For visual novel fans, VA-11 HALL-A is definitely refreshing and distinctive enough to be worth your time.
Overall, polish and craftsmanship elevate a lightweight but amusing story to something that really stands out. For visual novel freshmen, it could even be your first crush.
So, throw away the dud story, the awful presentation and the violence-and-shame-based soft porn and haven't we got a great little shoot-em-up here? The fact is that this mechanically competent shooter in a classic style from a proven team comes with all those crummy decorations attached. It's up to you if it's worth overlooking all the ugliness for the sake of a good game that isn't particularly world-changing.
It’s like being a kid again, and stands as yet another essential Switch release you really should own.
All in all, Umihara Kawase Fresh! is presented smartly, if quite bizarrely. Its movement system is fiendish, sometimes frustrating, sometimes free-flowing. Unfortunately, it asks a lot of the player and manages to hide its best bits. The level and boss design are unlikely to inspire anyone, especially when already taken to wit's end by the stuttering difficulty, but that's not enough to undo the game's unique charm. If you're already an Umihara fan then Umihara Kawase Fresh! will give you your fix like nothing else. For anyone else, it's harder to love – but not impossible.
If you're new to visual novels, and curious, then go somewhere else first; Root Letter: Last Answer could put you off the genre for life. But if you're a visual novel fan, you've played all the other interesting ones on the Switch and you absolutely cannot wait for another – and if you've considered maybe just going outside or watching TV or lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling and you still can't wait for another – then you could take a look at Root Letter and just hope you find it so bad it's good.
Songbird Symphony hasn’t uncovered some magical gameplay combination by crossing platforming with rhythm action. However, if you think you’d like to play a good, easy game in that unique space, with some headroom for more advanced music gaming, Joysteak has delivered with style and humour.
As it's a package from 2013 of a game that reportedly sold a million copies, you probably already know if you need to get Thomas Was Alone. If you haven't played it and you have a Switch then you absolutely must get the demo – right away, no excuses. Its playful elucidation of how games work shouldn't be missed by anyone interested in the medium. The full game gives you a few hours of good platforming with great presentation and a well-told story. And as an artefact of its era of indie games, Thomas Was Alone is a delight. The game can be experienced start-to-finish in a few short sessions and Bithell's commentary provides a sort of meta-narration to motivate another playthrough if you haven't heard it before. In short, Thomas Was Alone was pretty great when it came out, it's held up well and now it's on your Switch.
The single-player Arcade mode is good, and the Missions have a lot of difficulty headroom, but it will sting a little to pay full price if you don’t have an opportunity for multiplayer. Mighty Fight Federation nevertheless remains a very interesting proposition for fighter fanatics craving a new set of mechanics to explore. Assuming the Switch online community grows, or if you have players ready for local fisticuffs, it will scratch an itch other fighters can’t reach.
As a birthday gift from Blizzard to itself, Blizzard Arcade Collection has been put together with some care. Sometimes good things come in smaller packages, though, and a lot of the content here is superfluous. Two of the Definitive Edition games are worse than the SNES titles also included, while Rock 'n Roll Racing's is so successful that including the SNES and Mega Drive versions has only really added clutter. The result is a need to start every version of every game a few times to work out which one is actually worth playing, which somewhat spoils the party. But, for all those imperfections, there's a lot to love: it may not be exactly what we've always wanted, but it's the thought that counts.
It's hard to express how well a niche game fares with a numerical score. If train business minutiae are your niche, your heart will be all a-flutter; if not, you'll be all a-bored. Setting the content on one side, there are significant balance, interface and performance issues – but they don't derail the game entirely. While there are other options for management sims on Switch that are much more light-hearted and accessible, A-Train is something different that educated us and broadened our horizons in the genre. Fans, then, will be stoked to play the series on a new platform; for others with plenty of patience A-Train could be a sleeper hit. (We're really, really sorry about all the puns. Honest.)
Last Stop has something special in there to share over its six-or-so hours. Well worth having on the wishlist until the time and price are right for you.
Islanders is an elucidation of how games build meaning from abstract systems. However, more than that elucidation, Islanders gave us the time to ponder. It’s a repetitive, extended, calming experience that uses just enough power of just narrow enough a collection of faculties to induce a half-aware presence in reality. Which is when you think up all the dumbest questions: could it be that contemplating the meaning of life is the meaning of life? Woah.
Young players still green to the simple story ideas and to platforming fundamentals will find absolute magic in Hoa. The orchestral score and hand-painted backdrops have the power to whisk imaginations away like nothing else. The tried-and-true design of a modern platform game, while unsurprising to seasoned players, will delight budding gamers getting to know the genre. Apart from its closing stage, Hoa is a paint-by-numbers platformer – and the painting is exceptional, even if everything stays carefully inside the lines.
Oskar Stålberg has made a charming and compelling toy for imaginative play. Anyone willing to project themselves into its worlds and tell stories to themselves as they build will have a great time (although young kids might need assistance with the controls). Raw Fury claim to care about “experiences and emotions” not “genres or mechanics”. If that’s where your priorities lie, too, then give Townscaper a shot.
The concept of Super Animal Royale is very now – it draws on all the familiarities of modern mainstream gaming. In a way, then, you could say it's cutting-edge. In another way, though, it's all just very familiar, to the point that it's strangely unremarkable. No individual aspect of it stands out, but it does form an endearing whole. It feels cool to play (when there's no grievous lag), the map is compelling and the battle royale formula is as much of a buzz as ever. The monetisation model is not in-your-face and the player base is certainly there. It's free, it's under a gigabyte, it's fast, and it's a good laugh. Why not download it?
The customer is always right, so the saying goes, and as customers of this game, players can have some legitimate complaints about the service. The platforming is not fun: sadistic design choices are realised with lacklustre materials. But BloodRayne doesn't care. The combat, when you're allowed to play it, is unique and raucous and deliciously convoluted, with a skill ceiling as high as a gothic cathedral. BloodRayne isn't here to take your order; it's here to suck your blood.
SkateBIRD is a creative addition to a genre lacking in variety, and its fun concept has clearly been realised with a lot of love. However, despite its potential, the best parts of the concept are underused, with neither the miniature skaters nor the addition of wings bringing much to excite. While the core gameplay is functional, the play feel is not fluid and the level design and laborious structure are always working against the fun. To top it off, the rudimentary graphics are needlessly hazy. More of a turkey than a pretty boy, then, unfortunately.
If there's an idea no one's done before, it's probably because it's just a bad idea. But Zoink has managed to hit on something original that actually works with Lost in Random. Its audiovisual world-building is tremendous, ably lifting a servicable quest structure and story, and inventive combat plays to its strengths and is taken carefully up to the limits of its potential. However, the layers of interaction during battles make a promise of strategic complexity that isn't kept, and encounters last too long without the depth to sustain interest. Nevertheless, everything is packaged beautifully and Lost in Random doesn't outstay its welcome, either, leaving you craving one last roll of the dice.
First Cases is a significant change of direction from The ABC Murders, Poirot's last outing also published by Microids. Stepping comfortably into visual novel territory and casting aside the puzzling that would hold back narrative flow, your fantasy is one not of being Hercule Poirot but rather of enjoying a Poirot novel. The Switch let's you indulge in that as you would a great book, whether in the wingback of your stately home's library or, indeed, on the toilet of your bedsit. For storytelling, the game format is ideal – even ingenious. The trademark Christie web of connections between events, evidence and the psychology of the characters is planned out in front of your eyes – either to pore over on a diagram or to stroll through in the neatly presented settings. The game's main limitations are the inanimate world and workaday writing that fail to lend the sparkle of life to a well-machined story. Nonetheless, while puzzle-loving gamers shouldn't pick this one up, visual novel fans and Hercule-heads won't be able to put it down.