Dominic Leighton's Reviews
Astral Chain boasts the same winning elements of Platinum's finest work – exhilarating combat, characterful visuals, and a compelling story – but it loses a bit of personality. Where Bayonetta and 2B provided an emotional centre point for the fantastical storytelling, Astral Chain's unnecessarily silent protagonist is a charmless creation saved by an utterly charming world.
Madden 20 provides another year's worth of well-crafted gridiron action. It's a shame to say goodbye to Devin Wade and the Longshot narrative, but QB1 does a decent enough - if short - job of framing your own rise to fame. The rest of the package is as slick and smooth as you'd hope. Should you upgrade? If you're an avid fan, you probably already have. For everyone else, both Madden 18 and 19 still play a fantastic game of football.
Pawarumi is a vital, beautiful and utterly enthralling entry in the Shmup genre. Its trifecta of concepts might seem daunting at first, but this is an instinctual shooter that will blow fans of the genre away.
With the Switch's delightful dual abilities, Three Houses fittingly bookends the series' triumphant run on the 3DS and becomes the first big-screen outing in over a decade. It also surpasses them all. A masterpiece of strategy, story-telling and intertwining relationships, Three Houses deserves to make Intelligent Systems a household name.
Clever, emotional and raw, Sea of Solitude is a personal journey that at times you feel like you're intruding on. It is resolutely truthful and, just as Kay turns aspects of herself inward and outward, you can't help but consider your own place, both amongst the people around you and inside your own head.
Golem Gates is a great strategy title that blends CCG and RTS elements into an enjoyable combat-heavy form, while offering a world and soundscape that I immediately fell in love with.
Team Sonic Racing is a technically sound karting game, but really only sells its central mechanic well enough in multiplayer to convince you that it needs to be there. It's not helped by only featuring the mostly bland Sonic family of characters and locations, leaving it feeling like an overall downgrade from the fantastic Sonic & All-Star Racing games.
Much like its predecessor, Rage 2 stirs up Doom, Borderlands and Mad Max and comes out slightly less than the sum of its parts. Outside of some dreary lulls in the action, the characterful apocalyptic open world is a blast, with each settlement or point of interest a little pocket of adrenalin-soaked, heart-troubling frenzy that'll have you begging for the next fix.
Dangerous Driving is the game Burnout fans have been waiting for. Insane speeds, takedowns, permanent wreckage and a raft of events make this not just a spiritual successor, but a new beginning for aggressive arcade racing.
If you're a fan of run and gun games like Contra or Metal Slug, Mechstermination Force really captures the essence of how tough those titles were, while pairing it with a modern look and a wild penchant for mech design. There's no easy mode.
Bow to Blood: Last Captain Standing is the kind of future sport I can get behind, with tons of style, plenty of bombastic airship action and an identity all of its own.
Elli is a lovely little puzzle platformer that's well worth spending a few hours with, though its relaxed vibe and accessible gameplay could see your attention waning before the end.
There's a ton of potential in Xenon Racer, but while it looks and sounds the part, its difficulty level and overly weighty handling keep it firmly stuck in the slow lane.
While fans can likely find enjoyment in spending time with the One Piece crew, there are far better open world adventures out there.
Swords & Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon is a fantastic RTS addition to the Switch's library, and thanks to its portability and the addition of touch controls, Nintendo's console is once more the best place to play.
Dead or Alive 6 is an objectively great fighting game that's likely to be hampered by its continued objectification of women.
Just as Codemaster's competitors were starting to creep towards the digital rallying crown, Dirt Rally 2.0 puts them firmly back in the rear-view mirror. Utterly convincing, enthralling and punishing, Dirt Rally 2 is an exquisite racing sim.
Crackdown 3 manages to escape its troubled development in style, offering up a somewhat safe return to the superhero cop action of its predecessors in a bright and unpretentious campaign. It feels like the perfect antidote to some of the more bloated open world experiences of recent years. You can also briefly revel in the Wrecking Zone's glorious destruction, even if all that fancy cloud tech simply leaves you hungry for what the game could have been.
God Eater 3 boasts fantastic monster hunting combat and the best visuals we've seen from the series, but hangs onto too many of the previous game's hang-ups.
In a world bereft of a new Advance Wars, Wargroove is a worthy successor. Its fantasy retro strategy stylings mark it out as a wonderful amalgamation of the classic Fire Emblem and Wars games, and while it doesn't revolutionise the genre in the way that the modern Fire Emblem games have it nails the feel of Intelligent System's best games – while standing proudly on its own.