While its fun for a time in single-player, Claws of Furry is definitely a brawler with two-to-four player fights in mind. With an abundance of enemies on-screen at any one time, it’s the kind of game that’s going to be twice as fun with someone sat next to you. While its Rogue mode feels like nothing more than a tokenistic doff of the cap to gaming in 2018, the Arena mode is a big selling point all on its own if you’re looking for a new regular entry in your couch-play rotation.

Commandos 2 - HD Remaster is a disappointingly lacklustre port of a real-time tactics classic. This is a game that's showing its age in many ways but, with the right tweaks, some decent control implementation and squashing of bugs, it could have had its moment to shine with modern audiences. As it is, the irritations and annoyances expected in revisiting a game of this vintage are exacerbated to no end with shoddy, unwieldy controls, unexpected performance problems and a general lack of care. The graphics have been updated here, but everything else remains much as it was – with the added frustration of bugs, glitches and long loading times.

Dementium: The Ward is a safe Switch port that successfully replicates as much of the 2015 3DS remaster as possible while updating the controls for a more modern experience. It's a short game that does suffer from repetitive environments and dull enemy encounters, but the overarching atmosphere makes up for this in spades. If you're a fan of survival horror, there's definitely enough here to scratch an itch, and the solid performance and tight controls make this a port worth checking out.

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is a cracking bit of turn-based Warhammer action that delivers big on strategic and atmospheric combat whilst also serving you a top-notch, choice-driven narrative and campaign. Hooray. However! This Switch 2 port, at release, is a borderline disaster, and not something I recommend anyone pick up until it's had some patching done. A constantly stuttering frame rate, long loading times, unresponsive and laggy menus and controls, a huge graphical downgrade, and hard crashes aplenty make for a mess of a port. Let's hope they fix it up, because for now, it's a hard pass for a great game.

We found it to be a fun experience, despite some slightly annoying controls and obtuse instructions. If you like sim games or meerkats and want to try your hand at building a pack of your own, it's certainly worth a look.

Cumbersome controls, poor AI and a few other clunky features get in the way, though some selections can still provide some uncomplicated on-the-go fun.

A strong contender for the title of 'Worst 3DS Launch Game'. It has a sickening amount of bugs, is unfinished and reeks of a game that has been rushed for launch.

A competent puzzle platformer that tends to satisfy rather than entertain.

It's a short game, but Caveman Warriors still entertains as you work through the levels figuring out how best to deal with the threats encountered and then how to defeat the bosses. There's some good character designs in the game and fun moments - like the way scared foes flee in panic only to knock themselves out by running into a wall. It's not without fault however, with the over-the-top knock-backs from hits being the biggest irritant. There's some replayability in trying to track down all the fuses and then tackle the harder versions of the levels and the co-op play works well. If you've got some friends around and are looking to pass the time with some platforming action, then Caveman Warriors is a good pick.

This one is short, shallow, and frankly too easy to keep anyone interested for long.

Snow Moto Racing Freedom is another scrappy, challenging and rough-around-the edges extreme sports racer from Zordix. It's not going to win any technical awards, and it takes real patience to master its awkward handling and unforgiving physics. For those who crave something different from the racing genre norm, a little perseverance will yield a surprisingly entertaining arcade experience for one to four players, albeit one that could leave some feeling cold.

Clive ‘N’ Wrench is not a good game, there is no way around that. When the Switch is home to some of the greatest 3D platformers ever made, Clive ‘N’ Wrench stands out for all the wrong reasons. From terrible controls to poor visuals and performance, we're sad to say that there is very little redeemable about the game on Switch. The entire project feels like a glorified demo made for a game design class, rather than a completed project that belongs on store shelves. The attempt is admirable, but after a decade's worth of development, Clive ‘N’ Wrench turned out as an incredible disappointment. With so many other ways to get your 3D collectathon platforming fix on Switch, your time and money are best spent elsewhere.

Aqua Moto Racing 3D has good intentions, and in its better moments will bring waves of nostalgia and earn some affection in its own right, with fun racing and a kicking soundtrack to match. And then it judders and creaks, course designs confuse, and the fluidity that so benefits a game like this is lost in a sea of poor optimisation.

New Frontier Days: Founding Pioneers is a real surprise in the Switch's launch lineup: a focused town-building sim with an addictive gameplay loop that looks decent, sounds great and plays well. A lack of variety and an unambitious presentation are notable drawbacks, and will keep it from being a long-term investment for many, but what's here is enjoyable enough, and certainly worth a shot for sim buffs looking for something simple and fun.

Its launch day timing and name place Rabbids Land in unfortunate competition with Nintendo Land, which is a superior multiplayer experience in every way. That said, if you've got a group to play with and don't mind the one-on-one restriction of the mini-games, there's a lot of fun to be had here. Fans of the series in particular will get a kick out of seeing these furry faces in HD, the excellent and characterful animations, and the unlockable video shorts. Rabbids Land wraps fun mini-games in an underwhelming board game shell, and while it may not be the life of the Wii U party, if you happen to be throwing your own these guys make great little guests.

The lack of depth and variety outright kills CFM’s value as a fishing sim and what's left is a convoluted minigame bolstered by a few neat ideas.

While Pit Crew Panic! might not be the type of gaming experience most people are expecting, the end result is a playable, albeit rather repetitive WiiWare title that might surprise those who are adventurous enough to actually give it a try.

Bird Mania 3D is the most pleasant kind of surprise: simple, fun, addictive and inexpensive. Charmingly simple yet rewardingly versatile gameplay overcomes any concerns we might have had. For a fast and fun score attack game, you really can't do any better.

Is Umihara Kawase BaZooKa! fun to play? Sure, a little. It's inoffensive, but it never grabbed us. Even though it's a short game, we never felt that burning desire to get to the end that is typically present in other titles. There are many characters, but none of them was really interesting. Cute, yeah. But not enough to mitigate the central problem that this isn't an interesting game. We're not sure why this is the direction the series has gone in, but could it go back to the lovingly-crafted, intricate rope courses, please? Far be it for us to call for a regression, but sometimes going back to the well is a good idea.

The worst failing of the game is its length and difficulty – these 12 levels will not last long. Again, young 'uns or fans will see through this, but for anyone else, it's not worth 1000 Points.

For what it's worth, there's maybe an hour or so of decent fun here if you don't mind your insults making very little actual sense, and the price is just about in line with that. Not to be insulting, but it feels like maybe this game could have used a little more work, and its mother was a louse-ridden socialite who married an ambidextrous vole.

R.B.I. Baseball 18 is another disappointing baseball 'simulation' on Switch. If you want a solid baseball experience on the Switch, you could do worse than Super Baseball 2020. Failing that, go buy a PS4 and MLB The Show 18 and be happy the rest of your life. On today’s platforms, Sony San Diego has it sewn up and this is not going to change any time soon.

It's let down as a brain training title, sporting an ineffective categorisation system and progress tracker as well as failing to teach specific strategies that apply to the task at hand, instead largely relying on the player to learn through trial and error.

ACORN Tactics has its heart in the right place, but it plays it very safe. It’s a very solid strategy RPG, taking elements of games such as Fire Emblem and Advance Wars and wrapping it in its own aesthetic. However, for as liberally as it borrows from its inspirations, it never goes above and beyond and does anything that might be construed as unique. Without many peers at the outset of the Switch’s life, ACORN Tactics might be the kind of game to sate your SRPG cravings until something meatier comes along.

There are glimpses of really good times in Cubic Ninja but it's far too restrained to let those promises run free. Between the high price tag, cumbersome controls, middling stage design and strangled communication features, there are simply too many barriers to portable shinobi bliss.

Whilst by no means a poor game, Penguins of Madagascar will give those playing a very mediocre experience.

Newcomers should hold off on this one given the lack of any kind of tutorial, as should the left-handed, but if you're after a simple way to carry an instant jam session around with you, then it's a rock-solid option.

Competitive Mech fans will be in heaven with this release. While the single-layer aspect of OverTurn is a little underwhelming and can be completed with relative ease, the impressive nature of the online multiplayer is practically worth the price of purchase alone.

Skater Cat's concept of speeding up by grabbing cats which you reward with treats is quite a nice idea, but unfortunately the overall package is fairly dull.

Don’t be fooled, Super Ping Pong Trick Shot is entirely and unabashedly all about trying to get a ball to land in a cup. What it sets out to do, it does right. It’s not particularly exceptional in any way, however the basic concept is addictive enough to overlook the bland visuals and clustered user interface. The range of levels to play across multiple modes and the inclusion of both touch-screen and gyro control options are an added bonus. If you want a game that you can enjoy in short bursts in between time consuming titles, Super Ping Pong Trick Shot will do the job. Don’t expect it to work wonders, just enjoy its simplicity for what it is.

V-Rally 4 is an old-school rally game at heart, for better and worse (but mainly the latter). If you stick with it you’ll eventually start to master and enjoy it, but the slippery handling and unforgiving ‘no mistakes allowed’ rally races make getting to that point a real slog. On top of this, its numerous performance issues are so severe that they aren’t just ugly, they’re downright distracting: the result being that although this is now the best rally game on Switch by default, pretty much every aspect of it leaves acres of room for improvement.

It is rich with pick-up-and-play gameplay – a highly valued feature is any genre. We played it, we enjoyed it; maybe you will too.

While there are improvements across the board, R.B.I. 2019 still falls short of being a must-have baseball outing. It's fun without being deep, and the lack of online play will be unforgivable to many players. It also struggles technically, which is a shame given that it's hardly the most visually stunning Switch title. Still, if you like the sport then go ahead, buy it and enjoy a game of baseball. Slap a few whoppers. Dominate a Home Run Derby. Have some fun. Just don’t expect that fun to last; you’ll get fed up quickly and become envious of those dastardly PS4 owners.

Taxi Chaos feels very much like a proof of concept; it's certainly evidence that a taxi game has its place in 2021, though it's lacking that vital spark that would truly make it a must-play title. The city itself is well-made, with plenty of sights to behold, but the overall visual design feels a bit generic and lacks its own voice. There are few incentives to play for extended periods of time, so how long the game lasts is largely dependent on your own willingness to climb the online leaderboard. Nevertheless, Taxi Chaos is an admirable revival of a genre that’s been dormant for far too long, and a good foundation for a potential sequel down the line.

While Baseball Riot has a simple, quirky, challenging and meaty campaign, there is a real sense of deja vu. The art style and core mechanics are virtually the same as its prequel, and although it is aesthetically vivid and satisfying to beat a difficult stage or line up a perfect shot to obliterate a row of nasty foes, the grind you go through to beat it might deplete that addictive nature that puzzle games such as this strive for. All in all, the game ends up being a solid, but often frustrating and wholly unoriginal experience.

Planes isn't a terrible game by any means, but it's hardly spectacular — and irrespective of how hungry you are for Wii U software, it might not fill you up unless you're a novice player with a passionate love for the movie itself.

Although Family Table Tennis is more complete than the Table Tennis game found in Wii Play, its single player is greatly outclassed by the single player mode in Wii Sports Tennis.

Captain America: Super Soldier for 3DS has a fair amount going for it. However, for everything it does well, Super Soldier stumbles somewhere else, its most heinous crimes being iffy production values that go so far as to be detrimental to gameplay and a camera that's more maniacally evil than Red Skull himself.

Putting our opinion on the cynical Ryan phenomenon to one side, the resulting game is nevertheless a slightly below-average kart racer that handles reasonably well but generally underwhelms, from the pitifully small number of tracks to the uninspired, floaty-light weaponry. Give your kids a Mario, Sonic or Crash racer instead; they may be young, but they aren’t stupid.

We wanted to enjoy Ebenezer and The Invisible World far more than we did. The combat is solid and the platforming is tight, with the right balance of accessibility and challenge. Combine that with a fun concept and art that does a great job of recreating Dickens’ iconic novel and it should be a recipe for greatness. Unfortunately, a host of bugs ranging from slightly annoying to game-breaking sucked the Christmas cheer right out of us. Future patches might fix these issues and give us the game we know is hiding just beneath the surface here, but that game isn’t here at launch.

Good times are buried within Edge of Time but it feels a bit too rushed and incomplete to swing through with a smile, and the 3DS version's technical deficiencies don't help unearthing the fun at all.

Devil May Cry 2 is quite rightly regarded as a misstep for the now storied franchise; a confused and oddly bland game with a nonsensical story, boring level design, terrible enemy AI and a central protagonist who has seriously lost his mojo. There’s some fun to be had here and there by virtue of the fact it is a Devil May Cry game; that signature combat still intact, despite the fact it never really attempts to put your skills to the test. Still, there's no escaping the reality that this is one entry in the series you can absolutely skip without feeling like you missed anything. Roll on Devil May Cry 3.

While the basic concept and gameplay may be enticing for many players, the fact is that BUGS vs. TANKS! is a repetitive and overly simplistic experience. The campaign is short and involves a plot that delves much deeper than simple survival, but the gameplay quickly becomes boring and loses its charm. That's not to say that this is a bad or broken game, but it falls flat in its attempts to create an experience that is both engaging and fun.

The Good Life knows where its strengths lie. Its functional open-world model and mostly-dated gameplay systems sit quietly in the background and allow its quirky charm to take the spotlight. That charm is piled on thick, with absurd characters (and absurd accents), a plot that digresses so wildly it seems unable to remember where it started and, lest we forget, the whole dog/cat transmogrification thing. The charm and atmosphere have to be seriously compelling if they are to excuse the well-worn mechanics, repetitive tasks and frequent slowdown and pop-in. If Japanese old-school gaming whimsy × twee Englishness isn't for you, then neither is The Good Life. But if you're a SWERY fan and that sounds like your cup of tea, get dunking.

Don't let the incessant trolling of its Miiverse community delude you, as Funky Barn is not an entirely bad game. It's far from pretty, but its simple gameplay is quite addictive while it lasts and it controls well.

There are more enjoyable one-player games on the service for considerably cheaper, but very few games with such a good grasp of multiplayer, so get a few of your knuckle-dragging buddies involved and go apeshi… well, just go ape.

Those good points aside, the sluggish controls and bad graphics prevent Shootanto from competing with the big retail releases. As a result, it should be considered only as a cheap and convenient supplement to a player’s collection, and not as a replacement for a good retail version of a game in this genre.

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit on Wii is a very poor excuse for a racer that feels like a slap in the face compared to its PS3/Xbox 360 cousin.

Samurai Sword Destiny twiddles between the line of mind-numbing and oddly enjoyable combat, in a compulsive kind of way. In the end, though, it's tough to shake the hollow feeling present in both the gameplay and presentation.

It's not the most technically refined gameplay experience you'll ever have, and a lot of the elements just don't add up, but it's campy enough to make you believe it was trying to be epic — and that might just rope you into trying its cheesy brand of arcade action.

While Excave II made some nice quality of life improvements to the original formula, it inexplicably seems like most of Excave III's changes are for the worse.

There’s no denying Tiny Troopers Joint Ops: XL offers a lot of bang for its buck - over 60 main missions and a ton of undead-slaying quests see to that - and its bite-sized nature fits Nintendo Switch down to the ground, but ultimately it’s an exercise in quantity over quality. There’s fun to be had in its caricature take on war, but its light sprinkling of other genres and low-rent presentation is retro for all the wrong reasons.

Cheap level design, uninspired visuals, and poor controls make this a game that’s difficult to recommend, but moments of enjoyable gameplay can still be found for those who look hard enough. Even so, there’s no shortage of excellent platformers on the eShop at the moment, so you’d be best served passing on this one. If you’re looking for a challenging, retro-inspired side scrolling ninja game, go play The Messenger instead.

Empire of Sin is undoubtedly an excellent idea, a clever meshing together of management sim and turn-based tactical action that's set in a hugely compelling era of Chicago's criminal history. There are some cool mechanics here, too; the well-executed overworld map of the town, the gangster black book with its complex relationships and those tense sit-downs with rival ganglords. However, all of this promise is held back by copious technical problems, game-breaking bugs and management and combat systems that feel half-baked and scrappy. There are more patches and updates planned and we desperately would like to see this one sort itself out but, as things stand, it's virtually impossible to recommend – and it remains to be seen if future updates can bash it into shape.

Embr has the potential to be a good time, a slapstick bit of carnage with friends that provides a decent amount of missions to blast through and plenty of unlockables and variations on modes to keep you and your party of first responders busy. However, on Switch this potential goes almost entirely unrealised as the online component of the game is a bust. Get a few Switch-owning friends to set up a match and you may find some fun here but without crossplay, and factoring in a few other gameplay irritations, this one is quite hard to recommend on Nintendo's console.

While Loop8’s story has the potential to be incredibly interesting, it never really lands and fails to leave an emotional impact towards the end. It's all presented beautifully and has a unique mix of gameplay styles and ideas, but their repetitive and frustrating nature makes the whole experience a chore. It’s like toiling away at your summer job and going through the motions until it’s time to leave.

The Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection serves up seven slices of old-school dino action in a package that suffers from its focus on the 8- and 16-bit eras. Yes, it's great to have these old games all gathered up and available to play with some quality-of-life additions, you can't knock them too hard for being clunky by today's standards, and nostalgia may add a few points to the overall score below if you're an Isla Nublar mega-fan, but there's no avoiding the fact that the experiences here haven't aged particularly well.

The irony is that Aspyr has done a nice job with remastering the visuals in both games and we enjoyed seeing the results. But the reality is that these games often feel old, they're extremely buggy, and the online play is hit-and-miss. This should have been a slam dunk. Instead, playing Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection made us feel sad. If Aspyr can fix the slew of technical issues, this might one day be worth picking up on Switch. Until that happens, though, the Force isn’t with this one.

Sports Island could have been a great addition to the Wii catalogue, but sadly the lack of polish and emphasis put on fine tuning the controls drags it way below its potential.

Though it's good to see a fighter that anybody can play, Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth takes simplification just a few steps too far. The core gameplay is fun in short sessions, and there's a decent amount of content and care taken, but after a while the battles become overly-similar and begin to grate. With more variety this could have been a super power, but in its present form the concept lacks a certain punch.

Drawn To Life: Two Realms is a sequel that fails to replicate what made the Drawn To Life games so compelling: the actual drawing part. It's pretty (and pretty cheap), but the puzzle-platforming underwhelms and the story drags; if you're a hardcore fan of the franchise then we dare say you'll be able to extract a modicum of enjoyment here, but there's an equal chance that, as a series aficionado, the changes made to the basic gameplay will annoy you the most.

Modern Combat Blackout is a decent step forward for the series on mobile, but in the presence of DOOM, Wolfenstein II, Paladins and even Payday 2, it simply doesn’t stack up. There’s plenty to appreciate here – the integration of single-player missions, Spec Ops challenges and multiplayer matches into one hub is a really great feature, but the mediocre gameplay and mobile-centric quality levels really water those positives down. Modern Combat could be a great series on Switch, but only if it’s built for the system from the ground up, and not clumsily ported from mobile.

If you've never played Marvel Ultimate Alliance you're better off getting the first game which should be easy to find cheaply - you might struggle a little with the controls, but you'll have a lot more fun.

Jump Force is a good time for a short time; a simplistic button-masher that looks and sounds great in action but can't deliver in terms of providing players with any more than a handful of hours of dumb fun before it all becomes a bit of a bore. If you're a huge fan of the shows involved or you like your fighting nice and easy you'll get more than most out of things and jumping into an online battle – if you can find one – adds a little spice to the mix but, overall, this is a disappointingly dull, one-note affair that doesn't do its roster of ever-popular characters any sort of justice.

Squareboy is a decent beat-em-up, if a little on the short side. The Switch version is definitely the better version of the game but perhaps doesn’t quite do enough to justify the cost when a free option is available elsewhere. This isn’t a bad game by any means – in fact, we had a rather enjoyable time playing through the story levels – but its flaws and inability to stand out from the crowd stop it from being a sure-fire hit.

The Forbidden Arts feels like a game from the early GameCube era, but not a particularly good one. Whilst the dungeons are vast and varied, and the platforming mechanics competent enough, the combat really brings the whole experience to its knees thanks to poor enemy AI and half baked elemental mechanics that make the entire experience feel very repetitive. Add to that the lacklustre graphics and empty overworld, and this is a game that only the most ardent of fantasy enthusiasts will enjoy.

Robox is a game with some good ideas that unfortunately aren't capitalised on nearly enough.

There is a decent game crying to get out, but poor design choices mean that Naruto needs to go back to ninja training.

The game trundles along at far too slow a pace and lacks any real sense of challenge. Puzzle titles need a ‘killer hook’ in order to stand out from the crowd and as much as it pains us to say this, Potpourri is sadly lacking in this regard.

Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion feels like a return to the old days of licensed video games. The developers took a classic genre in the turn-based RPG, boiled it down to its core mechanics, and plastered the Adventure Time setting and characters onto it with far too few original ideas. Even though it feels like a faithful recreation of the show’s personality and charm thanks to the original cast and solid writing, the uninspired gameplay drags down any goodwill it builds between encounters.

If you’re still interested after reading through our criticisms, there’s likely enough here to justify a purchase; otherwise, you’re probably best off leaving this photo undeveloped.

SuperMash is a great idea that feels squandered thanks to poor execution. The idea of mashing together different genres is a fun one, but the reality is that the resulting games are only mildly amusing at best, and infuriatingly broken at worst. Procedural generation certainly has its place in the industry, with many games using it to fine effect. Unfortunately, in the case of SuperMash the concept is so inelegantly and heavily implemented, we’d much rather sit down with a deliberately handcrafted game any day of the week.

You need to have a high frustration level if you are going to play this game. This is the type of game where the races are usually close and the chance to win or lose it all at the end is almost always a possibility. While this can be fun when it works your way, it is incredibly frustrating to be on the losing end.

Instead of being a brand new platformer, Ice Age: Scrat’s Nutty Adventure feels like a remaster of a game from the early 2000s, and not a very good one either. On the positive side, the level design is pretty good, with areas connecting to one another in a way that feels large-scale, but remains comfortably linear. Otherwise, Ice Age: Scrat’s Nutty Adventure completely lacks challenge, is extremely repetitive and runs on the Switch about as well as Manny the Mammoth runs after gorging on a bunch of peaches. In short, it's exactly what you’d expect from a licensed game of this type.

It may be a nice little time-filler, yet we can't see anyone playing this for hours at end.

Despite appearances, Midnight Deluxe is a completely different game to 36 Fragments of Midnight before it. While it's a solid enough casual golf game, however, it lacks the precise control, generous level design and joyful spirit of the best examples of the genre.

Shaq-Fu: A Legend Reborn is a solid side-scrolling brawler. We were unsure of what to expect from this whole 'Settle the score of ‘94' tagline, but were pleasantly surprised with the amount of fun it offers. While it lasts, it serves up a fun-filled ride with silly dialogue, politically incorrect humour and excessive amounts of ‘Shaqness’. You might even be entitled to get this game for free but those who must part with their money and are on the market for some mindless brawling, you could do far worse than this Shaq attack.

Pokémon Rumble U is straightforward fun that's a far cry away from the main Pokémon titles, but it does pair some key strategic elements of the series with the button bashing – though there are definitely moments where there's too much going on to keep real track of, which does lead to more reliance on the latter than the former.

If you’re looking for a game to get the whole family gathered around the TV - or your Nintendo Switch in tabletop mode - during the school holidays or at a party, Carnival Games offers plenty of silly mini-games to get everyone swinging their Joy-Con. It’s nothing remarkable, but the new games do offer a little more variety than the previous versions, so if you’re looking for a quick pick-up-and-play alternative to Super Mario Party, this colourful collection could be the virtual funfair trip for you.

While it makes the most of the unique functionality that the 3DS has to offer, it’s woefully repetitive and quickly becomes a monotonous affair. Beyblade fans may find enjoyment in its accurate depiction of the franchise’s universe, but that doesn’t disguise the fact that this is a flawed title that is clearly lacking in entertainment value.

Gargoyles Remastered is an okay remaster of an okay game. Its moody 16-bit visuals and challenging difficulty will no doubt appeal to some, especially fans of the show, but its short length and often unfair design certainly hold it back from greatness. We’d say this one might be worth picking up if you can find it on a pretty decent sale down the road—it’s entertaining enough despite its shortcomings—but you’re not really going to be missing out on a ton if you choose to pass on it.

It’s a real shame that YesterMorrow performs so poorly, because visually it’s a real treat, and it’s backed up by a pretty great soundtrack. More importantly though, its gameplay – while functional – can’t hold a candle to a game like Celeste, and we feel it really should have nailed this aspect if it’s to be successful. YesterMorrow may be worth a go if the severe technical issues get ironed out, but it’s by no means a must-buy.

We really wanted to love Canvaleon, but grinding for resources, one-hit deaths and some wonky design choices makes this an uneven experience. It's a fresh idea that needed a better execution, but could prove to be a hit with anyone who can look past its flaws.

The core gameplay is fundamentally solid and filled with potential, but it seems like the developers gave up at halftime instead of pushing through to the end. The end result is a featureless title that feels like a demo of things to come instead of a full $40 retail release, and the lack of multiplayer is a glaring oversight.

Frustrating controls, simplistic gameplay and relatively poor graphics make for a forgettable title.

3Souls - Episode 1: Nelesa has an intriguing story, character and setting, but ultimately falls short of its full potential as a puzzle platform game.

Its cheap scares and repetitive gameplay fail to live up to the promise of that first hour and winds up feeling like you're just going through the motions.

We suspect this game was rolled out with a minimum staff and development time so as to maximize profits in the tradition of the worst sort of licensed games. But in spite of all of that, with simple mechanics and classic board game style play, it can become quite addictive.

As it stands, there's definitely still enjoyment to be found here, though it's only in the latter half of that combination: the simple fun of the flying sequences could be enough to carry the game for some players, but the severely limited dress-up side of the experience will leave fashion-conscious enchantresses disappointed.

Real Heroes Firefighter 3D suffers from below-par visuals and a game engine that feels nothing short of cheap. It isn't a patch on the Wii version - which wasn't outstanding to begin with - and any fun that the game provides disappears quickly in a puff of smoke thanks to annoyance after annoyance. With so many other titles out there, it really can't be recommended.

A very thin package that feels almost aggressively old-school through its distinct lack of features. While the core game is addictive as ever, the puzzles end too soon and the rest of the content is so underwhelming that you'll wonder how much time it actually spent in the kitchen.

We're not sure where things went wrong, but Mighty No. 9's finished product is just a "mega" disappointment.

If you can't find anything better to spend your money on at this point in the eShop's life, somebody should probably take your wallet away.

RIOT - Civil Unrest could have been something special, but its move to Nintendo Switch from other platforms hasn't seen that potential embraced any further. The lack of touchscreen support and the absence of a proper tutorial mode are odd decisions considering how difficult it can be to follow the action when playing in handheld/tabletop mode. Even its use of real-life clashes between protesters and police fails to bring anything insightful or interesting to the table. Sadly, this riot is already fizzling out.

The biggest problem faced by Lux-Pain is the poor effort that appears to have been made to localize the game effectively and this lets down an otherwise very engaging title.

While Morphies Law lacks the grandeur of Splatoon 2 and the F2P gratification of Fortnite, there’s no denying that its mass-shifting gimmick has legs - giant ones, at that. It just needs the right kind of post-launch TLC from its developer and some smart adjustments to both net code and player progression. With added gyro controls making the most of those Joy-Cons (should you want to gather mass via motion controls) and support for local play with up to eight players (as opposed to online's four), this indie shooter has the potential to grow into a genuine sleeper hit.

FlingSmash is a waste of an intriguing game mechanic.

Boost Beast is a wholly serviceable match-three game with a cute theme, fun mechanics, and plenty of content to keep you entertained. It has a few notable balance issues — including an overemphasis on luck and some puzzling vestiges of its free-to-play origins — but it’s still a good time for fans of the genre, and a worthwhile addition to the Switch’s growing puzzle library.