Control is one of Remedy Entertainment’s greatest achievements. As a shooter, it’s lovingly satisfying to play, as all of its mechanics mesh to create a slick, supernatural explosion of paranormal powers and eclectic gunplay. Combine that with open-ended exploration and the package is nearing excellence. So it’s a shame the narrative can be needlessly muddled, stewing at a slow pace before rocketing towards a conclusion that sadly doesn’t feel earned in the slightest.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a triumphant RPG experience and one of the greatest games you can play on Nintendo Switch right now. It takes the series’ formula and propels it forward with some fascinating new changes, and every single system works in tandem to create something rather stunning. Technical blemishes aside, Intelligent Systems has really outdone itself here.

The usual Wolfenstein brilliance is here, and MachineGames have shown they’ve got a great handle on splattering fascists. They should be commended for being bold enough to take big risks here, and several of those risks have paid off, while those that haven’t only served to make the game a great deal weirder...Games as a medium would be better if risks like this were taken with more beloved games. It’s unlikely, with how expensive the whole AAA development scene is, but this is a glittering example of what can happen, despite its flaws.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is a budget reimagining of a fan-favourite series that fails to live up to the heights of that franchise. It plays and looks like a last-gen game, and it was a struggle to plow through the game, even for review purposes.

There’s so much to do, whether you’re tackling the lengthy solo campaign or playing alongside friends to stake your claim in this fantasy world. It’s also a worthwhile love letter to the long-running series, filled with adorable references and easter eggs hardcore fans will adore.

The Sinking City is a near-miss, and a unique foray into surivival horror. It doesn’t coddle you, and it certainly doesn’t do any hand-holding, which makes it a unique detective outing let down in its execution by a number of tiny flaws. A sequel that focuses on making cases less humdrum, and cuts back on the combat, could be a hell of an offering for devout fans of the detective genre. The game isn’t bad, but it’s hard to care about what you’re doing when many cases in The Sinking City are so banal.

Bring a couple of friends along for the ride and you’re really in for a treat.

Stage creation without a stylus can be a little clumsy on the Switch, and there isn’t quite as much creative freedom as there is with other game makers such as LittleBigPlanet, but this is still easily the best Mario Maker yet and an excellent entry point for the series thanks to the new story mode. Of course, success depends on the productivity of the online community, but Nintendo looks to have provided all the necessary tools and features for this sequel to reach its skyscraper potential.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night could be one of the biggest surprises this year. For Castlevania fans, this represents the best chance you’ll ever have to experience that franchise’s golden days. For everyone else, this game is a tightly paced and engaging explore-’em-up that will devour your attention span and reward you appropriately. If you can forgive the lack of polish, it’s hard not to recommend this, especially when it feels so satisfying to play.

F1 2019 is the best release in the series so far, but the iterative design of the franchise combined with Codemasters’ trademark care and attention for racing makes that perhaps unsurprising.

Takayuki Yagami is a charming lead who, alongside a strong supporting cast, carry this story to its gripping conclusion. However, the town of Kamurocho is beginning to show its age, and I can’t help but feel that other fans might feel the same way about its overly familiar layout and neverending stream of Yakuza. All that aside, Judgement is still a tremendously good time when it matters, and if SEGA continues to experiment like this, we’re in for a treat going forward.

Layers of Fear 2 is an enjoyable horror adventure, but rarely does anything new with the genre. I’ve seen it all before, and given the excellence of Bloober Team’s last project, this feels like a step backward in terms of both ambition and quality.

Rage 2 is one of the year’s most disappointing titles. However, the shooting is some of the best this generation when you’ve finally dedicated enough time to unlock different abilities and poured a couple of upgrades into one of the best shotguns in gaming. Unfortunately, the middle chapter is full to the brim with busywork that taints the entire experience. At one stage, I was spending 10 minutes driving for a five minute firefight before getting back in a car for another 10 minute drive and a stilted vehicular combat section. Shooter fans deserve better.

Team Sonic Racing is fun yet ultimately underwhelming kart racer. It’s innovative team-based mechanics can make the solo campaign a joy, but aren’t fleshed out enough to prevent things becoming repetitive. Combine that with finicky handling alongside performance issues and you’ve a package that fails to live up to what came before it. Although, given its budget launch price, hardcore Sonic fans could find something to love here.

For Total War fans, there’s lots here to enjoy. It’s the best historical Total War game since Shogun 2, and one of the finest this series has seen thus far. However, for those drawn in by the bombast and spectacle of Total War: Warhammer, this game can feel flat by comparison. Beautifully presented, this is a treat for history fans, but it might leave other players slightly cold. A step back for a franchise that felt on the edge of mainstream success, but series veterans will feel right at home.

This is a third-person experience worth embarking on, if only for the distinctive way it subverts mechanics we’ve grown so familiar with. You can also feed evil soldiers to hordes of rats with the press of a button, which is morbidly delightful in its own messed up way.

I wouldn’t recommend Iron Rain over Earth Defense Force 5, since it fails to deliver the distilled, charming experience I adore from the Sandlot series. That said, it makes some welcome advancements to the formula, with deep customisation features and plenty of loadouts to mess around with. It’s just a shame technical problems are so pronounced, even on the enhanced console. But, for fans of the series, this is worth a gander.

Days Gone has a couple of fantastic ideas, including the blockbuster horde battles that offer some of the most heart-pounding zombie spectacles I’ve seen yet. Unfortunately, these fantastic moments are fleeting, with generic missions, a messy story, and a plague of technical bugs holding back Days Gone from becoming a zombie-slaying classic.

Mortal Kombat 11 is yet another great entry in NetherRealm’s fighting series. The story mode is all too brief, but delivers a frantic action blockbuster that unashamedly hurls fan service all over the place, and is all the better for it. An increased focus on cosmetic loot and player customisation hasn’t come at the expense of excellent combat design, which feels tighter and more rewarding thanks to some subtle yet clever changes to what we know and love.

After a turbulent production, Clementine and The Walking Dead series have both been given the ending they deserve. Not all of Take Us Back lands smoothly, but the finale remains true to the tone of this season and delivers a satisfying conclusion that fans will be talking about for years to come.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is one of the best games to emerge this year, adding yet another masterpiece to FromSoftware’s formidable catalogue of grim, uncompromising experiences. Nearly every encounter feels like a nuanced session of cat-and-mouse as you dance alongside the enemy, culminating in a final act that leaves them in a puddle of their own defeat.

Yoshi’s Crafted World was a delight to play through, especially thanks to the stunning paper craft scenery. In terms of presentation, this as good as anything Nintendo has produced, which is an incredible accomplishment. Does Crafted World rank as one of the Switch’s best platformers? Not quite. This is a simple collectathon at heart that never really attempts to strive to be anything more. Children and those craving a cutesy cathartic adventure will love this new Yoshi entry, but those looking for a challenge are better off looking elsewhere.

The Division 2 is an excellent shared-world shooter and a how-to guide for big franchises looking to make a sequel.

Much like Resident Evil 7 before it, Devil May Cry 5 paves an impeccably exciting future for itself with new locations and characters that don’t just pull Capcom’s hack ‘n’ slasher into the modern generation, it kicks it through the door and throws away the key. Devil May Cry 5 isn’t perfect, but Hideaki Itsuno’s latest effort builds on what came before it while staying true to everything I love about Dante and friends. Consider my Devil Trigger thoroughly pulled.

A robust combat system, plentiful characters and a meaningful progression system combine to create a worthwhile fighter that I’d recommend checking out. It certainly isn’t the finest the genre has to offer, but it does more than enough to stand out.

Trials Rising isn’t going to set the world on fire, but it achieves what it sets out to do with aplomb. It’s a simple concept, executed with flair, and if that’s not worth applauding then what is?

Anthem is a strange flawed adventure with glimpses of greatness buried behind an abundance of obtuse design decisions. What so many players love about Bioware is here, but fragmented in such a way that it becomes unrecognisable...The core of Anthem – being its fearsome gunplay and angelic flight mechanics – are stellar, yet they’re held back by the mission structure that dictates them. Things could certainly improve with the introduction of deeper dungeons and endgame content, but right now Anthem is sadly underwhelming; a victim to the template it’s trying so hard to emulate.

Far Cry New Dawn is a worthy entry to the shooter franchise, but it’ll feel too familiar to fans, and not different enough to those who have been put off by the game’s most recent entries. It’s competently made, with flecks of dark humour and some great action sequences, but aside from a few interesting new mechanics and a fascinating new setting, Far Cry New Dawn is wider than it is deep, the kiss of death for shooter fans currently being swamped with new content.

I can’t help but feel that a bigger, better and arguably more ambitious vision of Crackdown 3 existed before this incarnation – one that would have made use of the cloud technology Microsoft so proudly boasted about only a few years ago. Now it feels like a pipedream, as we’re left with a serviceable yet forgettable world to explore.

‘Broken Toys’ does a great job of setting up what will hopefully be a thoroughly gripping finale. There are plenty of callbacks that diehard fans of the series will relish, but the emotional beats keep everything grounded. Minor visual quirks can sometimes take you out of the experience, but they’re not enough to derail your overall enjoyment of the episode.

A brutal vision of the future, Metro Exodus is a worthy reimagining of the subterranean shooter that brings it blinking into the light of modern gaming. While the open-world can grate, the story tells a story we don’t often get to experience in our heavily westernised shooter market, and it’s worth playing just for that. Metro Exodus‘ problems are the open-world shooter genre’s problems, but the title’s wins are unique. Metro Exodus may not be destined to become a classic, but expect a solid cult following to develop.

Apex Legends is the real deal. While it might not convert the PUBG faithful or fans of the candy coloured build-fest that is Fortnite, there’s no denying that Respawn’s latest effort is very special indeed...There are problems, and the balance issue that currently lets every character wade around like an unkillable superman is certainly something I want to see resolved, but the foundations of the game – detailed teamwork, slick movement and good weapons handling – are all present and correct. With two friends at your side, this could be one of the best free FPS games out there.

Wargroove is a faithful update of a classic strategy series and, despite some smart additions, never really achieves more than that. The competence is commendable, and this is a solid game that will keep strategy fans amused for a while. Unfortunately, the final third of the campaign suffers from huge difficulty issues, which are exacerbated by UI and UX problems. Broadly, I like Wargroove, but without the rosy tinge of nostalgia it’s hard to see why you would those desperate for cut-back strategy wouldn’t just opt for Into The Breach, instead.

Ace Combat 7 is, sadly, a decent game that never quite hits the same highs as the planes contained within. It rapidly becomes too samey, and the games mechanics aren’t really signposted enough, with you being catapulted into action with barely a mention of flight school.

The closing act left me in tears as revelations I’ve been waiting over 13 years for finally came to fruition. I’ve grown up with these characters and the myriad worlds they inhabit, and knowing this could be their final adventure is a bittersweet pill to swallow. Whether you’re a hardcore fan or a hesitant newcomer, there is an undeniable charm to Kingdom Hearts 3 that’s easy to fall in love with. And remember, may your heart be your guiding key.

Life is Strange 2 continues its streak of excellence with Roads, an episode that advances the story of Sean and Daniel Diaz with a series of brave, unpredictable events. While it fumbles when touching upon heavier political themes, the emotion at the core of this story succeeds, and is ultimately what matters the most.

Resident Evil 2 Remake is a survival horror triumph for Capcom. It translates the 1998 original onto modern hardware with an experience that feels fresh, exciting and absolutely terrifying to play. Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield deliver uniquely excellent campaigns who, despite clearly being cut from the same cloth, distinguish themselves enough to make this the definitive version of the beloved classic. It isn’t perfect, arguably confined by the blueprint it established more than 20 years ago, but as a recreation of the source material, it’s almost note perfect.

A flawed experience, yet boasts such as a commendable level of creativity amidst its restrictions that I was unusually smitten with it. The combat is repetitive, the visuals are sub-par and, sadly, there isn’t a lot of depth to many of its mechanics. However, the razor-sharp writing and sheer dedication to its universe allow Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture to craft one of Nintendo Switch’s most unique titles yet. I’m not sure I could wholeheartedly recommend it to the average player, but hardcore fans should certainly sign up.

Nintendo has once again brought one of its past console’s beloved exclusives to Switch with great effect, offering enhancements in the form of small visual tweaks and neat new mechanics.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the most refined Smash yet. There’s a ridiculous amount of content here and, if you’re a Smash Bros. fan you should absolutely buy this. Unfortunately, the game loses something when it’s about anything more than its core local multiplayer experience.

Ridiculous performance problems that I experienced only help compound a package that is enjoyable yet ultimately underwhelming.

Playing with buddies looting collapsed shopping centres and derelict towns is a blast and the robust crafting and character development mechanics are excellent. However, quests’ repetitive nature and a lack of human players filling the vast world can make Fallout 76 feel a little sterile and hamper its long-term appeal, especially if you don’t have friends to accompany you on your journey through the wasteland. This makes Fallout 76 a good, not great, entry into the iconic franchise.

Toys for Bob has done an excellent job translating the lovable dragon’s adventures to modern platforms, building upon the original outings with brave new additions.

It’s a real treat to finally see Taiko no Tatsujin make a splash in the West, with Drum ‘n’ Fun delivering a faithful and fun package for arcade purists, while being a title I’d happily recommend to casual Nintendo Switch owners.

Miyazaki also describes his latest work as “a quiet game for VR”, and again it’s an appropriate view. There are none of the scares or action you’d find in a Souls game. Instead it’s a game about sedate exploration and creeping chills. Not all of the experiments or ideas pay off, but the ones that do make for an absorbing ghost story with just the right amount of weirdness for fans of the creator. Despite being marred by clunky controls this is one of the best games available for PSVR owners.

Battlefield 5 is a good game, but not a great one. The multiplayer can be great fun when you find the right server, and the single player shines a light on parts of World War 2 that aren’t in the public consciousness. However, the stripped back multiplayer and several of the same old problems mean that I’m wishing that this particularly war had perhaps changed a little more.

Game Freak has pulled a Hannah Montana and found the best of both worlds here, solidifiying an experience that embraces newcomers without forgetting the hardcore that will be itching to dive in. Acting as what is essentially a remake of Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow prevents this from being truly groundbreaking, but the foundations established here spell an exciting future for Pokémon on Switch.

Game Freak has pulled a Hannah Montana and found the best of both worlds here, solidifiying an experience that embraces newcomers without forgetting the hardcore that will be itching to dive in. Acting as what is essentially a remake of Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow prevents this from being truly groundbreaking, but the foundations established here spell an exciting future for Pokémon on Switch.

Beautiful, hypnotic and frequently surprising, Tetris Effect is a bravura reinvention of a classic game that deserves to be recognised as a series peak. The odd difficulty spike aside, there’s little to fault in what is undoubtedly one of 2018’s very best games.

My Hero One’s Justice is a competent brawler that makes effective use of its source material to craft something fans will most likely adore.

It’s unreasonable to expect Marvel’s Spider-Man The Heist to reinvent the wheel here, it’s a DLC for a game that was remarkably popular, and many are clamouring for more. However, I don’t think I’m the only person that will be a little disappointed at Marvel’s Spider-Man playing it safe, and it’s a prime example of how you can have too much of a good thing.

A welcome refresh of the UI, more visually pleasing training and tactics menus, and all the addictive depth you’d expect from an entry in the Football Manager series.

Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle might not have the sheen of Slayaway Camp or be an homage to its namesake series like Friday the 13th: The Game, but it’s still a heck of a lot of fun and great value for money when you consider the amount of content that’s available here.

Whether you already own Lethal League or not, you should buy this sequel as fast as you can.

Return of the Obra Dinn is a bleak ditty but offers solid meat for puzzle fans to get their teeth into, with a similar love of paperwork and information cataloging that won fans for Pope’s previous title, Papers Please.

Is this the season’s must-have horror game? Nope, but there’s a lot here that fans of Lovecraft and Call of Cthulhu will appreciate. Sure, there’s still a sense that the truly great Lovecraft adaptation has yet to push back the door of dread R’lyeh and rise to the surface, but until it does – or a sequel brings improvements – this will more than do.

Warriors Orochi 4 is not a particularly bad game, but it does feel like it’s trying its best to innovate on a tired formula, but those new additions might not be enough. Compounded with finicky menus and performance issues, it leaves the game leaving a little bit more to be desired than what it offers currently. And no, that doesn’t mean they should add more characters.

Yes, there are still performance issues occasionally – but it’s nothing compared to how bad the original release was. For Dark Souls first outing on Switch, this Remaster should appeal to fans and newcomers alike – just don’t expect perfection.

The game finds a well-suited home on the portable Switch, although it still has all the trappings of a mobile title. There are control issues old and new, and more could definitely have been done to make the ending feel substantial, but for a few sweet hours The Room will hold your attention with its well-crafted, enigmatic boxes.

Reigns is probably the best Game of Thrones game we’ve played to date. Incredible value, no matter what format you’re playing on.

With its gleefully mischievous cast and a few new mechanical tricks, Lego DC Super-Villains is a refreshing twist on the trusted Lego game formula. It’s a shame that long-running glitches that have plagued the series for years still rear their ugly head, but subtle improvements across the board make them tolerable, in large part because there’s so much else to like. A love letter to fans of the comics and the earlier Lego DC games alike, this makes it clear it’s good to be bad.

It feels like a real sequel to SoulCalibur 2, in a way that none of the others managed. It’s an immediately fun fighting game that has clear depth but never seems intimidating. It has one of the better rosters of any current fighting game, some beefy single player content and solid netcode. An essential fighting game.

It’s probably one of the best multiplayer shooters released this year, and the AAA implementation of a battle royale is a fascinating thing to play, too.

Crammed with gorgeous worlds, thrilling combat, and engaging mysteries, plus an arching plot that doesn’t speak down to its audience, Starlink is toys-to-life, all grown up.

Purists will likely still prefer the Nintendo DS original due to its superior controls and increased difficulty, but this provides newcomers a perfect chance to experience a JRPG that, for many, fell well under their radar all those years ago.

Its platforming is clunky, its animations stiff, and you eventually tire of its repeating puzzles—but I’ll remember J.J.’s story, and her inner struggles, for a very long time.

Dakar 18 is a curious creature. It absolutely delivers something truly distinct in the wider racing genre, and though the core gameplay isn’t immediately accessible, it can be greatly rewarding to those that take a chance on tackling it properly.

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics is, honestly, a bit of a disappointment. It’s a perfectly competent tactics game, and there is a solid 10 hours of narrative here for you to explore. However, it’s mostly upsetting because of the flecks of brilliance that don’t quite fit together, and the good ideas that aren’t explored enough.

FIFA 19 is a great game, packed with plenty of detail. It isn’t a huge step forward in terms of raw gameplay, but the sheer amount of stuff to do will mean you keep coming back for more.

Lost Paradise provides an absorbing trek around a captivating post-apocalyptic universe. Appropriately enough, Sega doesn’t pull any punches in adapting Buronson and Hara’s gratuitous and violent world – definitely don’t play this around kids, though.

This is arguably PSVR’s biggest must-have game experience and a phenomenally good VR platform game. It’s too short and too linear to rival Super Mario Odyssey, but it shows a similar sense of invention, humour and good old razzle dazzle. And if you were losing faith in VR? Sony’s game will give you back the magic.

Super Mario Party is a joyous bounty of content picked out in lurid colours that comes together as a great way to play games with friends after a couple of drinks, or with younger relatives...However, it really only works as a multiplayer title with friends sat around in the same physical space. Strip that away, and you’re just shaking a Joy-Con in a room, alone.

If you’re new to the series or would just like to have a really good basketball game to dip in and out of over the year NBA 2K19 is a solid choice, but if 2K18 frustrated you with its microtransactions and you don’t want to grind or pay to be competitive with your own player then not much has changed from that base model.

Despite a handful of issues that have arisen with the port to Nintendo’s console, Dragon Ball FighterZ remains one of the best of the current fighting games. It’s certainly one of the most fun, is amazing to watch and is far and away the best, most perfect use of the Dragon Ball license.

We may live in a new golden age of hardcore platformers, but Capcom’s blue hero has shown all these newcomers that class never fades. Not only a game that sits alongside the best Mega Man games, but one of the best platform games released in recent memory.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is another accomplished entry in long-running open world series. By expanding upon the blueprint established by Origins, Ubisoft has crafted an experience that feels brave, huge and utterly gargantuan.

With it’s high-octane pace, RGX Showdown is an incredibly promising blueprint for a low-priced arcade racer, but with the untimely demise of its publisher, Telltale, it’s hard to tell if the developers, Shortround Games will be able to make a sequel or expand on the premise of the game.

Ultimately, Transference weaves an effective, but grim tale of one man’s descent into the madness and the horrific fate that he has sealed for his family. The puzzles aren’t particularly challenging, but their difficulty works well within the pacing of the story, engaging your brain enough without dragging the story to a halt.

This is the Police 2 is a great strategy game where things are always trying to get out of hand. Dealing with the minutia of an officer calling in sick, while also chasing down bad guys feels as chaotic and hard to balance as it should do, but never unimportant. The story feels too separate to the game’s mechanics, which is a shame because it is compelling and well presented.

‘Roads’ is a heart-breaking leg of an emotional journey that never feels limited by its medium. I’ve played seasons of other choice-driven narrative games that had less emotion and heart than this five-hour odyssey. With Life is Strange 2, DONTNOD has upgraded and refined every element that made its forebear successful, whilst sprinkling some magical new additions into the mix to create an essential genre-pushing experience that isn’t just for fans.

I adore every second. Forza Horizon 4 is potentially the best racing game I’ve ever played in terms of the sheer amount of stuff and how much fun I’ve had.

Dead by Daylight’s a little too repetitive to be your next online gaming feast, but it’s one hell of a palette cleanser.

Door Kickers Action Squad is a great game, but outside of its generous helping of levels, it’s a little light on content. For the price, this is one of the better co-op titles I’ve played, and it offers a unique experience you’re not getting anywhere else. A surprising treat.

An exceptional expansion, justifying itself as a major enhancement of the original game with improvements to level design, combat and the majority of side content.

The sense of satisfaction Cities: Skylines delivers, from gradually layering a city until it becomes a behemoth of urban design, finds a good home on Nintendo’s portable. The speed of activating the Switch works well for brief forays into neighbourhood management and policy adjustments. It’s only a pity that performance issues betray the difficulty of squeezing a complex PC game into a handheld console, and that the game itself can sometimes feel a tad humourless.

It isn’t the best adventure game released in recent years, but it’s charming, fun and a worthy update of a four-year-old title that you might have overlooked.

Without the bugs, The Bard’s Tale IV is okay at best. With them, it’s perhaps best to preserve your nostalgia and play the HD remaster of The Bard’s Tale I to III instead.

Fishing Sim World welcomes those who want to take its subject matter seriously, and throws its arms open to players who don’t mind life slowing down. But if you’re here for unbridled fun and explosive action? This probably isn’t even the right genre for you.

Although the seven games on offer are good examples of the fun, but shallow genre, it’s hard to shake the feeling that with a bit more attention – the kind Mega Man and Street Fighter received – this could have been another must have retro collection.

The game has a gooey smooth outer coating that contains a rough, unpleasant centre. Unfortunately, Black Clover Quartet Knights is much like Asta himself; completely lacking in magic.

Lamplight City is a satisfying, point-and-click adventure, which tells a compelling detective story. While there are some issues that clearly take away from the overall experience, I was genuinely surprised by how much it gets right.

Train Sim World can be as unexpectedly compelling as it is powerfully soothing. It’s just a shame it lacks some of the polish to make the eccentric gem it is something truly brilliant. Nevertheless, it let us throw about the word ‘pantograph’ with haughty delight.

Obviously, Surgeon Simulator isn’t meant to be taken seriously, and as long as you can keep that in the forefront of your mind, there’s some fun to be had here. I should imagine it would make for some great streaming material and a few comical sessions with friends. Beyond that, however, the game is light on content and the added Switch features don’t add anything worth the price of entry.

Frozen Synapse can be clunky, frustrating and terrifying in equal measure. The tactical level is tightly balanced and, when played competitively provides a real spectacle, even when it’s your soldiers that are getting wrecked. The city-level strategy is a flawed gem.

Ultimately, Immortal: Unchained serves to highlight one thing above all else. Every frustrating aspect of the Dark Souls experience is tolerated and even praised by its fans because the underlying combat system is so fantastically well-realised...Strip that away and all you’re left with is a mediocre exercise in frustration. Immortal: Unchained has thrown guns into the mix, but no consideration has been given to how their addition might affect the classic Souls formula. Dark Souls but with bad combat is a tough sell.

After the canned PlayStation Vita version of the game, it’s wonderful to finally be able to play Hyper Light Drifter on the go. The developer has pretty much stated that in its mind, the Switch version is the definitive version of the game – and you can tell. With elements that make it smoother for newcomers on top of everything that made the base game great, this is a port that truly feels at home on Switch, despite the occasional drop of frames.

It’s by no means a classic, but it’s a decent foundation for what could be a compelling sci-fi tale.

Whether you take the “Bro” elements for what they are, which is to say a daft gimmick to add an extra layer to a fun, challenging, carefully crafted love letter to the 80s, is up to you, but nothing about Broforce is serious bar the difficulty and dedication to the bit. If you’re the type to roll their eyes at a bad pun while others around you snigger, you might still enjoy the shooting, but this is a full on mickey-take on the Team America generation that will be like nails on a chalkboard to some.