Since the Wii U was a bit of a failure, it seems like a lot of the games which were originally exclusive to it have jumped onto the life raft that is the Nintendo Switch in order to extend their life spans and to reach more people. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze was one of the best games on the Wii U and it’s now also one of the best games on the Switch. If you’re thinking about buying it, please do read my earlier review before I go over the benefits of this version.

The biggest and most marketed addition is that you can now play as Funky Kong (and for the first time in a Donkey Kong Country game!) who is much more capable than the other Kongs. He uses his surf board to stand on spiky surfaces and, to do double jumps and to slowly float downward from his jumps. He uses a snorkel so that he can breath under water, can roll infinitely and can take five hits. Some people say that he makes the game boring, but I find him really fun to play as. It’s great to be able to speed through the game’s hard levels and I think that Funky might be a good choice for those who are new to the series (as the game can be quite hard for newcomers.)

Funky may not seem like much, but after beating the final boss in Original Mode, I started a new file on “Funky Mode” and felt that going through as him was a fun and different experience. There are lots of small little extras too. Donkey Kong will now play with a Nintendo Switch in his idle animation. Levels now load more quickly. A new character called Tawks (a cool parrot) replaces Funky as shopkeeper when you play as him. (I hope we see Tawks again in the future.) In Funky Mode, players now have the option to play as Donkey, Diddy, Dixie and Cranky, but with extra hearts. Finally, the song used in the credits has been replaced with a new song – I like both equally, but it’s always good to get more David Wise music.

The improvements are small, but I say that this is definitely still worth buying if you have the original and, if you don’t, then this is a great way to play the game for the first time. Honestly, it’s better than the original. Oh, also, Donkey Kong’s nose has been redesigned for some reason and I’ve seen people who are angry about that. I have not feelings about that subject. #DonkeyKongsNoseDonkeyKongsRules

Rating: 9.8/10

Buy it here.

I don’t know why, but Super Mario 3D World never looked that appealing to me. I just thought it seemed like a rather generic Mario game, so for a long time, I just didn’t buy it. Earlier this year, I was bought it as a gift and I realise that my initial reaction was all wrong. I can only say that I wish I’d bought it sooner, as this game is a delight.

While many of the core games in the series uses the storyline of Peach getting kidnapped by Bowser, this one changes things nicely by having Bowser kidnap Sprixie Princesses (which are small fairy creatures) instead. This may sound like a minor, insignificant detail, but it has one benefit: it allows the team from Super Mario Bros. 2 to return, with Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad all playable and all quite different. The only very minor niggle I have is that it’s a blue Toad, rather than the Toad, as it was in the earlier game… but it doesn’t really matter.

The game is a lot like an enhanced version of Super Mario 3D Land and not just in terms of having more playable characters. The levels have a much greater level of diversity and, as a result, were more memorable: you get to ride Plessie (a dinosaur) down a river, you explore a spooky old haunted house in black and white, find keys to progress a baron snowy wilderness, use a canon power up to attack enemies in space or get though a level on the back of a moving train. Many of these new levels felt like a breath of fresh air, after some Mario games had used the same archetypes so many times.

The soundtrack is also really entertaining. There’s a very jazzy sort of feel to it, which is quite new for the series. Instead of remixing the same old tunes over and over, this is a game that makes the catchy tunes which will get remixed in later games. Bowser’s new theme song, in particular, was a favourite aspect of mine.

It’s also worth mentioning the game’s new power up: the Super Bell. Collecting it gives your character a cat suit which makes them walk on all fours, gives them the ability to climb walls, gives them a new pounce move and lets them swipe at enemies. At first it felt like a bit of a gimmick and I wasn’t too fond of it, but over time it grew on me and at this point I really like it. I hope that we will see it return in future games.

This is also the game which introduced Captain Toad as a playable character (though he had been an NPC before) which ultimately lead to him being the star of his own game. What makes him different to all the others is that he is unable to jump and he appears in special, smaller levels specifically designed with his limited abilities in mind. They were pretty fun and added a nice new type of challenge every now and then. There’s also a secret unlockable character – I won’t say who it was (to avoid spoilers) but I will say that once I unlocked her, I didn’t really use anybody else anymore…

Overall, a solid installment in the series. While I may generally prefer the more open 3D games, I can’t deny that I had a lot of fun with this game. I played it alone, but there is also the option to play with up to three other people at the same time, which must be fantastic. As a nice bonus, you also get the game Luigi Bros. which is Mario Bros. but with Luigi as the main character (as he should be). As it’s very easy to find this quite cheap these days, I definitely recommend it.

Rating: 9.2/10

Buy it here.

Though I have been a fan of the franchise since the beginning, somehow or another I ended up skipping over Pokémon Gold & Silver. It was a shame because I knew that a lot of people regarded the second generation of Pokémon as the best generation, but time slipped away and before I knew it, the only real option would have been buying an old cartridge for a ridiculously high price and without any guarantee that it would still be able to save – this all changed with the delightful news that these two games were coming to the 3DS Virtual Console. I downloaded Pokémon Silver Version about a year ago and I have been playing it extensively ever since.

I was mildly concerned that I may find that it had aged terribly and that by playing it so late, I had missed my opportunity to truly enjoy and appreciate it. Thankfully, this was not the case. It improves over the first generation in several ways (for example, letting you use HM moves on the map just by pressing A, rather than having to pause and go through several menus or by adding a small Poké Ball symbol next to wild Pokémon to signify whether or not you’v caught them before). In terms of general gameplay, there are a lot of small changes like that which help to improve your ‘quality of life’ as you play – combined, they all help to give you a much more streamlined experience.

Visually, while it maintains the art style of the first two games, it also manages to improve upon them. So it never really loses the essence of the art from the first games, but it does lose the ugliness that was sometimes present in them. There are no longer weird bollard tiles everywhere, for example and the added colour does wonders. It looks better, even, than Pokémon Yellow Version, which had already attempted to enhance the visuals of the originals.

Obviously, at its heart, the gameplay is quite similar to the previous two games and that’s why I wanted to talk a lot about the improvements first. But it’s not just the same game again – not at all. The previous game had you play as a trainer who was starting out in the Kanto region, but this time you’re in the Johto region. I prefer Johto over Kanto for a few reasons. There are some more interesting locations (ancient temples, icy caves, etc.) and it also feels like more of a living breathing world – just in terms of things like the dialogue from NPCs, the radio channel you can listen to anytime and the services available, such a day care centres (for breeding Pokémon) and groomers (for increasing Pokémon happiness). You can swap mobile numbers with trainers you’ve defeated and they’ll call you up to chat or for a rematch from time to time. There are a lot of small details like this which really help to immerse you in the world.

With the story, while you are a different character, I’d say that this definitely a sequel to the first generation. With Pokémon this isn’t usually the case: each new generation is usually just ‘you’re a new person and you’re in a new region, time to start your adventure’ but this time there are a lot of ties to the previous games and even a lot of returning characters. I’d definitely recommend playing the first generation before these games for this reason – it does a great job of conveying the passing of time and how it changes people and places. I won’t spoil it, but the endgame content is really rewarding.

Overall, it just might be my favourite Pokémon generation. Aside from all the aspects I’ve mentioned, it’s also the game which introduced several of the Pokémon that are both popular and appealing to me personally, such as Pichu, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Unown, Tyranitar and Togepi. If you’re a fan and you haven’t played it, you should definitely give it a try and if you’re just a general gaming fan, I still recommend it as one of the all-time classics.

Rating: 9.7/10

Buy it here.

I had often heard people talk about Street Fighter II as if it were one of the best games ever made – a real classic, but strangely I never really heard anything at all about the first Street Fighter (a.k.a. Fighting Street). When it was released on the Wii Virtual Console, I was quite excited to download it and finally get into the series.

It turns out that nobody talks about the first game because it’s terrible. You play as the iconic Ryu (who I am sure most people will recognise) and he travels around the world fighting different people to prove his strength. You face ten different opponents from Japan, America, China, England and Thailand (two per country) and some of these fights take place at historic landmarks (such as the Great Wall of China or Mt. Rushmore.)

The concept certainly isn’t a bad one and the cast of characters is interesting and colourful. The problem is that the controls are really stiff and they hinder literally everything that you do. Every fight was really difficult and the only way I was able to win was by mashing the buttons mindlessly. There’s not much else I can say about this, although these could honestly be the worst controls I have ever encountered in a game.

But, as much as controls are the most important thing to get right, it is possible to take enjoyment from games with poor controls. For example, the 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog,which had awful gameplay, but still had a good soundtrack and some nice scenery. Unfortunately, this game has no redeeming features. The music is bad and the other sound effects are terrible – when somebody is knocked to the floor, there’s no bang or crash sound, instead it goes “blap” like somebody just dropped a cheesecake on the floor.

Something else I want to mention is the voice acting. You’re probably thinking that a game from 1988 wouldn’t have voice acting because the technology at the time wouldn’t have allowed for it, which would be fine and nobody would have complained. But for some reason it does have voice acting, except the sound quality is really, really poor and one person does all the voices. When you lose a fight, the opponent says “You’ve got a lot to learn. Try again kid!” and it sounds like it’s being said by somebody who doesn’t actually speak English, but is just reading the words spelled out phonetically. Since it’s really hard, I heard this so many times and it got really annoying.

So… there’s nothing good I can say. Not really. The best I can say is that it started the Street Fighter franchise which did later contain actual good games which wouldn’t have existed without this – although it’s hard to see how it ever got a sequel. Perhaps the version I played (the Turbo Grafx 16 version) is greatly inferior to the original, perhaps one day I’ll be able to play and review it to compare. As things stand, this is the worst game I’ve ever played.

Rating: 1/10

I feel like a lot of my video game reviews start with me saying that such and such a video game franchise was one I always wanted to play, but never got around too. Well, guess what? Assassin’s Creed was a franchise that I always wanted to play and it was only recently that I got around to doing so.

Of course, today, Assassin’s Creed is one of the biggest names in modern gaming. However, after playing the first game, I was honestly surprised that it was able to survive beyond a single installment. Now, I don’t want to say that this was a bad game, but it certainly never felt like anything special and was usually either frustrating or boring.

The game follows the life of a man named Altaïr who gets sent off to assassinate different people in Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus. As an added twist, you’re not actually seeing things from Altaïr’s point of view, rather from the point of view of Desmond, a modern day descendant who is able to relive the experiences of his ancestors through a machine called the Animus – which he is being forced to do by an organisation called Abstergo.

In terms of Altaïr, there’s very little in the way of story – it’s basically go to your boss (Al Mualim), get told who to kill, find and kill them, then come back and start the cycle again. I found that the Desmond side of the story was far more interesting, but then all you ever do when you play as Desmond is get out of the Animus and then walk across the room to your bed, which isn’t very thrilling.

Playing as Altaïr can be quite fun. As a highly skilled assassin, he is able to climb up any walls he can get a grip on, which provides a nice element of freedom and exploration. You also get taught various different methods of killing people, which can be performed by pressing the right combination of buttons during combat. When I first started playing, I kind of enjoyed all this… but I started to get bored when I realised there wasn’t much else to it. Problems also began to become quite obvious before long as well.

While your climbing abilities are great for exploration-based gameplay – there’s no reason to explore. There are some nice bits of countryside, but they’re literally just paths to get between the three cities. Then when you’re in the cities, there’s nothing to find or do: no NPCs to talk to, no shops to visit, the same few tasks you get everywhere throughout the game (pick-pocketing documents from enemies, defending people from abusive guards, listening in on enemy conversations and, of course, assassinations) and that’s literally it save for a few pointless collectable trinkets. You’ll also find that the climbing doesn’t work that well – often Altaïr climb any higher, even though there’s clearly something to hold on to and sometimes he just won’t do what you want and ends up falling off the roof.

It’s probably not that much of a long game, but finishing it felt like an eternity. Just the same monotonous tasks over and over while you climb around the same three dusty, empty cities (you will find really, really annoying people on the streets though, who repeat the same bits of dialogue over and over). You’ll also find that the town guards will end up fighting you all the time (even when you don’t do anything wrong) and these fights are long and boring. With no levelling up and no in-game currency, there’s literally nothing to gain from fighting them either.

One thing I will say in it’s favour is that the very last bit is really quite intriguing. It wasn’t what I expected at all and I was really interested to find out more. The problem is that it ends as soon as it starts to get good (and kind of abruptly.)

So maybe buy this game if you see it for £1 somewhere (and you often do) then play it for the hour or so that it’s fun, then forget about it. The ending is pretty cool, but I don’t know that it’s worth going through all of the hours of boredom to get to it.

Rating: 5.8/10

Buy it here.