Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai suffers from a chronic lack of focus. The vibrant visuals and fun combat can’t make up for the fact that you’ll spend hours doing little more than watching static images tell the plot of the anime. The result is a game that will frustrate action RPG fans with a lack of action and fails to do justice to the story it is trying to tell. Unless you’re desperate for a new Dragon Quest game to play, you’re better off just watching the anime and skipping this spin-off entirely.

Regular Show: Mordecai & Rigby in 8-Bit Land is almost a decent enough game, but serious gameplay flaws keep it from reaching its potential.

A bit of a let down and feels like a step backwards in terms of gameplay as the game itself is little more than one massive scavenger hunt with most of the storyline progressing through bland, boring cut-scenes.

Overall, however, the experience is still fairly solid, so we recommend giving the free content a shake and then deciding whether or not you want more of it.

Fear Effect: Sedna is a flawed amalgam of disparate parts. It fails to wholly convince as an action, strategy or stealth game, and the delivery of its story is a little stilted. However, the sheer variety of its mix and its fresh visual style may prove enough to keep you playing through.

Storm Boy is a compelling emotional tale that has a phenomenal soundtrack that will get even the stoniest-hearted player tearing up. It’s gorgeously presented and is a wonderful piece of interactive art, but its length severely diminishes its value. If you rush through, you can finish the game within ten minutes. However, writing it off entirely would be doing a disservice to its brilliant atmosphere and immersive plot. If you’re a fan of story-driven experiences and gorgeous soundtracks, then you may wish to check it out.

Cubit the Hardcore Platformer Robot is an honestly titled game that delivers a charming and fun, albeit frustratingly difficult, experience.

If you'd like to give your brain some exercise, you can definitely do a lot worse than this.

An average title overall. Qualities such as smooth driving controls and an impressive open setting are let down by inconsistent levels of challenge, a city lacking in population, repetitive gameplay and, unfortunately, an irritating and clichéd main character.

Family Slot Car Racing is certainly an accessible racing game, but the game is so faithful to the real slot car racing experience that it's unlikely anyone who doesn't already like slot car racing will find it interesting for more than a few plays.

Fishie Fishie isn't the deepest game in the world, but it provides a sizeable diversion with all the play modes on offer.

Rise of the Guardians: The Video Game is simply not very good. The action becomes repetitive almost immediately and it only gets worse from there, with collectibles almost impossible to see against the environment, glitches preventing important things from spawning, and a complete and total lack of challenge. Done right, a mindless button-masher can be a lot of fun; this game seems to exist only to remind us how easy it is to do them wrong.

If you go into it expecting some platforming action and a storyline you're going to be disappointed. However, if you go into it with an open mind, full of imagination, you'll find a world where you can write the story for yourself and try to discover the meaning of the events in your thoughts.

For the low price of entry it's worth having on your 3DS just to relive the nostalgia of the Nokia version, but we would not expect Sssnakes to be one you rave to your friends about. It does not have the originality of other classic action puzzle games, and unfortunately the graphics and music do little to reel you in.

Though its gameplay can be entertaining enough in short bursts and its art looks nice, SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off proves to be a disappointing take on the beloved IP. Shallow gameplay, performance issues, and weird controls make for an experience that’s simply ‘ok’ at best. Considering that you can also access a version of this game on your phone for free, we can’t fully recommend that you spring for this one. There are much worse things you could buy off the eShop, but SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off simply doesn’t offer enough value for its asking price.

Session: Skate Sim is a valiant attempt to recreate the trials and tribulations of actual, real-life skateboarding that eschews the arcade flashiness of other skating games in favour of slow and methodical repetition and mastery of both your board and your environment. There's a deep and involving game here for skate fans who want something to really sink their teeth into, or at least there would be if it wasn't for blurry visuals, control issues, poor mission design, and frame rate issues that make for an uphill struggle that just doesn't feel worth the pain in the end. If you've got a ton of patience there's still some joy to be found here, but it's gonna take some patches and updates to get this particular port to the place it needs to be in order to earn a full recommendation.

Metal Slug Attack Reloaded removes some of the worst bits of the original mobile game’s mechanics, but the scaled-back roster and brutal difficulty spikes highlight the excessive grinding needed to make these kinds of games profitable and will probably fail to satisfy any but the most hardcore fans of the original. For better or worse, this feels exactly like a mobile game that has been ported to the Switch, warts and all.

Gamelion concocted plenty of puzzle and platforming elements for Furry Legends, but once again the floaty physics and sometimes wonky controls keep the overall experience from reaching its potential.

The price point is low enough that big fans of simple mobile strategy games may find something here, but otherwise you may want to skip this Line.

As long as these audiences keep their expectations in check they may find themselves charmed by this goofy WiiWare title, but everyone else need only look at the screenshots and their gut reaction should let them know where they stand.

The Story Mode is the highlight, though the story itself is wasted given the lackluster quality of most of the mini-games on offer.

Like the inside of Ozzy Osborne's head, Slain is simultaneously gorgeous, intense, chaotic and deeply, deeply frustrating. The presentation is excellent, with every part of the game exhibiting stunning 2D animation that really brings its hellish underworld to life. Where it all falls apart is the gameplay; Slain is simply no fun to play thanks to its painful difficulty level which chokes the tantalizing potential of its combat system. While it has been compared to the Castlevania series – and its combo mechanics call to mind the underrated Mirror of Fate – Slain isn't really worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as Konami's legendary gothic franchise.

Frogger Returns makes a welcome addition to the WiiWare line-up. It features good old-fashioned gameplay which remains faithful to its arcade ancestor whilst providing interesting new levels that enhance the experience: a hallmark of good retro game design. It's let down by limited options and lackluster multiplayer modes, but if you're a fan of classic arcade games it's definitely worth your 500 points.

The experiences are undoubtedly unique and worth paying a small amount for, if only to support the continued creation of medium-exploring software, as there is nothing else like it on the handheld.

With more polish, Hometown Story could have been a worthy successor to Harvest Moon, but sadly the final product doesn't come close to matching the highs of that famous franchise.

Thief of Thieves is an awful video game. It's tedious and clunky, has broken AI, awful dialogue, miserable characters and a boring story that has absolutely nothing of interest to say or add to the heist genre. Its cel-shaded, comic-book style graphics are a strong point, but they're compromised here by a weak Switch port that's too blurry in handheld mode and horribly pixelated when you dock it to play on a big screen. There are also a handful of unforgivable technical issues; noticeable framerate problems, a bug that crashes you back to your console's homescreen and overly long loading times that break up the gameplay far too often. In short, this is a crime-heist caper that's out to rob you of your time and money and is, in every conceivable way, much more of a snore than a score. Avoid.

Summing it up Bit Boy!! is a great concept for a game and it was interesting to see the interpretation of each gaming generation. The core gameplay in Bit Boy!! isn't terrible, but features serious flaws in the sheer volume of enemies on screen at one time and also the amount of life-sapping dead ends – a hallmark of poor game design.

Yes, it shares the name and the look of those previous games, but it lacks the all-important creative heart of its predecessors, and ends up being a by-the-numbers affair that goes through the motions in a shallow attempt to turn Scribblenauts' unique premise into a multiplayer party game.

Sparsely laid out, mechanically simplistic, and generally a bit of a bore to play, PONG Quest fails to do anything meaningful with this most neglected of gaming properties. The adventuring element is paper-thin, and even the game of bat-and-ball at the heart of its battle system feels flat and lifeless. As always with Pong, local multiplayer is your best bet for fun, but there's little that's fresh about that.

If you're a big fan of the movie and you can take advantage of the multiplayer with your kids, the exploration aspect of How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a soothing, enjoyable romp through a detailed island gameworld accompanied by a triumphant soundtrack. As a retail game, though, it's a steep asking price for a dragon adventure with repetitive minigames and little depth.

If you're a Sonic fan or you enjoy platformers, you can do an awful lot worse, and this may be one to grab should the opportunity or a bargain price arise.

It's a bold move for Natsume to develop a game that strays away from the series' conventions and tries new things, but the overall experience is lacking the polish and charm that the Harvest Moon name has come to represent.

Don't get Gray if you easily see red, but others still might discover some zen in the non-complex chaos.

The odds are quite good that you will never get the chance to play Cooking Mama: Cookstar, and that’s probably for the best. Beyond its status as a curiosity item in the wake of the mess surrounding its release, there is absolutely nothing about Cooking Mama: Cookstar that justifies the price of admission. Extremely shallow gameplay, terrible motion controls, and some of the worst voice acting we’ve heard in a modern video game make for an experience that’s woefully average at best and outright unenjoyable at the worst. If you happen to be fortunate enough to come across a copy, you could always pick it up purely for its resale value and as a conversation piece, but do yourself a favour and don’t waste your time actually playing it.

My Aquarium is not a game, so we're not reviewing it as such. If you are happy that in downloading this you’ll be getting a virtual aquarium, then you really can't go wrong here.

If you like retro-styled graphics and old-school FPS games, you'll find plenty to like here; if neither of those appeal to you then you may be out of luck. If you like the concept and can overlook the technical problems here you may have an unexpectedly good time.

Party Planet looks wonderful on the surface with a bright, colourful, and slick interface that suggests you have a top-quality game in your hands. Unfortunately, though, a series of mini-games that vary from being good to disappointing may well start to feel rather stale after a short time; everything is nice and interesting at first, but there’s little reason to keep playing once you’ve seen each game a couple of times.

Between these limitations, as well as a general lack of options or control precision, this collection is only for casual gamers and even then only if they are looking for a collection that will let them play a lot of different games but none of them well.

The long and short of it is that anybody looking for a fun multiplayer experience already has dozens of stronger examples to choose from, and anybody who isn't would be wise not to make an exception for Gravitronix. We cannot recommend this shabby excuse for a game to you in good conscience.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition on Switch delivers three of gaming's true greats in a shockingly rough package that manages to suck pretty much all of the fun out of Rockstar's stellar crime epics. This is a poor port, a shoddy, stuttery, low resolution mess full of bugs, glitches, audio problems and more besides. If can grab this one on any other platform, we'd advise you do so or, at the very least, hold off until it's been patched and hopefully improved in the future. As things stand, this is a very, very long way from 'definitive' — this isn't the way we want to remember these games.

Unfortunately, Karous -The Beast of Re:Eden- is what could only be described as a painfully average game. Aside from the mess that is the story, it doesn't do anything wrong necessarily, but it doesn't do anything exceptionally well either.

This is a game only young players will likely enjoy on the whole, while others will be left scratching their heads as to how a show with so much personality churned out such a dull game.

Lost Reavers is bitterly frustrating. Not awful, not unplayable, but frustrating.

Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder Devastated is not a good game. It is not a bad game. It is a game. A harmless time-waster that will neither bring a revolution nor it will end the world by its quiet presence on the Switch eShop. It is, however, hard for us to recommend it at the current price point considering there are far more viable options content and gameplay wise for the same price. What we have here is yet another incredible kusoge whose existence made us remember not to take life too seriously. Plus the title did remind us to replay the Sensible Software developed classic Cannon Fodder. In conclusion: Paper Wars: Paper-thin Fodder.

InkSplosion could have been so much more, but it’s ultimately let down by a sheer lack of variety (and a frustrating lack of replay value once you've swiftly bagged all of its in-game achievements). As a top-down shooter it's certainly competent, but it’s unlikely you’ll hang around for long with so many other fuller packages on offer on the Switch eShop.

It’s a shame, because the game looks quite nice, and with tighter controls and a bit more thought into the puzzle design, it could have been a decent alternative to the Zelda games. As it is, it’s merely a poor imitation.

A bijou Doctor Who experience, Edge of Reality is impressively dedicated to the beloved TV show but unfortunately suffers in its transition from VR exclusive to traditional console game. Limited inputs and fetch-questy scenarios hardly inflame the imagination and it's not until the game's last quarter that things start to feel more tailored for the Switch — because they are. It's too short and there aren't enough clear save points (we lost a fair amount of progress when we quit during the first area to play something else and it simply hadn't saved the game yet) but the fact that performance is so all over the place is Edge of Reality's main issue, and one that will absolutely affect your enjoyment of an otherwise serviceable adventure. Overall, it's the most cautious of recommendations to Doctor Who fans, then. Everyone else almost certainly need not apply.

Nothing about this game provides enough fun to make it a worthwhile investment, and thus we'd advise you to steer well clear of it.

It's not as though Family Pirate Party was a spectacular failure, but rather that Aksys Games seems content with the package it has delivered.

Gun Gun Pixies is a bad game. It’s a terrible third-person shooter, a clunky platformer and an incompetent visual novel, all wrapped up in an embarrassingly puerile attempt at titillation. Usually, this type of game can be saved somewhat by at least having some humour about itself or some level of self-awareness as to how bonkers or puerile it's being, but Gun Gun Pixies can't even manage that. It’s hard to believe anyone would choose to offend themselves with this kind of thing but, if it is your bag, you should still be put off somewhat by the fact that everything it attempts to do, on a purely technical level, it does very badly indeed.

Drill Sergeant Mindstrong features quite a few interesting gameplay ideas, but they ultimately become too weighted down with the overly simplistic play control and mediocre audio/visual presentation to be of much enjoyment.

Stay Cool, Kobayashi-san!: A River City Ransom Story is an interesting entry in a genre that is experiencing a revival of sorts on the Switch thanks to the ever-increasing number of re-releases and brand new experiences. Long-time Kunio fans will find this a rewarding and worthy experience, but newcomers – or anyone who wants to jump into this series – should opt for the far superior River City Girls instead. The time we spent with Kobayashi-san was fun, but a bit repetitive; the franchise can do much better than this, but it's a neat little side-story nonetheless.

An underwhelming presentation and an unwieldily camera make it a tougher sell for non-fans, but if you're willing to overlook those flaws, unchaining humanity can be a blast.

RCMADIAX has produced perhaps its best game yet with SHUT THE BOX, not by creating a bigger experience but by shaving it down to its core mechanics and offering it for the lowest price possible.

For the money you ultimately get two figurines, three cards and a game package with snippets of fun and charm - it's ultimately up to you whether that's worthy of your cash.

Mad Carnage has a few things going for it in the form of its movement mechanics and the comic strip-led story sections, but they’re packaged together with an experience that doesn’t do them justice. Everything else is far too basic, and thus it fails at building a cohesive experience that we could recommend.

Into the Dead 2 is a pretty fun, well-made auto-run zombie survival game that arrives on Switch at a ludicrous price point that makes it very hard to justify picking up. The central gameplay loop is satisfying enough for a few minutes but it’s as deep as you’d expect to find in a game that originated as a free-to-play mobile experience. It’s been padded out with a bunch of extra modes, and they’re all perfectly serviceable, but you can never escape the core truth that it’s just the same thing over and over again in slightly different settings. If you’re an absolutely massive fan of running through endless waves of zombies whilst very slowly unlocking weapons to make it seem as though you’re somehow changing that experience, fill your boots, but everyone else should maybe check this out for free on a mobile device first instead.

Tank! Tank! Tank! does a few things pretty well, but a torturously mind-numbing solo campaign and a high price tag keep it from being a hit. The younger crowd will definitely enjoy the photo-taking aspect and simple multiplayer, but other than that it's pretty barren. If Namco Bandai had lopped off the limp campaign mode and released the game as a multiplayer offering on the Wii U eShop for $15 then it would be easier to recommend, but as it stands now, Tank! Tank! Tank! is better described as Lame! Lame! Lame!

It’s hard to recommend Wacky World of Sports due to its hit-and-miss events and occasionally poor controls.

You can't help but feel that the game is constantly trying to do too many things at once.

As interesting and unique as the visual presentation is, it's still not quite enough to cover up the many gameplay flaws that rear their heads rather frequently throughout the game.

Although features are a good thing, they don’t help much when the game itself has an uninteresting premise, clumsy controls, unappealing looks, and is just no fun to play.

Soul Axiom has some strong points to make it potentially enticing for eShop enthusiasts; it works hard to deliver an interesting narrative, there are plenty of hours of play, and it's atmospheric and intriguing at times. There are downsides though, with performance and puzzle design often middling and sometimes poor, which both drag the experience back somewhat. Perhaps worth a punt - at a budget price - for fans of first-person puzzles, but Soul Axiom sadly doesn't deliver to its full potential.

It doesn’t take very long for Lust for Darkness to overplay its hand and reveal just what kind of horror game it really is; for all the shock value of seeing some Giger-esque creature with an overtly phallic head or yet another doorway shaped like genitalia, you realise it’s just that: hollow grotesquery employed for the sake of making you cringe. There are a handful of moments of genuine unease, but they’re few and far between in what is ultimately a short trudge through sex-inspired horror landscape that wastes the opportunity to find some genuinely interesting allegory in all that face-value titillation. Still, at around three hours to complete, at least it’s a mercilessly brief experience.

Due to the repetitive nature of the gameplay the long-term value of this game is questionable, but make no mistake - this game is certainly better than you might have assumed at first glance.

A pretty bland game; the graphics and audio are so unmemorable that the gameplay would really need to be top notch to bring this game up.

Stop Stress feeds the player's innate desire to smash things by using motion controls to do the smashing, though everything isn't as much fun to smash as it could have been.

At its heart Violett is a classically designed point-and-click adventure, warts and all. It tells an interesting tale in a world filled with oddity and excitement, but it's told in an unintuitive manner that only the most stalwart fan of the genre will likely stick with. It tries to cast its net wide by offering a clever hint system to help players survive its obtuse nature, but nevertheless only the most patient will try to come back out of the rabbit hole.

Rhythm games and zombie slashers both have the potential to be a lot of fun, but their marriage here in Zombie Slayer Diox is one of conflict, and the weaknesses of both genres are far more vividly on display than the strengths.

If you're in the market for a bucolic, aquatic and mostly decorative program such as this, Zenquaria isn't the worst choice you could make.

When it comes to unique gameplay and classic Yuji Naka charm the title truly soars. Unfortunately it also suffers from frustrating camera problems, a steep learning curve and some frequently aggravating combat.

Dream Alone tries so hard to capitalise on the inspiration from its formative peers that it forgets to carve out an identity of its own. The poor platforming engine, floaty controls, and frustrating level design leave far too much to be desired for this to be the game of anyone’s dreams.

Touch Battle Tank 3D fails to hit the target on virtually every level.

Bplus has succeeded in creating a very fun little action-platformer with Niki – Rock ‘n’ Ball. The simplicity of the game and its fun gameplay structure makes it perfect for a quick play now and again, despite the unforgiving learning curve after the first few worlds.

Nippon Marathon isn’t not going to be everyone’s tastes – those eye-wateringly janky visuals (whether by design or not) and the nature of physics-driven racing are an acquired taste that most people are going to tire of, fast. However, look past the surface and there’s a multiplayer experience here that will appeal to fans of Gang Beasts and the like, who just want a silly party game that cares not for seriousness in any form.

Fimbul creates an appealingly grim Norse folklore-infused world to adventure through, but its core action is simply too weak to seal the deal. Its pacy combat can be brutally satisfying, but it's also shallow and repetitive, while the game struggles from a technical perspective. There's a promising world at the heart of Fimbul, but it needs to be married to a more fluid and fleshed-out game.

AeternoBlade II is a mess of overly-complex mechanics and ill-fitting systems that struggles at all times to keep up with itself. Its core combat is solid but it's marred by input lag, slow animations, messy enemy placement and a struggling framerate. The time-based mechanics are far too numerous, confusing and tedious, while its long and winding storyline – delivered by some of the worst voice-acting we’ve ever heard – is almost totally nonsensical. Somewhere under all of the technical problems and confusion here there’s a solid game, but there’s just far too much jank for players to be expected to wade through to get there and it's impossible to recommend that you commit yourself to trying.

MotoGP certainly isn’t going to give Mario Kart Wii a run for its money and it’d be a real shame if Capcom actually made a profit off of this.

At its launch price this is one of the better mobile-esque values on Wii U - just know that this one's not in it for the long haul.

It's entirely possible that one day UFO Interactive will crack the code of a genuinely interesting game, but with a sense of humor about as basic as its mechanics - which is to say incredibly so - Johnny Kung Fu still has a ways to go.

Funk of Titans wants to draw players in with an outlandish, seemingly arbitrary aesthetic that mixes Greek mythology with funk music. Unfortunately, it fails to go all the way with this theme, and ends up a tedious and surprisingly generic auto-runner.

The randomised environments at the heart of Vaccine are a clever idea but, like in the Wii U original, serve up a flawed overall experience.

At 500 Wii Points, Gabrielle's Ghostly Groove: Monster Mix is a safe bet for parents looking for an affordable, quality dance game to keep their kids entertained. It's easy to cheat and the soundtrack is lacking, but the game's nonsensical charms mostly outweigh its faults.

Witch & Hero is a bad game, and in some senses reminds us of the worst of DSiWare's legacy. Even if a title tries to sell over-simplicity and crudity by adopting an 8-bit aesthetic, that doesn't excuse lazy, unimaginative design and execution. This lacks strategy and skill, and is as mindless as they come; playing Witch & Hero feels like a chore, and it would be served better as a free PC flash game than a paid-for 3DS eShop release.

Do yourself a favour and grab one of the DS’s many other accomplished puzzle games before attempting to crack this one.

Devil's Third is tricky to recommend, ultimately. There's undoubted fun to be had online, but at the same time this is an action game that sells Wii U gamers short. It's packed with good intentions and ambition, but Valhalla Game Studios was unable to execute its vision well enough. The devil is in the detail, and that's the problem.

There's a moderately clever concept buried somewhere in here, but it isn't worth digging out.

Excave is a game that doesn't take its presentation and narrative terribly seriously, unlike some other RPGs, but this doesn't take much away from the experience. The game's strengths lie in its simple combat which manages to stave off repetition, the array of weapon types, and the diversity of ways players can tackle each dungeon.

Many may be tempted to try it out to relive some fond childhood memories, but there's nothing here for you aside from a disappointing, repetitive beat-em-up with nothing new to bring to the table. Even children who love the Power Rangers franchise will find little to engross them in this sadly disappointing title.

FIFA 20 is a cynical attempt from a publisher to completely cease support for the Switch while still having the gall to suggest it deserves to be rewarded with a near-premium fee for its lack of effort. If you want to pay good money to get insulted, go heckle a big-name comedian instead: at least you'll get a smile out of it. If you don't already own a FIFA game on Switch and aren't bothered about having the latest kits and team rosters, just get last year's version on the cheap.

With all due respect to the developer, it's not easy to see two and a half years' worth of effort in Spirit Hunters Inc. While it has good intentions and clearly wants players to engage with each other and share their experiences, it feels unfinished and is far too repetitive for its own good. We like what the game tried to achieve but it didn't quite get there, and that's a big disappointment. This is one occasion on which we will advise you to give up the ghost.

With all due respect to the developer, it's not easy to see two and a half years' worth of effort in Spirit Hunters Inc. While it has good intentions and clearly wants players to engage with each other and share their experiences, it feels unfinished and is far too repetitive for its own good. We like what the game tried to achieve but it didn't quite get there, and that's a big disappointment. This is one occasion on which we will advise you to give up the ghost.

XEL takes many of its cues from the Zelda franchise, with combat and puzzles that keep things interesting throughout as well as a charming, fun cast of characters. However, technical glitches in the Switch version make it difficult to enjoy at launch. There is the potential for a great game in here, possibly after a hefty patch to fix some of the bugs, but despite its obvious promise it fails to live up to its potential in its current state.

The gameplay is passable and there is a high level of challenge for completionists, but the title falls over in almost every other area.

Stay away from LEGO Friends.

Tamagotchi Plaza is a dull, vapid, and utterly unsatisfying minigame collection that rapidly overstays its welcome. Though charming and visually competent, the underlying gameplay is undercooked, unrewarding, and shallow with its ‘free mobile game’-like design. There may be a valid case here for playing with very young children for some very light and simple entertainment, but even then, the price tag is comically high for the shallowness and quantity of content you’re getting. I’d suggest you steer clear; it’s worth neither your time nor your money.

Ben 10: Omniverse falls into a lot of the same traps that lesser games in this genre do — lots of repetitive button-mashing gameplay, uninspired level design and clunky controls.

Disappointing all over.