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In the past years, I’ve seen the OlliOlli games multiple times and every time I felt they wouldn’t satisfy my Tony Hawk-like skateboarding urges. However, I really wanted some kind of skateboarding game on my Nintendo Switch so I got this game on sale. OlliOlli: Switch Stance contains two games: OlliOlli and OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood. Both games have the same gameplay, where OlliOlli 2 added the manual as a trick to combine other tricks. You try to chain the most difficult tricks together to get your high score as high as possible. Also, the gameplay is far from realistic if it comes to trick combos, but that’s what makes these games so fun. Expect to bail a lot. OlliOlli is all about timing and more than not, your timing is off causing you to smack your face into the ground. And if you think this will happen less when you get better at the controls, think again. The better you get, the more difficult combos you’ll try, causing you to bail even more. Luckily, there are no loading screens so with a simple button press you’ll spawn at the beginning of the stage. The controls are really easy making the game easy to learn but hard to master. You gain speed by pressing A, do any trick by holding the left stick in a certain position and release it and press B at the moment you hit the ground to successfully land your trick/combo. That last part is the hardest and most punishing. If you forget to press B or press it too late, you land awkward and lose most of your trick/combo score. OlliOlli 1 has a charming NES-like pixelated graphics style. OlliOlli 2 notches up the graphics to look more SNES-like. The character doesn’t have a lot of details but that’s okay because this game is about skateboarding. The combination of character + skateboard does the job really well. The movements are fluent and the tricks are all very recognizable and distinguished. OlliOlli 2 looks better than OlliOlli 1 in my opinion. The Hollywood theme is very well designed and really suits the cartoony graphics style. If you’re into skateboarding this game is great for a quick play while on the train or just at home on your couch. The Nintendo Switch is the perfect platform for this game. It really shines in handheld mode.

I was still in search of a cool skateboarding game on the Nintendo Switch when I encountered Skate City. I already played OlliOlli: Switch Stance, but I was still looking for something more realistic: enter Skate City. The controls are largely the same as OlliOlli but contrast to OlliOlli, you almost can’t do impossible trick combos in Skate City. With the exception of the impossible trick of course (skate joke). Ollies are of normal height and flips, spins and grinds are done at a normal speed. This moves the focus more from gaining high scores to actually performing cool and realistic skateboarding tricks. So far, so good. The content and visuals, however, are a little less impressive. There are only 3 maps available and while every map has almost 100 challenges they soon get repetitive. Do this trick, do that trick, achieve a certain high score, etc. The visuals are a little bland in my opinion. The color palette is rather dull and monotonous and the 3D is very low-poly. Also, there's a skate shop which feels totally useless. I like the realism of Skate City, but the dull colors and lack of maps make the game quick boring to play. There are a lot of challenges, but they quickly get repetitive and achieving all 3 stars in a challenge feels like a chore.

Nexomon: Extinction has its own character despite being a Pokémon clone and that is a compliment. It’s very hard to build upon such a successful franchise without getting the “rip-off” label or giving the players the “been there done that”-feeling. The developers implemented some fresh ideas which, in my opinion, Pokémon could learn from. PROS - Original story - Lots of (sarcastic) humor - Beautiful 2D art - Interactive open world CONS - High level of difficulty - Outdated controls - Lack of cool looking Nexomon

A Short Hike is a charming short story with a surprisingly lot to do. The visuals took some getting used to for me but especially in handheld mode on the Nintendo Switch that went rather quickly. The endearing story really fits in the small and lively open world. The developer created the right setting with the choice of colors and audio. The controls are very smooth, making it a joy to traverse the world by foot, wings or boat. The camera can play some tricks on you sometimes, but it certainly isn't game breaking. Also, the story is sweet, but in my opinion a little too short and, maybe due to this, not very memorable. However, for only € 6,99 in the Nintendo Switch eShop, you have great value for money.