Here’s what I’ve been enjoying lately on my Switch 2. These are store links, but we get no affiliate or advertising dollars from them, they’re provided just out of convenience.

Cruise Elroy’s great retro-styled action platformer Annalynn (Switch, Steam, itch.io)

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (Switch), a social sim abounding in quirkiness

UFO 50, for many things but especially for the addictive Party House (homepage, Switch, Steam)

Caves of Qud, the terrific true roguelike, filled with equal parts, with atmosphere almost as great as its challenge, but also two accessible easy modes (homepage, Steam, GoG, itch.io)

Chibi-Robo, the sleeper hit for Gamecube where you help a tiny housekeeping robot save a fractured family and also discover the secret of the house’s living toys (Nintendo Gamecube Classics)

Kirby Air Riders, Masahiro Sakurai’s remake of the Gamecube cult classic, with even deeper gameplay, robust online multiplayer and so much fun that it oozes out of the system’s USB-C ports (Switch 2)

Dragon Quest I+II HD-2D Remake, not just a conversion but a redesign, not always for the better but still great (Square-Enix page, Switch)

Blippo+, Yacht and Panic’s sci-fi tale of interplanetary communication told through the medium of an exacting recreation of 90s satellite television (homepage, Switch, Steam, Playdate; currently on sale for Switch and on Steam)

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Of course, Kirby Air Riders has been the main thing for me. I just finished the “true ending” of its story mode, Road Trip, a few minutes ago. It’s bombastic and loud, true, but it was nice to see O², Nightmare and Marx as bosses again, and Galactic Nova, from way back in Kirby Super Star, make a return as part of Kirby’s weird lore. For a series originally about beating up a penguin with royal pretensions because he took everyone’s food, Kirby’s certainly killed a lot of Cthulhus.

Now that my excuse to talk about that again is out of the way, I’ve been playing more of Party House and Rakshasa in UFO 50. I’ve already said enough about Party House, and I’m working on a revision of my strategy guide; Rakshasa is also something that should have some things said about it, a very short, very hard take on Ghosts & Goblins with a spicy Indian flavor. It’s a game that revels in randomness, and it’s easy to get overwhemed if you don’t stay on your toes at all times. I actually think its big gimmick, that you don’t have lives, but instead must complete a minigame when you perish, of escalating difficulty each time, to be one of the less interesting things about it.

Besides that, I’ve been working my way through Dragon Quest III 2D-HD, which has some quite major design differences from the Famicom/NES game from 1988. Lots to say about that too—just, later. (BTW, if you think using em dashes means something is written by an “AI,” well, I won’t have much kind to say to you about that belief. Please read better writers.)

And then there’s Blippo+. (trailer above, 1¾ minutes) Published by Panic, who also published Untitled Goose Game and Thank Goodness You’re Here!, and first released for Panic’s little portable system that could, the Playdate, Blippo is simply a pitch-perfect rememberance of 90s TV, although as experienced on another planet. It has weird indulgent kids TV (“The Boredome”), classic MTV-style news programming (“The Rubber Report”), D&D-themed fantasy gameshows like from the UK (“Quizzard”) and even a scrambled porn channel, not real porn, but with a sexy lady’s hand caressing mice and monitors (“Tantric Computing”). It’s wrapped up in presentation that kind of looks like adjusting a satellite receiver, and all the shows are like one minute long. It’s weird, unexpected and fun, like everything else Panic makes.

Statue’s most recent focus has been Mechabellum, because as they told me, “I like games that trick me into doing math.” I think one could say that all turn-based strategy games are doing math in one form or another. Math is weird that way.

In addition to all the games they play to review on their Youtube channel Game Wisdom, GWBycer has been playing strategy game Phoenix Point, and its mod Terror From the Void. I didn’t know anything about it until I saw his message about it. Lot of strategy floating around in the air, with Air Riders thrown in to cut it with pure chaos.

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Josh Bycer: I just started playing Warriors of the Nile 2. it’s a tactical strategy game with roguelike elements too, a lot of ways to break the game with the right skills and every character has their own abilities and strategies to use.

Phil Nelson: I finally have been playing the recent Marvel’s Spider-Man games and Miles Morales really does kick ass as a game most of the time, but I still run into some bullshit. In a more just world we’d have a proper Spider-Man roguelike.

I like how Josh and Phil are talking about roguelikes, and I’m really into an old non-violent MMORPG with like maybe 100 players. I’ve always got to be contrary I guess.

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