The problem is, no matter how charming Kunai is, it’s still a Metroidvania at heart. You’re still going back and forth all the time, slowly expanding your map as you gain more powers. It adds up to a couple of hours of fun, followed by a couple more hours of feeling like you’re doing a lot of the same actions over and over again. Still, that’s at least half a good game in there, which isn’t too bad, all things considered. Kunai isn’t going to make me rethink my attitude towards the entire genre, but if you’re looking for a Metroidvania that at least does all kinds of things right, you’re certainly looking in the right direction here.

In the right circumstances (i.e. significantly more puzzles), or with the right rules (i.e. making it more like hangman) or at the right price (i.e. a lot less than the $8 this is going for), Just a Phrase could conceivably have been worth picking up. But in this state, at this price? You can almost certainly take a pass.

If you want a challenge, I guess that does the trick. But still, if it’s a challenge you’re after, you should be getting it from what’s going on in the game, rather than battling with basic settings. Far-Out may have a good game buried somewhere deep inside, but to get to it you have to fight through all kinds of poor design choices. You’re better off just replaying Alien: Isolation again, and getting a much improved version of what this game is trying to be.

M2 did a marvelous job porting Shinobi to the Switch. Everything feels like you are playing the original arcade game with nothing removed. The game has been ported to many platforms over the years in many forms. This one really does feel like the best port out of all of them, though as I found it hard to put it down long enough to write this review. The addition of AGES Mode is great for new players who have never seen or heard of this game before, but most classic gamers will prefer the challenge of the original.

If Access Denied was any longer than it is, the lousy controls would have been a problem. As it stands, however, they were more a minor bump in the road to a short, easy Platinum. It’s up to you whether you want to endure those small bumps and obscure logic just for another trophy — and if you aren’t playing it for a trophy or a GamerScore, I honestly don’t know why you’d check this out — but it feels like there are better, more interesting ways to spend your time and money than on this game.

Overall, Zombie Army 4: Dead War is a worthy game that stands above a semi-oversaturated genre with stellar co-op, fun, and goofy arcade elements, and so many throwbacks to 80’s zombie horror George Romero himself would have loved it. The somewhat cliche campaign and lack of solo care might put some off, but if you have friends to play with, and want one of the best zombie-slaying experiences in recent years, Zombie Army 4: Dead War is the place to be.

It will definitely make you think — but only while you’re playing it. Once you put it down, it’s not likely to stay in your memory, which makes it hard to write about — and to recommend.

Still, for the initial purchase price of $20, Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid is a really great fighting game, and can easily hold it’s own with other popular 2D style fighters on the market. Even if you don’t have a great deal of love for Power Rangers as a franchise, like myself, I think you can still appreciate how solid the mechanics are here. The season passes are also reasonably priced for the amount of characters they provide, and again the netcode for online play has been near flawless for me so far. So if you haven’t checked out the game yet, I’d absolutely urge you to do so.

It’s the lousy performance that really makes Demolish & Build a game to avoid. If it was just a game about mundane business, that would be fine — the Farm Simulator series has shown there’s a lot of fun to be had in day-to-day tasks. But this game makes it a challenge to even do the mundane, which means you’re left with dull tasks that are a chore to finish. The only thing you should take a sledgehammer to is this game.

Contrary to how the game describes itself, you’re not solving any puzzles — just clicking around, picking up objects, and walking back and forth between rooms. In that respect, I guess, Without Escape is a pretty perfect imitation of the games it admires and emulates. It’s a waste of time — albeit a short one — that reminds you of just how far games have come from the early ‘90s.

Foxyland may not have been a great game, but it was a fine way to pass an hour or two. Foxyland 2 isn’t even that: it’s just a bad game that constantly makes bad choices, and it’s absolutely worth avoiding.

If you have any affinity for Atlus RPG’s in the vein of Shin Megami Tensei or Persona, then I think you’ll get some enjoyment out of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore. You can argue that it’s not quite as “mature” as those titles, but it is a fun, light-hearted take on that formula that can still present a sizable challenge throughout. The Fire Emblem nods are cool too, but you don’t really need any working knowledge of Fire Emblem to appreciate the game overall. So while you still might be nursing your disappointment in the lack of a Switch port for Persona 5, I think Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore will be a pretty good way to pass the time until that (probably?) happens.

Patapon 2 is an excellent follow up to Patapon. While it’s not something I would tell someone who isn’t familiar to the franchise to start with, it’s nice to have this title not be forgotten on an abandoned platform. The game is excellent in spurts and deserves to be shown to a wider audience.

It doesn’t exactly make for the most compelling or most memorable game. Truth be told, I have a hard time imagining this game is going to stick with me for all that long, in contrast with other games that are nowhere near as coherent. But there’s still something to be said for being as straightforward and as pleasantly decent as A Winter’s Daydream is. It’s unlike most other visual novels I’ve ever played, and, for that reason alone, it’s not the worst game in the world to check out if you’re a fan of visual novels.

If you don’t mind paying a Switch Tax, there’s a lot to like about Strike! It’s more or less a straightforward bowling game with a couple of minigames thrown in to pad out the game, but that doesn’t make it any less fun — especially if, like me, you’re playing it solo in handheld mode. It’s there that you see the game as it was designed to be played, with touch controls on a vertical screen, and it’s really easy to get sucked in to game after game. It’s intuitive and it’s addictive, which are two very good qualities for a game like this to have.

Will you like it? Obviously, that depends on how much you like Soulsborne games. Even if you do, however, I’d tread carefully before committing to Ashen. It’s got some charms, but also some pretty big drawbacks, and I’m not sure the former is enough to make up for the latter.

If you just want more picross-style puzzles, then it’ll do the trick. But if you want ones with any kind of personality, you need to know going in that that’s not what you’re getting here.

At the end of the day, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is without a doubt the most faithful retelling of the source material and an incredibly enjoyable way to relive the story. The weak RPG and open-world mechanics are a bit of a letdown, but they are carried easily on the shoulders of the solid combat and awesome cinematic moments. If you love Dragon Ball, the odds are that you will really enjoy the majority of what Kakarot has to offer.

Even if the typical story-driven adventure game isn’t quite your thing, I think the overall experience is so unique that there’s a good possibility you’ll see past the style of gameplay, and still manage to see what makes this game so affecting. So give it a shot on whatever platform you have access to, you won’t be disappointed.

While none of this is enough to make Homo Machina a must-play, at the same time, there’s enough worthwhile stuff going on here that it’s not not a must-play, either. I mean, it’s only $3 or so, and for that price you get a fun little story that wraps up nicely and never overstays its welcome. That’s hardly GOTY material, but it’s nothing to sneeze at, either.

Maybe I’m just not in the right mood to appreciate a good, slow-burning mystery, maybe I’m just more protective of my time as I’ve gotten older, but I feel like there are better ways to spend your free gaming time than wandering slowly around a vaguely menacing environment in the hopes that you’ll stumble across something kind of compelling. More power to you if you’re someone who wants that experience — but if you are, I’ve got to say that there are other, significantly better games that offer the same thing, but in a much more interesting form.

While there’s plenty of variation to be found in the level layouts, you still can’t shake the feeling that you’re doing the same level over and over again. It doesn’t help matters much that the checkpoints in some of these levels are few and far between, and you die pretty quickly, so it’s not uncommon to do the same segments more than a dozen times before you finally get the timing and the pattern down right. But that may appeal to some (or even many) people! I mean, Pac-Man is one of the most addictive, beloved games of all time, so if you’re going to copy from anywhere, it offers a pretty good template — even if Cyber Protocol isn’t a one-to-one comparison.

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger may not be a forgotten classic, but it is pretty darn fun, and that’s more than enough to make it worth checking out.

There’s no challenge, there’s no story, and there’s nothing interesting at all going on here whatsoever. Take the hint from the game’s title, and ignore it.

At only $7.99, this is a great deal for those who are fans of the series, but as I stated before, the challenge here is no joke. First timers, you have to battle through the frustration and you may just find your new favorite title in the SEGA AGES line.

Even with the game’s many flaws, however, I’m still happy to get a chance to play a Layton game on the Switch. Layton’s Mystery Journey may feel bloated, and have iffy controls, and feature lousy characters, but at the end of the day, it’s still Professor Layton. You’ve got to be willing to put up with a lot of extraneous stuff that isn’t that great, but I’d much rather have this flawed game than none at all.

It all feels like a little bit much. I’m not going to say that games shouldn’t be ambitious, but We. The Revolution probably would have been a whole lot better if it had tried to do just a little bit less.

You’ll definitely need to enjoy RPGs to get the most out of it (or anything at all out of it, really), but sometimes, simply being a solid genre game is all you can ask for out of a game.