Radiation Island is a good survival horror premise that sadly never delivers.
Speedway Racing is a mostly competent but ultimately unexceptional attempt to emulate the thrills and spills of Daytona USA – a courageous endeavour indeed. But like the many faux sponsorship advertisements dotted around this game’s speedways, closer inspection drops the curtain to reveal some hard-to-ignore shortcomings.
The passage of time has not been kind to Gigantic Army, but we do hope this is won’t be the only Astro Port game to see a Switch re-release.
While this bird does nothing wrong and snugly fits among the other avian heroes already out on the Nintendo Switch, we are not sure if the general audience will greet him with open arms or clenched fists.
Gururin is proof that sometimes the best puzzle concepts are sometimes met with a harsh dose of 'average'. Despite doing nothing technically wrong, it sadly falls short of other offerings on Neo Geo like the previously released Magical Drop series or the still stubbornly Switch absent Puzzle Bobble series.
Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder Devastated is not a good game. It is not a bad game. It is a game. A harmless time-waster that will neither bring a revolution nor it will end the world by its quiet presence on the Switch eShop.
There is some fun here for puzzle/maze runner fans to be found, but we must caution readers that this millipede might never take off.
NORTH is not a video game, per se, at least not in the traditional sense. It is an interactive piece of electronic art one can choose to indulge in order to better understand the plight of refuges. As such the messages might escape those who are too young to understand the real-life parallels or those who are too old and with prejudice to care. If you like cyberpunk science fiction and don't mind experiencing simulated oppression, give this a shot. There is certainly nothing quite like it on the eShop and for the asking price and a mere moment of your time will give you modern society conundrums that will haunt you for years. The experience is so subjective we have no choice but to leave the score for each individual to settle on their own. The biggest tragedy here is not that number on the bottom of the review, but the fact that if this ‘interactive art piece' was released 100 years in the past or a century in the future, the lingering topics would and will surely still be completely relevant.
Cast of the Seven Godsends is an old-school homage that sadly falls short of delivering a completing experience that lives up to the seven godsends mechanic. The six levels are extremely challenging (and a little unfair); bosses will blissfully bash you in merciless, over and over until you either somehow manage to reach them with Kandar fully-upgraded or get the dreaded 'Game Over' screen. Despite some potential, it's hard for us to recommend this game considering the plethora of superior 2D action platformer games already available on Switch. Perhaps the Gods should have better left Kandar rest in peace on his tomb instead of demanding such an infuriating quest of him (and you).
Ice Cream Rider Is far from being a terrible game, but several alarm bells ring when you get down to playing it. While delivering all the classic tropes one would expect from a cute-'em-up, it resembles Commodore Amiga games where western developers attempted to mimic the Japanese arcade offerings found on the arcades to varying degrees of success.
1993 Shenandoah is an unexpectedly polarizing title: previous Commodore Amiga owners and fans will undoubtedly love it and blissfully enjoy the sights and sounds of their beloved childhood, but folks who either missed out on the Amiga or are too young to know the machine might feel completely baffled that such titles managed to hold anyone's attention for long.
Synaptic Drive feels slightly too expensive and bare-bones and feels almost 'early-access' quality in some regards.
Stay Cool, Kobayashi-san!: A River City Ransom Story is an interesting entry in a genre that is experiencing a revival of sorts on the Switch thanks to the ever-increasing number of re-releases and brand new experiences.
Express Raider remains a fun 2-in-1 game, with the fighting stages standing head and shoulders above the shooting ones, which is something of an oddity considering the Wild West setting. As such we recommend it to anyone who was a fan of the original or who played the home conversions and want to have the original on their virtual arcade Switch museum. But if you have an itchy trigger finger, we recommend you buy a ticket to a more steampunk kind of Wild West.
Renegade/Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun represents a lovely and important piece of forgotten video game history. For the hardcore fans that were raised on it, or simply as a curio for a new generation of gamers looking to find out on how the scrolling beat-'em-up began, this is still a recommended if not essential purchase. There are certainly better options of the genre on the Switch already, but none of them might have even existed if Kunio didn't have such a short temper in 1986…
Samurai Defender: Ninja Warfare may not bring anything new to the table among the castle defence genre, but it does so in a charming feudal Japanese cartoon wrapper. Despite not setting the video gaming world ablaze (unlike the poor fools rushing at your door) anyone looking to blissfully slaughter wave upon wave of enemy cannon fodder soliciting at your castle gate need not look further.
This isn't for racing novices; the aids take away the challenge but turning them off makes things brutally realistic.
10-Yard Fight is as bare-bones as one might expect from the first proper attempt at a proper American Football simulation. It's got no extras, no fancy audio or music (bar some good digitised speech) and no depth one might be used to in modern takes on the genre. It is, however, a true piece of video game history and a brave effort by Irem that certainly paved the way for other greats of the genre.
Ghost Pilots is a classic case of SNK saying "Look, we can do it too!" in Capcom's general direction, but believing that in every shooter more enemies means a better game was a mistake.
Spartan is the agōgē of platforming video games: If you manage to clear it all the way you will be able to say you have conquered an extremely hard video game. However, and much like the Spartans of old, we doubt you will be having a very good time while at it.