[Review] Islanders – Nintendo Switch
September 16, 2021
Islanders 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.
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Islanders 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!
Continue readingMini Motor Racing X Nintendo Switch Developed By : The Binary Mill Published By : The Binary Mill Category : Racing, Arcade Release Date : Sep 17, 2020 Games as a whole have come a long way since the 8-bit…
Continue readingHere Be Dragons for the Nintendo Switch is a game I’m desperate to love for its charming visual style, original premise, and genuinely witty writing – but its gameplay keeps getting in the way.
Continue readingAt first glance, Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars for the Nintendo Switch gives off some pretty big 4X strategy game vibes. That’s a genre I happen to love on PC, but it’s proven tough to translate that interest to console.
Continue readingOthercide for the Nintendo Switch is an interesting experiment in mixing together turn-based strategy games, roguelike elements, and an absolutely brutal difficulty curve. The results are frequently stunning, but just as frequently frustrating.
Continue readingUnder the Jolly RogerNintendo Switch Developed By: Lion’s ShadePublished By: HeroCraftCategory: Adventure, Action, Role-Playing, Pirate SimRelease Date: 09.03.20 Today’s game, Under the Jolly Roger for the Nintendo Switch, was originally released a few years ago on Mobile and PC under…
Continue readingManifold GardenNintendo Switch Developed By : William Chyr StudioPublished By : William Chyr StudioCategory : Adventure, PuzzleRelease Date : Aug 18, 2020 There are many different elements to all the games that we play. Many of these elements can draw…
Continue readingIt’s not often that you come across a game that does as little to distinguish itself as Tiny Racer for the Nintendo Switch. While I generally tend to enjoy spending a little bit of time with smaller, indie arcade racing games, Tiny Racer offers so little in the way of polish or even basic competency that it was difficult to find anything about which to be positive.
Continue readingAgeless for the Nintendo Switch is a puzzle-platformer from Malaysian developer One More Dream Studios that has drawn comparisons to crazy-popular indie sensation Celeste from several sources I have seen, mostly due to the similarity of the two games’ genre and graphical style.
Continue readingREZ PLZNintendo Switch Developed By: Long Neck GamesPublished By: Graffiti GamesCategory: Platformer, Puzzle, Action, MultiplayerRelease Date: 07.15.20 REZ PLZ for the Nintendo Switch is a cooperative puzzle platformer that features an intriguing character switching gameplay mechanic and wonderful graphics that…
Continue readingThe Great PerhapsNintendo Switch Developed By: Caligari GamesPublished By: Drageus GamesCategory: Adventure, Puzzle, PlatformerRelease Date: 07.10.20 The Great Perhaps for the Nintendo Switch has plenty of quality ingredients needed to make it a memorable experience, but unfortunately it just doesn’t…
Continue readingBipedNintendo Switch Developed By: NEXT StudiosPublished By: Postmeta GamesCategory: Adventure, Puzzle, Platformer, ArcadeRelease Date: 07.02.20 Is there anything in the world more frustrating than a platformer with imprecise, inconsistent controls? Well, yeah, probably – but not in the gaming world….
Continue reading1971 Project HeliosNintendo Switch Developed By: RecotechnologyPublished By: RecotechnologyCategory: StrategyRelease Date: 06.09.20 1971 Project Helios for the Nintendo Switch is a frustrating game to review; it has so much potential, but much of it falls just short of being great….
Continue readingDeveloped By: Team8 StudioPublished By: Drageus GamesCategory: Action, Arcade, Twin-StickRelease Date: 05.29.20 Genetic Disaster for the Nintendo Switch is a twin-stick roguelite action game featuring four unique characters with their own skills and playstyles. It has a really cool aesthetic…
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