Punch Kick Duck is a blast to play, and a wonderful treat for the eyes and ears. It’s great to see Shaun Coleman take on another genre and put his unique spin on it, and the results are as good as I could have hoped. I hope our paths intertwine again in another ten years so I can see what he does with the single-screen platformer genre or something. For now, I’ll just keep enjoying this great slice of beat-em-up action. Perhaps you should, too.

If you are looking for a fine strategy sim game with enough depth to challenge but not too much to irritate, look no further than Rebuild 3.

Apart from some mild unpleasantness with some of the secrets that involved juggling items, I can’t really find anything negative to say about Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Toils. If you like platformers, pick it up. You’ll have a fantastic time with it, I’m virtually certain. The mark of a great platformer comes from how good it feels to play, and this is among the best of them.

At its core, Legend of the Skyfish is just a game with a winning premise that its developers cultivated into reaching as much of its potential as possible. I could see where future content or sequels could expand the breadth of actions you can undertake with your magical fishing pole, sure. But this game right now is a joyous experience worth checking out.

I would have unequivocally recommended Darkside if it cost any reasonable amount. However, considering you can download it for free, you have no excuse not to check out this most excellent arcade shooter.

It's nice to see developers using touch controls in new and innovative ways, especially when it involves car chases, 360 degree burn-outs, ramming, and slow motion vehicle smashes.

With plenty of depth, replayability and a great melding of genres, there's plenty to check out and enjoy.

Resident Evil 7 biohazard on iPhone 15 Pro is Capcom’s best conversion yet in the series, but it isn’t perfect. A bit more optimization would go a long way, but this is finally a game I can recommend on iPhone without big caveats. It is even good to play with touch controls now, but something like a Backbone or Razer Kishi will give you the best experience. I also love being able to take my progress to my MacBook Air and continue playing there. Resident Evil 7 biohazard gives me hope that we might see a similarly performing port for Resident Evil 2 Remake whenever that arrives on iPhone 15 Pro. Until then, this is Capcom’s best Resident Evil port on iPhone by a big margin, and Resident Evil 7 biohazard itself is an excellent entry in the amazing series.

It's hard not to love Lili. Like the character, the game can be obnoxious at times. But it's so pretty, so well-written, so cleverly designed on the whole that complaining feels a lot like nitpicking.

Premium arcade games with no IAP are as much of a rarity as ever these days. These developers have created an engaging and destruction filled game full of cool stuff to collect, kill, and become. Rebel Twins seems to continue improving with every game, and they deserve the price of admission. If you liked the first one, give this a shot for the variety it brings to the old formula, and if you haven’t played it, feel free to jump in. I’d still recommend playing both, honestly. Great mostly-mindless action fun.

Sprout: Idle Garden is fun and casual rather than all-consuming. Yes, I want to get that next flower that seems unobtainable… but I also want to do a complete redesign, so maybe that takes precedence. Or I want to stay away from my phone all day to spend time with family, and return to a boatload of cash and an option to triple it for watching an ad: score! As an added bonus, the game has an active Discord community! With 600+ members, the community (which is linked to in-game) is quite active which absolutely has an impact on the game experience as a whole.

So, Telltale has another hit on its hands, and as long as you have even the slightest interest in the character of Michonne, you should definitely be playing this miniseries.

Only you can know if you can be satisfied by such a brief encounter. If you can, Windosill is fantastic. It's gorgeous, playful and feels like it was born to be played on a touch screen. But I wouldn't blame you if the brevity is just too much.

Blot blows most of its competition out of the water with style alone. It's delightful, plain and simple, and when given the choice between equally solid games, I'll take the one that delights me any day.

The Last Warlock is a fantastic bit of medicine for anyone who has grown a little weary of the norm in this genre, and a breath of fresh air even if you haven't.

It took me a few hours to get through the main stages, and I still have things to collect and missions to complete, to say nothing of the Endless and Boss Endurance modes. At any rate, it's free to at least give it a shot, and if you like what you play and you're still hesitant about handing over that buck for the full game unlock, let me assure you: Ninjin delivers, and then some.

Ultimately, Dimension Shellshock extends Shredder’s Revenge in some smart ways, with some new characters to master and a highly-replayable new mode to enjoy. Sure, I’d love to see more characters and full-sized stages, but this is more than good enough to hold me over until what I hope is an inevitable sequel. Personally, I think it’s worth it just for either the new characters or the great survival mode, but both? Yes, that’s a win.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure finishes filling in a critical gap in the series, and it does so with style. This twelve-year old game has been given a little extra spit polish in the transition to Switch, helping a great game shine its brightest. Taken together with Trails from Zero, this is one of the strongest RPG experiences you can get on the Nintendo Switch and is arguably still the high point of the Trails series today.

The controls work well once you've mastered them and it's a blast to swipe a variety of shots, making the opponent run around the screen, just like I used to on the Xbox.

Radiant Tale is another excellent otome release from Aksys Games, and while it isn’t as good as Jack Jeanne (few in the genre come close), it is worth your time with how uplifting it feels with its memorable characters and story. Not only is it gorgeous, but this aesthetic absolutely shines on the OLED screen in handheld mode.

It's strange how liberating working through the puzzles feels. Over time, I've grown accustomed to looking things up when I can't quite figure out a puzzle in a game.

So, if you enjoy puzzle games, hidden object games, crime-solving games, or all of the above mixed in one, I have just the right number of dead bodies for you.

If you're a Deus Ex fan who was upset that the new game is mobile only, I still think it's worth giving a chance, and you might be pleasantly surprised. Impressions in our forums have been overwhelmingly positive, and for all future top-tier action games on iOS, the bar has been set high with the release of Deus Ex: The Fall.

Bakeru is a highly endearing little 3D platformer, one with a well-polished design and lots of fun ideas to spice things up during its relatively lengthy adventure. It really commits to its bit, and that part of it is almost infectious. Some framerate issues keep this from being all it could be on Switch, and I think people who come into this expecting Goemon are going to be disappointed by the fact that it’s not even trying to be that, but otherwise this is a highly-recommended title to close out your summer with.

Beneath the Lighthouse has a mesmerizing presentation coupled with easy to use controls and interesting levels.

Having now played Kingdom Eighties with its latest updates on iOS, Switch, and Steam Deck, it absolutely delivered in its promise of being a story-based expansion to the world of Kingdom. I was interested thanks to the setting, but the team nailed almost everything about this across its aesthetic, music, and story. The lack of co-op will no doubt be disappointing for some though, and I wish it ran without the few scrolling issues I encountered. Barring that, I have no issues recommending Kingdom Eighties at its current asking price. I hope the team builds on this setting for a future mainline game though.

Where the original at times felt like a nicely implemented tech demo, King Cashing 2 is an excellent game in its own right, improving on nearly every facet over the original and well worth checking out.

In the end, Shovel Knight Dig checks off two boxes for me: the desire for a Shovel Knight-ish experience on my iPhone, and the desire for more games like Downwell. It’s not flawless by any means, but it’s a great game with a lot of things going for it. I’m truly impressed with how well Nitrome was able to adapt the essence of Shovel Knight into such a different format without losing the satisfying elements of the pineapple and pen it was trying to smash together.