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Beast Breaker is the epitome of a hidden gem, and we would highly recommend you give it a shot. Like its main character this game may be small, but it proves to be exceedingly effective at what it sets out to do. Creative, engaging gameplay and a surprising amount of depth combine to make for an experience that may surprise at just how much it hooks you.
More sophisticated curation would have made this a genuinely new way to engage with games and gaming: a prompt to see all games in a new light, promote the whole indie game proposition and popularise the appreciation of gaming as – ugh, dare we use the word? – "art". But the star feature is instead just an animated menu. As it stands, Short Games Collection is great if you can bring some inquisitiveness and insight of your own to the table – the games themselves are worth the time – but it's nothing more than the sum of its parts.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a solid platform fighter with an awful lot of hidden depth, and also an unfortunate lack of polish outside the fighting. If hardcore gameplay is the number one concern you'll have a wealth to sink your teeth into here, but expect to be underwhelmed by various elements that surround it. There's a grand old time to be had, but it's no Super Smash Bros. (damn it yet again).
Tetris is one of the greatest video games of all time, and Tetris Effect: Connected is perhaps the best iteration of the classic puzzler yet. While this Switch port doesn't offer a great deal over existing versions in terms of features, it delivers the one key ingredient that its rivals cannot: portability. Sure, some will argue that Tetris Effect: Connected's unique brand of synesthesia only really comes alive when played on PSVR or an Oculus Quest headset, but we'd argue quite passionately that this game benefits far more from the ability to pick it up and play whenever, wherever. Just as the Game Boy and Tetris combined to create an irresistible, world-conquering fusion back in 1989, Tetris Effect: Connected has finally found the hardware that allows it to truly shine, making this an utterly essential purchase for all Nintendo Switch owners. Just don't forget those headphones.
Rainbow Billy is rather a lot better than the sum of its parts, and it's only some fairly severe technical issues that prevent us giving it a higher score. We know we've harped on about it a little, but it really is exceptionally mawkish a lot of the time, which leads to a bit of a disconnect wherein the subject matter can be fairly thoughtful and mature but the dialogue used to describe it is relentlessly cutesy-poo. It's definitely a strange game, but the surprisingly involved "combat" and snappy pacing of the exploration makes it a tentative recommendation if you can tolerate the tone. We'd say it's aimed specifically at children but the difficulty level can be fairly high, which confuses the matter a touch. Still, lovely visuals, well-designed locations, fun battles; the ingredients of a good game are all present and correct here.
First Cases is a significant change of direction from The ABC Murders, Poirot's last outing also published by Microids. Stepping comfortably into visual novel territory and casting aside the puzzling that would hold back narrative flow, your fantasy is one not of being Hercule Poirot but rather of enjoying a Poirot novel. The Switch let's you indulge in that as you would a great book, whether in the wingback of your stately home's library or, indeed, on the toilet of your bedsit. For storytelling, the game format is ideal – even ingenious. The trademark Christie web of connections between events, evidence and the psychology of the characters is planned out in front of your eyes – either to pore over on a diagram or to stroll through in the neatly presented settings. The game's main limitations are the inanimate world and workaday writing that fail to lend the sparkle of life to a well-machined story. Nonetheless, while puzzle-loving gamers shouldn't pick this one up, visual novel fans and Hercule-heads won't be able to put it down.
Metroid Dread is a triumphant return for both Samus Aran and developer MercurySteam.
Monster Crown is a decent game that falls short of greatness in a few areas. Legitimately cool ideas with breeding and an overall solid combat system are let down by lackluster monster designs and performance issues. Then there's the elephant in the room, which is that Monster Crown ultimately feels like a jankier and less addictive version of the oldest Pokémon games. We'd still give this one a recommendation, as the bones of the experience are good enough that its worth a punt for big Pokémon fans pining for the 8-bit days, but you might want to wait for a sale with this one.
Aeon Drive isn't quite up there with modern platforming classics like Celeste, but it's pretty darn close nevertheless. While its narrative won't win any awards, this is simply a supporting backdrop to the fantastic gameplay on offer. Bolstered by solid performance and minimal loading screens, racing through the levels feels exhilarating as you jump, slide, and teleport your way through the maze-like environments. With an online leaderboard to satisfy your competitive nature and added multiplayer to boot, Aeon Drive is a speedrunning triumph that absolutely deserves your attention.
FIFA 22 marks the third time EA has given us FIFA 19 with a different shirt on. It may clearly state Legacy Edition on the title, but being kicked in the groin isn't any less painful if your assailant tells you they're going to do it in advance. Once again, EA has insulted Switch owners by giving them the version it usually releases on dead systems. Do not accept it.
Embr has the potential to be a good time, a slapstick bit of carnage with friends that provides a decent amount of missions to blast through and plenty of unlockables and variations on modes to keep you and your party of first responders busy. However, on Switch this potential goes almost entirely unrealised as the online component of the game is a bust. Get a few Switch-owning friends to set up a match and you may find some fun here but without crossplay, and factoring in a few other gameplay irritations, this one is quite hard to recommend on Nintendo's console.
Antonball Deluxe is, overall, a tricky game to review. As a solo game it's an easy pass, but on multiplayer we can see it clicking with the right group. It didn't set our world alight, but its simple charms may just work for you and your mates.
Much like the previous chapter, it still feels a bit like Deltarune is struggling to form its own identity. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—Undertale was a massively popular game for a reason—but the borrowed art style, battle system, and writing do mean that the distinct ‘X factor’ that made its predecessor so pleasantly surprising is now something that you merely expect. At any rate, Deltarune Chapter 2 is a fascinating, fun, and thrilling deconstruction of RPG tropes and for the retail price of nothing, you might as well give it a shot.
The Forgotten City is a brilliant piece of narrative work that feels like a time capsule of Skyrim's jank, revitalised with a gripping story that's just long enough that it never loses momentum. It is, as always, hard to fully recommend a Cloud Version of a game that's available elsewhere in a more concrete form, but if you're accepting of the associated 'risks', this is a well-presented and brilliant time loop game and well worth a play.
If there's an idea no one's done before, it's probably because it's just a bad idea. But Zoink has managed to hit on something original that actually works with Lost in Random. Its audiovisual world-building is tremendous, ably lifting a servicable quest structure and story, and inventive combat plays to its strengths and is taken carefully up to the limits of its potential. However, the layers of interaction during battles make a promise of strategic complexity that isn't kept, and encounters last too long without the depth to sustain interest. Nevertheless, everything is packaged beautifully and Lost in Random doesn't outstay its welcome, either, leaving you craving one last roll of the dice.
UnMetal is a tricky one, really. It doesn't play brilliantly and we didn't really find it funny at all, but it is consistently presenting new and entertaining ideas to complement the core simplistic stealth gameplay, with plentiful genre changes and a metric ton of references, callbacks and metahumour that will definitely appeal to plenty of people. We're old and jaded, though, and we've seen a lot of self-deprecating humour in video games - this stuff goes right back to the likes of the ZX Spectrum, for goodness' sake. Still, we recognise the very clear surplus of enjoyable content that's been crammed into UnMetal and its appeal should not be disregarded simply because we found it a little familiar. It never lets up with the gags, subversions and new sights to see all the way through its surprisingly robust length, and it doesn't forget to make the actual stealth enjoyable to boot. Definitely an impressive effort that assuredly deserves to find an audience.
To be clear, it's mostly Aria of Sorrow that's doing the heavy lifting with this collection, as it really is one of the best in the entire Castlevania series. Circle and Harmony are alright but on the lower tier of the other Metroidvanias, while Dracula X is middling even on its own standards. These are still very much worth playing, though, and this collection makes for an essential purchase for both longtime Castlevania fans and newbies.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot might not do much more than retelling the story of Dragon Ball, but it does that well enough that existing fans will find joy in exploring the world and fighting iconic villains from the franchise. Despite the lack of depth to its combat and a minor internet-based technical inconvenience to work around, the game saves itself by expanding on the already massive amount of Dragon Ball lore available and giving fans the slice-of-life moments we've so sorely needed. Non-fans won't find much to love here, but it's a more than serviceable retelling of an iconic story.
It may not be saying much but Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania is the best the series has been in almost two decades and newcomers are bound to find a lot to love. It wears its heart on its sleeve and clearly the team has true passion for the franchise. It's packed full of content, new ways to play and there are so many extras and improvements that never existed in the original. Unfortunately, the engine beneath it all isn't quite up to the job. What they've achieved with Unity simply isn't on par with the originals and while the main game is still enjoyable, many of the party games are severely hindered. Until Monkey Target returns to its former glory, we cannot truly say Super Monkey Ball is back.
Darksiders III on Switch is a poor port of a distinctly average entry in the series. Constant technical issues make fighting and platforming more frustrating than fun, long loading times follow every death and the further along you get, the worse these issues seem to become. It's a shame as we're pretty big fans of the series in general, but if you have any other means of playing this one we'd advise you give this clunky version a miss.