As an adventure game, Chicory is quite sincerely up there with the very best of the genre. There's plenty to see and do and a full completion run will probably take you 25-30 hours. The characters and their travails are rich and likeable, the game's sense of humour is generally inspired, and it's all very sweet without being sugary-twee and talking down to the player. It's also an affecting little tearjerker that will definitely strike a chord if you make art, and almost certainly will even if you don't – so long as you're capable of pretty basic empathy. Chicory is simple to play but impressively long and complex, with perfect controls, performance and visuals. Throw yourself into painting the world and you'll be left with a game that's very much your own and speaks to you directly – a beautiful marriage of mechanics, themes and visuals.
As good as it ever was and now incredible value, SNK Vs. Capcom: Card Fighters' Clash is still essential. Obviously the card-based gameplay isn't going to appeal to everyone, but at this asking price we'd say it's worth a go even if card games usually turn you off, especially if you dig SNK/Capcom's extensive character rosters. Many, many series are represented here and everything you need to learn to play is available in the scanned manual as well in-game via tutorials. Let it get its hooks into you and you've got a bit of a masterpiece here, and we're absolutely delighted that it's graced the Nintendo Switch with its excellence.
Honestly, it's tempting to give Powerslave a 10 just for being available again, but no. That would, of course, be naughty. Here it is, though, in even more than all its glory - a brilliant, beautiful reworking that captures the very essence of what made it so awesome back in the day while giving the best of both the Saturn and PlayStation's distinct versions. For such a prototypical take on Metroid Prime, it's alarming and impressive just how much confidence Powerslave Exhumed shows in its design, making it the best kind of retro game - one that's even better today with full knowledge of how ahead of its time it really was. An easy recommendation to FPS fans of any vintage, Powerslave Exhumed will keep you playing and playing, searching for those last niggling secrets.
Grapple Dog isn't quite perfect. We feel that more could have been done with the grapple itself, as it's a little restrictive in its application. A less friendly, more freeform approach would interfere to an extent with the tight level design, but it would still be cool for speedrunners if the grapple really let them cut loose. That's pretty nitpicky, though, because developer Medallion does precisely what it sets out to do — deliver an unpretentious platformer that's a hell of a lot of fun to play.
OPUS: Echo of Starsong is a lovely game, an emotional adventure that represents the apex of the series to date and easily one of the best story-driven games on Switch. It's also excellent value for money, offering around ten hours of game for its low price, more if you really take your time and soak the whole thing up the way you really should do. While the character designs are a little too familiar, the characters themselves are complex, interesting, and likeable, and the story told with them is a complete, satisfying tale. Oh, and when the opening suggests playing with headphones? That's a hard agree from us, both to help with the music-based puzzles and simply to enjoy the excellent score.
Just Die Already is an enjoyably mean-spirited game that would cross the line into hateful if it wasn’t so gleeful in its disrespect for elders. Less Octodad, more octogenarian, a surplus of the usual physics sandbox glitches don’t detract from fun that's as densely packed as the very coffins you're dodging.
A brilliant first effort from Original Fire Games, then, and a racing game rather unlike anything else out there on the virtual shelves. This intoxicating, content-rich, and yet fascinatingly accessible racer is liable to get its hooks into gamers looking for something a little less knockabout. You may struggle to get the hang of things at first but we promise this little journey through racing history gives as good as it gets.
Despite its shortcomings as an entry point for new players, there's a lot packed into The Witch Queen worth appreciating – we haven't even mentioned the new Glaive weapon type that combines melee with long-range attacks, the hugely enjoyable new Lost Sectors, or the overhaul to the Void subclass, bringing it more in line with Beyond Light's Stasis. This pushes the number of viable types to "two", which isn't great, but Arc and Solar should be getting a similar upgrade in the (hopefully) near future. Seasonal content will continue to deliver story as 2022 wears on, but obviously the quality of it cannot be judged yet – the expansion isn't even complete at the time of typing, what with the new Raid yet to drop. Still, this is Destiny 2 at its very best and a pleasingly vital expansion to what remains a superb game.
Despite this occasional lapse, Chernobylite manages to stand out with a brace of compelling mechanics, elements of horror, and some deft storytelling. Don't ignore this one.
The best game of its kind that we've had the pleasure to play, Evil Dead: The Game is equivalent to its source material in being way more fun than you could reasonably expect it to be, and it's faithful as hell to the movies and TV show in a way that'll thrill fans. Post-launch support is a total roll of the dice - if the content ain't there, nor is the audience, and if the audience isn't there, there's no game, because the single player content sure isn't picking up the slack. Evil Dead, though, is more fun than having a chainsaw for an arm, delivering a pleasant bloody surprise at each turn. Shall we say it together? Groovy.
In the Hunt is an excellent shoot-'em-up and a great fit for the Switch. It offers something comfortingly familiar in the genre but shockingly, joyously different in execution. Here's hoping we see even more high-quality deep cuts fill out the already outstanding Arcade Archives line. How about R-Type?
t’s a wonderful version of a game we love, but if you demand an absolutely level playing field in your entertainment, you may want to knock a point or two off this score.
It's not perfect – the in-game dialogue is well-written but rough around the edges, with plentiful typos and grammar confusion – but that's not enough to distract from Ministry of Broadcast's terrific level design and superb visuals. Nothing new here, but what it offers is, quite simply, a very, very, very, very good cinematic platformer.
Overall it's a package we think is well worth the asking price, something that's brilliantly simple in principle, but reveals its intricacies and hidden difficulty as you play through; it wouldn't be entirely out of place in a late eighties arcade.
Satazius is the pick of the pack and almost worth the asking price in itself, but if you enjoy the shmup genre then Shmup Collection is a package that will keep on giving.
More than the sum of its parts, Liberated tells a rollicking tale with plenty of style. It doesn't run as well as it should do, and it's far from lacking in clichés (some of the "people would rather take selfies than open their eyes" stuff is a little eye-rolling) but it's a fantastic take on a dystopian platformer that avoids the major pitfalls that such games often fall into. With responsive controls, enjoyable shooting and strong level design, Liberated is an atmospheric, absorbing treat and far more than the sum of its parts.
A bit of a triumph, Bug Fables is a superbly polished independent tribute to the first two Paper Mario games – but that's not to say it doesn't have its own, strong identity. The sheer familiarity is a little bit wearying at times – seriously, it's like it's been traced over in places – but Paper Mario with the serial numbers filed off is still a very good time. There's plenty to see and do, a rather compulsive card game to play and hidden secrets all over the place. Add all this silky-smooth performance, a splendid soundtrack and turn-based combat that's never less than engaging and you've got a surefire winner here. Maybe now people will quit "bugging" Nintendo for a throwback Paper Mario. Pun intended. (Sorry.)
Borderlands Legendary Collection is an excellent Switch showing for this beloved series, though it's difficult to determine if the price is right; sure, there's an enormous amount of content here so you're certainly not being ripped off, but it's old content and these games are routinely extremely cheap on other services. Still, it's a technically excellent port of three expansive, enjoyable shooters, and they're a perfect fit for the Switch. Whether played alone or with pals, the compulsive gameplay is terrific to dip into or get stuck into for a massive grinding session. If you've somehow never played Borderlands before, you can't go wrong with this set. If you have, but want to try a different character class on the bus ride home, now's your chance.
The word of the day here is "absorbing". Urban Flow's title isn't a misnomer; the gameplay is as smooth as the graphics and once the pieces are in place you shouldn't have any trouble getting your head around it. Accessibility has been rather masterfully welded to a relatively complex, punishing task, here. We dare say it might be difficult to think of your own ventures out into the city centre the same way again. After all, Urban Flow will quickly make you an expert at directing traffic.
Played either as a whole package with unlimited lives, or in hard mode with only a few, kuso is as challenging as you want it to be. You can play the kuso and LOVE campaigns separately or joined together as one mega-campaign. Then you'll have all the extra bonus stages and easter eggs to find. Paired with the hypnotic graphics and astonishingly atmospheric soundtrack from James Bennett, kuso is both accessible and difficult, and it's a little gem on the Switch.