Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, the enhanced version of the 2020 classic, finally arrives on Nintendo Switch 2 just days ago on January 22, 2026. This port brings the full Intergrade experience—including the base game and the excellent Yuffie-focused Episode INTERmission DLC—to Nintendo's powerful new hybrid console. For years, fans wondered if Square Enix's ambitious remake project would ever grace a Nintendo platform. Now that it's here, it feels like a perfect fit, delivering one of the best modern RPGs in a truly portable form.

The core game remains unchanged and outstanding. You step into the boots of Cloud Strife, a brooding ex-SOLDIER mercenary, as he joins the eco-terrorist group Avalanche in their rebellion against the megacorporation Shinra in the sprawling, oppressive city of Midgar. This "remake" massively expands the original game's Midgar section into a 30-40 hour epic (plus 5-6 hours for the Yuffie DLC), with deeper character development, side quests, and jaw-dropping set pieces. The story blends nostalgia with bold new twists, delivering emotional highs, memorable allies like Tifa, Aerith, and Barret, and that iconic villainous presence. It's still one of the most compelling narratives in gaming, full of heart, mystery, and spectacle.

Combat is the star: a seamless hybrid of real-time action and strategic command-based elements. You control one character at a time, dodging, blocking, and attacking in real time while slowing things down to issue ATB commands for spells, items, and specials. Switching party members mid-battle keeps things dynamic, and materia customization adds depth. The Yuffie episode shines here with her ninja-style ranged combat and synergistic duo mechanics alongside Sonon—it's fast, fun, and a great teaser for what's next in the trilogy.

What makes this Switch 2 version special is how well it adapts to the hardware. Powered by clever upscaling tech like DLSS, it targets a stable 30 FPS in both docked and handheld modes, with impressive visual fidelity. Docked on a TV, it hits around 1080p with detailed character models, lush environments, dynamic lighting, and particle effects that hold up remarkably well—often looking close to the PS5 version at normal viewing distances. Exploration in Midgar's slums and upper plates feels immersive, and combat remains responsive without major hitches.

Handheld mode is where the magic happens for Switch owners. The game is perfectly playable on the go, with sharp visuals on the Switch 2's upgraded screen and smooth performance that makes grinding side quests or tackling bosses during a commute addictive. Minor frame dips in crowded cutscenes or dense areas are rare, and issues like NPC pop-in are negligible. Load times are quick, and new accessibility options (like fast-forwarding dialogue, max HP/MP, or infinite limits) make it welcoming for newcomers or replay veterans.

That said, it's not flawless. The locked 30 FPS feels noticeable if you've played the 60 FPS versions on PS5, PC, or Xbox—combat loses a touch of that ultra-fluid snap. Handheld play drains the battery quickly (expect about 2 hours at max settings), and the massive 90+ GB file size means you'll need expanded storage. Visually, it's a step down from top-tier consoles in resolution and texture sharpness, especially up close in handheld. And remember, this is still just Part 1 of the trilogy—Rebirth and the upcoming third entry are confirmed for Switch 2 down the line, but you'll need patience for the full story.

Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade on Switch 2 is a technical triumph and one of the console's early must-plays. Square Enix has crafted a port that respects the original's grandeur while embracing portability. Whether you're a longtime fan revisiting Midgar or a new player diving in for the first time, this is an essential RPG that proves the Switch 2 can handle big, beautiful worlds. Highly recommended—now excuse me while I go farm some materia on the couch.

I had a moment of realisation while flipping my Switch 2 around in my hand and tapping at the screen in an effort to solve yet another clever-but-abstract puzzle. I realised that the Simogo Legacy Collection was one of the most unabashedly original sets of experiences I had encountered in a long time.

The funny thing was that I had already played every game in this collection years before. It had been so long that the zenith of mobile gaming had slipped into the realm of half-forgotten memories.

Simogo Games is perhaps better known for two stylised and mechanically unique titles from recent years: Sayonara Wild Hearts (2019) and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (2024). It may surprise some that it is actually a storied studio with 15 years of history, recognised for fiercely original titles built for mobile devices. Those are the games that the Simogo Legacy Collection brings together. It features seven titles that both exemplify the early heyday of mobile games and manage to transcend that format.

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This is as lovingly curated a collection as you are likely to get, rivalling Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master Series for presentation and additional extras. The stylish menu is fashioned as a mobile phone screen, with tiles that take you to games, settings, and a wealth of bonus material. You are free to cycle between a vast collection of music as you wander the digital halls of this studio's archives.

The games themselves range from fun time sinks to rich artistic endeavours. All of them need equal attention, so it is best to tackle them one by one.

First up is Kosmo Spin, which is perhaps the most mobile-game-like experience here and a sign of a studio taking its first steps in the industry. It is a cute collectathon that plays with perspective by having you rotate the screen to guide a robot around a planetoid. You rescue robot buddies and avoid an enemy UFO that hurls projectiles and tries to hoover you up.

Next is Bumpy Road, a deceptively simple exercise in hand-eye coordination. Your task is to guide a car across the screen, although the hook is that you move the vehicle by deforming the road underneath it with your finger. I had a lot of fun with this one, mostly failing.

Beat Sneak Bandit is an odd but addictive combination of stealth and rhythm action. You control a thief who sneaks through Donkey Kong-style multi-level areas, and you can only move by tapping the screen to the beat.

Year Walk is perhaps the developer's most beloved mobile title and much more of a purely artistic experience than the previous three. Previously available on the Wii U eShop until Nintendo shut up shop in March 2023, it explores Scandinavian folklore with an atmospheric walking (swiping?) simulator of sorts, in which you transition through screens, interact with the environment and uncover mysteries. It remains richly atmospheric to this day.

Device 6 and The Sailor’s Dream are mechanically similar puzzle mysteries that rely on your exploration skills. Device 6 has you traverse prose and interact with images in a book to help protagonist Anna figure out where she is. The Sailor’s Dream expands the concept of exploration by having you sail across the ocean and visit experiential locations.

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Finally, there is SPL-T, an ostensibly simple puzzle game where you tap on a wireframe grid to create ever smaller divisions. This one is a compulsive experience that hides neat little easter eggs tied to screen interaction.

All of these games are sharply updated to look great on the Switch display. Since they were developed for small touchscreens, they feel most comfortable when played undocked. Simogo has added all kinds of quality-of-life features to make the games more playable on both screens, including open orientation switching and simultaneous touch and stick controls.

The one caveat is that most of the games feel a bit clunky on a large display. Even with accessible controls, these titles were made specifically for a small screen. That said, the Switch 2 version fully supports mouse controls, which helps a great deal when playing docked. Being able to move the screen and control the game with smooth mouse movement is a real boon.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Simogo Legacy Collection feels like the developer has considered everything in translating these games to consoles. It adapts mobile-first experiences into versatile ports that account for the player's needs. Outside of the porting work, these games offer seven distinct and captivating experiences that still feel fresh years after their release. Simogo plays around with the form and function of well-worn templates to create something surprising and new.

Even Year Walk, the most purely narrative experience here, is a unique take on the storytelling style of classics like Myst or The Room. SPL-T, on the other hand, is so subtle in its execution that you might spend hours tapping the screen before realising you are playing a postmodern twist on endless arcade puzzlers.

If you enjoy puzzle-driven narratives and experimental design, this bundle is nothing less than essential.

Conclusion

Polishing and repackaging its mobile output, Simogo have created an essential collection of classics, where every game is worth your time. Despite their mobile origins, these titles feel tailor-made for Switch and the devs have fully embraced the console's feature set.

In 2020, Square Enix released an interesting 'stopgap' in the Octopath Traveler series called Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent. This free-to-play mobile game took the gacha approach to design, regularly launching new units and storylines to interact with as the years rolled by. The company wrapped up that initial version in January this year, but it decided to design a new standalone version for consoles: Octopath Traveler 0.

Not quite a straight port of the original nor a brand new game, this fresh release converts a previously more fractured game into a cohesive traditional JRPG that features no online elements or microtransactions and feels more in line with what you’d expect from a proper numbered entry. And while it’s not the true successor to Octopath Traveler II, OT0 nonetheless stands tall as another great entry in the series.

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The narrative here is arguably the most interesting aspect, as it somewhat bucks the series trend of offering various disconnected narratives following each of the primary protagonists. For one thing, there’s now technically only one protagonist (your self-insert MC) and everyone else is merely an incidental addition to the plot. And while there’s still a nonlinear, chapter-based system that allows you to pursue the main story at your leisure, each chapter is now focused on a specific antagonist.

Even though intraparty interaction is still kept to a minimum, the storyline is nonetheless significantly more streamlined and in line with what you’d expect out of a typical JRPG. You begin as a resident of the cosy, friendly town of Wishvale, which is very quickly pillaged and razed to the ground by a nasty group of villains. After reconnecting with another survivor, you set out on a campaign of vengeance several years later, hunting key leaders of the attack, setting up the first arc of the overarching narrative.

What I really liked about this storytelling approach is how much more personal and interesting it made the rogues' gallery of villains. Not only do the ensuing chapters explore some of the antagonists' moral greyness, but there are some genuinely surprising and dark plot twists that add to the satisfaction when you finally get a chance to punch these people in the mouth.

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I was always a fan of the way the first two games handled their braided narratives, but choosing to centre the narrative this time on one protagonist and various villains that have made their life hell is an interesting and ultimately worthwhile change.

That all said, the length of the campaign is a long haul. Given that this is based on a live-service gacha that grew quite a bit, there are literally years of storylines to experience—the developers themselves flagged that it should take you roughly 100 hours to clear, and that’s not including the mountain of optional side content. I wouldn’t say that this tremendous length is necessarily a mark against Octopath Traveler 0, but just be aware that the pacing and quality can vary over that time, as any narrative of that size can get unwieldy in some places.

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Gameplay otherwise follows the standard formula of previous games, wherein you explore a sizeable open world, pick up quests, fight in turn-based battles, explore dungeons, and utilise Path Actions to interact with the various NPCs you come across. Initially, you only have two party members, but as you discover and explore new towns, you eventually grow the party to just over 30.

All of which is to say, this is exactly how you’d expect a new Octopath entry to play, and while I would have liked to see more innovation on the gameplay side of things, it’s tough to argue that the team didn’t stick the landing with the execution of their gameplay loop.

Combat remains largely the same, with a key difference being that you now have eight active party members instead of four. Only four of them are active during a given round, but when a party member’s turn comes, they can tag out to let their backline partner take an action instead. The backline is more than just a reserve in case someone gets knocked down, too, as all characters in the rear at the end of every round also gain HP and SP.

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Though the eight-character setup doesn’t massively change the overall flow of combat that we’re well familiar with by now, I really appreciated the additional strategic depth offered by the extra members. You effectively build BP (Boost Points) twice as fast now, which can lead to some crazy combos if you plan out your team right, and there’s a lot more to think through as you consider the various skills and abilities of each member and plan in advance how you’ll place them in the overall formation.

Do you put two healer characters together to maximise your healing output? Or do you pair one with a DPS character who will need to get cycled to the back to recover? The previous two games regularly asked you similar teambuilding questions, but here that more strategic approach is present to a much higher degree.

On the other hand, individual character progression has been kneecapped a bit, and I'm not as much a fan of how it’s been implemented. The ability to multiclass in previous games kept character-building interesting throughout the whole experience as you constantly unlocked new class types and found new ways to combine different class abilities to lead to some units that truly 'broke' the game. Here, there are no second classes; you can only progress a character along their default assigned class.

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There is some variation introduced by equipping Battle Skills and Support Skills gained from NPCs, granting boons like the ability to utilise wind attacks or increased healing output. However, these feel more limited than giving a character access to all the abilities that come along with a new class, and it leads to characters feeling pigeon-holed into the clear roles they’re designed to fulfil.

There’s something to be said about having a roster of bespoke characters who become simply more of what they already are at the beginning, but I’ve always viewed the Octopath Traveler games as encouraging you to find ways to make party members overpowered by building them far beyond their initial loadouts and here that definitely feels reined in.

Given that there’s technically only the one protagonist in this game, the Path Action system has been adapted. Now your protagonist can do all the actions (such as stealing, inquiring, or haggling) and the success rate is determined by how much you’ve grown their wealth, power, or fame stats by completing various quests and side quests. Which stat gets checked depends on what the character you’re talking to values most, and this also affects what path actions are available to use on them. Overall, this doesn't feel like a significant change, but I appreciated how it gave you reason to regularly return to towns, as many NPCs are clearly way above the levels you’re at when you initially meet them.

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Perhaps the headlining new feature is the addition of townbuilding elements while you slowly rebuild Wishvale to its former glory. Simply talking to your carpenter friend, Stia, or interacting with a workbench will turn the overgrown ruins of the once-quaint town into a grid where you can place new buildings, paths, and decorations according to your liking. Some of these buildings have a more functional passive value, too, such as how the pub allows you to bring food and prep dishes to give yourself an edge in battle for a certain number of turns.

As you find new towns, some NPCs will have the 'Invite' Path Action, which lets you invite them to Wishvale to contribute to the community. Every NPC has some sort of passive ability that can affect things like crop production speed or JP (Job Points) gain in battle, and housing them in your town lets you build these up over time. Plus, inviting more residents causes the overall town level to increase, unlocking new structures to build, and lets you place more homes where you’d like.

I appreciated how the townbuilding managed to feel both instrumental and optional to the game’s progression. Though there are plot reasons for why you have to build up the town to a certain point, it’s something that you can otherwise choose to ignore if you’d rather just stay on the road and keep pushing on to the next quest.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

On the other hand, there’s plenty to dig into here if you want to get in the weeds of building the most picturesque town possible as you regularly return to reap the rewards. And while there are concrete gameplay benefits from investing in and interacting with your town, they aren’t so enormous that you’re handicapping yourself if you choose to only return to Wishvale when necessary.

As far as visuals are concerned, this entry falls neatly between the fidelity of the previous two mainline games. It's clear that it was built with many reused assets from the first Octopath Traveler, but there are some details and flourishes present that will remind you more of the second game.

The Switch 2 version runs quite well, too, and seeing the action unfold at 60fps makes everything appear that much nicer. It definitely feels like a slight step down if you’re playing this right after putting a lot of time into Octopath Traveler 2, but overall the HD-2D art style here still holds up exceptionally well and looks gorgeous in motion.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

Much like how the visuals feel like a blend of the previous two games, the soundtrack offers a variety of tracks and remixes from its predecessors, with some new tracks thrown in there to accompany the new content. Though it’s a bit disappointing that we didn’t get a new full-fledged soundtrack for this release, the new music feels right in line with the previous tracks, which are just as excellent as they were when we heard them for the first time.

Conclusion

In many ways, Octopath Traveler 0 feels like a ‘victory lap’ for the beloved series, remixing various elements that you’re familiar with from the past games while introducing some interesting new ones to spice things up a bit. Importantly, this prequel does not feel like a proper Octopath Traveler 3, but that doesn’t mean that it isn't still an incredibly good time and a much better JRPG than most genre peers.

Even if it's a retread in some ways, though, an absolutely monstrous amount of content, interesting new gameplay elements, gorgeous visuals, and compelling storytelling all come together to make Octopath Traveler 0 a must-buy.

I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Ever since Metroid Prime 3: Corruption ended on a slight cliffhanger (provided you obtained the 100% completion rating) back in 2007, I’ve been wondering where exactly Nintendo and Retro Studios might take the series next. 18 years would follow, and that’s an awful long time to formulate an idea of what the perfect sequel might look like.

Now that Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is finally here, it’s absolutely nothing like I’d imagined – and that’s a good thing. What Retro Studios has delivered might well be the studio’s finest work yet, and it’s certainly up there as one of the very best Metroid games of all time.

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I should say, however, that I think this game may prove divisive. Retro has successfully replicated that magical feeling of discovery from the GameCube original, but it’s also taken some pretty wild swings with Beyond’s new open-world hub, high-speed motorbike traversal, and yes, Galactic Federation companions. I’m not sure everybody is going to get along with it like I did, but what I do know is that Beyond feels like a natural evolution of Corruption. The Prime games have set themselves apart from the rest of the series by expanding Samus’ world to introduce more and more side characters, and this latest entry takes this concept further than ever.

To illustrate, Beyond kicks off on the planet Tanamaar, with Samus fighting alongside a host of Federation troopers against an attack from Sylux and their Space Pirate cronies. It’s a great sequence to get reacquainted with your beam attacks, missiles, morph ball, and double jump before most of it gets ripped away in classic Metroid style. Y’see, following a confrontation with Sylux, Samus gets transported to the mysterious world of Viewros, seemingly alone in a hostile environment stuffed with creatures looking to kill you.

What follows is an intriguing mystery that introduces the brand-new Lamorn race, which is essentially Prime 4's Chozo. Uncovering what happened to the Lamorn is a joy, and you don't need any prior series knowledge to enjoy this story. Phazon's out, Dark Samus is out, and Sylux gets enough screen time as the new Big Bad. Fans will adore it, but newcomers can get right on board, too.

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The first thing that leapt out when wandering around the lush opening section of Fury Green was just how beautiful Beyond really is. Environments and creatures are brought to life like never before, with accompanying lighting and particle effects making this the best-looking game Nintendo has ever published. The art design is simply astonishing, constantly compelling you to just stop and soak it all in, which was easy given how much there is to uncover with the Scan Visor. Go back to (the lovely-looking) Prime Remastered and you'll see just how much of a step up this is.

The visuals are augmented by the incredible soundtrack, which is comfortably the best since the original Prime. You've likely already heard the Fury Green theme from trailers, but every major biome rocks its own awesome variant, from the thumping, electrically-charged Volt Forge to the calming, ethereal Base Camp. I quite literally sat for about 10 minutes just vibing in the latter, and with the combined effects of the art style and audio, it was the first of many moments where I thought, 'Okay, yes, this is a really special game.' It's the kind of thing you just know you'll be going back to in 10, 20 years' time.

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The enemies and boss characters are comfortably some of the best, most grotesque in series history, and the battles that ensue are equally thrilling and challenging. Even better, they're all completely new and don’t lean on nostalgia – sorry Ridley, maybe next time. There are loads of different enemy types, including the ferocious Grievers, the exploding Pyremite, and the deadly Psy-Bots. I only wish there was a 3D model feature like Prime Remastered to better appreciate their incredible designs.

Provided you have the right setup, you can choose between two performance modes on Switch 2: Quality at 4K/60fps (1080p handheld) or Performance at 1080p/120fps (720p handheld). The bump up to 120fps in Performance Mode is certainly noticeable, but not half as much as the resulting downgrade in resolution. As such, I spent the vast majority of the time in Quality Mode; it looks absolutely gorgeous in 4K while docked, with performance that appeared locked at 60fps with no noticeable dips. Trust me, you’ll want the highest resolution possible for this game.

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You've also got several different control methods from the off, including dual-stick aiming and motion aiming. Opt for the former, and you use the analogue sticks for your movement, while gyro aiming can help with fine-tuning. Mouse controls are also featured for both options, so if you're playing with the Joy-Con 2 detached, you can put the right controller side-down to immediately activate mouse mode. It's a little erratic at first, so you'll probably need to bring the sensitivity down a bit, but it feels pretty great. Overall, my control method of choice remained dual-sticks with a Pro Controller, but all options feel perfectly viable.

In typical Metroid fashion, you’ll be exploring various biomes throughout the world of Viewros, including the luscious forest of Fury Green, the frozen laboratories of Ice Belt, and much more. In addition to familiar abilities and armaments — missiles, grapple beam, morph ball — Samus gains a host of new psychic powers early on. This includes the ability to move devices remotely and open up paths, hurl your morph ball bombs at enemies and bomb slots from a distance, and directly manipulate the direction of your ‘Control Beam’ to hit multiple targets at once.

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In pre-release trailers depicting the psychic powers, I was worried that they might prove gimmicky, but this isn’t the case. It makes for some really cool sequences, including (but not limited to) the new Psychic Boost Rails, which hurl you around the environment on an almost-but-not-quite invisible path; perfect for locating those coveted Missile Expansions. Think of the Magatsu Rail from Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, and you’re on the right track.

Of course, you’ll also gain new weapons on your travels, and these work a little differently this time. In the past, you’d acquire new beams while your standard missiles would remain the default sub-weapon. In Beyond, your Power Beam is maintained throughout, while elemental beams — specifically Fire, Ice, and Thunder — are mapped to the missile input and require their own ammo called Shots.

So, in addition to Missile Expansions, you’ll also be on the lookout for Shot Expansions. I was concerned this might limit my approach to battles if I’m constantly worried about running out of ammo, but truthfully, you’ll find so many expansions on your travels, depleting your supplies is never a major concern.

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Travelling from one biome to another is also a little (a lot) different this time around. A few hours in, you’ll gain access to Vi-O-La, an awesome futuristic motorbike that comes equipped with boost abilities and projectile weapons. It controls like a dream, too, with light touches of ‘L’ allowing you to slide and turn sharp corners at will. Upgrades found in the environment add more boosts to your arsenal, and soon you’ll be racing from one end of the hub world to the other in no time at all.

Sol Valley itself is a pretty vast area, and at first it felt completely empty, but looks can be deceiving. In addition to connecting the major locations necessary to progress the story, Sol Valley also includes a bunch of Shrines (yes, there’s that Breath of the Wild influence), Galactic Federation debris sites, and dozens upon dozens of Green Crystal clusters that you simply drive through at speed to collect.

Ultimately, including such a meaty open world amongst the usual labyrinthine biomes is a stroke of genius on Retro's part. Think about how previous Metroid games (or really any Metroidvania titles) work: completely different environments will be separated by a mere door or an elevator, and while this works perfectly well from a gameplay perspective, logically it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

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What Sol Valley demonstrates is that these games don't need to be confined to dense corridors for the duration of the experience. You can open up the world, make the biomes link together more logically, and still maintain the essence of that classic Metroid experience. I can't wait to see how it influences the genre going forward.

Like the missiles, energy tanks, and whatnot, those Green Crystals found in Sol Valley are a finite resource. You’ll need to nab the whole lot to bag some sweet rewards, but the game introduces some neat little perks later on that make this a lot easier than you might think. Truth be told, this is possibly the most approachable Metroid game ever, since hidden Scout Bots located in each environment can also ping their radars and reveal the locations of any undiscovered items on your map. Granted, you won’t be able to activate these until much, much later in the game, but it makes chasing that 100% completion rating a lot more digestible than ever before.

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As you make your way across Viewros, you’ll also run into a handful of Galactic Federation troopers: Myles Mackenzie, Reger Tokabi, Nora Armstrong, Ezra Duke, and VUE-995. Honestly, none of them are even remotely as irritating as previews suggested, and I genuinely came to enjoy their presence. There are brief moments where one or two might join you in the fight, but these are kept to a minimum, and Retro wisely ditches them before they outstay their welcome. Overall, the dialogue is a lot stronger than anything seen in Corruption, and the voice actors do a wonderful job at bringing them to life.

But this is also where my one little nitpick comes in. While exploring Sol Valley, Myles will occasionally ping you on the radio to let you know what you should be doing next. Whether it’s making your way to your next objective or heading back to Base Camp to activate a new beam upgrade, Myles is essentially Prime 4’s Navi from Ocarina of Time - always there to nudge you in the right direction.

It’s not as frequent as you might fear — once you’ve heard him once, that’ll be it until your next major outing on Vi-O-La — but I’d love it if Retro Studios could add the ability to mute him completely. Sometimes I just want to ride around in peace, y’know?

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I did find myself longing for a couple of extra features: namely, the ability to change the bike's colour and to listen to some custom music while roaming about. Well, these are both here... if you buy the amiibo.

The Vi-O-La figure unlocks skins for your ride, while Samus adds the Vi-O-La Radio, letting you toggle through a small selection of banging Metroid-themed tunes. It's frankly irritating that Nintendo decided to lock these features behind amiibo; they should have been in the game by default, no question. The Sylux amiibo apparently unlocks a specific cutscene early, which you'll otherwise need to 100% the game to see. All other Metroid series amiibo just play a random Metroid-themed jingle.

At the time of writing, I’ve beaten the game with 100% items and 97% logbook scans, and this has taken me roughly 16 hours (don’t worry, I'm already looking for that remaining 3%). Keep in mind that I’ve sped through for review, so playing through at your own, slower pace could nudge your time to over 20 hours if you’re after absolutely everything; mainlining the story may shave it down to around 10 hours.

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I’d recommend finding all collectibles if you can, though, since this will uncover everything in the game’s Gallery section, which is filled with concept art from Beyond’s development – it’s a lovely behind-the-scenes look at a game that’s been heavily shrouded in mystery for years.

Conclusion

After 18 years of waiting, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond manages to replicate that magical sense of discovery from the GameCube original while pushing the series in some incredible new directions. Separating the main biomes with a vast open world sounds ridiculous on paper, but the slick traversal provided by Vi-O-La makes exploration more satisfying than ever.

Combine this with the stunning art direction, ferocious new boss characters, and a surprisingly endearing squad of Federation troopers, and Beyond is quite possibly the boldest, most well-realised Metroid game to date. Make no mistake, the long wait has been more than worth it. Welcome back, Samus.

It’s been over three years since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge was released, and Tribute Games has been really busy. Stuffed like a return-trip suitcase, Marvel Cosmic Invasion’s enormous cast of heroes and villains is here united in a rapturous beat-'em-up fanfare. Its pixel art positively simmers, with beautifully rendered backgrounds, giant set-pieces, and solid, impressively animated sprites. And, in addition to primary antagonist Annihilus, nemeses like Galactus, Hela, and Thanos make sufficiently heavy-duty appearances.

What’s particularly endearing is that the production feels wholly comic book. Its story mode, fleshed out with superbly rendered cutscenes and spot-on voice acting, really honours the source material. From Wolverine’s growl to Spider-Man’s quips, Venom’s brusque manner to Nova’s heroic fortitude, the exchanges really capture the Marvel feel. The slightly squat sprite styling works well, too, and the soundtrack is on-point throughout.

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Outside of palette swap options, there are no Marvel movie elements here, and the roster is interestingly formed, teaming up the likes of Captain America and Iron Man with lesser-knowns like Beta Ray Bill and Phyla-Vell. In total, there are a whopping 15 playable characters, several of whom are unlocked during playthroughs.

Any modern scrolling beat 'em up worth its salt requires a creative and dynamic combat system, and Cosmic Invasion rises to the challenge with a dual-character tag-team setup. In Story Mode, you choose a fresh duo each time you begin a stage, selecting your destination of choice via a bullet-pointed map that runs along branching paths. Certain stages need to be beaten before you can progress, and finishing a stage will level up your team with increased power and health.

Story Mode also comes with a set of optional Challenges. These include tasks like defeating a set number of enemies with a specific move or finishing a boss with a specific character. The challenge list shows which heroes properly align with a stage’s cutscenes and narrative. Characters that are narratively required for each level have glowing boxes around them on the select screen, too, although that could be signposted better.

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Arcade Mode operates in true linear fashion: your initial character choices remain fixed for the entire game, there’s no levelling up, and you’re restricted to a limited number of stages across optional routes. For many, this will be the most enjoyable way to play.

The cast’s fighting properties are amazingly varied, with differing speeds and weights, and enough unique attack forms to make each one feel interesting. Some can fly with a double-jump tap, patrolling the air, while others, like Rocket Raccoon, dominate from range with heavy artillery. Each wields a basic tap combo, a double-tap rush attack, and a dodge or block that, when timed right, enacts a parry. Every character can charge a unique breakout move, and the 'X' button lets loose their special attack. The 'R' button is reserved for big, flashy supers, requiring a “Focus” energy that recharges while battling.

Tag-teaming works entirely around the left trigger. Tapping switches characters, who can swing in and break you out of holds. You can also combine attacks, whereby pressing the trigger mid-combo will have your partner appear alongside you, dealing out extra blows. Interestingly, you can combine the tag function with different buttons, creating different partner effects like aerial dives or rushing slashes. All tag battling eats into your Focus energy, a point to consider if you’re trying to build a team super: a devastating dual attack engaged with 'ZL' and 'R' that requires maximum Focus for both characters.

Cosmic Invasion is flashy and superbly slick, and mining all the little details is quite the adventure. There’s not much included in the rather threadbare tutorial, so it’s down to you to experiment, discovering which grabs can be turned into throws with D-pad combinations, and which characters have functions that respond to simultaneous button presses. The fastest hack here is to hit pause and read through your character’s movelist.

In a world post-Absolum, Cosmic Invasion doesn’t quite land in the same way Shredder’s Revenge did. While it does get furiously heated, its pace does feel a tad slow overall. What's surprising, though, are the numerous oversights in the visual feedback department. The map points on Story Mode, for example, don’t change colour when you clear a stage or complete its challenges, and post-toilet break it can take a moment to recognise which you just did.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)

Tribute Games clearly aren’t fans of prominent combo counters either, which is a shame as Cosmic Invasion seems to be crying out for one. Here, the combo counter is small, tame, and seated inconspicuously beside your health bar. As such, your building of blows isn’t as rewarding, and, being a comic-book-themed game, classic onomatopoeia or “Dazzling!”, “Amazing!”, or “Super!” would have been the perfect way to celebrate combo milestones.

The feedback element that really needs bolstering, though, surrounds the tag mechanic. With so many different usage combinations, some additional visual, aural, or haptic cues to delineate each state would have been helpful amidst the game’s flurrying pyrotechnics. For example, a short pad vibration upon engagement, and perhaps character colour flashes could give some idea of how much Focus energy is being consumed. And, as the tag function can be combined with different buttons for different dual attack types, some kind of visual feedback to articulate each state wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)

It’s not the end of the world, but your tag mechanics tend to get drowned out in the fighting stew, lacking a sense of tactility. For your mammoth dual super attack, too, any kind of wind-up effect or chime would have been welcome, just to let you know you’re primed to go. Additionally, recovering the secret green cubes hidden on each stage is so perfunctory it’s like a fart in the wind. There’s no indication it even has value, no message screaming “Cube Recovered!” or the like. In fact, it’s quite possible to pick one up accidentally without realising it.

These aren’t criminal offences, and they certainly don’t diminish the effort involved. But anyone who understands arcade games knows that good feedback aspects can really elevate the experience. As such, while impressively deep with its dodging, parrying, and potential for wild mix-ups and tag-team juggling, Cosmic Invasion's combat doesn't feel quite as satisfying as something like Streets of Rage 4, the recent Absolum, or even Shredder’s Revenge, which was a touch more honed in the battling department.

The more overt problem with Cosmic Invasion, though, is its difficulty balancing. Credit-feeding arcade games robs them of their value, largely because of their routine nature, and a lack of challenge has a similar effect. For some reason, Cosmic Invasion’s default Medium difficulty setting is a total cakewalk. Bosses, whose attack patterns are often thoughtfully designed, go down to first-attempt spamming in all but the last few stages. Health items are scattered all over, and being able to tag characters, regularly deploy super attacks, and regenerate not only Focus but your health too, actually makes the campaign a tad mundane. It’s much like the Marvel movies themselves in this respect: when there are no stakes, you start to switch off.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

Now, there is a Hard Mode, but it isn’t available from the outset. Instead, you need to earn cubes to be spent on a hexagonal grid, unlocking additional character palettes and other in-game adjustments. For your information, you want to go right to the top middle of the hexagon and unlock that Hard Mode option, because frankly, it’s transformative.

Playing Arcade Mode on Hard Difficulty suddenly makes Cosmic Invasion both reasonably challenging and, with it, far more interesting, requiring thought and skill over mindless button mashing. All aspects of your moveset take on genuine importance, with different enemies and situations demanding experimentation — and the dodge and parry become crucial. While, in my opinion, the default difficulty should have been set somewhere between Medium and Hard Mode — and that means Tribute Games didn’t quite get either quite right — Hard Mode is still the place to go lest things get boring.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)

Now, if you’re primarily here for the multiplayer aspect, all this challenge criticism goes out the window. With friends, it’s just a blast, even if the four-player is a little too chaotic, all things told. In terms of delivering campy Marvel magic, however, in which iconic superheroes smash iconic supervillains, Cosmic Invasion comes through with flying colours.

Conclusion

Pure cartoon fun, and all the better for it, Tribute Games has not only totally honoured the source material, but delivered one of the best arcade Marvel games ever made. The aesthetic is beautiful, and the effort involved in creating such a varied cast of beat-'em-up protagonists is admirable.

Yes, there are areas for improvement, and some of its combat-feedback oversights feel like missed opportunities. But if you primarily want multiplayer action, to unlock and grind and level up your cast, and to get knee-deep in Marvel mayhem, it’s right on the money. If you’re working through its single-player Story campaign, you’re likely to get bored before the end owing to its ease, but unlock Hard Difficulty and Cosmic Invasion becomes all it was destined to be.

Assassin's Creed, Ubisoft’s flagship series, has delivered two decades of time-hopping adventure. Over the years, it has spawned a glut of expansions and spin-offs, building a franchise with a legion of faithful fans.

Moving away from the Hitman-like structure of working through a target list, the series reinvented itself and shifted into gigantic open-world sandboxes filled with light RPG elements and enough quests to keep you busy until the next instalment arrived.

Shadows, which launched on other platforms in March, landed at a moment of truth for the franchise. Mirage received a lukewarm reception, and confidence in Ubisoft’s output has been fading. Finally unsheathing the long-requested feudal Japanese setting felt like a Hail Mary, and for the most part, it works. This is one of the most engrossing worlds the series has created, supported by two engaging and wildly different protagonists who are a joy to play as.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

This instalment also marks the first time the new(est) mainline title has been released on a Nintendo console since Black Flag on Wii U back in the bygone age of 2013. It’s a huge game, a technical powerhouse, competing with Cyberpunk for the opportunity to make your Switch 2 really sweat. It’s worth noting early on that performance and general visual presentation are solid, with some caveats, but more on that later.

Taking place at the tail end of the Sengoku period, Shadows tracks two parallel journeys across the Kansai region of Japan. Though shaped by the machinations of Nobunaga Oda, a pivotal figure in Japanese history, the story is a familiar revenge tale. Driven to recover a mysterious family heirloom and avenge her father, Naoe hunts down the Onryo, a masked clan of villains. Meanwhile, the Mozambican slave turned samurai Yasuke serves under Nobunaga and struggles through a life of self-discovery and moral conflict.

Their paths eventually cross, and the two become allies, hunting down the corrupting forces spreading across the land and taking down the Onryo one mask at a time.

The Animus element has been pushed far into the background of the series of late, although there is still an overarching mystery involving an omniscient voice, who occasionally reminded me that I was controlling someone who was, in turn, controlling Naoe and Yasuke.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

The hook that separates Shadows from other titles in the series is the stark mechanical differences between its dual heroes. Naoe is your traditional assassin type, athletic, sneaky, and equipped with the traditional hidden blade. Sneaking through shadows (light sources can be snuffed out for better stealth), clambering across rooftops and utilising tools to escape combat, this is Naoe’s bread and butter.

Yasuke, on the other hand, is essentially a walking brick wall. He’s an armour-clad brute who smashes through gates, dominates groups of enemies in a fight and has the loudest methods of offence. Unlike Syndicate, the series' last stab at swappable protagonists, these characters never have parity. They remain two distinct playstyles and expansive upgrade trees only broaden the gulf between them.

Given his size, Yasuke is incapable of most stealth and traversal options, comically falling through tightropes and crashing to the ground during leaps of faith. Conversely, Naoe doesn't last long in fights with multiple enemies, favouring hidden blade kills and misdirection.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Some quests are meant for either Yasuke or Naoe, and long stretches of the story lock you into one specific character. For the most part, though, you are free to cycle between them. This contrast adds a sense of variety and choice that the series hasn't really had before. It’s engaging to look at an enemy outpost and decide on the sneaky approach or the one-man army raid.

Combat is also pleasingly versatile, with both protagonists having several main weapon and projectile choices. Highlights include Naoe’s Kusarigama moveset and Yasuke’s Teppo build (long guns and explosives). Outside of weaponry, there’s a mountain of gear to be collected, upgraded and cosmetic-swapped. There is, of course, a microtransaction store for ever more elaborate gear, but this can be ignored.

Establishing a rhythm with both characters is easy because you’re going to spend a lot of time with them. Modern Assassin's Creed games are overflowing with activities scattered across their expansive maps. You get a titanic main quest that can easily take 80 to 100 hours to finish, along with hundreds of side quests, including Animus quests that refresh endlessly.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

There are many more organisations to dismantle outside the Onryo, new ones popping up on your objective board almost constantly. If you want to dive deep into a single game for a couple of hundred hours, Shadows is built for that kind of time sink.

Still, it all feels a bit stretched. Many quests boil down to long treks across the map to speak with an NPC, followed by another trek back to the quest giver so you can start the next errand. There are plenty of activities that try to break up the repetition, including a painting minigame with cute animals and a fun but shallow base-building mechanic, also with cute animals. Even so, I still find myself longing for the simplicity of Altair and Ezio’s adventures.

But what of performance? How does this, a uniquely tailored current-gen experience, play on Switch 2? The short answer is mostly good.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Ubisoft has been uncharacteristically transparent about how Shadows has been tuned to run on Nintendo’s hardware. Much like the exemplary port of Cyberpunk 2077, Shadows uses DLSS for upscaling and VRR to maintain stable frames in undocked mode.

Visual sacrifices have been made to the game's detailing to preserve stability. Players familiar with other versions will notice the difference, yet it remains an impressive-looking game. Some of the character models can look a bit waxen in dialogue scenes and occasionally texture issues blight the environment, but these issues aren't too frequent.

Busy population centres like Osaka can cause the frame rate to dip below its 30fps target, and that becomes far more noticeable when undocked. You spend a lot of time moving through areas packed with NPCs, so this lack of stability stands out.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Combat with multiple enemies, which is a staple of playing as Yasuke, holds up better even when smoke and explosions fill the screen. Sneaking around as Naoe relies on the spatial awareness that a smooth camera provides, and that is never an issue here.

For the most part, Shadows is an admirable port of a graphical powerhouse. I cast my mind back to 2017, when I played DOOM on Switch and was astonished at how well it had been optimised for the underpowered console. Shadows on Switch 2 feels like a colossal achievement, only slightly reduced by moments when it strains under the pressure of the handheld console's capabilities.

This technical ambition is most evident when taking in the rich design of the open world. Racing through the Kansai countryside while the wind kicks up leaves and ground clutter around your horse feels richly atmospheric. The amount of colour and detail on display is staggering at times. Seasonal changes add to the natural splendour even more, creating ever-shifting biomes.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Touch controls are included, but only for menus and the base builder, and mouse controls are sadly missing. There is a useful Ubisoft Connect feature that lets you carry your progression across consoles. The Switch 2 version comes with all patched-in content that is already available on other systems. The Claws of Awaji expansion is not bundled, although it will be available to purchase separately in February.

Conclusion

Outside of the technical ups and downs of its transition to Switch 2, Assassin's Creed Shadows remains a thoroughly enjoyable refresh for the series. Taking its most captivating open world to date and offering two distinct playstyles, it goes a long way toward appeasing current franchise fans while nurturing a new generation of assassins, presenting a huge, intricately crafted depiction of feudal Japan and giving you enjoyable dual protagonists to usher you through it.

Shadows isn't a perfect port, then, but it’s still a colossal achievement and one of the best-looking games on Nintendo’s console.

If you’ve spent years of your life waiting for Metroid Prime 4, Silksong, or one of the many other highly anticipated games that spent substantial time on the horizon, just remember that it could always be worse — you could be an Inazuma Eleven fan.

Developer Level-5’s RPG-tinged take on football (or soccer, if that’s your bag) started life back on the DS, where the original game and its sequels cemented the franchise’s status as a refreshingly wacky alternative to the hyper-grounded likes of genre counterparts like FIFA or Pro Evolution Soccer. That success continued into the 3DS era with the Inazuma Eleven: GO games, and in 2016 that the company revealed Inazuma Eleven: Ares as the franchise’s exciting next chapter.

Unfortunately, Inazuma Eleven: Ares didn’t hit its original 2018 launch window target. It was delayed. And then delayed again. And again, again, again. As years went by, amid changes to the project in name, scope, and gameplay — and a frightening period in which a report indicated that Level-5 was pulling away from English game releases altogether — it was hard to hold out hope for Inazuma Eleven’s chances of returning to the field.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

Yet, here it is. Nearly 12 years since the last mainline entry, the newly-renamed Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road has finally been released on Switch, Switch 2, and other platforms. It’s more of a relief than anything to finally have it out, but can a game with such an agonising lead-up to launch possibly live up to the hype? I’m happy to report that this return to the classic football franchise mostly delivers the goods and then some.

As with previous Inazuma Eleven titles, Victory Road’s big claim to fame is its core football gameplay. Across each of the game’s various modes, you build and customise teams of players with all sorts of specialised skills for the sole purpose of duking it out on the pitch against other teams. Matches follow the tried-and-true hallmarks of popular football games, with the added wrinkle of characters being able to pull off over-the-top, RPG-style moves that would most certainly get them disqualified in any sort of real-world scenario.

It’s classic Inazuma Eleven gameplay at its finest, with a staggering level of system depth and customisability that will feel rewarding to veterans and, admittedly, a bit overwhelming to newcomers. Level-5 does an adequate job of spoonfeeding the game’s most basic mechanics via Story Mode and optional tutorials, but for every concept that’s clearly explained, there’s another that’s left annoyingly opaque. It’s no stretch to say that having a solid understanding, let alone mastery, of all of the game’s intricate systems can only be accomplished with a significant time investment.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to spend time getting to know Victory Road. This long-awaited release can be summed up in one word: big. The game boasts two full-fat single-player campaigns, along with a bunch of side modes, including a social simulation-style town builder, as well as a robust PvP ecosystem for online matches.

It’s not strictly necessary to start with one particular mode over the others, but Story Mode feels like the most solid landing spot to start your journey. It follows new series protagonist Destin Billows (or Unmei Sasanami if you toggle to the Romanised Japanese character names), a teenager and new transfer to Nagumohara Junior High School. A former child athlete who was diagnosed with a heart condition, Destin has turned his back on his dream of playing football. However, a series of chance encounters with his new classmates reignites his passion for the sport, and he embarks on a challenging quest to restore the school’s long-neglected football club, build a team of unlikely star athletes, and take on Japan’s finest: Raimon.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

You control Destin and progress the plot via world exploration, traditional RPG-style battles, athlete-training minigames, and, of course, football matches. While the format will feel familiar to anyone who’s played an RPG before, and the mode-specific mechanics are pretty basic, it’s a solid little adventure that spices up the core football gameplay with a bunch of other activities.

It also tells quite the compelling tale, with a cast of likeable, well-developed characters and a whole host of surprisingly emotional story beats. The production values are high as well, as the story features full English and Japanese voice-acting, a grandiose soundtrack, and a ton of beautiful, fully-animated cutscenes courtesy of anime studio MAPPA.

If there’s a major downside to Victory Road’s Story Mode, it’s that the pacing is all over the place. While it’s nice to have such a meaty campaign to progress through, there’s a feeling at times that everything is more long-winded than it needs to be. The basic RPG battles and minigames, while generally entertaining, can get pretty repetitive by the time the late-game grind sets in. There’s one point in the story where you’re scouting new team members, and you have to play the same slow-paced passing minigame a whopping 15 times in a row. Some of the fat could have been trimmed here.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Perhaps Story Mode’s most egregious pacing issue, however, is that it takes a surprisingly long time to actually start playing football matches with any level of frequency. The start of the mode is still entertaining enough on its own, but, strangely, you have to spend a decent handful of hours before football matches start factoring into the story in any meaningful capacity. That said, once it really gets going, Story Mode is a pretty fun ride all the way through its satisfying conclusion.

If Story Mode wasn’t enough, Victory Road also features a secondary campaign with its own distinct story and progression in the way of Chronicle Mode. This follows Victorio Cryptix, a boy from a post-apocalyptic future who travels to the past to assemble a team of the best football players from Inazuma Eleven history in the hopes of stopping the threat to his time.

Victorio’s journey retells the events of all six previous Inazuma Eleven mainline entries in visual novel format, and sees you progressing through all of the major story matches from each game. In essence, Chronicle Mode contains abridged versions of the series’ entire history of campaigns — an impressive feat that will tide voracious players over with hours upon hours of content.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

That said, the mode can feel rather repetitive as it lacks Story Mode's gameplay variety and requires that each match be completed twice (once with a set story team and once with your own custom team) to progress.

Additionally, crucial bits of context for each historic match are often glossed over, making it far from the ideal way to experience previous games' narratives. It’s hard to complain too much, though, as having a bunch of the franchise’s history easily accessible in any form feels like gravy more than anything else.

If you’re still not satisfied, beyond the game’s two main campaigns are a plethora of side modes to sink even more time into. Battle Bay Stadium features playable dream matches between powerful teams from series history. Kizuna Station allows you to build your own Bond Town with collectible items and objects and interact with other players off the pitch. Meanwhile, Competition Mode lets you play free matches against the computer or other players online, testing the mettle of your hard-trained team.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Crucially, progression in most of Victory Road’s modes feeds into each other as you share obtained characters, items, and currencies within your central profile. That means that there’s really no wrong way to pass your time, and this freedom of choice in how you interact with its wealth of riches is commendable. Unfortunately, the game has far too many segmented currencies for obtaining items and summoning new characters to your roster, and determining what to do to gain a certain currency is way more complicated than it needs to be.

Performance-wise, Victory Road runs very smoothly on the Switch 2 with no visible frame-rate drops from its 60fps target during my time playing. Controlling everything feels just as responsive as it should. The game also looks decent graphically, though there’s a disappointing amount of shimmer in the background of various environments. Thankfully, the game’s clean and colourful art style keeps its visual identity strong and enjoyable to look at.

Conclusion

Having more content does not necessarily equal a better game, but there’s no denying that Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road’s massive wealth of modes, options, and gameplay variety make it feel like the franchise’s most premium experience yet. Between a fun and heartfelt story mode, a second story mode that includes the highlights of all previous games, and a bunch of additional side content along with robust PvP systems for longevity, it really does feel like you could play Victory Road forever.

At the end of the day, though, it all comes down to that core loop of teambuilding and playing football matches, and Victory Road’s take on the series’ trademark RPG-esque customisability and intuitive action on the pitch feels just as fresh and stylish as ever. Perhaps all those delays really were worth it.

A scared mouse scurries through an unforgiving landscape packed with abominations that may be friend or foe. This timid squeaker can join forces with Morsels, strange creatures with offensive abilities that fight at their side. With this help, the mouse travels upward toward the domain of the evil overlords who control this twisted world.

From that simple premise, Morsels presented me with a wealth of visual information and a relentless assault of creatures and environmental hazards. It's a lot to take in and it never really lets up.

An odd blend of Enter the Gungeon and Binding of Isaac, Furcula Games has crafted a twin-stick shooter cum card-based companion collector. The resulting creation is just as bizarre as that sounds.

Starting off in the sewers, you are gifted a morsel at the beginning of each attempt. You assign this friendly creature to a slot, collecting others later that can be added or swapped out. Morsels can level up from use or via power-ups scattered throughout levels.

For the first few runs, I had no idea what I was doing. There is no useful flavour text or tooltips in the game. Aside from a rough guide to the Morsel’s ability set, you don’t really know what you're getting until you learn what everything does. Some are powerful from the start, others have a steep learning curve to master. All of them are unique.

The general trial-and-error nature of Morsels isn’t a detriment. Much like Animal Well, the compulsion to learn more about your purpose in this world is strong.

Death comes swiftly across the densely populated environments. The intricate art style and twitchy gameplay go hand in hand. I found myself trying to dodge benign creatures wandering the maps, jumping headlong into hostile ones spewing projectiles in my general direction. Enemies come in myriad flavours and boss battles are typically chaotic bullet hells. Luckily, each attempt will accrue XP, rewarding buffs that make subsequent runs a bit more forgiving.

Morsels is a pleasingly nightmarish experience, with an oppressive atmosphere and an aesthetic that sets it apart from its peers.

When you think of platformers, you likely think of Super Mario Bros. When you think of JRPGs, you likely think of Final Fantasy. When you think of FPS, you likely think of Call of Duty. Some games are just synonymous with their respective genres. And when it comes to tower defense games, what comes to my mind immediately is Plants vs Zombies.

Plants vs Zombies: Replanted is exactly what it says on the tin. Zombies are invading and the only hope against them is a crop of… well, crops. You’ll need to plant an entire plant army to prevent the zombie hoard from entering your home. It’s a simple, if not rather iconic, premise.

I never actually had the chance to play Plants vs Zombies growing up. My only exposure to the franchise has been the hero-shooter spin-offs. Thankfully, this Replanted edition has breathed life back into the game to offer a way for players like me to experience this cult classic properly for the first time. It’s worked well for the most part; I’ve greatly enjoyed my time with Replanted, even if it stumbles in a few areas.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

It’s worth noting the amount of gameplay content you get for your buck. From the main campaign, which is itself fairly meaty, to new minigames to even a puzzle mode, there’s a lot packed into this gem of brain-hungry, botanical tower defense.

The unlockable minigames are a blast. Walnut Bowling is self-explanatory, but modes like ZomBotony — where you’re attacked by plant-zombie hybrids— spin gameplay mechanics around on their heads. And if that’s not enough, there’s also a puzzle mode where you have to think strategically about card placement to clear vases.

There’s also an unlockable co-op mode (that I unfortunately wasn’t able to test as I had no one to play with), and those with a partner will be able to do head-to-head PvP matches, with one player on the side of the zombies. You’ll get hours of replayable fun and I’m surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed it all. The tower defense gameplay is as strong as ever, and I love having to carefully prep my cards (i.e. units) to best battle waves after waves of zombies.

My strategy tended to change between battles. Some plants can spray through screen doors, which makes them essential for battles with zombies sporting screen doors. But then you also have to consider which plant you want to use for resource generation and whether you want walnuts to act as a buffer, or maybe protect your crops with landmines. Those kinds of options helped keep the flow of combat feeling fresh and made me get out of my comfort zone to test new strategies.

Unfortunately, there was initially more trouble in the neighborhood than just the hordes of undead ghouls. As Felix mentioned in his video, the optional mouse controls were downright abysmal at launch, and the touchscreen controls didn’t fare much better - at least until patches adjusted things (and also restored the original dynamic audio and implemented a whole load of sound effect fixes which dogged the game on release day).

Previously, trying to use the mouse controls resulted in a headache, as it was so sensitive that it quickly switched back to standard controls the second you lifted the controller. Meanwhile, planting in touchscreen was a letdown because the sprites followed you as if they were stuck to your finger once you selected a unit.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

The ball definitely got dropped in this area, and those post-release patches haven’t totally solved things for me, especially in touchscreen mode. It still feels clunky and difficult to control, sometimes slowing on-screen action to a glitchy crawl and ultimately making me question the inclusion of the control scheme in the first place.

There’s also allegations of AI usage in the game, which — at the risk of sounding like I’m soapboxing — is downright messy if true.

That aside, the overall package is still a blast to play. It doesn’t take very long before the 'just one more level' addictiveness begins to take hold. This is helped by the number of units you unlock, all of which have a quirky charm and cute design. Of course the basic attacking unit is called a Pea Shooter, and of course the icy variant is a Frozen Pea Shooter. You can’t beat those kinds of puns! It’s a game that’s guaranteed to make even the most cold-hearted gamer crack a smile.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

Plants vs Zombies: Replanted also comes with some quality-of-life improvements. One of the best new features is the ability to fast-forward the gameplay up to 2.5x speed. By default, these are the slow shambling type of zombies and there’s normally a long, slow gap between waves. But with the press of a button, they speed up to World War Z levels of fast. It makes playing feel more fluid and smooth; it also adds another layer of challenge for those who might find the standard gameplay flow too easy.

Conclusion

Overall, I find myself really loving Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted. Its cute and quirky character designs are infectiously charming, and the gameplay is simple but effective. The graphics are easy on the eyes and help make the character designs shine. It’s a bummer that there were problems with the controls at launch, but even with those issues, it wasn't enough to prevent the game from being a botanical blast.

With a name like Viewfinder, you might be forgiven for thinking that somebody finally decided to capitalise on the picture-hunting format perfected by Pokémon Snap. Perhaps a chilling new instalment in the Fatal Frame series?

Developer Sad Owl Studios is going for a different vibe here. The viewfinder in question is a device that can shift reality, layering photographs on top of the environment and creating new pathways through an artificial world.

It is a genuinely unique experience, though it does share some DNA with Jonathan Blow’s The Witness, with the perspective-shifting madness of Portal. An accessible set of lateral conundrums that usher you through an ever-shifting approximation of utopia.

Originally launching on PS5 in July 2023, there is an intriguing narrative, drip-fed to both you and the main characters. Scientists explore a simulation that seems to comprise an amalgam of civilisation. Photographs are placed around levels, depicting another scene within the space. Taking these images and placing them in focus will set them into the world. This mechanic allows you to solve different flavours of traversal puzzle.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

Despite the freaky manipulation of liminal space, the spatial acrobats never feel disorienting; it all comes surprisingly naturally. As I placed bridges across chasms or removed a wall with a section of sky, I never felt the puzzle solutions were obtuse or deliberately vague.

Variations start to appear in the shape of perspective puzzles that must be combined with the photos in order to progress. Making copies of photographs, capturing the right angle with a tower viewer, and good old-fashioned switch flipping are just some of the methods to progress in this idyllic world.

These multi-stage puzzles facilitate frequent use of the rewind mechanic, which zips you back to the last time you tried something that didn't quite pan out. Being able to quickly revisit steps like this is all part of the easygoing feel of Viewfinder. Sad Owl wants you to get through these levels smoothly because stop-start pacing would ruin the artistic flourishes that pepper the journey.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)

The aesthetic of the simulation is vibrant and intoxicating, with sharp primary colours that pop on both big and small screens. The fabricated world you're jacked into is a snapshot of society that itself feels lived in by those who have explored before your character.

The sheer range of styles on display is impressive. At several points you will transition between completely different motifs, layering hand-drawn crayon sketches on top of polygonal dungeons and back to soft watercolour edges. You will occasionally be pulled out into the real world, with its clinical office environments and harsh red cityscapes. This stark contrast makes you savour the painterly style of the simulation.

While you are a lone scientist wandering between worlds, you have constant communication with your colleague, who will chime in with gameplay-specific banter. Elsewhere, a virtual talking cat called Cait wanders the levels acting as a guide.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

At several points, you will find yourself in a hub area that offers a chance to revisit levels and take part in brief but stylistically distinct side challenges. These diversions are worthwhile, but don’t extend the runtime of an all too brief experience; you'll finish it in around four hours.

This being a Switch 1 native release, the trippy visuals run at a lower frame rate and it can be jarring when you constantly pan around the environment to find a puzzle solution. This is an experience built around exploring the screen and it feels hamstrung by the older hardware. Jumping to Switch 2 does not meaningfully change this. Performance is still lacking on the newer console. Undocked play on both platforms looks great and plays a bit smoother, but the difference is marginal at best.

There is a healthy selection of accessibility options. Motion smoothing in particular helps balance out that low frame rate. It doesn’t totally fix it, but it takes the edge off slightly.

Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

Yet in spite of the lower performance, Viewfinder's visually distorting odyssey pulls you in and enchants. It's a relaxing experience, driven by narrative and a constant barrage of artistic flourishes. Add to this a gorgeous musical score by Aether, which mixes slow jazz beats and ethereal synths, and you've got a simulation that's easy to get lost in.

Conclusion

It would be well worth your time to focus on this unique puzzler. Exploring a colourful simulation by manipulating the world around you through photographs, Viewfinder is a relaxed, compelling experience that stands out for its visual style and unique puzzle design. It's a journey worth taking, despite being hampered by the lower performance of the Switch 1.

As a person who grew up on the original Tomb Raider games back on the PS1, I eagerly anticipated the ‘new era’ of Lara Croft promised by publisher Square Enix and developer Crystal Dynamics for the 2013 reboot. Seemingly inspired by the success of the Uncharted franchise (which itself was inspired by Tomb Raider), the first game in this reinvention strips back the years of character development and delivers a young woman yet to build the skills and charisma her older counterpart emits.

Instead, a young Lara is swept up in a dangerous adventure that lands her marooned on a remote island named Yamatai, and battling both hired goons and the wilderness itself for survival. It's a little dated now (prepare for lots of QTEs), but back in 2013, this gritty new take on Tomb Raider was a reinvigoration, and thanks to some smart combat changes shamelessly ripped from Nathan Drake’s outings, it still feels fresh today.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Tomb Raider (2013) is a quasi-open-world entry that splits the gameplay between third-person action and platforming to explore. Lara and her team aboard the Endurance find themselves stranded, and quickly Croft is battling not just the elements, but also hoards of mercenaries (and plenty of other enemies) in a desperate struggle to survive and escape. Plus, you’ll also be doing some good-ol’ plundering, with small hidden Tombs littered across the map, not unlike the Shrines in modern Zelda.

The world of Yamatai is surprisingly open, and while the platforming here is nothing like the style of exploration we’d get just a few years later with titles like Breath of the Wild, the playground surrounding Lara is wide enough to feel intimidating.

Stripping the protagonist back to the essentials also makes her vulnerable, and the world surrounding Lara is absolutely out to take advantage of that. We find Croft beaten, bloodied, and generally put through absolute hell, and while it can occasionally feel gratuitous (seriously, those kill screens are wild), it does a fairly good job of showing the very first trials that forged our hero.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

Mixing platforming with occasional stealth, sprinkling some light RPG elements with a skill tree, and some basic but satisfying combat, this Tomb Raider is a cocktail that tastes much better than the sum of its parts, largely thanks to execution. Revisiting it for the first time in many years, it's remarkable that while it certainly does ape the Uncharted formula (and perhaps even a little Resident Evil 4), there’s a cohesion and thrill to the gameplay that makes it impossible to put down.

The third-person action still feels tight, and while your weapon selection isn’t huge, the ways you can improve them are plentiful. Earning XP from combat or scavenging weapon parts slowly unlocks more options, and alongside finding relics and other collectibles, there’s plenty to uncover and many reasons to do so. Even when inspecting some of your pilfered relics, spinning them around to find hidden secrets is a joy and even earns you more XP. Though on Switch, the rumble goes a bit wild when you are looking at these relics and are close to a new clue.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Ultimately, original developer Crystal Dynamics did a good job of helping you care about Lara’s progression and making it feel earned. Whether you’ve played it before or are hoping to finally experience this story, there are dozens of hours to enjoy here if you want to explore everything on this godforsaken island.

Aspyr is responsible for this particular port, bringing this Definitive Edition to our greedy little mitts quite out of the blue. But, while some of the other ‘Definitive Edition’ ports on recent hardware boast gorgeous visuals and lighting effects, instead, this feels like the very original 2013 release given a quick polish.

Everything runs great, but stopping to look at textures or some of the character models reveals that this is a version of the game that has omitted visual fidelity in favour of performance, to quite a dramatic degree. I loaded up my PC copy of Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition just to play around and try to find a similar graphical benchmark, and cannot say I was impressed with the results. At a glance, Switch 2 feels comparable to the Normal PC graphics settings, and we’re definitely not getting the advanced TRESSFX for Lara’s hair.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Thankfully, frame rate performs much better, with my tests showing a rock-solid 60fps on Switch 2 in docked mode while visuals were running at 2560x1440, with handheld mode looking to run at a comparable level frame-wise. Gameplay is key here, and this is not an ugly game by any means. A lush jungle is strengthened with dense foliage and inquisitive wildlife. Weather effects and running water add to the immersion and the great sound design. A lit torch and its flickering flames illuminate the dank caves and many tombs you must explore, smartly using shadows and beams of light to great effect.

Meanwhile, a vantage point reveals the large scope of this gorgeous island, as well as the many dangers within. Ideally, the world would also have a greater variety of visual identity, because there’s a lot of PS3-era grey/brown design here, with even an occasional smearing of dirt on the screen. Lara spends the game covered in filth and surrounded by the elements, and the visuals convey that well.

For those picking it up on Switch 2, there are a couple of nice additions to sweeten the deal. One of those promised by Aspyr is gyro controls, and they appear as an option, but seem to only move specific menus instead of your sights with guns or bows. This, if intentional, is a wild choice and a complete waste - we've reached out for clarification and will update if/when we hear back. Hopefully, actual motion controls will be implemented with an update in the future.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

Faring slightly better are the mouse controls, which at least work, but are very sensitive and a bit wonky. Even when holding the Joy-Con sideways, you have to use 'ZR' to pull your arrow, and then 'R' on the same Joy-Con to release it. This is just a very weird layout, and doesn't ever feel comfortable, especially when the controller version of this is the standard 'ZL' to pull, and 'ZR' to release.

Finally, this Definitive Edition of Tomb Raider also includes a treasure trove of additional content, including concept artwork, character models, and even the return of the surprisingly fun multiplayer. If you ever played the Uncharted 3 online mode, this might be the closest thing we have today.

Conclusion

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition is sadly not as Definitive as the title might imply. While Aspyr has done the work to make a title from 2013 run at a solid 60fps on a handheld, and with 1440p resolution, it seems the cost was graphical fidelity at almost every turn. Not to mention the bizarre implementation (or lack thereof) of motion controls, and unwieldy mouse options.

Thankfully, this entry in the Tomb Raider mythos remains one of the very best, and clever visual design means that your trip through Yamatai is far from ugly, as long as you don’t inspect too closely. Crystal Dynamics’ 2013 reinvention of Lara Croft just might be the best entry in this decades-old franchise, and for the asking price, you’re getting a thrilling action romp that’ll keep you hooked until the credits.

Developers Purple Lamp Studios are single-handedly keeping the dream alive for the continuing adventures of everyone's favourite sentient sponge.

2020’s Battle for Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated was a fine update to a cult classic and a huge success to boot. The studio followed up with a solid sequel in The Cosmic Shake, making good on the promise to continue the franchise.

We now have another adventure from that same template with Titans of the Tide, a familiar adventure that is fun for all ages and preserves the universal appeal of its source material.

The story is about as simple as an average episode of the show. King Neptune and the Flying Dutchman get into a seismic squabble in the Krusty Krab, and the denizens of Bikini Bottom end up caught in the crossfire. Undersea inhabitants are turned into slime-throwing spectres and Squidward has something else to complain about. SpongeBob and Patrick must team up to battle the Dutchman's army of monsters and save the day. How else is Mr Krabs going to turn a profit?

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

Although this title is not a huge leap from The Cosmic Shake, it is a clear step up from PHL Collective’s The Patrick Star Game. Where that title was more of a kiddy-friendly puzzler, this is an expansive collectathon platformer.

As a proud member of the multi-generational legion of SpongeBob fans, I always look forward to these. The presentation is flawless, Bikini Bottom and its inhabitants are lovingly rendered. Levels are full of NPCs, most of which have a quip to throw your way, and some have genuinely funny dialogue that’s worth discovering. It's fun to explore the levels (with the help of a handy surfboard), finding all the fish people tucked away in every corner.

Titans of the Tide lets you play as both SpongeBob and his dim starfish buddy. Through the magic of a BFF Ring, both characters are with you throughout the game. Each of them has a unique ability set that helps solve platforming and environmental puzzles across the levels.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

You can swap between them with the push of a button, with the non-controlled character floating around as a ghost. This spectral companion acts as an objective guide and lights a path to the next goal within the generously sized environments.

Special abilities are fun to mix and match. SpongeBob utilise his karate experience, while Patrick can burrow underground and grapple with a spectral whip. Levels often encourage using this character-switching mechanic, and it is satisfying to swap between the two for traversal and combat.

Battling the spectral minions of the Flying Dutchman is a bit thin. You get simple melee combos and the occasional light environmental puzzle during boss encounters. Some enemies require the use of a newly discovered ability, although most encounters are little more than punch and move on.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Between quests, you'll head to the Floating Patty, a hub area where you can chat with NPCs and pick up side quests from the likes of Plankton and Sandy. There's a lot of content here, with a broad variety of locations and a ton of side content. Collecting everything doesn't have quite the same challenge as flagship 3D platformers, but what's here could easily fill a giant-sized Krabby Patty.

While not a graphical powerhouse, Titans of the Tide plays like a dream. Quality (30fps) and performance (60fps target) modes are both viable thanks to a motion smoothing slider. I always enjoy the stretchy animations and physics ripped straight out of the cartoon.

Audio is also great, with the cast of the show on hand to provide voice work; this alone will be worth the cost of admission for fans. It's worth noting that barely a second of gameplay goes by without a cheesy quip, dumb Patrick-ism, or signature laugh from Tom Kenny, so mileage may vary on your tolerance for that.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

The only real gripe I have with Titans of the Tide is that it doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from the other two titles in Purple Lamp’s series revival. Aside from the ghostly enemies and ability switching mechanic, this game is no different from Battle for Bikini Bottom or Cosmic Shake. Even the in-game store, which contains a generous amount of skins for SpongeBob and Patrick, is basically the same as it was in the previous game. The format is reliable, but three games in and it's starting to creak.

Conclusion

If you are a fan of the other games in this cycle of platform adventures, you are going to love Titans of the Tide. It's another colourful, funny SpongeBob adventure from Purple Lamp and, just like the cartoon, repeat viewings don’t tend to lessen the magic. The formula is starting to show its age now, but it's still the best virtual Bikini Bottom we've got.

Forestrike is yet another roguelite to add to the Switch pile, albeit one that sets itself apart by focusing on slower, meticulous gameplay. Taking on the role of martial artist Yu, you embark on a deadly quest across multiple regions, taking on a slew of enemies as you go. Rather than attack your foes with reckless abandon, however, you have an ability — ‘Foresight’ — to plan out your strategy with no major consequences.

Essentially, each battle presents you with two options: Foresee and Fight, mapped to ‘L’ and ‘R’ respectively. The former lets you practice the fight as many times as necessary to nail a perfect victory. Once you’ve figured out how to proceed without messing up (and likely dying), you can go ahead and fight for real. It’s an intriguing concept in theory, but it does remove some sense of danger from the experience.

I will say, though, Forestrike is tough. There are typically four or five enemies in any given fight, all possessing different strengths and weaknesses. One might charge at you immediately, while another lobs spears or other objects in your direction. Learning how to turn their attacks against them is often crucial to victory. For example, you can take up a defensive stance and cause one enemy to pass right through you, thus crashing into a hapless fool standing right behind.

Once fights begin, you generally have to string together a bunch of moves in one go if you’re to achieve a perfect victory, while messing up will mean opponents deal immediate damage. Executing the right combination of attacks, dodges, throws, and more results in an elegant dance that’s extremely satisfying to watch. Of course, once you commence the fight for real, you either win and proceed to the next level (while bagging some sweet dosh) or lose and go right back to the start of your run.

As you progress, you’ll gain new, permanent techniques via the different martial masters that accompany you on your journey. The initial master introduces the aforementioned pass-through technique, while the next grants the ability to block through brute force, causing enemies to crash into you and fall to the ground, and so on. Other minor buffs, perks, and techniques are gained in between fights, with the game presenting you three optional cards from which to choose. Very roguelike, then. Naturally, as you gain abilities, you’ll find yourself altering your strategy and gaining confidence. Eventually, you might even be able to complete fights without using Foresight at all.

Overall, however, while Forestrike boasts strong gameplay and a lovely, abstract pixel-art aesthetic, its core hook removes a sense of risk. This is definitely a difficult game at its heart, but the ability to practice your runs with no consequences dulls its edge a bit too much.

When Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero launched last year on non-Nintendo platforms. I was taken aback at how much time had passed since the last entry in this series. I was a teenager still in school!

With the launch of Nintendo Switch 2, a flurry of ports are coming to the updated console and handheld system, including Sparking Zero. I’m glad to say that Switch 2 is a great way to play this action-packed 3D brawler filled with content, if you can forgive some of the performance issues.

For starters, Sparking Zero looks crisp on Switch 2, and its charming and faithful art style bursts with colour on screen. The graphics look noticeably better in docked mode. In handheld mode, the aliasing around character models is glaringly obvious and somewhat distracting.

However, the high kinetic gameplay helps hide some of these visual blemishes. When you’re immersed in the moment-to-moment gameplay, you notice the jagged lines less. Furthermore, the Switch 2 version is capped at 30fps, which is disappointing compared to its other console counterparts, but it’s ultimately understandable in order to get it stable on the handheld.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

The camera work makes the gameplay feel even more cinematic. When it comes to firing off special attacks like Trunks’s Burning Attack, the camera zooms in, often mimicking similar angles to those of the anime, making it feel authentic to the source material. Most of the voice acting here is matched from what I remember from the TV show as well, fueling these nostalgic feelings further.

Sparking Zero’s biggest selling point is its absolutely stellar roster. It has more than 180 different characters spanning from every corner of the Dragon Ball universe, even the non-canon movies. Whether you started with the original Dragon Ball or started tuning in with Super, you’re bound to find your favourite here.

Some of them are amusing clones, as there are 19 different versions of Goku, but each one has a distinctive move set that reflects where that particular Goku was at the time during the anime. Despite the repetition, they all require slightly different approaches to play and feel distinguishable from each other.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Even still, there are dozens of characters to choose from that prevent fighting and gameplay from ever feeling stale. To accommodate such a huge roster, every character uses the same controls to move, fly, and charge their ki. However, there are a few nuances within the kinds of characters, such as androids like Android 18 not being able to charge ki, but it gradually rises automatically during battle. Giant characters, such as Great Ape Baby, can’t be grabbed. These differences help further differentiate the cast from one another, even though the controls are universal.

Sparking Zero’s main meat comes in its Episode Battles, which go through the story of Dragon Ball. Instead of playing out every single battle ever, there are eight playable characters with different paths telling a more condensed version of the story. Each path focuses on the most important and iconic moments, such as Super Saiyan Goku’s first fight against Full Power Frieza on Planet Namek. While having to go through eight different characters can be tiring, Episode Battles do a good enough job covering the biggest battles in the series.

But what makes Episode Battles interesting is the ability to go off branching narratives. For example, during the Cell arc in the anime, Piccolo fights Cell (1st form) off while Goku and Gohan wait for Trunks and Vegeta. However, Sparking Zero gives you the option to choose the opposite. By having Goku fight Cell instead (and winning), this prevents the Cell Games from ever happening, and now Goku gets to live happily ever after together with the Androids.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

This doesn’t happen with every single major plot point, so it doesn’t lose its novelty. I was always pleasantly surprised and excited whenever these options popped up on my screen.

Another way of getting branching events is satisfying certain hidden conditions in specific battles. For example, when Vegeta and Trunks spar in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber in Vegeta’s story route, defeating Trunks unlocks an entirely new path where the father and son duo manage to defeat Perfect Cell during the Cell Games, mirroring the canon events of the anime where Goku and Gohan did so instead. These were surprising, yet satisfying ways of unlocking more what-if scenarios.

Unfortunately, Sparking Zero doesn’t actually tell you what these conditions are, which is rather annoying. On the bright side, since it took a little over a year for the game to come to Switch and Switch 2, you can easily find this information online, although I wish the game were clearer about it.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Additionally, this is where Switch 2’s performance takes a bit of a dip. During the comic-book style cutscenes, panels would change and there’d be a noticeable lag, especially transitioning into a battle. Although that’s not a huge issue once you get into the fight itself, as performance is nearly flawless there, where it matters the most.

This is the case for both handheld and docked mode. The performance issues also spill over into the menus. Whenever I would browse the main menus looking at game modes, like Episode Battle or the Shop, it would start to chug.

As you participate in battles, you’ll earn in-game currency Zeni that you can spend to unlock new characters and costumes. Thankfully, I didn’t feel like I was being nickel-and-dimed. I earned Zeni at a steady rate and the progression in acquiring unlockables felt natural. While there are microtransactions, I never felt the need to go out of my way to purchase them, which I appreciated.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

Sparking Zero also has a custom battle mode, where you can engineer battles like you’re playing out some sort of Dragon Ball fantasy. There’s an option to add dialogue to give your scenarios some narrative flavour, but overall this mode feels more like an afterthought than anything else. It wasn’t compelling enough like the Episode Battles, so I didn’t spend much time with it.

On the flip side, the online battle system is robust. Performance was practically perfect here, and I didn’t experience any connection drops during the matches I played.

Sparking Zero smartly balances online fights, too. You and your opponent have 15 DP, and each character costs a certain amount. While you can have a total of five characters on your team, the more powerful ones like Vegito Blue cost a whopping 10 DP, meaning that you only have 5 DP leftover for weaker characters like Master Roshi, Cell Jr, or even base form Early Goku to put on your team.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

To add an extra layer of strategy, many characters can transform during battle. So you could pick Goku (Z- End) in his base form, who costs 5 DP, but eventually transform him up to Super Saiyan 3, making him more powerful as the battle goes on. Your Goku might be a bit beat up by that time, but that lets you bypass Super Saiyan 3 Goku’s more expensive 7 DP cost to use him right off the bat.

This prevents you and your opponent from strolling into fights with high-powered characters, and you actually have to think about your team composition. If your Vegito Blue falls in battle, the rest of your team might not be able to pick up the slack.

Conclusion

Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero delivers a commendable 3D brawler experience even if some visual and performance issues persist. The immense roster is sure to please any Dragon Ball fan, no matter what age or era they entered the franchise. The branching narratives in Episode Battles and the online play are fun staples to the game, and it feels right at home on Switch 2.

In the great pantheon of shoot-'em-up games, R-Type is both one of the greatest and one of the most excruciatingly difficult. Released in arcades in 1987 and drawing visual inspiration from the works of H.R. Giger, you pilot an R-9 fighter craft through spectacular alien worlds in a bid to destroy the Bydo Empire.

Although shoot 'em ups later evolved to favor more twitch-reflex gameplay, R-Type’s staple is its strict memorization, requiring you to learn it by rote. As with Gradius, not dying is an unspoken challenge: losing your power-ups makes recovery brutally tough, and the game's infamously aggressive checkpoints send you back a considerable distance each time you bite a bullet.

Impressed with the polygonal revision of Taito’s 1996 Raystorm, IREM endeavored to make a similar transition for R-Type’s fourth entry. Being their first attempt at 3D, it was a project with a steep learning curve. And, while the result was glorious, it was also mystifyingly brief, remaining a PlayStation exclusive for 27 years.

Enter R-Type Delta: HD Boosted - a remaster that upscales the visuals handsomely. Its PlayStation-era polygons have been buffed to an astonishing shine without losing any of their characteristic charm, and overall visibility is greatly improved.

Additionally, while the game was originally in a 4:3 aspect ratio, some trickery has been done to create the illusion of widescreen, using an “expanded” fade effect on the border edges that, when locked in, you quickly forget are there. Its upscaling is on par with M2’s G-Darius port, and, coming from City Connection — a developer praised for their taste in re-releases but less so for their effort thereafter — its quality comes as a pleasant surprise.

R-Type Delta is one of the series' best, both smoother and cleaner than R-Type Final, and faster and freer than the three 2D entries that preceded it. Delta is to R-Type what G-Darius was to, well, Darius: a remarkably slick, visually gorgeous game that maximizes the possibilities of 3D architecture.

There are now three craft available: the original R-9, playing in traditional fashion; the new R-X, with Force Ball homing properties; and the R-13, which is primarily hinged around its Force Ball’s sticky anchoring and laser tether. Impressively, each craft totally changes your approach, requiring its own roadmap to victory. Power-up modifiers vary greatly depending on the ship you’re using, making a maximum of nine shot-types when factoring in three per craft. Additionally, the doubling up of said power-ups expands the range even further.

Visually it’s beautiful and the audio is stellar. Set pieces abound as early as stage one: mecha-centipedes rip through burned-out industrial high-rises to encircle you in the foreground, and screen-dwarfing bosses pump out neon laser barrels and fiery exhaust flame. Dynamic and ploughed with invention, it cherry picks elements from its predecessors and paints them across a bolder seven-stage canvas.

Stage three is wonderfully creative, the entire episode just one hulking, stalking boss that requires travelling beneath its feet to strip its armory, before climbing to its peak under a hail of missiles. The way the camera scales, shifting your flight path in various directions, heightens its cinematic nature. The fine visual and audio details are terrific, too, like the way the music switches to a muted, bassy throb the instant your ship dips below water.

Delta remains a hardcore memorizer, despite having more random elements than those before it. It also maintains checkpoints, although now getting powered back up post-death is much easier. Not dying, though, is still the star to shoot for, as maintaining a strong ship enables you to wipe out large enemies and bosses in a fraction of the time.

More than anything else, though, Delta is about ball control. And by that, I mean the Force Ball: R-Type’s idiosyncratic ship attachment. More than any other game in the series, Force Ball usage feels so much more integral, and its strategy varies greatly depending on the different ship types.

Typically the ball can be bolted to the front or back of the craft with a touch. When positioned there, it provides different shot boosts depending on the color of the power-up you collect. It also shields against almost all incoming bullets and missiles. With a touch of the button, it can be shot out directly into enemies or objects, and set to travel adjacently, firing as it goes to cover more screen space.

Sending the Force Ball out on repeat is how Delta ticks, with the landscape and enemy patterns calling for ever-evolving strategies. When it’s fired into a large enemy it can be absolutely devastating, its point-blank hit-rate making short work of any foe - but its greatest trick is in its new “Dose” function. Now, whenever the ball absorbs a bullet on your behalf, it fills a gauge that, when reaching 100%, will allow you to deploy an explosive super attack against everything on the screen.

Delta has been engineered painstakingly around this, cleverly placing swarms of popcorn enemies in-between junctures so you can quickly ‘dose up’ with a little risk-reward flying. Attached to the front of your craft, it can be used as a collision barrier, nosing through enemy waves and building the meter fast. Dedicated players will be able to eke out myriad possibilities for maximizing the Dose attack's regular deployment.

Delta proves incredibly deep and impressively malleable for a series known for its strict rail structure. Elements that pose problems initially can be quickly outwitted through experimentation, and often felled in the blink of an eye. Learning not just where to camp, but how to utilize the Force Ball effectively increases your offence and defense in equal stride. And when all else fails, you still have your charge beam to cut through incoming obstacles.

Although you start with limited continues, these increase through play time, and once a stage is beaten it becomes available in practice. There are three difficulty levels to choose from, and perks in the form of graphics texture options, screen dimension adjustments, and time-unlockable bonuses that will keep you plugging away.

Delta HD Boosted's only real presentation shortcoming is that, inexplicably, you can’t skip the lengthy start-up sequence on each new game. With no quick restart from the pause menu either, you’re forced back to the title screen to repeatedly endure the whole opening preamble. It’s an easily addressable oversight that proves genuinely frustrating.

Delta is often cited as one of the most difficult R-Type games, but I beg to differ. Compared to the more static nature of its predecessors, all the new tricks and possibilities here actually make it easier in many ways. Getting powered back up after a death is far friendlier, the Dose super weapon is a crucial get-out-of-jail-free card, and being able to adjust the ship’s speed can save you in a pinch. That said, it’s still hard as nails, and 'Kid' difficulty, despite the disparaging name, comes highly recommended as a first port of call.

Conclusion

A true arcade game that never was, and confined to the PlayStation until now, shoot-'em-up fans will adore what’s in store. A seminal work that has never looked better, Delta, with its boundless creativity and exacting design, stands out not just amongst its peers, but as perhaps the best R-Type the series ever produced.

Yes, it’s still crazy tough, and no quick restarts or scene-skipping is painful, but this new HD revamp is by far the best way to play it. If you’re itching for a shoot-'em-up experience of note, this will make your year.

Hamster Corporation's Arcade Archives series is back with another cabinet classic on Switch 2. I got to check out Jet Ski racer Aqua Jet back in August, which was a lovingly crafted port. This time I'm revisiting the destructive tank combat of Namco's Tokyo Wars, which served as inspiration for The 3DO Company's N64 classic Battle Tanx: Global Assault.

Aqua Jet was notable for having a cabinet containing a replica Jet Ski, something which can’t really be recreated on Switch (without some serious hardware modding). Tokyo Wars had a similar hardware quirk that provided a satisfying kickback to simulate your tank firing its payload. A feature that is, bafflingly, not emulated with the Switch 2 controllers' haptics.

Aside from the complete lack of feedback when unleashing shells on enemy tanks, this port is as clean and generously featured as I've come to expect from Hamster Corp.

The premise couldn't be simpler: Rival factions battle it out in the streets of Tokyo. You choose from White Force or Green Force and roll around the map, shelling any opposing tank you find, while avoiding your team’s armor. This was a great game back in the day and it's worth experiencing now, even if there isn't much to do in its two arenas.

This 1996 title looks as polished as it possibly could be, outside of being remastered. Visuals and audio are crisp and suit docked and undocked modes equally, with many format options to tweak the experience to your liking. Special mention goes to crisp presentation of Akihiko Ishikawa's insane music, which makes you feel like you're at a sweaty Japanese rave instead of a warzone.

Both English and Japanese versions of the game are playable in all available modes. Caravan time attack makes a return and can be played in split screen. Other modes can also be played in up to four-player local split screen.

Much like other games in the Arcade Archives, all the content in Tokyo Wars has to offer can be experienced in minutes. An additional Multiplayer mode is the only thing that would extend the lifespan of this slight experience.

Enjoyment comes from improving on your own performance and competing with others, as is usual with an arcade title. That said, the more of these Arcade Archives titles that Hamster Corp puts out, the more it becomes evident that an 'Arcade Archives 2 Collection' would be much more value for money than individual releases.

I honestly never thought I’d fall in love with Pokémon battles. That’s not why I play Pokémon – I don’t play competitively either – because I play a ton of RPGs where combat is the draw. I can get my fix elsewhere. But Pokémon Legends: Z-A may have done the impossible; in Kalos, I can’t wait to get into a fight.

Taking the basic framework for 2022’s Legends: Arceus, Z-A transplants the frictionless catching and larger environments to the streets of Lumiose City and switches things up by placing battles at the forefront, rather than the exploration. Arceus is one of my favourite Pokémon games ever, so I had concerns, but the shift here mostly works.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

When a Pokémon spots me from a distance or I lock eyes with a trainer, no longer am I simply going for the same attacks, nor am I stressing about PP in a long Elite Four rush. Everything is real time with Xenoblade-style cooldowns and full movement to boot.

This is the best Pokémon battles have ever felt. Your Pokémon are no longer just static sprites and polygons with repetitive animations: they move in accordance with your own movements. And you have to use that to your advantage to both attack and avoid opponents.

Suddenly, I’m not just thinking about type match-ups (still important, of course) but attack distance, Pokémon speed, the battle space around me, and when to use each move. Totodile’s Bubble Beam can hit from a further distance than, say, Bite, but it has a longer charge-up time and it gives the opponent the chance to run away. Bite, however, might put Totodile in harm’s way. What if this Sandile has Absorb and gets it off as my little croc is running up to attack?

I’m even using attacks like Fire Spin and Toxic Spikes to set up traps and lure my opponent. These are all things that I know are used competitively, but I, even casually, feel like I have to utilise status effects and stat boosts and everything else in my Pokémon’s arsenal to win. And things can get particularly dicey when Alpha Pokémon get involved.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

Even Mega Evolution feels like it’s been massively improved, with snappy and dramatic transformations that in many story-focused battles are essentially mandatory. It’s beautiful to see the bones of the series’ combat be fully realised in this new system, and I’ll be sad to lose this system outside of Z-A.

Thankfully, as you can probably gather so far, there is a lot of that combat thanks to the Z-A Royale, which makes up one half of the game’s narrative progression. By day, Lumiose is a place for coffee and couture — and I must say, the fashion available is très chic — but by night, a battle zone opens up where trainers lurk and aim to duke it out and gain ranking points to reach the next promotional match. You can pick up Bonus Cards to help boost those rewards by fulfilling certain conditions, such as defeating foes with Plus Moves or putting them to sleep.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

It’s another excuse to get into battle, which is absolutely a good thing. Especially as you progress through the game and higher-levelled trainers join the ranks. I never got bored sneaking into a new battle zone, picking up the nearest Bonus Card that fit my Pokémon team’s skillset, and then destroying a foe five levels above me with a crafty super-effective back attack. It’s extremely satisfying to pull off and frustrating when the trainer turns at the last minute to spot you, in a good way.

When you’re not spending time in the Z-A Royale, you’ll be helping Team MZ to quell the Rogue Mega Evolution threat popping up all over the city. These are basically the Frenzied Fights from Arceus, but much better. To me, they’re like MMORPG raid battles – watch the attack patterns, try to dodge, expose the ‘mons’ weaknesses, then Mega Evolve for some big damage numbers.

Because I was actually battling the Rogue Mega and not just running and throwing things, I felt engaged in these fights. They weren’t just an obstacle, but they helped me understand the importance of space and movement in combat. There were even times where I had to recall my Pokémon and hide behind an obstacle to avoid taking damage. It’s another layer of strategy that I wasn’t expecting from Pokémon that I really appreciate – even if those fights can get a little too chaotic and hard to track.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

Something I hope Game Freak and The Pokémon Company can keep up on Switch 2 is smooth performance. I wish I wasn’t so shocked here, but they’ve managed it in Legends: Z-A. Running at a very consistent 60fps in both handheld and docked, with only a few slight dips in extremely busy, late-game battles and some fast menu cycling, it’s honestly a relief. Load times are also relatively snappy in both formats. I wasn't able to test out the Switch 1 version for review, so we'll have some thoughts on that post-launch, but on the newer console at least, it's a success. If only the visuals were as consistent.

I’ve showered a lot of praise on Legends: Z-A so far; the music is excellent, and I enjoy the abundance of fashion shops and customization you have access to throughout the whole game. But as I said earlier, it mostly works. Unfortunately, there’s a big thing holding the whole game back from being truly brilliant: Lumiose City.

I will say, I’m pleasantly surprised at how dense this Kalos staple feels: it’s full of alleyways to get lost in and packed with life. There’s always a cafe or a boutique or even just a few market stalls tucked around the corner, places where people and Pokémon hang out. Scaffolding is stacked along the side of buildings, presenting some finicky platforming challenges and item rewards. Even on the rooftops, you’ll find Bird ‘mons fluttering around and trainers gathering and chatting.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

But while I was wandering around the cobbles of Lumiose, I realised it all felt very compact. The city is essentially one big open zone, with a fair amount of verticality. But that means I’d run through and explored the entire place within about five hours. Sure, more Wild Zones unlock as you progress, bringing more Pokémon to catch. But it left very few surprises for the entire game.

I also wish it looked better, too. Lumiose has a few lovely sights here and there, but on the whole, Legends: Z-A appears lifeless. Arceus wasn’t a graphical showcase, but that watercolour-style aesthetic gave it a really unique feel. New Pokémon Snap looks so much better and more vibrant than this. If clothes can swish around and hair flow through the wind, why can’t we have windows that aren’t just flat textures or shadows that don’t look like bleeding ink blotches on the floor? It's a little better docked, but not much.

I know this is controversial, too, but voices would help give this game character. I’m not even asking for full voice acting — though monologues and pre-rendered cutscenes feel utterly bizarre as just text on a screen — but I’d love a voice clip or two, along the lines of modern Zelda games. It’d also help give the story a little more oomph, which it needs when focusing on friendship, recovery, and forgiveness. Even with an explosive climax (which I urge you not to spoil yourself on), I felt... nothing.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Those aforementioned Wild Zones might be my biggest disappointment with Z-A; admittedly, this is less about exploration and catching Pokémon than Legends: Arceus is, but it restricts that sense of discovery and magic that even the mainline ‘Gen’ games have. No longer am I walking out into a field and seeing Magikarp in the rivers and Bellsprout in the grass; instead, they’re constrained to tiny pockets of land, most of which are just little parks, boxed-off little streets, or construction sites.

What makes the Wild Zones stick out more is that there are actually plenty of Pokémon that do just wander around Lumiose: I spotted the Unova monkey trio just hanging around in trees at various times; Fletchlings and Pidgeys sit on roofs or lampposts and fly away when you approach; when it was raining, I found a Goomy sitting waiting for the nighttime drizzle to stop underneath a bridge. I still love catching these little creatures, so let’s give them the love they deserve. You can’t reasonably expect Pyroar to just prowl around the city streets, I get that, but sticking various 'pens' across the city doesn’t feel like the right solution.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

The monster-catching aspect of the series does feel like it’s been relegated to the back seat a little; I’m glad Arceus’ catching system is back and still snappy, and you still have to put yourself in danger to “catch ‘em all”, but in revisiting Lumiose, in being restricted to this city and these zones, and in a Pokédex that lacks variety, it all starts to add up. The return of Mega Evolutions does help to alleviate that somewhat, but I really miss the sense of discovery I get from going to a new place or finding Pokémon in unexpected places.

Instead of feeling like a fresh new spin on the Legends formula, Legend: Z-A squeezes it into an X & Y-shaped sequel. In many ways, it’s more focused, but Z-A loses a lot of charm and the smaller environs don’t entice me to dig into every nook and cranny of the city. It’s so close to being a great Pokémon game thanks to that combat, which alone makes it worth picking up. But ultimately, it's just a good one.

Conclusion

Pokémon Legends: Z-A should be celebrated for its fabulous real-time combat and its largely smooth jump to the Switch 2, but in condensing things down to one single location, it loses part of the Pokémon magic that Arceus and many other entries managed to amplify.

I’ll forever find filling up my Pokédex fun, and for the Switch 2 generation, this is a good starting point for the franchise. But if the Legends series is to continue, it needs to recapture its personality and fuse that real-time system with a bit more freedom.

Kirby Air Ride, I think it's fair to say, didn't receive all that warm a welcome when it launched back in 2003.

With lucky GameCubers already marinating in the delicious driving juices of Mario Kart: Double Dash and F-Zero GX, Kirby's cute and chaotic style of racing just didn't seem to stick with the mainstream, and, as a result, it's become known as one of those Marmite efforts. You either gelled with its new approach to slinging yourself around tracks or you didn't.

For me personally, I've always enjoyed Air Ride's novel take on track racing. I also think it's a game that sings especially strongly in multiplayer, once everyone who's racing fully knows what they're doing. Indeed, this was the first GameCube title that allowed for LAN setups via broadband adapters, so the multiplayer was 100% where the gravy was at.

Taking everything into account, though, and despite my love for the OG, a sequel in the form of Kirby Air Riders was an unexpected announcement during the run-up to Switch 2. I certainly didn't have it on my Switch 2 bingo card. So it's lucky, then, given that it's a bit of curveball, that it's actually very good.

If I had to guess the two main issues people had with Kirby Air Ride back in the day, it's a fairly even split between a lack of meaningful single-player content and how messy the game can seem to the uninitiated as races (and minigames) play out. Nintendo has obviously taken note of the first issue here, and as a result, we've got a sprawling story mode with multiple paths and endings and a metric ton of collectible content to keep you busy. It's also got a very gritty and serious sci-fi tone, which is so at odds with the style of the actual racing that you can't help but love it.

However, on the second problem, well, you'll have to suck eggs and learn to play the game, I'm afraid. It all makes sense when you get into the sweet Air Ridin' groove. It also wasn't broken in the first place, so bravo to Masahiro Sakurai for sticking to his guns and keeping the soul of it all intact.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

On that note: Air Riding. It's not karting. This style of racing is a different beast entirely, and there's a learning curve in getting a hang of the basics. In Air Riders, you take control of a rider from an ever-growing roster of Kirby and his pals, each of whom has an impressive variety of stats relating to their driving abilities, along with their own specials and tricks to pull off mid-race. Stuff like turbo boosts, area of effect attacks, and lots of other stuff I won't spoil the fun of unlocking.

Once you've chosen Waddle De— I mean...whoever your favourite is, you then pick a machine. These aren't just different for the sake of being different, nor do they simply have varying degrees of speed, boost, handling, and so on. No, in Air Riders, there's depth. Proper depth. And it comes in the form of an impressive menagerie of unique machines that work in fundamentally different ways.

We've all seen the default Warp Star that gives you a nice balance of ground and air speed, but then you've got other options like the incredibly fast but terribly fragile Paper Star, the charging Tank Star, the slippery Slick Star, and even a few that transform or straight-up blink like electricity from point to point on a track as they slow then boost.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

There's a lot more to take in than you may expect at first blush, and especially if you've listened to naysayers over the years who say it's shallow. Get a few seasoned riders into a race and things can get hugely intense.

With rider and machine chosen and on the track, you then get down to slinging yourself around. Movement forwards is automatic, the number one mental hurdle for newcomers. Your job as pilot is to make sure you utilise every opportunity on the track as it presents itself; to gain maximum forward momentum, by spinning, shifting around the course to hit boosts and jumps, and hammering enemies for mini-boosts or copy abilities to whale on your opponents with.

Once you 'get' it, it's incredibly moreish, and almost zen-like in the focus that's required to take down another rider who knows what they are doing. Feels too automated? You're not trying hard enough.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

Also at the core of the racing, beyond the automatic nature of travelling forward, you have the all-important boost/brake button. Holding down 'B' will slow your machine right down until it eventually stops. It also, at the same time, charges up your turbo boost. So there's a strategy at the heart of everything here, and it's a pleasing one in how it relates to some very nicely designed tracks.

You want to know these tracks well to target the best jumps, to know the best opportunities to slow right down for a full boost (tight corners are the most obvious example) or overtake, and to find these opportunities on any given course, whilst also battling a constant stream of other riders and NPC enemies, makes for an addictive and satisfying thing to settle into. It's manic in all the right ways.

This sequel, too, is made all the more satisfying by some visually spectacular race sequences spliced throughout tracks. There's a mix of sections composed of proper, tight-corner racing alongside flashy on-rails sequences where you whip between rails to collect/dodge and set yourself up to boost into whatever comes next.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Nintendo has gone to town on these rail sequences, with some elaborately cool parts where riders tumble and spin through all sorts of wild scenarios, and the game does well to give you just enough control at all times, and enough ways to steal a lead or damage your opponents, that even when you're not fully in control of your machine, and even when weapons are auto-fire on proximity for a lot of the time, it still feels like you're needing to think quickly and know the rules, tracks and machines inside out to make an impact, especially in the online mode.

The story mode is the real big addition, and it makes a good impression. I won't ruin the narrative (and it's not much to write home about), but the setup, where you race through 11 chapters composed of levels full of races and minigames, works well.

Between each race and challenge, you're returned to your vehicle as it blasts along a road through each stage, and this gives you three options at all times on how to proceed, so there's variety along the way, until you hit a mini-boss or boss race battle. It also gives solo players lots to unlock, there's replayability in returning for alternate endings, and it acts as a fantastic training mode for the delights of online.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

Before I touch on the online, though, you've also got the returning City Trial, Air Ride, and Top Down racing modes. These generally remain largely unchanged from what was offered up in the original game. City Trial gives you five minutes to gather as many collectibles as you can whilst blasting other racers before being dropped into a minigame for a grand finale, and it's as chaotically frenzied as ever. Top Down mode is honestly addictive as all hell when you get into it (think Codemasters' Grand Prix Sim on the Commodore 64 but with crazy courses and you're 90% of the way there).

It's the online, though, that's the real king. I had limited time with it for this review, but I luckily found matches in Air Ride and City Trial modes against a few ferocious competitors and I couldn't be happier with the performance. No input lag, no issues connecting, and in races it was buttery smooth, as it is across all modes.

The City Trial and Air Ride races really do come alive here, and I implore you to dig in, learn how to drive the machine of your choice well and reap the benefits of some surprisingly fierce competition - alongside all the jumping into targets, gliding competitions, and events where you try to eat more than everyone else. I mean, Kirby gonna Kirby.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)

As a solo game, Kirby Air Riders is a step up, then. Each of its modes brings over 100 collectible bits and bobs to unlock and create a picture scene from the story, so there's plenty to work towards. The campaign itself also does a suitably Kirby-esque job in starting out relatively normal on the narrative front before ending up in some far-out sci-fi states. The whole thing also looks and plays as good as anything I've played on Switch 2 thus far, so you're in for a treat on that front, my friends.

I've also got to make a special point here to mention the surprisingly deep machine customisation on offer. I was actually a little shocked! There are loads of textures, icons, unlockable pixel art, and all manner of ways to truly make all of your machines your own. It's a lot, and it's very, very welcome for solo fans.

Onto niggles, and I will say that the chaos — all of the huge icons and speeding around amidst groups of riders, especially in City Trials — can feel aimless at times. And it's still every bit the Marmite experience. The story is silly, and most of the side games, which see you hit air targets, make long jumps, and so on, well, they're not exactly riveting.

Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)

And in local multiplayer, whilst playing on the same system, we spotted that you lose the ability to see the stats for your chosen rider and machines, which sort of takes away the ability to inspect and learn on the fly. Let's hope a little tweak can be patched in on that one.

Overall, then, I know it can be hard to make Kirby converts, but I genuinely believe Kirby Air Riders deserves them. This is a huge big colourful beast of a sequel. It's jam-packed to the rafters with stuff to find, to unlock, and collect, and it has proper depth. There's a ton of machines, loads of riders and courses, and — should you get stuck in and learn and "git gud" — you'll find an alternative to the usual kart-racer style of business that absolutely deserves its place on any podium.

Conclusion

Kirby Air Riders is a cracking sequel that gives solo players much more to dig into with its story campaign, whilst also bringing all-new levels of shiny graphics, bells and whistles to its returning City Trial, Air Ride, and Top Down Racing modes. This is a chaotic and frenzied racer, there's no doubt, but it's got depth for those who wish to learn and plenty of competition to be had both online and at harder difficulties for diehards.

With lots of excellent tracks, riders and machines to unlock, sat alongside some surprisingly deep machine customisation, Kirby's latest air riding adventure is off to a strong start. Oh, and that soundtrack!

After the Celestial Collapse, the runes' energy dwindles and ceases to flow throughout the Eastern lands of Azuma, stagnating nature and its inhabitants. As either Kaguya (Female) or Subaru (Male), you awaken from a dream of dragons fighting in the sky. To absolutely nobody's surprise, you have amnesia—a fairly common gaming trope at this point.

As a glorified shrine maiden, you're tasked with keeping a shrine to an unknown god clean and to offer prayer, until one day when you're approached by a flying wooly with horns and are inevitably tasked with finding a way to restore the village and remove the corruption set upon it by the Collapse.

The story is of the classic "Save the Four Elements" variety, but the characters and environments help keep everything fresh in this ~33 hour Rune Factory spin-off. There are no twists or turns to be found here with pretty much every major story event being either heavily foreshadowed or completely spelled out for the player.

A certain un-marry-able mom from Rune Factory 5's child, now grown, makes an appearance and is sure to be a fan favorite pick for marriage candidate, along with 13 others in the base game and two from the "Seasons of Love" DLC pack. There is roughly double that number of other important NPCs to interact with daily and complete tasks for spread out across the four different villages in the game.

Technically Speaking...

Let's address the elephant right away—the Switch as a console is weak tea. Even when overclocked, Rune Factory 5 chugged in the Unity engine and left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Luckily, the team behind Guardians of Azuma used the Unreal Engine which has a much better performance track record on the console. Even on stock clockspeeds Guardians plays perfectly fine, though this isn't without sacrifices when looking at the draw distance and larger texture quality.

It appears the developers opted to crunch down textures to a bare minimum and employ both billboarding and distance rendering techniques, which cause a lot of pop-ins for the environment, while keeping the character models loaded in full detail. I feel this tradeoff was probably the best of the limited options they had to try and get the game running smoothly on the previous gen hardware right before the launch of the Switch 2.

Luckily, the Eastern (Japanese) style of the environments and villages along with the higher detailed enemies and people really help the eye gloss over the muddy textures while playing, and it stopped bothering me after I stopped looking for it. Using large particle effect attacks do cause some slowdown and frame loss, but it never got to the point where it bothered me the way Rune Factory 5 did.

Kairosoft? In MY farming sim!?

The main character is gifted with a magical multi-tool (Farming Life in Another World, anyone?) that completely removes the need to swap tools, refill your water pale, or even upgrade it and it doesn't use even a single RP to swing. It sits in a weapon wheel with your other mystical treasures, but doesn't need to be selected as all the gardening plots, rocks, and trees are context sensitive and your character will automatically use the appropriate transformation when available.

Anyone familiar with Kairosoft games will instantly pick-up on the village building mechanics of Guardians of Azuma. Each village has abandoned sections of plots ripe for development by yours truly. When entering edit mode, you can change the camera to a God's Eye view to place, remove, rotate, and do just about anything else you want to while organizing shops, decorations, and monster pens.

Different buildings and decorations can have "collection" types that, when placed together in the same region, boost the effects of the pieces. The villagers themselves don't seem to care what their town looks like, so you're free to cram everything in a corner if you aren't that great at public design (me) and just want to collect the stat bonuses that they give.

Crops can also be interacted with in this way, completely removing the need to walk to each plot individually to plant seeds or water... not that you'll be doing much farming in this game. Each town has its own set of residents that need to be assigned to different jobs based on their inherent skills and perks: Farmer, Miner, Arborist, Shopkeep, and Animal Handler.

While at first glance, the town management may seem overwhelming, the game doesn't ask a lot of the player and everyone in town will be perfectly happy with a rating of 100 without any interaction on your part once the few basic buildings are placed. Any rabble-rousers with the Lazy and Heavy Eater traits, for example, can simply be kicked out of the village without so much as a 30-day notice and someone will come to take their place the very next day.

In a new twist on the series, every farmed crop drops a seed of the same type which means, essentially, infinite crops with no up-front costs. Your farmers will automatically harvest and replant the appropriate plants for the season at the highest level available and place them in the shipping box, where you can retrieve them for personal use or let them be sold off for income. Long gone is soil or runey management, in favor of a mystical relic (unlocked eventually) that can burn away the crops and leave you with a pocket full of (potentially) higher level seeds.

Relationships are a cinch with many ways to increase your rating level each day. Along with the standard "speak" option, there is a "Hang Out" option that takes a set number of minutes out of the very generous daily timer. You can choose to give a plain ol' gift or take the lucky guy/gal on one of the many activities in an attempt to find their favorite activity for a large boost to their meter. By the time you reach the end of the game, even if you're rushing, you should have at least a couple of friends close to max as they also gain points from helping you in combat, which leads to unlocking more combat prowess and powers as their relationship level increases.

The strongest part of Guardians is all of the charming characters and how they travel between each of the towns as you unlock them, making the entire world feel connected as they stop by to shop, grab a snack, or hit up the onsen for a quick bath. Never before have I felt a farming/life sim that had such an interconnected relationship between the different areas and cast. Luckily, the map provides a list of all the important NPCs in that village, so you don't have to wander around trying to find a particular person and waste time on loading screens.

Combat and Spoils

The itemization and skill tree is probably the weakest aspect of Guardians of Azuma. While the mainstay sub-jobs of Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Cooking, etc. exist, they are extremely watered down and, in my opinion, completely useless. The amount of weapons, armor, and accessories is extremely truncated and all come to you in order with a well-metered power creep. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it's great for newcomers to the series in not overwhelming with the massive amount of random stat/enchantment/elemental options seen in other Rune Factory games.

While there are no more skill orbs, and all magic uses the same animation and attack style, it doesn't really matter a whole lot because the best weapon in the game is given to you early on and it scales with you. Swords, bows, and magic are free to use and no longer cost RP. Your RP bar is entirely reserved for your Relics you acquire as the story progresses. The entire combat system was simplified and, because of this, you're never going to come across a wild randomly generated weapon in a chest. In fact, all of the treasure littered throughout the world kind of sucks. I was never once excited to open a chest as they all only contained mundane items.

Long gone are recipe breads, replaced by frog statues and shrines that dole out recipes in prescribed order as you visit new areas and run around on the incredibly dense maps, filled to the brim with landmarks to visit and things to collect.

Different actions acquire unique experience points for that action, as per Rune Factory modus operandi, but now those points can be spent on their respective skill trees. While most of the major nodes can add some crit, elemental damage, or other effects to other weapons outside that tree, all of the minor stat nodes are absolutely useless, no matter how you look at it. Adding one to three points to your strength means nothing when you can run back to down and build a statue of an Oni that grants you several hundred points of strength with no special resources required.

The combat is also so laughably easy that you'll never find yourself crafting new armor or weapons out of necessity. Seriously, the Fan is so broken (at least in version 1.0) you'll just decimate enemies with one or two waves. Equipped with an item that slowly regenerates RP, not even the post-game dungeons stand any chance of killing you. My recommendation? If you've played any Rune Factory before, crank the difficulty up to the max.

Boss fights include a stagger meter which, when filled, knock down the boss and allow you to deal bonus damage. When using the correct elemental weakness, it's possible to remove 90% of a given boss' health with a well-timed ultimate move and the correct relic equipped. The perfect dodge mechanic also feels really good and gives you plenty of frames to execute, negating the entire attack's damage (including all other projectiles that were a part of it) and slowing down time just long enough to deliver two charged attacks with your favorite weapon or magic. I really hope we get to see these just as fleshed out in Rune Factory 6.

So where does this leave the game in terms of balance? I think Guardians of Azuma fits nicely into a package that lets new players explore the different crafting systems typically found in Rune Factory without requiring a PhD and 12 tabs open to a wiki page. The combat is easy enough for casual game players to not get frustrated and the town building is simple, but also fun and rewarding. The social interactions are cute and engaging with lots of events and sub-stories to immerse yourself in. If you want an entry to the franchise that's easy to digest, this is it. Grab it to prepare yourself for the next mainline entry.

The long-time Rune Factory player may get frustrated and completely abandon the crafting, as you won't really need any of the items to complete the main and post-game story because of how easy it is. In fact, I was able to complete the game in just the first season/month and had plenty of time to explore every map completely and do most of the side tasks and finished with an overwhelming amount of resources while never once came close to dying. These folks may want to hold off, or catch this title when it goes on sale (including the DLC containing the best marriage candidate, Pilika).

Marvelous' star farming series is one I hold somewhat dear. Starting all the way back in 2003 with Friends of Mineral Town, I've experienced the highs and lows, with some of my best memories coming from the DS era in particular. Originally releasing in 2008, Grand Bazaar was one such positive memory; having not returned to the game in more than 10 years, I was excited to see this familiar landscape in an entirely new light.

Starting Out

Kicking off with a brief cutscene, Grand Bazaar is happy to slowly introduce you to the larger world of farming that is to come. Once you’ve created your character and named your farm, you get an introduction to the town and its current situation from its mayor, Felix. It’s not terribly far off most other farming games you’ve seen before, and naturally with it being a remake, it’ll be familiar to some out of the gate regardless. Zephyr Town used to be known for its bazaar, but when the previous farmer left interest started to wane. Only getting a handful of visitors now, the mayor hopes that your arrival and taking over of the nearby farm will help breathe new life both into the town and the game’s titular bazaar. It’s a simple setup that’s kept relatively short; regardless it does a good job of pulling you in and gives you enough to work with.

The first week of the game is probably the slowest, with a character from the town visiting you each day to introduce a new tool and bit by bit expand what you can do. It threw me off a little that I couldn’t even gather flowers at the start, this requiring a sickle. With each new tool a matching tutorial is offered, going over the basics of farming, foraging, fishing, and more. Something that stood out to me with these tutorials is that notable aspects do still get a quick mention even if you opt to skip them. This might sound like a bad thing, but I can certainly imagine most people who have played a Story of Seasons game in the past would opt to skip over things like farming basics. I really appreciated that the game recognises this and shines a quick spotlight on an aspect that’s entirely unique to this game, this being the idea of jumping before using tools to enhance their effects. I’ll take a moment here to say that I really do like this concept as a whole, removing a good bit of tedium that used to come with standing in the same spot for a few seconds to charge up a tool. It speeds up the farming part of the game without necessarily relegating its importance, compared to something like the mouse-controlled farming we saw in the latest Rune Factory title.

This introductory week culminates in your first real shift at the bazaar, with the bazaar opening to the public every Saturday. Selling at the bazaar is split into two shifts, one starting in the morning, and one starting in the afternoon. Before your shift starts you can load up your stall with whatever stock you have to hand. Each season there will be hot products that will attract more attention, but as a whole you tend to find people are interested in just about anything you put on your storefront. With your stock loaded up, your shift can begin.

I wasn’t sure I’d really enjoy the bazaar part of the game at first, which is something I admit sounds odd for a game with the bazaar as its titular selling point. It’s easy to see it as arbitrary extra steps for selling your farm’s produce, and in some ways it’s exactly that. The basic premise sees you stood behind a table as people walk past your stall. If you ring your bell you’ll get their attention, and they’ll either spot something on your stall to buy, stop and think “I hope they have X item”, with said item being in your stock but not currently on display, or just walk away. The minigame sees you constantly running between ringing your bell to get attention, tending to the people stood in front of items they want to buy, and putting out the stock for people who are stood waiting. It’s surprisingly engaging, with further complexity being introduced later to keep you interested and active.

Daily Life

With most of the tutorials out of the way early on, the game largely leaves you to settle into your daily farm life. There’s a decent amount to fit into each day, with stamina management being one of the key considerations early on; you burn through it much faster than I'm used to. I didn't necessarily hate it though, which did surprise me. The first few days it's common to be low on stamina, with tilling the fields and sewing your seeds being an added burden on top of the daily watering of the crops. Subsequent days you'll have more stamina to work with, only needing to repeat that final step of watering. That much does remain true here, but I did find myself struggling regardless. You can do very little for free in this game.

Watering your crops will burn through maybe a quarter of your stamina bar, but from there you've got multiple daily-respawning resources to collect. As you might expect from previous titles this includes using a tool to break ores for minerals and chopping wood for lumber, but on top of this you've also got cutting weeds and flowers. Foraging really stands out here, with it usually being an action that doesn't require stamina. It's not like you need to do everything in a day, but as somebody who likes to, it becomes a lot to juggle. 

If Grand Bazaar does one thing better than any Story of Seasons game before it, it's in pushing you to engage with everything it has to offer. This idea of pushing a fuller experience onto you is felt throughout, and goes beyond a somewhat limiting stamina bar. Stamina can be restored as you play; a few times a day you can use the bath to recover a significant chunk, but beyond that you can also cook meals and eat them to do the same. These meals can also confer bonuses like a movement speed increase, or even a modifier to how much stamina is used as you're going about your various activities. I've never felt the need to engage with cooking in previous titles, but in wanting to forage to my fullest, I was pushed towards it. And it was a mechanic I ended up enjoying. Cooking itself is naturally supported by both farming and fishing, keeping you in a cycle that really does a good job of filling out your days.

I'd go so far as to say that if you want a faming game just for the farming, that this one might not be for you. You definitely can skip over certain parts that aren't to your fancy to some degree, but where it gets challenging is in fulfilling the requests of the townsfolk. Some of these are optional, sure, but it's incredibly likely you'll hit a wall when trying to woo your character of choice, with the relationship level locked at certain points behind one such request. So much of the game is connected, and as a larger package it feels really well thought through, if a little constraining early on as you're just getting going.

Unlike the majority of classic titles in the series, crafting plays a large part in this game. Beyond cooking, which is ultimately just another form of combining items for something new, we also see windmills come into play. Unlocked fairly early on, the windmills are like blending Minecraft's crafting table and furnace into one. The essence here is that you put set items in and, after a certain amount of in-game time, will get an item out the other end. Through this you can refine your materials, upgrade your tools, and even make decorations for your bazaar stand. Of all the systems in the game this was the one you really have no choice but to engage with, and it's designed well enough to just slot into the background of your days. You might set a few things going in the morning and come back before you sleep to them being complete. The speed of crafting is also affected by the weather, which is a nice touch; it makes sense that stronger winds would make the sails go faster. As you upgrade your tools you gain access to new materials, and in turn new things to make.

Where the game really surprised me was just how easily I was able to keep on top of the various events happening around town while still keeping up a daily routine. What I'm used to doing is looking up guides to figure out the often specific combination of being in a certain place at a certain time with certain weather after doing a laundry list of activities beforehand. You don't quite get everything spelled out here, but what you do get is a map that'll tell you when there's something happening, and where to go if you want to be a part of it. It's more than enough for me, and encourages variation in my routine from day to day to go see what's going down.

A Slower Life in Zephyr Town

As a whole Grand Bazaar feels like a much slower game than I'm used to. It's not necessarily a positive or negative thing, but it is something worth keeping in mind if you're considering picking the game up. Both starting out and going into the larger day to day cycle it's difficult to avoid moments of waiting, be it for an item to finish crafting in the windmills, which takes a set amount of in-game time, for materials to respawn day by day, for the weekly bazaar to come to sell your goods. You're rarely idle in these windows of waiting, but it can often feel like it gets in the way of progression.

Grand Bazaar was a great game when it first released, and I feel like this is the definitive way to experience it. Refreshed and renewed while maintaining much of the original charm, this release serves as a fantastic entry to the series, and one I can very much recommend jumping into. Whether you're coming back to Zephyr Town after all these years or visiting for the first time, there's a lot to do and a lot to enjoy. It's not one to skip for the enjoyers of farming, foraging, and everything else that's on offer.

Demonschool is a tactical RPG that follows a demon hunter named Faye and her collected companions as members of the Black Magic Club at a poorly-ranked university on a peculiar island by the same name.

The school element of Demonschool should be taken with a big grain of salt, as Faye and her group of weirdos find out for themselves after arriving on the island. They’re given an assignment each week that has little to do with education and everything to do with the mysteries of the university and the impending apocalypse. Characters can 'study' techniques to unlock equipable abilities for the squad, and there is a weekly quiz on the weekends. Outside of furthering the main plot, time is spent building relationships, pursuing side quests, and playing minigames at various locations around town.

Combat is suitably at the heart of gameplay and employs what developer Necrosoft Games describes as "new-style tactics", which draws inspiration from the first two Persona games. Each battle begins with choosing your party, where you select which character goes in each starting slot. There are four slots available, and Faye always needs to be in the first. If the fight is connected to a personal quest, sometimes other characters are also locked into a slot.

During the planning phase, you can expend action points to navigate each character around the grid-based map. Moving into an enemy constitutes an attack, and different characters apply their own abilities, sometimes pushing enemies into those behind them or pulling and stunning enemies as they pass through.

There are eight action points available for use each round. The first time a character completes an action, they use only one point, and for each subsequent action they use an additional point. For example, it costs two action points for Faye's second movement and three points for her third movement. The balance of point cost, character abilities, and positioning relative to enemies on the map makes for an engaging puzzle each time combat rolls around.

Throughout the planning phase, there’s plenty of room for trial and error. Moves can be rewound and characters can act in any order. Once the movements for the round are locked in, the action phase unfolds, showing all of the piecemeal movements and attacks in full concert with one another. It makes for a satisfying visual, with characters zipping through lines of enemies, activating combos, and sending fountains of blood into the air for each downed combatant. Any remaining enemies then make their moves and attacks before the start of the next round.

Successfully completed fights are graded as an A, B, or C and confer a corresponding amount of opals (the in-game currency), trophies, and class credits. In order to get a top mark, you need to kill a certain number of demons within the specified number of rounds and get at least one character to the back end of the map to seal the portal. If a team member dies or if you don’t meet the round goal, the grade for the combat goes down. The range of successful outcomes is nice, since a perfectionist player can aim for As, but imperfectly executed bouts don’t stop you from proceeding forward in the game.

The sheer amount of combat in Demonschool does mean that fighting becomes a little tedious at times. Especially in the early game when you only have access to a few characters and abilities, getting through fight after fight against the same demons feels like a slog. Thankfully, the tactical complexity begins to build momentum after the first couple of in-game weeks when new enemy types grace the battlefield and new teammates join the club.

At the start of the game, Faye and Namako are the only two playable characters, followed shortly after by the first two additions to the Black Magic Club, Destin and Knute. A total of 15 characters can be recruited and utilised in combat by the end.

You can also build Faye’s relationship with the other club members by choosing dialogue options they approve of, singing karaoke with them, cooking them meals, and pursuing their side quests. Relationships are a secondary focus of the game, and Faye herself is irreverent and action-fixated. Still, the cast is varied and interesting enough to entertain.

Demonschool’s plot doesn’t take itself too seriously despite its penchant for horrifying scenarios. Character dialogue leans heavily on jokes and '90s tech references, lending an air of levity to all the gore and death. The art style also seems referential to the era of its setting, but still manages to feel suitable for contemporary gaming. The majority of gameplay is from an isometric view, but the camera does occasionally pan to different angles for important scenes, showing off a mix of 2D and 3D art.

The soundtrack is chock-full of synthy beats that set the mood well. Sound effects punctuate everything from UI navigation to character interactions. There's even a snazzy jingle for when time passes and a new day begins.

From a technical perspective, I didn’t experience any lag or issues while playing on Switch. There was a short loading time before the start of each battle, which was generally unobtrusive.

Conclusion

Demonschool is a lot of fun and provides a challenging, yet accessible strategic landscape. The mild horror elements pair well with the relaxed and somewhat goofy tone of the story, and the art style is well-suited to the late '90s setting.

On the whole, Demonschool feels well-polished and thoughtfully constructed: a huge relief after the game’s multiple delays!