In the end Mario Strikers Battle League is an incredibly fun Mario sports game to play, with a quick pace to games and flashy visual aesthetics that add to the hype. There are some issues that hold the game back from being as good as it could be, most notably the small roster and limited online options. The ability to create a Rosalina who is the boogeyman haunting the goal-keepers’ nightmares is surprisingly fun, and the game’s Club feature allows you to use your friends’ wacky stat goblins for yourself if you so choose. Strikers is at its core still as fun as it ever was, and still outshining regular soccer at every avenue. Hopefully once more additions have been made to the game’s content some of the overall issues will have been addressed and Battle League can truly shine as bright as it is meant to.

I should have known better than to doubt the minds behind Tumblestone (seriously, check that game out), but Freshly Frosted blew me away with how much I enjoyed it. This is a delectable artisanal puzzle game that absolutely should not be missed by anyone who is down for a relaxing time with some good brain-teasers.

RiffTrax: The Game is a good time with a good group of people. Everybody had about the same amount of fun with “Write a Riff” mode as when playing WTD, even given the different goal (riff vs. line) but most of my friends agreed that “Pick a Riff” was the more interesting game. As in CAH, when you get a joke that lines right up with the scene in question? Priceless.

Although it’s coming out at a packed time of year, Neon White should definitely be on the radar of Switch owners. Whether trying to stay ahead of the story, ripping off a stage or two in between games, or trying to shave a few hundredths of a second off your level time to get up the leaderboards, there’s always an excuse to shoot up heaven.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge is so very far from being just a cheap nostalgia play; it’s a lovingly crafted, action-packed experience with fun and playful callbacks to classic Turtles games, a pantheon it will surely be joining. With three difficulty modes, 28 in-game achievements, and individual challenges for each stage, there’s no shortage of reasons to pick up a bo staff, hockey stick, or microphone and dive back in again and again. Only having a single save file for story mode is a bit of a drag, but the Arcade mode with online leaderboards offers another tantalizing avenue for further playtime. In short, if you’re a TMNT fan or love beat-’em-ups, you’ll surely dig the colorful and upbeat Shredder’s Revenge, especially if you can find a few other ninjas to kick back with.

As a sucker for pixel-art titles, Lost Ruins grabbed me right away, but the visual effects, including some incredible use of light and lighting, and the brisk pacing kept me invested in the Heroine’s journey from start to finish. There are some unique sidequests that had me questioning my decisions as I made my way from the sewers, to the catacombs, and the castle gardens, and even all my prior preparation didn’t stop the final area of the game from being a stout challenge. Lost Ruins’ focus on being careful and adaptable rather than headstrong and immutable makes it a soft but welcome departure from other metroidvanias. With a story and map that don’t force you to backtrack either, you can explore as much or as little as you want. For my money, I was glad to have picked up everything that wasn’t tied down, and I can easily recommend you do the same with Lost Ruins on Switch.

Demon Slayer - Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Hinokami Chronicles is an incredibly impressive anime-inspired fighter. Visually, it surpasses my expectations of how I imagined it would play on the Nintendo Switch. If you are a fan of the series, this is a must-buy. If you aren’t but a fan of anime-related fighters, you’ll definitely enjoy this for the combat alone, and the Story Mode is deep enough for you to understand the characters, their relationships, and the journey they have been on. This is the first Demon Slayer video game, and developers CyberConnect2 have knocked it out of the park. I am very excited about the DLC and any possible further instalments.

While it may be a simple and incredibly short experience, able to be completed in roughly 45 minutes to an hour, Behind the Frame makes up for its lack of length with its gorgeous art and animation. Pair that with a fun strings-heavy soundtrack and a genuinely touching story, and it's hard for me not to call it a memorable experience. If you're a fan of Studio Ghibli, like these developers clearly are, or even just have an hour to kill and a love for art, Behind the Frame is absolutely a game you should give your time. It may be clunky if played on a gamepad, but playing with touch just feels natural and works with minimal issue. If this sounds up your alley, I'd say it's time to grab your paints and get to work.

Deadcraft can be really fun at times. The story, setting, and overacting will really grab you if you are into the low budget monster films of yore. Just be ready to do a lot of search and fetch quests. These can really slow down the pacing, but when the adventure gets going, it can be a bloody good zombie killing/farming time.

Even before the free Restored Content DLC is released, Knights of the Old Republic 2 is still a great game, albeit one with some missing content and technical issues. I look forward to revisiting the game to see what was added, tweaked, and fixed when the DLC is added. If that add-on delivers, there’s a good chance the Switch version is the definitive version of this 2004 Xbox classic. Until then, this is a fine way to play a good game with some caveats. Hopefully those caveats become a thing of a past, but time will tell.

The simplicity of Fishing Paradiso is a facade for the beating heart at the center of this fishing game. It scratched all the right itches for me, providing a pleasant fishing experience that was relaxing without being mindless. It tells a deep story (albeit with some stilted dialogue) that claws at what the afterlife is and deals with some heady topics in a playful, contemplative way. Distill Fishing Paradiso to its essence and it’s straightforward, but this is a game that is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Devolver has another winner on their hands with Card Shark. Using memorization gameplay to perform real world card tricks is a unique spin to the indie genre. The characters are fun and inviting with just a hint of devilish mischief up their sleeves, including the speechless protagonist. There’s a richness to the storytelling in both form and execution and that’s definitely a highlight in a more uncommon narrative mechanic. Cards on the table: This game is great.

Unless you're trying to play or collect all of the NEOGEO releases coming to Switch, it's hard for me to recommend Biomotor Unitron. Games that came before it, like Quintet's Robotrek, have taken a similar premise and created a much more well rounded experience. Biomotor is simply mired in repetitive gameplay that just isn't paid off by any enjoyable story or character moments. While it isn't broken or unplayable, it's mediocre and frustrating in equal measure. Best to steer clear from these outdated robot wars or at least wait for a steep discount.

SILT is an interesting experience in atmospheric puzzle gaming. The underwater sound design muffling everything around you manages to immerse you into the sea bottom world as you solve the well designed puzzles throughout. There are a few areas near the very end of the game that get frustrating, but I could count the number of rooms like that on one hand. If you like something creepy, something that gets the gears in your brain turning, or for some reason just like the scary part of the ocean, you should definitely slap on a diving suit and jump headfirst into SILT.

Overall, Soundfall is a fun music-based experience that isn’t doing anything remarkably new, but what it does, it does well. The guns feel good to shoot, the environments are enjoyable and dance along to the music, and the tracklist is filled with a variety of certified bangers. If you’re looking for a rhythm game to kill a few hours with, Soundfall is worth a peek.

The Big Con is a stylish adventure game that feels more playful than mystifying, nailing a good balance that opens up to a wider audience than most of its kind. The ‘90s Nick feel definitely makes it more appealing to those of a certain age, but the goofy period piece design of the world is unspecific enough to not feel impenetrable if you don’t know your Skeeters from your Stimpys. The charm far outweighs the thievery for Ali as she tries to save her mom’s video store by robbing the world blind.

Ultimately, Kao the Kangaroo has a lot of the same charm you’ll remember from the back half of the golden age of 3D platformers. Unfortunately it also carries with it quite a bit of technical baggage. Since I’ve only played on Switch, I can’t confidently say how much of this is exclusive to this version. None of it is insurmountable, but I can virtually guarantee you’ll encounter some sort of issue while playing. But once again, underneath that is a solid 3D platformer that deserves to be played. I very earnestly hope that the technical issues can be resolved as I think Kao the Kangaroo is worth playing, especially if you have a fondness for the forgotten 3D platformers of the early 2000s. For now, go in with some caution and be ready to battle some bugs along the way.

Citizen Sleeper allows for multiple playthroughs, and even when looking through screenshots during my review there are characters and locations I never once encountered within my first playthrough. Because of the heavy story-driven nature of Citizen Sleeper, your enjoyment will be contingent on your appreciation of the sci-fi genre as well as how much brain space is occupied by thoughts of Turing Tests. While that itself will denote that Citizen Sleeper isn’t for everyone, for those that have even a slight interest in the genre, you don’t want to sleep on this one.

Even though it doesn’t bring much to the table in terms of innovation or surprise, Anuchard remains a solid and exceedingly colorful adventure that offers a fun, if fleeting, experience. The chapter-based structure lends itself well to the light and optional farm-building elements and the main narrative of bringing life back to the world and its inhabitants. If you’re looking for a fairly charming action RPG that’s more familiar than fresh, Anuchard might be just what the doctor ordered.

Overall, The Centennial Case is probably not going to knock anybody’s socks off, but it is at the very least an interesting mystery filled with enjoyable characters that is worth a few afternoons of an aspiring detective’s time. It may not be up to the standards of a big budget theatrical production, but the actors feel competent and the musical score adds an air of drama that makes it hard not to get sucked in at times. If you find yourself with a craving for a relatively simple set of mysteries to walk through and solve, this is likely a game to keep your eye on for a rainy day.

There are definitely some spots towards the end that feel like they were just thrown in to add some extra padding, like repeating quests you’ve already completed and even having to replay a boss fight. It can really take you out of the moment and halt the flow of the game. With the long distance between save points, difficult bosses, and sometimes frustrating platforming, this game will really make you ponder how much suffering you are willing to endure to reach full enlightenment.

Mini Motorways is simple and extremely addictive. Experimentation with how best to use each element is fun and satisfying when something clicks. And when it doesn’t, you simply pick that piece back up and try something else. It has been quite a while since a puzzle game so immediately conveyed its appeal to me and while there are certainly some small things I’d improve, it won’t stop me from continuing to play this for a very long time.

Off-putting controls, repetitive gameplay, and some pretty rough performance make Gibbon: Beyond the Trees unfortunately not really a recommendation on Switch. While the visual style is truly gorgeous and you feel as if you’re actually controlling a gibbon, the game just doesn’t hold up even for the short time you’ll spend with it. The danger gibbons face truly is an ecological crisis, but if you want to support that cause, a donation towards the Gibbon Conservation Society is far more satisfying than playing this game.

Vesper: Zero Light Edition is a tense, stunning, and cinematic platform-adventure game that any genre fans should add to their collection. Wait till the sun goes down, or whip out your own Drive Gun to absorb the light in your room, boot up your Switch on the big screen or undock your OLED and immerse yourself in the gorgeous colors, sublime sound design, and cleverly haunting world of Vesper: Zero Light Edition.

Dungeons of Dreadrock makes an admirable leap to Nintendo’s hybrid device. During shorter play sessions, the game shines and offers a challenging but fair puzzle-centered experience. The story is familiar yet enjoyable, and the basic controls translate well enough to the console space. It might not Dreadrock your world, but these Dungeons offer a pretty satisfying romp all the same.

All in all, there are very few negatives to mention in terms of the core gameplay. The controls and movement feel perfect. Stage progression is fair and fun, and the visuals are vibrant. Performance docked and handheld never skipped a beat. Super Mega Zero really is a package that continues to impress the further you dig into it. If you’re looking for something challenging and bite sized, this is a super fit on the Switch.

As someone who enjoys town-building mechanics in RPGs, like those of Ys VIII, Xenoblade Chronicles, or Dragon Quest Builders, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising relies too heavily on them, at the cost of telling an engaging story or offering compelling action gameplay. The too-frequent backtracking, mind-numbing side quests, and overall lack of variety make for an experience that is tough to recommend. An unlockable hard mode, 50 in-game achievements, and the promise that Rising saved data will yield bonuses in Hundred Heroes are feathers in its cap, but Rising on its own is just too much of a slog. Here’s hoping that Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes lives up to the success of being the number one video game Kickstarter of 2020 because its prequel certainly does not.

While I can say that the pacing and gameplay never fully clicked with me, it might for others. There’s quality in the world of Rosantica and things to appreciate about its story, art, and characters. That being said, this game has potential hidden under some lackluster stages and unbalanced combat. I would love to see another story told in this world with some further polish on the gameplay if Studio Thunderhorse was ever to make a second showing. Should the slower pace not be a bother to you, there’s a lot that Flynn Son of Crimson has to offer. But amongst a sea of similar genre entries on Switch, I’d be hard pressed to recommend this one.