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Nitro Ball is easily the most obscure of the current lineup, but that doesn’t mean that the game is bad, since it’s an insane amount of fun especially in local co-op. With a huge focus on high score chasing, this is a game worth checking out for certain if high score chasing and co-op is for you.
Arcade Classics is a really fun package with a ton of addictive score chasers with only one of them being not as fun to play (Haunted Castle) unless you’re a really dedicated player. The overabundance of shooters may seem a bit off at first, since Konami had other fun games that weren’t shooters, (Roc N Rope, Track N Field and Shaolin’s Road to name a few favorites) but all of these shooter picks are quality choices.
Even if you’re a lasped Yu-Gi-Oh player like I was, this is still absolutely worth a look, and serves as a great tutorial for the main card game along with being a great place to experiment with gimmick decks.
The SEGA AGES port of Columns II may not be out here in the west for a while, (due to the irritating gap in releases we’ve had) but it is currently out in Japan, and if you’re an import fanatic like I am, I absolutely feel that it’s worth picking up from the Japanese eShop due to the sheer addictive nature of Columns I, the outstanding online mode for Columns II, and the braincrushing puzzles that will test puzzle fans to their limits.
Really, either of the three Disgaea games are worth picking up, but I definitely felt 4 was very close to 5 in terms of quality. The story may have not engaged me nearly as much here, but the speed of the battles and overall enjoyment factor was just as fun, so this still leaves Disgaea 4 Complete as a great entry in the franchise. Just don’t expect this to have anything too terribly unique. Here’s hoping Disgaea 3 Complete becomes a reality soon, so that I and other newcomers to the franchise will get to experience all five main entries on modern platforms!
Ittle Dew might have been ported here after the outstanding sequel, but that doesn’t mean that you should ignore this original entry to focus on the sequel, as the first game is still a brilliant Zelda clone. Yeah, it’s much more linear than the open-ended nature of the sequel, but it’s also just as fun with the clever puzzles and combat that you’ve come to expect from a game in this category.
Xenon Valkyrie was a game that got swept in my backlog that I didn’t think much of at first, but upon playing through several runs and getting further and further each time, I find myself totally engrossed in this game. As an action platformer, the controls are excellent and the combat is satisfying, and the random elements here work great, shaking things up every time in a good way without making the game frustrating or too dependent on luck.
Toejam and Earl is a great example of a retro revival done right, taking a clunky roguelike and polishing it up, making it absolutely gorgeous while also continuing to provide an incredible co-op experience.
Block-a-Pix is a simple, yet surprisingly fun puzzle game. I ended up playing a good amount more than I usually would for a review, and ended up having so much fun I cleared the entire first page without hints despite the fact that I had little reason to play more than a few puzzles from varying sizes, yet like with Picross S, I just couldn’t help myself, and I may even add this to my gaming backlog as a result.
For puzzle maniacs looking for more Picross fun, this is worth a look at the very least, and a great addition to the eShop’s puzzle library.
Momodoria is an excellent Metroidvania, and an adventure with a lot of charm that’s definitely worth owning on the Switch. Each area is just long enough to not overstay its welcome, and I was absolutely hooked throughout my four hour adventure as I grew motivated to 100% this game, and that was all just on one playthrough!
Ninja Spirit is a fantastic action game that holds up very well today, arguably a bit more than the PC Engine port that’s more famous. It may only be seven stages long and can be beaten in 45 minutes or so with trial and error, but they’re still some of the finest action stages that I have ever seen from an Arcade game, and I can’t recommend this game enough.
Williams Pinball Volume 5 is a great bit of DLC. While the other packs are great in their own way, I feel that Volume 5 is the best of the table packs since Volume 1, due to two of the tables being of outstanding quality while the other one is just average. Either way, you’ll have a lot of pinball scorechasing to enjoy from this pack and I really do give this DLC a good recommendation.
New Super Lucky’s Tale is a fantastic 3D platformer, polishing up a game in such a fashion that it becomes nearly unrecognizable from the original, despite not being a sequel or really doing much else. In a way, New Super Lucky’s Tale could be compared to the jump between Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II, in that the game still feels similar to control with the same outline, but nearly everything else about it is polished and tweaked for the better, leading to a far more engaging platformer that’s perfect for anyone to get into, yet has enough to do in order to satisfy the completionists or older players.
Link-a-Pix is yet another entry in Lightwood’s puzzle series that works just as well as all the others. As the developers continue to make minor QOL tweaks and bug fixes to the engine, it’s the puzzles themselves that make each package worth the buy or not, and I’m happy to say that this game is on the higher end of quality, right next to Block-a-Pix as one of my favorites in the series.
Considering the tight controls, the great soundtrack, and the outstandingly faithful recreation to the hardware, this came as quite a surprise to me, considering how it originally seemed like Squidlit was just trying to ape the style of Mr. Tako. In the end though, I found myself vastly preferring this squid platformer over that one, and while both are solid platformers, this one’s shorter length and simplistic, fun platforming makes this a must-have for the $2 pricepoint, as the game manages to make a name for itself and stand out on its own.
Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha is a fantastic compilation in terms of quality, packing five outstanding games and one good game into a single package. While it’s depressing that none of the games have any sort of history features or in-depth manuals, I was pleased to see that this compilation offers a great value compared to buying each game by itself on the eShop, and having the whole Strikers series in one place makes it a really great holdover until Strikers 2020 launches this year.
Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo is another great compilation of Psikyo games, this one being better than the last due to featuring two of the best shooters Psikyo had ever released. Props and praise cannot be said enough for Tengai in particular, which is now available in a physical format for the first time in decades. On the other hand, you also have oddballs like Gunbarich, interesting looks at history such as Samurai Aces, and the weird glimpse into the dark future known as Sengoku Cannon. None of the games here are bad, even if Sengoku Cannon is horribly unbalanced for a shooter, but again, I still really feel like we should have gotten some museum material or some sort of bonus features from this compilation, rather than just a plain game select menu.
While Depixtion still has nothing that drastically makes it better or worse than any other picross game out there, it definitely is one of the more polished ones, and in my opinion, it’s the best picross on Switch that wasn’t made by Jupiter. There isn’t really any bonus modes or anything to really note, just 96 well-made puzzles that work great with the presentation. For the typical $8, that’s all you really need if you want to stick to a good formula.
Still, if you like the 16-bit Sonic 2, and especially if you like playing as Knuckles in Sonic 2, then this is still a must-own for platforming fans as it’s a very solid version of the game, and completely eliminates the input lag that plagues the version in Sega Genesis Classics. Definitely worth looking at regardless!