It’s a well-designed game, with a rewind button that lets you instantly skip back to the beginning of courses, and clever use of music to let you know you’re in a challenge rather than just noodling about on the snow. The first mountain is free, with all the others unlocked for a one-off payment.

It’s a good, solid game even if its central shoot/loot/craft loop begins to bore long before you’ve navigated your way home.

While it’s undoubtedly accomplished and has console-grade production values, it’s never as feverishly gripping as its inspiration. Its viewpoint feels too narrow, and it has a nasty habit of letting the controller go unresponsive at the worst possible moments. It also only shows Xbox button prompts even with a DualShock connected.

Part room escape, part point ‘n’ click adventure, its subject matter, subtle puzzles, and graphic novel style line-drawn artwork make it a treat from start to finish.

The story mode’s 100 levels offer a stern challenge, with the action quickly becoming frenzied but also a little repetitive.

The goal is to complete 15 levels, but even making it as far as 10 is a huge undertaking that will require both significant practise and a lot of luck. It’s a fascinating and constantly changing challenge.

The developer’s love for Resident Evil and old school survival horror is obvious but this poorly made homage does nobody any favours.

This co-op tale of two delinquent young girls feels particularly at home on the Switch, in what is one of the best story-based games of recent years.

Purely from a gameplay perspective, it’s the best first person battle royale title out there, and well worth dipping into a year on. It’s disappointing that Titanfall 3 seems further away than ever, but for now Apex Legends will do just as well.

A competent enough clone of Final Fantasy Tactics but unlike the TV show it lacks any real sense of imagination or invention.

Its enemies might be mindless but while it’s very one note the gameplay in Zombie Army 4 offers some surprisingly engrossing co-operative action.

An inexplicably careless remaster, where none of the changes are unequivocally for the better and the experience is brought down further by numerous bugs and missing features.

An arrestingly surreal triumph that blends point ‘n’ click and text adventures with a unique style of storytelling and gameplay that was well worth the extremely long wait.

Temtem already does several fundamental things better than its inspiration and clearly has the potential to be the very best, like no one ever was. [Early Access review]

A mawkish attempt to glorify the 80s that features some gorgeous visuals and music but offers no real insight into the era’s culture or games.

A beautiful, colourful, and bitingly satirical sci-fi Metroidvania that also has a welcome respect for your spare time.

Playing an 8-bit style text adventure on the Nintendo Switch is novelty enough but this inspired mix of weird horror and puzzle-solving is more than just a blast of ‘80s nostalgia.

One of the most original sports games ever made but with so many flaws and limitations it makes you wish you could skip ahead several sequels and play that version instead.

Unravel the mysterious history of a dead planet in a brief, overly simplistic first person walking simulator.

A competent adaptation of the original anime but there’s a serious danger of déjà vu even for series fans, and the solid but unremarkable action is unable to overcome it.

It doesn’t have the depth of standalone Persona and Fire Emblem games, but this is a fun crossover that will please followers of both, and Japanese role-playing fans in general.

The result is absolutely sensational and Gladiabots has a level of depth and complexity that will keep the right kind of stubborn logician busy for months.

There are no instructions and the English translation is a bit homespun, but the game is rock solid, its real-time gameplay loop proving hugely compelling.

There are a few tricky puzzles in there, but the overall sense is one of gentle relaxation.

Even if you love the game’s sense of humour and art style, the quality of the interactions is so wafer thin it’s impossible to draw much satisfaction from them. Randomly surviving may be marginally less irritating than dying through no fault of your own, but neither is much fun.

In spite of its manifold similarities and some distinctly wobbly voice-acting it’s still good, its involving multi-stage puzzles taking quite a bit of teasing, prodding, and experimentation to figure out.

Beautifully drawn and with a haunting soundtrack, the cyclical nature of the game and its oblique plot exposition make this a playful and constantly delightful experience.

With its 8-bit-style graphics and roguelike trappings, Space Grunts 2 is every bit an OrangePixel game; only this time, rather than being about action, it’s a turn-based deck builder with an emphasis on speed and simplicity.