With Virtua Racing, M2 proves the Switch is a capable showcase for Sega Model 1’s divine austerity. As a three-course arcade racer with one car, Virtua Racing only goes as far as its $8 price tag. Through the lens of arcade and Sega enthusiasts, however, this port of Virtua Racing looks like it should be preserved under glass. How lucky we are to be able to pick it up and enjoy it.

A delightful little dungeon crawler, Riverbond, is fun for everyone. The voxel styling paired with the abundance of skin choices makes for a wonderful visual experience. The drop-in/out multiplayer means the whole family can hop on the couch and play as much, or as little, as they want to help clear a board. In a medium full of ever-increasingly realistic graphics, Riverbond is a breath of fresh air with its colorful world and characters.

Overall, Samurai Shodown is a fun release that brings back memories of a simpler time in the fighting genre where focus laid squarely on technique and gamer ease-of-use. The inclusion of a variety of modes helps to beef up the fighting content and offer up good challenges for those seeking them. All of this makes the experience more engaging and entertaining.

Devil May Cry’s appearance on Switch should be regarded as an essential installment of modern gaming history. Its genesis in Resident Evil, unconscious evolution of the beat ’em up genre, and conception of stylish-action showcase the fierce innovation demonstrated by the PlayStation 2 in 2001. In 2019, the primordial Devil May Cry may be more frustrating than fun, but what it lacks in comfort it corrects with prestige.

Contra Anniversary Collection is another successful release under Konami’s Anniversary Collection moniker. It brings the old series back to life and reminds us that Konami really loved gaming back in the day. Hopefully, they can get that old feeling back again and reignite some of the other series that lie underneath their control.

For Trophy hunters, this is an easy one to snap up a lot of those, if that’s your thing. For visual novel/crime fiction fans, especially/obviously of the Jake Hunter lineage, you’ve probably played worse and this is worth the effort. I would love to see a patch that streamlines the flow of the game, because lets face it, you’re playing it for the story, not the gameplay, so when the gameplay/controls/presentation get in the way of that, it’s an issue — and nearly one big enough to warrant taking a pass.

Layers of Fear 2 is a worthwhile experience, and even more so if you consider the launch price of $30. I can’t say I found it as thought-provoking or chilling as the first Layers, but it’s still pretty solid. The story, writing, sound design, much of the game design overall really, outlasts the lesser, but still very significant, flaws of the game.

I don’t think it is crazy to say that Crash Team Racing is the best kart racing game. Unlike Mario Kart, players actually have to be skilled at playing the game to do well and progress, especially when playing against real people instead of computers. Nitro-Fueled is a wonderful remake of the classic game that we all know and love. The mechanics and courses are great. Combine that with a revamped Adventure mode and you have yourself a fantastic game. I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect game though due to its difficulty and pretty short story.

Eventually, the subtle mechanics and stylish maneuverability of My Friend Pedro will become intrinsically linked in your brain. This game controls so well and so fluently. It even breaks up the action with small platforming puzzles. And eventually, you and your banana friend will become masters of death and frying pans.

Judgment swerves Yakuza's circuitous criminal conspiracies a few degrees off course before turning up at familiar intersections of violence, eccentricity, and drama. Novelties surrounding its private detective facade, however, breakdown into tests of patience instead of pragmatism. Judgment may be an honest amendment to Yakuza's doctrine but its most refined and exciting practices are also its most routine.

Nupixo has done a fine job with Detective Di, all things considered. Anyone that enjoys a good mystery story or point and click games would do well to make time for this one and hopefully we’ll see Nupixo continue to invest in the genre.

The developers have outdone themselves once more and somehow managed to make an already fantastic MMO all the more awesome. The expansion whisks players away to the homeland of the Khajiit. Players must face the dragon threat looming over Elsweyr, though you do not possess the power some players may be used to if they played Skyrim. You are not the Dragonborn, and these dragons are no laughing matter.

Outer Wilds' compact clockwork universe does more with twenty-two minutes than its spacefaring peers can imagine in a lifetime. It treats curiosity as a Möbius strip and trusts its network of divine secrets will drive the player toward a reasoned conclusion. By turning away from the zeitgeist, Outer Wilds' sublime presence can only be defined as otherworldly.

Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest is a solid RTS that has a competent MMO component with it to make the game challenging and entertaining.

Operation Nightfall is a welcomed addition to the Firewall Zero Hour family. It does bring more pros than cons but still needs a bit more love to truly get this on track to a perfect VR experience. It’s getting there, especially if more updates like this are released.

Assassin’s Creed III Remastered on the Nintendo Switch is impressive. It’s refined stealth tools and tactics mixed with additional gameplay design upgrades makes this a must-have for any AC fan dying to play something on the Switch that is guaranteed to occupy them for a long period of time.

Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth is a profuse amalgamation of Persona’s psychology and Etrian Odyssey’s methodology. Just like—maybe a little too like—Shadow of the Labyrinth, it covers a lot ground without exploring a new direction. Emblematic of its eight-year-old hardware, New Cinema Labyrinth is battle-tested, secure, and incapable of surprise.

If your goal is to start out with nothing and then wield magic and technology like a god, well that’s certainly possible. If your goal is to goof off with friends or have hopefully harmless interactions with others online, you can find it here. The point of PixARK is to be an engaging, entertaining, and evolving game. While it is often buried under less-than-intuitive console menus, the simple pleasures of PixARK aren’t far away.

Overall, VA-11 Hall-A is a unique experience that borrows some design elements from games in the past, such as Carmen Sandiego, that features solving problems through natural dialogue with ambiguous clues. The additional narrative to it is captivating at times, though some dialogue can get way too long in the tooth. The additional money-making motivation and customization options help to sell the experience a little further beyond its initial design.

Blood is (perhaps obviously) high on my all-time list. It was such a pleasant surprise when I heard that Nightdive was working on a re-release, and I’m glad they have. Priced at $10 or less ($5 at the time of this writing), there’s no reason not to add this classic to your collection.

For fans of the game, Atlantis is most certainly worthwhile. In playing Atlantis, I realized how far removed I had become from this ARPG franchise, and it was good to revisit. Quality new content as well as immediately-beneficial time of life upgrades to the game in general make Atlantis easy to recommend.

The Director’s Cut of Wasteland 2 is no doubt an excellent game at the top of its genre, but the Switch version has some technical issues that keep it from being a clear cut recommendation. Still, priced at $30, and given the quality of the game outside of some technical gripes, it’s well worth your consideration.

Overall, Konami Castlevania Anniversary Collection is a solid release, even without the best of the bunch, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Getting authentic ports of the classic series, while adding some small save features, and graphical options help to sell the package. The bonus book might be the best part of it, though, so that’s something to look forward to if you’re going to purchase it.

Blood & Truth is a savvy and seasoned virtual reality thriller confident in its suave posture and meticulous operation. It is simultaneously a bonkers riff on outrageous action cinema where it’s just as easy to imagine its main character as narrowly sentient tank treads with gun-hands born to decimate cloned hordes of bungling bald men. Blood & Truth works even as its internal truth is a grinning mystery.

Overall, No Code takes sci-fi survival horror in a different direction using clever gameplay design and a powerfully uneasy story to drive the experience. It’s not perfect for all gamers, but for those brave enough to stick with it, they will find some special.

Ritual of the Moon’s takes five minutes from twenty-eight consecutive days to consider, measure, and test the variable nature of morality. It’s a cycle of play that finds a rhythm with the player’s social and behavioral conflict, and questions that seemed trapped in ethereal ambience reveal honest and unexpected conclusions. My own introspection and negligence, as it turns out, have a lot in common.

The best way to play Resident Evil 4 requires taking a time machine back to its time and place in 2005. A myriad of ports, especially on the Switch, continue to provide a more practical method. From a historical standpoint or modern approach, Resident Evil 4 remains one of the finest ways to survive horror.

Everybody's Golf VR's devotion to (and immersion in) the ambience of golf transcends its simulation-oriented peers. As I swing a virtual club with one of my physical hands on a course populated by dinosaurs, instead of feeling lost in the abstract, I'm committed to refining and improving my shot. Everybody's Golf VR's affable pragmatism and judicious feedback grant access to a sport I had always considered too distant and aloof to negotiate.