Drew Sherratt's Reviews
Viewfinder is a simple puzzle game that wows thanks to a tremendous underpinning mechanic that makes getting around feel like genuine sorcery. Both the story and the storytelling are a little hit and miss, but there’s enough there to keep you engaged (but not enthralled) until the credits roll. It doesn’t showcase the kind of multiplicity that some other puzzle titles do, and rarely gets your brain out of second gear as a result, but none of that dampens the enjoyment of the experience one bit. Why? Because making photos real and moving through them is really bloody cool.
Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping is a perfect follow up to the excellent debut episode, and offers more of the same hilarious crime fighting antics. Rightly or wrongly, the folks at Happy Broccoli Games haven’t taken any risks with this sequel, choosing to use the same tried and tested format to tell a brand new story for Eugene McQuacklin. The story may not be told quite as well this time around, but toting a host of new quirky characters, more witty dialogue, and the same playful visuals and voice-acting, returning fans are sure to love this tale of the otherworldly in the outdoors.
We Were Here Together might be the third instalment in the series, but it’s the first of the lot to really flex its muscles. Armed with a bold new look, a clearer sense of style, and some great puzzle design, Together accentuates all the positives from the previous instalments whilst growing a whole new sense of character. There are some UI gripes and small graphical hiccups on the Switch, but as a game that leans much more on brains than on brawn, We Were Here Together fits perfectly in the Nintendo-sphere. While it lacks the final spit and polish of the later episodes, it’s fantastic to see the series opened up to a whole new raft of explorers on the Switch.
Donkey Kong Bananza is an absolute blast. Barreling through vibrant non-linear worlds and pulverising everything in your path is incredible fun from the moment you pick up the controls. Donkey Kong feels more like a main character than ever before, and Pauline might be the most lovable sidekick Nintendo have ever produced – I’m genuinely excited to see her become a staple of the franchise for years to come. It’s a collectathon that’s driven by addictive playability and avoids the banana skin of becoming a grind like Donkey Kong 64 before it. The smaller, multi-part levels feel less daunting than the huge expanses in Super Mario Odyssey, but are just as varied and just as fun.
Mudborne is a niche, fun puzzle adventure that succeeds in so many areas. It boasts a deep and well thought out core mechanic that makes breeding and rearing frogs genuinely enjoyable, and offers a cozy sense of exploration that coalesces into a very enjoyable game. The mechanics demand a reliance on a lot of menus and submenus which can get a little fiddly, but the chill soundtrack will easily soothe any of those stresses out of you as you play. Mudborne is a thoroughly unique premise that’s just patiently waiting for more players to hop into.
Unboxing the Cryptic Killer is an enjoyable little co-op puzzler that’ll let you wile away a couple of hours with a partner, should you want a short break from yet another true crime documentary on Netflix. While the art style might not be for everyone, the puzzle design is solid, and the game doesn’t hold your hand until you ask it to, which makes for a moderate and fun challenge. But, despite no major knocks to report, there’s nothing especially noteworthy either. All told, Unboxing the Cryptic Killer is the gaming equivalent of a ‘straight-to-DVD’ movie (remember those?) – it’s inoffensive and entertaining enough, but it isn’t especially memorable one way or the other.
In summary, Veritas is a hodgepodge collection of puzzles, arranged next to one another with a chiffon-thin story thrown over the top to give the illusion of an adventure game. But even as just a random gathering of brainteasers, it would still manage to be passable if it didn’t run so horribly. I have never played a game so poorly optimised to the Switch; with results on-screen routinely taking 3-4 seconds to process after you push a button, it genuinely feels like something running on a 5 ¼ inch floppy disk. Veritas is a point-and-click misadventure from start to finish.
Jack Axe has the opportunity to be a fun little platformer, but it suffers from horribly unreliable mechanics that make it more frustrating than it is enjoyable. Between the endless unrecognised button presses, janky hit boxes and your abilities routinely failing to launch, there’s enough to discourage some folks from going very far at all. But for those who show a little faith and push on -fear not- you too might be rewarded by a terminal crash and a deleted save file at the crescendo of the game. Sadly, it’ll take a lot more than the delightfully sweet visuals to keep this one off the chopping block.
Teslagrad spins an interesting tale off the back of an interesting gameplay mechanic, coalescing into a game that’s fun to play from start to finish. Flinging yourself around using electromagnetism makes for some excellent platforming and puzzle solving, and the tale of dystopian revolution is magnificently told, at least for those who seek out the necessary pieces. Perhaps only lacking in a little bit of reliability in the mechanics and a bigger visual budget, Teslagrad does a great job flying the flag for alternative Metroidvanias and deserves an incredible amount of praise.
Devil May Cry harkens back to simpler times, offering fun hack and slash action that you don’t need to take too seriously. Capcom treats us to some very cool environments as we wander across the spooky Mallet Island, smashing through some excellently designed enemies along the way, and what gets in the way can mostly be put down to inexperience on the developers’ part. The fixed camera angles that served them so well in the past are a real pain this time around, and the slow and deliberate menu system detracts from the fluid pace they were going for. This debut entry offers a fun peek back at the origins of a popular franchise; it might be fun for fans of the modern entries or videogame historians, but the average man in the street probably isn’t missing out by not revisiting it in 2025.
Syberia is absolutely of its time, offering a point-and-click adventure that now seems outdated in almost every aspect. With aging character models, an archaic and ugly UI and whole townships blatantly designed to facilitate a few oddball puzzles, it’s unlikely to win over many new fans in 2025. That said, it’s not all bad – the pre-rendered environments still look pretty decent, and there’s a few moments so ridiculous that you’ll likely get a laugh or two. Perhaps like the clockwork automatons in the Voralberg factory, Syberia is a product of a bygone era, but not without significance to those curious about days gone by.
We Were Here Too is a regression from the original in almost every way, setting it up as the low point of the franchise so far. While the visuals continue to evolve into the characterful style we’d come to love in future entries, the sound design takes a nosedive, as does the puzzle design, which feels bland, flat and somewhat repetitive. Lacking the sense of atmosphere and immersion that makes other entries such fun, there’s the feel of a workplace teambuilding in We Were Here Too – sure, you’re working together, but it’s because you have to, not because you especially enjoy it. Thankfully, I know that future titles soar to significant heights, and I’m thrilled that the team at Total Mayhem Games found their groove with time.
A simple but effective throwback to simpler times, Knights of Pen & Paper +1 Deluxier Edition is a love letter to tabletop roleplaying games and the fun you can have acting daft with your mates whilst throwing dice. If you’ve come looking for a deep and layered plotline or a finely balanced battle system, you’ve come to the wrong place. This is the land of the min-maxing, meta-gaming meat shields and their party of pals. Best enjoyed by existing TTRPG fans who want to churn out a few micro quests whilst taking a break from something more taxing, there’s fun to be had here if you enjoy the simple things in life.
Mindcop is an incredibly entertaining whodunit that expertly blends level headed crime solving with laugh-out-loud foolishness in a way that just shouldn’t work – but it does. Questioning the folk of the Merrylin Crater Camp and scouring for evidence is delightfully simple, and the pivotal time mechanic creates an incredible sense of urgency that’s often lacking in crime games. It’s a game that takes itself just seriously enough, as showcased by its combination of derpy cartoon-noir visuals and saxophone laden soundtrack with its cast of well rounded characters and layered storyline. Fun from start to finish, Mindcop is dripping with tongue-in-cheek playfulness that you won’t need a forensic team to uncover.
Nikoderiko: The Magical World is a vibrant platformer that the whole family will enjoy. Jam packed with eye-popping visuals, loveable characters and solid level design, it’s the prototypical modern day platformer. Hampered only by long loading times and a smattering of bugs, the main drawback might only be how heavily it leans on its source material, essentially becoming Donkey Kong Country Returns-lite - for better or for worse. Sporting modern palatability and polish alongside the old school gameplay, if there was ever a game that a parent could show their kids about ‘platform games back in my day’, Nikoderiko is the one.
Europa isn’t quite the boundless adventure that I was expecting. The joyful aerial exploration is held back by portions of lead-heavy ground traversal, slowing the gameplay to a crawl and sapping enjoyment from the experience. The visuals are striking at a distance but fail to hold up to closer scrutiny, making the decision not to make the game an entirely fly-by experience all the more baffling. Underpinned by a meaningful message that’s delivered with real heart, and boasting an incredibly powerful soundtrack, Europa, sadly, feels like an agonising near-miss.
Caravan SandWitch is a small-scale open world adventure that delivers a tale that’s as heart warming as it is sombre; it’s filled with nuanced relationships and impressively deep lore, and I found it a joy to experience. There’s little to fault about the cosy, risk free gameplay except that it simply may not be to everybody’s taste, but for me, it makes a nice change of pace to a landscape that’s currently bubbling over with ultra-tough soulslike adventures. Pottering around in your beat up old van and doing good deeds for people feels genuinely rewarding, and exploring the final abandoned outposts of civilisation on Cigalo offers a sense of adventure that’s so much bigger than its 10-15 hour runtime.
Dreaming Sarah is a rather nonsensical wander through a string of surreal environments and sadly never coalesces into much more than a hodgepodge collection of ideas. It’s a carefree and low stakes affair which may appeal to some, but with almost no story to speak of, and driven by only the tiniest sliver of gameplay, I found my attention span waning long before the two-hour runtime was up.
The Iron Rig DLC offers that trademark DREDGE spookery, a myriad of new tools, and shoals of extra species to lengthen the overall experience. This new tale isn’t as well told as The Pale Reach, but the extra gameplay content is much broader in scope, encouraging me to even polish off quests from the main game that I had previously consigned to the deep. If ‘more of the same’ makes you want to pull your waders on one more time then you won’t be disappointed, but players expecting vast new experiences may want to give it a miss.
Machinarium is a ‘straight off the lot’ point-and-click puzzler that excels through some wonderful world building, clever storytelling and adorable characters. Whilst never straying far from the standard formula, there’s still plenty to enjoy, not least the fantastic, rust-covered visuals and well constructed soundtrack. This is one I’d recommend to newcomers and veterans of the genre in equal measure - while old school fans might not get much brain stretching out of it, it’s worth everyone’s time for the chance to experience this wacky welded world for yourself.