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With how accessible this entry is, the amount of fun scorechasing modes to enjoy, and online leaderboards and stage selects to mess with, Raiden IV X Mikado Remix is absolutely a shmup worth picking up for $30, and is a must-own for that price. Even if you own Overkill on another platform, I argue that this is still a must-buy for the vertical mode support alone, since it helps make the game so much better here on Switch.
Gravifire surprised me with how addictive it was. I have reviewed game after game of sokoban inspired titles, and most of them don’t really do much to engage after a couple of levels. But Gravifire’s pick up and play levels and fun gravity mechanics really grabbed me, and the solid controls led to this being a super fun romp to play through!
Steamworld Quest is yet another fun entry in the franchise, and while it sadly doesn’t reach the same exciting heights as Dig 2, it’s still a super solid entry in its own right, with a lot of fun combat, amusing dialogue, great characters and very addictive deckbuilding. It may seem a bit convoluted at first, or so far removed from the other steamworld games that it may feel completely alien at first glance, but once you give it a shot and stick by this tale, you’ll really be thankful you started the path to be the king of games!
Even the Ocean is a game I can commend for the sheer amount of accessibility options and being able to configure the game to pretty much any playstyle you like: whether you’re a reader, a player, a puzzler, a speedrunner, this game has the options to help make things a breeze, which is something I honestly wish more games in general would do.
Along with a good amount of in-game achievements for replay value, HLD is just a fun, replayable action game that all fans of Zelda should at least give a try, even if it may not click right away. With a physical version now available, there’s no better time to give this a go if you haven’t already, or even if you played this on other consoles, since this still has quite a lot of exclusive content only available here.
Shantae is an excellent port, starting off a promising new line of GBC ports to Switch. While there were minor gripes with the inability to remap controls or borders, and the saving issues I had are pretty concerning, the port is otherwise outstanding, and makes me absolutely hungry to see other GBC classics launch in this emulator: especially if the pixel scaling continues to be just as outstanding!
All in all, whether you like this game or not will mainly depend on if you vibe with the game’s OST and don’t mind the inactive online mode. For me personally, the track list was just OK, but the solid gameplay still made it worth checking out and I absolutely wouldn’t mind seeing future entries in this series with more songs and more active online modes, though you’ll definitely get your money’s worth of content with this entry nevertheless.
Habroxia 2 was a decent little shooter with an interesting control scheme. The powerups were fun to mess around with, the boss fights were enjoyable, and the levels are just generally OK, but overall I never felt any sort of hook to this shooter: not even in the scorechasing aspect, despite the game encouraging you to improve your accuracy and build up combos, I just never felt any sort of incentive or addictive rush to do so, and in general the game felt more like a fun ride rather than a super engrossing, must-play shooter, especially with the irritating difficulty spikes and credit grinding.
Atelier Lulua is a fun, comfy RPG adventure, continuing the addictive alchemy loop this series comes to provide, with an enjoyable battle system and a really addicting loop of collecting and gathering materials, Lulua is just a great relaxing RPG to enjoy, even though it may not do anything too inventive in terms of the series, it’s still an enjoyable entry, whether you’re new to the series and unfamiliar with Rorona’s adventure, or excited to see the trilogy extend to yet another game.
So at the end of it all, this is really only a game I can recommend if you don’t mind a typical action romp with a bit of strategy to it, and if you don’t mind the very, very repetitive nature you’ll be dealing with along the way. Some aspects of the management portions definitely remind me a bit of some older games such as the Princess Maker series, but otherwise Princess Guide ended up being rather uninteresting.
The overall package still won’t light the world on fire or anything, but if you’re a fan of crypto puzzles, they’ll play very well here and will give you plenty to solve for the value. And if you’re new like me, you may find this just as fun to get into like I did! Either way, it’s a fun casual puzzler that’ll get you what you seek, and not much more.
So honestly if you haven’t played it before and are a fan of DRPGs in general (even ones like Etrian Odyssey), you do owe it to yourself to give Sapphire Wings a shot ASAP. As for Sword City? Consider that an interesting curio, but not much more than that. Still, for $40, this is an absolute steal of a DRPG double pack, and the price is worth it for Sapphire Wings alone.
It’s pretty peculiar that it took me so long to even cover this, and I honestly forgot what made me drop the game and push it back in the queue all those years ago. Yet after finally spending more time with this game, I think I know why, and unfortunately, it just never clicked for me, both back in 2018, and here in 2021. Be wary of this city.
Even if the dialogue can be a bit crude with toilet humor at times and thus, not amusing to everyone, this game is still very well worth your time if you’re at all a fan of games like Baraduke and Cybernator, and for $6 Exposionade DX is an excellent value.
So all in all, with just buying Prinny 1, you don’t get too much here, just a mediocre, tricky platformer reproduced in a very barebones fashion, and while it has all the content from the original game, that’s not really much of a plus if not a single attempt was made to un-blur the game assets. Come for the funny humor, great challenge and interesting stage designs, and stay if you can tolerate the barebones porting and lackluster visuals in docked mode.
Still, for newcomers to these quirky platformers, I absolutely encourage you to pick up Prinny 2 over the first game if you can only choose one, for it’s well worth your time despite the lackluster porting found here. It pretty much takes all the major annoyances from the first games and smooths them out to make a funny adventure you should play through at least once.
By far the aspect that ruined this experience for me the most though, was the godawful performance on Switch. If you must play this game on this console, play on docked, as you’ll have at least some enjoyment out of it, even if the dips and hitches will still drive you insane, but playing this in handheld mode/on a lite is just asking for punishment and pain beyond your wildest imagination.
Collapsed is a very dull roguelike, with a very high learning curve and performance issues that making playing this (at least in handheld) a lot more frustrating than it should be, while also lacking the magic that make other roguelike games so good. The controls are still very comfy and the action is fine, but there’s really no reason to pick this one up over the many, better roguelikes for less money due to the difficulty balancing and framerate problems, unless you’re really not one to mind attempting things tons and tons of times just to clear one world, and having to grind a lot as a result.
In some ways, the progression problems caused me to prefer The Woolies Strike Back, while in others, I truly felt that Choice Provisions did a great effort in making the most polished Bubsy game to date. I just wish it was up the same outstanding qualities as Woah Dave and Runner 2, and wasn’t afraid to let the player go through the game the way they wanted to despite the short length, rather than being in fear of it.
Mary Skelter may not be the greatest note for me to end out on, but it does show what the Vita was good at, and that was allowing RPG developers to push out experimental new IPs with little risk, and in the case of Mary Skelter, it led to a full fledged mix of Remake/Sequel on the Switch. This wasn’t the final first person RPG released for the system, but still is a solid one, even if I feel some others were better.