It's Worms, and Team 17 has done a good job in restraining itself this time around so that the only gimmicks within the game genuinely add to it. What's important to note here is that the Nintendo Switch is absolutely perfect for Worms, and that fact alone makes this the best entry in the series in years.
There's nothing of value in Wonder Boy Returns. It's the weakest platformer I've played for years, and were it a free Flash game, as it so closely resembles, I still wouldn't recommend it.
Yōdanji is eminently playable, and perfect for short bursts in between more meaty games.
As someone who has every intention on buying his own pinball table at some point (or, hopefully, more than one), the appeal of having real pinball experiences is such that I'll buy all of the tables in Stern Pinball Arcade, but it's lacking the features and robustness to allow it to properly compete with Pinball FX 3, and the lack of leaderboard features just kills its long term appeal.
Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock serves a particular niche; it's for people who are both strategy game fans and Battlestar Galactica fans. I don't know how many of us are out there, but I hope there's enough that the entire development team gets rewarded for the excellent work that they've done. Yes it's a budget game and a really authentic Battlestar Galactic experience really should also have solo flight and ground missions, but as a complement to the overall franchise, I couldn't ask for more. This game is brilliant.
The actual experience of playing the game is so much better. Pinball runs smoothly on the Switch, and it's even possible to flip the console to a vertical orientation so you can play the game with a form factor that more closely approximates the shape of actual pinball tables.
The biggest challenge I found with the game was finding the motivation to actually finish it; it might not get anything wrong, but it's such a lengthy quest that it really needed a greater thematic depth to maintain my interest, and unfortunately it wasn't quite able to replicate Nihon Falcom's own, brilliant, Trails of Cold Steel in offering that.
Star Ocean 4 is, as far as I'm concerned, a modern classic, and I am so, so glad to have had the excuse to play it through yet again.
I enjoyed my time with Xenoblade Chronicles 2 a great deal, but it saddens me that I only enjoyed it a great deal. I honestly can't believe that a studio of Monolith's size and prestige would somehow miss that its narrative is rife with tonal inconsistencies, and leave me wondering whether I was playing something serious.
Both games do look good on the Nintendo Switch's hardware. Neither are particularly ground-breaking works of visual design, but they get the job down, and so far as the Switch is concerned, character models are detailed enough, and environments are clear enough to make an impact when they need to.
Both games do look good on the Nintendo Switch's hardware. Neither are particularly ground-breaking works of visual design, but they get the job down, and so far as the Switch is concerned, character models are detailed enough, and environments are clear enough to make an impact when they need to.
I would love for nothing more than Kemco to give its development teams a little longer to actually refine these games, because I do genuinely believe that they could be turned into something worthy, but until that development time is there, these things are a plague.
The original Pokemon Sun & Moon is still readily available and popular. Releasing another version of this game doesn't feel like it adds anything to the Pokemon franchise as a whole, and just makes me want a new Pokemon game on my Switch all the more. It's still a very, very fine game, but as a product release, this one is quite disappointing from Nintendo.
It's a relaxed, laid back and generally amusing side story to the Final Fantasy XV universe, and it throws some great variety and boss battles into the gameplay mix. It's not the essential VR experience, but it is a delightful little game that fundamentally benefits from the VR platform.
It's the safest, most generic example of the dual stick shooter in years. There's no denying there's a visceral thrill in the action that it offers, but let's just say it's just as well the game's priced to be a cheap bit of throwaway fun.
Superbeat is superb, but as a result of my desire to avoid a number of tracks like the plague, there's not as much in there as I might have otherwise liked.
It might well have been coincidence, but that's the problem with Monopoly as a game; it relies too much on luck and it's hard to spin that into something entertaining.
I really like Gear.Club, though it is overly simple as far as "serious racers" go, while also lacking the personality and spirit that makes an arcade game soar.
I love it because it's genuine bona fide art, made with that explicit intent and, importantly, successful at it. It's a game that weaves a masterful story, and would only really work as interactive art, because ultimately, what this game is about is a conversation... and it wants to hear your answers as much as it wants to pose questions to you.
School Girl / Zombie Hunter is not the longest game, which makes it ideal for quick bursts of fun. It has a brilliant little gameplay loop that certainly has its bugs and low-budget irritations, but never stops being utterly entertaining. Throw in the most perfect take on trashy B-grade horror that I've ever seen in a game, and there are not many other games released this year that I've had more fun with than this one.