FBC: Firebreak should be a slam dunk for Remedy, with a unique elemental combat co-op hook and action that unfolds in the coolest parts of the studio’s connected universe. Sadly, dull, uninspired missions and a failure to capitalize on Remedy’s imagination hold the developer’s first proper multiplayer outing back massively. There could be something special here with future updates, but I’m struggling to see a future for it.

Like just about every game these days, it uses a card mechanic, with new cards unlocking after more matches. Your new units require resources, but also need to be drawn into your hand. This means your strategy has to adapt to both what your opponent is up to and what you have available at the moment. This can be frustrating when the card you need to counter their move just doesn't come up, but it works well to keep things tense within the super-tight timelines of each match (only a few minutes).

Abalone is a classic implementation of a classic abstract with all the advantages and disadvantages that implies. It's easy to learn but unfolds to have a rich, deep strategy, especially when you vary the starting setup. On the other hand, it's dry and offers little hand-holding for new players who are easily obliterated by the more experienced. How you feel about it will likely align with how you feel about abstract games in general. But the faults in online play aside, if abstracts are your thing, you'll find the shell of this snail pretty and the meat satisfying.

Although the conversion is excellent, there are some things that you simply can't capture in digital form.

MicRogue is a game where, even if you fail seven times in a row, chances are you’ll have failed each time on the eighth or ninth stages. Even when you’re losing it doesn’t feel like you’ve lost much at all.

Fallen London is a text and story-driven game set in a highly original and expansive dark fantasy world that affords players an unusual amount of freedom to shape their character's destiny. The original web-based game runs well on mobile, but the recently released app is critically flawed.

Ni No Kuni II looks incredible on Switch, but the price it pays in terms of poor performance is too high, resulting in an experience that you're better off having on any other platform.

A short but sweet game that offers simplistic gameplay, but enough pleasant atmosphere and charm to get you through. It's slightly expensive for what is on offer, and the controls could be better, but plenty of players will find something to love here.

Animal Shelter Simulator gives us a glimpse into the life of a shelter owner, complete with rescuing and nurturing pets, and all the daily tasks that go with it on Nintendo Switch. It may be a little ruff around the edges but it’s nothing to sniff at if you’re a fan of a simulator story.

While the unique monster-taming dungeon-crawling crossover gameplay that occupies much of Adore is surprisingly engaging, a lack of character and a bendy difficulty curve stop it from reaching its potential heights.

For all the wonderful writing and gorgeous world-building, Little Orpheus fails on a fundamental level to create anything engaging in the platforming and puzzles. There's a lot worth seeing, but it is sadly buried under monotonous gameplay.

Despite a solid core of zombie-killing action and a seriously impressive character creator, Undawn finds too many ways to dilute the action into something that struggles to move at an entertaining pace. With overwhelming UI, too many resources to keep track of, and grisly movement mechanics in place, this is one for those who desperately want to replicate the motorcycle-riding zombie-killing thrills of Days Gone and few others.

Empire of Sin is a great mafia management simulator with some fantastic ideas, but sadly the Switch version specifically is currently too graphically compromised.

My Time at Sandrock is a potentially delightful farming and crafting-based life simulator – but unfortunately, your time at Sandrock on Switch is a little half-baked for now, but has promise if updates can bring it up to speed.

A decent multiplayer time-waster hamstrung by technical issues, Skyforge's Switch port is simply not fit for purpose.

Kingdom Hearts is a beautiful, classic series that I would recommend to anyone. However, the Cloud version suffers severe performance issues, server congestion, and a level of restriction that sucks the appeal out of playing it on Switch. If you can, pick it up elsewhere - you’ll be grateful you did.

While acting as a steady starting point for kids who can’t tell their Pac-Men from their Space Invaders, Pac-Man World Re-Pac is a remaster that struggles to make itself feel necessary, with no improvements outside of graphics and mechanics to enhance the original Pac-Man World’s formula. There’s some fun to be had, but perhaps not enough to warrant a remaster when including a port of the PS1 title in a collection might have made more sense.

Roller Drama provides a short experience that gets your wheels turning, but has a couple of bumps in the road. I recommend it for those of you who want to play roller derby from the comfort of your own home.

In its current state, Football Manager 26 Touch is difficult to play, as I experienced countless UI issues and more crashes than you’d expect from an Apple Arcade launch. The improved visuals are a great touch, but this game’s bread and butter is how well its menus work, and at the time of writing, I can’t help but feel disappointed.

Curse of the Sea Rats is a truly beautiful Metroidvania-like, with stunning, hand-drawn characters, a charming story, and an intriguing world. Unfortunately, its sluggish controls and input delay hold it back, making this swash-buckling bonanza feel more punishing than it needs to be.

Super Mario Party Jamboree's Nintendo Switch 2 Edition adds very little to the already incredible base game, and the Jamboree TV expansion is filled with gimmicky, lackluster game modes with the occasional nugget of gold thrown in.

Tales of the Shire has a lot to do in a sleepy, cozy way, from foraging to farming to cooking up elevenses and second breakfasts. I tried to play as much as I could, but the performance on Nintendo Switch saps the magic out of it and really dampens the fun.

This may have been something on Nintendo consoles, but it has far stiffer competition on mobile. Not the best.

Seven Knights foray into Switch territory has resulted in a JRPG that just doesn't fit well on the big screen, with technical and mechanical limitations marring a surprisingly fun, if basic, combat system.

Azur Lane: Crosswave boasts some gorgeous artwork, but the combat system and dialogue need work. Unfortunately, using sexy battleships in combat just isn’t for everyone.

Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion struggles under the weight of ambition, while also needlessly playing to as many people as possible. It all blends together in a painfully dull experience that feels as murky as it looks. While some mech action and unique mechanics make it at least interesting, it’s a mediocre time that I would only recommend to die-hard fans or those who wait for a deep sale.

A gorgeous fantasy Metroidvania with a lot of promise, let down by its repetitive combat and bewildering story.

Detective Pikachu Returns brings you back to Ryme City to solve crimes once again. While there’s a cute story and some light-hearted fun, the visual quality and price of the game let it down.

Underneath its unique plot device, Elrentaros Wanderings is a fairly standard JRPG, with interesting build mechanics but a severely lacking overworld and overarching story.

Despite its charming presentation, Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon is an undercooked roguelike dungeon crawler with poor combat and pacing.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated is a blast from the past, like standing on some unexploded ordnance, or the interest that accrues on an unpaid parking ticket.

SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-off looks fantastic, but even the presentation can't distract from a lack of genuine gameplay.

Despite a few somewhat interesting battle elements, Lost Crusade is let down by its strict adherence to the mobile base-building formula.

Sea of Solitude is a game with a lot to say, though it struggles to impart its familiar lessons in an engaging way.

There is a good game buried somewhere in Lego 2K Drive, but it’s not here yet. Fun racing mechanics, a large world, and great characters prop up this release, and kids are sure to have a blast. But dire Switch performance and a litany of monetization methods in a full-price release mean that parents should keep this well away from their kids. If you’re desperate to play it, buy it on PS5, otherwise, buy Mario Kart folks.

Despite its chill and charm, SkateBird fails to capture the basic essence of a skateboarding game, leaving you wanting something more.

It's a good casual choice that can be played one handed in portrait mode, with your thumb simply weaving your car through traffic. There are a wide variety of modes within this basic gameplay--you could be chasing someone, running away, or racing against a timer--but they all amount to either avoiding or hitting certain other cars. You also get different vehicles that handle somewhat differently, and a number of tracks with minor variations. As a casual game, it didn't grab me, but it might be worth checking out if an arcade racer appeals to you.

Advance Wars fans looking for a fix could do much worse, as could anyone else looking for a game that balances the simple and the cerebral.

The Magnificent Pixel Dynasty isn’t a case where more is better, or even a case where more is unobtrusive—rather, these half-baked mechanics that have been bolted onto the same construction toy as All Glory to the Pixel King! only serve to detract from the core experience that lays at the heart of both games.

The game translates a board game of the same name which itself borrowed very heavily from Kingsburg, a well-regarded Euro. Like the joke, there’s very little about the result which is original, and the new expectations created by the digital format create requirements it fails to satisfy.

In a complex genre where games like Unity of Command and Battle of the Bulge are like precision-engineered Gothic cathedrals, Russian Front comes across like a Las Vegas one-hour wedding chapel. It seems to have the basic form and function of an operational war game down, but it’s missing the nuance and subtlety of a truly good one.

As negative as I’ve been about it, Arcane Magic isn’t far from being a pretty good game. Its card mechanics are an interesting idea, but there’s just nothing of substance underneath it.

The lack of many of the features that we have become accustomed to makes for a disappointing and frustrating experience.

The rogueish elements can't make up for shallow gameplay in the other parts of Dead Age. The combat is dull and long, the survival elements are simplistic, and the story is predictable. The gameplay often doesn't fit the theme, and it is poorly optimized, although occasionally beautiful.

Part of the problem is that, though the characters are pretty interestingly varied, with a variety of effects on movement, action points, damage of different types, teleportation, an array of summoning abilities, healing, and board control, there's a substantial element of linear design.

A decent game that doesn’t make enough of an effort to stand out in any way.

This precision 3D platformer does not work with mobile controls. One control option has you using the gyro in the phone to control your view, which is precise, but awkward if you're in a space where you can't move around. The other option is touch only, but doesn't give you easy access to all of your abilities. If you have a controller, give it a try, but it’s not worth the hard drive space otherwise.

In the time I spent with this game, the hardest part was the fiddly controls—it took a while to figure out that with some care I could control the size of the platforms created by pinching my fingers ever so slowly. The puzzles themselves weren't challenging at all.

While the design is cool and the gameplay enjoyable enough, I Hate This Place is nearly unplayable on my Nintendo Switch, making it impossible to recommend to players on this console, especially at a price tag of $30.

For all its pretension about history, Spirit of War is a disappointingly generic experience that could be set in any time period. Even on an App Store that’s chronically short of hex-based tactical games, it’s not particularly noteworthy.

A3: Still Alive is a confused mess of a game that doesn't do anything particularly well.

It is difficult to recommend The Frostrune to anyone but die-hard mobile adventure gamers and/or people with a passion for Norse mythology.

Regicide features impressive animations of Orks and Space Marines blowing each other to bloody chunks, but is fatally bug-ridden and lacks a strategic core.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure twists and distorts the well-loved series into something almost unrecognizable, playing on fans’ nostalgia to sell a half-baked story with terrible graphical performance.

The lack of content undermines the feeling of exploring beyond the final frontier and the limp combat is an awkward step back from the elegant Ace Patrol.

While Hex Mechs has some good elements to it, ultimately it isn’t enough to make up for sloppy QA, mediocre art and some very quirky design flaws.

Punch Club might have worked better as a card game, or with the immediacy of a visual novel interface.

Quest of Dungeons feels like the barebones of a rougelike game – a stripped down, uneventful, tedious affair. It works and functions perfectly fine, but it is so inoffensive and safe in its execution, that that ends up being its biggest crime.

If you played and enjoyed Aralon: Sword and Shadow then this game is more of the same with a better UI. In any other case, there are much better RPGs available for the iPad.

RPS Saga, if nothing else, shows that jan-ken-pon is best left as a mini-game within a larger game. There is just not enough here to enjoy, and frustrating AI hampers what little there is on show.

An obscure and dull system has drained this all-American pasttime of joy. If you are a devout fan of baseball, slavish repetition or Kairosoft's other works, try the game. Everyone else should stay away.

It’s not a terrible game by any means, but it is uninspired. Made all the more frustrating by the cleverness of the CARROT apps that preceded it.

Super Meat Boy Forever is particularly frictionless on mobile. Combine this with its punishing difficulty and aged aesthetic and it just feels a little out of place, out of time. It’s a struggle to have a good time with it.

Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound and Debriefed on Switch is an odd little title with some really unique and interesting ideas, but overall falls short with its visuals, combat, and clunky controls.

Its market price is less than a hamburger at McDonalds, which is a good deal for a pretty polished and lengthy, if generic, RPG. The in-app purchases, currencies and crafting are ignorable if that's not your bag. Ultimately, though, it’s just too uninteresting to seriously recommend. It's only worth playing if you've somehow already ploughed through all the hundreds of hours of far better JRPG experiences out there.

In the end, some nice visuals and a little deduction can't save a basic gameplay idea that's just too random. Overall, there's not enough deduction and bluffing added to the Battleship formula, leaving the game with a frustrating random feel.

Simogo are capable of making extraordinary things, but this isn’t one of them. The name “The Sailor’s Dream”, it turns out, is apt. Like a dream, this an experience you’ll forget all about soon after leaving it.

AEW Fight Forever on Nintendo Switch has such promise thanks to a fun career mode and unique match-types, but poor performance, dated graphics, and stale gameplay all come together to create a trying experience.

A quick-fire RTS held back by a lack of depth and the inevitable F2P grind. Some smart ideas that hold promise.

Railway Empire 2 is almost definitely a good game on any other platform. But for the same price as beefier competitors, you can get it in a version that looks three decades old. And you wouldn’t know it until you bought it. That sucks.

Space Age loves its endless inane cutscenes a lot more than you will, and it tops them off with a completely discordant endgame boss that fulfills Space Age’s cinematic aspirations while throwing the game bits out the airlock.

It’s basically grinding for 8+ hours with nothing to really show for it and, unlike its forebear, doesn’t even have the humor to hold your interest all the way through

The Detail is often nice to look at, but it’s a game that most adventure fans can safely skip.

Lack of variation in missions and unit's abilities make Battlevoid: Sector Siege just too boring for anyone but hardcore fans of the franchise.

Corto Maltese is a visually diverse, moderately well-designed adventure which simply fails in a few key areas.

The most interesting lesson Pentaction: Medieval has taught me is that there are some game mechanics I genuinely like which respond poorly to refinement.

The biggest issue, outside of the odd UI hiccup and impenetrable mechanical logic, is that TITP pretends to offer a scathing commentary about the human condition, but it’s bite is toothless.

Sheeping Around looks the part, but sadly the game turns out to be as dull as you would expect for a game based on an animal that stands around in a field all day chewing grass.

A tired, lackluster, and watered-down riff on the Alien series that finds players swapping from camera to camera guiding crew members through a xenomorph-ravaged space station.

Colt Express is a well-designed, fun game that is destroyed by a poor online multiplayer experience.

Devotees of the console strategy RPG style of Fire Emblem may find a lot to like in Parthia 3 and its prequels, especially those disappointed by Nintendo's limited Fire Emblem: Heroes. This series was created by someone with a lot of love for a very particular kind of game. Now that the creator is freed of this obsession, I hope his next project can find the audience it deserves.

Grimoire of Souls is a mindless hack and slash title that promises so much, yet delivers so little. The franchise has certainly seen better moments.

Oddly charming, perhaps nostalgic, but pretty shallow and filled with free-to-play shenanigans.

Limited tactical options and offensive IAP structure kills what could have been an interesting mobile alternative to roguelike deck builders like Slay the Spire.

Because of the use of monetization shenanigans, that feels like a deliberate attempt to push players to be more committed to the game so that, when their carefully-developed Dice Monster expertise no longer avails them, they’ll shell out for some extra boosts. It’s like the twist ending of Frankenstein, in which you discover that the real monster is the creator.

It's easy and glacially paced. I could see the gameplay becoming more challenging later on: Don't Bug Me requires constant action since your towers quickly decay and you always have to jump into the fray yourself. It's not a set-it-and-forget-it TD game. For now, though, it takes too long to unlock new towers and enemies and the early levels are quite dull.

From the perspective of a licensor, Coup is just about the perfect iOS adaptation: it’s polished, with some genuinely interesting value added (including probably my favorite game art in memory and a satisfying achievement system), and introduces the game very well without making a physical copy seem superfluous.

It’s a marvelous structure, easily allowing players to learn the game’s basics and discover whether the interface suits them better than it did me.

As it is now Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n.apk feels like a simple cash grab piggybacking of the show’s popularity instead of something with actual time and effort put into it.

While the campaigns are nostalgic and fun to revisit, the Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection is largely disappointing. The multiplayer mess feels inexcusable, robbing players of the basic fundamentals of a Star Wars multiplayer game. Not being able to finish matches due to crashes, struggling to even get into a game, and a lack of servers make this one of the worst multiplayer experiences I’ve had for some time.

It should be immediately evident to anyone who plays or even looks at the game what an incredible effort went into making it. Unfortunately, the tedious and frustrating nature of many of its puzzles undermine the considerable charm State of Play cultivated through their craftsmanship.

The idea of a video game tied to a concept album has potential. Unfortunately, The Astonishing Game doesn’t deliver on that potential. The decision to implement it as a board game rather than a role-playing game limits many creative options. Even so, I would have liked to see a more engaging storyline or more meaningful ties between the story and the gameplay mechanics.

If this was a 20-30 minute game, maybe, but clocking in at over 2 hours and not being able to save is a death sentence. Knowing that the odds are stacked against finishing a game doesn’t give me much incentive to start one.

Only for a player who can only tolerate simulated standard cards and no opponents would this seem ideal, and it pains me to imagine there are many such people.

Biomutant’s vibrant, post-apocalyptic setting simply does not translate to the Nintendo Switch. Pair this with convoluted combat, shallow morality systems, and a suspect blending of Asian cultures, and you get a very unenjoyable gameplay experience.

A shocking mishandling of three beloved classics, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition on Switch is a poorly ported mess of frame rate drops, popping, ugly characters, and bad decisions. Time to dust off the PS2.

Sports Story is essentially unplayable in its current form, with issues such as softlocking, out-of-bounds areas, and perpetual crashing. Outside of the technical issues, much of the mechanics and story feel disappointing too, with the tongue-in-cheek humour still present but struggling to breathe among the various issues. The disappointment is real with this one.

Unfortunately, Bright Memory: Infinite is swarming with bugs and performance issues that severely impact the gameplay experience, which in itself has a couple of issues thanks to some questionable gunplay mechanics. However, the game is a decent length, features a decent story, and has the makings to be a good shooter should the various problems be addressed.