Clea 2 is a confident step forward for a developer that has an original, interesting idea and set about turning it into something playable. It might lack the intensity of some of the horror games that it resembles, but its quiet moodiness and subtle challenges make it an interesting curiosity for those with a few hours to spare.
You've got to hand it to eastasiasoft for finding and bringing these fun little fanservicey games to the Switch. Delicious! Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire brings the fan service in spades, but it also plays a really good game of Mahjong Solitaire, and while the Switch has plenty of Mahjong Solitare titles already, none of the others have the pin-up aesthetic going for them. For just a couple of dollars, you can't go wrong here.
I genuinely love Balan Wonderworld because it caught me at just the right moment to indulge its whimsy. I don't for a second think it's a great game or platformer, but then I also just don't care. It offers something much more viscerally engaging; raw creative energy, and I would rather a hundred games fall flat like this one has and at least give me something different than play yet another highly refined copy of something I've already played a hundred times. Sometimes, just sometimes, raw creativity is enough in itself.
MazM: The Phantom of the Opera is what I would like to see more of in video games; it's a genuine effort to engage with a more meaningful side of art. It's less pop culture, easy content as it is an adaptation of a masterpiece of the gothic literature genre. The developer succeeded in capturing the aesthetics and generally representing the story, but there have been some big compromises made to hammer this nail into place, and the gamey elements and technical proficiency are just not there. Not for the Switch version, at any rate. As a Phantom of the Opera fan, I do highly recommend like-minded fans check this out, as it is a curiosity, but if you're going into this looking for a game... you'd be better off picking up a copy of the film adaptation of the musical.
Black Legend is not completely without merit, but it's a game that had better ideas than execution. The big, unique gameplay mechanic that dominates its combat system is also responsible for making each battle far too long, and while the game's atmosphere is excellent, the art direction is uninteresting and there isn't nearly enough of a narrative to actually make something of the setting. There are a lot of excellent tactics games being produced these days, and I fear that the developers of Black Legend won't even be able to use patches to bring it up to the standard of the least of their competitors. The flaws are simply too ingrained into the core experience.
Spacebase Startopia is not completely without merit, but it does lack in charm and depth, and simulators need one or the other (and preferably both) else they're in big trouble. With that being said there is a very specific audience for this game; it works as a competitive simulator where you learn the perfect order for doing things and then execute on that to cruise through to easy victories. In almost any other context, however, Spacebase Startopia lacks the creative whimsy and data-driven depth that we usually expect from a great simulator.
Either way, I’m settling on the score that I have because I can’t reward work that is this derivative. But despite the score I find this one an easy recommendation for certain players out there. Kaze is a genuinely well-made game and if you like Donkey Kong Country you’re going to like this one, if for no other reason than it’s something of a greatest hits of the best Donkey Kong Country levels. If we see a Kaze 2 (and I hope we will), and the developers show us a little of their own creative ideas in there, then we’ll be looking at some really high scores indeed.
It might be aesthetically different – completely different, in fact - but the ideas, storytelling tradition, and sense of wonder and awe at the natural world all translate across. In many ways, Monster Hunter Rise represents the purest execution of that idea, and from my perspective that makes it the best game in the series to date.
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is wholesome. It's a little naive in the way it presents the "grass is always greener on the other side" perspective on country living, but this series has been kicking around since the Super Nintendo and always gets away with it, on account of being so sweet and good-natured that it's impossible not to love.
Root Film tells a wonderfully winding, thrilling mystery in a true Edogawa Ranpo style, but what's more important is that Root Film is a gorgeous visualisation of an often-ignored but deeply valuable part of Japan. If you walk away from this game with a deep desire to see Shimane for yourself, then you've played it the right way.
At the end of the day, it's a collection of nonograms, which play well on Switch. However, factor in that there are so many of them, that they're presented in an engaging and interesting way, and you're rewarded with something meaningful for every single puzzle completed, and Hatsune Miku Logic Paint S is well elevated beyond being "just" well-made nonograms. The Picross titles on Switch offer well-made nonograms. Logic Paint S is so, so much more than that.
I'm not sure why the developers figured they'd give the Nintendo Switch a crack with Noble Armada: Lost Worlds. When your game picks up just four user reviews on Steam in three years, it's clearly not resonating, and throwing a clumsy port onto a console isn't going to change that. If this kind of game does appeal to you, then I highly recommend Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock instead. It's on Nintendo Switch and it is infinitely better than this in offering the same kind of miniatures wargame in space theme.
You've just got to persevere with Battle Brothers to really appreciate it, and it really is the epitome of the saying "it's a marathon, rather than a sprint". Once you've overcome the horrible excuse for a "tutorial" and onboarding process, you've then got to deal with some really repetitive quest design and an astronomically unforgivable difficulty curve. But, slowly, the game starts to open up, and before you know it, you realise that you're really enjoying this thing. It's expansive, it's complex, it's nuanced and it puts complete control over the story and quest in your hands. It's everything good about Mount & Blade, but in a more compact, turn-based format. It's no wonder the game has become a beloved hit on Steam, with fans pouring hundreds - if not thousands - of hours into it. It's not quite the same experience on Switch, and yet I can't see a scenario where I tear myself away from it, now I've pushed through its various walls. A truly fascinating example of a game that's just worth the effort.
Ultimately, Saviors of Sapphire Wings and Stranger of Sword City Revisited form a welcome package that’s sure to delight fans of dungeon crawlers. I like the way that Sapphire Wings’ moderate difficulty and focus on narrative serve as a good introduction before throwing players into the much more punishing Stranger of Sword City. I’m glad that Experience Inc.'s western partner, NISA, is seeing the value in releasing these niche games to a Western audience, and the added appeal of playing these games on-the-go is a plus for the genre. And speaking from a purely value-for-money perspective, you’re getting two full length, lengthy games for the price of one, and you’ll be happily dungeon crawling for weeks and weeks if you choose to pick this one up.
A-Train: All! Aboard! Tourism is the same wonderful blend of genuinely enlightening and deeply rewarding simulation gameplay that will both make you realise the value of mass transit, and help you to understand just how hard it is to get all of it right. Even the cute anime aesthetic, which initially seems so out of place for something so complex, eventually makes sense, too.
For a homage to a game from the 80's, faithfully recreating a gameplay system that was invented 40 years ago, Bishoujo Battle Cyber Panic! feels like a modern, funky game. The anime aesthetic is gorgeous and current, although perhaps a little too safe given that Azur Lane: Crosswave borrows from the same aesthetic while upping the fan service ante significantly. However, Cyber Panic! also has plenty of replay value and an excellent leaderboard system for such a minimal price. Most compelling of all, though, is the fact that the game is an uncomplicated and well-done take on Qix. Qix the kind of game that doesn't need developers to mess around with it, and to the great credit of Bishoujo Battle Cyber Panic!'s developer, they've let the base game stand for itself.
Gnosia might not be a new concept – there are so many video games out there that feature death games with deception at the core of them. Last year’s Quantum Suicide even set the scene in space and had a less-than-benevolent AI pulling many of the strings, just like Gnosia does. But Gnosia is something rare: it is really, truly different. The developers wanted to take this common-enough concept and craft something that was truly their own, and not only have you got here a game that you won’t forget in a hurry, it’s also going to have you actively thinking about just how smart it is for some time to come.
Dry Drowning reminds me a little of another game that I went into with absolutely no expectations, and went on to become one of my favourite games of all time: Tokyo Dark: Remembrance. Both are heavily inspired by noir and horror elements, though Tokyo Dark is Lovecraftian and Dry Drowning is more cyberpunk. Both games share a bold willingness to discomfort the audience, an interest in social commentary relevant to the real world, and an unrelenting intensity and urgency in the storytelling. I very nearly missed Dry Drowning because it very much looks like the low-budget visual novel that many other critics have accused it of being. I'm not sure what they were playing, though, because if you actually listen to what the game's saying, and pay attention to the literary genres that it belongs to, this is really quite a remarkable experience.
Harvest Moon: One World is ultimately forgettable and limited, but I didn't regret my time playing it. Perhaps that is simply because I'm such a fan of these anime-casual farming sims, and have been since the "genre" emerged all the way back on the SNES, but as someone who has played an awful lot of these things, One World's effort to do something different by getting you to travel around, and the streamlining of the farming mechanics so you can focus on the best bits, is admirable. There's still a long way to go for Natsume and its development teams to catch Story of Seasons, and I question the wisdom in releasing this game to compete directly with the upcoming new entry in that series, but this is still a genuinely pleasant little world to lose yourself within for a while.
While I have some minor issues with Steam Prison, this is a glorious, thrilling adventure, told with expertise and panache. It goes to some very dark places, but never comes across as exploitative or "cheap" in how it does it. Backed up with gorgeous aesthetics and a distinct setting, Steam Prison blends some complex ideas together while ultimately keeping the focus on what people come to otome for - a great harem of men that are all so interesting that it makes choosing between them a real challenge.