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.
Wingspan is a strong card game for those with the patience to learn how it works. It's fun, compulsive and can sometimes truly surprise you with stacked effects and their outcomes. Its translation to the Switch is a little... difficult, but certainly not for want of trying. In handheld it's far from ideal, but on the dock, as a couch multiplayer experience, there's plenty of fun to be had. It's also enjoyable alone as you'll seek out ways to create the highest-scoring possible deck. Despite a few porting issues, Wingspan is definitely a good time, and it'll be difficult to stop after just one game. It's a lot cheaper than the physical game, too, making it a thoroughly viable alternative.
This is unlikely to be the Aleste collection anyone wanted. Those interested in the early days of Aleste will quickly notice the lack of the MSX2 games and the omission of Musha, Dennin (AKA: Robo), and Super Aleste will disappoint those fond of the most popular entries in the series. However, even without those, Aleste Collection still contains five great shmups and represents excellent value for money, especially when you consider this package costs much less than some second-hand cart-only auctions do for single games contained within it – and that's before you even consider GG Aleste 3's very welcome addition.
As with any roguelite, Synthetik: Ultimate requires an abundance of playthroughs in order to progress further into the game. Its overall length very much depends on your own commitment, but the strong gameplay is more than enough incentive to keep coming back, despite the poor menu system and less-than-stellar graphics. The addition of an Arena mode on top of the main ‘Citadel’ mode is welcome, though it doesn’t offer anything particularly new, so you’ll likely just stick to the main mode.
Compelling to a fault, with a hypnotic and exhilarating central conceit, Grindstone is a tiny bit special. Hopefully, it won't be dismissed by players for being a mobile port, or being mistaken for a "match-three" game akin to Candy Crush – it's not. A full-featured, elegantly designed experience, Capybara's action-puzzle-tactics game is a tiny marvel and we'd strongly recommend it to any and all Switch owners. Ever-so-slight resource exhaustion is the only thing letting it down, but it's easily forgiven when smashing seven shades of shawarma out of creeps is so flipping fun. We say it's time to reverse that well-worn idiom and put your yes to the Grindstone.
Space Invaders Extreme is awesome, but even in the guise of a cut-down compilation, Space Invaders Forever is lacking as a package. Better titles could have been chosen, and the way the apps are laid out is strange and disconnected. When it drops in price, this will be essential for Extreme alone. If you want Arkanoid vs. Space Invaders, that's available on your phone for a fair price, and better suited to that format in general. A disappointing and confusing package, but one that we strongly recommend at a discount just to get Space Invaders Extreme. It's that good. All six of these points are for it, and it alone.
Concise, carefully crafted and beautifully malleable in its meaning, When The Past Was Around is a rather gorgeous little art game that remembers it needs to be interesting in its puzzles as well as its narrative. Taking the principles of escape room-style gameplay and fitting them around its theme lends them a gravitas that belies their simplicity and elevates this game into more than just the indie flavour of the month. Sure, you're not likely to play it twice, but you'd be hard-pressed to forget about it. And, honestly, after this year? We needed it.
Super Meat Boy Forever makes some big changes to its predecessor's classic formula, ushering in an endless-running style of gameplay, simplified control scheme and procedurally-generated levels that are a blast to play through but ultimately rob the game of the fiendishly additive quality of the 2010 original. We miss perfecting Super Meat Boy's bespoke little death mazes here and although fans of brutally tough platformers will still find plenty to love, we can't help but feel this one's a little bit of a step back for Team Meat's squishy red mascot.
The search for an intuitive control system on the Switch continues, as Football Manager 2021 remains clunky and fiddly to play. Stick with its admittedly awkward controls, however, and you'll end up with the best handheld football management game ever, thanks to its enhanced matchday options and its improved stats. It's the Robert Pires of football games: it eventually becomes sensational, you just have to give it a season or so before it properly settles.
Terry Cavanaugh has done it again with Dicey Dungeons; this is easily one of the best roguelike titles you can currently purchase for the Switch. Loads of gameplay variety, fantastic music, a high skill ceiling and friendly visuals make this a thoroughly gripping and fun experience you won't want to miss out on. If you like roguelikes or card games, we'd highly recommend you pick this up as soon as you can – and even if you don't, we'd still encourage you to check it out regardless.
Among Us is an instantly accessible and super-addictive casual gaming experience that serves up some hilarious whodunnit hijinks in short bursts that are perfectly suited to portable play. There are a few niggles here with regards to controls that make communication fussier than it really needs to be, but this is a fine port that finally enables Switch gamers to jump in and see what all the fuss is about with this most unlikely of gaming sensations.
Despite the lack of a single original idea to call its own, Landflix Odyssey is saved by its gameplay, which is both challenging and fun. Each stage is just the right length if you want to drop in and out, and there’s enough here to keep you busy for a good four or five hours altogether. If you’re willing to forgive the poor translation and weak attempt at parody, then Landflix Odyssey is a solid 2D platformer worth checking out.
Tanuki Justice is typically ‘retro’ in terms of its overall presentation. The colourful, pixel-heavy visuals pay homage to NES titles (although the art design often screams Sonic), and the soundtrack features some catchy, albeit rather repetitive tunes. There are a couple of annoying quirks typical of some 8-bit games, like the inability to jump down through a platform, and items disappearing after just a few short seconds. Otherwise, if you’re after a fun little run ‘n’ gun platformer reminiscent of early Mega Man titles, this might just be the one for you.
Mercenaries Blaze: Dawn of the Twin Dragons is the tactics game for fans of tactics games. It has an interesting story and a single-minded focus on just delivering a simple and easy to follow SRPG experience that's free of any extraneous plot or gameplay elements. This is its greatest strength, but it's also its greatest weakness. Those of you that need a little more something to go along with the deliberate and measured pace of a tactics game will be left wanting, as Mercenaries Blaze: Dawn of the Twin Dragons is just 'OK' in this regard. We'd give this a recommendation to anybody who's looking for a short and simple SRPG, but would also say that with the caveat that you manage your expectations before jumping in.
Drawn To Life: Two Realms is a sequel that fails to replicate what made the Drawn To Life games so compelling: the actual drawing part. It's pretty (and pretty cheap), but the puzzle-platforming underwhelms and the story drags; if you're a hardcore fan of the franchise then we dare say you'll be able to extract a modicum of enjoyment here, but there's an equal chance that, as a series aficionado, the changes made to the basic gameplay will annoy you the most.
PixelJunk Eden 2 is an odd duck, but it delivers an enjoyable and engaging time. Despite frontloading its status as an "audiovisual experience", we found it fun in and of itself. The litmus test, of course, being "would this game still be fun if it had Vectrex-level graphics", and thankfully in this case it absolutely would. A lack of variety hurts it somewhat, but if you treat it as an occasional treat to dip into rather than an extensive campaign that must be cleared, PixelJunk Eden 2 is a welcome addition to your Switch library. Let's just hope that Eden 3 doesn't skimp on the nudity again.
