DeVuego ES_COR

Perhaps the beautiful art and music will be enough for Summer in Mara to be a great game for you. The gameplay may become a tad bit monotonous, but it is satisfying to travel the tropical ocean from island to island on an adventure. The high number of quests might quickly overwhelm you, however, if you find the idea of searching through islands across a vast ocean for items to gather and craft is exhilarating, then this game might be for you.

Kemono Heroes doesn’t innovate, stand out, or provide a memorable experience, but at the same time, it had no single serious flaw I could think of. Its visuals are decent, its soundtrack is great, its controls are very responsive, and I really enjoyed its difficulty curve and progression system. It’s a very safe game that does everything it aimed to do pretty well. When I stop to think about it, I see no reason why I shouldn’t recommend this title to Switch owners. A cute, side-scrolling indie platformer with local co-op is basically what the console was made for.

Ghosts’n DJs doesn’t feature good controls, and its message against plastic DJs can be infantile at times, but it can be very entertaining in short bursts, especially since it’s nowhere near as broken or infuriating as Ghosts ‘n Goblins, its main source of inspiration. It would have been a perfect fit for the Switch, but it’s still an easy recommendation if you’re into electronic music. And if you haven’t played AVICII Invector yet, of course.

Etherborn is an ambitious game that tries to give players a truly unique adventure. While it misses the mark in certain areas, like the story, it nails it in plenty of others. Its clever use of manipulating gravitational pull and changing set pieces at times provide a really tough challenge. Thinking outside the box is a must in order to complete the game and solving the levels offers a truly gratifying experience. My biggest complaint is that it is a really short game, only taking about five hours or so to complete. I guess that’s the mark of a good game though; leaving the player wanting more. For fans of puzzle platformers, Etherborn is a game that they shouldn’t let disappear into the ether.

Melbits World isn’t entirely bad, but it does poorly target its demographic and there was little to no need for it to be a PlayLink title. I honestly haven’t thought about PlayLink since Hidden Agenda dropped at the end of 2017. And after playing Melbits World, ignorance may have been bliss.

Asphalt 9 is a good racing game without a doubt, but it’s obviously catered towards a mobile market. It might be available on PC, it might accept actual controllers, it does look a lot better than your average Google Play Store asset flip garbage, but this was tailor made for a much more casual audience, people who want to enjoy this game in short bursts and aren’t completely against buying a bit of loot every now and then. This game would have been a perfect fit for the Switch if they ever bother to develop an actually paid version with no microtransactions to the system. We can’t live off Gear.Club Unlimited forever.

Far from an offensively bad title, but also far from a passable game, Super Toy Cars is just a little mediocre title. It’s a game that can be mildly entertaining for a few minutes, but not engaging enough to grab your attention for a long time. It’s pretty hard to recommend Super Toy Cars to Switch owners when Mario Kart is already available for it.

There is plenty to enjoy about Immortal Redneck, but none of it is for me. Thankfully, the most prominent technical issues should be easily correctable through future patches and updates. Immortal Redneck comes at the steep price point of $19.99, which I find difficult to defend. Unless you’re riveted by these kinds of games, my recommendation is to wait a bit as a title like this is sure to hit Games with Gold and Playstation Plus within the year.

The Count Lucanor is a fun and extremely provocative game. The story and themes are deep, dark, and full of fantasy. The visuals and most of the music and audio is well done and fit the overall style besides a few harsh sound effects. Unfortunately, the performance problems, multiple crashes, and the short run time hamper this enjoyable game. I’m not sure I would recommend this as of now with the issues and the short duration especially for the high price the Switch version is asking. Fortunately, you can find it cheap on Steam, which I would recommend.

Vaccine is proof that you’re not able to make a good game just by having a good idea, and that knowing how to execute said idea is as important, if not more important. It plays terribly, it’s a complete eyesore, and its randomly generated maps and item placements make it completely impossible for a player to beat a round by counting on his/her skill, making them entirely reliant on a generous allocation of items and enemies in order to proceed. You probably own more than just a Nintendo Switch, so buy the Resident Evil remake’s remaster on PSN/XBL/Steam instead, and relive the actual great memories of the genre.