Nintendo Life

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Nov 23, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

A stand-out party game, Cake Bash deserves a place on your Switch menu. As with all games of its type, it benefits from having your friends alongside you, but online play with matchmaking (here called "matchbaking") works well, and you can play with bots if you really feel like you need to. It's only the eventual repetition that brings down Cake Bash, and that's really in the pie of the beholder. Far more than a mere trifle, Cake Bash belongs in the upper crust. We suspect the publisher's profit(erole) turnover to rake in the bread. Donut miss this one! (Reviewer is roughly bundled into an unmarked van and shot.)

Nintendo Life

Kate Gray·Nov 22, 2020

Critic60/100

Agreement—

Just Dance 2021 fails to ever feel like a fully fleshed-out game, especially for the £50 price tag. Although the new tracks and the World Dance Floor mode are fun enough, it's hard to justify spending so much on a game that adds so little, and expects you to purchase more with thinly-veiled in-game advertising and upselling. If you love the series then you'll be investing no matter what we say, but we can't help but feel that Just Dance as a franchise has been resting on its laurels for far too long now.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Nov 21, 2020

Critic90/100

Agreement—

An extremely impressive first game from The Wild Gentlemen, Chicken Police - Paint it RED! is one of the best adventure games we've played in a long, long time and one hell of an absorbing tale. It looks and runs great on the Switch, with only a couple of really minuscule interface issues which are easily ignored. At roughly eight or nine hours, the story is surprisingly lengthy for its genre, but we were never bored and wanted to investigate every little thing just to wring out more precious droplets of banter and fascination. Chicken Police is a polished, captivating experience and we're very excited for whatever's coming next from this team. It's just a shame it's so good, or we could have said it "laid an egg", and that would have tied in nicely with the whole chicken thing. Instead, this review is just going to, well, end. Now. That's it. It's finished. No closing chicken joke.

Nintendo Life

Mitch Vogel·Nov 20, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Is Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory for you? Well, that depends on a variety of factors. This is a game that's obviously designed as a love letter to longtime fans of the franchise, but it also bears almost no resemblance at all to the gameplay that made the preceding titles such a hit. As a rhythm game, it's a perfectly enjoyable and content-rich entry in the genre, but a substantial amount of its meaning and appeal will be lost on rhythm fans who don't have a background with the previous games. Either way, we think Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is certainly worth your time. What we have here is a fun and engaging rhythm game with potentially hundreds of hours of replayability and a killer setlist of music to back it up.

Nintendo Life

Gavin Lane·Nov 18, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Approached with the knowledge that this is a full-featured side-dish, you'll have a very good time hacking and slashing your way through Calamity Ganon's minions in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity; just remember that despite its sparkling presentation, it is still not a Zelda game. What it is is a brilliant Zelda-infused Musou experience filled with varied and satisfying combat and Breath of the Wild additions that work beautifully within the boundaries of the Warriors template.

Nintendo Life

Oliver Reynolds·Nov 17, 2020

Critic60/100

Agreement—

Considering how quickly Five Dates was conceptualised and developed, the overall execution of the story is commendable. Having said that, it’s a shame there’s no option here to flip things around and have a woman protagonist join the app to date five men in addition to Vinny. We appreciate this would effectively double the amount of work required, but we have to wonder who exactly Five Dates is aimed at. As it is, the entire premise feels like a throwaway side-story shoved into a Richard Curtis rom-com to simply appease the men in the audience. It’s a fun little distraction, but ultimately not an experience that’s going to stick with you for long.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Nov 17, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Sniper Elite 4 is the best entry yet in this long-running franchise with great big meaty missions stuffed to bursting point with Nazis to snipe and stab in glorious slo-mo X-ray vision. There's a new-found flexibility to the gameplay, with Karl now able to shimmy and scurry vertically around levels and enemy AI that's much more up to the task than in previous iterations. There may be some slightly rough edges, with duff writing, naff characters and gameplay that doesn't change much from start to finish but, overall, this is playful sniper's paradise that lands on Switch in a truly impressive port. It's time to dust off that M1903 Springfield, find a nice vantage point and get to blowing great big bloody holes in fascist heads. The perfect antidote to 2020.

Nintendo Life

Kate Gray·Nov 16, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

Lovers of Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon may not find this game to be exactly the kind of farming they enjoy – it's more like, you know, actual farming, with all the tiny changes in fertiliser recipes and water temperature that farming requires. But for anyone who needs to practise mindfulness, patience, and appreciation for the small things (all 2,000 of them), Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin may just be the therapy you need.

Nintendo Life

Kate Gray·Nov 15, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

Fuser is a weird little thing that has fantastic moments turn into awful ones at the drop of a beat. But when the awful moments are still incredibly fun, does it really matter? If you don't take Fuser too seriously, it could be one of the best rhythm games out there.

Nintendo Life

Kate Gray·Nov 11, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Dungreed is a fairly typical roguelite game with a few well-chosen additions to the design that make it stand out as something special. It may not be genre-defining and it's certainly not game-changing, but it draws from other roguelite designs to come up with something that's polished, smart, and extremely satisfying.

Nintendo Life

Oliver Reynolds·Nov 9, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

With its wacky storyline and stylish graphics, Mad Rat Dead would be a confident platformer even without the rhythm mechanics. But with the help of an excellent soundtrack, it’s an experience that feels wholly original, even if it’s not the first game to blend the platforming and rhythm genres. It can be a tricky game at times, but with the help of the rewind function, it’s one that feels relatively breezy overall, letting you just sink into the music and bust out those sick moves.

Nintendo Life

Stuart Gipp·Nov 9, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

It's the game's commitment to accessibility that makes Tropico 6 a refreshing example of an under-served genre on the Switch. Despite some irksome performance problems, occasionally inconsistent pacing and some rather rough visuals, the game is a lot of addictive fun to play and its cheerful ambience and compelling systems will keep you glued to your handheld. Paid DLC adds even more systems to the game, but there's plenty here to keep you occupied for hours and hours. We'd recommend this to genre newbies as well as veterans; a very impressive port with strong controls and a UI tailored brilliantly for handheld mode. It's a busy, demanding game but never feels stressful, and juggling your industry, faction relationships and the mood of your citizens can be thoroughly absorbing. If you can forgive the technical issues and an occasionally slack pace, Tropico 6 is an easy recommendation.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Nov 7, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition on Switch is a feature-packed and surprisingly playable port of a hugely entertaining game that provides a ton of fun for fans of the genre and Jurassic Park nuts alike. There are undeniably problems in handheld where the visuals take a pretty big hit and the framerate does struggle here and there in docked but, if you can deal with these issues, you'll find one of the most straight-up fun management sim offerings currently available on Switch awaits. So, who's hungry?

Nintendo Life

Oliver Reynolds·Nov 6, 2020

Critic50/100

Agreement—

It’s a real shame that YesterMorrow performs so poorly, because visually it’s a real treat, and it’s backed up by a pretty great soundtrack. More importantly though, its gameplay – while functional – can’t hold a candle to a game like Celeste, and we feel it really should have nailed this aspect if it’s to be successful. YesterMorrow may be worth a go if the severe technical issues get ironed out, but it’s by no means a must-buy.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Nov 6, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Descenders is an addictive freeriding roguelite with plenty of content to keep players busy as they get to grips with its unique take on extreme biking action. It may be a little rough around the edges in places and this Switch port has certainly seen a graphical downgrade, but the core riding controls well, the framerate is solid and the procedurally-generated nature of courses keeps things feeling fresh. With a meaty campaign featuring eight diverse biomes, a decent multiplayer component and those all-important online leaderboards, this one's a surprisingly robust package that comes highly recommended.