The easier puzzles can be banged out in less than a minute once you know what you’re doing, while the larger puzzles offer more substantial challenges. And with more than 350 puzzles to get through — the majority of which can be found in the harder difficulty settings — there’s plenty of game here to keep you busy in the long term.
The challenging, cerebral gameplay of Alice and You in the planet of numbers might not be for everyone, but the sheer level of charm on display in this game will inspire many people to make an effort to understand what is actually going on from a mechanical perspective. Allow yourself to get drawn in and there’s potentially hours of number puzzling fun to be had here; certainly a nice bit of light relief from the more chaotic, action-packed games out there.
It’s not a game that demands hours of your time at once, nor one that has a vast amount of content to keep you busy in the long term — but it is a game that is fun to boot up once in a while when you fancy some straightforward arcade action that rewards you with the very pleasant sight of some awesome, kick-ass military and mecha girls for doing well.
It’s pure, psychedelic, completely surreal escapism that will help you forget the “real” world for a few minutes or hours — particularly if you have the means of immersing yourself fully in it with a PSVR headset and a good pair of headphones cranked up nice and loud. In the world we live in right now, experiences like this are especially important — and I know I’ll certainly be making good use of it whenever it all gets a bit much!
All in all, Natsuki Chronicles should be considered an absolutely essential purchase if you have the slightest interest in shoot ’em ups. Even if you’re not typically great at this sort of game, Natsuki Chronicles provides plenty of support to help you get better and make consistent progress — while if you’re a hardcore veteran, the game’s tougher difficulty levels coupled with the ability to turn off the various “helper” features will provide you with a stiff challenge.
Ultimately it’s safe to say that if you enjoyed the first HuniePop, you will very much like HuniePop 2, because it offers more of the same — but better. Much, much better. The first game is still worth playing — if only to have the chance to get to know the fairy Kyu a bit better, since she claims she’s no longer allowed to jump into bed with her clients in this one — but HuniePop 2 improves on it in almost every way.
Food Girls is a thoroughly likeable game that does its best with what it has, much like the girls in the street market. At times, its low budget and lack of polish is apparent — most egregiously with a couple of untranslated lines that are still in Mandarin Chinese — but for the most part, the heart, soul and passion of its developer shines through, creating an enjoyable, memorable and thoroughly comfy experience.
Uninspiring, uninteresting and utterly unremarkable, Seven Knights: Time Wanderer is an extraordinarily tedious game that it's hard to recommend to anyone but the most die-hard fans of its mobile counterpart - particularly given how many other top-quality RPGs the Switch plays host to. Even if you're an ardent follower of the franchise, we'd argue your money is much better spent elsewhere.
Touhou Spell Bubble is a top-notch puzzler with a ton of content to enjoy. The wonky localisation is a little disappointing, especially from a well-established company like Taito, but ultimately it doesn’t hurt the experience to a significant degree – the mechanics are the real star here.
Part dungeon-crawling RPG, part survival horror, part dating sim and part visual novel, Undead Darlings ~no cure for love~ successfully blends its disparate elements into a thoroughly compelling whole. While a couple of mechanical elements here and there are a little awkward - most notably inventory and equipment management - this is a satisfying, challenging game that will keep you hooked until the credits roll.
Moero Crystal H is an outstanding dungeon crawler that combines the light-hearted, sexy, character-centric comedy of harem anime with deep combat and progression mechanics, plus a healthy dose of dating sim for good measure. It respects the player's time with quality-of-life features such as adjustable speed controls for both combat and exploration as well as a helpful autopilot mode – though it would have been nice to also see an option to save and recall party lineups and load-outs. It's beautifully presented, too, with delightful animated Live2D characters, gorgeous (if infrequent) event images and incredibly catchy music. Most importantly, though, it plays well – and provides enough content in both its main story and endgame to keep even the most avid RPG fan busy for hundreds of hours.
If you've been curious about the property, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? - Infinite Combate is a good way to get involved, as it allows you to explore the first season of the anime and some supplementary material in an enjoyably interactive manner. Series veterans will also appreciate the opportunity to "date" their favourite characters in the Extra mode as both Bell and Ais, and the array of beautiful artwork and fun events to unlock provides good incentive for continued engagement — as does the progression system, which only really shows its depth once you've cleared the story. It's just a bit of a shame the game feels like it was developed on the cheap; it's likely some will find the simplistic dungeon graphics in particular somewhat off-putting. If you can look past that, though, this is a good adaptation of a well-loved series, with plenty of content to keep you busy in the long term.
Waifu Uncovered has a laser-focused target audience and it caters perfectly to that audience.
While there are sporadic “action” sequences as you flee from Dark Song and avoid enemies, The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters is a game primarily about exploring a well-crafted setting and the narrative that unfolds therein, so your enjoyment will depend on your openness to that kind of experience.
If you can fight past the technical shortcomings – which, it's worth stating, are pretty considerable – then you'll find an experience that's totally unique on Switch, and that's no mean feat when you consider the depth of the console's library.
SeaBed is a beautiful, emotional work of digital literature that won't be to everyone's taste, but come in with the appropriate expectations and there's a true masterpiece of the visual novel medium waiting to be enjoyed here.
For some, the technical jank may be enough to put them off engaging with Dead or School fully. That'd be a real shame, though; allow yourself to get wrapped up in the narrative, the mechanics, the piles of loot, the beautifully designed stages and the game's wonderful sense of style, and there's something truly special to enjoy here; an honest-to-goodness hidden gem if ever there was one.
This is a perfectly serviceable visual novel which boasts gorgeous presentation but is held back by its short runtime, lack of narrative ambition and rough edges in terms of localisation.
Prison Princess is an enjoyable puzzle adventure that combines invigorating brain-teasers with appealing characters, beautiful artwork and an intriguing narrative.
Square Enix's MMO has gone from turmoil to triumph, but can the latest expansion take it even further?