Ace Attorney remains one of my favorite franchises of all time, and I have loved the opportunity to play through the trilogy again on Switch. Though it lags a little in the middle with some less-than-stellar cases in the second game, the Ace Attorney Trilogy is still an incredible story with wonderful characters, memorable plots, and satisfying mysteries to solve. With little more than a new coat of paint, the Trilogy collection manages to be the perfect way to experience the story of Phoenix Wright whether you’re a rookie lawyer or a great ace attorney.

Despite some apprehensive dalliances with repetition, I loved ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove. The sublime style drips with funk, and the cadence of roaming through floors using my presents to try to avoid failure and find my ship parts is one that made for a charming experience. It didn’t matter if I saw some of the same things several times over my multiple playthroughs. The whole thing is spectacularly goofy and weird, even if I eventually do figure out why the hell the yeti has a pencil.

If the final mechanic had been the core mechanic the entire way through, perhaps Anodyne would be worth the time investment it asks of you. Hopefully some of the lessons learned making it will be applied for its upcoming sequel, and the small bits of potential it does have can shine.

The sheer enjoyment of flinging guards into each other or through a high-rise window to their doom doesn’t really get old, but the striking use of color and perspective truly set this game apart. If you don’t mind the gratuitous body count and related blood splatter, Ape Out is a funky and fresh take on the top-down action genre. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to rock out with my Ape Out.

While the gameplay itself is fun and the simple presentation and aesthetic fits, not being able to set your own game length, choose which stages to play, or really alter any of the mechanics dramatically takes away from the experience. Making matters worse is the absence of a single-player mode. Not to put too fine a point on it but I don’t think Battlloon does enough to stand out in an ever-more crowded Switch eShop. For some cheap and quick entertainment, it barely does the job, and even then I think you’re better off just letting this one fly away.

X-Morph: Defense is a terrific pick up for someone who enjoys twin-stick shoot-‘em-ups but is looking for some more variety other than just blasting everything on screen. The tactical strategy required to complete levels added solid replayability and allowed me to try multiple ways to creatively destroy the human race. Other than the piercing guilt of destroying my homeland of Canada, I had a really fun experience with X-Morph and can place it firmly on my recommended list.

This easygoing platformer gives the flexibility of selecting any level regardless of order and is forgiving when facing obstacles within each stage. The difficulty doesn’t cap out too high, so players looking for a real challenge might be disappointed, but the fun mechanics and combining powers were enough to capture my attention. The entire adventure only lasts a few hours but manages to stay fresh from beginning to end.

RemiLore just doesn’t have enough variety to stay interesting for more than a few minutes. Though the characters are mildly entertaining with an impressive amount of dialogue to flesh out their interactions, there’s just too much you need to put up with to get to the good parts of the game. Rogue-lite and Action RPG are two crowded genres, and RemiLore unfortunately decided to tackle them both without covering even the basics of what makes either interesting in the first place.

Even with a few issues, Trials Rising is an excellent experience on Switch, filled with a slew of creative levels and a lot of reasons to replay and tweak your experience. Sure, the version on Switch might not be as pretty as other versions, but it’s just as playable, aside from a few handheld framerate problems. Steady your hand and get to navigating the peaks and valleys of the world of Trials. Just make sure you’re connected online.

Awesome Pea lacks any compelling hook or element that separates it from other platformers. Presentation-wise, it manages to emulate what you might see on the Game Boy, but it’s less interesting and fun than the majority of that console’s lineup. What I find a little baffling is that despite its brevity—my playthrough lasted less than an hour— Awesome Pea has a three-stage demo on the eShop, and that demo will tell you everything you need to know. Awesome Pea seems to go all in on nostalgia and loses its shirt in the process. If you absolutely must, go ahead and try the demo, but there are much better budget titles for your time and money.

We’ll likely revisit Tetris 99 sometime later when these features get added, but for now I’d still recommend downloading it and giving it a try. “Free” is a pretty tough price to beat, and given how many hours I’ve already sunk into the world’s weirdest battle royale, I can still say there’s a lot of fun to be had in what little Tetris 99 has to offer.

Aragami is a perfectly adequate stealth game. The gameplay loop is short, as it often is in stealth titles, but that loop generally works well. Enemies exhibit nothing in the way of complex behavior, but that doesn’t make pushing through a group of them, silently killing as you go, any less satisfying. Aragami is a stealth game out of time that could have been quite beloved in 2006. Today, however, it will have to settle for pretty all right.

The small player base online may be a good reason to hesitate on buying Central Fiction on Switch, but it is nevertheless a stellar fighting game to have on the go. This remains one of Arc System Works’ best releases, and with flawless performance in handheld mode it’s never been easier to take the fight with you to a friend’s house. Though you may have already picked up Cross Tag Battle last year, you’d still do well by checking out this fully-featured mainline entry. Central Fiction is the best BlazBlue has ever been, and this may be the right time to join the battle if you haven’t already.

As a package, Holy Potatoes! We're In Space?! doesn't know when to slow down. While I found the experience busy at moments, I can't deny that I had quite a solid time overall. The strategy and management elements are fantastic hooks that kept me glued to the screen for a stupid number of hours. There were some frustrating moments, particularly towards the end of the game, but it always managed to put a smile on my face. Just a lovely thing!

FFIX is reminiscent of a simpler time, boasting a strong narrative and quality of life features that make it easy to get into. I just wish it had a better presentation, one that a game of this quality truly deserves.

Shoot-’em-up fans need to have this game on their radar. It’s a beautiful trip through bullet hell before a date with the Devil Engine.

All in all, Fishing Star: World Tour was a surprisingly fun little game. While I do think that the progression and localization could use some work, the actual title here leaves me pleased overall.

Steins;Gate is already one of the most dynamic visual novels, and the added anime cutscenes of the Elite version makes it worth exploring. If you can handle a main character who is extremely delusional and doesn’t have a filter… you’re probably comfortable dealing with me. Either way, Steins;Gate Elite is the best pure visual novel we’ve got right now.

It’s competent and well-made but ultimately uninspired. This is a game you will have fun with and then completely forget about. There are better platformers on Switch, but this one is worth a look if you feel the need to test yourself every time you see a gap or spikes that beg to be jumped over.

Despite the technical problems, Q.U.B.E. 2 is still an incredible game that I had trouble putting down. I can’t remember the last time I played a puzzle game with so many unique elements to keep track of, and it’s definitely rare that I’ve played a game with so many puzzles that are so consistently well-designed. Out of the 80+ puzzles, I wouldn’t say a single one was bad, and none of them were so obtuse that I needed to give up and find a solution online—although some definitely stumped me for a while. If a patch or two comes out to fix the performance problems in the late game, then picking this up will be a no-brainer.

Even with all the options available for changing up the difficulty players will likely find themselves getting tired of playing the same sixteen levels over and over. Add this to the fact that LOVE was already available on Switch as part of its sequel, and there’s unfortunately really no good reason to spend your money on this game outside of supporting the developer. If you’re itching for a precision platformer of this type, you’re really better off looking into kuso instead since you’ll get almost everything that LOVE offers anyways.

For the asking price and the amount of developer-made levels available at purchase, Block Quest Maker is still perfectly enjoyable in short bursts, and better yet if you have a creative bone that you want to itch by making your own adventures. Just don’t expect a long tail of community driven content like some of its more well-known contemporaries.

If you can make hay out of the physics and not run into the maddening frustration that dominated my playtime, then Pumped BMX Pro might just stick the landing. But if you want something that’s more freeing and interesting, you’re better off checking out any one of the other similar games hitting Switch in 2019.

Overall, the combination of these two games will, without a doubt, keep you occupied for a while. A learning curve can be a barrier initially, but once you learn the ropes, you’ll just want to keep skating forever. Although the second game is the better of the two, the difference isn’t stark enough to warrant skipping out on the first. These both fit the textbook definition of perfect on-the-go games – while not the most visually impressive games out there, they are perfect for both quick bursts of fun or hours of intense focus and mastery.

Perhaps The King’s Bird’s brilliance shines through on other platforms. Maybe speedrunners will find the level timer an irresistible challenge. I might even Git Gud myself if significant updates round out the edges, but for now, I’d recommend something a bit more polished.

Taken as a whole, Evoland: Legendary Edition should probably be viewed as just including Evoland 2, since that game is, for the most part, totally alright. I’d look at the first game as a nonessential bonus. It’s a solid gag, but that’s about it. The second game also veers into that humorous minefield, but at least it can precariously hang with decent action-RPG elements and amusing writing.

I found myself enjoying the light fare that is Pocket Academy since it has just the right amount of depth and accessibility that make it a quality management simulator. It’s not super engrossing, and you can get the full experience in probably a weekend’s time. This is cool for those who like management games but don’t have the time to get truly involved in much deeper, more detailed games of a similar nature.

There’s a solid foundation for gameplay once you’re in the skies chasing fish and fighting pirates, but every minute that you’re not dogfighting your way through the clouds to chase exotic creatures is so frustrating and dull that I just can’t bring myself to spend any more time searching for Amelia’s elusive Skywhale.