Nintendo Life

Nintendo Life

Nathanial Eker·Sep 2, 2024

Critic50/100

Agreement—

Overall, Julie’s Sweets isn’t a bad game; it plays well for what it is and can be addictive once invested, but the shallow story, scary visuals, and lack of replay value let it down.

Nintendo Life

Nathanial Eker·Sep 2, 2024

Critic70/100

Agreement—

All in all, Wondershot is brilliant if you have four friends around, equally brilliant with just two players, and even decent fun alone, if you enjoy the challenge maps. The lack of AI matches is irritating, but certainly not a deal breaker for the charming, competitive, multiplayer experience.

Nintendo Life

Nathanial Eker·Sep 2, 2024

Critic70/100

Agreement—

Overall, Animus: Stand Alone is recommended for fans of the Dark Souls and Bloodborne series, offering a smaller-scale, level-based, mobile-style variation on these titles that still sports excellent gameplay and impressive graphics.

Nintendo Life

Nathanial Eker·Sep 2, 2024

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Feudal Alloy is a wonderful example of a platformer done right. A brilliant, exploratory adventure that throws interesting mechanics on the table that breathe life into a well-established sub-genre.

Nintendo Life

Roland Ingram·Sep 1, 2024

Critic90/100

Agreement—

With ingenious puzzles, a high level of difficulty, and an educational hint system, be careful or Can of Wormholes will have you hooked.

Nintendo Life

Oliver Revolta·Aug 31, 2024

Critic50/100

Agreement—

The thing is, Castaway most reminded us of inferior Zelda clones from back in the '90s. There’s just something about the slowness of the character that we found a bit frustrating. The overall simplicity of both gameplay options makes it difficult to fully recommend to anyone other than die-hard genre fans. There are no NPCs to talk to, no quirky alligators, villagers, or owls to add variety to the experience - all that’s left is an incredibly short and unoriginal, if pretty, action RPG.

Nintendo Life

Oliver Revolta·Aug 30, 2024

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Valfaris: Mecha Therion did not relax us. This is not a relaxing game at all, but it is an enjoyable one and an easy recommendation if you're in the market for a fun, action-heavy shooter. Blasting through waves of ships, rival mechs, and alien orbs, and making iterative progress as you master each section of the game, is a fun loop. Balancing your attack and defence can be challenging but rewarding. The only downside worth mentioning is there is almost no explanation of the previous game's story. Therefore, it would probably be best to play them in order if you want to make sense of exactly what's going on.

Nintendo Life

Mitch Vogel·Aug 30, 2024

Critic70/100

Agreement—

Gundam Breaker 4 offers return to form for the series and demonstrates time and again that it knows the importance of focusing on its strengths. Though its middling graphics and somewhat repetitive gameplay can hold it back a bit, the incredibly deep customisation options, snappy combat, and near-endless replayability make this the kind of game that'll get its hooks in you deep once it clicks. If you're into Gundam, we'd suggest you pick this one up when you get the chance, especially if you're looking for a content-rich and relatively low-investment action game to add to your Switch library.

Nintendo Life

Mitch Vogel·Aug 29, 2024

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn offers a tough and enjoyable return to this NES classic, expertly building upon what came before without erasing what made the original release great to begin with. Though it is a bit on the short side, there's enough replayability here to stretch out the experience for another few hours. We'd recommend this to anyone who's looking for a callback to the tough challenge of early Nintendo games-Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn has retro charm in spades and still stands tall even among modern 'neo-retro' platformers like Panzer Paladin and Gravity Circuit.

Nintendo Life

Oliver Reynolds·Aug 29, 2024

Critic90/100

Agreement—

Castlevania Dominus Collection is quite possibly the best compilation that Konami and M2 have produced to date. It presents three exceptional DS games that easily stand the test of time and provide just as much enjoyment now as they did back in the 2000s. Not only that, but the impossible has seemingly been achieved with the remarkable addition of Haunted Castle Revisited. Included as a fun little bonus, this revamped take on a reviled arcade curio is fantastic, and while it can't compete with the very best 'classic' games in the franchise, it's the closest we've gotten to a brand new Castlevania in years. An exquisite package.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Aug 28, 2024

Critic70/100

Agreement—

Emio - The Smiling Man has been hyped up a little too much in terms of how dark in tone the whole thing is. This is still silly, kooky stuff, just like its predecessors. The sometimes frustrating core mechanics also haven't seen any refinement this time around, which is a shame. And so it's left to some top-notch writing to save the day, which it just about does. Once this troubling and intriguing story has its hooks in you (remember there are three demos to try if you're unsure), it's hard to put down. And that, at the end of the day, is all Tantei Club fans will be looking for.

Nintendo Life

Echo Apsey·Aug 28, 2024

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Overall, Crypt Custodian is a pretty traditional Metroidvania elevated by its fantastic world, aesthetic, characters, and soundtrack, with solid combat and a lot of build flexibility. These aspects all help alleviate some visual clutter issues and frame rate hiccups, ensuring that Crypt Custodian shouldn't end up lost in the eShop bargain bin like so many other Metroidvanias.

Nintendo Life

Ken Talbot·Aug 27, 2024

Critic60/100

Agreement—

Gori: Cuddly Carnage's hyper-violent, comic book spin on the character platformer is fun and easy to get to grips with. It's an entertaining ride, though the sheer volume of comedic banter will overwhelm as much as it entertains, and performance issues plague the experience throughout. Otherwise, it just about holds everything together and will no doubt appeal to some. Others may tire of the scattershot humour long before Gori has defeated the Adorable Army.

Nintendo Life

Em Stonham·Aug 25, 2024

Critic70/100

Agreement—

If you're willing to look past a handful of typos and some fairly significant visual issues, WitchSpring R is a great example of turn-based combat with a strong story to back it up. It's whimsical and enchanting, and you won't be able to predict how it all ends. On top of this, the NG+ option gives it an extra splash of replayability for players who like a challenge. That being said, the visual quirks do take a toll on the score here. While they weren't game-breaking, having the main character pop out of existence during crucial cutscenes was frustrating, and it did affect our overall experience.

Nintendo Life

Mitch Vogel·Aug 24, 2024

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Bakeru is a sweet, snappy, and satisfying linear 3D platformer that feels like a wonderful callback to a genre that doesn't get a ton of representation these days. It's really easy (although the Western version ups the difficulty slightly) and has some performance problems, but the gameplay variety, snappy combat, oodles of collectibles, and gorgeous art style all come together to make for an adventure that you won't want to miss out on.