LadiesGamers.com's Reviews
If you’re a first timer to the series or revisiting the ages of Myst again, this edition on the Nintendo Switch is definitely worth a replay or a first time visit to Myst. And with the added bonus of the Switch’s portability, you can take it with you where ever you go. If you have never played Myst, well, now is your opportunity to delve into the mystical and mysterious world of Myst. This is still a great game to play if you love exploration and puzzle solving.
This game was a bit like reading Harry Potter: Personally, I don’t care much for the main characters. However, in every chapter I was so engaged in the story, or fascinated by the side characters, that it overwhelmed the fact that I really didn’t care that much about the fate of Harry and his friends. Playing Collar X Malice was a bit like that for me. I wasn’t always very engaged with the protagonist or her partner, but the intrigue of the story, the way it tackled the issue of justice and how it can become entangled with the many grey areas of human emotions and experience, as well as the side characters and villains that cross and re-cross your path as you play through the routes, make it a title I can’t make up my mind about. My feelings on it are all over the map. This is a game where I suggest careful consideration before playing. I’m no stranger to difficult themes and stories in gaming, movies, or books, but this game is tough. For all of the above reasons, I’ll have to rate this:
While the idea is very simple, the game itself is anything but. Some levels are nice and easy, others are considerably more difficult, and the difficulty progression doesn’t seem to be linear. I’ll barely pass a level, then the following few will be a piece of cake – it keeps me on my toes! I wouldn’t call Pack Master a child-friendly game from a difficulty perspective, but I’m sure it’d help develop logical thinking abilities in older children. Pack Master is a very basic puzzle game that doesn’t try to push harder than it should. There’s an excellent balance between design and difficulty, and something wonderfully relaxing about the simple nature of the game. There’s not much to say about it due to its simplicity, but I’d definitely put it on the recommended list for a younger audience!
I can’t call The Almost Gone difficult, exactly, as the puzzles were generally easy to figure out, but it wasn’t an easy game either. There’s a lot of sequential puzzling, where the outcome from one is required to solve another, and a fair amount of non-linear thinking required – one puzzle required me to obtain numbers for a key-code lock, that were scattered not only across rooms but also across perspectives. The only time I really had difficulty was my own fault; I turned off on my Lite partway through the game saving, so once I loaded on my other Switch the core piece I’d just earned was no longer collected even though I thought it was, so I spent an extra hour looking for what I’d missed! While there are a couple of minor flaws, The Almost Gone was a beautiful and enrapturing point-and-click mystery exploration adventure that I can’t recommend highly enough. Be warned that there are a number of sensitive topics covered, so it may not be one for the easily upset, but otherwise it’s a truly enjoyable yet saddening tale that deserves a spot on anyone’s download list (and shelf if a physical is released – I’m praying!)
Project Warlock is an old but refreshing old-school FPS game that feels right at home on the Switch. If you’re not a fan of this genre, then this game is unlikely to change your mind. But fun gameplay with a welcome progression system make this an FPS not to be missed by fans of old-school shooters. The references to the past are great, but Project Warlock stands alone as its own game too. It’s a great little game to enjoy in handheld mode or blown up on the TV. Nostalgia guaranteed in all the right ways.
The main story will keep you busy for around 4 hours. The first time through, it may be shorter if you’re well-versed in this type of game. The story certainly left me wanting more as I enjoyed it so much. Absolutely short, but I can see myself replaying it again. The game does offer an Endless Mode, as well as additional challenges to complete which I was very keen to dig into. Spacejacked accomplished the impossible. It convinced an oldish dude that you can mix in some tower defense gameplay and it can still be a ton of fun. If you’re looking for a nice coffee game, something you can enjoy in handheld mode with a nice warm drink, you can’t go wrong with Spacejacked. It’s funny, enjoyable, and full of little surprises. The game’s main crime, though, was that its enjoyable story was over far too soon!
Megabyte Punch is a really neat and fun game to go through. It wears its inspiration on its sleeve and I love the game for it, even if I had to get used to the controls a slight bit. Team Reptile has quickly become one of my favourite Indie Game developers with titles like this and Lethal League Blaze. They are inspired and have a lot of style to them and knowing they are from my home country I can be 100% proud of them. I recommend this game to fans of Team Reptile and games such as Megaman and Smash Bros.
The game takes around 30 hours to finish but there are plenty of side quests and collectibles to find which will add to an already packed adventure. This really is a game you can sink your teeth into and get lost in for hours at a time. Like a really really long satisfying picture book. Bug Fables is a wonderful bug riddled adventure. In a good way not the gaming way. Charming characters with fun witty dialogue. It’s adventure that feels suitable for the entire family. The only trouble is, since it is single player, you may need to fight over who gets to play. Good thing the game provides additional files. While I struggled with pressing the right button many times I was constantly smiling while playing this game. A wonderful piece of gaming more people should discover for themselves. Don’t let it buzz you by.
The artwork is just as amazing as the story, and the music is cute and sets the mood for every single scene nicely. In common visual-novel-style, there are different choices you can make (do you want to make pancakes for Licia, or go buy her a crepe?), these choices will lead you to one of six different endings, making for plenty of replay value. On top of that, there are your standard artwork collectibles (which are all beautiful artistic creations) of the characters and your more-specific-to-this-game splendid drawings of food. I can feel how much love went into this game. The author clearly loves each character, and the artist clearly loves food! Ratalaika Games hits another home run for publishing this one, and the developer ebi-hime is an excellent author. Ebi-hime has other visual novels under their belt as well, and I am really looking forward to checking them out too. Strawberry Vinegar has such a modest price point that I would highly recommend it to any fan of visual novels. Also, I think it’s an excellent starting point for any young gamer looking to try out a visual novel.
The visuals in The House of Da Vinci are beautiful and striking, dark corners and moody lighting all add to the atmosphere of the game, it really is a class looking game. The music and sound effect are on par with the graphics, as you manipulate a puzzle there are various clunk and clank sounds from the machines. Again, all this adds to the atmosphere and complements the gameplay. As for the control’s, The house of Da Vinci can be played using the Joycon’s or the touchscreen. Neither system is 100% perfect, the touchscreen does work but there are times when it can be sluggish and other times it can be overly sensitive and can overlap with other areas when your trying to focus on one particular place. The style of writing in Leonardo’s notes is reminiscent of the era the game is set in, however I found that the font the notes are written in make it slightly harder to read and decipher on the Nintendo Switch screen. There is no getting away from the fact that The House of Da Vinci is very similar to The Room. The story is a bit flimsy and at times some of the puzzling does feel like a direct copy of The Room. That’s not to say it’s not an enjoyable game as it is and if you enjoy playing this genre of game, why not give The House of Da Vinci a try.
Summer in Mara is a simulation adventure of the kind that the Switch still needs more entries of in its library. When you debate whether or not Summer in Mara is for you, you have to keep this in mind: you don’t play the game to go from A to B. You don’t play it to just to do all the quests and live the adventure. No, you do the quests to make the Home Island of Koa more beautiful, more bountiful and a real home. And meanwhile, you discover new islands, learns the story of new people and live through new adventures. We have all been a little spoiled in simulation gaming by Animal Crossing: New Horizons but you must remember this game is made by a small studio. It is clearly a project of love, so well made into the little details. Yes, there are some bugs to repair and there are some parts I’d like to see added, like a fully functioning inside of Koa’s home. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that I love playing it:
Like in many roguelike games, the main story is not long but will take multiple attempts to see through to the end. There’s plenty to unlock with the D-tokens, and with all the characters and weapons to choose from, there are many reasons to play over and over again. It’s fun to experiment with all the different characters once unlocked, who all have their own stats and perks. This game features couch co-op too, which is just brilliant. In the main town, you simply go up to the 2P sign and your friend can jump in for some good co-op fun. This is an easy game to pick up and play alone or with a friend. While it has its flaws, I absolutely loved playing through Demon’s Tier. The visuals and music don’t always match, but the gameplay here is really solid. The fact that I kept replaying it over and over without putting it down is proof enough that this didn’t dramatically affect my enjoyment. While this could be the end of a trilogy, I would not say no to seeing what the developer has in store next.
Fledgling Heroes soars above the rest and delivers an experience that I can enjoy even though I know it isn’t meant for me. When I was younger I used to like finding ways to make games break because I knew games made for children often times weren’t made well; it’s because of this that I can look at a game like Fledgling Heroes and respect what it’s doing and the time that went into it. I have to say that I recommend this game for anyone who is looking to give their kids a game that has what so many other auto runners lack: heart and soul.
I can’t emphasize this enough: This game is very, very basic. It’s a perfectly adequate Jacks or Better simulator, but I think $7.49 (US) is pretty high. However, if it were on a very good sale, which the eShop is known to do, it might be worth your funds if this type of simulator interests you. I would not be happy paying $7.49 for this content, but since value is subjective (and sales exist!) my rating is:
I enjoy hidden object puzzle games, I’ve always enjoyed a game where I look at something and can go “Wait a minute… I think I know what I’m doing with this!” so I leap on every chance to review them. I like seeing the variation in the style and difficulty of the puzzles, and Myths of Orion is no exception. Some puzzles I figured out straight away, some took me a good while, and one particular zoom location took me a good hour to find which really annoyed me once I figured it out. Depending on your mindset, I imagine some of the puzzles are easier or harder for various people, but overall I would call them a low to medium difficulty, easy enough to be fun for most people. I enjoyed my time with Myths Of Orion: Light From The North. There were a few frustrations, such as the sorely lacking cutscenes and bizarre UI bug, but overall it was a fun little experience that filled a fair few hours of my time. I might call it a little steep on the pricing, as it only took me around 6 hours tops, but I definitely recommend it for any puzzle fan’s To Play list.
I wanted to love House Flipper. I’m a huge fan of the building and design aspects of The Sims 4 and was looking forward to playing a game dedicated to such, but the limited options tampered my enthusiasm considerably. While the control scheme does feel bizarre – even after a good 2-3 days of play I was still trying to use A and B instead of ZR and ZL – it does work, and it doesn’t feel too cumbersome despite my fingers not being used to trigger work. The task list bug did wind me up, but was thankfully a relatively easy fix so I’m not too upset. I wanted to love it, but in its current state, I can only say I like it. It was fun, and I’ll be redesigning my early houses for ages to come, but for the price tag, I’d expected more options and variation for replayability – even having the DLCs included would have significantly elevated the game. If you’re a more careful decorator though, you could probably sink a lot of time into House Flipper and feel like you got a bargain.
The puzzles will make you think carefully as you try to order them in your mind and then try it out in the actual game…or, like me, you can simply keep hopping around and testing things until you triumph. There is also an option to actually skip specific puzzles if you bring up the menu while trying to get through them. Impressively, the puzzles are also worked into the story in various ways. Evan’s Remains is polished in just about every department. It may not focus on gameplay as much as some would like, but personally this didn’t bother me at all. It’s a sad and interesting experience, and one that I definitely recommend.
It took me a bit under eight hours to finish the game. Though an hour of that was wandering around as I assumed I couldn’t go somewhere I was meant to. I wish it was longer purely because I’d rather play more with my new abilities than start the game over. I will have to as I can’t get 100% on my first save file because late in the game a section gets locked off permanently. That and the intermittent voice acting are the only complaints I have about this game. An option to mark things on the map would have been nice but the world is small enough it’s not hard to remember things. It’s terribly hard to resist the siren call of this game. It’s been hard to finish this review because whenever I go to check something I just keep playing it. I had a really fun time with this game and I give it:
Dread Nautical has a Lovecraftian horror theme, though it’s subtle it’s there. There certainly wasn’t anything in the game that I found to be scary as such, maybe a little bit more horror added to it would help in this area. The core gameplay goes round in a loop, start the day, roam the decks, find resources, and try to survive. After a few runs I found this got boring pretty quickly, there isn’t much variety in the style of the decks on the ship and after a while they all feel much the same. The tactical combat is nothing unusual that hasn’t been seen before and I recommend looking else where if that is the genre you’re looking to play.
A very refreshing puzzler, with a fun combination of story-line and RPG elements. The game works well on the Switch, so it’s a good game to play on the go or for “just one more puzzle” during your morning cup of coffee. A funny story-line, a dollop of humor in the writing, many, many puzzles, and a nice way of including the puzzle element. I have to say that Piczle Cross Adventures is a game that should be on every puzzle gamer’s Switch!