If you do like Space Harrier and similar, and you're familiar enough with the Neptunia series to know the characters and enemies without needing to have them introduced to you, then Top Nep is a short burst of nostalgic-themed fun. It's also a decent game to introduce people to the genre, thanks to the modest difficulty option, while eventually scaling to something more challenging to give the genre faithful something to sink their teeth into. I have very few issues with Top Nep as an arcade action throwback. My issue is that, as a Neptunia fan, the less-than-lip service paid to the property left the overall experience feeling humourless and soulless. For all the faults and missteps of Neptunia over the years that is something I never thought I would be saying about a game in the series.
I don’t have strong feelings for Eternal Radiance. It’s got no egregious flaws, and boasts a lengthy quest and a combat loop sure to keep players satisfied. As a bare-bones, back-to-basics look at the action-JRPG, it’s fine. It’s just that on the Switch there are so many available games that take a more interesting look at the JRPG formula, whether it has to do with narrative or gameplay or visual aesthetic, and that makes Eternal Radiance seem woefully bland by comparison. Reading the situation generously, it does feel like the game’s simplicity comes down to the developer’s affection of JRPG tropes, rather than a lack of creativity or ambition. But it's still a quality that holds the overall experience back. The finished product is fine, and quite nice to look at, but it is something that makes me want to play something else instead.
Aside from being an imperfect port, Concordia is an excellent digital board game for Eurogame veterans. That's a fairly small niche on Switch and I do think most people will be happy with Wingspan, but if you do like your board games to be smart and engaging, this is one that you don't want to overlook.
I wasn't expecting much from Space Stella. It's a Trooze-published game, after all. But what I actually good exceeded my expectations in the most wrong way possible. I don't like bandying around terms like "unplayable" much, since "unplayable" implies that the game cannot be completed, and most of the time it's juvenile hyperbole for "this is just a game I don't much like playing because it has some flaws in it." But Space Stella is genuinely unplayable. Even if I could handle the sickeningly janky gameplay (which I can't), I have a visceral desire to avoid playing a game so shallow, uninspired and downright empty as this one.
With all of that being said, I don’t think Card Fighters is bad by any means. It’s quite the joy to play, and it is by no means the only "retro" experience that displays limitations that become more apparent with age. For the modest price being asked of players with this Switch release, it’s a great opportunity for a hit of nostalgia. As I said at the top of the review, however, it's not quite the timeless experience that its immediate peer is.
Like all of qureate's games, the fan service of Duel Princess crosses far beyond the light and bubbly stuff that sits within a lot of people's comfort zones and lands squarely into outright titillation. Those who tolerate fan service if they otherwise enjoy a game will find this a bit much, and as a consequence qureate has certainly limited the audience more than the team needed to, given how little relevance the erotic elements have to anything else in the game.
To Be Or Not To Be is an excellent - and rare - example of Shakespeare being brought to video games. It works as a satirical deconstruction of Hamlet, and it works as a simple (but enjoyable) choose-your-own-adventure gamebook in video game form. I wish more developers were willing to tackle this kind of source material.
My issues with Arcadia Fallen have to do with my issues with the wider YA narrative genre that it belongs to, but I really cannot stand the tonal inconsistencies, the juvenile writing style, or the complete shallowness of these things and the thoughts they express. It seems that I'm increasingly in the minority here, but I'm not a fan of treating audiences like idiots. However, if YA writing doesn't annoy you as much as it does me, then you're going to really get along with this one, since the presentation is impeccable, and it does have its heart in the right place.
Should the very negative impression that Alone Musc levels be tempered by the fact that the credits list just four people? Perhaps, but then perhaps those four people should have worked on something more in-line with what they had the resources for. Alone Musc is, by a long way, the poorest rhythm game on a console that has a lot of excellent rhythm games, and unfortunately, for a genre as straightforward as this one, there was nowhere for this team to hide their inability to compete with the other developers working in the genre.
Theatre of Sorrows isn't worth your time. It's dressed up nicely with some good art and the occasional sinister moment to dwell on, but underneath that is little more than a basic resource management experience, with such egregious repetition through its "roguelike" elements that it becomes rote well before you've even finished the game for the first time. As a carefully-planned, linear and focused experience, Theatre of Sorrows could have been something creepy and evocative. Instead, it's like reading the same snippets of Lovecraft over and over again. Do that, and it doesn't take long at all for them to lose all meaning and value.
There is some effort that has gone into making Epic Dumpster Bear 2. There are even some genuinely nice touches, like little facts about bears that pop up during loading screens, and some elements, powerups, and similar that make it clear that the game is Canadian. I like it when the developers don't shy away from identifying their work with their culture. Unlike many low-budget platformers, there is a soul and sense that the developers weren't just looking to make a cynical dollar. So much of Epic Dumpster Bear 2 is admirable, it's just a pity that there wasn't a stronger vision behind it.
I love Poker Club's design and philosophy, but unfortunately, where Ripstone's other games on Switch are exceptional, this is a vastly inferior port and experience.
So, while the horror might be a little too much of a pastiche for its own good (it does go places sometimes, but a "haunted letter", Ring-style, is a shoddy hook in 2021), there's something very readable and enjoyable about The Letter. It's not particularly deep, but it's significantly better than amateur standard, the editing is clean, and you can just tell that this was a labour of love for the development team. It might not be an Otomate production, but this is of a standard that well exceeds most other indie visual novels.
You can play regular chess, too, and it works, though there's an utter lack of inspiration behind the little battles between the chess pieces. Worse, the AI isn't going to throw up a challenge to anyone but the most beginner of chess beginners. Finally, it's all terribly ugly, most notably with the backgrounds, where we're meant to be able to fight in "towns", "graveyards", "castles" and other locations, but in practice, the developer just has just dropped a differently-shaped rock here and there and called it a day. There are exceptional options for chess on the Switch. Pawn of the Dead, meanwhile, is one of the poorest games on the console.
The only real problem with Oink Games is that the single-player experience is a bit too no-frills for its own good. Why can't I organise a five-round game of Startups against the AI, developers? You've implemented a great scoring system that demands play over five (if not ten) rounds, but when you're playing solo you're restricted to one game at a time. Thankfully the AI is a challenge without it ever feeling like they cheat, but still, between the limitations of solo play and the fact that two of the four games don't really work as single-player experiences, you'll need to go into this being aware that you're only getting a quarter of the experience unless you can get a Friday evening group together. Thankfully, that should be pretty easy since, once you do play Oink Games, you'll want to play it a whole lot).
I'm not the world's biggest fan of shooters, but I have a soft spot for Serious Sam. It's partly because it exists to make fun of the rest of the genre, and do so in a colourful, easy-going way such that it's the equivalent of a Sunday morning cartoon. It's also all-action, but in the right way. I find more realistic shooters stressful when I'm being swamped from all sides, but Serious Sam does such a great job with the power fantasy that you'll look at a screen filled with 100 ugly beasties... and wish they had brought friends. I enjoyed getting re-acquainted with Serious Sam earlier in the year with the collection. With Serious Sam 4 I have a game that should have done better on the PlayStation 5 hardware, but is a new favourite shooter anyway.
While that might sound like a catastrophic weakness for a tactics game, it’s really not and hidden well. Look at how compelling Advance Wars or Final Fantasy Tactics is despite the simplicity of the enemy AI and the actual on-field tactics. Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector aims for a similar casual tactical feel as those kinds of games, and, thanks to the excellent and authentic depiction of the grimdark 40K universe, nails it. This is just plain good tactics play, and sometimes that’s enough.
The core fundamentals of Monster Rancher are delightful, and while this collection has its issues, there aren't all that many modern equivalents to what it offers, so they hold their value well. Whether this is some kind of elaborate market research with Koei canvassing interest for a potential new Monster Rancher, or a simple acknowledgement that the series still has fans and they'll buy anything Monster Rancher-related, I don't know. I almost hope they don't make a new Monster Rancher, because the appeal of these games is in their simple charm. Simplicity that modern game development can't get away with. In that context, I actually believe that Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX will be the best of this series. Putting aside the inability to summon monsters via CD, both games have aged like the finest of wines, and remain some of the best examples of design from their era.
Slap Them All is by no means perfect. It's shallow, even by genre standards, lacks the all-but mandatory four-player option, has been balanced for two players to the point that it doesn't really work as a single-player game, and fails to give players any reason to give it a second go once powered through. And yet at the same time, it is the best use of the beloved Asterix & Obelix property that we have seen in years and for us long-suffering Asterix & Obelix fans, for that reason alone Slap Them All is a gift.
Real Boxing 2 is everything wrong with mobile gaming, and while it's free of the microtransactions on Nintendo Switch, all that it has to offer is an endless parade of matches that display no personality. I'm no expert on boxing, but I know enough about the sport to know that boxing fans aren't going to find this satisfying on any level.