Lair of the Clockwork God is a difficult one to score. What it does well is brilliant – the humour is great, with constant jokes both quickfire and slow-burn – but the gameplay is a more complex matter. While it's not bad by any reasonable metric, it is awkward in places.
Manifold Garden is a lovely game, but sometimes the "game" bit gets a little in the way.
A landmark game for all ages. Don't miss this one.
Linn: Path of Orchards looks and sounds fine, but it's such a banal gameplay experience that we can't recommend it in good conscience.
A truly pleasant game, Spiritfarer balances undemanding platforming, gentle exploration and forgiving resource management with a beautifully-realised world with a cast full of charming, likeable, memorable characters.
Lots of care has gone into the creation of this game, and it shows with the gorgeous graphics and atmospheric soundtrack. It's a game that feels vast, and a slow burn experience for the patient gamer. It's possible that its difficulty will take some time to get used to, but it's worth persevering with this truly rewarding and excellent game. Phoenotopia: Awakening is a thoughtful, coherent game which, if you click with it, doesn't lose a step. A marvellous surprise.
There's plenty to commend Double Kick Heroes for; it's an ambitious game, with great-looking pixel graphics, plenty of songs and modes, an enjoyable story and a general vigour to it that underpins its heavy metal aesthetic very appealingly. Unfortunately, we feel like it tries to do a little too much and ends up being rather confusing and slapdash in execution. We found the central rhythm-action gameplay to be the worst part, and that's not a great thing in any game. The disappointing soundtrack only compounded this problem, but we do appreciate that it's going to be a matter of taste in this regard. This leads us to a bit of a conundrum; Double Kick Heroes clearly has an enormous amount of love poured into it, but it's not enough for an unqualified recommendation when we just didn't quite have enough fun with it. A sequel could refine its more confused elements into something wonderful, but for the time being, you may get a (Double) kick out of this effort.
Along with the expected multiplayer modes (ranked and casual battles), Faeria delivers a compulsive, interesting and frankly enormously fun card battle experience. While not the easiest game to explain, it's an impressive teaching tool for itself, but never feels overwrought or tiresome in said education. Of the card games we've enjoyed on Switch, Faeria is easily the highlight of the bunch so far, and it deserves to do well. It's a full-featured package and stands out as an excellent card/board/strategy experience. If you want to play a fantasy card game on Switch, buy this one first.
A full-featured multiplayer effort, Swimsanity! excels in its frantic competitive gameplay, with a co-op experience that we found critically lacking in enjoyment. Skip the adventure mode and dive straight into Orb Rush with three friends for a good, fun time. The package holds together well despite some blandness to the visuals, and there's certainly plenty to do if it gets its (fish) hooks into you. Swimsanity! holds up well in a crowded market and we truly hope to see it succeed.
Rock of Ages 3 failed to impress us on almost any level. It's definitely a game with character, and it could feasibly work its charms on you, but in its drive to be different and unusual it seems to have neglected to be fun. Still, it certainly has an audience; broadly speaking, you don't get to a second sequel without your game mattering to someone. If you can muscle through the frustrations, you might be able to roll with Rock of Ages 3, but with so many other worthy titles on Switch, we can't say we'd recommend it.
Carrion is a special thing in many ways, but its actual meat and potatoes structure is as formulaic as the genre gets. Thankfully, its core gameplay of tearing room after room of people into wet chunks of corpse never, ever gets old, and sustains the experience throughout. It looks superb, sounds great and is plenty of fun to play, despite some minor issues which just hold Carrion back from the upper echelons of the Switch library.
Some will find Monster Prom: XXL rubs them the wrong way – the outcome of the game often feels quite random – but it's about the journey and sharing its eccentricity with your friends. It doesn't rival the Jackbox series, but it captures a similar and very welcome vibe which could turn it into a monster hit.
As we said, it's hard to review Lost Wing, because it's exactly what it looks like – a score attack-style game with ever-increasing difficulty and numerous extra tracks and game variations to unlock. Given how well it does almost every aspect of its core gameplay, it's unfortunate that this review reads like a litany of criticisms. Lost Wing is very good, but the presence of a number of issues – a couple being fairly major – mean that it could have been even better.
Dex is a well-made game, packing all the features you'd expect from a cyberpunk adventure.
Panzer Paladin's uncomplicated gameplay won't be for everyone and there are some very minor niggles that hold it back from true greatness. Even so, it has heart, and that goes a long, long way. If you're into retro throwback games then you should really give this a try; Panzer Paladin is an unpretentious, exuberant action game from start to finish, and a must for genre fans.
