If you're new to visual novels, and curious, then go somewhere else first; Root Letter: Last Answer could put you off the genre for life. But if you're a visual novel fan, you've played all the other interesting ones on the Switch and you absolutely cannot wait for another – and if you've considered maybe just going outside or watching TV or lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling and you still can't wait for another – then you could take a look at Root Letter and just hope you find it so bad it's good.
Like its own mysterious underground complex, Colossal Cave is obscure and unfriendly, trickily hiding some scarce but valuable treasure. If it wasn't for the fascinating source material, it would be jaw-droppingly bad. However, the source material is fascinating, and this remake is one way to engage with it. If, for that reason, you are willing to overlook both the outdated design elements you would expect and the bad design decisions and sloppy implementation you wouldn't, there could be something here to enjoy. We certainly wouldn't judge anyone who discovered an egg-sized emerald of fun in Colossal Cave, but neither can we seriously recommend it.
Save Room starts from the premise that Resident Evil 4's inventory management system might work as a full game. It left us thinking that Save Room might work as an inventory management system. It may have gone down well on Steam, where it is a couple of your local currency units cheaper, but there's just so little here that it's hard to recommend. You simply slot the stuff into the thing – there's only so many ways you can say it.
Many will see the score at the bottom of this review and immediately write off Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition. However, there is something genuinely brilliant buried deep inside this Switch release, beneath the lingering issues with pacing and narrative design as well as the myriad painful "enhancements" Nightdive Studios has dumped on top. To cut through all that, you will need a great love for Blade Runner and cyberpunk, saintly patience, a walkthrough on hand, a strict requirement to play on console rather than PC, and a pair of rose-tinted glasses. If you have all those things then you may still see life in this game's eyes, but we don't need a Voigt-Kampff machine to tell this version from the real thing.
SkateBIRD is a creative addition to a genre lacking in variety, and its fun concept has clearly been realised with a lot of love. However, despite its potential, the best parts of the concept are underused, with neither the miniature skaters nor the addition of wings bringing much to excite. While the core gameplay is functional, the play feel is not fluid and the level design and laborious structure are always working against the fun. To top it off, the rudimentary graphics are needlessly hazy. More of a turkey than a pretty boy, then, unfortunately.
Hercule Poirot: The London Case delivers on its promise of a new Agatha Christie-style story in the Poirot universe. While it doesn't have the same level of tricksy, interweaving motives and relationships as Poirot favourites, the story is entirely entertaining nonetheless. However, the game lacks polish to the extent that it's distracting, progress is not always logical and the loading times on Switch are a real problem. For all its charm, you don't have to be a world-class detective to see its flaws.
Crime O’Clock adds a smart twist to the hidden object concept. By showing the characters in its lively scenes going about their business as time passes, Bad Seed has found a way to build masses of detail into the little worlds you explore. However, the minigames are very weak and we never escaped the extremely repetitive gameplay typical of this type of game. As a result, it’s one for genre fans only.
At just a handful of hours, Trek to Yomi sadly still manages to outstay its welcome. It asks its visuals to carry the gameplay, but their novelty wears off before the final act. This is particularly true on Switch, where dropped resolution and simplified scenery steal some of the magic and ugly character close-ups blemish the overall aesthetic. As imaginatively as Yomi is realised, the game still feels like a trek.
Our experience of Super Kiwi 64 comes down to this: we were having a good time, but couldn't always tell if it was despite the game or because of it. Either we've found a gold coin in a muddy field or we've found the face of Elvis in our porridge. If you're giving this a go, be sure to bring your imagination along with your £2.69.
Beyond Blue has noble intentions, with an urgent and vital message about our impact on the Earth. However, it doesn't do itself justice. Although there is some decent content in here – videos, music, sound design, gameplay, narrative – those parts do little to support or enhance one another. Gameplay is soothing but one-note, the video documentaries don't frame the missions and neither are well connected to the narrative. While there are moments of majesty in exploring the ocean, the limited draw distance and pop-in frequently interrupt the awe. Edutainment's a hard one to pull off, and Beyond Blue feels less like an awesome rock concert about dolphins and more like your science teacher trying to do a rap.
More sophisticated curation would have made this a genuinely new way to engage with games and gaming: a prompt to see all games in a new light, promote the whole indie game proposition and popularise the appreciation of gaming as – ugh, dare we use the word? – "art". But the star feature is instead just an animated menu. As it stands, Short Games Collection is great if you can bring some inquisitiveness and insight of your own to the table – the games themselves are worth the time – but it's nothing more than the sum of its parts.
All in all, Umihara Kawase Fresh! is presented smartly, if quite bizarrely. Its movement system is fiendish, sometimes frustrating, sometimes free-flowing. Unfortunately, it asks a lot of the player and manages to hide its best bits. The level and boss design are unlikely to inspire anyone, especially when already taken to wit's end by the stuttering difficulty, but that's not enough to undo the game's unique charm. If you're already an Umihara fan then Umihara Kawase Fresh! will give you your fix like nothing else. For anyone else, it's harder to love – but not impossible.
So, throw away the dud story, the awful presentation and the violence-and-shame-based soft porn and haven't we got a great little shoot-em-up here? The fact is that this mechanically competent shooter in a classic style from a proven team comes with all those crummy decorations attached. It's up to you if it's worth overlooking all the ugliness for the sake of a good game that isn't particularly world-changing.
The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo is a standout title in its commitment to presenting spectacular, surrealist animation. However, it does so at the expense of having much gameplay to offer. The playtime is short, the interaction is limited, and the puzzles are obtuse. Fortunately, the animation and music are good enough to distract you from those facts and provide an hour or two of great entertainment.
With such a tight run time, Full Void’s ideas don’t have time to wear thin, but neither do they have chance to develop much depth. As a modern game, it’s far more player-friendly than Another World, its main inspiration, and looks and sounds fantastic. It also brings fresh ideas to the table, rather than simply retreading the old for the sake of nostalgia. However, it lacks a compelling narrative arc, which could have made it feel truly cinematic.
On its trip down the river, some of Dordogne's design ideas feel stodgy, performance is sometimes flaky, and it leans into its clunkiest gameplay elements as it nears the end. But to get hung up on these points is to miss a truly touching story bringing a beautiful world to life in sound and images. There's a lot to reward you here if you can navigate the obstacles and just go with the flow.
With charm and polish and great respect for the player's time and ability, Desta: The Memories Between manages to land a clever and touching concept. The story and voice acting keep the levels ticking by and elevate what could have been a very rote affair. The dodgeball gameplay does let the story do the heavy lifting after about halfway, becoming rather repetitive, but it also provides a realistic touch of conflict and aggression whenever the dialogue leans into super-niceness, and the roguelike strategy plays smoothly enough to be a pleasant delivery mechanism for the tale of Desta unpacking and coming to terms with their emotional conflicts.
The Last Worker is an ambitious project and it sticks the landing when it comes to graphics, performance, and voice acting. However, its central box-shipping game is fiddly and the game's pacing doesn't let you get into the flow. Tricky sections requiring repeated checkpoint loads break the immersion and clash with the long, dawdling sections of exploring the Jüngle facility. It's likeable and well-packaged with plenty of character, but it doesn't always deliver.
Brok the Investigator is a true original. It's a hodge-podge of point-and-click, side-scrolling beat-'em-up, visual novel, and find-the-object. Most of the time, these disparate ideas sit slightly awkwardly alongside one another, but despite a slow start we did eventually feel a little spark and the whole thing became more than the sum of its parts. It's all the more impressive given that it's just the second game from a one-person studio. Graphic adventure fans should absolutely consider thoughtfully pointing and clicking it onto their wishlist – or just drop-kicking the heck out of the buy button.
The Pathless does one thing extremely well, which is to create a sense of racing – almost dancing – through its huge open world. The player's journey is mainly one of getting to know that sensation and learning to harness it to traverse epic environments. However, the protagonist's journey has little to do with that feeling, which is perhaps why the story doesn't land. The game sounds exceptional and looks great in this impressive port. However, the puzzles rarely stimulate the imagination and are fussy to play, while boss encounters are overlong and repetitive. Although it has its significant successes, The Pathless unfortunately doesn't manage to become more than the sum of its parts.