Despite the technical issues, My Time At Sandrock is a very engrossing game with a satisfying gameplay loop. The town and characters are very charming, and it’s very easy to end up repeatedly saying “I’ll just play one more day.”

Even with these blemishes, at the end of the day Super Mario Bros. Wonder is an incredible breath of fresh air overall. It has reaffirmed that 2D Mario has the potential to be more than just good, it can be incredible. It sweeps away any concerns I had that my love of the best games in the series isn’t just nostalgia and that a truly original 2D Mario absolutely has the potential to stand alongside Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World. While Super Mario Bros. Wonder isn’t quite perfect, it is a gleaming star we can hopefully follow into a new era for 2D Mario.

Star Ocean: The Second Story R is a great remake of a less heralded PlayStation RPG. Unlike First Departure R and some of the other ports and remasters out there, this is a smart, modern upgrade to a decades-old adventure. It’s an enjoyable action RPG with a wealth of player choice and a lot of charming quirky aspects. If you’ve ever been curious about Star Ocean and have an affinity for old-school action RPGs, this is a must-play. Even beyond that, the beautiful presentation might be worth the price of admission by itself.

Song of Nunu is a cozy, charming, and endearing adventure game that by no means needs to be limited to fans of League of Legends. It is a largely smooth experience on Switch with great puzzles that are fun to solve, while not being overly challenging. The flute playing mechanics are legitimately unique and feel like something out of a lost Zelda game. If you like straightforward adventure games like Rime, Song of Nunu is an easy recommendation.

Saltsea Chronicles is a gorgeous addition to the adventure game genre. The characters feel like living people with their own hopes, dreams, and ambitions and work wonderfully alongside a story that examines our human nature within the actual forces of nature. As you sail along with the crew of De Kelpie you cannot help but be engaged in their lives and objectives. Whether it is helping Iris coming out of their own shell, helping Molpe coming to terms with Maja’s disappearance, or learning more about Stew’s background. Don’t expect much else in terms of gameplay outside following the narrative and making decisions with your crew and characters. While the Switch version stutters at times, the writing makes for a deeply satisfying story that you may want to replay several times.

Solar Ash comes in hot with its fantastic art style, free flowing movement, and minimalist synth soundtrack, but it also hits a lot of road blocks along the way. When you’re landing sick grinds, nailing grapple points and taking down massive bosses, it’s top notch. When it works it works well; unfortunately, it doesn’t always succeed and you end up doing so many repeated tasks that it quickly wears out its welcome. The story content is written beautifully, with a lot to say about heartbreak and grief, which makes it unfortunate that Solar Ash can be a drag to play. It seems we may need to wait for Hyper Light Breaker, to see a truly worthy successor but at least Heart Machine’s writing and style chops remain consistent.

Even during dives where the game wasn’t giving me proper direction, I still was enthralled by the experience and wanted to plunge back into the game again and again. I’ll never forget the moments where I was clinging on by single digits on the oxygen tanks and barely made it out alive, over encumbered with fish, or the moments where I was suddenly jumped by a predator and had to evasively dive away and shoot my gun in blind panic. Dave the Diver keeps you on your toes, but the rewards after a successful dive always make me want to play “just one more round.” My sushi restaurant is currently thriving, and I am still looking forward to jumping back in many more times after this review is published.

Firefighting Simulator - The Squad is a great representation of what it takes to be a firefighter, and the effective tutorial guarantees that any player should be able to figure out how to succeed at any mission in the game. I’d love to get a full squad together and tackle a house fire together with maximum efficiency, but the difficulty I had in finding a squad takes a lot of the wind out of Firefighting Simulator’s sails. This is the ideal form of a simulator game for me, but it’s sadly near impossible to play it under ideal circumstances.

On Switch, it’s still super fun, but it truthfully isn’t the ideal system for this game. I, for one, am now playing it on my phone after playing it on Switch. Not to say it’s a bad experience on Switch, just that Subpar Pool is best made for cranking out a round or two on your phone as opposed to sitting down and spending hours at your TV. Subpar Pool absolutely rocks no matter where you play it, though.

Gargoyles is a relic that should have remained set in 16-bit stone, sealed away never to return. I'm normally very supportive of the effort to bring back old and forgotten games, but even superfans of the TV series shouldn't be tortured by this unnecessary re-release.

Trine 5 is more of the same, though based on how the series’ fans have received it so well perhaps that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It stands to reason that if you liked the previous Trine games, you’ll still like this one, and that probably goes double if you’ve got three friends to play with. Unfortunately I don’t have three friends to play with, and I can’t deny the dull and frustrating experience I had with it. Between poor puzzle design and combat that doesn’t seem to belong in the game, there was simply nothing in Trine 5 that didn’t feel like a waste of time.

Robo Dunk is uncomplicated in its controls but messy in its chaos, which is pretty fun as long as you’re not expecting something akin to legitimate basketball. The slower paced gameplay won me over as I learned to use that limited toolset to outright embarrass the other teams. The rogue like campaign, as threadbare as it is, does give the game a sense of longevity that’s sorely needed. You’ll be in for a fun time, if not for a long time.

River City: Rival Showdown is an enjoyable departure from the NES title it derives from. It's received an obvious visual upgrade over the 3DS release, and has added online play, too. It can be frustrating to get stuck with unwinnable event battles, but the penalty of losing an in-game hour isn't devastating. There's definitely a bit more of a learning curve for anyone who's only played River City Ransom, but the overall package is a solid one for Kunio-kun and brawler fans alike, provided you don't mind a bit of detective work.

It’s not a particularly deep game, but that doesn’t stop it from just feeling like a warm sweater on a chilly day. Also considering its run time is anywhere from 3-5 hours total, it doesn’t need to be particularly complex to be a worthwhile experience. The one major gripe I had is that the ending tries to create a lot of emotional weight that just wasn’t there throughout the rest of the narrative. The plot provides some light followthrough with story, but mostly it’s sparse and to attempt a big sentimental swing felt tacked on at best. That still doesn’t prevent A Tiny Sticker Tale from being nothing short of delightful through and through. A bite-sized portion of happiness that is the definition of cozy games.

I’m extremely disheartened by the evident lack of care that went into this Switch release. Even the most basic Switch conversions of classic games have included a resolution bump if not a full overhaul. Nintendo’s own N64 library on NSO, which also has its roots in 240p, manages to run at 720p on Switch. Add to that a broken element of the game's basic features and this version becomes much harder to justify. I like Dementium a lot. This and Renegade Kid’s next DS release Moon were staples of this era for me. While I appreciate that I can access it on a new platform, seeing it dumped here so unceremoniously without even an adjustment to the internal resolution is very disappointing.

CounterAttack: Uprising is a content-laden shoot-'em-up that offers some excellent customization and multiplayer options. There are even level and campaign editors for the creatively inclined. The aesthetic, including the level design and the art style, wasn't overly appealing to me, but my son and I still had a wonderful time trying to see how far we could get across the different game modes. While it's not quite in must-play territory, CounterAttack is well worth a look for fans of the genre, particularly those who embrace playing starship mechanic.

Ultimately, Bilkins’ Folly is a game you should definitely pick up if you are an adventure game fan or want to dip your toes into that genre. This is a fun puzzle game with charming writing and great mechanics that feel very satisfying when you figure out. Some solutions may be difficult, so if you don’t want to feel frustration you might want to sit this one out. However, if you enjoy puzzle games and are looking for a charming adventure game, I’d recommend Bilkins’ Folly.

Pizza Possum invites you to stop by, enjoy the bedlam and pandemonium with or without a friend, and then leave satisfied and fulfilled, like you yourself gobbled down that giant pizza the titular possum craves. This snack is incredibly enjoyable.

Overall I find myself with relatively mixed feelings on Long Gone Days. I believe that it's a good experience and many fans of the genre will probably enjoy their time with it, at least a little bit when all is said and done, but it's those good parts that make its flaws stand out that much more.

The pressure put on Wild Card Football to be the one single NFL game on Nintendo Switch might be undue, but regardless, this opening kickoff for a potential sports franchise fades down the stretch after a promising start. Parts of the game are good, making for a decent multiplayer game and a lacking solo experience due to limited modes, a borderline worthless running game, and janky computer-controlled opponents. If you’re hard up for playing as your favorite NFL players on your favorite Nintendo platform, this is an acceptable placebo, but here’s hoping Nintendo gets a high first-round draft pick for their next console so they can pick a more well-rounded football game.

Ultimately, Infinity Strash is a lifeless husk of a video game that can’t be redeemed by an added post-game difficulty or the dozens of simplified and random stages of the Temple of Recollections. Spend your time and money on anything else with the “Dragon Quest” name on it instead, and leave this one in the Strash bin.

Paw Patrol World is a smartly made entry-level open-world video game that does a good job of capturing the appeal of Paw Patrol in video game form. It’s primarily for the younger sect, but it does that by being a playground to explore as opposed to a steep challenge. You play in the world of the TV show in a way that makes this a gateway to the wider world of (mostly quality) video games. As a parent I sometimes need to make compromises. If my kids want to play the cop dog game instead of Roblox, I’ll chalk it up as a win.

The sequel is not only more of the same, but also presents a compelling new way to experience its tried-and-true strategy gameplay. While I do like the new Commanders that have made their way into the fold, I would love to see the individual factions have a bit more uniqueness in terms of how they played or their strengths and weaknesses; they’re only distinguished by their appearance and their units names (which can sometimes be confusing). Nonetheless, strategy fans should rejoice at the opportunity to spend more time with a wonderful series that puts a fantasy twist on Advance Wars.

PictoPull isn’t quite as good as its inspiration, but it does the job. It was nice to play this style of puzzle again. PictoPull will do as we wait for Pushmo to have its Crashmo 99 renaissance.

I can definitely respect the endeavor of keeping the spirit of the NES alive in 2023, and while faithfulness often does come at the price of convenience or aesthetics, Project Blue definitely offers a fun experience for those who go in with the right expectations. It's a bit rough around the edges, but being a product of the '80s myself, I was able to while away a handful of satisfying (and at times painfully difficult) hours with this latest homage to classic titles like Metroid and Blaster Master. I can think of many worse ways to transport yourself back to 1988 for an evening, and this one doesn't even require a DeLorean.

Cocoon is a master class in game design. It pushes amazing puzzle construction, to guide players without being too heavy handed. Whenever I was stuck, it was barely ever for more than a few minutes that wasn’t solved by some trial and error. The sound design is used to enhance, never overtake. Giving enough to inspire awe, curiosity, tension and encouragement. The environmental details were beautifully hypnotic. Crafting such a fantastically curious world of psychedelic shapes and inorganic life is a feat of its own but with this combination as a full package, I can’t recommend this game to enough people. It’s greater than the sum of its parts and at the end of my time with Cocoon, my journey had felt meaningful.

EA Sports FC is a tremendous leap in the right direction for soccer games on Switch. It still isn’t on the same level as other versions, but this is the narrowest the gap has been in more than a decade. If you’re looking for a way to play a great soccer game on a portable system with a few compromises, this will get the job done. Hopefully this is the start of EA Sports putting out more of their library on Nintendo platforms, because I’m heartened by how EA Sports FC turned out.

With hours of additional content post-credits thanks to an unlockable hard mode, much like its farming-focused cousins, Silent Hope finds its place in being video gaming comfort food that you can easily dive into at any time, and I am definitely going back for seconds.