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All told, Steredenn: Binary Stars is a fantastic release that does a great job of providing an experience that feels simultaneously classic and modern. It's high difficulty, rewarding gameplay, endless variety, and beautiful presentation make this an essential buy for any fans of the genre, and a high recommendation for those who aren't. If you're looking for a tightly made arcade game that can be played both in short bursts and for hours on end, look no further than this.
A quirky 2D adventure with hints of psychological horror and some classic puzzles. Though its gameplay is riddled with glitches and its narrative full of flaws, The Long Reach keeps tempting you to peer around the next murky corner.
The mix of gameplay styles works fine, but the game is quite simple with neither style standing out among examples of each genre. It's a tough game with the limited range of your weapon and the lack of continues being the biggest hurdles to completion, although successfully speeding through a section is very satisfying. It can entertain and the usual online leaderboards add some replay value as you take on the world, but Arcade Archives: Heroic Episode is unlikely to be a game often played on your Switch with so many retro goodies already available on the eShop.
It's not out to break new ground, but with enjoyable strategy gameplay and an appealing board game aesthetic, World Conquerer X is certainly a welcome addition to the Switch's library.
Combining crazy physics and an even crazier story scenario, Coffin Dodgers has managed to do just enough to stand out from the crowd, offering a decent little kart-racer that should generate a laugh or two. A slight lack of content and a less-than-perfect overall quality prevent it from being something worth shouting about, however, so you might want to consider your options before jumping in with an immediate purchase.
Bit Dungeon Plus does exactly what it says on the tin and it does it fairly well. The title won't draw you in with an intricate story of medieval rivalry and bloodshed involving a vast fantasy world, but the pick-up and play nature of the game will.
Puzzle Puppers is a very simple game about some very cute dogs. Its bright colours and bizarre premise are endearing, the gameplay is easy to grasp, and you'll be in hound heaven for the first 20 stages or so. After a while however, this old dog shows that it hasn't learned any new tricks, and the repetitive visuals don't do anything to elevate the equally repetitive gameplay. It's good clean fun, straightforward to an absolute fault, and for the low asking price there's enough here to make this worthwhile. If you're expecting a magical doggy story mode, or some imaginative level design however, you'll be left feeling a little ruff.
Danmaku Unlimited 3 is a brilliantly executed ‘best of' bullet hell shmup ideas wrapped up into a phenomenal package. It is the very best shmup money can buy in the whole Switch game library (plus it will cost you about half what it should!). Even if you don't particularity like shmups - or if Japanese bullet hells are not your particular favourite flavour within the genre - exposure to the insane lightshows provided by this game might just turn you into a die-hard fan. We can only fault the new king of Switch shmups with one particular ‘glitch': Every other shmup on the system now feels slow and dull in comparison.
Despite appearances, Midnight Deluxe is a completely different game to 36 Fragments of Midnight before it. While it's a solid enough casual golf game, however, it lacks the precise control, generous level design and joyful spirit of the best examples of the genre.
Neonwall is a fresh new take on the old physics puzzler genre, immensely enjoyable thanks to the Joy-Cons IR tracking control mode. A beautiful package of endless neon glows and electronic music filled with some stiff concentration and reflex challenges makes it very easy for us to recommend this unusual yet deeply satisfying addition to Nintendo Switch's digital library.
Damascus Gear Operation Tokyo is a competent slice of mech/dungeon crawler action fest that will mostly serve those who love both genres well. Other gamers might want to look somewhere else for their Switch action fix. There is nothing wrong with the core game and we certainly had quite a bit of fun merrily boosting and slashing metal monstrosities into exploding debris of metal, but we would certainly would not mind slight more visual spectacle to go with the simulated reality of controlling a giant bipedal tank. Despite its age and not being able to shake off its mobile roots, it is (as of writing) the only option out there for mech game fans and those should definitely consider picking it up. We hope that the sequel Damascus Gear Operation Osaka expands on this game's solid core mechanics.
Simple to play, Magical Drop III is hugely entertaining as you frantically move about firing balloons to make lines or ideally set in motion a combo.
TurtlePop: Journey To Freedom is an interesting first exclusive Switch offering from Zengami, but it's sadly lacking focus. While its myriad genres aren't pulled off poorly, their amalgamation might just prove to be slightly too overwhelming for the targeted younger audience. The main reptile protagonists Bebo, Deephi, Slimmie, Smarts, Willis and Sparky sum up the game's overall feeling: jacks-of-all-trades yet masters of none. There are several superior individual options of all the genres represented in this game already out in Switch's library, but if do decide to take a plunge into this adventure, make sure you take someone along for the ride.
Rally Racers is far from being a role model arcade racer. The overall racing experience falls flat on its face primarily due to the cheap and nasty in-game physics that make the vehicles handle like trucks.
Guilt Battle Arena is a lot of fun while it lasts with frantic, fast-paced action that forces players to act quickly in the heat of battle. Our main issue, however, is that everything that the game has to offer can be seen very quickly, and the desire to keep picking up the game, again and again, isn't as strong as we'd initially hoped. Fun in quick bursts, but lacking slightly in gameplay content, we'd urge you to place this one on your ‘maybe' list.
Make no mistake about it - Flinthook is a really well crafted, charming and fun experience. To a certain extent, however, it feels impeded by the constraints of its genre. It is one of tightest action platformers and addictive rogue likes around, but due to the randomly generated levels, you will encounter the odd frustrating spike in difficulty or structurally very similar areas in close proximity. These complaints are reduced to niggles though due to its charm, personality and action packed gameplay. This trek across the galaxy is sometimes a tough and repetitive one, but it's also incredibly enjoyable.
The Trail: Frontier Challenge is too much of a barebones experience for us to give it anywhere near a solid recommendation. The act of getting about is minimal when it comes to interaction, and the performance issues turn the game into far too much of a slog. The skill tree and the art style itself are two brief high points, but they're not enough to make us recall this trip through the countryside with any degree of fondness.
Bleed 2 is a game that prides itself on giving the player a memorable and distilled experience that gets at the heart of what makes arcade games great. Those looking for a deep well of diverse content will find themselves dissatisfied, but those looking for a game about raw, fun gameplay will find more than enough satisfaction in the nearly endless options for replayability. We'd give Bleed 2 a strong recommendation; it combines charming presentation and tight mechanics to provide an experience that's as focused as it is enjoyable.
Packet Queen # features a new, enjoyable type of puzzle gameplay that has you making fast decisions on the fly, and can start to feel pleasingly addictive, but a lack of content and a completely unnecessary story mode that ends in disappointment make the title fall short of greatness. For its relatively low price the game isn't a bad option for passing the time, but the puzzle gameplay itself needs to be placed within a much better overall package than it is currently to truly impress.
NORTH is not a video game, per se, at least not in the traditional sense. It is an interactive piece of electronic art one can choose to indulge in order to better understand the plight of refuges. As such the messages might escape those who are too young to understand the real-life parallels or those who are too old and with prejudice to care. If you like cyberpunk science fiction and don't mind experiencing simulated oppression, give this a shot. There is certainly nothing quite like it on the eShop and for the asking price and a mere moment of your time will give you modern society conundrums that will haunt you for years. The experience is so subjective we have no choice but to leave the score for each individual to settle on their own. The biggest tragedy here is not that number on the bottom of the review, but the fact that if this ‘interactive art piece' was released 100 years in the past or a century in the future, the lingering topics would and will surely still be completely relevant.