AI: The Somnium Files starts out slow but once you've traversed a few of its delightfully surreal Somnium dreamscapes and got to an ending or two, working your way back through your flowchart and striking out in different directions, it becomes an engaging and tense affair. Fans of the Zero Escape games will feel right at home here, and director Kotaro Uchikoshi’s talent for putting the player into increasingly unsettling circumstances ensures everything takes flight in a very satisfying way as you work your way through the many strands of the loopy central mystery towards its various different endings.

It takes a simple gameplay concept, adds in a fantastic double-jump mechanic and several layers of skill-based challenges, and polishes it into a gem of a game that’s easy to pick up and play, but with enough depth and variety to keep you smiling through marathon sessions.

Relaxing as it is taxing, The Gardens Between offers a poignant coalescence of charming visuals, a relaxing soundtrack and a bittersweet story. The simplicity of its control scheme hides an incredibly clever and frighteningly intricate puzzle formula that sees you rewinding and playing time like an omnipresent director. Its unique setup makes it one of the most unusual puzzlers on Nintendo Switch, and we can’t wait to see what Australian indie studio The Voxel Agents does next.

When it all comes together, Road Redemption can offer some of the most thoroughly entertaining and over-the-top racing action you’ll find on the Switch. It’s a little rough around the edges and the performance could have done with a little optimisation prior to launch, but when a game’s as downright fun to play as this is, that’ll always be the overriding factor. The wait’s over, Road Rash fans: this is the modern spiritual successor you've been waiting for all these years.

From the moment Teslagrad begins you are instantly filled with the feeling that you are about to play something pretty special. The world around you is truly beautiful and the platforming puzzles are great fun to ponder over. A few difficulty spikes – particularly in the game’s boss fights – distracted us slightly from the game’s hypnotising ways but we had a wonderful time nonetheless.

It's a true joy to find a game that doesn't stretch out its stellar moments with long sections of padding. Every minute you spend in Later Alligator is time well-spent, with background details to look at, terrible puns to appreciate, and a noodly jazz soundtrack that's full of bops. It's worth the price, we say, because it has the highest laughs per second (LPS) of any game we've played.

Although it can be a bit uneven, 30XX is ultimately an enjoyable take on action platforming with a roguelite twist. The high difficulty, extreme replayability, and gorgeous visuals all come together to make for an action platformer you won’t want to miss out on. Beyond this, Mega Mode makes this one a solid recommendation even for those who don’t usually like roguelites, as it strips out most of the randomness and presents a more old-school challenge. For any fans of Mega Man, retro action platformers, or roguelikes, 30XX covers all those bases and then some, and deserves a spot in your Switch library.

As long as you’re okay with its unreasonable lack of online functionality and screen filter niggles, there are hundreds of hours of fun to be had with Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium. 32 mostly excellent games and another historically notable preservation piece, it recalls the essence of what an arcade felt like. Achieving that feeling, however brief, will be enough to justify a purchase for those with an affinity for gaming’s rich history.

Hurt only by the Switch's take on its visuals, Mundaun delivers above and beyond its appearances and offers a robust, constantly compelling adventure game. It isn't particularly scary, but it is rich in atmosphere and hosts plenty of gameplay variety and good ideas. We found that it never compromised its tone or fell foul of any gameplay glitches, although as mentioned the visuals aren't quite up to snuff. It's a minor thing, though, as Mundaun should keep your attention from beginning to, well, one or more of its multiple endings.

Naruto's first outing on Nintendo Switch is a wonderful first step for the orange ninja. While we would have loved to have seen the fourth title included to cover the entirety of in a single game, it's hard for us to thumb our noses at three complete games in one package for about 40 bucks. For a Naruto fan, this is a no-brainer.

While the game's play control system can be a tad loose in feel at times, the overall experience is still solid and proves that you don't have to have a lot of bells and whistles in your play control design to make an involving and enjoyable game.

Despite being a set that includes three entries in the same series, the Amnesia: Collection actually offers three very distinct experiences. The Dark Descent is a milestone for the genre that belies its own mechanical issues by offering some good, old-fashioned scares. Justine is a brief but experimental foray into gruesome puzzle-solving that’s well worth the detour, and A Machine for Pigs takes a more stripped-down approach to the original’s systems, but introduces a much more immersive story as a result. It’s a proper little time capsule that’s perfect for those who’ve already exhausted their fear glands with Outlast and Layers of Fear and want another means to chill their blood in the run-up to Halloween.

The game proved itself to be accessible and enjoyable to everyone, regardless of any previous experience of the sport, with the hard-and-fast Showdown take on gridiron offering immediate gratification, and the Huddle-Up and Road to Superbowl modes giving plenty of scope for matches other than the traditional head-to-heads.

The real draw here is simply the ability to play Rune Factory 3 on a console that doesn’t have ‘DS’ in its name—about 90% of the experience is exactly the same as the original, and that remaining 10% doesn’t exactly cover a whole lot. Luckily, Rune Factory 3 is and always was a great farm sim/RPG hybrid, and it’s something that we can still easily recommend to new and returning players alike. That said, if you fall into the latter group, we’d encourage you to consider carefully how much you want to shell out to replay this on modern hardware. It’s a great game, but it’s effectively the same thing as your DS copy. Still, it’s good to see a return to form after the rather uneven Rune Factory 5. If you’re looking for another very solid farm sim to add to your Switch library—and you haven't played it before—this is definitely one to consider.

Toki Tori 2+ on Switch is still the same, cute and cuddly, yet fiendishly tricky game that we’ve been enjoying for the last few years, but with some notable improvements that make it the best version currently available on consoles. The difficulty of some puzzles may still be too much for some, but the levels of frustration that plagued earlier releases have been somewhat nullified thanks to new mechanics. If you’re interested in what the title has to offer, or have only played it in its earliest forms, we urge you to give this version a try.

It looks fantastic too, with the comic book artwork really bringing the characters and environments to life. If we had one major criticism, it’s that the game suffers from pacing issues, particularly earlier on as you get used to how the pinball mechanics work.

Hudson have pulled it off again and created yet another quality FPS which was developed in Japan! If you played Onslaught and sorely missed more online multiplayer modes, then this should be an instant download.

It's difficult to find much wrong with Pokémon Rumble: everything it does is done quite well, and one can really only take issue with the things the game doesn't do.

While it’s probably said often, Star Ghost is a great fit for the Switch. Its pick up and play sensibilities and arcade roots fit perfectly on a system you can dip into at a moment’s notice. It has a learning curve that makes for a satisfying experience, where only having one control to deal with makes it feel as if you have all the control in the world. It is a bit one note, but what it lacks in variety it makes up in giving you a game you can sink all your efforts into; you only have to focus on the what’s in front of you. Not having an online or shared leaderboards is a miss for a title like this, but it doesn’t take away from the experience as a whole. Star Ghost is one of the most enjoyable - and turbulent - trips you can take through the stars.

Kid Icarus was always a lot of fun, but for some reason it never really reached huge levels of popularity like its cousin Metroid. This 3D Classics version is almost identical, but small additions and tweaks like the new backgrounds, 3D effect, high score table and save files ensure that it's worth a look even for those who already played the original to death.

Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley opens with a goodbye. As an outsider, Snufkin doesn’t hibernate with the Moomins and must wander lonelily through the ice. The prospect of a reunion in the spring sets up a bittersweet mood, sews a seed of hope that grows throughout the game, and kicks off a quest to restore everything to its rightful place. Accomplished gameplay design and magical sounds and visuals make the whole adventure a delight.

Battle Chef Brigade is the first game of its kind, a rarity in this day and age. Everything about it is fresh and original, from its story to the handrawn graphics, to the brilliant voice acting. The combination of fast-paced action, RPG-style gear collecting and puzzle elements wrapped into a game about cooking is something that sounds absurd but works incredibly well. Like a well-made dish, each element of Battle Chef Brigade's gameplay is perfectly prepared. You could separate out each of the three main components of this game and have the foundation for something intriguing on its own, but it's the combination of them that forms something truly memorable. Whether you think you'd like this or not, we recommend at least giving it a look. Battle Chef Brigade is a must-play for all Switch owners.

Its visual and audio niggles aside, Immortal Redneck is an absolute blast. By combining well-crafted room design with randomly generated maps and then giving the player the ability to smoothly run, leap and blast through them with all the grace of a shotgun-wielding swan while constantly upgrading their abilities, it offers a massively satisfying experience that’s likely to remain permanently installed on your Switch long after you’ve deleted other games to make space.

The fact that Quell Reflect takes the “ice” mechanic and creates an experience of it that doesn't make you want to shatter your 3DS against the wall is a testament to the care creator Fallen Tree Games took in the level design and ambience.

Piczle Cross: Story of Seasons may not be the greatest nonogram puzzler available on the Switch, but this is certainly another worthwhile and enjoyable entry in the genre—especially for fans who also love a good farm sim. This is ultimately little more than a nonogram puzzle pack themed after Story of Seasons, but really it doesn’t need to be anything else, even if it would be interesting to see how farm sim gameplay elements could be more directly integrated into the gameplay. As long as you’re not too bothered by a game experience that feels a little less polished than the Picross series, Piczle Cross: Story of Seasons is an easy recommendation to any puzzle enthusiasts out there.

Persona 3 Reload is an extensive and thoughtful remake of the original and unquestionably the best way to experience this modern RPG classic. Switching between daytime and nighttime activities is a blast, and the streamlined gameplay and slick presentation make even the smallest actions feel satisfying. Minor frustrations remain, chiefly the repetitious nature of Tartarus, while the lack of FES and Portable content prevents Reload from being the definitive version of Persona 3. If this doesn't bother you, though, consider it a must-play on the Switch 2.

Green Hell is a brutally tough, deep and satisfying open-world survival sim. It suffers from the same inherent repetition and often infuriating difficulty as most other examples of its genre, but these are problems offset here by satisfying crafting and construction systems, clever smartwatch and body inspection elements and a story mode that easily trumps the vast majority of offerings we've come across in a survival sim. If you can make peace with the Switch's graphical downgrade, missing multiplayer aspect and some minor control issues, what's here is sure to satiate any cravings you may have for some seriously tough survival sim shenanigans.

Tron: Identity won’t wow anyone with its puzzles, but it does a great job of telling a tight story that changes with each playthrough. The short playtime encourages you to explore the world a bit more and uncover new truths that you missed because of your previous actions. If this is the start of a series of Tron visual novels, which the plot certainly feels like, then we’re hopeful we get to continue our journey with Query very soon.