Hogwarts Legacy doesn't just bathe in the reflected warm glow of nostalgia. It contributes to that lore, and stands up as a worthy entry in the Harry Potter canon in its own right.
Despite the sheer amount of words that have been written about the game, the reality is that it's just a forgettable, mediocre game. It does plenty of things very poorly, but it also does one or two things well enough that you can't say it's completely and irredeemably awful. There's no real reason to seek the game out, and there's no reason (apart, maybe, from that stupid talking bracelet) to avoid it at all costs: Forspoken is just kind of there.
The Forest Quartet clearly has its heart in the right place, and any game that gets people thinking about overcoming their own demons is a good thing. But as a game, there's just nothing interesting here.
An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs is far better than it has any right to be. It's a lot deeper and more touching than its title suggests, so it's worth keeping an eye on it, waiting for a sale, and then grabbing the when the price is right.
Session: Skate Sim is true to its name: it's a true-to-life skateboarding simulator, so if that's all you want to do, it'll more than deliver.
Aka clearly has its heart in the right place, but it doesn't have anything that goes a little deeper or that asks anything of its players, and without that it just feels like a cut-rate version of Animal Crossing.
It's really too bad that the gameplay doesn't come anywhere close to matching the inventiveness, because, as I said up top, Paper Cut Mansion is just brimming with ideas. There's a huge gap, unfortunately, between coming up with something cool and making it work, and unfortunately it's not a divide that this game is able to bridge.
Windosill is a difficult game to judge. It's gorgeous and it's fun...but it's also very, very short, it has zero replay value, and it's $10 on the Switch. And to top it all off, the game originally came out in 2009 as a web browser Flash game.
The key attraction here is that if you've ever wanted an entire game that combines some of the more intense parts of the first Jurassic Park movie -- specifically, the kitchen scene, and the one where Ellie is trying to turn power back on in the bunker -- this delivers on that.
Maybe the makers of Time on Frog Island just figured they could get by on a cute premise and general aesthetic. To be sure, in some cases that may be enough, but in this case, it just means you have a game that has the right tone but none of the right content.
Lil Gator Game is exactly what it looks like on the surface: a sweet, adorable game that never feels like it's trying too hard to be either of those things, but that's guaranteed to win you over all the same.
I think many more people will love Foretales if the give it a chance. It's an interesting take on a formula you'd think would be played out by now, done in a way that shows there's life in the card-based genre yet.
Wavetale is an absolute joy. It's a game where you're exploring the watery ruins of a post-apocalyptic world, but it makes that exploration so much fun that you can't help but get swept up in the sheer fun of it all.
If you just want more Portal, that might make The Entropy Centre enough for you. It's not much more than that, but it also sticks so closely to the formula that it doesn't do anything crazy that would make you dislike the game, either. It's a well-worn path at this point, and The Entropy Centre never once strays from it.
It doesn't take long for Midnight Suns to show that it's a different game than those other Firaxis titles entirely. Sure, it's a tactical RPG, but the mechanics here aren't at all what you'd find in those other games.
The bottom line is that Super Kiwi 64 is an enjoyable 3D platformer that brings its influences to mind without ever feeling like it's just a copy-paste of older, better games. Add in a pretty decent price, and it makes Super Kiwi 64 difficult to resist.
Retro Goal is just a really fun game all-around. It captures not just the spirit of the sport it's trying to emulate, but also the essence of what makes a great soccer game. It may not look like the new standard for soccer games on the Switch, but if you pick it up, you'll soon find it makes a very convincing argument.
Put this game out to pasture.
Seriously, this is an amazing game. It may not last that long, but it also never comes close to wearing out its welcome. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is an excellent sequel to an equally excellent game, and now that it's out on PC, it's absolutely worth your time (even if that time is over far too soon).
Playing Sonic Frontiers on the Switch doesn't just mean enjoying the good parts of the game and enduring the annoying parts. It also means putting up with one of the ugliest games I've ever played on the Switch.