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.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a wonderful love letter to a classic series, keeping everything that made the original games what they were, but slapping on a fresh coat of paint for the HD era. There are a few creaking bones showing their age here and there, but only due to the developers' desire to keep things as accurate as possible. The Switch version looks absolutely stunning and runs surprisingly well, so if you're looking for a classic 3D platforming experience, you should definitely give this a look-in.
This is easily the most skippable entry of all the mainline Final Fantasy games on the Switch right now, but if you find yourself to be a fan of either the Final Fantasy series or the JRPG genre, Final Fantasy VIII Remastered proves to be a release that’s certainly worth your time
With no microtransactions, a constant stream of cards to unlock and a streamlined recreation of all six seasons of the anime, this ranks as one of the best CCGs on Switch – if you can overlook its somewhat irksome issues.
As a melee-focused, multiplayer experience, Boreal Blade is sure to be a divisive experience. Some players will love the nuance of its freeform combat, revelling in the joy of the moment-to-moment swordplay. Others will be turned off by the steep learning curve which comes with mastering even the simplest of weapons.
Vambrace: Cold Souls is one of the best-looking games we've seen on Switch – it really is a stunner – but in terms of gameplay, it's a pedestrian affair. Dungeons are boring and difficult, combat is bereft of any real strategic depth or flair and it thinks nothing of wasting hours of your time for zero reward. The story gets off to a cracking start and it's obvious that an amazing amount of artistic talent has been channelled into creating the City of Icenaire and its surroundings, but, in the end, it's all rendered a little pointless by the fact it's attached to such a monotonous and dreary plod of an RPG.
Developer Forgotten Key has crafted an enchanting world here, with a fantastically fun and fitting means of traversing it; a splintered land full of melancholy memories in which you soar, a singular source of hope in flight above a world that’s relying on you for salvation. It’s a trip, a meditation on the nature of man and his fractured relationship with the natural world around him, a beautiful journey that's well worth taking.
RAD doesn’t do anything particularly new for the roguelike genre, but it doesn’t necessarily need to in order to be an enjoyable game in its own right.
On paper Whipseey is a lovely tribute to the days of the Kirby games, but when the entire game is shorter than just the first world of Kirby's Adventure – which is already available as part of the Switch Online NES collection – we just can't recommend you spend your money on it. If this was a free demo teasing a full adventure we'd be demanding you play it, but if this is really all there is that's incredibly poor.
With its amazing visuals, fantastic presentation, varied gameplay and deep, rewarding combat, Astral Chain could well be PlatinumGames' most accomplished game yet.
The Grandia games deserve a much better remastering treatment than they’ve been given here, but Grandia HD Collection is nonetheless a respectable release.
It genuinely feels like there's something for everyone here, whether you prefer to go it alone with the puzzle rooms in single-player or take on your friends in the superb multiplayer.
While time has somewhat diminished the freshness of Hotline Miami’s creative violence, both games still offer some of the most addictive and rewarding experiences you can play.
Sports simulators continue to raise the bar of quality on Nintendo Switch, and Snooker 19 keeps that upward curve moving with an officially licensed recreation of all things baize-based. With an impressive number of facially-scanned pros and real-world snooker halls, and an incredibly precise simulation of striking the ball and setting up future shots, you're treated to one of the best snooker games of the last decade. While still very rough around in the edges in terms of animations, commentary and accessibility, this is a must for snooker devotees who want an officially-licensed sim on Switch.
The Sega Ages version of Puyo Puyo does the best it can with the source material it has, but that offered fairly slim pickings in the first place. A few optional tweaks to the controls make it a little less frustrating to play, but the reality is that compared to other Sega Ages offerings this has probably had the least work put into it. Puyo Puyo devotees will want it because it's where the series all began, but everyone else should look into alternatives if they want to keep coming back for another one of those blob-dropping feats.
