This tedium would be unacceptable in an action game, but Windbound is a survival game. In survival games, death is supposed to mean something. Loss of progress represents the stakes; repetition is the barrier of entry. For players ready to take that plunge, there are some far-and-few-between moments of Windbound which are exhilarating. There’s nothing quite like stalking down the player’s first Gorehorn or Gloomharrow and seeing the game’s possibilities open right up as a reward for some intrepid hunting skills. But that being said, it’s a kind of enjoyment which needs to be really scrapped for and earned, and for most people, I suspect Windbound is going to feel a little too much like work.

Pitched at a delightfully low price for what's on offer, Nexomon is, potentially, the start of an excellent franchise. The developers have managed to interpret everything that people love about Pokémon and deliver an experience that is both familiar, and yet also its own thing. A great sense of humour, some lovely aesthetics and a quality, balanced combat system make for an easy-playing, low-pressure, and very enjoyable homage. I do think that this game will surprise a lot of genre fans who, like me, went in expecting a clone and got something that far exceeds that.

Giraffe and Annika is the first outing for Atelier Mimina, and as a statement of intent, it shows us a developer that we should be paying attention to. Perhaps Giraffe and Annika is a touch on the short side for its own good, and perhaps there was a better way to build the world and adventure up than making players spend time in a fairly mundane "open world," but between the evocative characters, rich aesthetics and wholesome sense of humour, this game is a joy to play. And that is what's actually important here.

Buried Stars could have been a 5/5 game, easily. Unfortunately, the narrative thought behind the game really relied on me having a personal interest in the characters and their plight, and thanks to the inelegant and overly literal localisation, it became impossible to see them as anything but constructs and narrative tools. Buried Stars is still good enough to work as an academic thought exercise, but I do wish I understood Korean, so I could play the game the way it should be.

The big question for me, personally, though, is whether Project Cars 3 just zigged when it should have zagged. The thing is, that I do like accessible racing games. I spent many, many hours with Real Racing. But this new entry with Project Cars has given the series an identity crisis, and where the developers could have taken their existing learning and delivered the previous Project Cars vision to an all-new degree, instead we've got the team effectively starting from scratch again. I guess we can look forward to Project Cars 4 being a repeat of Project Cars 2, in taking and refining the initial idea and actually delivering to the vision.

Kandagawa Jet Girls is a joke in the same way that Senran Kagura and The Bad Touch song that I quoted at the top is: it relishes in being brazen to the point that it knows it's going to draw some eye rolls. It also knows that many of its fans will enjoy both the brazenness and the eye rolls from the puritans - it's edgy like that. But, really, it's great. It's an excellent blend of "kart" racer and jetski playground, and it is built with a level of precision and eye for detail that I think will surprise and impress many. In other words, it is yet another hit of the kind of breezily entertaining experience that, like so much of Takaki Kenichiro's work, deserves more respect than it's going to get.

Ultimately, Road to Guangdong is an inconsistent game, but its heart shines through its writing and visual design. It does feel like a personal story and I do respect how the game so honestly captures the values and emotions behind family reunions in Chinese culture. I wonder what more budget could have meant though – whether it is more dialogue to flesh out Guu Ma or to background the long stretches of driving – but what is here is already valuable, and I’m glad I got to spend time in this loving recreation of 90’s China.

It's an excellent simulation of an excellent sport. With most other sports properties out there aiming for intensity, action, and excitement, having the laid-back, strategic pace of golf is a nice alternative, and this will likely be a game I keep coming back to for some time to come simply for that change of pace and undemanding nature.

Aokana is an excellent example of a romance visual novel. It's lightly entertaining, often whimsically so, but has a compelling and rich cast of characters that you're left rooting for. The art is impeccably beautiful, and while you could bemoan the removal of the explicit sex scenes for the console release, I think what's left behind takes on a different texture. It's a sweet and playful little thing on the Nintendo Switch, with some fun and teasing fanservice to go with the energy, but liberated of the need to make the sex the big payoff to playing the game, Aokana's narrative is more than enough to carry the experience. I really love this game and find it very much inspiring, so you can expect to see Dee Dee and the other girls strapping on anti-grav boots for the next DDNet visual novel, I guess!

I have no idea how a non-Chinese person might react. All I can do is be honest and say that seeing my own experiences represented in a game like this is a truly powerful thing.

The writing in Through the Darkest of Times is evocative, powerful and poignant. Too often it's undermined by the game also having systems that contain the same kind of resource juggling and time management that we see in anime dating sims.

While Death End re;Quest 2 didn't have quite the same impact on me as the original, that's only because things are never as surprising the second time around. I still found this game to be an intensely engaging blend of a brutal kind of horror, classical turn-based JRPG, and fan service. It's a mix that I would never have thought could work prior to this series, but Idea Factory has proven otherwise, and done so incredibly effectively. I wish I could delve more deeply into the themes in this review, because there's a lot to talk about with this particular dark mystery and I'm looking forward to discussing it at greater length with people down the track, but just be aware going in that there are layers of nuance to this game that it will never get the credit it deserves for.

It’s hard to review Cruel Bands Career without conflating the design’s very intentional dreadfulness with judgements of the game’s quality. It’s clear from just a few moments of play that this game wants to make the player feel bad. That’s the whole schtick. And it is wholly successful in doing so – it’s a fascinating case study for emotionally resonant mechanics and non-traditional game design. And while it’s interesting, it doesn’t have a whole lot to say beyond its cruel exterior. It’s not particularly insightful or rewarding. It’s just a mean-spirited joke at the expense of the player. And even if the joke is well crafted, you’ve got to ask yourself if you really want to be on the receiving end of it.

I will say, however, that Samurai Shodown! 2 is the slightly weaker of the three Neo Geo Pocket Color titles we have on the Switch right now. It's purely a result of the hardware limitations inhibiting the aesthetics rather than the way it plays though. Samurai Shodown was always about the ambient mood, with very careful use of music and exquisite implementation of weapons-based violence and bloodletting. That mood just can't translate to the limited hardware, and so while the game is perfectly playable and enjoyable, it doesn't maintain the atmosphere quite as well as the other two.

Excellent-sized rosters, and even with only two buttons available the developers have done a great job in making each of them feel distinct to play with. This is particularly important with King of Fighters, because you're choosing teams of three, and that melting pot of different combat styles and proficiencies is core to the KoF experience. R-2 manages to maintain that, and so playing around with the many characters to find your ideal set of three is still the big learning curve within the experience.

It took me one day to start forgetting to check in to the app to issue new commands. It’s never a good sign when a game that is meant to encourage a constant check-in has lost its audience within 24 hours… especially given that I’m a big-time fan of the property it’s based on. The presentation of Game of Thrones: Tale of Crows is gorgeous and I would love to see a more meaningful game do something with this aesthetic. If only because it would also mean that, finally, a developer has figured out how to do the franchise justice.

The developers have done what is needed to bring the game to the Nintendo Switch as a highly proficient port, though they’ve done nothing of substance to update what the original release offered. Aside from the localisation, it didn’t need any updating anyway, and even considering that terrible localisation Banner of the Maid is one of the most refined, enjoyable tactics JRPGs on the console. Also, Pauline really is an excellent protagonist, and she is just that pretty. I hope it’s not the last we see of her… now that this is on Switch, let’s get her into Smash Bros next. I might even start playing that game again if she was.

There’s a lot to admire in this game, and it only gets better once you’ve hit the end and are ready for the extra mode, where you’ll be able to really test out your mastery of the combat and ‘crawling. Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon is entertaining stuff. It's neither the perfect dungeon crawler nor the most stand-out visual novel, however, the blend of the two, coupled with the strong anime license leveraged with the greatest of competencies, still make this one a very solid time-filler.

This is a really enjoyable strategy game, and has so much room to grow that it's genuinely exciting. Adding additional factions and campaigns will add to the longevity of Fantasy General II, but even as it is right now, this is a near-perfect blend of tight, varied tactical action, gorgeous fantasy aesthetics and plenty of depth. It has been great to welcome a beloved classic back.

Necrobarista is an eclectic mix of things. It’s a character-driven musing on life and death. It’s a deeply Australian story written by Australians. It’s both funny and sincere. It’s one of those games that will stay with you long after it’s done, and it’s the kind of culturally-relevant artefact that gives it value beyond its scope as an entertainment product (though it’s certainly entertaining too).

The real issue that Othercide isn't technical, it's thematic: this is a game that is at odds with itself. Nothing about it suggests that it needed to be difficult like a Darkest Dungeon or Bloodborne... indeed its narrative and themes would have better lent themselves to a much more condensed, intense, and high-impact experience. But that would have also made the game shorter, and so once again we have a casualty of developer obsession to preference content over cohesion. Othercide had all the elements it needed to become something truly powerful. Sadly, it tries to stretch that material too far and forces players into too much repetition, eventually diluting the game's impact and leaving it as something which, as vivid and entertaining as it is, is also just a game.

I really wanted to like Skully because it falls neatly into a genre I have fond memories for – I’ve played more Marble Blast on old iMacs than I’d like to admit – but Skully very rarely succeeds at being the frenetic action platformer that it wants to be. Lacklustre level design and an inconsistent difficulty curve, matched with a meandering and confusing story, make this a hard sell for just about anyone. It’ll take a lot of patience to enjoy this one, even if you are a seasoned fan of 3D platformers.

Dodo Peak plays really nicely. I know the knee-jerk response to any mobile game-like “cute and charming arcade experience” is to assume it’s some kind of cheap shovelware, but Dodo Peak is precise, clean action, with well-designed levels that straddle the line between encouraging creativity among players and giving them a specific range of different puzzles and logical traps to overcome. It’s bright, cheery fun that people of all ages can enjoy, and is something well suited to the Nintendo Switch platform. You could go much, much worse than giving this a spin.

I do say my criticisms with a grain of salt; I have definitely under-appreciated many roguelikes in the past, only for them to "click" much further down the track on a repeat play. At this point, I feel like I get the gist of where Nowhere Prophet is going, and I think for genre fans who grow weary of the old mainstays of Into the Breach, Slay the Spire and FTL, there is a familiar compulsion to the way Nowhere Prophet’s systems are constructed, even if they often pale in comparison to games which came before. If there’s anything to be learned from Nowhere Prophet, it’s that a successful rogue-lite is like intricately designed lightning in a bottle, and no amount of mechanics which look good on paper can recreate a truly well-planned experience.

I can appreciate why a developer would want to try its hand at a Souls-like. It's a hugely popular genre that doesn't have that many entries at this point in time, and there's a veritable goldmine of unique settings and concepts to explore. A horror-themed Souls on an abandoned space station, circling a black hole, is appealing on every level. Unfortunately, this genre is also incredibly demanding, technically and creatively, and while I admire the ambition of Cradle Games, with Hellpoint they've shot for the stars but well missed the mark.

The game has an intriguing premise and I want to believe the developers had some intelligent ideas behind what they're doing, but between the painfully shallow strategy, the laboured (via translation) writing, the mundane, uninspired presentation and the shonky interface and UX, there was nowhere left for me to go to find something I admired about this game. For story-driven roguelike strategy, I highly recommend Thea: The Awakening (also available on Switch). Mittelborg is a different game to it, but the energy and intent does cross over between the two. It's just that Thea is also made exceptionally well, and this is not.

Tiny Racer is a bad game. Its premise is a fairly uninspired circuit racer, its physics system is constantly failing and its design choices seem to suggest the developers knew the physics system doesn’t properly work, and yet leaned into it. It does have multiplayer, so if your friend group goes out of their way to play janky games, this could be worth a laugh over a beer or keg. But it’s not memorably bad, rarely does your car glitch so spectacularly that it creates a response. Most of the time, you’ll be placated, maybe interested in the bold course design, but also hoping to play some better racing game instead.

Fairy Tail is pure comfort food for people who, like me, count the JRPG as the favourite genre. It lacks the subversive intelligence of a NieR: Automata or Final Fantasy VII Remake. It also lacks the rich refinement of a Persona 5 or the epic scope of a Trails of Cold Steel. Even in comparison to Gust's own titles, it lacks the rich character development of Atelier or the sheer beauty of Blue Reflection. But Fairy Tail has one thing in spades; it's joyous, and it's the right kind of frivolous. It's a celebration of an anime that I can only assume is both silly and fun in its own right and that works as the perfect promotion for Fairy Tail: I really want to watch the anime now. Fairy Tail isn't going to be on any of my game of the year lists, but not every release needs to be pitched at those lists to be well and truly worthwhile. Fairy Tail being the game that reminded me why I loved JRPGs in the first place is more than enough.

I had a lot of enjoyment with Hotel Sowls, which lasted for its entire run time and never overstayed its welcome. Its one of those games which cares about quality over quantity, and the control over tone and mood which Studio Sott exhibits is genuinely admirable. This game goes highly recommended to the inquisitive, the curious, and those for whom your standard video game characters and settings are proving just a tad predictable. You won’t have any idea what’s up ahead in this hotel.

In some ways, Destroy All Humans! shows its age, being a remake of a game that's now 15 years old, in a genre that's grown a lot in those years. But it's also got a sense of humour and parody of American life that feels more relevant today than when the original game first came out. That's a depressing reflection on the state of the world today, but it also means that the satire that underpins everything else in the game hits harder than the original creators ever could have imagined.

As a horror aficionado, and someone who also likes the extreme ends of horror, I find Carrion to be fascinating. It's not the kind of game I generally like playing, but it's pitched at the easy edge of the Metroidvania "genre". The exploration and puzzles are fluid and in service of the game's main purpose, which is the most unapologetically visceral thing I've played in some time. Not everyone will be able to stomach Carrion's atmosphere and gleeful violence. But those that can will find an experience that is beautiful in being so grotesque.

There's nothing else quite like Rock of Ages out there. It's a mesh of things that shouldn't work together, and that's why I suspect no one else has tried to replicate the mad genius of ACE Team's work. Yes, Rock of Ages 3 has some mild issues with pacing and the loading times could be better to suit the experimentation that is at the core of the experience, but this is also the definitive version of something that is very funny, ideal for both single-player and multiplayer parties, and, thanks to that most excellent course designer, Rock of Ages 3 is functionally endless.

I went into Void Terrarium a little apprehensive. With every indie out there scrambling to call their game a "roguelike", and with so many Mystery Dungeon roguelikes on the Nintendo Switch already, it can be difficult to muster up enthusiasm for yet another one. NISA and Furuya Masayuki surprised me, though. From the gentle subversion of the nature of progress in roguelikes, to the razor-focus on a sweet, paternal-style relationship between a robot and his ward, told with minimalistic elegance, Void Terrarium is a mature, different, and interesting take on the genre.

TroubleDays is fine, all said. It’s a fairly brief romance visual novel with a really gorgeous character model and pinup-worthy key art. Narrative and characterisation is all over the place in the attempted service of humour, and the cheap localisation is distracting at times, but let’s face it, if you’re going to play TroubleDays it’s for one particular reason and, lack of nudity aside, you’re not going to be disappointed in what you get back out of it.

Paper Mario is such an eclectic and generally experimental series that it's difficult to define what makes a good entry in it. Some people like the specific combat systems that the series plays with. Others enjoy Mario in the JRPG context. For me it's the sense of humour that's important. On that basis I couldn't be happier with The Origami King. I feel that there will be discussion about that ring-based combat system and some of the world design elements, but through it all I do think that most people will be too busy enjoying the deadpan, dry, droll and refreshing humour that they won't care about much else. This is a fine return to form for Paper Mario at what it does best.

People who come to it looking for a quality SHMUP are going to be disappointed. It's functional, but that's really not the point. The point is the fan service and pin-up aesthetic, and while Waifu Uncovered is limited there, as a cut-price hour or two of fun, as someone who enjoys anime and fan service, I had more fun with this than I should probably admit in public. Also, I really am genuinely impressed that eastasiasoft has paved the way for anime nudity on the Switch. There's hope for the Dee Dee visual novels to debut on console yet.

And so, at the end of nearly 5,500 words of review, everything that I’ve written leaves me in a conundrum. On the one hand, just with The Last Of Us 2, I found the moment-to-moment gameplay of Ghost of Tsushima to be excellent and massively entertaining, if a little derivative at this point in time – the open world genre as a whole does need some new ideas. Tsushima doesn’t do anything that will surprise you if you’ve played any of Sony’s other first party games in recent years, but it does it all in a way that’s as refined and sharp as a samurai’s blade, and that is fundamentally enjoyable. I can’t stress that enough – this game is fundamentally enjoyable. However, as much as I had issues with The Last Of Us 2’s narrative, it was an American story told by Americans, and it had a thematic and tonal resonance as such. It was consistent and uncompromised. Ghost of Tsushima by contrast is a wild misfire with every narrative element it attempts, and it boils down to this: Sucker Punch decided to do a historical epic inspired by Kurosawa… and produced something that fails as both history and as a pastiche of Kurosawa. There are going to be a lot of people that love this game, but I don’t think that should be overlooked, nor dismissed as irrelevant to the quality of this both as artwork and entertainment product.

I am extremely biased towards this game. How could I not be? I had a 15-year-long lingering emptiness from weeks of grindcore MMOs and this game comes along to hit the spot perfectly. I’ve overlooked the technical problems on the Switch port because I think having this style of game on the go is so valuable. It’s a crowd-pleaser, a game which welcomes you to have it your own way, focus on the things you enjoy, and leave a play session feeling good. It is a heavenly JRPG – one which has the love and insight to make the necessary changes and improvements to the formula, while keeping the strange idiosyncrasies which make the genre what it is. And just in case I haven’t hyperbolised this game enough, I’ll end with this. It’s better than Secret of Mana. Go play it.

Urban Trials Tricky ends far earlier than I thought it would – there’s only a handful of levels and I breezed through them all in a matter of hours, but perhaps it was because of the exploit I’d discovered for all of the Trick stages. I would have wanted further spaces to play around in, since the real strength of this game was just letting players ride and bounce around the creative and incredibly vertical zones. The physics and level design stand out here, considering that Tate Multimedia has had a few games in the series under its belt already. I would hope that future games in the series have better events and scoring systems which effectively test the player’s understanding of the mechanics. What is available here is a fun game, and I certainly didn’t hate the time I spent with it. But it could also have been so much more.

F1 is my preferred format for racing, and I would argue that Codemasters as given more respect to the F1 license in building it up over the last few years than anyone else. F1 2020 is on the cusp of being a top-flight annual licensed sports game like 2K's NBA, EA's FIFA and Sony's MLB The Show, and it has managed to get there without nickel-and-diming consumers to anywhere the same extent. This year's edition might be iterative on the track, but the off-track improvements show that Codemasters hasn't yet run out of ideas yet either.

The Last of Us 2 epitomises everything about overly-produced, mass market-friendly content that many of us are becoming exhausted with. SWERY, knowing full well that his game will be castigated on Metacritic and widely mocked, has satirised every mainstream expectation of a video game in Deadly Premonition 2. There’s nothing that suggests that anything within this game is not an entirely deliberate, surrealistic subversion of expectations, and while Deadly Premonition 2 is not for everyone (and potentially offensive to some), games as an art form are better off having works like this to exist in parallel to mainstream entertainment.

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is the most charmingly twee thing on the Nintendo Switch. It is bright, colourful, wholesome, sweet, and, for people that remember the original on the Game Boy Advance, nostalgic. Story of Seasons encapsulates the desire that many have to retreat to a "simpler life" of wholesome work and earned reward. It's also a magnificent parallel - in an industry that is so drenched in extreme, unquestioned violence, sex, anger, terror, drugs and "serious themes", this game is a rare retreat and opportunity to reset. It's a reminder that it's okay for games to be warm-spirited... and that's a sadly rare thing these days.

Horror is an intensely difficult genre to get right. You need to draw players in and immerse them in the experience to the point that they have an emotional connection to the game, and then hit them with things that are not just grotesque, but also deeply unsettling. Horror needs to engage the brain as it engages the more visceral reactions, and that's very hard to do. Infliction: Extended Cut doesn't get there. It's simply too pedestrian and rote to really work.

There are plenty of titles out there with a strong moral conscience that try to communicate with players by making "difficult decisions" the core gameplay loop. This includes This War of Mine, Papers Please, Reigns, Not Tonight, Beholder, Ministry of Broadcast, and plenty of others besides. Yes, Your Grace is guilty of not adding enough to this philosophy of game design, and thus I suspect that it is destined to be one of the lesser-remembered examples of the "genre." With that being said, there's still a lot to appreciate about this one, and it's wrapped up in such a lovely package that, if nothing else, it makes for an excellent lazy Sunday afternoon experience.

All of this puts me in a difficult spot with Assetto Corsa Competizione. On the one hand, it’s my favourite racing experience, hands down. It just handles beautifully. On the other hand, from features to gameplay modes and with regards to almost everything that doesn’t specifically involve racing, Competizione is substantially behind its peers, making this a racing experience that only the most hardcore of hardcore racing fans will get much out of.

I wouldn't bet money on us getting another take on Go on Nintendo Switch, and even if we do, I wouldn't bet on it being a focused teaching tool for the game. As such, Being Stronger While Playing! SilverStar Go DX is mandatory stuff, despite its warts. You don't need to be a professional Go player, but it is one of those things where having a basic knowledge of the game is a good way of showing that you've got a level of interest and respect for other cultures, and it's a useful stepping stone for a broader understanding of Asian thought and culture.

You need to have a high tolerance for crass to enjoy Hakoniwa. This game is less "fan service" than it is an actual perversion, but if that kind of eyes-wide humour appeals to you then Hakoniwa is very, very funny. You'll probably only play it once because jokes are never as funny when repeated, but for that first run though, there's a sense of glory around the game; this thing offers a kind of joyous, unbounded creativity that it's impossible not to sit back and wonder at just what kind of process went into the making of it.

This is the kind of game that's so easy to overlook. Lacking things such as overwhelming charm of a Chocobo Mystery Dungeon, the exquisite fan service of an Omega Labyrinth, or the sheer depth of a Siralim, One Way Heroics Plus lacks an X-factor that allows it to stand out. If you are a roguelike fan and give it a chance, however, it has its merits. Those merits are buried deep under poor optimisation for the Nintendo Switch, sure, but they're there, and for the persistent and patient, this is an enjoyable, rich, challenging example of the classical roguelike.

Death Come True is, ultimately, a story of romanticism set against a pragmatic realism. This review will make a lot more sense after you've actually played the game, and I'm certainly hoping that there will be people that jump on here down the track to discuss their interpretation of events with me. If Danganronpa argued that Kodaka is one of the genuine thinkers around video game narrative, Death Come True has solidified it, and while this is a much more modest and experimental work in scope to that visual novel series, it's still inspired stuff and it does have a haunting quality that will remain with me for quite some time to come.

If you’re a fan of clever puzzle-platformers and have a co-op partner who is the same, then Biped is bound to bring you hours of delight. If you can quieten that whisper in your brain going “but why can’t you just jump”, then the game’s inventive puzzles and clever iterations on its mechanics will easily win you over. It’s almost sad that Next Studios doesn’t seem to be interested in sticking with this genre, or outputting something else that’s happy and co-op based in the near future: they’ve certainly proved with Biped that they’re very good at it.

Having not played the original Brigandine, I don't know if this new one does justice to the legacy of the original. I do know that original is well-respected (and quite rare, therefore expensive), but I'm comfortable saying this: developer Matrix Software has done something special with Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, and this effort deserves to have a legacy all of its own. The Switch is by no means short on great tactics experiences, but Brigandine might just be the best of all of them.

There's plenty of merit to Demon's Rise as the developers have delivered a game that is nicely balanced and blends a rich tapestry of gameplay elements together in a surprisingly nuanced manner. Purely on the basis of how this game is presented you just would not expect that going in. The total lack of effort in the writing kills it, though. How am I meant to enjoy a fantasy game if there is nothing to draw me into the fantasy?

It's got all the right ideas in there, but it's so timid in exploring any of them that it comes across as altogether too safe to be good horror.

There's not much else to say beyond what was in my review of this game on PlayStation 4. The Switch port is a high quality, highly functional version of the base game, and while there are some totally expected visual downgrades, this is offset by the fact that you can now play Railway Empire on the go without having to lug your laptop around. When it comes to the kind of experience a simulator offers, the portable form factor really is is the ideal way to go.

The Museum Archives are by no means the perfect collection - they're the wrong ports in that the NES ports rather than the arcade originals are in there, and there are many compilations that have more games in them. With that being said, there's not single dud game in this collection, and whether they're as well known as Pac-Man or as obscure as Dragon Spirit, they're all genuine all-time classics. You buy either of these collections and you'll be coming back to them for years to come.

The Museum Archives are by no means the perfect collection - they're the wrong ports in that the NES ports rather than the arcade originals are in there, and there are many compilations that have more games in them. With that being said, there's not single dud game in this collection, and whether they're as well known as Pac-Man or as obscure as Dragon Spirit, they're all genuine all-time classics. You buy either of these collections and you'll be coming back to them for years to come.

Building on Mimimi Games' success with Shadow Tactics, Desperados III is mature, confident gameplay design, and while it might not look like an AAA-blockbuster, it certainly has the level of refinement and quality that is a rare thing indeed. It could have been a little more in places, but it's a solid, intelligent depiction of a beloved part of America's narrative heritage and aesthetic, with some excellent and creative tactical puzzles to sort through along the way.

There are other XCOM-likes available on Switch, and you could argue that titles like Mutant Year Zero represent a step forward for the genre that has now left XCOM itself behind. The intensity of this game’s narrative, of the resistance against overwhelming odds and the way that the game gives you reason to celebrate even the small victories does make it worth another look, though.

The lack of creative innovation from one Kairosoft title to another becomes exhausting if you play more than a few of them, and Magazine Mogul is an incredibly shallow experience. It's a pick-up-and-play delight, and it has an appealing theme, but where Game Dev Story is so well regarded because it established Kairosoft, Magazine Mogul is really starting to wear out the welcome. It's frustrating because all Kairosoft would need to do is throw caution to the wind and make just one serious simulation game with this set of production values and the company would completely reinvent itself for the better, I feel. The focus on unrelentingly casual experiences is nothing more than a game of rapidly diminishing returns for the company, and I just can't see even the most hardened Kairosoft fan caring about these new releases any longer.

Persona 4 Golden is a genuine, bona fide work of art, and one of those games that show the potential for the video game format to offer more than cheap thrills. It's one of those games that you get the feeling will be remembered as a masterpiece well into the future too. With most AAA blockbusters falling out of the public discourse just a few months after release because they offer nothing but passive entertainment, it's games like Persona 4 that we continue to discuss. Even in comparison to its own sequel, it seems to have the combination of characters, narrative, and ideas that help it to continue to be worthy of thought. We'll still be talking about Persona 4 fifty years from now, and hopefully, it remains as accessible as this new PC release has allowed it to become.

I really loved the moment-to-moment movement of The Last of Us 2. I enjoyed plotting my way around, trying to minimise the amount of combat I needed to get into. I loved the rhythms and structure of the game, and as one of the final big shows for the PlayStation 4, it makes me wonder why we’re even bothering with a “next generation.”

All three BioShock games in the collection contain all the DLC from their original releases and as far as packages go, are as complete as they come. Purely from a content perspective there’s plenty to go around, and most of the time spent is engaging, too. I personally find all three games to be far more interesting as historical artefacts rather than for pure consumption, but it’s nice that they function well as both. And so if you’re just arriving at the series on Switch my recommendation is – if you can stomach the often very graphic violence – definitely play BioShock 1, if you loved the first then consider BioShock 2, and only if you like flying cities and have a yet unsatiated bloodlust, then play BioShock Infinite as well.

Who knows if this one will find the audience that it deserves. Unfortunately, it's one of those indies that appears just derivative enough to overlook, especially when, for many people, Wargroove has been all the Advance Wars action they've needed over the past year. But Warborn has its own merits. It's a sharper and more dynamic tactics strategy game, and what initially seems like limitations with a small number of units and game modes proves to be this game's great strength by allowing it to deliver the kind of balance that even the best tactics games struggle with.

But perhaps 2D platformers aren't the future for her now. Perhaps it's some for something a little more narrative-focused rich in the worldbuilding, to play to the properties' actual strengths, because after five 2D platformers, I'm now getting tired of being teased that there's more to all this, but never actually getting the promise of a fully realised Shantae fantasy.

I do need some kind of narrative focus, and with Ys: Memories of Celceta, that's pushed so far to the periphery that I really struggle to connect with it as some others have. The action is great - it's shallow, but that's not a criticism when it's this smooth and enjoyable - but I just can't get past the lack of context.

Pinball Lockdown costs pennies, and you get five tables for a price lower than a single Pinball FX3 table, but you also get what you pay for. Aside from a nice aesthetic, this collection of tables suffers from amateurish design, physics that greatly lack for inspiration, and, for a game that relies on precision and reflexes, completely unforgivable technical issues that inhibit the player's ability to master either. Sadly, this game isn't even worth the pennies.

One of the issues that people have with some of the more recent Mario RPG titles is that they've become gimmicky and rather shallow as a consequence. Bug Fables is nowhere near as refined as Nintendo's efforts, but they also represent a back-to-basics approach to the mechanics and structure of these games. For many people that will be appealing, and Bug Fables is indeed an appealing effort by a small team. It would be great to see the team come back with something a little more refined with a second outing.

Fury Unleashed is a step better than what you would expect from a generic-looking run-and-gun action game. Its intelligent premise and sheer adherence to fun in all its forms makes it a great game for unwinding or chasing that elusive feeling of flow. Say what you want about Fury and his two-dimensional escapades, but Awesome Games Studio had a clear vision for their game and executed it to an impressive degree of success.

I can't make this clear enough; Snakes & Ladders is a terrible, terrible game.

Nintendo first released a Clubhouse Games way back on the Nintendo DS, about 15 years ago now. It was a brilliant example of the company's ability to appeal to a broad audience then and now, a decade and a half later, the company has backed it up resoundingly. Putting aside the presence of Ludo - which will forever be the worst board game ever made - 51 Worldwide Games is a pristine package of some of the most valuable cultural properties we have, and it is truly masterful at explaining even the most complex of them to a completely new audience. This is a rare opportunity to learn something about artefacts as wide-ranging as Chess, Mahjong, Hanafuda, and Mancala. That's not something you should miss out on.

I'm actually disappointed that I didn't like Golf With Your Friends more. I enjoy party games, I enjoy minigolf, and I do think that the fundamentals of good minigolf are in there. However, it's worth remembering that right back at the start with the Nintendo Switch Zen Studios released Infinite Minigolf - a minigolf game with character avatars, personality AND the ability to create and share courses, giving it much greater value as a single-player experience. It doesn't have the ability to provide the kind of wildly entertaining large party experience of Golf With Your Friends, though, so I guess the question then becomes which of the two scenarios will more likely describe how you're playing games most of the time?

This is now the fifth time I have played Xenoblade Chronicles, and I've enjoyed it every time in the same way that I enjoy re-reading a good book. The game's themes, storytelling standards, and tone are all spot on. This is an interesting and fundamentally deep game that highlights the best of what is possible within the JRPG structure. It's a little disappointing that the developers didn't take this opportunity to tackle some of the superfluous stuff that is at odds with the better elements, and I've yet to be won over by the new narrative arc and whether it does anything to actually build on what was already a perfectly dense work. However, the core of the game is that powerful that the main reason to buy into this - that visual re-work - is more than enough to be worthwhile in itself.

It’s an unrelentingly bitter game, one which has the power to incite a strong reaction in anyone who plays it. Just as much as I liked it, I’m sure there are others out there who will come to hate it with a passion. But then again, what’s worse - playing Arrest of a Stone Buddha for five hours and leaving with a negative (but powerful and thought-provoking) reaction, or playing a blockbuster for forty bland hours and not feeling a sliver of genuine emotion the entire time?

All together Utawarerumono is a lengthy game, and while I usually advocate for games to be shorter, in the particular case of this series, I do think the narrative justifies the length and experience that it's looking to share.

This game is a creatively broken, anti-intellectual insult. Bethesda spat in our faces and, because saliva is a kind of "content," figured that it could monetise it. Sadly, the success that Blades has seen on mobile - and will no doubt translate to success on the Switch as well - just goes to show that when it comes down to it, consumers actually like being spat on, because it means that they are getting content.

Super Mega Baseball 3 feels like the baseball games I used to love from a few generations ago. Liberated of the "depth" of modern sports games, there's an efficiency to the action that is appealing, and the gameplay modes that it does offer are all compelling. On the pitch, the difficulty curve is perfectly tuned, and while the game doesn't innovate and is ultimately destined to be the kind of thing that you pick up for short bursts of play at a time in multiplayer, the accessibility makes this one so much more appropriate for that than most other sports games out there. It's good, honest and clean entertainment, and that's something a lot of sports game developers have lost sight of in their efforts to monetise every moment of their content.

The whole point of transgression is to shock you out of complacency and that isn't always comfortable. The obvious example there is any transgressive artwork that offends people since that has clearly made them uncomfortable. The Eternal Castle isn't ever offensive, but it will certainly make you uncomfortable. Instead of relying on something as relatively mundane as causing offence, the developers have instead done everything to challenge the senses and everything we understand about video games. Right down to the very idea that a game's value can be found in completing it. I'll never finish The Eternal Castle, and I think that that is simply magic. I truly love that the game is so utterly and completely happy to do that to me.

What The Golf? is by no means a bad game - it's actually highly entertaining - but while the developers have done everything that they can with it, at some point hitting anything but a golf ball around a golf course loses its lustre as a joke. It'll only take you a couple of hours to work through everything in What The Golf?, and you'll have a generally good time as you do, but I can't see this being a game that you ever return to.

John Wick Hex is a fascinating example of a developer making compromises in order to make the game fit with the license. Sometimes those compromises are quite substantial indeed. They also end up being a non-issue, however, because in delivering a true John Wick experience, Mike Bithell and his team have given us something intriguing that adds to the film property. That is a refreshing change when most licensed tie-in games simply look to capitalise on a popular thing to the profit of the developer. For something based on such an unapologetically dumb film property, there is some truly intelligent and thoughtful game design that went into the making of John Wick Hex.

This is a warm, funny, moving visual novel, with a delightful cast of characters to get to know and potentially fall in love with, dressed up in a loving celebration of arcade history.

The Dresden Files: Cooperative Card Game is such a fundamentally flawed concept, and the execution is so lacking, that it offers nothing whatsoever of value.

Spirit of the North almost nails it. From the art to the characterisation, and even the wordless narrative structure, the developers have clearly put a lot of thought and creative energy into this, and it shows. You might want to play on another platform to get the full scope of the vision, because on Switch it is a little limited by the hardware, but even then, Spirit of the North has moments where it soars. It's just unfortunate that it keeps crashing into walls along the way, as the developers tried to justify the existence of the game by what can only be termed "gameplay bits", and every time that happens the motor takes a while to get going again. If you can handle the clumsy pacing and arbitrary puzzles and collectibles, though, Spirit of the North really is beautifully earnest in what it is looking to achieve.

This new release of Gals' Fighters is, of course, a game with a very specific audience. You've got to really love your fighting games to get much long term value out of it. And yet, for something so "retro", Gals' Fighters feels incredibly modern, with few of the quirks and design flaws of yesteryear that you generally expect going in to an "old" game. Rather, this feels like something produced by a team that deliberately limited themselves as a creative challenge. You may not get long play sessions over extended periods of time from this one, but as a curiosity, it is fascinating... and so much cheaper on Nintendo Switch than trying to track down a physical copy for your actual Neo Geo Pocket Color.

Kogado is perhaps the most under-appreciated visual novel outfit out there. You've almost certainly only heard of this developer's work if you're deep into the visual novel space, and while in terms of presentation there's a distinct "low budget" quality, there are two things that help to set Kogado apart: firstly, they're a gorgeous application of the idea that aesthetics are more important in art than technical wizardry. Secondly, Kogado tells stories that are an impeccable blend of tantilising fan service, intense mystery, and subversion to keep players on their toes as far as expectations go. On that basis Yumetsutsu is a perfect follow on to the Nurse Love series.

While it never manages to rise beyond being a fastidious clone of a beloved series, Daymare 1998 is not as terrible as some might have you believe. Sure, it doesn't have a creative bone in its body, and that is a problem, but it does show that the development team has an understanding of classic video game action/horror, and were they to come back with an original idea and distance themselves from existing, better properties, this developer could end up becoming a solid B-tier players in the space.

Moving Out is a simple game with an easy to understand premise, and even without its superficial similarities to games like Overcooked, it’s likely to be welcomed warmly by any couch of friends. SMG Studios has designed an interesting set of challenges for teams to tackle, textured with interesting gameplay gimmicks that are just as likely to elicit a groan as they are a chuckle. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to share a game like this, which is just so effortlessly fun in every facet of its design.

One would hope that IllFonic's past struggles would lead to it delivering more polished games in the future, but Hunting Grounds has many of the same problems that Friday the 13th launched with. Returning players will feel the same sense of déjà vu they would upon watching a disappointing movie sequel... and to be blunt that's something that Predator fans know all too well at this point.

I do recognise that as far as the subject goes, I am not the target market for a game about esports. On the other hand, I am a big fan of the simulation genre, and this one is so unpalatable from that perspective that I have to wonder at its existence. If you're just looking for esports, there's no need to play a bad simulator that is largely unrepresentative of the experience of esports anyway. Just go and watch the real thing on Twitch.

STATIONflow is an interesting experiment in urban space design, with an eye for the utilitarian and an ultimately sympathetic outlook on the bureaucracy. All in all, meeting the demands of thousands of commuters is difficult, and the game is effective in teaching the player why inefficiencies tend to occur. It’s a very particular kind of person who would enjoy this – they’d need to like thinking on their feet, and coming up with practical (if a little boring) solutions to complex problems, only to be rewarded by the reassurance that nothing’s gone wrong. But as with most games which target a niche audience, there’s bound to be a dedicated following eager to enjoy what DMM Games have to offer.

Sakura Wars was a surprise - from all the promotional material SEGA would have you believe it's some kind of action JRPG hybrid. The combat stuff turns out to be its weakest element. It's not bad, but it's also not where the magic happens. No, what this game does quite beautifully is the character development and romance. From the perviest moments of fan service through to the most heart-wrenching moments of insecurity that each of the characters displays, Sakura Wars offers a real emotional gamut, and whether you call it a blockbuster visual novel or an interactive anime, it's a rare thing for a game like this to be done to such substantial production standards. SEGA took a risk localising this after many years of popularity in Japan. Hopefully it pays off, and we see more localisations in the future.

Legends of Amberland succeeds in capturing the appeal of those old Gold Box-era RPGs from SSI and their ilk. This was my childhood growing up and as such much of what the game offered fit like a particularly comfortable and well-worn glove. Unfortunately, the developer also decided that for whatever reason the game would have every issue from the RPGs of yesteryear as well, and it's an odd thing for a developer to do - capture the same aesthetics and rhythms of retro games, fine, but why go to all the effort to also emulate all the flaws that the genre has moved on from for good reason?

Unlike the remake of Final Fantasy VII, Trails of Mana doesn't take the opportunity to rework the story, nor does it aim to add to the existing world that anyone who played the original will experience. It's more akin to Nintendo's own Link's Awakening remake in that it's a traditionally-minded remake that simply seeks to give fans a beloved experience through a modern lens. And yet, it still goes well above and beyond what was strictly necessary for a remake. This is a game that feels decidedly modern and could (and should) appeal to a much broader audience than "existing Trails of Mana" fans. If the lengths that Square Enix has gone to with this remake prove to resonate, then dare I hope for the same treatment to Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI?

Being so critical of indie games never makes me feel good. There's just no hiding when you're an indie - games like Make War are crafted by a tiny team of developers and it's always deeply personal to everyone involved. And yet, when you think about all the masterful, creative, deeply artistic indie games that have been crafted by equally small numbers of people - Papers, Please, Tokyo Dark, Untitled Goose Game, Mini Metro, Undertale, and so many more - it's so hard to resolve Make War. There's the genesis of a good idea in there, but the execution is so far beyond uninspired that there's simply nothing that can redeem it.

Billion Road isn't perfect. The interface makes it difficult to track some of the finer points of detail, particularly around property ownership, and a lack of minigames and other events of excitement mean there's a draining level of downtime in the game where you're just waiting for your next turn to roll around. However, for the board game enthusiast this is a true Japanese experience. Under the bright colours and ridiculous wealth being thrown around (you'll be worth billions in just an hour) lies something that has clearly been created by people who love the unique micro-cultures with Japan, and the sheer delight that you have in simply travelling across the country.

Ultimately, Boot Hill Bounties just doesn't do much of anything. It does succeed in being a retro-themed JRPG set in the Wild West, but it's not a particularly interesting Wild West, the combat system is functional, rather than interesting, and it was really hard to maintain interest in anything that the game offers. Boot Hill Bounties doesn't do anything wrong... other than be so uninspired that it doesn't give anyone a reason to play it either.

You could also say that too much of Pirate Warriors 4 is a retread of the three existing games, and as a result fans of One Piece and the previous titles (at this point, who else would even be looking at Pirate Warriors 4) might come away feeling like this doesn't deliver as much new stuff as they'd like. I don't think that's much of an issue, though. The new battlefields, improved combat system, and sheer action that goes on makes it every bit as much fun to run through those battles again, and One Piece has so much character and personality that the antics of Luffy and his crew never seem to get tiring. With that being said... do Gintama next, Koei. We're still waiting.

So that’s In Other Waters – a play-it-on-its-own-terms sci-fi adventure that’s enormously niche, but excels at what it sets out to do. For those who like to see hard-sci-fi, and a plausible representation of what life on other planets could be like, this is sure to be a fascinating game which will have you dreaming up theories for weeks. But be warned as well though, this is a game which demands effort from the player and isn’t afraid of standing out from genre fare. So if you’re ready to take the plunge with an open mind, the waters of Gliese 667Cc are calling, with a voice unlike any you’ve heard before.

None of these irritants break the game, though, and I did have a lot of fun with Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD. Having not played the original I got to enjoy something retro-styled from a genre that is effectively dead, and while I never got along well with collect-a-thon, it was still a big part of my youth so there was an inherent nostalgia there. I also loved that this is a genuine product of Australia, with Australian humour and culture depicted throughout. Krome Studios' classic might not have the profile of a Crash Bandicoot or Spyro, but anyone wondering why this got a HD re-release needn't. Ty the Tasmanian Tiger certainly belongs on modern consoles, and it would be lovely for the franchise itself to be resuscitated at some point.