The Last Ninja Collection – Nintendo Switch Review | Retro Reborn or Bare Bones? 🥷 #RetroGaming

In today’s Rich's Rapid Review, I take a look at The Last Ninja Collection on Nintendo Switch — a bundle that brings three iconic System 3 classics back for a new audience. It’s genuinely great to play these games again, and the atmosphere, music, and isometric adventuring still hold up beautifully.

Dark Quest: Remastered Xbox Series X Review 6/10 *The boardiest of digital board games* ☠️⚔️ @brainseal #IndieGame #GameDev

I first got on board with the Dark Quest series back in 2023 with the third entry, which was a fantastic isometric title that relied on a blend of chance and memorisation as you delved ever further into its rewarding depths, as a man with a loud voice shouted numbers at you – good! 

More recently, I covered Dark Quest 4, which further evolved the formula with more classes and personalisation options – and so when I had the opportunity to go back to the start of the series and cover this remaster of the original Dark Quest – originally released back in 2015 for PC– I leapt at the chance, as Brain Seal have fast become a personal fave developer of mine – helped along by their recent explosive physics-based title Blow It Up. Although this remaster does feel a bit of a step backwards as opposed to a celebration and re-imagining of an earlier title. In the Brain Seal catalogue.

Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition Nintendo Switch 2 Review "Rayman Returns To His Roots" @RaymanGame #RetroGaming

Originally released in 1995 on the PS1, Rayman was soon ported to other systems, but it was that original PS1 release that most folks hold dear. Digital Eclipse have worked with Ubisoft to bring this 30th Anniversary Edition to life, including PS1, Atari Jaguar, PC (MS-DOS), Game Boy Colour, and Game Boy Advance versions, this collection is very much aimed at fans of the original, with a physical version also being available.

Thomas & Friends: Wonders of Sodor Xbox Review 6.5/10 "A beautifully realised license frustratingly hampered by technical issues and design choices" 🚂 @dovetailgames #IndieGame #GameDev

I grew up with Thomas the Tank Engine, and now – a full generation down the line – my son has taken up the mantle of enjoying Thomas and his cast of friends making their way around the gentle island of Sodor. 

Developed by Dovetail Games – the folks behind the Train Sim World series of games, they know their way around a caboose! - this is a wonderfully realised world in which the characters are absolutely TV perfect and the voice actor from the show also appears to add class to the game.

There are several modes, with exploration (free roam) mode, and a more mission-centric being the main focus. I was intrigued as to how they would make a game in which you can effectively just go forwards and backwards interesting, especially when the sim element is removed or heavily simplified, but Dovetail Games have really worked some magic here with the chapter stories, voice work, and overall presentation being spot-on.

Roadwarden Nintendo Switch 2 Review 5.5/10 "A beautiful tale crushed by performance issues" 🗺️ @MoralAnxiety #IndieGame #GameDev

I actually received Roadwarden for review last year, but had an issue when playing on my Switch, whereby the game would judder along as if it was constantly buffering – I made contact with the relevant party to inquire if this was a known issue that would be patched shortly etc. – as it made the game unplayable - and received no response, so it fell off my radar. 

It was only upon installing games on our new Switch 2 that I spotted Roadwarden and wondered if it would run more smoothly on this new console, it is after all, a text-based adventure – hardly a genre that needs a technical powerhouse! And yet…problems remain, which is a real shame as the game has so much potential.

Gear Club Unlimited 3 Nintendo Switch 2 Review 6.5/10 "a fun, if slightly bland racing game"🛻🔥🔥 @Nacon @EdenGames #IndieGame #GameDev

I’m not familiar with the Gear Club Unlimited series, but after playing a few duff Switch racers recently (I look at YOU Fast & Furious) I had a hankering for a solid arcade racer, and so Eden Games’ Gear Club Unlimited 3 very much appealed, and whilst the fundamentals and moment-to-moment driving are fun with a few positive quirks, the package as a whole feels like a missed opportunity, although huge kudos up front for not trying make this a ‘hip’ game with needless bad language and cringe-inducing dialogue, ensuring that this can be enjoyed by racing fans of all ages.

Beginning with your character winning a race against his mentor and bagging a spot in the France-based racing series that make up the rest of the game, you choose your initial car from a small selection (although you can unlock 40 cars in the game) and begin your winning streak. I went with an Abarth as my wife drives a Fiat 500, so I was flying the family flag – which turned out to be a good choice for the highway sections of the game which I’ll go into later.

Wreckreation XBox Series X Review 5.5/10 *Burned Out?* 🛻💥 @ArcadeDriving #IndieGame #GameDev

It’s hard to write this review as Wreckreation is clearly a labour of love from some core developers behind the much-loved Burnout franchise, and you can feel where the game could be at. 

Admittedly my personal preferences lay back when Burnout was a more linear experience – I was never taken with the open-world Burnout Paradise - but there are moments in Wreckreation in which great ideas and choices shine through, yet they always seem to either be shot down by heavier duty issues, or design choices that appear to be opposing forces during development.

Mafia: The Old Country Xbox Series X Review 6.5/10 *va bene, va bene* 🍋 @mafiagame

I missed the boat when the original Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven was fist released back in 2002, instead getting hips deep into the sequel released in 2010, of which I have incredibly fond memories of following the trials and tribulations of Vito and Joe as they make their way through the murky underworld of Empire Bay. 

The game had an incredible soundtrack, looked fantastic and had a plot that pulled me in. The sequel – Mafia III (developed by the current team, Hangar 13 – initially impressed with its technological advances, atmosphere and characters – and again, a blinding soundtrack – but for reasons I can’t recall, I sort of…fell off it somewhere along the way.

Car Go! PS5 Review By Reeg 6.5/10 🚛 @CleversanGames #IndieGame #GameDev

Car Go! is a small, simple delivery game that keeps things light and accessible. With such a vast range of genres available, is this one worth picking up?

Upon loading into the main menu, you’re greeted with three straightforward options: Start, Arcade, and Settings. While functional, the settings menu feels a little bare, notably lacking an option to adjust sensitivity. Visually, the game adopts a cute, minimal style with a distinctly mobile-esque look and feel.

Detective: Rainy Night Nintendo Switch Review 6/10 *Care for a room, detective?* 🕵️‍♀️☔ @K148_GS #IndieGame #GameDev

I covered k148 Game Studio’s Detective: The Motel back in January, and whilst I relished the thought of the basic premise – a short detective title focused in a single location – the execution and layout of the game really hindered my enjoyment. Fast forward to the end of the year, and I got to tuck into Detective: Rainy Night, a title that moves away from tedious box-ticking exercises and instead more towards a supernatural, psychological horror bent. Good!

The POV adventure begins with your character arriving at a supposedly rural hotel (more on this later), with your character getting to briefly know the inhabitants of the scattered rooms, as well as the kindly motel manager. 

After a quick kip, you wake up to find that the heavy rain from the night before has now morphed into an impenetrable fog (again, more on this later) and to make matters worse, one of the temporary residents of the motel has been murdered, leaving you to don your detective cap and try to get to the bottom of what the heck is going on.

As much as I had fun with Detective: Rainy Night, there are a lot of caveats here. Whilst I enjoyed how stripped back and focused the narrative was – it’s a game that can be completed in a couple of hours – the game is very ‘assety’ and that does bite it on the arse somewhat.

For example, you are supposed to be in the middle of nowhere, but you can clearly see many houses around the motel, and at one point towards the ending, there’s a glitch (at least I assume its a glitch) in which you can openly leave the area and see the awkward surroundings/limitations of the street that the motel is plonked on. 

It doesn’t help that the burgeoning narrative really tries to drive home the fact that this motel is supposed to truly be miles out of town and almost unreachable. The sparsity of audio works with the unfolding tale, and I enjoyed how the story is set over five nights (shout out to the awesome Five Days a Stranger), with the creeping imminence of death closing in as the hapless residents get picked off one by one.

Again, as much as there are strengths in the interesting premise, the character models move like they are encased in cement, and the dialogue is less than ideal. The light environmental puzzles and brief fetch quests never slowed the pace down, and the character archetypes work insomuch as they fill a hole; you’ve got a moody young woman, an unhappy couple (the male is possible the horniest person I’ve ever encountered in a game, there should honestly be a copy of Readers Wives poking out of his jacket pocket), a miserable rich bitch, a chubby food-focused schlub, and an alpha male – but it all works in the sense that this is a trashy horror story.

SUMMARY
All in all, when playing Detective: Rainy Night, it’s best to keep in mind that this is the work of a single individual, and quite frankly this is light years ahead of their previous releases. 

Whilst I’ve only rated this a 6/10, I’m genuinely looking forward to what the developer hits us with next, as there really is something here, and I hope that in a year or two I’m singing the praises of their newest release to the high heavens. 

As it stands though, this is flawed, silly fun that will appeal to those that like to smash through a light-horror title of an evening, and there’s absolutely nothing at all wrong with that.

6/10 

🧊💦MELTING🧊💦

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(also available on PS5, PC, Xbox Series X/S)

Developer – k148 Game Studio [SOLO DEV]

Publisher – Jandusoft

A Pizza Delivery Xbox Series X Review 6.5/10 *fancy a slice (of life)?* 🍕 @Dolores_Ent #IndieGame #GameDev

The first release from Spanish video game developer Eric Osuna, A Pizza Delivery is a game that overreaches its grasp, but is painfully close to being a glorious experience, blending as it does a scattered narrative with simple mechanics. 

Although, as much as certain sections of the game appealed to me, there were too many aspects that dragged my interest down, eventually making the game feel a bit meandering and light as opposed to being the vehicle to a budding realisation as the narrative would perhaps like me to believe.

JDM: Japanese Drift Master Xbox Series X Review 6.5/10 *Don’t let me drift away, babe* 🏯🚗💨 @GamingFactorySA #IndieGame #GameDev

Firstly, I have to say that whilst I didn’t fully click with JDM: Japanese Drift Master due to several issues that I’ll elaborate on below, this is clearly a game that’s been crafted with love, and has some real high points in the visual departments and world design. That said, there were too many issues to ignore and it all resulted in JDM feeling like a game that needed a bit longer in the oven to really make an impact.

The narrative of the game is told through Manga style comic imagery, a really cool touch that adds to the Japanese vibe of the game and bookends the chapters that make up the story in a fun way. The look and layout of the map is surprisingly varied as well, with some lovely touches and flourishes in the landscapes and environments that you’ll be whizzing through. 

Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition Nintendo Switch Review 5/10 "Not a (Raw) thrill to play" 🛻🔥@CradleGames @GameMillEnt #GameDev #IndieGame

I don’t usually directly compare games when I discuss them, but I do feel that I have to open this review by saying that you can currently get a physical copy of the infinitely superior Cruis’n Blast on Amazon UK for twelve quid, should you so wish (and you should wish so). 

Fast & Furious is a console port of the 2022 arcade title, which was originally developed by Raw Thrills – who were also behind the original arcade version of Cruis’n Blast – and whilst the port to consoles has some brief action, it’s far too insipid to be a recommendation beyond a few minutes of simple fun.

I’m not too au fait with the Fast & Furious franchise, but the links here seem pretty tenuous – there are a few recognisable cars, and each of the six stages (which last around two / three minutes each) set the task of reaching the finish line and thwarting various events such as a missile launching, a bomb being detonated or a plane taking off. You can choose from a handful of supercars, and play with up to two players, but the issues reveal themselves quite quickly as you dive in.

Kong: Survivor Instinct PS5 6/10 “An average game propped up by the king himself” 🦍 @7lvls #IndieGame #GameDev

🦍My only history with King Kong is going on the ride at Universal Studio with the most bored man I’ve ever seen manning the controls. I don’t know if it was his last day or the world was crushing his soul, but he was not selling me on how scary Kong was, his voice didn’t convey that Kong was a terrifying threat - more like he was bored, and lunch was coming soon. 

So, this is to say I don’t have much history with the franchise, and the little I did have didn’t paint Kong in the best light - though that’s not the big ape’s fault in all fairness. Could this game finally make a good impression and bring the King back to Kong?

The Edge of Allegoria Nintendo Switch Review 6/10 *A Game Boy-styled JRPG with a lot of effing and jeffing*🧑‍🌾 @its_avg_joe @CobraTekkuGames #IndieGame #GameDev

The Edge of Allegoria is an atypical Game Boy-esque JRPG in that, whilst it has the usual turn-based battles, top-down adventure vibe, and glorious chiptune music, the basis for the writing is a pretty vulgar crudeness that, whilst setting it apart from more generic titles in the same genre, means that your mileage will very much vary dependent on how amusing you find crass language.

Whilst there’s nothing offensive about The Edge of Allegoria, the story sort of sits in the background, and gameplay overall is pretty standard with the main hook in the combat being that you acquire certain masteries of weapons after using them for a short while that broadens your arsenal of attacks against monsters that have physical. Magical, and elemental abilities. 

There are some nice visual flourishes, such as the overall colour palette changing as you get poisoned or wounded etc. with the music being the usual jaunty GB fun, but the very thing that sets The Edge of Allegoria apart – its use of adult language and humour – makes it a game that people will either click with or find tiresome. 

Giant Machines 2017 Xbox Series X Review 5/10 *Big machines with big problems* 🚜

Recently released on X Box Series X, Giant machines 2017 comes from Polish studio Code Horizon, also know for The Way, 911 Operator, and Gold Mining Simulator. This being a title from 2017 means that it is showing its age somewhat, in terms of the visuals, but there also other, more serious issues that wind up making what could have been a wonderful trip through over-sized construction vehicles in various situations a plodding, technical mess that boils down to performing repetitive manoeuvres whilst hoping the controls don’t freeze up on you.

The game begins with a pretty solid opening, yes it all feels very ‘assety’ – par for the course with a lot of ‘simulator’ type games – but the Southern American drawl that acts as your mission co-ordinator comes over the radio and tells you that you need to get into a transport cart and head on over to an enormous structure to prepare it for silicon ore mining. Leaving the vehicle shed, there is an incredible sense of scale as you flick through the radio stations on offer and trundle across the empty desert ground to the excavation machine, first fixing a hose, then moving lining it up for the mining, drilling, filling up the haulage truck, and finally getting the ore out of the complex. Played mostly in first person perspective, with various cameras selectable when on a vehicle / machine, the sounds of construction work really well, with each machine having a real sense of weight and power to them. It’s when you want to actually ‘move’ them that the real problems come into play.

Slaughter: The Lost Outpost Nintendo Switch Review 6/10 "Take Back Control of A Prison Run By Inmates!" 💥 #IndieGame #GameDev #SlaughterTheLastOutpost

Inmates of a massive, labyrinthine prison  have broken free and anarchy reigns, cue the entrance of your lone hero – named Russell, natch – a man who is here to bring law and order to chaos…by shooting everyone dead in a blizzard of bullets and gore.

A third-person shooter with a focus on head-on action as opposed to strategic, cover-based gameplay,  Slaughter: The Lost Outpost makes a solid first impression, running at 60 fps on the ageing Switch hardware, and the initial sections consisting of tense, close-quarter combat with armed prisoners, either blasting you from afar and dashing behind doors, or rushing you with knives. The industrial surroundings, little shortcuts through vents, and smooth ambient work gave off some pretty positive vibes for my first thirty minutes or so with the game.

Rallyallyally Nintendo Switch Review 5.5/10 *A chaotic racer that’s fun…for a few minutes* 🛣️ @hairyheartgames #IndieGame #GameDev

A multiplayer racing title from wonderfully named Scottish developers Hairy heart Games, Rallyallyally can be played with up to eight vehicles (a mixture of players and bots), in a game wherein the main goal is to grab a hold of a roll of road, and unroll it to the finish line! 

Upon completion of each section, points are awarded accordingly, and the hectic action rolls on until all three rounds are complete. Scattered powerups help add to the frenzy, and the simple visuals suit the on-screen action.

There are very few options available to customise your approach to Rallyallyally - although you can choose from a large variety of vehicles – and the game quickly becomes repetitive, with some of the environments getting in the way, and the zooming single-screen action sometimes tipping over from chaos into seeming randomness, as you struggle to even find yourself onscreen, or which direction in which you are currently zooming!

SUMMARY
A game that is fun for a short while, but the lack of customisation options combined with the fact that variety in the gameplay means that this is a tough one to recommend beyond those gamers that enjoy true, pure chaotic action in their racers.

5.5/10

🧊💦MELTING 🧊💦

Tiny Pixels Vol. 2 – Stormy Knights Nintendo Switch Review 6.5/10 “Bite-sized, princess-rescuing action” 🏰👸⚔️ @eastasiasoft #IndieGame #GameDev

A snappy, heavily timing-based adventure game that casts you in the role of a knight on a quest to rescue several princess trapped in separate castles, you’ll find yourself adjusting to the simple control setup quickly, and timing your movements, shield blocks, dashes, swipes and magic accordingly as you cut your way through the enemies ahead of you, in single-stage battles.

Gore Doctor Xbox Series X Review 5/10 “Gore, Gore, Gore” 🩸🪓🤡 @Salient_Games #IndieGame #Horror #GameDev

I am someone who reviews a lot of horror games, and I am also a massive fan of the Saw franchise - it being my favourite horror series of all time. I also have House M.D as my favourite TV show, so a game entitled ‘Gore Doctor’ sounded right up my street and was something I thought would be hard for me to not enjoy - and yet this game struggled to fully grab me.