The game gets the feeling of speed just right. That may not seem like much, but it’s harder than you think – I think back to (the very good) Horizon Chase Turbo, for example, and, as much as I loved it, it occasionally fell short in terms of making it feel like you were flying down the highway. Retro Highway doesn’t have that shortcoming; even when you crash, it really feels like you have some crazy momentum behind your rider bouncing down the highway. This is all basic stuff, I know, but Retro Highway excels at getting it right. Given it doesn’t try to do too much, that’s essential – and it’s why it makes easy to recommend picking it up.

While it would have been easy enough for Ubisoft to slap the Monopoly brand on a cheap collection of mini-games, instead they made an effort to give a wide range of boards and characters, and even added a story mode in case you want to play solo. You really should play Monopoly Madness with others, though. And that’s a recommendation, too, not just a statement of fact. It’s easy enough to pick up that almost anyone can play, while each match is both short and competitive enough that it’s the sort of thing that you’ll actually want to play it with others. It’s not Monopoly, to be sure – but in this case, that works surprisingly well.

If you don’t mind a horror game that doles out its frights at a snail’s pace, then you’ll find plenty here to enjoy.

Despite the near-constant action, it’s still a dull, repetitive shooter that wears out its welcome within a few minutes, and you’d be well-advised to skip it entirely.

To give A Day Without Me some credit – very, very limited credit – it’s got some interesting ideas. Putting your character in an empty neighbourhood and asking you to figure out what happened could’ve made for an engaging mystery. But that would’ve required the game being halfway decent or competent, which it’s not. No matter how intriguing the mystery at its core is, nothing can make up for the fact A Day Without Me fails so utterly at everything else, and that’s enough to make the game an easy skip.

It’s not exactly the funniest game you’ll ever play, but as your hero interacts with the world around her/him, you’ll constantly find that there’s a lot of care that went into making conversations as enjoyable as possible. Of course, everything about Loop Hero is focused on making it as enjoyable as possible, because it’s just a really enjoyable game. As i learned, whether you’re usually into these kinds of games or not, it doesn’t matter: Loop Hero is fun, and it’s sure to get you hooked.

Faraday Protocol does a couple of things well enough that it’s clearly not the worst game that has followed in Portal’s footsteps over the past decade-plus. But it also doesn’t do anything so well that you need to rush out and get it right now, so it’s really just for first-person puzzler fans only.

It’s a low-effort, forgettable visual novel that’s not worth the time or minimal money it’ll cost to pick it up, so you can safely skip over it without worrying you’re missing anything.

For a game that promises ninjas, Neptunia x SENRAN KAGURA: Ninja Wars is awfully short on actual opportunities for fighting. I know: that’s not why people usually play these games – the presence of Senran Kagura should have been a dead giveaway for that. But even so, as much as I generally loathe those games, I can still acknowledge they feature some decent action – and Neptunia x SENRAN KAGURA: Ninja Wars simply doesn’t, by any stretch of the imagination.

That phrase “kind of works” really applies to all of Demon Turf. It’s got some interesting ideas and interesting visuals, and you can see where the developers were going with it all – but the more you play, the more it all seems like it all only sort of hits the mark. Just about the only way that it’s fully on-target is in how well it feels like a 3D collectathon from the late ‘90s, but given there are plenty of games out there from that era – not to mention the past 20+ years – that you can choose from just as easily, Demon Turf feels like it’ll get lost in the crowd.

In other words (pun not intended), Word Forward is kind of lousy if you’re in the mood for a straight-up word game, but probably amazing if it’s a challenging puzzle game you’re after. It’s built around a concept that’s really easy to grasp but ridiculously hard to master, and if you want something you can sink dozens of hours into (or even just a couple of minutes at a time, many, many times), this is what you’re looking for.

As much as I’ve always liked the Danganronpa series, I can’t imagine wanting to sink endless amounts of time or money into such an empty, boring game. And given we’re talking about a series for which the word “boring” should never apply, that should tell you how much of a failure this game is.

Unlike a lot of re-releases where you have to say “It was good…for its time”, in this game’s case, you can say “It was good…and it’s still good.” That’s one heck of an accomplishment, and if you haven’t played this game before — or even if you have — it’s definitely worth seeking out.

It’s a short, simple game, but the developers clearly took the criticisms of the first game and worked to fix all those issues — which is definitely the kind of thing that deserves being acknowledged and rewarded.

Everything is next to impossible in Skakebird. It’s the sort of game that you’ll want to love — right up until the moment you play it, at which point you’ll just be left saying, “But it looks so cute!” Ignore the cuteness, focus on the gameplay, and skip this one altogether.

After many tries, I did eventually find my way to and through the final boss, and all I wanted to do was do it again. I suppose in a lot of ways, that’s just the nature of roguelike games. They often offer a near bottomless replay value thanks to the “structured but random” structure of the format. This combined with the joy of bobbing your head along and clicking when you do so makes the experience a ton of fun and feel great. The quantity of content isn’t huge, but for $20 USD, I certainly think it is well worth the money.

While these Recharged games do not really set the world on fire, they are super fun to play, especially for those who may have not played the originals. If you are familiar with the original game, you will love what Sneaky Box has done here. The extra gameplay elements don’t really change the overall feel of the game at all and are welcome additions. I would really like to see some online modes, but I suppose those can be added in the future. I can highly recommend this and pretty much every Recharged game as a classic game fan and a gamer in general. Try this and any other game in the series out if you have the means, you will have a lot of fun!

And that’s the key takeaway from World War Z on the Switch: it’s fun. It may not be the prettiest game, nor is it the most original, but when you’re mowing down row after row of zombies, it more than does the trick.

Maneater, for all its problems, at least had some personality. Strip that away — along with anyone else remotely good about the game, and you’re left with…well, you’re left with Angry Alligator.

Is Ni No Kuni II better than the first game overall? It’s quite possible — the slight difference in graphics is more than made up for by the improved combat and deeper gameplay, though much of that can also be written down to personal preference. What I know for certain, however, is that if the first game was an impressive achievement, this one is too, and, like it’s predecessor, Ni No Kuni II is a worthy addition to any Switch owner’s library.

If World’s End Club existed in a vacuum — or even in a world where neither Danganronpa or Zero Escape didn’t exist — it might seem a little more interesting. The premise is solid, and there’s nothing inherently objectionable about the gameplay, it’s just not incredibly interesting since we’ve seen it done so much better elsewhere. But that’s precisely the problem — it’s been done much, much better, and those games are all still quite available, with the Danganronpa trilogy slated to arrive on the Switch in a few weeks. You’re better old holding out for that, rather than wasting your time with this pale imitation.

I mean, the whole game leads to moments of hilarity; that’s the point of Jackbox, after all. But The Jackbox Party Pack 8 may be better than most of the other entries in the series — and seeing as we’re talking about a series that has produced some amazing games, that should tell you a lot.

All in all, Halo Infinite is a bit of a mixed bag. The multiplayer is on track to be the best it has ever been, but a lot of the campaign feels like an afterthought. There is a great, focused story there but it is sidetracked and bogged down in the attempts to bring it to the open world. A cluttered map and boring open-world missions fill the empty time in between the outstanding main missions, but the quality of those missions only serves to further highlight the disparity between the two. Those complaints, coupled with the fact that the campaign is the *only* part of the game that you have to pay for, make suggesting the purchase a bit difficult. Ultimately, what I will tell people is “check it out on Game Pass”, and I think that is maybe what Microsoft wanted all along.

The remaster effects are really well done, and I can’t overstate that fact enough. It also helps that Final Fantasy V is an excellent Final Fantasy entry in general, and one that tends to be overlooked in North America due to the lack of an original SNES release. So if you’ve never played it before, or haven’t pulled the trigger on one of these Pixel Remaster releases yet, then I’d urge you to give Final Fantasy V a try, you won’t be disappointed.

There aren’t really any other games like this on the Switch, so as long as you’re okay with — or at least willing to tolerate — visuals that pale in comparison to how they look elsewhere, then you’re in for one of the last gen’s best zombie games.

The marble you’re controlling is almost weightless, and you can never totally tell which way it’s going to roll, or how quickly, or whether you’ll get a sudden burst of speed for no apparent reason. Likewise, you have to fight with the camera constantly to get a good angle, which means you’ll spend a lot of time rolling right off the edge of a platform into nothingness and starting from the last checkpoint. But even with these flaws and this lack of originality, Orbibot is an okay game. It’s not going to blow you away, but it’s certainly decent enough that you should keep playing after the Platinum Trophy pops.

Centipede Recharged is a good example of bringing back a classic game for a more modern audience. The changes they have made are welcome, and don’t take anything away from the core gameplay. On the flip side, there isn’t much here to get excited about if you are not familiar with the classic game. Most modern gamers may not click with the simple gameplay and the “one life, one chance” concept. For fans of the original or classic games in general, you will have a blast with Centipede Recharged. For everyone else, I say give it a try and you might like what you experience.

If you just want to build, there’s nothing wrong with that, and Townscaper will provide you with exactly the kind of non-directed gameplay you’re after. But if you want anything of substance, or even just a city-builder that feels like you’re creating an actual city, keep on looking, because you won’t find that here.