Stuart Gipp

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Apr 30, 2021

Critic50/100

Agreement—

We can't lie - we hated The Longing. We hated every second of playing it for review. Is it a resounding success at presenting all of its themes? Is it thought-provoking in a way that few games manage? Is it an exhausting slog we wouldn't wish on our worst enemies? The answer to all these questions is yes. But, with all that said, you cannot help but respect the developer's audacity and unwavering commitment to their principles. What the game sets out to do it accomplishes with flying colours, and it's filled with clever ideas and meditations.Ultimately, The Longing is one of those video games that defies traditional scoring metrics. What kind of score would you give a game that succeeds so triumphantly at being utterly, utterly tedious? A one? A ten? It feels inadequate and somewhat trite to split the difference, but here we are.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Apr 27, 2021

Critic60/100

Agreement—

There's something just a tiny bit cynical about the "please like me!!" cutesiness of Rain On Your Parade, but despite our best efforts we ended up doing so. Just. It coasts on "what will they do next?" novelty rather than any kind of meaty, significant gameplay, but sometimes that's okay. It's something new, which is appealing, and the toybox feel of the proceedings lends itself to a broad appeal – we can see young kids and people who vibe with its twee presentation getting a kick out of it. If you've had your fill of 'cutesy', though, you might find yourself hoping for a break in the clouds.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Apr 22, 2021

Critic80/100

Agreement—

One of those rare titles that takes inspiration from the classics but manages to forge its own identity, Smelter is a breath of fresh air that uses its influences very wisely, assisted to excellence by generally pretty terrific level design with only a handful of lesser segments bringing things down just a tad. The proceedings feel confident, original and polished, with gorgeous graphics and an outstanding soundtrack that calls to mind the likes of Mega Man X4 for its action stages and evokes Yuzo Koshiro's majestic ActRaiser score for its side-scrolling levels.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Apr 15, 2021

Critic50/100

Agreement—

Imagine Donkey Kong Country with none of the flair, none of the momentum, none of the secrets, none of the style and none of the grace. It doesn't even have a funny face. There's very little to get your teeth into here, though die-hard platform game fans may get some measure of satisfaction from its limited, low-risk take on the genre. We must reiterate – Stitchy in Tooki Trouble is not a badly-made game, it's just a relentlessly unimpressive one that offers nothing new or even any kind of twist on an existing trope or mechanic. A sequel to Stitchy that perhaps saw fit to include something - anything - to make the game stand out, that could marry its impressive visuals with similarly good level design... now that would be worth a go. As it stands though, this scarecrow excels its most famed pop-culture analogue by lacking a brain, a heart and any courage to speak of.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Apr 11, 2021

Critic80/100

Agreement—

What seemed unimpressive in 2004 now feels enjoyable and imaginative, and we're not sure what that means, exactly. It's simultaneously cheerful and challenging, and there's a lot of joy in the journey as well as the destinations. The cursed spectre of 'gameplay variety' (read: jack of all trades, master of none) looms over the material, but by making the diversions brief and ultimately simple it manages to keep the player guessing to an extent throughout its languid twelve or so hour runtime. Some backtracking and minor camera issues bring things down a touch, but overall Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue is a surprisingly solid slice of character action, and one we fear may have been underserved at the time of its original release. This is not just a sequel that's content to rest on its laurels, and that's worthy of respect. Hooray! We made it through the whole review without any silly, lazy Aussie clichés. That's bonzer, mate!

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Apr 5, 2021

Critic50/100

Agreement—

Here's the thing, and it's a bit of a kick in the pants. Genesis Noir is a very cool, very interesting and exceptionally well-presented game. It tells its esoteric story in an effective, exciting way with a litany of memorable visuals, fantastic artwork and a genuinely brilliant soundtrack. And, unfortunately, we simply can't recommend playing this compromised, ill-fitting, arduous and glitchy Switch port in the slightest. Maybe it's just us, but knowing we could be experiencing the spectacle of this clearly brilliant piece of art in a much higher resolution, at much greater fidelity, and with an order of magnitude less frantically wriggling the left analogue stick because we're convinced the game has broken is just a sobering reason to ask why we would even bother if this version isn't your only option. Even if you do only have a Switch, we'd recommend waiting until you have something else. This is a game that deserves better.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Mar 27, 2021

Critic80/100

Agreement—

A strong showing for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, this is an eight-game compilation with seven avowed recommendations. That's a pretty high ratio, and that tantalising "Vol. 1" in the title makes us hope and pray that more SNK handheld goodness is to come. Now that Match of the Millennium has been accounted for, after all, there's surely no reason to hold out on us vis-a-vis Card Fighters Clash, the absolute best game on the system. Sonic Pocket Adventure would be ace, too. But that's all speculation – in the here and now, Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 1 is a great little compilation and all the better if you didn't buy all the previous standalone releases. If you did, is it worth the money? To this writer, yes, but you can quietly seethe about the financial imposition.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Mar 18, 2021

Critic90/100

Agreement—

An absolute pleasure from start to finish, what Kaze and the Wild Masks lacks in originality it makes up for in the strength of its level design, responsive controls, kinetic move set and attractive visuals. Excellent, action-packed platforming through and through, with great gameplay variety and gimmicks that don't compromise on what the game is best at – challenging, fast-paced obstacle courses and deviously-hidden secret areas. Easiest sell? Kaze and the Wild Masks is to Donkey Kong Country what Freedom Planet was to Sonic the Hedgehog. Don't miss this one.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Mar 6, 2021

Critic60/100

Agreement—

While it's a compelling package, Citizens Unite!: Earth x Space doesn't excel as an RPG in either of its halves. There's fun to be had, but it's obfuscated to some extent by technical issues and a lack of balance to its gameplay. That said, a lot of love has obviously been poured into this title and if you like your games with a bit of a unique personality, that's very much in evidence here. If you've already played these RPGs before, there's not enough here to draw you back for a repeat play, but new players might find this worthy of their hard-earned cash – if they're willing to put up with some rough edges.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Feb 24, 2021

Critic80/100

Agreement—

A breezier, simpler game than its clear inspirations, what Curse of the Dead Gods lacks in narrative it makes up for in focused, crunchy gameplay. Combat is interesting, exploration is rewarding and the systems in play are sufficiently diverse to make this a winner. It won't consume you forever, but you'll feel far from short-changed by this game of meaningful, divergent dungeons.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Feb 20, 2021

Critic80/100

Agreement—

A very pleasant and enjoyable surprise, Blue Fire is an auspicious debut from ROBI Studios. Only the performance issues, mildly sloppy combat and high difficulty are points of contention, and the latter will certainly depend on your point of view. Developed with passion and skill, this is a world you can lose yourself in that'll reward you the more you play and the better you get. It's uncompromising in its difficulty but doesn't resort to cheap tricks and "gotchas". The graphics are appealing and, crucially, clear as day. This is a fantastic experience overall, even if it isn't made up of the most original pieces. It's gameplay first and once you're traversing the infinite space of the Void stages, everything else basically just falls away.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Feb 15, 2021

Critic50/100

Agreement—

Neoverse Trinity Edition succeeds at being an enjoyable deck builder, but it does so in a way that's seemingly desperate to highlight its limitations. It runs embarrassingly poorly at times, and does almost nothing to ingratiate the player to its many systems, all of which must be puzzled out more or less from scratch. While this is far from ideal, it's not enough to totally kill the game's appeal. Robust strategy is both possible and necessary in order to progress much beyond even the second boss. If you vibe with Neoverse Trinity Edition, it'll last you a while. It's just very, very difficult to get to grips with this bizarre, confusing game.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Feb 9, 2021

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Little Nightmares II is nothing less than engaging from start to finish, with superb pacing, entertainingly varied level design and excellent graphics and performance. Its only real flaws are based on the imprecision that comes with all games in its sub-genre, as well as a few sections that feel more about trial and error than reactive survival. In our view, though, this doesn't detract from a far superior sequel and one of the best cinematic platformers we've had the privilege of enjoying. A real stylish treat.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Feb 4, 2021

Critic40/100

Agreement—

With nothing to offer besides some pleasant storytelling, we cannot recommend Sword of the Necromancer on any meaningful level. It's not horrible, but it's bereft of both meaningful content and any manner of unique execution. A sequel or heavily-modified relaunch could salvage the game into something much stronger, as the core idea of resurrecting fallen monsters is a decent one, but its treatment here renders it irrelevant. What a shame. This could have been something special. It's not a complete and total disaster – occasionally, when the screen is a little busier, you might feel a flicker of engagement as you dash between combatants – but overall, we'll be leaving this one for dead.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Jan 30, 2021

Critic70/100

Agreement—

An odd duck and no mistake, Shadow Gangs is nonetheless an enjoyable Shinobi clone with plenty of level design polish. It's let down by an obnoxiously high difficulty level and some fairly stingy game-saves, but overall has a good amount to recommend it if you're done with the Sega Mega Drive Classics and Sega Ages Shinobi. It's an extremely valiant effort at a truly old-school feel and retro gamers definitely won't regret checking it out – just be prepared to swallow your pride and head for the options menu.