Ikenfell is a charming little turn-based tactical RPG that hooks you in quickly with a well-written story and strong cast of characters and keeps you locked in for its duration with a surprisingly complex combat system. There are accessibility options here to suit all levels of player, a good idea considering how tough some of the battles can be along the way, and, overall, this is a heart-warming and unique entry to its genre that comes highly recommended.
Let's Sing Queen is a straight-up, no-frills entry in the series that throws you into the legendary super group's awesome back-catalogue of hits across the same selection of modes you'll be accustomed to from previous titles in the series. There are absolutely no surprises here and a definite lack of variety when compared to other offerings in the franchise; however, with thirty (mostly) excellent tracks, accompanied by their highly entertaining original music videos and an official app that turns your mobile phone into an impressively robust mic, this is a solid good time for fans of the titans of rock, karaoke fiends and anyone who just loves to warble along to some classic rock anthems while re-enacting the best bits of Live Aid 1985 in the comfort of their own sitting room.
Rivals of Aether is a deep and addictive platform fighter that borrows its base concepts from Super Smash Bros. and then runs off in its own direction, resulting in a surprisingly complex indie alternative to Nintendo's brawling behemoth. There's a fantastic roster of characters here each with their own special moves and unique abilities to dig into, every one of which is wonderfully animated in the game's crisp and clean 16-bit graphical style. Solo and local party play are well served with a bevvy of fun and flexible modes for up to four players and, if the developer can get the currently problematic online aspects of things in order, this all amounts to a game that can stand shoulder to shoulder with Smash or any other platform fighter we've played on Switch thus far.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time is an excellent modernization of a decades-old franchise that was beginning to really show its age. This is a thoroughly entertaining, slick and addictive addition to the series that funnels players through a meaty campaign packed to bursting point with inventive set-pieces and devilishly devious level design. There's a ton of content to keep fans busy here with time trials, collectible skins, N-Verted mode and side missions galore in a generous package that sees Crash blast and bound his way through what is easily his greatest adventure to date.
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is a wonderfully well-realised and stylish slice of space-sim action set in a satisfyingly seedy galaxy full of untrustworthy scum and illegal activity. The dogfighting action here is wonderfully tight and engaging thanks to the game's clever auto-pursuit mechanic, resulting in explosive ship-to-ship combat that allows you to get up close and personal, tracking your prey without much of the laborious fuss of other efforts in the genre. Juno Markev may not be the most exciting of protagonists and the story doesn't really come to much in the end, but there's a ton of side missions and a dynamic economy and morality system to keep you busy as you slowly unravel the mystery behind who killed her husband and left her for dead. Overall, this one's an easy recommendation for space-sim fans, dogfighting fiends and anyone else looking to indulge their inner space rebel.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Complete Edition brings the classic theme park building sim and all of its DLC to Switch in a generously priced package that's hard to knock. A very well-implemented control scheme streamlines the potentially fussy business of managing menus and constructing great big behemoths and, besides a few judders here and there when your park gets crazy busy – a problem inherited from earlier versions of the game – the whole thing runs pretty smoothly in docked and handheld modes while still managing to look good (thanks in part to a HD lick of paint) some sixteen years after its original release. This is one ride Switch sim fans should absolutely consider jumping aboard.
Hades is a sublime mix of satisfyingly gritty and flexible combat, a wonderfully vibrant art style and genuinely fun and engaging narrative. Supergiant Games has an excellent track record thus far but this really does feel its finest hour, a rip-roaring rampage through the underworld that's arrived here on Switch in a port that's nigh-on perfect. Even if you're yet to be swayed by the admittedly repetitive ebb and flow of the roguelike genre, we passionately urge you to at least give this one a try; for fans of the genre or anyone even remotely interested, this is one heavenly vision of hell that we highly recommend you sacrifice yourself to.
World of Tanks Blitz takes the core gameplay of its full-fat forebearers and translates it fairly successfully to Nintendo's hybrid platform. This one's not going to win any beauty pageants, it's highly repetitive, there are some balancing issues and a pretty essential comms system is MIA but, overall, there's still a decent game to get to grips with here – especially if you like tanks, which, as we've already established, everybody does. With a huge number of tanks, countless upgrades and none of the absolute essentials hidden behind the game's premium paywall, there's literally hundreds of hours of tank-blasting action to indulge in that's well worth checking out for the princely sum of zero.
RPG Maker MV on Switch is a stripped back and limited version of its PC counterpart that removes the ability to integrate your own custom elements as well as the use of plugins. There's also very little in the way of help or tutorials and the UI can be clunky and slow to navigate. However, if you can make peace with these limitations, what's here is still a vast, hugely flexible bit of game-making software that provides those with the patience to get to grips with its systems almost limitless potential for RPG-making fun. We can't wait to see what players come up with over the coming weeks and months ahead and the free RPG Maker MV Player means that all Switch owners get to share in the fun and perhaps be inspired to join in down the line. If you're hugely serious about RPG making you may do best to stick to the PC version, but, if you just want to have some creative fun within the limits of the assets provided here, you'll have a blast.
Bounty Battle is one of the very worst video games we've ever played. It's got an amazing premise, for sure, and Dark Screen Games' has somehow managed to procure the use of all of these fantastic indie characters, but that's as far as the positivity goes. Everything else about this appalling mess is absolutely broken. Janky menus, awful combat, a shocking framerate, crude animations and poorly explained mechanics leave this one in a hole that's surely impossible to climb out of; a hole that should be boarded up and forgotten about. If you're considering picking this one up on the strength of that enticing indie Smash Bros. premise, trust us, run away.
Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars is a reasonably fun turn-based strategy affair with an excellent setting and some unique ideas of its own. The streamlined nature of its gameplay makes it pleasingly zippy stuff that's well-suited to strategy newcomers but a lack of real depth, a clunky UI and some dodgy enemy AI means the fun here is, unfortunately, pretty short-lived overall for anyone but genre enthusiasts and vampire fans.
Marvel's Avengers is sprawling and spectacular, messy and bloated all at the same time. There's a surprisingly fun and lengthy campaign here, excellent writing and acting and some of the best superhero brawling in the business. It excels at allowing you to really feel like you're fighting alongside your favourite superheroes as you decimate enemies and destroy scenery, but it loses some of that swagger as it enters its online endgame. There's a half-baked gear system, convoluted menus and questlines and some technical issues that make fighting online feel a little rough around the edges at this point in time. However, with a couple of patches, with the right support down the line in terms of new heroes, costumes, bad guys and story beats, Crystal Dynamics could be on to a winner here. This is a properly solid start and a pleasant surprise.
Jump Force is a good time for a short time; a simplistic button-masher that looks and sounds great in action but can't deliver in terms of providing players with any more than a handful of hours of dumb fun before it all becomes a bit of a bore. If you're a huge fan of the shows involved or you like your fighting nice and easy you'll get more than most out of things and jumping into an online battle – if you can find one – adds a little spice to the mix but, overall, this is a disappointingly dull, one-note affair that doesn't do its roster of ever-popular characters any sort of justice.
Hypnospace Outlaw really is like nothing else out there; at once an excellent puzzle game, razor-sharp satire and meticulously crafted slice of early-internet nostalgia that you can spend hours absolutely lost in. It's frequently hilarious stuff that's impeccably well-written across the board, managing to successfully bring the crazy, lawless, early rush of creativity that formed the pre-Y2K era of the internet convincingly back to life. It delivers a truly extraordinary recreation of the GeoCities era of the internet that absolutely nails its '90s aesthetic to present a living, breathing world that's a joy to spend time browsing around, soaking up the atmosphere and reliving the anarchic early days of the internet as you slowly untangle the puzzles at the heart of its narrative.
Evergate is a wonderfully designed puzzle-platformer that starts off strong and goes from strength to strength over the course of its campaign. Every new world you encounter here adds a new twist to proceedings, gradually becoming more complex as it layers mechanics on top of one each other, enabling you to experiment and come up with your own unique ways to bound across its intricate levels. Speed-running here, for us, feels like it was tacked on for no real reason but, besides this one little misstep, this really is an essential purchase for puzzle/platforming fans and a standout example of its genre on Switch.
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind makes clever use of its licence, incorporating Tommy Shelby's knack for scheming and planning into the core of its time-manipulating gameplay as well as working each and every one of the gang from the hit TV show into proceedings. It's a shame that it takes quite so long for it to up the ante to the point that missions are really satisfyingly complex but what's here is certainly both fun and highly replayable for those who want to perfect each job on offer and grab gold in every mission.
Inmost tells its dark and troubling tale with plenty of style and there's an expertly handled mixing of narrative elements and satisfying gameplay mechanics for the most part that only really loses its way in the final stretch, unwisely wrestling control away from players and brute-forcing a rather neat and tidy ending that's at odds with how deftly the multi-layered story is handled early on. This and a few control niggles aside, however, are not enough to derail what is a genuinely haunting and memorable experience that's well worth checking out.
Rogue Company is a solid, if pretty unspectacular addition to the online shooter genre.
Thirteen years after it originally set about melting the PC of anyone who dared to try to play it, Crysis arrives on Nintendo Switch in a port that's more impressive than anyone could perhaps have realistically expected. Performance for the most part here is slick and smooth – albeit with a few dips and stutters here and there – while new lighting and global illumination techniques make this a better-looking version than any other console port to date. The addition of gyro controls is just the cherry on top of an excellent job on the part of Saber Interactive. The gameplay here has aged surprisingly well, too, and rampaging across the sandbox of Lingshan taking out human and alien foes with your nano suit technology is just as much fun now as it was way back in 2007.
Vigor has the potential to be a decent experience on Switch and there's no doubt it's central gameplay loops of stealthily scavenging for loot whilst avoiding other players and making a successful escape can be tense and absorbing. However, as things currently stand, there are a few too many bugs and technical issues for our liking and we'd recommend players wait for the FTP version to drop later in the year when some of these issues should have been worked out.