Disc Room is fast, frantic, smooth and inventive. It folds death into the progression loop and makes score-chasing in each gore-tastic room an enjoyable challenge. The choice of skill can massively influence your chances of survival and domination of a room, which adds experimental longevity.

Pikmin 3 Deluxe, as a port, is excellent. It’s refined, adjusted, and perfected to the best degree it could be. As a game, Pikmin 3 leaves a little more to be desired; its combat could use a lot of work, and its puzzling elements (while good) could be improved somewhat too. But where it lacks in decisive game design, it makes up for in spades and spades of unbridled charm. It’s a strong base for what could be a wonderful Pikmin 4… maybe some day.

The whole package is one that boasts a terrific core set of mechanics but stumbles in its ability to highlight them. A limited range of modes, a frustratingly slow unlock path for its roster and some odd difficulty gating in the campaign form an unavoidable weight around the neck of an otherwise charming experience. For $30 AUD it’s a steep asking price, especially when Super Smash Bros Ultimate is sitting right there, but fans of Nintendo’s morphing pink blob may get a kick out of this attempted impersonation.

It’s been a long wait to get our hands on Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! on the Switch as the game went through Early Access. It was well worth the wait! CSD3 manages to keep the formula interesting once again, although for fans of the series it might mean not everything you enjoyed made it over. Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! is a solid, enjoyable cooking sim that will keep you busy for many hours. It’s like an all-you-can-eat that you’d actually want to eat at.

Mario Kart Live is as fun as any other Mario Kart game, while you'll have to spend the time and creative energy to lay down your course you'll soon forget about it and just start playing Mario Kart. The difference is there's a little RC Mario or Luigi roaming around the floor bringing the game to life even for those not playing it. Mario Kart Live is a super polished experience, and possibly the first time I've ever enjoyed anything AR. Instead of just having AR for AR sake, it's taken something already fun and merged it with real life.

Little Big Workshop is like running a business. No, that’s not a metaphor. Build yourself up from a humble 5 figure sum to a table-trotting titan of industry. Just watch out for crashes along the way. Yes, that one was metaphorical. And literal.

Hades is a triumphant take on roguelites and without a doubt a top-shelf example in the genre. The game is always unfolding and you always feel like you’re progressing, even if you get smacked down a short way in. It’s aesthetically beautiful and challenging enough to spur you onward without feeling impossible. I can’t recommend this enough to anyone looking for a new single-player dungeon crawler.

Falcon Age won’t blow you away, but for the tolerant person, this is a good effort from a small team. If you come in with the right expectations, there’s definitely something to like here. Your falcon is the star of the show - treat her like a partner rather than a tool and you’ll enjoy yourself.

Super Punch Patrol is a simple game. Its visuals are simple, its gameplay is simple, its music is interesting but largely unassuming. But despite its simplicity, it manages to be something a little bit magical. Sure it's quite challenging, and sure it may kick your butt more than a few times — but it's a game where everything just feels right. It might not be for you, and it might not even be for me, but it'll always be fun as heck.

The basketball itself is solid, it alternates between looking really nice and surprisingly dated. The new shot meter will divide people, but it’s optional and one of the few changes from last year's game. The microtransactions were previously a sore point with 2K20, and it is even sorer here. For a full-priced AAA game, you should never feel like you have to spend more money to engage with half of the game. If you really want the most up to date NBA game and the MyTeam seasons then 2K21 is the obvious choice. Otherwise, NBA 2K21 is mostly the same game you played last year.

It’s a substantial step-up from the absolute mess that was WWE 2K18 for Switch, and there’s plenty of chaotic enjoyment that can be had here, especially if you’ve got a few friends that enjoy the acquired taste that is professional wrestling. It’s silly, it’s over the top, and it’s just a bit of mindless fun, much in the way that real wrestling is. The repetitive nature of the single-player modes means I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for solo players, and the aggressive monetisation limits the options available for party play, but there’s still a decent game of wrestling under the hood.

Ary and the Secret of Seasons really just needed a little more time in the oven. The foundations are there: solid dungeon design, a clean and colourful aesthetic, and a robust combat system. It just needs a little more though - something extra to do in the open world, some more finely tuned pacing and progression, and most importantly a proper QA run to make sure that everything actually functions. I can’t recommend you go visit the land of Valdi in its current state, but hopefully the developers can tweak some code and make this fairly competent adventure playable.

I’m very interested in seeing what Spellbreak becomes given a little more time and extra features added in. The combat and levitating make the game enjoyable already, hopefully, the player count per round can be increased to make use of the big arena. If you’re after something a bit different from Fortnite, Spellbreak is a good alternative. Even better is that it’s free, and perfectly playable without spending a cent. If you want a game that allows you to fight with the elements like Aang and Korra, Spellbreak might be the game for you.

Nintendo seems intent on showing Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy as they were, warts and all – just in HD and playable on the Switch. Does the camera in Mario 64 kind of suck? Yes, it does. How has Sunshine come out best in this? I’m not sure. Are the controls for Galaxy here a bit of a problem? Maybe. But despite all this, you’ve got three tremendous games which are all still a ton of fun.

Paradise Killer is absolutely bonkers weird in the best possible way. It is soothing to play at your own pace, with a brilliant soundtrack, rewarding collectibles and a deep, complex mystery to unravel. It is one of the best games I have played this year.

Hotshot Racing is a window back into the 1990s, not only in looks but how it plays with some old some fashioned rubber banding. The look and gameplay might not be for everyone, but it's authentic and it's a tonne of fun. I just wish there was more of it. You don't need to be an arcade fan of old to enjoy this, but you'll enjoy it even more if you are.

Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions has plenty of great ideas and neat mechanics, but the lacklustre underlying soccer gameplay combined with annoying pacing in the story mode makes for an experience that is often more frustrating than fun when played solo. With that said, it remains a surprisingly good time when played with friends that can partake in the chaotic shenanigans. Just do not go in expecting a FIFA-quality soccer game with an anime coat of paint.

Just don’t think too hard about Piffle. It’s cute and colourful and is pleased as punch to offer an endorphin rush at every turn. If you want a time killer at the bus stop, you can sure do a lot worse. That said, I feel that mobile games like this one need to do more than be ported across to Switch and sold, minus ads and microtransactions - there’s very little to make the proposition of purchasing this game appealing over playing for free on your phone. But hey, look. That cat is round. Haha.

No Straight Roads is a little hard to recommend on Switch. It's a solid enough game at its core, with some neat ideas and a very solid soundtrack, but its visuals are lacking, its text is too small, and its controls lack the fluidity to make it a truly great experience. It still may be worth picking up on another platform, but for now the Switch version is more miss than it is hit.

If you’re after a point and click adventure game that harkens back to another era of gaming, Darkestville Castle isn’t bad. There is definitely the feel of older adventure games, fans of the Monkey Island series, in particular, will find plenty of nostalgia here. While it does take you back to some of those 90s games, too often it feels like it could’ve left some of it behind.

Everything considered, Best Friend Forever is a joyous treat for dog-lovers and dating-sim enthusiasts alike. Currently, the Nintendo Switch version is a bit unruly, but nothing a trip to the vet and some patches won’t fix.

PGA Tour 2K21 is all you could want in a golf game, the relaxing yet sometimes maddening game of golf is recreated here perfectly in digital form. This year's game with the 2K flair and added authenticity of real players and even more real courses propels the game further. If you're at all into golf, you'll be into this, and if like golf just a little bit you can now get into HB Studios's golfing mastery.

Faeria is as enjoyable as it is deep, offering many hours of solo content, with the option to compete online if you so choose. The combination of board and card game is a lot of fun to play and new cards are unlocked at a fast, exciting pace.

Ageless lands in an odd spot. It’s not bad - compelling level design and interesting puzzles keep your attention through its 8-odd hour runtime. Sadly, it just resembles Celeste too much to avoid the dooming question: why don’t you just play that instead? And if you already did - can you forget it enough to enjoy this?

Far from being yet another deckbuilder, Nowhere Prophet cleverly innovates on established gameplay elements to produce a heartily challenging and compelling card game worthy of standing alongside the best of the genre.

Rock of Ages 3 is definitely more Rock of Ages. It keeps the same quirkiness that it started with nearly a decade ago. If you’ve been waiting for a more historically-themed tower defence and ball rolling then look no further. However, there are some real issues with the text size. There’s a lot, and it’s hard to read docked and especially when undocked. Hopefully, the text issues are fixed over time, if you can look past it there’s an alright game waiting for you.

Ultimately, Skully feels to me like the little game that could. It’s rough around the edges, sure, but it has heart and a solid underpinning that I hope Finish Line Games run with for a sequel. When it all comes together it inspires the same kind of wonder you might have felt when you were a kid trying to navigate your way through your first platformer - frustrations and all.

As a puzzle game, Catherine: Full Body is nothing short of excellent, providing a challenging, stimulating experience that is sure to get the synapses firing. As a story, it falls short, offering a dated, tired, and often gross outlook on the world, that fails to invest in the growth of its characters. For many, the former will easily outweigh the latter, but for some, its poor characterisation of women and minorities will be a step too far to really enjoy.