Its biggest fault being the extreme difficulty of its more challenging levels, Bloons is otherwise a simple, moderately enjoyable puzzle game. Those ready to face the frustration will find a challenge worth committing themselves to – unless its most obdurate stages cause them to be committed.

Legend of Kay felt dated in 2005, back when the PS2 platforming renaissance was already fading, so its transition to Wii U - and now Nintendo Switch - brings with it all the same tropes that were already out of fashion long before its inception. Anniversary's combat offers something of a saving grace, with plenty of depth to be found with its combos and warping, but you’ll have to contend with camera issues and poor voice acting while you’re at it.

We really wanted to like Moonglow Bay. It has the bones of a great fun cosy game: collectibles, a heartwarming story, fishing! Unfortunately, between the bugs, bland characters, and unnecessarily frustrating boss battles, the meat is a little thin. We enjoyed collecting the fish and restoring the town for a spell, but even the fun quests didn’t have the compelling pull of many other games. If you really love fishing in your cosy adventures, this could be worth dipping your toe in. But if you’re just in the market for a cosy game, there are plenty of fish in the sea.

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.

With its bland gameplay and lacking amount of content, there's a lot more fun that can be had with 800 Nintendo Points.

Here's the thing, and it's a bit of a kick in the pants. Genesis Noir is a very cool, very interesting and exceptionally well-presented game. It tells its esoteric story in an effective, exciting way with a litany of memorable visuals, fantastic artwork and a genuinely brilliant soundtrack. And, unfortunately, we simply can't recommend playing this compromised, ill-fitting, arduous and glitchy Switch port in the slightest. Maybe it's just us, but knowing we could be experiencing the spectacle of this clearly brilliant piece of art in a much higher resolution, at much greater fidelity, and with an order of magnitude less frantically wriggling the left analogue stick because we're convinced the game has broken is just a sobering reason to ask why we would even bother if this version isn't your only option. Even if you do only have a Switch, we'd recommend waiting until you have something else. This is a game that deserves better.

Aeterna Noctis has a lot of potential; however, it feels like the developer got a bit too ambitious. A game that was shorter and had more focus has the potential to be something fantastic. but it ends up being a bit of a slog for a lot of its runtime due to its sometimes-tedious difficulty, despite some great platforming segments. Long loads and some frustrating design choices mean Aeterna Noctis is a derivative but sporadically satisfying game that some players may absolutely fall in love with. It has clearly had a lot of love put into it, but we didn't quite vibe with it.

Super Stickman Athletics definitely isn't a contender against other full-priced Olympic themed games, but we shouldn't expect it to be for its low asking price. Gamers who enjoy having something to play in short bursts now and then might enjoy this title as a budget cost, but those who want a little more longevity and incentive to play may be left underwhelmed.

Sometimes Nintendo puts out distinctly 'B-list' games, and Kirby Battle Royale falls into that category. While the main games in the series on 3DS offer creativity, smart design and generous amounts of content, this ultimately falls short on all counts. It's not a bad game, but it is mediocre, and the mileage and value it holds as a retail release will vary drastically depending on the players. For families and minigame enthusiasts able to dabble in local multiplayer it offers some fun, but sparsely populated online servers and a repetitive Story Mode leave little to write home about. Kirby may have many of his iconic abilities here, but the copy-and-paste approach and limited minigames mean this doesn't get close to the mascot's other 3DS games.

Though there are both Wireless and Download Play options for Multiplayer, the loading times are long and the battles are just as monotonous and repetitive against a human player as the CPU. This game is fine for young children, but adults will want to skip it.

Monster Harvest is a good example of why great ideas also need to be followed up with great execution. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of a farm sim with monster-catching elements, but Monster Harvest does a rough job of convincing you of that. The monster RPG content is so poorly done that it might as well have not been implemented at all, as it clearly took focus away from the decent farm sim portion of the gameplay. Amazingly, the farm sim gameplay still redeems this enough that it’s not a complete dumpster fire, but we’d only give this the barest of recommendations to anybody looking for another entry in the genre. Take our word for it, you’re much better off just starting over with a new farm in Stardew Valley, or picking up Rune Factory 4.

Taking clear inspiration from the seminal BioShock series, Close to the Sun promises much but delivers a somewhat lacklustre exploration of a world 'enhanced' by Nikola Tesla’s fascinating vision. The horror is ramped up with a tense and unsettling atmosphere, but cheap and repetitive jump scares lower the tone and the rudimentary puzzle sequences provide little in the way of real challenge. To make matters worse, the Switch is far from the ideal system to contain such a visually striking game; while the Helios remains a sight to behold, there’s little here to warrant jumping aboard.

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.

Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 is one of those games that acts as an important reference point in realizing how far a genre has come in the last couple decades. While it was likely once considered a solid and perhaps even a little daring example of an ARPG, it’s now been resolutely left in the dust by more modern releases. Sluggish combat, drab environmental design, and low build variety all hold this one back considerably, though it’s saved somewhat by its equipment upgrade system and dark atmosphere. Fans looking for nostalgia already know what they think about this release and have probably already snapped it up, but if you’re a newcomer who’s thinking about a purchase, we’d recommend you pass. This simply isn’t a good enough game to justify the $30 price tag at time of writing, and there are much better examples of the genre on the Switch that are more worth your time and money.

Grime is a beautiful, well-designed, challenging game with a ton of content, but it runs extremely poorly on Switch, to the extent that it’s hard to recommend this version of the game if you can get it on another platform. It’s disappointing, because Grime does so much right, and developer Clover Bite has clearly put a lot of love into it over the years. But all of that love can’t save an action game that just doesn’t run well. In this genre, that’s a deal-breaker. It’s a shame Grime’s Switch debut is so rocky, because playing as a rock creature with a black hole doubling as its cranium is really cool. Don’t get us wrong: Grime is playable on Switch, but until (or if) things get ironed out with updates, this brutal world is one you might want to avoid.

SPLASHY DUCK has a fun look and competent functionality, making it a solid entry for its type of game, but will likely prove much too simple for many to get hooked for long. It's easy to see younger players being charmed by it, however, and it could be a good way for them to develop coordination skills.

For a Mike the Knight fan this could provide some entertainment; that said prospective purchasers should note the short length of the game, the rather paltry nine mini-games and the simplicity of the overall package when considering a purchase.

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

Worms Rumble is a reasonably fun game in its own right; the battles feel fast, the weapons pack a decent punch, and the addition of zip wires make traversal a blast. The problem is that in transitioning to a multiplayer-focused battle royale style game, much of what made Worms so iconic in the past is now gone, with far fewer weapons and absolutely no destructible environments. Add to this a rather limited selection of levels, and you’ve got an experience that may well be fun for a short while, but certainly won’t keep you engaged for the long haul.

Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet is one of the stronger outings for the series in a video game format. However, it’s still bogged down by heavy-handed and often thematically troubling melodrama that’s delivered at a glacial pace and prefers to eschew the potentially interesting aspects of the world it depicts in favour of stereotypical male heroics, teenage matters of the heart and questionable attitudes to its female characters. Beyond this, and judged solely as a game, the combat of Gun Gale Online itself is a rather bland, clunky and repetitive experience – albeit one with a ton of customisation options and modes of play to engage with. Fans of Sword Art Online will already know whether they’re into this or not; for everyone else, it’s a pretty tough sell that doesn’t really manage to do anything it attempts well enough to earn a recommendation.

If you’re a die-hard Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba fan, you and your friends might find enough enjoyment in Demon Slayer – Sweep the Board to get you through a game or two. However, the underwhelming and forgettable minigames, glacial pace of the gameplay, and connection issues that made online play unusable for us greatly overshadowed this party game's positive points.

It’d be easy to look at the bobcat’s resumé, look at this and dismiss it out of hand. Unfortunately, although Bubsy: Paws On Fire has the foundation of a decent runner and developer Choice Provisions knows what it’s doing in terms of creating levels with an engaging flow, less than stellar performance, bland and repetitive stages, superfluous gameplay additions and long loads combine to drag the experience down. It’s not awful, it’s just nowhere near as good as the Runner series and ultimately we’d recommend ditching the bobcat and spending time in the company of Commander Video instead.

Fantasy Pirates is a fairly pleasant game – whilst it lasts. Clocking in at around two and a half hours to complete and bearing in mind that most of that time will be spent trying to finish the last level, it's hard to recommend this underwhelming shooter.

Considering how integral the back-and-forth tussle between El Patron and DEA is to the show, recreating such a violent game of chess in 'tactics' form seems like a match made in heaven. But even with some welcome gameplay twists – namely those real-time Kill Shots and Counteractions – the slow nature of its single-unit turn mechanic and the totally unremarkable AI makes this generous offering of missions far less exciting than it should be. As a genre, a turn-based tactics setup really suits the cat and mouse nature of this real-life-inspired cartel war; it's just a shame certain elements let it down.

Imagine Donkey Kong Country with none of the flair, none of the momentum, none of the secrets, none of the style and none of the grace. It doesn’t even have a funny face. There’s very little to get your teeth into here, though die-hard platform game fans may get some measure of satisfaction from its limited, low-risk take on the genre. We must reiterate – Stitchy in Tooki Trouble is not a badly-made game, it’s just a relentlessly unimpressive one that offers nothing new or even any kind of twist on an existing trope or mechanic. A sequel to Stitchy that perhaps saw fit to include something — anything — to make the game stand out, that could marry its impressive visuals with similarly good level design... now that would be worth a go. As it stands though, this scarecrow excels its most famed pop-culture analogue by lacking a brain, a heart and any courage to speak of.

While it’s possible to get into the retro groove of Prinny’s perilous platforming, neither game does anything interesting enough to earn your patience. And collecting two games together only reveals how much of the same ground is covered by both. If anything, additions in the sequel water down the formula. If you simply must experience an unathletic penguin falling to its death again and again, stick with the simpler original. Or better yet, search for ‘penguin falling over’ on YouTube. Cheaper and a lot more entertaining.

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.

World’s End Club has some good ideas and a lot of heart, but it ultimately doesn’t come together as anything particularly notable. Though World’s End Club looks and sounds great, the monotonous platforming sections and hit-and-miss storytelling really drag the overall experience down. We’d give this game a light recommendation to fans of visual novels, but otherwise you're better served playing the various better visual novels and puzzle platformers already on Switch. This is the very definition of ‘okay’.