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How much you'll enjoy Ship of Fools comes down to whether or not you have someone to play with. If you do have a friend that enjoys roguelikes and/or tower defence - and has a penchant for sea shanties - then we can guarantee Ship of Fools will give you a handful of hours of frantic fun. And if you have few friends but enjoy this addictive genre, you might eke out enough nautical miles whacking giant crab bosses with your paddle while enjoying the endearing presentation to warrant jumping onboard. Co-op is where it's at, though, so make sure you enlist a mate for this voyage.
The Knight Witch seems to occupy a unique niche on the Switch eShop - there's really nothing else quite like it. It's not the best shmup nor is it the best Metroidvania we've experienced, but its fusion of many core ideas in those genres is interesting and worthwhile. The adventure feels perfectly paced, the action is snappy, and though there are missteps here and there, they shouldn't disqualify The Knight Witch from your attention. If you're looking for a Metroidvania that mixes things up a bit - and you haven't been utterly burned out on the genre - we'd suggest giving this a look.
Finding Paradise is a worthy successor to the superlative To The Moon. This second adventure in the series may not quite manage to hit the emotional highs of its predecessor, but there's still a complex, engaging, thoughtful, and wonderfully well-told story to sink your teeth into here in a game that will linger long in the memory once you're done with it. RPG Maker XP does cause a few little niggles with traversal and transitions between scenes, but these are minuscule issues that are well worth putting up with for the fun you'll have with the core narrative over its five-hour running time.
Overall then, it's a decent outing for Just Dance 2023, a definite improvement on what's come before and a far less annoying version of the game than what we were served up in 2022. If you're not a fan of the series, there's still nothing here that's really gonna change your mind — it's still exactly the same dance mechanics at the core of proceedings — but, if it's your cup of tea, this is as good a time as we've had with this franchise thus far.
Retro Goal is a distinctively light and fun take on football, coming at a budget price and having enough depth and charm to get players hooked. It has a stylish look and will raise a smile among enthusiasts; in fact, the only way it fails to match its brilliant predecessor - Retro Bowl - is in the gameplay department. The team-based complexity of football makes it hard to recreate that backyard sport feel, but it is still excellent and irreverent fun that feels at home on Switch.
Resident Evil 3 is a solid remake that aptly pays homage to the original RE3 by failing to live up to its immediate predecessor. While the core gameplay remains strong, with engaging gun controls and a new dodge mechanic that very much feels at home, Raccoon City itself feels disappointingly constrained and its star performer, the Nemesis, has been relegated to scripted sequences. The cloud-related hiccups we encountered here serve as a reminder that the technology is far from perfect, but even if it were, Resident Evil 3 is far from essential. We'd recommend it for the most passionate fans of Capcom's survival horror franchise who are after another quick fix; everyone else should start with - and probably stick with - RE2.
Resident Evil 2 is an absolutely essential experience for fans of survival horror. We're not yet at the point where we can confidently recommend purchasing a cloud version of the game on Switch if you've got access to a native version on another platform (and as the old-school gamers we are, we may never reach that point), but given that we encountered next to no streaming-related hitches during our time with it, this is a more-than-acceptable choice if it's the only one available to you. Fans waited years for a remake of Resident Evil 2, and it's safe to say that the wait was well and truly worth it.
RWBY: Arrowfell is a fine enough game, but it also feels like the kind of thing you might've discovered on Newgrounds back when Flash games were popular. Elements like the shallow combat and tacked-on skill point system don't feel properly fleshed out, and repetitive environments and bland level design tend to get tiresome as the campaign wears on. We'd give this game a light recommendation if you're a big fan of Wayforward's other work in 2D action games and are looking for something in that vein, but even then, you may want to wait for a sale here. There are certainly much, much worse games than RWBY: Arrowfell to be found on the Switch eShop, but we think your time and money are better spent on, well, better games.
It's a smaller step than many may have hoped for, especially considering what Pokémon Legends: Arceus did, but it's definitely one in the right direction.
Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol.2 is a perfectly able collection, albeit less enticing than the first volume. Several games in the library here - notably Card Fighters Clash, Mega Man Battle & Fighters, and Biomotor Unitron - have already received standalone releases on Switch eShop, which may well dissuade you from a purchase if you already own them. Die-hard fans of everything Neo Geo Pocket Color will likely enjoy getting stuck into what's here, but it's not a must-buy.
When it all clicks, A Little to the Left provides an experience that is a weird mingling of the semi-passive and viscerally intrusive. It is only the occasions when tiny touch targets cry out for a mouse pointer that the magic falls away. Once that happens, the plainer, less surprising puzzles aren’t able to carry the show on their own. As a piece, it can’t always sustain its best rhythm, but when it does, it's stimulating, quiet, and memorable.
Rogue Legacy 2 is - to put it simply - a banger. While it's not a game-changing revelation, it manages to follow up on everything that made the original great and makes it bigger and better. Even once you've bested the bosses, you've barely scratched the surface of what this has to offer, considering the in-depth New Game Plus mode and the wealth of content contained across all available classes and options. Whether you loved the original Rogue Legacy or never played it but like a good roguelike, this is a game you simply can't afford to miss.
On the track, Smurfs Kart pulls off a surprisingly solid imitation of Mario Kart, with satisfying handling and some wonderful visuals (albeit at 30fps). In the grand leaderboard of Switch karting games, it's not quite going to trouble the podium places, but it's certainly lingering just behind the front-runners and definitely delivers an entertaining time, even if it's as short as its subject matter. A lack of courses is what keeps it from being one of the very best karting games on the Switch, but they certainly haven't Smurfed this one up.
Presenting itself modestly as "a simple and short experience", Lunistice has masses to offer. A first run is maybe a handful of hours, but the thirst to retry is so strong it's almost hard to move on to each new stage. Add the challenge of finding all the cranes and hidden items, avoiding resets, and setting faster times, plus unlockable characters with different moves, and it's a full and generous package. Launching at $4.99 or your regional equivalent, weighing in at a lean 600MB, and having a demo on the eShop, Lunistice is simply a must-try game.
Yes, fans of proper puzzlers may find some of the solutions and overall level of challenge here a little disappointing due to their more surreal and playful nature. There are only one or two — including a very clever Rube Goldberg machine — that will really make you work something out logically, but that's not really what Windosill is getting at. This is a wonderful, dreamy little slice of art that sucks you into its colourful toybox world and lets you drift away for the short amount of time it'll take you to see it through to its end.
We love the first Jurassic Park film, and the other five to varying degrees. Luckily for us, then, that despite its name, Jurassic World Aftermath generally takes after the original rather than any of the sequels, although the Switch version simply isn't the best way to play it. If you have an Oculus headset, do yourself a favour and play the way it was meant to be – fully immersed in the soundscape of a ruined Jurassic World theme park while velociraptors stalk you. If you don't have one, Aftermath on Switch certainly does enough for fans of the series to take a look, but the short experience grows a little too tedious by the time the credits roll without the immersion of VR to keep you on your toes.
There's nothing at all wrong with Cobra Kai 2: Dojos Rising in terms of concept. An arena battler set in the TV show's small world of dojos, shopping malls, schools and parks with a theme of recruiting a team on your way to a mega tournament is all well and good. But the quality is shockingly under par, and far poorer than the Switch hardware is capable of. One could argue being sloppy, confused, and trashy is very much akin to what the show is all about, but when we're transcending mediums into the realm of video gaming, half-assing it doesn't land the right kind of blow.
That it's called 'The Anniversary Celebration' rather than 'collection' is a substitution of phrases that couldn't be more apt. With its smooth, fast, and perfectly-pitched interface, and rich, thoughtfully created content, Atari 50 really is an honouring of the company that founded the industry. It's true that its content is going to have a greater appeal to an older generation of gamers, to today's parents (and grandparents) who grew up in the whirlwind of the '70s and '80s arcade scene. For them, reliving moments and experiences that used to cost a pocketful of coins will be joyful. For others, understanding the appeal of a lot of these games will take work, and few of the titles outside of the Lynx and Jaguar catalogues are easy to pick up and play for the uninitiated. At the same time, Atari 50 is so thorough and engrossing a retro gaming tunnel, akin to exploring a virtual museum, that it transcends its target audience somewhat. For those interested in video gaming's history, the unearthing of the past, and for gamers not afraid of what today is considered rudimentary, there's a great deal of enjoyment to be had in this trip down memory lane.
Tactics Ogre: Reborn is a seminal and still-enjoyable SRPG that manages to respectfully hold its own against the many descendants it now exists alongside. Though some elements of its design feel a little archaic, its deeply political and branching narrative, orchestrated soundtrack, and solidly built strategic combat all come together to make for a worthwhile experience. Visually, this version is disappointing, and we wouldn't say Reborn is one to rush out and buy immediately, but if you're a sucker for strategy and want to experience an influential classic with some mod cons thrown in, we'd suggest you keep this on your watchlist.
Even though Doraemon Story of Seasons: Friends of the Great Kingdom doesn't offer much to separate itself from the first game, there's no denying it is a wholesome bundle of farming fun that still manages to carve out its own identity compared to other life and farming sims. Outside of the cutscenes which drag on and then some, it never feels too repetitive - an issue a considerable number of farming sims face thanks to the crop-based tasks associated with the genre - and outside of navigation issues with the map, it's welcoming to both new players of the genre and still feels relatively fresh to those who are incredibly familiar with the Story of Seasons franchise. If you go into this game expecting a decent Doraemon farming sim, you won't be disappointed.