Someday You'll Return is an occasionally pretty game with a splash of interesting ideas and visuals that are unfortunately let down by shoddy performance, abysmal storytelling and an overall lack of care placed into its presentation.
A staggering amount of content, variety and tactical depth makes Monster Train a must-play for fans of the deck-building genre, despite it struggling to explain its dense collection of mechanics and often lacklustre presentation.
While visually intriguing and distinct, Liberated feels more like an idea than a game, thanks to an uninspired story, boring gameplay and a stunning lack of polish.
Despite some annoyingly prevalent fan-service and clunky fetch quests, Shantae and The Seven Sirens won me over with it’s beautiful realised world, charming characters and thoroughly polished metroidvania design
The Last of Us Part II is an exceptional experience from beginning to end, uniting its gameplay and narrative into a cohesive unit while also delivering some of the best writing and acting seen in a video game to date. It is undeniably one of the best games I've ever played.
XCOM 2 on Switch is a functional, enjoyable port that falls prey to some of the weaker hardware offered by Nintendo. If you can look past all the performance issues and long-ish load times, XCOM 2 continues to be one of the best strategy games ever published.
A faithful remake that takes an average collect-a-thon of a bygone era and never really does much to improve it aside from some added content and spruced up visuals, Battle for Bikini Bottom is let down by its monotonous gameplay and loose controls.
Summer in Mara makes a great first impression with its pleasant visuals and laid-back music but ultimately fails to remain engaging for long due to repetitive quests, a hollow world and plenty of tedious mechanics
Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise wants to revel and self-praise its own absurdist nature, but at the end of the day the actual game attached to all the strange dialogue, mechanics and gameplay is painfully frustrating.
Necrobarista is a touching, emotional journey that features an excellently written and easily lovable cast of characters. While the "memories" within the game are frustrating to unlock, it wasn't enough to detract from an otherwise excellent experience.
Boring, generic, uninspired and every other synonym for painfully average, The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines isn't worth the time it takes to say its name.
Mortal Shell is an excellent entry in the Souls-like space with some fantastic ideas around character progression and combat, but is unfortunately let down by a health system that discourages exploration and an element of tedium that unnecessarily pads out encounters.
Risk of Rain 2 is an exceptional example of how to combine the rogue-like genre with shooter mechanics. Deep, satisfying and just so addictive, it's taking every cell in my body to prevent me from taking a week off from work just to play more of it.
Dark, depressing, and more than a little intense, Inmost is a gorgeous game with a powerful narrative hook that doesn't need to focus on its gameplay to deliver a powerful experience.
Despite collecting three of Mario's most well-known games, Super Mario 3D All Stars doesn't justify their porting onto the Switch. With minimal improvements, few features that truly make it feel like an "Anniversary celebration" and some bafflingly lazy design choices, 3D All Stars feels like more like a quick cash grab.
Beautifully crafted, satisfying to play and over-flowing with content, Hades is a phenomenal video game that continues to impress long after you complete your first run.
Noita is an exciting experiment that grew into a tense, complicated, and altogether satisfying game of self-expression and discovery. It allows players a level of freedom often unseen in rogue-likes at the expense of a clear and distinct visual language, and situations that become difficult to quickly parse.
Despite some boring locales and an over-reliance on the darkness just for the sake of it, Amnesia: Rebirth is an excellent horror game with some fun puzzles, well-written characters, and genuinely terrifying moments.
If you need some optimism and pure joy injected into your life, Pikmin 3: Deluxe Edition is for you. A fantastic remaster that adds a healthy chunk of new content to what was already a bulky game, that improves the overall experience.
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered is still a great game a decade later, but it's even better now with the addition of modern multiplayer sensibilities, improved visuals, and an expansive single-player campaign.