Detention is a complicated package. Everything outside of its gameplay is top-notch. Its story, visuals, and sound flawlessly accomplishes what (I think) the game is trying to convey. At the same time, these things are experienced through slow, somewhat dull adventure gameplay.

Flinthook has a sound base, complete with an excellent grappling hook mechanic and a distinctive, fun mode of movement. The roguelite design leads to some repetition, but the gorgeous art and great style (even in the face of well-worn scenery) helps make up for that and other shortcomings. Be prepared to die a lot, but if it clicks for you, be prepared to want to jump right back in for another go.

Grid Mania doesn’t really do anything new, but it plays well, has some variety to its gameplay, and provides a solid challenge. Mania might be a little hyperbolic, so let’s just say the game is Grid Fun for the whole family.

The core flight feels good and each mission is an appropriately brief length that lends itself well to casual, quick play sessions. That makes it easy for me to overlook that it didn’t land without some turbulence.

TurtlePop, but as it stands, this is all far too convoluted to be something worth sinking a lot of time into. Charm can only go so far when strangled by numerous and conflicting ideas.

This isn’t a game that compels me to play for hours on end. However, it provides ample entertainment, and is one I can easily come back to for some good-old-fashioned island adventuring (plus zombies).

Despite the difficulty spike at the end, I really enjoyed playing through A Hole New World. The game scratched a very specific itch for me, and despite its problems, it ended up giving me a far better experience than revisiting the fascinating, clunky horror games of my childhood would have. Let’s hope the planned fixes elevate the game even more.

Bridge Constructor Portal will turn your brain’s valve with some physics fun, but it’s little more than a collection of challenges coated in a familiar cake frosting.

Hollow, as a game, is an effective horror experience plagued by some poor goal communication with the player. It has clear issues but at its core, Hollow is a technically impressive game built on generally good gameplay. As a port to Switch, this game is unfortunately an abysmal mess.

The thing with The Final Station is that it knows what it wants to be. This proud survival game mixes the eerie with action smoothly, and I couldn't help to be impressed. While it is more linear than I would have liked, it delivers on a thrilling experience that I can't get enough of. The pixelated style and its gameplay are some of the smoothest seen on the platform, and it is hard to pull yourself away just a tiny bit. The Final Station is an intriguing journey through and through.

NORTH was a breath of fresh air for me. Too many games now require fast reflexes and have tons of gun play, but NORTH begs to be played slowly. Take your time, read the letters carefully, and follow the path that is outlined. Some actions can get trippy at times but it all concludes in an unexpected ending. I am happy that I took the journey to the NORTH, I just hope my character is, too.

A free demo is on the eShop that consists of the first world, including the end boss, and it is worth a look since it gives a very good impression of how the game plays and what it is. With the full game, you get 15+ hours of content for only $9.99, and you can return to completed stages to improve your completion times for crowns and a better star rating, which are tied to in-game achievements. Just don’t expect a ton of variety or hand-holding. Wanderjahr won’t take you a year to beat it, but it might just feel like it.

At first glance, Super Toy Cars looks to have a strong offering of new ideas to draw the curiosity of Nintendo Switch Owners. Offering a package of 15 tracks with various racing modes and 16 upgradable cars to tinker with, Super Toy Cars feels like a strong offering on the surface. However, the races and tracks quickly feel repetitive.

The story is disjointed, the dialog stilted, and the characters feel like cutouts. But all that could be forgiven if it were fun to play, but it isn’t. Bad puzzles, repetitive combat, and poorly designed encounters are constant companions. I respect the desire and the work that must have gone into making this revival a reality. I just wish the product would have been better for long-suffering fans.

Having a way to eliminate threats is a sense of comfort in any horror survival horror game, but it’s not one Outlast gives you. This adds a sense of stress that you just don’t feel from many other games in the genre. While the Switch port does have some minor slowdown and jarring load screens, it doesn’t detract from how horrifically wonderful the game is. With the emphasis back on horror and survival, Outlast is a welcomed return to what made the genre great to begin with.

Overall, I just wasn’t enjoying the game, which is a problem. There’s definitely some inventive puzzling here, but I found the experience more frustrating than fun.

I enjoyed my time playing through Little Triangle, but I wasn’t blown away by it. It’s definitely a solid platformer with a little humor here and there, but that’s about it. What it does have is well implemented though, and the options to play with a friend combined with the natural ease of using Joy-Con make it a great pick-up-and-play game for any occasion. Although there is no unique hook or ground-breaking ideas, Little Triangle is a good title to scratch that platforming itch.

When I say this game lives and dies by its writing, I mean it. And unfortunately, the more I thought about the game and the world it describes, the more it fell apart.

It’s refreshing to find an entirely self-contained mobile game that doesn’t have in-app purchases and doesn’t require a constant internet connection. Sadly you can reach the end in one play session and it doesn’t take much longer for 100% completion, but it’s worth the price of entry for the joy of that Nintendo polish in mobile form.

A Normal Lost Phone does a lot of things right: unlocking story bits is interesting, the phone premise pays off, and the atmosphere sells Sam’s character. Seeing such delicate subject matter in a game is nice, but the end game felt a bit preachy without offering anything too helpful. I would definitely play another phone-snooping game with more surprises in the story as I wasn’t blown away by any revelations here.

Aperion Cyberstorm does many things reasonably well, but nothing well enough to really set it apart from other shooters on the platform. The uninteresting Campaign mode drags down the other, better-executed ideas, and prevents the game from being all that it could have been.

In the end Nightmare Boy offers up something thoroughly different from a visual standpoint and can be quite challenging, just not always for the right reasons. If you give it some time it does pick up momentum and you can get into a groove but when you hit the spots where you’re not sure where you’re going, things understandably drag quite a bit. Probably only recommended for the most die-hard Metroidvania fans who have blown through what’s already available on the system, show patience with Nightmare Boy and some fun can be had with it.

At the end of the day, Monster Energy Supercross: The Official Video Game for the Nintendo Switch is a serviceable motocross game, albeit if you only like racing alone. It’s disappointing how much was cut from the Switch version, but despite all that was removed, this is in fact the only version you can take to an actual Supercross event.

Typoman: Revised is a puzzle-packed love letter to letters undercut by slightly scrambled platforming mechanics.

The core of Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 Plus is good, especially with the Score Attack mode and the novel new local two-player mode. Unfortunately, the botched offline score uploading, minor technical issues, and disappointing Adventure mode drag the entire experience down. If you have friends locally to play the two-player mode or friends online to score chase with, this is a fine game, at least as long you’re always near WiFi when you get high scores. Without the well-implemented high score chases, it’s still fun, just maybe more fleeting than it could have been.

Black Hole does, honestly, some tricks that nobody else does. The fixed screen with the gravitational pull is an unique concept that keeps you sharp. The act of playing the game is awesome, and nothing should be taken away from it. After 40 levels though, there is nothing for most players to return to. Sure, there is room to improve on your runs, but that really depends on the type of person you are. As for myself, I’ll probably end up going back to it now and again.

While the game isn’t perfect, its ability to preserve a culture through an active medium while still being an enjoyable gaming experience is a trend I hope Lienzo and other are able to continue in the future.

Ace of Seafood is a joke delivered with a knowing smirk. The image of a laser lobster engaging a flotilla of tiny submarines defending a sunken refrigerator is not something that springs from a serious mind. It’s surreal, amusing, and bewildering. But it isn’t fun. It’s a good joke, and without it this game wouldn't merit a mention, but the joke is let down by execution. If it played well, if it looked better, if it performed acceptably this could be a funny little cult-classic, a recommendation to the right audience. As it stands, however, all it has going for it is a prevailing mania. That’s not enough.