Any additional time you can spend sneaking in dungeon crawls while at work, carrying out Dark Brotherhood assassinations at family dinners, and crafting new equipment when you probably should be sleeping is the best addition to enhance the experience. I'm overjoyed that Bethesda has been able to bring Skyrim to the Switch without any compromises to the quality of the original game. After playing Skyrim on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Xbox One, I can easily say that the Switch provides the best experience possible. Bethesda is more than welcome to bring all their games over to Switch now, especially if each game is brought over with the same winning effort of Skyrim.
The car design is beautiful, the racing is smooth and fluid, and the inclusion of the performance workshop is a welcome addition. While it does fall short of becoming a viable replacement for Forza fans, it does provide the Switch with a fun racing game for enthusiasts looking for a more realistic racing experience.
If you're new to the indie scene and looking to get your feet wet this is the perfect game to get you started.
I also ran into a few glitches that ranged from strange to game breaking. The worst glitch was a boss that I somehow defeated prior to his dungeon, only to have him partially reappear in the dungeon with no health and undefeatable. For the action-platformer fan, this title would be low on my list of recommendations.
While there certainly will be a market of people that will enjoy Yodanji I think that selection of people will be fairly narrow.
The amount of polish that went in and the lack of bugs that can often plague titles developed by small teams truly demands applause. The issue though is that a single person development team isn't capable of matching the same quality of similar titles like Mario + Rabbids that are developed by a large team. Had ACORN come out prior to Ubisoft's release, I think it would have been a nice preview to the tactical RPG genre on Switch, but trying to play it now just reminds me of how good Kingdom Battle was and that you would be better suited to investing your money into a big budget game that will provide better gameplay and much more replayability.
The whole experience ended up being a few hours long. The likelihood is that this is a one--and-done playthrough, as once you've figured out the puzzles there really isn't a reason to play again unless you'd like to go back and look for clues to figure out the back story. I wouldn't say it's the best puzzle-platform title available, but it's unique and was worth the short time investment.
For an open sandbox game that relies on the user to enjoy the experience utilizing their imagination, the journey to the goal just isn't enjoyable enough. My hope going in was that I would be spending time coming up with creative ideas to fool guards and bypass security. Instead, what I found was that I would often pray that my first plan would work so that I would have to go looking for more tape and files.
Looking past the aesthetic issues, Ambition of the Slimes provides a unique and fresh experience for strategy combat enthusiasts. Elements I thought would feel redundant actually added to the layers of complexity that made the game all that more interesting. One word of caution, if you have a particularly sensitive gag reflex you may want to close your eyes and cover your ears that first time your Slime finds its way into the throat of its opponent.
As with most JPRGs, a lot of progression options are present, related to special powers and weapon upgrades. Since they don't make the combat any easier to digest, it doesn't feel relevant to get too detailed about them. Not mentioning that you manually have to click through endless English dialogue while listening to Japanese voice acting doesn't really change the fact that Fantasy Hero ~Unsigned Legacy~ is a title that can and should be ignored.
I went through a flood of emotions in my first run through, from the calm peaceful walk through the forest to shouting at my TV for the aliens to leave my friends alone. This expertly paced journey through nature provides a similar spiritual cleansing that one gets on a summer hike, and that's a wonderful feeling if you're currently stuck with the winter blues.
iTunes: The Thirsty Mage
From the animation to the structure of the combat and progression, most aspects of Earthlock can be traced back to an earlier game that just did it better. Without its own original or unique hook, Earthlock just feels bland and dated. For a independent developer to be able to carve out a piece of the RPG market dominated by big players like Atlus and Square Enix you need to bring something new and unique to the table and unfortunately this is something that Earthlock doesn't accomplish.
The sheer amount of content that they were able to pack into Regalia is incredible and the fact that they were able to make it all work is nothing short of outstanding. Apart from the onerous loading times that could alienate a few, the chemistry of blending time management with a complex and engaging battle system while tying it altogether with an engaging story and brilliant voice acting is an achievement that has eluded large development teams with years of game creation experience. I wholly recommend Regalia to fans who enjoy RPGs and I will be the first to put my hand up for the review of the next game this developer comes up with.
Strange Journey is a stark contrast. I never found myself confused on what I was supposed to do next and after committing to some light reading of the tutorials I felt like I had grasp on all of the different mechanics available to me. I can wholly recommend this as a litmus test for fans of Persona 5 who haven't yet gotten into the main Shin Megami Tensei series.
I had enough fun with Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition that I can recommend it as a fun guilty pleasure if you've got some extra coin but it's not a must play experience.
The quests and battle were fairly standard, the majority of my enjoyment came from the onslaught of ‘80s and ‘90s culture that blended perfectly within the game. From the ability to hire Master Splinter as the dungeon master, to purchasing Johnny 6 as a pet, there's plenty to keep a smile on your face. While some of the humor went over my head, there's enough chemistry to keep you entertained regardless of the amount of Dungeons and Dragons experience you have.
undefined.It would be an easy task to find faults simply by focusing in on individual aspects of The Lost Child. The vast majority of the game can be traced back to another JRPG that probably did it better, and if you can't get passed that, than you probably aren't going to enjoy it. But what I can't deny is that when I just stopped caring about how much was borrowed from previous titles, I had a lot of fun, and that's all that really matters.
Although there may be plenty of options in this genre, Shift Quantum stands out with its polished look, unique concept, and a soundtrack though unremarkable, never wears out its welcome.
With all the great titles on the horizon it can feel difficult to circle back to a one year old game, but Donkey Kong Adventure is a can't miss experience that so far ranks as one of the best for 2018.