The Bradwell Conspiracy does a lot of good, though. It introduces us into a relatively interesting story, opens up what could be a great mechanic for future games, and creates a character you’re invested in even though you’re never invested in your own at all. I wished for more the entire time and I very much am interested in a second game if there should be one. It’s a basis of a good game but that’s all it ever lives up to as the game is neither long nor varied. Puzzles and platformer aspects get stale far too quickly and I feel it relies too heavily on Amber which gives your own character just the status of Tool #6428.

While it's well-written and even genuinely funny in places, Congresswolf ends up heavily emphasizing the 'congress' at the expense of the 'wolf'. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but with the game leaning hard on the campaign management, that element has to carry the overall experience. Unfortunately, pulling out a victory over your opponent ends up lacking in challenge, leaving it all feeling rather empty. Maybe it's just as well, though. Who could ever believe a story about politicians who are secretly monsters?

If you have Netflix it doesn’t cost you anything to try the game, and if you’re a fan of the show and somehow aren’t that familiar with chess, I encourage you to give it a shot. Queen’s Gambit Chess will assuredly teach you how to play the game, so if that is what you’re looking for you’re all set. But it will only take you so far, choosing to show you what to do instead of teaching you what to do. Experienced chess players will probably find it a bit unsatisfying overall thanks to the low level of difficulty and excessive handholding. Throw in some fairly serious technical issues in the current version that deeply affects multiplayer and you’ve got a game that struggles to find its own winning move.

Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4 originally came out eight years ago, and I imagine at the time it might have been nice to see any signs of life from the series. But since we’re this many years down the road without any follow-up, there’s no need to pretend this has any chance of being a Hail Mary that saves Ty and brings us the game we really want. This is a thoroughly average 2D platformer in every sense of the word, and while my mind can conjure up far worse things, I still can’t recommend this with any vigor at all.

The controls can be a point of frustration.

Cryptic Keep is good, but not great. For adventure fans looking for a fix, it may provide some entertainment, but there's something about it that feels a bit generic.

I appreciate a lot about 8bit Doves: I just know it needs a lot more to be the best game it can be.

No Umbrellas Allowed is a great game that is let down by interface issues and performance issues on Nintendo Switch. The font size forced me to play it entirely on the monitor I have on my desk when docked on Nintendo Switch and the constant hitching gave me motion sickness. I hope these can be resolved because No Umbrellas Allowed is a game I recommend, but with big caveats on Switch.

If you actually burn through every monthly Kemco release, this one will do you just fine, as it's hardly their worst effort, but if you're sitting there trying to pick between this and a few others you've missed, you're probably safe to give Rusted Emeth a pass.

Roping Rob is a simple game, with basic yet strangely appealing graphics. There's a fair amount of entertainment provided, with replay value if you choose to better your own level completion times.

Superfrog HD isn't a bad platformer, but it's not a very good one, either.

I think if you are okay with a pure grind, Elrentaros Wanderings might not turn you off the way it did me. But if you have even the slightest allergy to excessive banality, then this game is likely to have you heading for the hills. Its few good ideas are squandered by watering down the broth too much, stretching far too little content far too far. Not without any merit, but thoroughly disappointing.

There are some decent ideas in here if you can tolerate its fundamentals being so sloppy, like being able to add bits to your sword to improve it. But none of those ideas matter all that much when it just isn’t enjoyable to play.

While God Damn the Garden is affordable and isn’t completely without merit, I didn’t find it enjoyable at all to play. Irritating, perhaps. Frustrating, definitely. I know it has its fans, but I just can’t see any reality or circumstances where I would recommend buying or playing this over similarly affordable games on the eShop like DOOM or QUAKE. Yes, even if you’ve played those a million times before.

Overall, the game feels like a series of mediocre mini-games tied together by scenes from the original movie.

Word Laces does good things. The difficulty is perfect, the images are all high quality, there are no bugs that I’ve seen, and it does entertain at first. Unfortunately, the grind in the game is unreal and the lack of variety makes it less fun the more you play it. The game has its strong points and would be great for helping children learn spelling and vocabulary, but for the general public it’s just not good enough.

My understanding is that The Barbarian was made by a one-man team. That's very impressive, of course, but it doesn't change the actual game, which falls short in a few too many ways to give it a solid recommendation.

The idea of a mini RPG is a good one, and perhaps Kemco can find some gold in these hills with a bit more experimentation. Archlion Saga feels like a step along that road at best, and unless you really need a way to fill a few hours mindlessly, it's one you can pass up on without much regret.

What's there is fun, but at five dollars it's difficult to support Sega's apparent decision to treat Virtua Tennis Challenge as an afterthought.

It's not that it's a thoroughly bad game. In its own right it could have been a decent endless runner, as the visuals are sharp and the concept is sound. Yet it unequivocally fails to earn a place in the Zaxxon canon, and with only one game mode and a greedy in-app store, it struggles to demonstrate its value as a standalone title.

Kingdoms: Merge & Build is technically more interesting than, like, counting spots on the ceiling or twiddling your thumbs, but just barely. It comes off very much like a free-to-play game that has made a couple of tweaks to fit the Apple Arcade rules, and those changes end up squeezing out what little mechanical engagement the game likely had to offer. The story and characters don’t help matters, either. Just a dud all around.

There are lots of ways this could be a game that I'd want to recommend to others, but right now, the only thing I can truly say about my feelings on this game is that it's not worth it.

Hatsune Miku – The Planet Of Wonder And Fragments Of Wishes is a game I recommend on a big discount if you like Miku. I try to play just about every Hatsune Miku game I can across platforms, and Hatsune Miku – The Planet Of Wonder And Fragments Of Wishes would’ve been easier to recommend if it cost about half of what it does and didn’t have a constant scrolling issue. As a short adventure game for Miku fans, it gets the job done, but the asking price makes it a non starter right now.

I wish those middle sections were strong enough for me to recommend Demon Mark in spite of its slow beginning and disappointing end, because I absolutely love the idea of this one. When the story is reveling in its source material, it was almost enough to push the needle in that direction. But when a game's interactivity depends entirely on player choice, it's the rare game that can gracefully handle disregarding said choices. Outsmarting Baba Yaga might be a lot of fun, but that lack of proper agency, especially in the ending, is why Demon Mark misses its own mark.

Skylanders: Ring of Heroes is a solid turn-based RPG, but it’s quite clearly a Summoners War skin slapped onto a familiar franchise for a very transparent reason.

With a lot of great RPGs on the Switch to choose from, Mato Anomalies really shouldn’t be on anyone’s radar. That’s unfortunate, because there are a lot of promising elements here that could have added up to something neat. Execution is key, however, and that is where Mato Anomalies seems to fail in every category. Even without the significant performance issues, the underlying design flaws result in something that I really can’t recommend to anyone except those who enjoy picking apart misfires.

If you're just a pinball fan, go ahead and load up Haunted House again. There's not enough new here to make it worth dealing with the hassle of the token system and its absurd wait times.

This is a less than stellar package of two less than stellar games. Those who aren’t fussy about emulation accuracy can probably find some fun with Radical Rex‘s 16-bit version, but there’s practically nothing good to say about the game in its Game Boy form as presented here. More of a Dubious Dino than a Radical Rex.