Mario Tennis Aces has the feverish energy of typical Nintendo games. It’s less about tennis than the shine. Every racket-meets-ball moment explodes with a blistering highlight. That builds meters and bars, also throbbing with light. Executing the super strike the latter builds toward is a blinding fantasy – more sparks, in other words, along with… Continue reading Mario Tennis Aces (Switch)
The common grocery store banana is going extinct. Climate change is leaving rain forests in ruin. This is not a great time for Donkey Kong. “Tropical Freeze” isn’t a subtle title either. Reality changed around Donkey Kong. So did he, enough to turn him from construction site nuisance to pro kart racer and into… Continue reading Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch)
Until something else, Gear Club Unlimited serves its role as a niche filler. The Switch lacks a real world arcade/simulation racing game. Good thing Gear Club exists then. It’s both, to a fault. There’s a sense this is a mobile update. A quick Google search confirms as such. The stock portraits serving as guidance in… Continue reading Gear Club Unlimited (Switch)
Pour one out for the unlucky drummer on Danmaku Unlimited 3’s soundtrack. It’s beastly, machine gun-like musical work, keeping pace with the fraying bullet patterns and explosions of this taut shooter. Danmaku Unlimited 3 fundamentally changes the relationship between villain bullets and hero ship, necessitating a cozying up between the two. Let bullets pass close… Continue reading Danmaku Unlimited 3 (Switch)
Of course a Kirby adventure allows players to throw shimmering hearts at enemies to make them friends. This is the same series that traveled to softened yarn worlds and set its conflict in squishy clay realms. Kirby is always happy. Hearts make it more so. Star Allies fits into the media rush of stories about… Continue reading Kirby Star Allies (Switch)
A wonderfully anachronistic samurai-era Japanese shooter with an abundance of saturation and playful cultural jabs. Samurai Aces blends an affection for Japanese mecha with historical lore and cultural quirks, set in the skies at a time when Japan was locked in its feudal era. Wacky flying machines and machine guns in 1500 AD? Sure. The… Continue reading Samurai Aces (Switch)
Kunio’s appearance earns awe in River City: Rival Showdown. During most conversations, Kunio stands in front of school, hands in his pant’s pockets, staring indifferently toward the horizon. No wonder other teens think he’s the coolest; he’s the Fonz of his generation, a high school student labeled as a “delinquent” by elders. He’s also a… Continue reading River City: Rival Showdown (3DS)
At any point in Tiny Barbarian, the dozen pixels high hero can stop and flex. It’s a clever touch, a play on the inherent masculinity of these Conan-like tales. Tiny Barbarian churns around the Conan angle too, riffing the likes of Taito arcade classic Rastan and Sega’s Golden Axe; Tiny Barbarian is a knock-off of… Continue reading Tiny Barbarian DX (Switch)
Super Mario Odyssey is the first Mario for those kids who grew up with Mario 64 instead of Super Mario World. Their Mario had freedom, and so does Odyssey. Their platforming was more about collecting. Odyssey uses it extensively as the primary hook. The children of Mario 64 never played alongside low resolution pixels; everything… Continue reading Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
One of the elite courses in Golf Story is owned and run by a gang of old coots. They don’t keep greens; everything is a fairway (“It’s better that way,” they say). Newer clubs are disallowed; only bangers and mashers – club terms a century old – tee off on this course. The very idea… Continue reading Golf Story (Switch)
