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Sayonara Wild Hearts is the video game equivalent of Prince: it's extremely short and its journey maybe ends a little sooner than you'd hoped, but it packs so many varied and beautiful ideas into its brief life and masters so many different styles that even though there's a real disappointment it's over so quickly, what it did give you will remain with you for an extremely long time. A true creative masterpiece.
While LEGO Jurassic World does nothing particularly ‘new’ or exciting to distinguish itself from other platforms (other than being portable, which it pulled off three years ago on PS Vita anyway), it’s impossible to not be swept up by its charming recreation of the Jurassic saga.
Jet Kave Adventure will be on nobody's Game of the Year lists, but that really doesn't matter. What it does do is provide a reasonably solid 2.5D platformer that will keep you entertained for a few hours (and beyond, if you want to try to beat all the optional objectives).
Gun Gun Pixies is a bad game. It’s a terrible third-person shooter, a clunky platformer and an incompetent visual novel, all wrapped up in an embarrassingly puerile attempt at titillation.
Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is an experience unlike any other on the Switch, expertly blending standard RPG tropes with a heartwarming story, innovative art style, and an immersive soundtrack composed by some of the best in the business.
Star Wars has finally come to Nintendo Switch. While it might not be in the form that appeals to everyone, that doesn't make it any less accessible. With short and snappy missions, it's perfect for bursts of short play on a commute or longer sessions in search of high scores and holocron shards. Switch-exclusive features such as the Career mode, the updated Galactic Struggle, an unlockable soundtrack and support for vertical play make this a fine addition to the platform's growing pinball library, and a silly yet authentic ode to all things Star Wars.
From its opening moments upon a prison ship bound for Fort Joy to non-stop adventures that take you across the high seas to the Reaper’s Coast, Nameless Isle and beyond, Divinity: Original Sin 2 simply dazzles.
While it's carried over its fair share of clunky elements in the transition to Nintendo's console, The Sinking City on Nintendo Switch is a fully-featured and mostly well-optimised port. The mixture of psychological horror and detective skills is a positive step beyond the developer's previous work on Sherlock Holmes titles, and while its sanity mechanic doesn't quite hold up to the likes of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, and it's not without bugs, it offers an enjoyable if not particularly scary descent into madness and delirium.
AI: The Somnium Files starts out slow but once you've traversed a few of its delightfully surreal Somnium dreamscapes and got to an ending or two, working your way back through your flowchart and striking out in different directions, it becomes an engaging and tense affair. Fans of the Zero Escape games will feel right at home here, and director Kotaro Uchikoshi's talent for putting the player into increasingly unsettling circumstances ensures everything takes flight in a very satisfying way as you work your way through the many strands of the loopy central mystery towards its various different endings.
As a standalone game, Super Kirby Clash holds up well to the Kirby series standard with its impressively diverse boss roster, straightforward RPG-lite mechanics, and deep potential for replayability. Though the online multiplayer is an unstable and unreliable mess, this hardly stands as a reason for you to not at least download the game and give it a shot.
At its core Daemon X Machina is a solid mech action game that controls well and gives the player a generous helping of customisation options. Its mission structure can get repetitive, and its plot is so difficult to grasp it may as well be soaked in grease, but as long as you're willing to put up with these and get through its initially bewildering array of gauges and icons you should have a good time with it.
Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan is a decent platformer that more than justifies its asking price with impressive longevity and smooth, compelling gameplay.
Simply put, there's no better basketball game out there.
Even in its relatively unfinished state, Risk of Rain 2 proves to be an exceptionally well-designed take on the gameplay that made its predecessor popular.
Blasphemous is a beautifully crafted Soulslike/Metroidvania action game set in a delightfully unhinged, deliriously gory world filled with well-designed enemies, satisfyingly meaty combat and some truly memorable and grotesque boss battles.
Unlocking skills as you progress does render a little of the challenge obsolete as you can choose to let tactics take a back seat and just blast away at blocks to brute force the victory but, if you play within the rules and try to clear all those tricky side challenges, you'll find a tasty little puzzler here that's well worth the small entry fee.
Considering its reasonable price, A Duel Hand Disaster: Trackher is a decent arcade title that introduces a unique spin on the genre. It’s got a good amount of depth, looks the part, and has a pretty funky soundtrack to boot. We can’t stress this enough, though – if you’re thinking of picking it up, do yourself a favour and watch the tutorial first.
It’s a shame, because the game looks quite nice, and with tighter controls and a bit more thought into the puzzle design, it could have been a decent alternative to the Zelda games. As it is, it’s merely a poor imitation.
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.
The procedurally-generated nature of each jump warrants countless replays – you’ll just have to deal with a game that’s often doing its best to scupper its own best characteristics.