop.
While a few consistent problems weigh it down, Dandara is still an engrossing adventure. As many times as the in-game map bugged me or the difficulty got me down, I kept at it, working my way through the peculiar world, seeking out new items and upgrades and figuring out how to move around delicately to attack or avoid foes. It might not be for the faint of heart, but Dandara is a wonderfully idiosyncratic game.
The original DS game isn't exactly dated, but the additions here are interesting and fun, even if a little unneeded. The new content mostly just seems more like the result of a development team revisiting an old project than anything else. The core game here is already so strong and so engrossing that more content is good no matter how necessary it might be. I'm thrilled Radiant Historia is back on a modern system, especially since the new release is now the best, definitive way to experience a masterful RPG.
What separates it from the pack and makes it more of a platformer pinnacle are the other parts of the whole: the layers of accessibility, the engaging story, and the charming presentation. All of those pieces gelled together in a spectacular way, in a way that led to me adoring this game much more than I thought. Celeste is magical and beautiful, mostly thanks to its brilliantly designed levels, but it becomes transcendent thanks to everything else.
Even while wading through some minor issues, Darkest Dungeon is enthralling. Even if I crave sunshine and rainbows after spending too much time in this world, it sticks in the back of my mind and I idly think about what team I'll put together to try to mount my next dungeon crawl. It's a dark and gloomy game, but the overall blend of combat, exploration, and town management adds up to a fantastic gameplay loop that sucks away time as you try to outwit the deadly creatures and obstructions all around the darkest dungeon.
Azkend 2 is a perfectly satisfactory match-three puzzle game that adds enough of a twist to be better than the average puzzle game. The hidden object portion isn't that great, but spending a few hours completing objectives and collecting items while matching like tiles is a totally fine time.
It's a brilliant take on the tower defense genre and the awesome music is still in my head.