MazM: The Phantom of the Opera would have been a wonderful way of experiencing the story of the classic novel, but it is dragged down by a touchscreen interface that does not translate well to controllers and bizarrely does not allow for the use of the Switch's touchscreen.

Apex Legends on Nintendo Switch struggles to maintain a resemblance to its previously released counterparts. The visual performance lacks polish and is accompanied by frame rate issues and many other issues, such as visual bugs. While the core gameplay is somewhat intact, it's inhibited by other problems that make the experience subpar.

At best, Forward to the Sky is extremely unpolished. At worst, it's unfinished. It's one of the most generic games I've ever played, with almost no redeeming factors to it. I don't quite wish I had the few hours I spent playing this game back, but I can't possibly recommend that anyone play it, especially given the astronomically absurd price.

If you’re itching for a true off-roading simulator, then have a look at Spintires: MudRunner. It launched last year on Switch and still manages to provide a very high-quality experience with both gameplay and visuals. Ultra Off-Road Simulator basically looks and feels like someone saw MudRunner and wanted to copy it in the cheapest way possible. Thus, you’re better off just going straight to the source.

Mable & the Wood had a lot going for it: the promise of a Metroidvania, a slew of interesting mechanics, and a decent storyline. But the final product isn’t worth your time or the asking price (even with a launch discount).

Like its characters, Masquerada: Songs and Shadows puts on the mask of a good game. The above par voice acting and art style will certainly lead you to believe that. But the excruciatingly slow pace of its weak story, uninteresting combat mechanics, and relentless loading ultimately tell the tale. The sum of its parts just doesn’t jive together nearly as well as RPG fans will hope.

Super Dragon Ball Heroes is strictly for Dragon Ball mega fans looking to have some fun with the series canon. Everyone else should stay far, far away.

I don’t know why the developers thought this was a good idea, but all I can think is that this was just a really sad attempt at making a quick buck off of unsuspecting buyers. So, allow this review to be a warning: Avoid Car Mechanic Simulator on Switch. Just download it for free on your phone if you want it that badly. But trust me, even then, your time can be spent on much better things.

With a $19.99 price tag, there is some leeway to be given for what is obviously a mobile port cash grab on the Switch market. However, there are better FPS titles that you can sink your time into than Modern Combat Blackout. This just has the distinction of being the only military shooter on the platform. If that’s what you’re looking for, this will keep you entertained in short bursts before you peter out. Otherwise, spend time on something like Doom or Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus instead.

Beholder: Complete Edition is the kind of game that gets overshadowed by its theme and setting. The dire situations you are placed under with little hope attached gets exhausting and, frankly, depressing. Not all games are meant to represent having a happy-go-lucky time, but the experience of overcoming it should be palpable. That is unfortunately not the case here.

I wanted to like Roarr!. I really did. It just fails on so many levels. While the game engine worked without any issues, everything added to it falls somewhat short. I know this is only a $10 purchase, but I would much rather the developer had spent a little more time and upped the price. As it is, I just can’t recommend Roarr!: Jurassic Edition, not even to dinosaur-obsessed little boys.

You would need to be a really hardcore SpongeBob SquarePants, Rugrats, Hey Arnold!, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan to prefer this. I don’t doubt that there is a really good game that could be made with the Nickelodeon license, but it needs to have much better core mechanics. And with such a great library of Nickelodeon properties available, you can’t help but feel it should be using more of them.

Haunted Dungeons: Hyakki Castle is a unique exploration RPG on Switch that doesn’t live up to its concept. I wanted to really love it, but the pacing is sluggish, the combat is lackluster, the party system needs some work, the HUD is distracting, there are annoying puzzles, and the gameplay is overwhelming. Although there are some good elements (audio, atmosphere, slightly creepy), it is a forgettable game that left me more frustrated than excited. Horror fans looking for a scary experience should look elsewhere.

From an aesthetic and button layout perspective, Code of Princess EX is really good. If its story was more layered, its characters were more fleshed out, and you could split the Joy-Con, this would have easily been one of the top games of the year.

There are plenty of solid mobile ports on Switch–see Riptide GP: Renegade and Astro Duel Deluxe–but Jumping Joe & Friends is not one of them. The local multiplayer is the game’s best feature, but ultimately the game is just way too bland. It is priced fairly, but I still have a very hard time recommending it. It may serve well as a temporary, kind-of-fun distraction for your kids, but even then, there are much better alternatives out there.

There is not much to say on Guilt Battle Arena because there is almost nothing to it. You cannot avoid stagnation when playing this game. It is inevitable. In my opinion, Guilt Battle Arena is not worth your time or money. Brawling against your friends with only one in the chamber is interesting and even fairly entertaining at first. Once that short initial novelty wears off, the game becomes a poorly executed slog through a few highly repetitive and wholly mediocre gameplay variants. It is generous to say that this game is fun for longer than an hour, which compels me once more to mention that Guilt Battle Arena somehow costs a completely unjustified $15. There are restaurant meals out there that cost less, are more satisfying, and somehow last longer than Guilt Battle Arena. Stay far away.

If the frame-rate was smooth and the game was more technically sound, I could see potential for a fun horror game. The atmosphere is nice, the audio is extremely well done, and the story seems pretty interesting as well. It’s just a shame that the frame-rate is so bad that you probably won’t make it til the end to see the conclusion.

Although I hoped Flip Wars would turn out to be a fun online and party game when I first saw its footage, the title turned out to be a disappointment void of any real merit. The gameplay is clunky, content is slim, and power-ups do little to remedy the experience. The lack of a single-player mode and virtually nonexistent online make recommending this title even more. Ultimately, Flip Wars’ release made my disappointed Nintendo published an unfinished game like it in the first place.

Unfortunately flying as your dragon feels like steering a double-decker bus underwater that occasionally gets pulled up by a crane. You will be unfairly killed by the game due to the terrible camera and everything (even the music) slowing down to a crawl during boss fights.

Soul Axiom for Wii U is a rough port of an interesting first-person puzzler that just doesn’t quite live up to its potential. The combination of frustrating controls, poor graphics that don’t live up to the PC version, and intentionally slow storytelling may be too much for anyone that is not a huge fan of the first person puzzle genre.

Not a good game at all. When you find yourself just wanting to complete levels to see if the game ever changes and gets better, that’s a sign that something is very wrong. The core gameplay is simplistic, boring, and not the level of quality one would expect from a Metroid game. Other M may have been the most fan-derided Metroid game until now, but Federation Force will easily take the crown from here on out.

As a Star Wars and LEGO fan, I found it extremely hard to dislike LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But, after playing through it in its entirety, I can’t help but feel robbed of my money.

The budget retail release of $39.99 will probably tempt some parents, but you can find better kid friendly games for the system for that price or cheaper.

Pokemon Rumble World isn’t necessarily a bad game, but it’s not of the quality I would expect from Nintendo.

Steel Rivals was a game that could have been a decent little fighter similar to Soul Calibur, but it is an obviously very rushed and incomplete fighting game that should be avoided by even the most hardcore fighting fans.

Chasing Dead had promise, but fails on every single basic level of game design and playability. I honestly do hope the team is able to salvage this game in the future with updates, because I think if the performance of the game was at a decent level it could be a fun game. As it stands, this is the worst title I’ve played in 2016, and should be avoided at all costs.

In the end, Lionel was an overall disappointment. There are much older games with a lot more features than this, and a much higher level of fun.

The level design is totally unremarkable, the length is short, and the visuals and music, while mostly not unpleasant, are just unimpressive. Even so, those that like rolling a ball through an obstacle course will find something to enjoy here.

If you have any other console or PC for gaming, you have so many better options in the online shooter genre to choose from that there is no good reason to give this one any of your time. If you only own a Wii U, you should be playing Splatoon, and if you only own a Wii U and absolutely must play a more “realistic” style of online shooter, then you still have the two Call Of Duty games.

If you love Picross but don’t want to spend over $32 for the full experience, check the Picross e series which are from the same developer. Each of the six titles cost $5.99, and you will have a bigger and better experience for around the same price.

The Barbie on her bike segments are a big chunk of the game, and they are very clunky and at times confusing, which could be very off-putting to younger gamers.

If you are a huge fan of NiGHTS, it’s worth picking up at a discounted price because there is some fun to be had here: just the fun moments are few and far between.

Overall, Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival is an embarrassment of a game. I was already disappointed with Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, the other AC spin-off title that released this fall, but Amiibo Festival far overshoots its predecessor in terrible design and gameplay.

While the cinematics and storyline are fairly eyebrow raising and interesting, the rest of the game is a broken platter of inedible stale pastries.

Truly. It’s an incredibly basic game with little to any of it.

For a party game, it has its merits, but not enough to justify the rest of the experience.

In conclusion, Crab Cakes Rescue is a terrible port of a mediocre game flooded with flaws that doesn’t even feel like a finished product, and at $7.99 this title is also overpriced.

It’s like a fruit salad with dry, discolored fruits in a pretty bowl — unappetizing.

I won’t lie, it can be fun for a few minutes but this is the type of game you will play one or two times and then never pick it up again.

At the end, Endless Golf is easy for everyone to play, but the game presentation and execution makes a mediocre experience from a great idea. It is fun at first, but the casual difficulty and lack of variation makes it boring and repetitive after a long session. In my opinion, this type of game should be on mobile devices or handhelds, not on home consoles.

Epic Word Search Collection tries to make something often considered mundane more exciting and, obviously, epic. Unfortunately, the signature feature of the game does nothing but harm the gameplay.

Tiny Galaxy had a chance to be an interesting addition to the eShop, but unfortunately, it just falls flat.

Maybe Don’t Crash should have taken its own advice and not turned into the absolute wreck that it is.

I cannot definitively say whether it is average or not, but Journey of a Special Average Balloon is most certainly not special.

I have to say Bubble Gum Popper offers a good idea in an overused genre, is cheap, and technically works but the execution make the game hard to recommend.

Tilelicious: Delicious Tiles has solid gameplay and a simple presentation, but some design flaws like the luck factor and the lack of replay value breaks the appealing aspect of the game.

Don’t Touch Anything Red presents a nice idea but it has a terrible execution, and despite of the cheap price, the game is not worth it.

Again, I firmly believe that those who like clever, challenging puzzle games will eat this up – this type of game has even been proven to help make people smarter – and if you’re one of those who really wants the game on their Wii U, go for it.

While the premise is good, some the visuals are acceptable, and the story and music don’t actively harm the experience, the gameplay is utterly poor to begin with and makes bad choice after bad choice, marring the experience beyond repair.

What could have been a solid experience on the 3DS is marred by these issues, and makes it hard to recommend to anyone.

If you happen to want to try a picture/word video game with friends, pick it up for just two bucks as it might work in that setting, but for the most part, I must unfortunately suggest that most players pass on the title – even keeping in mind the low price point.

My problem with the game was the controls, or specifically how the jump isn’t responsive enough.

These “joyful” feelings will disappear after 10 or 15 minutes because of problematic controls. They are stiff, not easy to master and the camera movement tends to make things even worse.

I can see what this game was going for, and maybe with some more thought the formula could be made into the deceptively simple but addictive puzzle game it clearly wanted to be. However, as it actually is, PUZZLEBOX setup is mindlessly simple and plagued by consistently aggravating flaws that should have been fixed well before the game was released.

Despite being an interesting idea, Maze falls really hard on its poor execution: a boring experience during the first half of the game, the good ideas are hardly used in comparison with the bad ones and there are many flaws in the package as well.

The game isn’t terrible. It isn’t good. It’s just there. Fans of Ivan Stewart’s Super Off Road may like this little trip down memory lane for $5.99. but be warned: it will be a short one, and you will find yourself going back to the NES classic.