DeVuego

The whole experience is buttery smooth and pretty snappy. This is a unique rail-shooter with a lot of legitimately new ideas that I've never seen elsewhere. There are some mild colorblindness issues to be aware of if that is relevant to you, and now and then progression feels a little padded, but it is hard to complain too much when Candy Rangers is doing so many new things and doing them well.

Moons of Darsalon has some rough edges, but its charm and level design is usually enough to shine through. This is a game that builds upon a lot of old ideas, but manages to make them feel incredibly fresh. While it can trip over itself now and then, the end result is a memorable and fun puzzle experience that feels truly out of time.

Song of Nunu is a cozy, charming, and endearing adventure game that by no means needs to be limited to fans of League of Legends. It is a largely smooth experience on Switch with great puzzles that are fun to solve, while not being overly challenging. The flute playing mechanics are legitimately unique and feel like something out of a lost Zelda game. If you like straightforward adventure games like Rime, Song of Nunu is an easy recommendation.

Where FUR Squadron struggles is in its content. A playthrough only lasts around twenty-five minutes. With no alternate paths to take on future playthroughs, replay value is entirely based on clearing the game at higher difficulties. It may be enough to keep genre enthusiasts engaged for an hour or two, but it lacks the diverse number of permutations, so loved by high score seekers, that can be found in its inspiration. FUR Squadron is a reasonably well executed love letter to Star Fox and rail shooters in general, and it is clear that the potential is there for this developer to pull off something of a much larger scale. It is short and simple, but a fun diversion for genre fans if only for an afternoon.

Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova is a straightforward, easy to understand adventure game that does its job of being approachable for a younger audience. The inclusion of optional cooperative multiplayer locally on a single system earns it some bonus points for being playable with friends, siblings, or parents. Fans of the series will also find plenty to enjoy from familiar characters. While combat can get a little repetitive, the puzzles are genuinely inventive. Ultimately whether a trekkie or not, Supernova provides a reasonably solid experience with fun multiplayer that is approachable for everyone.

Tower Princess’s underlying concept of rescuing princesses with unique abilities and teaming up with them to escape a castle is very charming; unfortunately, the rest of the game doesn’t quite live up to it. Add in poor Switch performance and a lack of room variety, and most players will likely get bored before they near the end of the castle. There are some good ideas here, but they just don’t quite come to fruition like they should.

This leaves me with what I feel is a very different impression of Ikai than I’d have playing it on other platforms. Poor resolution and performance make moving through the world an annoyance. And unfortunately that’s the entire gameplay loop. Even just catching a glimpse of an enemy can be hard from far away given the resolution, and effectively navigating the halls of the shrine to escape is much more difficult at twenty frames per second. So while I could forgive some of the more repetitive encounters and lackluster voice acting, everything compounds into a very unimpressive showing. This isn’t necessarily a bad game, but I’d strongly suggest playing it elsewhere if possible.

Mail Mole is a very interesting concept that is largely executed well. It forces the player to adjust their brain to a new kind of 3D platforming in a way few games do. Its only real failing is that these ideas could benefit from being pushed further. Repeated concepts with only minimal iteration can make the mid game a bit slow. That being said it still represents a surprisingly original 3D platformer whose concepts I’d love to see taken even further.

All-in-all Rock Zombie has many of the trappings of a great game. The core mechanics work, and all of Rock Zombie’s failings are the sort of things that could be fixed in future updates. For now this may not be the arcade experience you’re looking for but with a little work, it could be a welcome addition to anyone’s Wii U home screen.