Digimon Survive is one of the best visual novels to come out so far this year, with plenty of heart and tension to carry you through to the final act. Fans looking for an engaging story with well-written and presented characters that deal with life-and-death situations will enjoy the ride, while players focused on the combat will probably find that the game comes up short. Despite its sluggish, padded start, Digimon Survive is well worth the long wait.
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is the strangest thing you'll play from Nintendo, bringing with it laughs and creativity in abundance. But even with improvements over the 3DS game, it follows a familiar structure that isn't always enthralling or hilarious.Tomodachi fans will certainly be living the dream with this new entry, but I'm not desperate to keep coming back to my island. A little more variety would've been welcome, but the customisation, and the thought of my cat being best friends with DMC's Dante, will have me peep in every so often for a little pick-me-up.
There's plenty to like about Next Up Hero. Turning death into an applicable AI co-op mechanic is a neat spin on a game with a high death turnover, and its cartoon art style complements an impressively large menagerie of monsters to kill. Unfortunately, there are inherent problems with balancing and some disastrous technical problems. Its grinding takes too long, melee characters are all but pointless due to the high damage output of enemies, and those technical issues make committing time and effort a constant risk.
While it's not going to set your world alight with flashy features or ground-breaking mechanics, we enjoyed our time with Manual Samuel enormously. The joke risks wearing thin, but Sam's adventure is brief and self-aware enough to hold your interest. Co-op play is surprisingly fun with a willing accomplice and Time Attack offers some longevity, although for most players it'll be a short ‘one-and-done' affair. For our money, it's a pleasant amuse-bouche of a game – a welcome little treat between the larger courses being served up on Switch this summer.
If you're looking for a family-friendly puzzle/platformer that offers a mixture of quick satisfaction and gradually building difficulty, Tetra's Escape will certainly appeal. Its soundtrack, graphical style and general presentation are a little rough around the edges, but look past those visual first impressions and you'll find a cute little indie with puzzle chops that are more than skin deep.
This is a homage to the classic sci-fi RPGs of the '90s that successfully takes out many of the annoying bits but boasts a fair amount of the depth and consistency. Cosmic Star Heroine is a JRPG for those who long ago grew bored of JRPGs, but committed fans might find it just a little too slight an offering.
State of Mind has its moments to shine - certain plot beats in the final act do offer some genuine payoff, and some of those visuals are a joy to see running in docked mode or in handheld - but they're too often lost in a mire of storytelling cliche and science fiction tropes you've seen done better countless times before. A set of in-game achievements do help break up the lengthy plot, but the awkward voice acting and lack of cohesion between its gameplay ideas ultimately make for a muddled experience at best.
What fans of the first game ultimately hankered for has made its way into this sequel, and quite rightly so, with this new title overcoming some of those baffling design decisions. Make no mistake, though, newcomers to the franchise will find it easy to get sucked into the small but impressionable world of Guns, Gore & Cannoli 2.
Our primary criticism of the first game has been addressed, making The Last Wind Monk a much easier recommendation. Experimentation is now a breeze with touch controls and the expanded possibilities offered by character-switching mean puzzles feel more varied. It maintains the original's great writing and presentation, but offers a far better all-round experience, making it the best entry point for Switch owners into the eccentric world of Asposia.
While its overly simplistic art style isn't going to linger long in the memory, Unexplored's unusual approach to balancing combat and map generation certainly will. There's very little story here to be had, but like any great dungeon crawler, the real adventure is the one you write yourself. With plenty of scope for weaponsmithing and all plenty of permanent perks to unlock to help negate the sting of its permadeath, Unexplored: Unlocked Edition offers danger and delight in equal measure.
Come for the wonderful presentation, stay for the baddie boppin'. Crossing Souls nails its 1980s aesthetic, no question there — the 'long-lost-cartoon' game is strong here, right down to the artfully placed VHS artifacts in the animated cutscenes playing out across a sweeping adolescent adventure. Nostalgia aside, the story and beat-em-up gameplay please and surprise in a few key ways, but come with a few too many paper cuts to prevent Crossing Souls from breaking through to that next level.
Minit is a perfect example of a game that introduces a creative new concept, explores it thoroughly, and then ends before things get stale. This may be a short game, but you're almost assured to have a blast for every bit of it, with funny dialogue, creative puzzle design, and moderate amounts of replayability all being a plus. We'd recommend this to anyone looking for something a little different than the norm, along with anybody who's looking for a title that takes after the older Zelda games. We really enjoyed our time with Minit, and we'd encourage you to take the plunge on this one.
Created by a one-person team based out of Madrid, Megaton Rainfall is, at the very least, a technical marvel. It's very much comparable to No Man's Sky; an indie hit that wows with its sheer scale and the breadth of its ambition. But much like Hello Games' oft-maligned space explorer, this superhero simulator struggles to maintain the impressive impact of its first hour, or live up to the lofty heights of those dangerously high ambitions.
If you haven't already gathered, Okami HD is an utterly fantastic piece of software, and we feel you'd be doing yourself a disservice to pass on it. For a mere twenty bucks, you can have access to a 40-hour adventure that emulates Zelda wonderfully, adds in plenty of memorable mechanics, features one of the most memorable art styles in gaming, and is completely playable on the go, to boot. Though it may be showing its age a bit visually and its combat is sometimes a little on the easy side, Okami is an important, fun, and notable landmark in gaming history — and one of the easiest recommendations we can make for your Switch library.
There's no getting away from the fact that Not a Hero: Super Snazzy Edition is a reissue of a game that's already been out for years on other platforms, so if you've already emptied its virtual clips before there's not much here to coax you back in (bar the fact you can now enjoy it on a portable console). However, if you've yet to sign up to BunnyLord's mayoral bloodbath you're in for an ultraviolent treat. With an enjoyable, if brief add-on campaign to boot, this little side-scrolling platformer is a blast whether played on the go or blown-up on your TV. Canvassing has never been so much fun.
