Golf Story doesn't totally live up to the legacy of those Mario sports RPGs, but it does a very good job at touching on those classics and putting its own spin on the genre. A few nagging issues might draw down the experience, but the golfing is fun enough to work in tandem with a wacky story and world to make a genuinely enjoyable adventure on Switch.
Still, if you want to sit back and relax with your Switch, Semispheres is an enjoyable and serene puzzler that is both soothing and tough. The lack of overall meat to the game is a little disappointing, but the ride is very much worthwhile as long as you're okay with a shorter-than-expected time.
After beating Metroid: Samus Returns, my skepticism washed away, mostly thanks to the fact that this 3DS game pays a loving homage to the greatness of past entries while adding enough new elements to feel like a fresh and wonderful modern experience. With their powers combined, Nintendo and MercurySteam basically struck gold with this game. Samus Returns is a dynamite entry in the fabled series and deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Metroid: Zero Mission and Super Metroid. If you've been waiting for a new 2D Metroid game from Nintendo for more than a decade, you owe it to yourself to play this game.
Depending on your skill and luck, Ironcast can be a fun 10 hour or so romp, fraught with many failures but likely numerous last-second victories and absolute dominations. The mixture of turn-based strategy and match-three puzzling is novel and for the most part, works extremely well in the rogue-like permadeath structure. The tedious and humdrum story can be tiresome, but if you focus on honing tactics to take down your rivals while building up your gear and abilities, Ironcast is a fantastic and unique game.
While I still feel the late-game battles are drawn out with palette swaps and needless complexity, Severed is such a fantastic game otherwise that even with a few warts, Severed is absolutely worth checking out, especially if you missed any of its other releases on Wii U, 3DS, and more.
Up until the bitter end, the diversity of levels and concepts is glorious. The fast-paced cooking might get stressful, but that also makes success all the more tasty. If you can find the right team of cooks and overlook a lower framerate, Overcooked on Switch is glorious.
Salmon Run is brilliant, but only being able to play it at specific times is downright awful, and the local form of it requires a wealth of systems and games to work optimally. Still, even with those woeful limitations, Splatoon 2 is the best online game on Switch and with more updates coming down the road, could stay that way for a very long time. This might not be quite as fresh as it was in 2015, but it is certainly, as Marina and Pearl say, “off the hook.
While I had fun with the single-player, NBA Playgrounds is mostly a mess otherwise.
Gonner presents a stiff challenge that might not be for everyone, but if the potential oddities of this disquieting adventure seem up your alley, it's well worth trying to figure out; just be prepared to maybe look up a few things for clarification. It's not quite the tops of this take on the roguelike genre, but Gonner definitely earns its spot at the table.
Comparing Arms to Mario Kart 8 with regards to the online experience comes out favorably, though, as Arms' fresher gameplay style and highly polished online lobbies and infrastructure makes it a more active and engaging online affair. Even with the Grand Prix drawbacks, Arms is a fantastic start to a new franchise. Time will tell if Arms truly has legs, but it's definitely firmly planted at launch.
I might still carry a torch for quality single-player content and progression in Mario Kart, but there's no denying that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a step in the right direction for just about every other element.
But through all those old-school problems, The Dragon's Trap is still a strong and engaging Metroid-esque platformer that features a pleasant interconnected world filled with areas packed with secrets and grand old-fashioned platforming. It's well worth overcoming the outmoded aspects to experience a fresher take on a great game.
Shifty is a straightforward, focused caper with little fluff that will last you a few hours as you climb through 18 stages. What it lacks in length its makes up for with a dynamite gameplay hook. Teleporting is incredibly neat and opens up a lot of daring and rewarding circumstances where you can mow down foes. As long as you can overlook the handful of moments where the combat isn't the focus, Mr. Shifty is a great addition to the young Switch eShop.
No matter how you cut it, Snipperclips is a gem of the Switch eShop, presenting a fresh puzzle experience that is daring and delightfully peculiar. If we’re all lucky, Snipperclips will take off and become the next Pushmo or BoxBoy from Nintendo, showing up every year or so with new puzzles and wrinkles. If you’re looking for a game to compliment Breath of the Wild, this is a grand one.
All in all, Skylanders Imaginators is yet another well-made adventure filled with charming characters and amusing gameplay. The Switch version is hampered a little bit by the system's portability and the loss of compatibility with some previous figures is a shame, but it's still a fine way to play, especially if you long for the days of the Skylanders 3DS games. This is a good time, even if it doesn't match the highs of past entries in the series.
This is an amazing, standout entry in a series with a history dotted with masterpieces. It absolutely reinvents the Zelda style while still staying true to what makes past games work so well. This is a hell of a way to kick off a new console (or close one out if you play it on Wii U), as Breath of the Wild is one of the most impressive games I’ve played in years.
Shift DX is a no-nonsense platformer with simplistic graphics, single-screen puzzles, and straightforward progression. The focus on shifting shows the depth of that concept, as the levels rarely feel stagnant and regularly add new twists as you go deeper. This is a fun platformer that’s easy to get lost in.
Pirate Pop Plus is an arcade game that could be on par with something like a Geometry Wars in my eyes, but it feels like it’s the Geometry Wars that was a throwaway bonus in Project Gotham Racing 2, not the Geometry Wars that is arguably one of the best game on the Xbox 360. If you’re hankering for a bite-sized arcade experience that is heavy on fun and light on content, Pirate Pop Plus is fantastic. And hey - maybe they’ll make Pirate Pop Plus: Retro Evolved or something and it’ll be incredible.
It's all up to the developers from here."). This bite-sized visual novel noir is a pleasant surprise, but miserable puzzles and a so-so localization drag down the experience.
Using the new Creation Crystal figures, you can make your own Skylander using a deep set of customization options. Making characters is a joyous, hysterical experience, as the charm and levity of the series is nestled into every element of the creation tool. You can pick out all sorts of body parts, fine-tune their powers, pick out a catchphrase and a voice, and even add theme music. It’s a character creator that basically takes all of the best parts of creator tools over the years and puts them all into one. I generally don’t care much for in-depth character creation, but I loved making Skylanders here. Unfortunately, the creator often runs slow, hampering the neat experience.