It cannot be overstated enough how smooth the gameplay of Rollerdrome is. No wipeouts, no bails, no punishments for dodging too late and not nailing a trick. It presents a steady rise in challenge and complication culminating at a peak that just misses the mark.
The ramp up in difficulty and challenge as Kara reaches for the finals is immaculate. The challenges are perfectly designed so that you’ll naturally nail a couple on a first playthrough, and the remaining in a couple replays. Any time that I finished a level, dismayed that I couldn’t reach a top score, I found myself able to land it within another attempt or two. Each attempt felt like something new kept clicking. It was a rare fulfillment.
The aesthetic is clean First person segments are a neat additional viewport into a future world. Opening a door, pulling the camera out and skating directly into the levels is a special choice.
The boss fights are a drag. A departure from the standard 10-challenge loaded levels in a rinse & repeat format. They don’t present anything novel or new to the gameplay loop and instead act as time sinks to endcap specific levels. Not to mention there is only one boss that is fought twice. This theme is continued with the ‘secondary’ Out for Blood campaign, which follows Kara as the now champion competing in the subsequent year of the Rollerdrome. The black jumpsuit is a fun addition, but not enough to outweigh the complete repetition of the original campaign. Instead of 10 challenges it’s reduced to 3, focused solely on a high score, single combo and speedrun. Enemies are dropped in troves in exchange for considerably less creativity in the level challenges. The sweat is turned up and enjoyment dramatically reduced to an extreme fault. The Out for Blood campaign should be viewed more as a tacked-on afterthought rather than a valued addition to the base game.
To this end, I still wish the game was longer. Prior to reaching the finals, the Rollerdrome feels like it can go on forever. I’d show up instantly to play another 4 levels with myriad challenges. Continue the Tony Hawk inspiration and have me skate a line to spell a word. Run a specific combo, keep shaking things up.
Rollerdrome rocks the most not when it’s challenging but when the impetus is creative. Unfortunately, it only achieves this for under half of its run time.

Tinykin brings the collection and resource management angles of Pikmin and expertly shaves them down to their most fun components in a delightful package. It sticks the landing as an indie 3D platformer rife with all the charm and delight you'd expect from its contemporaries, those being the top of its class.
The design is impeccable, never getting in its own way to force a dialogue interaction with NPCs. You just continually bounce around the room with absolute freedom, constantly unlocking shortcuts for quick access back to the heights you ascended. I'd be delighted to enter a similar house in a sequel and do it all over again!

Inventory Hero is not a game for me. One round was all that I felt necessary to play. It was a good run, reaching level 83 and losing to RNG in the end. And for that I was thankful, I wanted an excuse to bow out by the time I reached Glitch world the first time...
There's a lot that I know went into this game, graphics, world design, all of the items being equipped to my player character and neat enemy sprites. But I have no way of appreciating them in real time as the entire game has me fixated on my inventory. The loop is not very fun, sadly I won't be coming back to it.

Questy Chess is a game that I found myself wanting to like far more than I did. With intentioned, methodical level design that is predicated on repeat attempts for completion, it becomes frustrating that all resources are finite.
The introduction of single-use upgrades feels like an unforced error that demands grinding and even further repetition of levels just to tee up an actual repeat attempt. This shortcoming is exacerbated when certain Chests containing resources will respawn in certain levels, while others don't. There's really no way to tell. Health is finite, and as a completion metric for each level it seemingly became impossible for me to reach max health after reaching max level and beating the game.
Menus don't feel incredibly snappy, it was nearly half the times that I'd fail or exit a level, only to click out of the pop up and land back into the same level for a circular "system crash". More robust explanations of mechanics and items would be much appreciated.
Upon beating the game, my system crashed and I lost all my resources before accessing the True Ending. I can't tell if it was the system crash or game design to strip me of everything, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were the latter. This is ultimately what put me off of 100%-ing all levels. The puzzles were fun, the grind and ultimately the gameplay were not so much.
Despite all of my misgivings and frustrations, I really enjoyed my time with it. While writing this review I found myself dropping my rating twice more...

Multiversus has blown me away. I'm enjoying far more than I ever expected.
I wish the F2P elements were less invasive. They clutter up the menus and make it pretty ugly to look at. I don't feel like I progress quickly enough and unlock rewards at the free tier. That specifically compels me against putting money into the game.
There isn't enough being said about this game launching with seamless cross play and progression. I rarely have netcode issues with 2v2 battles, it's incredible.
I'm always happy for more platform fighters to crop up and potential challengers to the smash throne.

Star Sled is a neat game, definitely worth playing. I feel like it reasonably could've been double the length, each sector toys around with new mechanics but it doesn't feel like they're ever stretched far enough. Each Thion Ship / Boss Level shows a flash of brilliance as you neatly glide around bends and navigate the tight corners. It suffers from minor performance issues when too many objects enter the screen. The most unfortunate thing is that Star Sled is the lesser of the two "PlayDate Season 1 Spaceship Games", going so far as to mime the controls of Hyper Meteor for a better play experience. It's not just my bias speaking when I say this could benefit from a form of endless mode. Regardless, Star Sled remains ripe for a sequel that I'll look forward to!

I am not the audience for Crash 4, and I'm incredibly okay with that.
I think it's the best game in a series of games that are frustratingly designed. The perspective is something I'm thrilled never caught on video games, and I think that's for good reason.
The game is beautiful. This only becomes more apparent as the worlds become more vibrant and dev team are clearly having a blast with it. That was the same time I noticed that I wasn't.
I appreciate the modern additions that made the game bearable for me. Evolving checkpoints, a death counter in levels over limited lives. Very neat and very welcome.
It's raw af that N Tropy canonically hooks up with himself but in female form. Dude is WILD
I'm glad I beat it, and I can rest easily knowing I'll never need to revisit the franchise.

This game was very nice. I enjoyed playing with Molly. Co-op is very lackluster as P1 is Kirby and P2 is locked to Bandana Waddle Dee. P2 sits back for much of the game while kirby gets new abilities, upgrades and mouthfuls. Very disappointing in that respect.
The world's are varied and very pleasant to spend time in. The music has no business going so hard. The ending CG cutscene might be the best thing I've seen on the switch. The combat is passable and gameplay rather basic.
The ability upgrades are great and give great incentive to explore, revisit the village and pursue challenges. Unfortunately these challenges are only for P1, so more sitting and watching for P2.
Despite being rather basic and a Kirby game I got hit plenty and even died once. It was certainly easier in Co-op mode, but it still felt like the game was scaled. Molly carried me through much of the combat.
I discovered the block & dodge roll 85% through the game. Maybe that's why it was hard before? It made the game easier.
Level 3 ice is a busted power in the best way. Highly reccomend.
As with many Switch games I feel ripped off at $60, but there's enough content here to reasonably delude yourself. I had a lot of fun with my time.