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Heaven Dust 2 is one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve had in some time. My initial – and erroneous – impressions of the game faded away in only a few minutes.
Continue readingI’m a huge sucker for anything featuring mechs. Blackwind looked like it would be right up my alley in that regard.
Continue readingThere are few things in gaming more satisfying than a game built around exploration that’s actually fun to explore. Studio Inkyfox, the one-man developer behind today’s game, Omno, understands this all too well.
Continue readingWhen I first saw the screenshots for today’s game, Kathy Rain Director’s Cut, they showed me a pixel art point-and-click adventure heavily featuring motorcycles. Could this be a game paying homage to of one of my favorite Lucasarts adventures, Full Throttle, I asked myself?
Continue readingA few months ago, I reviewed a super-chill city-builder by the name of Islanders. Today’s game, Airborne Kingdom, is similar to Islanders, but deeper in both story and strategy.
Continue readingComing up with unique, new gameplay mechanics is hard. I’ve never made a game, but I’m certain this statement is true. I don’t know if the developers of Death’s Door feel the same way, but I suspect they do know that (thankfully) execution trumps innovation.
Continue readingThe Sundew is the initial release from one-person game studio 2054. On the surface, I’m definitely the target audience for this game.
Continue readingI love a good detective story, but I’m not especially hooked on any of the big crime procedural dramas that populate network TV. Perhaps that is why Murder Mystery Machine for the Nintendo Switch left me feeling a little cold.
Continue readingI’m familiar enough with the concept that I know what the traditional Metroid formula looks like. I mean, it wouldn’t be hard to figure it out even if I hadn’t played any games in the series since it’s half the name of its genre, but whatever.
Continue readingFrom the first screenshot I saw, I was hooked on the idea of Astria Ascending. A gorgeously hand-drawn, Valkyrie Profile-styled JRPG developed and scored by some of the luminaries of the genre? You can assume I’ll be ready to give that a try anytime, anywhere.
Continue readingCurious Expedition 2 finds a way to address all of my complaints about the first game without losing the identity it established or any of the other elements I enjoyed.
Continue readingFor those looking for a casual all-ages RPG experience with an awesome story and characters, Garden Story is the way to go.
Continue readingIt’s been around three months since the last standard Nintendo Direct, back at E3 2021. Lots of new games would get announced, we’d get some catching up on a few older ones, and if you’re a fan of Nintendo games,…
Continue readingIslanders is a super-chill city-building puzzle game. It’s hard to find a lot more to say about the game than that – and I swear I don’t mean that as an insult.
Continue readingI should be a bigger fan of the boss rush genre than I am. The idea of a game cutting out the filler and focusing totally on the most challenging and memorable portion of the gameplay has an inherent appeal, I just haven’t yet found one that I’ve connected with. I do enjoy a good Souls-like now and again, though, so when the Souls-like boss rush Eldest Souls popped into the review code list, I was certainly intrigued. Ultimately, I’m not sure the combination works out, however there was a lot I really liked about Eldest Souls – but it has its warts, too.
Continue readingDisgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny is an attempt to break the franchise’s mold a little bit by making two big changes to the formula.
Continue readingWhen I first saw Pecaminosa for the Nintendo Switch, I was intrigued by the possibility of combining my love of gritty noir detective stories with my love of retro-inspired pixel graphics.
Continue readingI’m not even sure I can accurately calculate the number of hours of my life that have been spent exploring isometric RPG adventures. So when a game like Beautiful Desolation for the Nintendo Switch comes around, at the very least it will have my curiosity.
Continue readingVaporum: Lockdown is the prequel to indie dungeon-crawler hit Vaporum, which originally released in 2017. It hit the Switch about two years later, and we were pretty impressed with it. The sequel doesn’t do anything to besmirch that legacy, but I did have one minor gameplay quibble and the game does suffer from one personal pet peeve.
Continue readingIn 9 Monkeys of Shaolin, you play the role of Wei Cheng, a fisherman living in a peaceful, feudal-era fishing village. Your story begins in the midst of a brutal pirate attack on your village.
Continue readingBlack Legend for the Nintendo Switch is a game that has basically every element I’m looking for in a game, but has too many warts to fully satisfy.
Continue readingBattle Brothers for the Nintendo Switch is a strategy game that doesn’t really have much in the way of innovation. Instead, it is a testament to the power of exceptional execution.
Continue readingToday’s game, Knight’s Retreat, integrates parts of the basic chess formula to build a unique, engaging, strategic puzzle game.
Continue readingI suppose I could spend some time talking about the backstory of Noble Armada: Lost Worlds. I could talk about the tabletop RPG setting it is based on, Fading Suns. Or I could go into how it was successfully funded on Kickstarter.
Continue readingIn the case of Super Robot Wars V, that means trying to tie together eighteen different series into one story. It’s like a crossover fanfiction gone horribly wrong, yet so terribly right at the same time, told in a visual novel format broken up by turn-based strategy levels.
Continue readingI can’t recall a game that I have more mixed feelings about than Summer Catchers for the Nintendo Switch. It’s an interesting take on the classic infinite runner with a cool visual aesthetic and a cute story.
Continue readingSNK Vs Capcom: The Match of the MillenniumNintendo Switch Developed By: Code Mystics, SNKPublished By: SNKCategory: FightingRelease Date: 02.17.21 I can’t even tell you how excited I was when SNK Vs Capcom: The Match of the Millennium entered our review…
Continue readingThe highlight of the presentation was the announcement of the next entry in Square-Enix’s HD-2D library, Project Triangle Strategy. It’s the spiritual (and visual) successor to one of my favorite Switch games so far and previous Nintendo Direct surprise reveal, Octopath Traveler.
Continue readingIt’s pretty hard to check off more boxes on my genre preference checklist than Dry Drowning. It’s a hard-boiled detective cyberpunk dystopian adventure visual novel.
Continue readingI’m not the world’s biggest fan of the horror genre. I mean, sure, I’ll spend all day with a Resident Evil, but that’s about as far as I go with it. Today’s game, Silver Chains for the Nintendo Switch, doesn’t do much to change my opinion of the genre.
Continue readingThe beat-em-up formula has been pretty well set for a few years. You’ve got one or two attack buttons that you use to set up combos, you can jump, and, most importantly, dive kick. Shing! sets out to shake that formula up a little bit by introducing a novel way to pull of combos.
Continue readingMy Universe – Pet Clinic Cats & Dogs for the Nintendo Switch is not the type of game I usually play. I like games with immersive strategic elements and deep, engrossing, mature narratives. So while I do believe that video games are for everyone, this particular game is clearly not for 36-year-olds.
Continue readingCultist Simulator is a card-based, narrative-building game that boasts an infinitely intriguing gameplay mechanic.
Continue readingI’ve made no secret of my love for games that marry a gorgeous, retro, pixel art aesthetic to smooth, modern gameplay. Today’s game, Olija for the Nintendo Switch, feeds that obsession marvelously.
Continue readingA couple years ago I had the pleasure of reviewing the first Override. I enjoyed the heck out of the way it reminded me of one of my favorite Dreamcast titles, Tech Romancer, its fairly original combat mechanics, and its damn cool mechs. Override 2: Super Mech League tries to refine the formula a little bit while adding even more cool robots to somewhat mixed results.
Continue readingI had some personal problems with today’s game, Unto the End, from a gameplay perspective, but its biggest issue is that it just doesn’t take advantage of one of the Switch’s biggest strengths. It ends up being a good example of the difference between a good game, and a good game for the Switch.
Continue readingThanks to splashy moves by SpaceX, the space race has recently been in the news more than it had in several years. But it started way back in the fifties, which is where today’s game, Mars Horizon for the Nintendo Switch, begins.
Continue readingCake Bash for the Nintendo Switch is one of those games that has an absolutely perfect vision for its graphical aesthetic. Its bright, soft color palette complements a fun, lively, high-quality art style that would feel perfectly at home in a Pixar film.
Continue readingThe best formula for an addictive game is to take a concept that is easy to understand and marry it to a steadily increasing level of difficulty. Today’s game, Kolumno for the Nintendo Switch, nails the first part of the formula, but maybe gets a bit too finicky with its controls to be as consistently enjoyable as it could be.
Continue readingDid you ever watch Blade Runner? Did you ever look at the towering spires and flying cars and think to yourself, “Man, it would be super awesome to explore a city like that?” I know I did, and I think I can say with a great degree of certainty that the fine folks at ION LANDS feel the same. Their first release, Cloudpunk, has finally made its way to the Nintendo Switch, and piloting my hover car around the neon noir city of Nivalis has proven to be every bit as satisfying as I hoped it would.
Continue readingWhen you first at the screenshots for today’s game, Wartile for the Nintendo Switch, in the eShop, the crisp, detailed graphics on display are sure to be the first thing that catches your eye. I’ve been fooled by screenshots before, so it was a remarkable surprise when I booted the game up for the first time and the game looks almost exactly as good as promised – as long as you’re playing docked, that is.
Continue readingI have a definite soft spot for the point and click adventure games of eras past. That’s something I have in common with Stuck In Attic, the developers of today’s game, Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure.
Continue readingAs I obsessively made my way through today’s game, 9th Dawn III: Shadow of Erthil for the Nintendo Switch, I was continuously amazed by the fact that it was put together by just one guy.
Continue readingWarsaw for the Nintendo Switch puts players in charge of a cell of resistance fighters during the Warsaw Uprising in the closing days of World War II. Players have to survive 63 brutal days of the Uprising’s desperate plan to free Warsaw from Nazi occupation, only for the terrible reality of the Uprising’s end to take place anyway.
Continue readingA four-way melee fighting game is always going to draw comparisons to the granddaddy of the genre, Super Smash Bros. And on paper, Bounty Battle for the Nintendo Switch looks like it could have what it takes to compete in the space.
Continue readingI don’t know when exactly, but somewhere along the way movie tie-in games stopped being almost universally cheap cash grabs. I mean, sure, some still are, but a lot end up like today’s entry: Jurassic World Evolution: Complete Edition for the Nintendo Switch. Maybe it’s not the most original game on the planet, but it does an excellent job adapting its source material in a genre that maybe isn’t the most natural sell for most licensors.
Continue readingSnake is easily one of the most-copied games on the planet. There have to be hundreds of clones on mobile platforms alone. Today’s game, Snake King for the Nintendo Switch, throws its hat in the ring with what it hopes is an interesting new wrinkle to the formula. Unfortunately, interesting is not a word I’d use to describe Snake King.
Continue readingCircuit DudeNintendo Switch Developed By : Jonathan HolmesPublished By : Sickhead GamesCategory : Puzzle, StrategyRelease Date : Sep 07, 2020 Puzzle games can be some of the simplest or the most complex games to hit any console, and that’s speaking…
Continue readingI love GI Joe. I had dozens – maybe even over a hundred – of their action figures growing up, and a couple dozen vehicles to boot. It’s hard to say whether GI Joe, TMNT, or the X-Men was the most important franchise of my childhood, but it’s neck-and-neck-and-neck between them. So, obviously, when GI Joe: Operation Blackout for the Nintendo Switch came up for selection in the Switch Effect’s review queue, I abused my position as second-most-senior-member-after-Mike to jump to the head of the line and snag it.
Continue readingGleamlight is kind of like Hollow Knight, only more colorful and slightly fae-steampunk. The first key difference, though, is the complete lack of narrative or instruction—I actually sat watching the little circle of illumination around a sword stuck in the ground for a minute when I first started the game, expecting some opening cinema, until I started realizing I was supposed to do something!
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