Siliconera

Despite Game Freak’s messy storytelling, I loved the exploration and combat in Beast of Reincarnation. It helps that the design makes its best elements shine and the messy parts only appear as a footnote at the end before delivering a fitting enough climax. While I would’ve liked the story to be less preoccupied with the world’s lore, I was more than satisfied by every single other element. Fittingly, Beast of Reincarnation cares more about the journey than its destination.

I genuinely think we’ll point to Sins of Kaleido as one of the best Switch otome games once this console hits the end of its lifespan. It surely will be remembered as one of the best Voltage titles. It’s such a wonderful story with deep lore, intense drama, and compelling characters. It’s all incredibly satisfying in every possible way. Not to mention it’s also a worthy successor to Even if Tempest.

Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World fully commits to the bit and uses every isekai trope to provide motivation to run over everything. It’s such a silly game. Driving around town causing senseless destruction in a colorful cartoon world can be a lot of fun! I just wish sometimes there’d be more people I could turn into monsters.

The Detective Grimoire game The Mermaid Mask is pretty much a perfect point-and-click adventure. The story is fantastic, with a wonderful script and mystery that makes sense. The puzzles are perfectly pulled off, with art and design that presents everything exactly. The characters are handled wonderfully. Plus, it builds so well on Tangle Tower and Detective Grimoire, further establishing Grimoire and Sally as wonderful leads.

Heave Ho 2 is more varied sequel that still feels feels welcoming to players of all skill levels. I do think the Co-op mode is what really makes this installment special. There’s a lot more care put into making those Adventure stages feel special and challenging in different ways. Showdown is fun too, but a bit more repetitive due to its nature. It’s another fun one from Le Cartel Studio.

Everything about Disgaea Mayhem is disappointing, especially if you love Musou style beat’em ups. It is short. There’s no main character variety. There’s little enemy variety, and only small groups to cut through instead of hordes. The combat system feels clunky and doesn’t encourage smooth, satisfying combos. The story is bland. It’s all short. Fortunately, there’s a demo so you can at least test and see for yourself how far this spin-off has fallen.

Splatoon Raiders builds upon the Salmon Run modes from Splatoon 2 and 3 in a clever way, resulting in a looter-shooter with varying objectives. It can 100% be played and enjoyed solo, but I had the most fun playing with others and suspect that will prove a highlight once folks get their bearings and start perfecting their weapon, tank, and gadget loadouts. However, I will note that because it is primarily focused on taking on Salmonid hordes with things like time limitations and egg requirements, it may not have the broader appeal of the mainline games’ campaigns.

Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit is a slightly spooky and definitely soothing opportunity to befriend bears and enjoy cozy camping. It’s never too taxing. The pacing is perfect. It can be a little difficult to adjust to some systems or find items sometimes. But it’s a fine follow-up to the first Cozy Grove.

Culdcept Begins turned out to be a solid entry in the series and really feels great once you build a good deck and go online. The campaign is a bit bland and, for the most part, easy. However, if you look at that more as a tutorial to start to build up decks and prepare for actual human opponents online, it makes more sense. Especially since the multiplayer is so solid.

D-Topia tasks us with helping people find happiness in a possible utopia, sending us off to solve light puzzles and build relationships along the way. While some of the scenarios have the potential to be stressful, it’s more relaxed than I expected. It also presents us with options to further engage with some people we meet or hop into past chapters to explore other outcomes. It’s an interesting peek at a possible future, and I appreciate Marumittu Games’ approach.