Seriously, I can’t stress this enough: Overboard! is one of the best games I’ve played this year. It’s a delight in every way, and if you want something that’s unlike anything else out there — except, I guess, for 80 Days — then you owe it to yourself to pick it up ASAP.

Lost at Sea is the worst kind of bad game: one that’s just plain boring. You can’t even take enjoyment from its lousiness. It’s competently done, but it’s a dreadfully dull experience, and for all the game’s efforts to make you feel something, the only emotion it’s likely to evoke is boredom.

Given how much of the genre feels same-y, it’s neat to see something like Cross the Moon that goes off in completely new directions. It would be nice if it asked a little more of players than simply watching as the story unfolds, but even as it stands, it’s a nice break from the genre’s monotony.

There are long-ish dialogue sequences that can’t be skipped. In fact, you can’t even speed up the dialogue, so you have to wait as it slowly goes back and forth. In Alfonzo’s Arctic Adventure’s defence, all of this is by design. The game, after all, pitched itself on Kickstarter as a NES game, and that’s exactly what they delivered. Unfortunately, in the process they seem to have copied one of the many forgettable games that graced that system, rather than one worth imitating. If this were 35 years ago, that may have worked, but in 2021, there’s really no reason to pick it up.

Obviously, if you played Two Point Hospital last year, picking up the Jumbo Edition probably isn’t necessary (particularly since you could just get the DLC that’s included here). But if, like me, you somehow skipped out on it, now is the time to remedy that oversight, and get Two Point Hospital: Jumbo Edition stat.

Gaps by POWGI is a fun way to pass the time if, like me, you’re obsessed with words and spelling. Admittedly, if that describes you, it means that you’ll only get a few hours of enjoyment out of the game — but at least for those few hours, you’ll definitely be having fun with words.

If you don’t care about history, of course, then Cosmic Top Secret probably isn’t worth your time. Like I said, the 3D platforming element is wonky at the best of times, so if you don’t want a deep dive into Cold War history, it won’t be worth it. But if you’re in the mood to be educated as you play, Cosmic Top Secret is about as engrossing as historical games come.

Whether you want a quick Platinum or not, whether you’re great at it or terrible, none of that matters. Gutwhale feels like it’s designed to just be a deeply unsatisfying game.

It’s a solid adventure game, to be sure, but given how many other adventure games are out there on every single platform, you need to be more than solid to stand out — and Sumatra: Fate of Yandi is missing that extra oomph that would put it over the edge.

Obviously, none of this should be a surprise. Timothy vs the Aliens was awful when it came out on PS4, and it’s awful now that it’s on the Switch for almost all the same reasons. It may be a little brighter and easier on the ears, but the fact remains everything else here still stinks.

If it were substantially longer, I suspect that The Flower Collectors might have felt a little pat or contrived. At this length, however, it works just fine, and it makes The Flower Collectors one of the better mystery games I’ve played in awhile.

It’s really unfortunate, because I feel like Epistory has a lot of potential to be great. Its papercraft world is gorgeous, and the voiceover narration has a lot of charm. But no matter how good those things may be — and how good this game probably is when you play it on PC — the fact of the matter is that Epistory is a lousy fit for the Switch.

As a puzzle-platformer, it’s got some issues. But as a Monkey Island-style adventure game trapped in the body of a puzzle-platformer, it’s interesting — and funny — enough that it’s more than possible to overlook those flaws.

In other words, even if The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles has “Ace Attorney” right there in its name, it’s not the Ace Attorney that you may be expecting. This game finds the series branching off into a new and different direction, and as I said up top, it’s not inherently good different or bad different, just different-different.

In the case of Super Destronaut DX 2, you get the Platinum after finishing 10 (out of 25 total) levels and hitting a fairly low score in each of the five arcade modes. Unless you’re the most dedicated Space Invaders fan ever, there’s really no reason to keep playing after that — and, really, there’s no reason to even pick it up in the first place.

So, really, the question is: how much — and what kind of — drama do you want in your games? If you want loud and flashy, then look elsewhere. But if it’s quiet, introspective, and intrapersonal, then Where The Heart Leads should be right up your alley.

Despite some of the more minor issues listed above, there was very little that was able to pull me away from The Ascent in the past week or so that I’ve been playing, and it’s certainly a game I’d like to revisit post launch with a fresh character so I can toy around with different builds and loadouts a bit more. Again, it’s an absolute no-brainer if you’re a Game Pass subscriber on Xbox, but even if you’re looking to purchase the game outright, it’s absolutely worth checking out.

It’s certainly fun to move so quickly, and with a few tweaks I feel like this could have been a great game, but as it stands, it’s not quite all there.

Obviously, given my lack of familiarity with Star Wars, you may want to take my words with a grain or two of salt. (For all I know, this could be a total affront to the Star Wars canon that still has people mad a decade and a half later.) But as a first-person shooter, it works. It may feel like a time capsule from the mid ‘00s at times, but it’s a solid enough game that it’s pretty fun to play.

It’s a phenomenal game that’s made it onto one of my favourite platforms of all time, and if you’re one of the few people still playing games on the Vita in 2021 — or if you’re playing it anywhere else, really — it’s unquestionably a great addition to your library.

It’s about as relaxing as skateboarding games get, so if you just feel like losing yourself and forgetting your worries in a sun-bleached world, this is the place to do it.

I was extremely impressed with Death’s Door from start to finish, and would absolutely implore you to check it out when it launches this week. Again, it’s just one of those games that was extremely hard to put down in order to write this review, and I’m already looking forward to going back and trying to suss out the additional secrets and puzzles I have yet to solve.

Most of the time, though, Maneater feels like a game where they spent all their creativity coming up with the premise. Don’t get me wrong: it’s a wonderfully goofy premise, and the fact I keep giving this game so many chances shows how easy it is to love. The unfortunate truth, though, is that no matter how much fun the idea of being an unstoppable killer shark may be, the reality — at least in Maneater — leaves a lot to be desired.

While Blackwood might not shake up the game, or make any huge changes to the core of what Elder Scrolls Online has become, it stands as another solid chapter to an already incredibly expansive game. ESO is my favorite MMORPG, and I come from a place of genuine love for the game when I say that I hope for something *more* in future chapters. I want ESO to continue to grow and draw in new players while retaining veterans, for another decade to come.

Roundguard will feel awfully familiar to anyone who’s ever played Peggle (which should be everyone, because it’s an amazing game). Everything from the way your hero bounces all over the place, to the layouts of the pegs, even to the way the game slows down and zooms in as you near your final obstacle in each level — all of these things feel straight out of Peggle. Seeing as we’re eight years out from the last proper Peggle game, though, that’s not a bad thing. It’s a great formula, and if EA aren’t doing anything with it, it’s nice to see Roundguard pick it up and give it a whole new coat of paint. It may not be the most original game, but it sure is a lot of fun.

Honestly, it took me more time to write this review than it did to finish Donuts’n’Justice. If you feel like spending 20 minutes with a game you’ll forget within moments of finishing it, here’s the game for that, but I don’t see why you’d want to bother.

Oceanhorn 2 wears its influences pretty clearly on its sleeve, and it does so in a way that doesn’t always do it any favours, but if you can ignore that and accept it on its own terms, you’ll find a game that’s pretty enjoyable in its own right.

Of course, the worst part of that is that, like those other games, Kingdom Tales typically costs $10 — which seems to be about $9 too much, seeing as you could probably find a mobile game with the exact same gameplay (not to mention no eye-searingly bad cutscenes) for a fraction of the price. Simply being able to play the game on your Switch is no reason to pay extra, especially when the only thing that differs between these games is the theme.