Monkey Flight 2 is a very repetitive game, and you'll pretty well have seen everything the game is ever going to throw at you by the third or fourth level.

A nice little casual game that does a good job of filling the role of a title offering short bursts of quick gameplay with not much else. The combination of platforming and endless running, while not particularly innovative, still provides a good gameplay experience when combined with its somewhat randomized engine.

Pac-Man World Re-PAC isn’t rendered unplayable by these performance problems, but they do mar an experience that needed all the shining up it could get to help make it palatable to newcomers. If you can look past the quirks of the original game’s design, if you can overlook the obvious technical issues, and if you can ignore the fact that you can find a lot of better 3D platformers on Switch at this price or lower, you will likely get some fun out of this release. It really should have been better, though.

Sparkle is great if only to rekindle some of that Zuma nostalgia right in the palm of your hand.

StoryBlocks: The King would probably be a decent time on a platform where you can use the mouse controls it was clearly designed for. Over here on Switch, more care needed to be taken to make the game comfortable to play on a controller. Nothing the game does is especially worth the agitation of merely trying to perform the basic functions of the gameplay. Shame, as it seems like it would otherwise be an enjoyable, chill puzzler.

So here's the scoop: if you've played Saving Yello and you want to know if this semi-sequel is fun, yeah, it's fun. It's a very different sort of game, but it's a blast.

The biggest problem with Royal Frontier is in its difficulty curve. Once you’ve unlocked some of the better perks, and you inevitably will, it gets really hard to lose. You’ll be swimming in useful items and abilities to the point that rolling over its three worlds is a trifle. A bit of a sloggy trifle, but a trifle nonetheless. With how low the asking price is, it’s hard to feel too upset over how soon it all unravels. But unravel it does. With how stiff the competition is in this genre, it’s hard to recommend this one with much zeal.

Miss Kobayashi fans should enjoy the game, unless they really dislike the genre. It does the brand justice, and has lots of little bits fans will appreciate a lot. And if you happen to be both a shooter fan and a fan of the series, then you don’t need to listen to me at all. You’ll probably be fairly happy with what you get here. If you don’t fall into any of those categories, nothing this game does is going to change your mind.

There's enough content to keep players engaged, and the loot system works well in keeping you coming back to try and find a better piece of equipment.

In the end, Jar on a Bar is a classic case of a puzzler with decent ideas hampered by some implementation choices.

If you can accept its scope, accept that it falls short of its intentions almost as often as it realizes them, there is something in Monark to enjoy. The way it explores the ideas of personality traits and the dangers of excesses can be very intriguing, and the combat can be satisfying for a while. The localization is solid, with some sharp bits of writing here and there. And yes, there is just enough of a whiff of Persona about it that it might at least lightly scratch the itch for more Atlus-ish RPG enjoyment. But one can’t help but wonder what this could have been if the developers had had more resources to play with.

Though the context-sensitive controls should work well, we felt that they haven't been executed as well as they could have.

Zombie Puzzle Panic is a very polished clone of Candy Crush Saga that has a few of its own ideas, but still ends up feeling almost exactly like the target of its flattery.

In the end, what matters most is whether that feeling of tension and enjoyment exists when you're playing against another person. I'd have to say that yes, Battle Planes does just hit that horizon.

The awkward depth perception and control issues, as well as the overall brevity of the game, aren't enough to completely mar the experience of Helium Boy, and it can actually be pretty fun as long as you have a bit of patience and aren't expecting too much from it.

The production values, the characters, the environments, the controls (if you use them)--it’s all basically perfect. Those first five minutes were really amazing.

For a free game, it's quite player-friendly even if you don't pay anything, and you'll likely get a few laughs out of it, but in its current form, it falls into the troublesome category of sessions requiring a bit too much time and concentration to cram into short slices, yet being too repetitive and capricious to satisfy for longer sit-downs.

Despite all my gripes and nit-picking, I enjoyed Garden of Fear. Its pace fluctuates from intense to idle a little too often and the controls demand an overhaul, but players able to look past those flaws will find a brief and moody horror experience set at a fair asking price.

Split/Second isn't a must have but may appeal to those looking for a different and far more arcade-y racing experience.

I’m gonna be honest: I don’t know how many people in our readership are going to go for a free-to-play kart racing RPG. Especially one that’s pretty generic in it’s racing and RPG-ing. Here’s the thing, though. KKRacing’s actually really fun.

I think some people out there are going to really connect with God of Rock and love it to pieces, but I regretfully won’t be one of them. Even after spending a lot of time with the game I couldn’t get comfortable with it, and playing on the handheld screen with the tiny note board is just not a fun time. I think a lot of effort and thought went into this experimental game design, especially towards making it a satisfying multiplayer game, and it shows. But in the end, I don’t think the developer was able to make this recipe come together.

As top-down racers go, it’s okay. Not great, but it’s functional. There are lots of races, and some interesting multiplayer features for those with local buddies to play with. The extra data afforded by the CD format wasn’t exactly put to stellar use, and the presentation is rather unimpressive on the whole. Adding some awkward-to-use weapons to the Super Spring format doesn’t do a ton for the experience, and this is nowhere near other contemporary racers like R.C. Pro-Am or Rock ‘n Roll Racing. Not the most striking of starts for Ratalaika’s foray into the PC Engine library. Let’s hope better things await.

If you love Japanese-style strategy RPGs, don't mind if they're pretty easy, and have an excess of time, Legna Tactica is a well-constructed enough facsimile to keep you busy for a little while.

Phoenix Spirit is a cool game of exploration, filled with well drawn pixel art, immersive music, and a neat game concept that any fan of Metroidvania side-scrollers shouldn't miss.

Deep Space has a few cool ideas that help put its nose a little above the water, but it’s a hard game to recommend with much enthusiasm. This is a very well-trodden genre, one where it takes a lot to really stand out. Deep Space just doesn’t have that zing, and in the end it becomes hard to stick with it for very long.

There’s a certain basic joy to the whole affair, and some of the unlockable characters are weird and funny. But the game shows most of its hand really early, making the later stages start to feel a bit repetitive. Given how little there is on the bone to begin with here, it’s easy to get tired of To the Top, Mammoth!. It also feels very much like it is structured around a grind, making clear its origins as a free-to-play mobile game. Good for a bit of idle entertainment now and then, but it doesn’t quite have what it takes for longer-term thrills.

In the end, it’s still a very solid game, and it’s totally free.

If you love ramen and have been waiting for a sim that captures all of the spills and thrills of running your own chain of shops, well, you might as well bite on The Ramen Sensei because I somehow doubt anyone's going to be doing it better than this.