As the first major “Trails” release on Nintendo consoles, Trails of Cold Steel III offers little to excite players entering the series for the first time.
Though ambitious in intent, moon struggles to be engaging or enjoyable in a way that feels relevant today, which is why it is best appreciated as a forgotten relic.
In space, no one can hear you brutalize a chicken. Or maybe… they can? Read our thoughts of this ironic space survival title here.
Space: the final frontier. Can you avoid being distracted by titillating character portraits and actually explore it?
This poorly optimized version of an archaic RPG feels anything but timeless.
VIsual novel aesthetics help unite Eternal Radiance’s visuals, but it fails to hybridize the genre’s strongest traits.
It’s not going to be able to stand toe to toe with the kings of the genre, but Monark presents a fantastic and niche adventure you might be looking for.
This game might make you want to cry. You can take that any which way you’d like.
Anuchard feels like a great game from three decades ago. Maybe that’s the problem?
This trippy Soulslike struggles with the weight of its ambition, among other issues.
Super Neptunia RPG feels like the junk food of its genre, something easy and inoffensive to eat, but offering no real substance and resulting in something like regret. It’s unfortunate to say, because it’s not terrible, just bland and dissatisfying enough to leave it sitting beneath more compelling and accessible titles in the Switch library.
If unlocking multiple weapons and enhancing every aspect of the game via a constant experience grind sounds like an enjoyable prospect, then I would strongly recommend the title. In terms of how forgiving its experience and currency system is, it is easily one of the more accessible rogue-lites out there. This doesn’t mean, however, that the game isn’t difficult – maybe on its normal difficulty, but its harder settings will put your understanding of the title’s mechanics to the test. If you’re the sort of person who enjoys putting limitations on themselves and seeing where a randomizer can take you, then RemiLore might have the magic that you’re looking for.
I don’t know if I can recommend Away unless I say this, so here it is: If you find rogue-lites to be too unforgiving or are looking for a beginner rogue-lite for your child, Away is a suitable choice. It allows the player a great deal of freedom, but one they realize how broken the robot with the missile launcher is, the illusion of difficulty is wiped clean. The narrative is bizarre and certainly unexpected, with the final… “boss…” being unlike anything the game has yet to offer, but players might feel cheated by the lack of options present. It’s a game that has so many good ideas individually, but fails to put them together to form a cohesive and substantial challenge. If you’re not really looking for challenge, though, and you love the game’s aesthetics as much as I do, you might be able to find something to love here. While I love the way this game looks, I cannot say the same about the way it plays, and that’s an unexpected disappointment.
While Don’t Sink does have a rogue-like difficulty that erases a save file upon failed naval excursion or combat, a part of me doesn’t feel that bumping up the difficulty is worth the risk, as a great deal of the gameplay has to do with waiting and saving resources rather than actively engaging in the kind of swashbuckling gameplay one might expect. If you are looking for a more laid-back, resource-management-oriented sort of title, I might recommend Don’t Sink, although a great deal of its challenge can be circumvented by playing the game relatively safe. Perhaps its the savvy, overconfident nature of piracy that I lack which caused me to shirk from its more adventurous choices. Still, the idea of wasting more time saving money and resources on the high seas didn’t make the prospect all that enticing.
If you are looking for a definitive rogue-lite experience on the Switch, there are other options out there that will give you a bit more bang for your buck, but BEHEMUTT’s title is an admirable take on a genre that can often be a bit too exhaustive for its own good.
All in all, if you’re a big fan of the source material, whether Lovecraft or the board game, there’s something to appreciate in Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics, but for those looking for a bit more complexity or variety, your time is best spent elsewhere.
This Guardian Heroes-like action RPG has a few new bells and whistles on Switch. But you’ll need to be a certain kind of player to get the most out of it all.
Whether or not you feel The Shrouded Isle is worth your time mostly depends on two considerations: the first is how much mileage you’ll be able to get out of viewing the same ten or twelve screens and playing the same style of simulation, the second being how much of your time you feel like taking notes on your video game. The game itself does very little to keep individual family member information transparent, and once you’ve learned the ins and outs of each of its relatively few mechanics, the rest of the game is attempting – and failing – to make things work out for as long as you can, with the eventual hope that you’ll get a winning combo. There are important choices to make, but the game lacks depth in characterization and variety too much for me to recommend it.
As an alternative to Persona with writing and style very much seeped in Japanese culture, the Caligula Effect: Overdose is worth consideration. However, you'll need to ask yourself whether or not you can enjoy the idea of a game that only reaches its potential on a handful of occasions, and whether or not any of what you've read so far sounds worth checking out.
The point I am trying to make, I suppose, is that if someone were to ask me if they should buy or play Final Fantasy XII, I would answer that watching a video of someone else playing the game would achieve roughly the same effect as playing the game themselves. If you enjoyed Final Fantasy XII upon its original release – bless you – having the opportunity to play it three times as fast is a godsend, as the plodding pace of all of its playable characters both in and out of combat is surmounted and its near-excruciating grind is made one-third as fast. But otherwise, I can see no reason to look into this game outside of watching a Youtube video.