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I called dibs on Grab the Bottle because it looked kind of silly, and figured at worst it'd be a fun little distraction. It definitely hit those points, but wound up being something I legitimately enjoyed for some quick, on-the-go puzzle solving. And with a story that wound up having minimalist heft to it, I think this is a nice little excursion from your typical gaming experience well worth hitting the sauce for.
Wolfenstein II makes some acceptable compromises to run on Switch
I think the developers made the right call by branching out with planes and boats and going for a more approachable play-what-you-like format. They just spread themselves too thin trying to cram it all in.
Lumines didn't need to reinvent the wheel for its remaster as it already had its base down pat. If you already own it you likely don't need to revisit it on a modern machine as the re-release doesn't really add anything you haven't seen before, but this is a great way to discover the magic for the first time.
Season passes for Call of Duty games are unpredictable. Sometimes they'll dole out maps you can't find in any other shooter and add a nice zombie cherry on top (Treyarch is the king of that sweetness). On many other occasions they'll simple augment the existing experience, and your mileage may vary depending on how strong the core is. That's how United Front feels.
Mario Tennis Aces has a chance at being a great game down the road. Right now, it's simply good. The gameplay is as addictive as ever and the Adventure Mode is a great way to educate people on the ins and outs of Mario Tennis. It's just missing features that, while small, make a world of difference when it comes to the longevity of the game. I want to play Aces for the rest of the Switch lifecycle, but right now it's not giving me much of a reason to keep booting it up.
The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit functionally serves as a playable teaser for the sequel to Life is Strange. Because of this, we never get real resolution to Chris' story. It ends on a gratuitous cliffhanger, and that's so predictably frustrating. But Captain Spirit uses its two hours well to craft a narrative that leaves us wanting more. That was the whole point. Chris may be a superhero but he's also an underdog. Everyone loves a good underdog story.
The fusion of Dark Souls with metroidvania is something that can certainly lead to a great title. Unworthy falls just a bit short. Not much can be done about the level design, but a few key tweaks to item management and difficulty balancing could lead to this becoming a hidden gem. If nothing else, it scratches the itch for more Souls that From has left.
I enjoyed playing through the game, but felt some of the questionable decisions and creaking technology kept it from achieving its potential. It's quite good for a licensed product, and can be fun for a couple of kids to play together, or for a parent to play with their child. It just isn't anything special, and in a game all about being Incredible, that's kind of a letdown.
Sadly, Evolution just comes off feeling like it was rushed out the door.
The plot of Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn is, as Shaq says himself "convoluted and full of holes". A poor Chinese orphan, Shaq Fei Hung, is forced to face up to his destiny when it becomes apparent that some of the world's biggest celebrities are actually demons plotting to keep the people in a state of moronic subservience. As dictated by The Prophecy, Shaq must use the skills taught to him by his kung-fu master, Ye-Ye, to travel the globe, take down the celebrities and save the universe.The game itself is a simplistic scrolling brawler. As Shaq, players take on wave after wave of drone-like enemies. Mashing attack builds up a combo, before ending it with Bayonetta-style giant boot finisher, Shaq also has a shoulder charge, a ground pound, and a fairly useless jump-kick. Various weapons can be gathered from the streets or dropped by opponents. Once you reach the end of a stage, you face a celebrity boss, who must be defeated to progress.The problem is, the game is just so numbingly repetitive. Despite the fact it is a mere six stages long, and can be completed in about three hours, it becomes so drawn out, due to the endless waves of villains - non of whom put up a decent fight - and tiresome sequences designed for variety, but are just tedious. For example, one stage has you push boulders down a hill onto enemies for what seems like an eternity, before you move to another hill and do the exact same thing again. Occasionally a stage will lock you into an area, power you up (such as with the "Big D" Mech suit) then force you to defeat, literally, 200 baddies before you can move on. Even though you can mow through them with ease, it's just really boring to do so.
As cool as the "agent" and underground concept is, a lot of the aesthetic shift feels like a re-skin of sorts.
I don't regret having played this, but I do wish it was better. I love playing co-op games and I was excited by the idea of this minimalist platformer giving me an experience to bond over. Sadly, we both we pretty much in agreement on the final outcome. Unravel Two just doesn't quite have what it takes to be special.
This is about as pure as a game can be. You learn how to play it in a few minutes, but can sit with it for hours. Its stylistic visuals and awesome soundtrack draw you in and keep you hypnotised, while addictive and challenging gameplay teases you with frantic block-dodging mayhem, great multiplayer modes and weird, surprisingly emotive "characters." In a time of incredible looking, but often flabby titles, it's nice to be reminded that, sometimes, Just Shapes & Beats is all you need.
I want to love Wizard of Legend. It's a fun, fastpaced beat-em-up with lots of replay value, gorgeous pixel art, and an incredibly deep combat system. But the frame skipping I encountered made playing it an exercise in frustration. If the issue is ever sorted out, I'll give it a more enthusiastic recommendation. For now, I just wish it played more smoothly.
Die for Valhalla! is a perfectly serviceable side-scrolling beat-'em-up that gets most of the basics right, but struggles in execution in many areas. That said, it knows deep down that it's a total product of its genre, and that simplicity is something that appeals to me in an era of bloated AAA titles that either try to do too much, or try to squeeze too many samey elements into the game just to pad it out.
If you're into insane over-the-top anime storytelling, Sushi Striker is going to be right up your alley. It's up mine, but it almost works better in a straight TV show format than it does as a deep puzzler with RPG elements.
House Flipper manages to scratch a specific itch, but it lacks long-term incentives and just generally feels like a missed opportunity. With more content, polish, interactivity, and customization, this could become a nice sleeper hit. It's serviceable as is, but it won't hold your attention for too long.
Yet, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle pretty much speaks to everyone, even if a few of its core mechanics aren't as refined as several of Arc's other works. It has a wide array of cast members from several universes, a pointed 2v2 focus, and a sufficient amount of stuff to do if you aren't the online competitive type. I sincerely hope this sets the stage for more experimental "all-star" types of fighters from Arc, as they have a seemingly limitless well of ideas to draw from.
I can't fathom a situation where fans of the franchise will be disappointed with Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers. The music is fantastic, the world well-realized, Dillion has never looked better, and the shift away from predominantly touch controls is a wise decision. This is a solid adventure through and through, and it gives me slight hope we'll see other forgotten eShop gems get another chance to shine in the future.