Nintendo Life

• SWITCH
• 3 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

We can forgive a game for being too ambitious for its own good, trying something bold, and possibly falling short. The trouble with Sky Oceans: Wings for Hire is that it tries to deliver something we’ve seen before and still manages to fail at it. Even if you stripped out every technical issue, improved the camera, and polished up the visuals, you would still be left with a painfully average gaming experience. Sky Oceans doesn’t even crash and burn – it fails to leave the runway.

• SWITCH
• 9 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom should be the new standard for top-down Zelda going forward. Rather than abandoning the classic formula, Zelda has shown that the old and the new can come together and produce wonderful results that reward experimentation and reinforce the joy of play. This is easily in contention with A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds as one of the best top-down adventures in the series, and we hope we don’t need to wait another 35 years for Zelda to take a starring role again.

• SWITCH
• 9 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition is another slam dunk for Digital Eclipse and its ongoing mission of game preservation and historical documentation. The team hasn't gone mad with any new additions or tweaks to the core experience, but when the original game remains such a bonafide classic more than 20 years after its release, it really doesn't need much tinkering with. The added bonus of the Game Boy Color version alongside a wealth of interesting interviews and archive footage make this release a perfect entry point for newcomers as well as a warm, nostalgic cuddle for veterans.

• SWITCH
• 8 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is a welcome return for one of Mickey’s most memorable adventures, this is just about everything one could’ve wanted out of a revisit to a lost classic. It fumbles its execution a bit with the performance, but there are enough novel ideas and enjoyable gameplay concepts here to make the experience more than worth your while. Enjoyable gameplay, a captivating world, lots of replayability, and a raft of tweaks and improvements over the original make this one an easy sell. We’d recommend this to anyone looking for a big-budget 3D platformer that does things a little differently from the genre norms, and of course to anyone who considers themselves an avid Disney fan.

• SWITCH
• 6 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

Performance issues on Switch, at least at launch, bury an amazingly clever and charming adventure that we would wholeheartedly recommend otherwise. The Plucky Squire is certainly playable on the Nintendo Switch, but in no way can we recommend picking it up here if you have other means to play it. The fact that the Switch-branded trailers looked so great and that advance review copies weren't available on the platform — despite them being sent out for other systems — indicates that this version of The Plucky Squire needed much more time on the drawing board before release.

• SWITCH
• 9 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

There is a decade of gaming evolution here, including what is arguably the pinnacle of Capcom's fighting game craft. Perfectly preserved and presented, everything is beautifully formed and wonderful to play. Assembled with real clarity in regards to fan expectation, Capcom has thoroughly delivered the goods, from its ton of bonus features to its rollback netcode, with years' worth of combative nuance to explore, learn, and exact in the online arena. Oh, and The Punisher is awesome, too.

• SWITCH
• 7 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is a well-made platformer that captures the heart of what made the TV show tick, and that’s perhaps its greatest achievement. The character swapping system isn’t unique, but it works well owing to some clever and occasionally quite challenging stage design; and, while it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, there’s a fun action game here with a good level of exploration. Whether you’re drawn to the HD or retro aesthetic variants is down to which of your nostalgic sentiments is strongest. Either way, the 8-bit representation is so accurate to hardware of that era we can’t believe it wasn’t actually released three decades ago.

• SWITCH
• 4 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

• SWITCH
• 8 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection is the last of the Ace Attorney Switch remakes, but certainly not the least of them. Just make sure you're up-to-date on Ace Attorney 1-3 first, or you'll miss out on half the fun. The first game doesn't quite feel up to par with the series' best, but Investigations 2 certainly does, and might even be one of our favourites. We'll hold it! (heh) in our hearts forever.

• SWITCH
• 7 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

Emio - The Smiling Man has been hyped up a little too much in terms of how dark in tone the whole thing is. This is still silly, kooky stuff, just like its predecessors. The sometimes frustrating core mechanics also haven't seen any refinement this time around, which is a shame. And so it's left to some top-notch writing to save the day, which it just about does. Once this troubling and intriguing story has its hooks in you (remember there are three demos to try if you're unsure), it's hard to put down. And that, at the end of the day, is all Tantei Club fans will be looking for.

• SWITCH
• 5 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

• SWITCH
• 9 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

Cat Quest III is a familiar yet flawless action adventure with fluid and fantastic-feeling combat. Its charming story and witty writing bring life to the Purribean, one of the best-designed mini-open worlds in recent memory. That open world is packed with satisfying quests and engaging puzzles to solve that almost always throw some new idea or challenge at you. The progression here is smooth, and the entire experience is precisely paced with no performance issues at all. Some stunning animation work, accompanied by a gorgeous shanty-like pirate soundtrack tops off an excellent adventure. All of that together ensures that Cat Quest III is a pristine pirate adventure and action RPG. Quite simply, one of the best indie games of the year.

• SWITCH
• 7 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition doesn't make a great first impression. It's a downgrade in many ways to NES Remix and there's not as much variety or effort put into the challenges, nor any graphical tweaks to speak of this time around. However, stick with it, get into the competitive mindset, and start collecting up all the pins, icons, and top-ranked times on offer, and you may find yourself fully entertained. It's a slight thing, purely speed-focused, but we expect that'll suit plenty of folk who want a competitive outlet to display their old-school skills. And hey, it also doubles as a handy history of some iconic Nintendo gaming moments and mechanics.

• SWITCH
• 8 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

Darkest Dungeon 2 may not be the sequel that ardent fans of the original wanted it to be, but its unique approach to that hard-edged, brutal roguelike gameplay is compelling all the same. A memorable art style, tons of replayability, and lots of mechanical depth make this one an easy recommendation to any roguelike fans, even if it can be a little grindy at times. If you’ve been looking for yet another tough roguelike to add to your collection, Darkest Dungeon 2 is certainly worth your time and your money.

• SWITCH
• 5 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

Metal Slug Attack Reloaded removes some of the worst bits of the original mobile game’s mechanics, but the scaled-back roster and brutal difficulty spikes highlight the excessive grinding needed to make these kinds of games profitable and will probably fail to satisfy any but the most hardcore fans of the original. For better or worse, this feels exactly like a mobile game that has been ported to the Switch, warts and all.

• SWITCH
• 8 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

Luigi's Mansion 2 HD is Luigi's Mansion 2 with a fancy HD lick of paint. Surprise! It looks great, and the new models, animations, and revamped visuals make for a game that's close to the glorious Luigi's Mansion 3 in how modern and swish it all is. It also controls much nicer thanks to the second stick on the Switch. It's just a shame we haven't got any added extras, then, any new means to save mid-mission, added content, or bonuses. This is 100% the best way to play the game as of 2024, there's no doubt, but it would have been nice to get something a little extra, especially given the price point. Maybe we'll get a Deluxe edition someday.

• SWITCH
• 7 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

If all you're looking for in a new Super Monkey Ball game is a selection of new single-player levels to tackle, then you're in luck, because Banana Rumble boasts some of the best stages we've seen in recent memory. The additional 'Spin Dash' ability makes traversal a lot more fun, and the physics feel as close to 'classic' Monkey Ball as the franchise has got in quite some time. Unfortunately, if you're looking forward to the multiplayer modes, then temper your expectations. They're simply not very good for the most part and are significantly hampered by the drop in frame rate. We almost scored this a point lower, but the quality of the single-player just about pulls it up. As it stands, Banana Rumble is a mixed bag, but one worth delving into if you're itching for more single-player shenanigans.

• SWITCH
• 7 / 10
• Royaume-Uni

Monster Hunter Stories, like its sequel on Switch, has some issues on the hardware; in this case the problems are more related to 3DS-era design hangovers and simplistic porting. Yet when you put these issues to the side, we still have a charming, enjoyable experience either for young gamers or young-at-heart RPG / Monster Hunter fans. You can take or leave all that classic MH depth, and it won't take long to master the battle mechanics, but this is a game with enough silliness and earnest storytelling to deserve its second chance.