Mina the Hollower

(available for Playstation 5, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC. Switch 2 version used for this review)

Mina the Hollower is the latest game from Yacht Club games, the developers behind Shovel Knight, and this is their first new franchise since launching Shovel Knight. It was first unveiled on G4 TV (which shows how long we’ve known about this game and how long development took); Mina the Hollower had a lot of hype around it, which was slightly dulled by the fact that it was accompanied by what felt like an unnecessary kickstarter campaign. This felt egregious at the time considering the success the first game had been. But nevertheless, this game did reach its goal, and it took a long time to come out.

I was hoping to review this game last year around the original Halloween release date, but that was pushed back into 2026, kind of missing a trick in my opinion because this is a very Halloween-y game.

The short of it is that Mina the Hollower follows the order of ‘Hollowers’, which are basically paranormal hunters, in order to rescue a cursed island having a massive outbreak. It’s a very basic set up. Where Shovel Knight took its influence from games like Castlevania and Megaman with a throwback to the classic days of the NES and Super Nintendo, Mina the Hollower is a top-down 2D game with its influences from series like Legend of Zelda and both the artstyle and the gameplay are very reminiscent of the Gameboy Colour game Link’s Awakening.

You can definitely tell that that game played a big part in the game’s influences, but there are other inspirations too, particularly the Souls franchise and a bit of Bloodborne thrown in there too. Essentially, they kind of made a Dark Souls game for kids.

PROS

• Art Style

I already mentioned that this is a throwback to the Gameboy Colour, and it doesn’t disappoint on that front. It does things that you wouldn’t get to work on an actual Gameboy, however, like some of the detail that you get in the full artworks at the start of each chapter (like when you enter a new location) those would just be impossible on an older console like that.

It also has a wider range of colours and makes very good use of them. It gives off the rather spooky feel that you get from Halloween-esque imagery, especially because they have to do different kinds of ghoulish characters for Mina to follow.

The enemy designs are pretty good across the board, especially within the boss fights. They are really quite clever, but I won’t go into too much detail so as to not spoil them, but one of the highlights I would say was one of the early bosses that you fight, who resembles a living statue.

What’s more, Mina has a brilliant design. She’s very basic in one sense but stands out very distinctively at the same time. When she was first revealed I thought she resembled one of the mice from the Rescuers, but I will say that since then they have made her stand out more and I can see this character selling a lot of plushies.

• Combat

The game gives you very traditional combat, you’re given a very basic attack to begin with which resembles the whip from Castlevania, but the game gives you other weapons to unlock and exchange for Bones (the currency) and you don’t want to die without recovering your Spark, because you’ll have all of your Bones taken off you. However, unlike Souls games where you have to get them back at that point where you die, this game is a lot more forgiving and lets you hold onto them. You can even spend them before you end up losing them, and there is a machine in your Burrow which acts as your home base to store some spare ones to cash out at any time you want. This can be useful so you don’t have to worry about losing them. Again, the game does a very good job of allowing you to upgrade things like your attack, defence, and damage from sub-weapons. While there’s not a huge variety of sub-weapons, they do come in handy and you will want to use them at the cost of taking up some resources, which you can refill throughout the environment.

My personal favourite is probably the axe because of its range and shock damage, but I actually didn’t change weapons all that much. I felt like the basic attack was one of my favourites, probably because with the way I was levelling up Mina’s stats, I wasn’t saving up to purchase any other weapons. By the time I got them I wasn’t feeling in the mood to experiment, in fact I spent a lot of my money upgrading my base attack.

One of the things that Mina gets which is excellent is the ability to burrow, which makes you able to find secrets and dodge attacks, but you can only burrow for a few seconds before you’re brought back to the surface so timing is everything. Getting the hang of it is required to reach certain locations, too.

The game offers a few boss fights in multiple locations, but as far as I’m aware, you can tackle these in any way that you want. While it’s quite hard, I would recommend going right from your hometown and keep going in that direction because even though the boss is quite difficult to begin with, the trinket that you get for doing so really benefits you.

Oh yeah, trinkets! They’re basically like extra equipment that you get in an RPG. You get some of them by buying them, finding them in the world, or defeating bosses or side quests. I beat a mini boss en route and got a trinket which allowed me to convert enemies that had been defeated into flies that attack new enemies… it makes sense in context.

It’s all incredibly customisable to people’s playstyles, but I would still recommend doing that boss fight to get that particular trinket early on. It does require doing a bit of an escort mission first. But it’s worth it!

You also have to watch your healing, this is again another Dark Souls influence, but you get a certain number of heals per life, but you do have the ability to upgrade how many you get. However, some areas are locked behind giving up a certain number of heals in order to enter- which certainly made some mini-bosses a lot more difficult.

• Boss Fights

I don’t want to go into too much detail because they’re really good to discover for yourself, but I don’t think I had a single boss fight in this game that I found annoying or unfair. They’re challenging, don’t get me wrong, but they didn’t feel unfair, and that’s really rare in a game.

MIXED

• Story

I didn’t really want to put the story into this category, but I can’t put it into the Cons for being too basic because there’s definitely a lot of effort put into it. There’s a lot of good dialogue with some of the characters and within the world. You’re basically tasked with turning on a series of generators in order to brighten up the island and make the monsters go away, but there’s a little twist partway through the game that was so obvious that I thought it was a red herring. The story never really went in an unexpected direction, and the most amount of character that you get from the game does come from dialogue that you have with the inhabitants, so I can’t fault it entirely. It just won’t be winning many ‘Best Narrative’ awards.

CONS

• No Map

Mina the Hollower’s world is actually quite big, and you can tackle it in whatever order you want- but the game doesn’t give you a map. There is a map available to you at some point in the game, but it’s locked behind a side quest, which I didn’t do. I think that’s a bit of an issue because I don’t want the map to tell you everything, but I did find myself getting lost a lot more than I would like, especially because the world is so big! I think that if it wasn’t for so much dialogue I wouldn’t have realised that one of the areas is only accessible by getting the trains back in service. You’ll spot it throughout the adventure, you go past several train stops and you can donate some bones in order to get it back running, but I think people might not do this early on because they think it’s a form of fast travel- it’s not, it’s required to reach one of the final areas of the game. If you didn’t start saving up for that, you might be locked behind a grinding session for quite a while. Again, I only realised this by chance, and I think a map would have helped slightly.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Mina the Hollower is a triumph of an indie game, this is a great throwback to top-down 2D games and is another entry from Yacht Club Games. I do wish that I found myself getting lost less often and I don’t think that the story is anything to write home about especially since the story in Shovel Knight was so good, but I think that this is a really strong game. The combat is fantastic and is an absolute joy to control, I didn’t even mention how good the soundtrack is either! There’s no framerate drops in my experience, the game ran incredibly stable on the Switch 2. If you have any love for classic 2D games, I urge you to give this one a go, it might be the best one you play all year.

FINAL SCORE: 9.5/10

Resident Evil Requiem 

(available for Playstation 5, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC- PS5 used for Calvin’s review, PC used for Elliot’s review)

Resident Evil Requiem is the ninth mainline entry in the Resident Evil series and comes at the time of being in the public consciousness, due to the success of the remakes. I liked Resident Evil Village, but I did think in many ways that it was a step down from RS7 since I felt like it was trying to combine aspects of the survival horror in RS7 with the more action orientated aspects of RS4.

Requiem is doing this as well; however, Requiem makes the smart choice this time by separating those two gameplay styles between two different characters. For the survival horror aspect, we’re put in the hands of FBI agent Grace Ashcroft, a new character for the series, and in the action orientated gameplay, we play as returning character Leon Kennedy, with the plots taking place simultaneously, though told slightly out of order. You’ll be switching out between the two for the main story. 

The game’s default will have you playing in first person as Grace and third person as Leon, but you can opt to swap them around or have both in one style, it’s up to you. For the sake of this review, I chose to go with the default options. I should specify that I played this game on a base Playstation 5 and haven’t experienced the Pro enhancements. 

If you like the old Resident Evil games, there’s definitely something for you no matter which gameplay style you prefer, although this one, unlike the previous entry, definitely feels like it has taken the most influence from the remake trilogy, for various reasons that I will get into later on in the review. 

But how does it all turn out?

PROS

• Gameplay

As I previously mentioned, the game has you in a more survival horror mode as Grace and a more action type gameplay as Leon, and they did a great job in separating these out. Grace, for example, does not get many weapons throughout her half of the campaign, whereas Leon does get a much bigger plethora of weapons like the rifle and the shotgun. I wouldn’t get too used to Leon since you don’t play as him too much, Grace really takes the forefront for most of the game, and as she is a lot more vulnerable than Leon, you have to be extremely careful a lot of the time when you play as her. 

The game initially will have you confined to the medical facility, run by former Umbrella scientist Doctor Gideon that Leon has been sent to investigate, and Grace has been kidnapped by for reasons unknown. It plays out very similar to a lot of the singular environments in other Resident Evil games, and it definitely reminded me of the Baker household from RS7. However, I will say that the medical facility does have more safe areas than that location did, but if you’re playing in Grace’s campaign, like what we had with the Baker mansion and in Castle Dimitrescu, there is a roaming enemy. I won’t spoil it for people who haven’t experienced the game, but I will say that one thing that this game does do that you may not know is that it does give you a means to deal with the roaming enemy if you want to take the risk in order to make backtracking easier – and believe me, you’re going to want to backtrack in this game.

Crafting also returns from Resident Evil 8, though it’s only accessible when playing as Grace. This time I think that they handled it better than Resident Evil 8, mainly because it’s actually tied to the backtracking aspect. This time you’ll be crafting using blood which gets littered throughout the medical facility and can be extracted from enemies. It really adds more to the risk versus reward for fighting enemies rather than running from them. And boy, you’re really going to need to consider that risk versus reward because Grace does not get many weapons, so you really have to be precise on your shots when taking down enemies. 

Leon’s action gameplay is unbelievably satisfying when you’ve gone through the challenges of Grace’s time, especially early on because he can take out a lot of enemies a lot earlier. To make up for crafting not being available to him, there are a lot more ammo pickups. 

In whatever way you prefer to play your Resident Evil games, there is something for you to enjoy here. I wouldn’t say any of the gameplay was as scary on a second play through, and I did do multiple for the purpose of this review, but on that first play through there are a few particularly scary enemies to deal with, especially one in the later portion of the game where you are extremely vulnerable. I wouldn’t say it’s to the same extent as the dollhouse from RS8, but it was pretty damn creepy!

• Graphics

 Resident Evil Requiem looks great, I’m playing on a base Playstation 5 and it looks really good. I don’t have any with the Switch 2 version of the game, but from what I’ve heard it actually looks alright and is only a slight downgrade from the other versions, and to be fair I’m amazed that CAPCOM managed to release it on the same day as the other versions. 

If there is an issue, it’s that maybe some of the environments don’t give much for the team to be creative with how they designed the world, but that’s down to the fact that this game has to be a little limited with what it can do, especially in the second half. If you’ve played through the game, you probably know what I’m on about.

That being said, when you’re in cutscenes, this game is a real marvel of the RE Engine, which appears to be CAPCOM’s go to for making all of their games. I would also add that I think the soundtrack is pretty good if we’re talking about the presentation of the game, though I don’t think it compares as well to other games in the series, particularly the early game soundtracks. 

• Enemy Design

Because this game centers again around the T virus, we are dealing with zombies, but there are other new and returning enemies to deal with. One thing that they did rather interestingly this time is that they give certain zombies certain patterns of behaviour that you can exploit, since this game deals with mutations in the T virus which gives the zombies some semblance of their life within their zombie-selves. For example, there’s a zombie in the game that doesn’t like loud noises, so if you can get the other zombies in the game to make loud noises, he’ll actually end up attacking them for you. Similarly, there’s other zombies that don’t like bright lights, so if you turn on a bright light, it will stun them. 

There are some returning enemies but I will leave you to figure out what they are and I will say they don’t feel too much like they are nostalgia baiting. There is a certain aspect of that in this game which I will get back to, but overall the enemies are quite clever and they do provide a decent challenge no matter what character you’re playing as.

With exception of some of the roaming enemies, there’s not too many original enemies in the game, and I have to separate them out into another category that we’ll get to.

MIXED

• Story

In my opinion, the best Resident Evil games are when they’re not trying to tie so heavily into previous entries and are allowed to be their own thing. Resident Evil 2 only slightly ties into the first game, it’s kind of it’s own thing when you think about it, the only connection is that Claire is travelling to Raccoon City after her brother goes MIA. Similarly enough, you have a story like Resident Evil 7 which is very separate from the other games, so much so that we were all wondering when we were playing it if it was meant to be a reboot for the franchise considering just how different it was. 

Resident Evil 9 is kind of in that camp initially, especially when you’re playing the role of Grace since she’s a new character. She does have some connections since her mother, who is murdered in the prologue, is from Resident Evil Outbreak, though you don’t need to have played that game to get the significance of it. Grace’s feelings of guilt over her mother’s death is a big part of her character development, especially when she is put into a caretaking role later on in the narrative. 

That’s not where my issue comes from, overall I think that the narrative is strong, but it falls down for me in the second half of the game, namely with one character making a choice that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense at the time. You don’t necessarily need to have played the second game to understand it, but it really helps. For the record, I’m not spoiling too much by insinuating that, considering that that game was involved in the marketing of that game, but in order to get us there, we have to retcon or ignore other parts in the series. Requiem almost erases the original games from the timelines- the remakes are now the continuity. More importantly, I do think that the second half of the game makes it all a little overcomplicated.

There’s also a character that is revealed in the second half of the game that is utterly pointless to the whole plotline, and I really did not like them. 

Overall, the narrative is strong but it tries a little too hard for nostalgia baiting in its second half and doesn’t succeed on every level.

CONS

• Later Enemies

Now this isn’t for all of the enemies in the late game, but there are a bunch in the later part of the game that do not belong in Resident Evil. If you’ve watched mine and Ren’s livestream of this, you’ll probably know what I’m referring to, but there’s a certain kind of enemy that gets introduced that initially works, even though I wasn’t a fan of it, but when you get to the really late game, it really doesn’t work. I’m frankly super annoyed that I was put through it multiple times since I kept dying. Seriously CAPCOM, do not do this in later entries. 

• No Extra Modes at Launch

There are some gallery features that are rewards for achievements in gameplay, but… Meh. There’s no mercenary mode or no extra survival modes, which is, in my opinion, a real dumb decision, since Requiem is a pretty short entry in the series. My first playthrough took me just over 8 hours and I managed to cut that down by 2 hours for the second playthrough we did on the livestream. To not have a mercenary mode at the end of that seems like a massive missed opportunity. I’m certain there is DLC coming, especially when I looked at the post credit scene, but that could be months down the line.

The point is, the amount of money you have to spend to get this game doesn’t match up to an at-most 10 hour game. You might not be too happy that your only option is to replay this game on New Game Plus or at a harder difficulty. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Resident Evil Requiem is a very strong entry in the series. The gameplay is great, the story and graphics are extremely strong, and I had a really good time playing it. It’s another strong entry into the series. I do have a couple of issues with the story and some aspects at the end portion of the game did frustrate me, but they were minor issues in the grand scheme of things. I would have liked a mercenary mode or something similar after the fact, though that could be offset by some DLC down the line.

If you like Resident Evil, you have absolutely no reason to not pick this up. I will say that newcomers should probably play the remakes of 2, 3, and 4 before playing this one.

FINAL SCORE: 9/10

And now Elliot’s review

We seem to be in a renaissance era when it comes to the Resident Evil franchise. Ever since the release of Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, the series has released brilliant game after brilliant game, from the Ethan Winter duology to the remakes of the classics, this series is better than it’s ever been. So, of course, with all these amazing games coming out, there’s no doubt that many were excited for the release of Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth main entree of the franchise that had first been shown off at Summer Game Fest in 2025 with every trailer only making the game more enticing. So does this game carry on the streak of great games (if we ignore the remake of Resident Evil 3) or is this the exception? Resident Evil Requiem was developed and published by Capcom and released on 27th February 2026 for Playstation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2 and Windows. 

Story

This game follows two characters, Grace Ashcroft,  FBI agent and daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft (protagonist of Resident Evil Outbreak), and series favourite, Leon S. Kennedy. Grace has been given an assignment to investigate the Wrenwood Hotel, the site that her mother was murdered in eight years ago. Once there she encounters Victor Gideon, ex-Umbrella scientist (because half the world was secretly working for Umbrella apparently), who kidnaps her and takes her to the Rhodes Hill Medical Centre. Leon on the other hand, is afflicted with a strain of the T-Virus, which is slowly killing him, though that’s not going to stop him from being the badass action hero that he is. He eventually, with the aid of his handler Sherry Berkin, tracks down Victor Gideon after witnessing him carrying Grace to a different location, only to lose him in a zombie outbreak, eventually arriving at the Medical Centre that Grace is trapped in. Thus giving our protagonists their objectives for the game, Grace to find a way out of her prison and Leon to find out just what Gideon is planning. 

The story of this game is exactly what you’d expect from Resident Evil. Conspiracy and secrets, abominations being lauded as advanced evolution, bad quips and one liners, it’s what you’d expect from a schlocky action/horror flick that you’re not meant to take seriously but do all the same. Grace is a unique character for this series, mostly because she has little combat prowess, so she comes off as cowardly and is frequently seen as a stuttering, bumbling mess that’s very out of her depth. It works as a contrast to Leon, who has become the action hero many of us aspire to be, constantly throwing bad one liners, killing zombies like it’s his average 9-5, needless to say he’s no longer the rookie cop we met back in 1998. One thing that the story has been criticised for are the retcons and changing of continuity, this story fully confirms the remakes as the new canon and either changes or reinterprets plot elements that have been in the series for decades. This probably will, and already has, aggravated a number of long time fans of the franchise, especially those who played the originals on the Playstation 1. 

Presentation

One thing that I will never stop praising these new games for are the graphics. I had to play the game on low graphics settings to get better frame rates, but if you didn’t tell me that they were on low I would not have been able to tell. The game is still incredibly detailed in both environments and character models. On top of that, if you have a powerful enough PC, there are even more ways to enhance graphics and presentation, like ray tracing, path tracing, improved shading and hair strands, amongst other options. All this will no doubt use up a lot of your GPU, which is why I’m very appreciative of the fact that the game will tell you how much each option will take up in settings, ensuring you have the best experience. 

Frame rate wise, the game runs at a very solid and consistent 60fps on low settings. I did find that the game does stutter more on higher graphics though, most of the time that was only when it was loading in cutscenes and even then I blame that more on my hardware than I did on the game itself (tis what you get when you’re running a laptop and using a 4K monitor). 

The voice cast of this game is great. We have returning actor Nick Apostolides taking on the role of Leon S. Kennedy, putting on a voice that sounds a bit older and more gruff than previously, while keeping it sounding very distinctly like our favourite ex-cop. Meanwhile, Angela Sant’Albano nails her role as Grace Ashcroft, she perfected the scared introvert voice, sounding constantly nervous and confused, and the stuttering makes her sound like she is constantly on the verge of a panic attack. Everyone else as well, Antony Byrne as Victor Gideon, Craig Burnatowski as Zeno and the many zombie voices all sound amazing in their roles, further building up the horror and campiness of the game. 

The soundtrack to this game is peak horror. A lot of the music is quiet and ambient, with droning notes designed to make you feel unsafe and tense. The louder tracks really heighten the dread and tell you that danger is here and that you need to run. The entire thing, right from the start menu, brings with it a sense of dread and panic, and lets you know “You are playing a Resident Evil game and you are not safe”. 

Level Design

If you’re familiar with Resident Evil games, then I’m sure you know what to expect from Requiem. Most of the game takes place in large facilities with dozens of rooms for you to wander through and get lost in. Of course, not every room is accessible from the start, and you will need to explore to hunt for a particular key or item, or possibly even have to wait until you have control of a different protagonist to be able to open one of the doors. You’ll find yourself becoming very familiar with these areas as this game is anything but linear. There’s a lot of backtracking through previously explored corridors and rooms, either because you’ve just obtained an item that can open a variety of passageways, you’ve found a clue leading you to a new or previously explored room, or you’re hopelessly lost and are frantically checking every wall and floorboard for a clue forwards (this was me more times than I’d like to admit). 

There are of course puzzles in this game and, it may just be because I played Silent Hill F last year but, I found them a little underwhelming. There are some optional puzzles that can be fairly tricky, like the blood analysers and there is one secret puzzle whose method is so cryptic that a guide is required, though most of them are just hunting down items, reading documents or looking at photos to find the solution. There’s not really that much brain teasing in the game, which isn’t to say that it’s bad, as Resident Evil puzzles have never had the same level of complexity as something like Silent Hill, but when compared to other games in the series, I can’t help but be a little unimpressed. 

You do get a number of safe rooms and areas that enemies will not have access to. Normally these places will have a piece of equipment that will let you save – something you can type on like a typewriter or a laptop, and in the case with Leon, you’ll also be able to upgrade your weapons and buy more items, or with Grace there will be storage containers where you can store key items for later or less frequently used tools to empty out space for more important inventory. Now, I wasn’t being fully truthful when I said that enemies don’t have access to these rooms, while they’re out of the way of the zombies normal route, if you alert them, they will chase you as far as they can, including into a couple of these saferooms, not all of them mind you, but you’ll still have to be careful with some of them. 

Grace Gameplay

I’m doing something a little different here and giving each playable character their own section in this review. I could do what I did in my Alan Wake II review and just give both characters separate paragraphs in each section, but because the ones in this game play so differently, I feel like this will make things easier for the both of us. 

Grace Ashcroft plays just like Ethan Winters in Resident Evil 7 & 8, as in her gameplay is where most of the horror lies within this game. Not only is it recommended that you play her sections in first-person (the fact that you can swap from first and third-person camera in this game is something I give massive praise to) Grace will have very limited resources and little inventory space, so playing her relies on you conserving ammo and trying to avoid encounters as much as possible. To further exemplify this, she has a pretty weak arsenal of weapons, the only guns she can carry are pistols and the only melee weapons she has are makeshift knives that break very easily. She does also carry Leon’s gun, Requiem, which can one-shot most enemies, though the ammo for that is so scarce that using it isn’t really worth it. She can of course be capable of getting out of scraps if there’s no other choice, in fact you’ll sometimes have to if you want to find some optional goodies to buff her up, but seeing how quickly she burns through resources it’s best to avoid conflict as much as possible. 

These aren’t her only tools however, as Grace also has access to other items to make her traversal through the corridors a little less harmful. One of these things are empty glass bottles that are primarily used to lure zombies away from her and help her sneak past – and in the later portions of the game where she’s able to use those bottles to make molotov cocktails or bottles of acid, she temporarily becomes a force to be reckoned with. Though if you want to make things much easier and more bloody, you could always sneak up behind a zombie, stab them with a Hemolytic Injector and watch them explode, bloodying the room they’re in and ruining the decor. 

Unfortunately, there are some threats that you just won’t be able to shoot past. Also stalking the corridors of the Rhodes Hill Medical Centre are behemoths like The Girl or The Chef, that you’ll have to try and manoeuvre around and are exceedingly difficult to deal with. Some of these monsters are killable with enough elbow grease and will even drop useful keys or powerful items, though The Girl – who is your main pursuer – can only be temporarily driven off, so you best be careful when you encounter her and be prepared to run. 

Both characters have a crafting mechanic, and even then they work differently. For Grace she uses mostly the same resources as Leon does, green herbs, bits of scrap, things like that, though she also requires getting a bit more dirty to be able to make those bullets. Part way through the game, she’ll get a device called the Blood Collector, a tool that allows her to gather infected blood which is randomly found throughout the facility; this is a key requirement for crafting particular items. Blood can be gathered from random buckets in hallways and corners of rooms, or by killing enemies and gathering it up. I really like this mechanic, as it’s essentially the game rewarding you for putting yourself in danger and in a small way compensating you for resources you undoubtedly used up. Grace also doesn’t just randomly come upon new crafting recipes, and has to go out of her way to learn how to make them. She does this by finding one of three Blood Specimens hidden in the facility and examining them at a microscope (this also requires you completing a puzzle that I actually quite like). It’s another way to encourage you to explore and to look in every cupboard and drawer for resources, and they’re not so well hidden that you’ll need a guide to find them, though they’re not just out in the open, so you won’t just randomly stumble upon them without looking first. 

Leon Gameplay

And now we get into the part that a lot of people were waiting for, how Leon plays. Well, good news for those of you who liked playing as him in Resident Evil 4 Remake, as he plays as an even more badass version of him in this game. This is the action portion of Resident Evil Requiem, and can almost be seen as a bit of a palette cleanse after experiencing the dread from Graces’ sections.

For starters, Leon has a much wider range of weapons, while Grace is carrying only a pistol and an over-powered revolver, Leon will use a pistol, shotgun, rifle and automatic machine gun. He will have a much larger pool of ammo as well, Grace will be lucky to have twenty bullets while Leon is carrying buckets of the stuff. There’s also how they both react when stunning a zombie, you see Grace will merely shove a zombie over, giving her a chance to run away, while Leon roundhouse kicks his opponents in the face, launching them backwards and potentially killing them if enough damage has been dealt. 

On top of his variety of guns he also has a melee weapon of his own, his trusty hatchet, which is definitely an upgrade to his knife from the last time we saw him. His hatchet has its own attack combo and both light and heavy attacks. It can also parry pretty much any attack in the game, so long as you can time it right. The hatchet can even be used in exploration, as you use it to pry open doors that you previously couldn’t as Grace, opening new rooms and closets to find more resources. And as if this weapon couldn’t be any better, it no longer breaks, it does have a durability metre and can’t be used if it reaches zero, though Leon carries a whetstone with him that can sharpen it back to full, and has infinite uses. 

Even their inventories are different, Grace having simple slots like what you had in Resident Evil 7 & 8, while Leon uses the same briefcase system that he had in Resident Evil 4, where you have to arrange your equipment in a way to make them all fit. 

Enemy Design

This game has the return of more classic Resident Evil enemies. Most of what you’ll be facing will be zombies, though they are done a bit differently this time around. While other games just have zombies bumble around and attack the enemies on sight, these ones seem to have retained some of their humanity and behave similarly to how they did before they started rotting. Hints of how they work will partially be indicated by what lines they say, yes, the zombies in this game talk (what kind of conversation would zombies have… aside from brains obviously). For example, there are some who are sensitive to light and will dart for the nearest lightswitch if you turn them on, there are some who will react when you make any kind of noise, rushing you for the attack. It makes these zombies more unique and memorable and gives hints on the best ways to sneak past them. 

Them finally having a voice box isn’t their only sign of intelligence however, when it comes to the series as a whole, these are easily its smartest and most dangerous zombies. For instance, they’ve been taking lessons from the villagers in Resident Evil 4 and can now carry weapons, such as pipes or hospital equipment, and, yes, even chainsaws – in fact, it’s even worse than Resident Evil 4, as if the zombie carrying a chainsaw dies, one of its friends can just pick up the chainsaw and chase you around with it, like a masked man in a low-budget haunted house. 

What makes these guys truly terrifying however is the fact that even when you take them down, they can always get back up. Taking cues from the Resident Evil Remake, a zombie that you’ve killed has the potential to come back as a Blister Head, or can even just mutate into one when coming into contact with particular zombie variants. These things are ruthless, they are fast, relentless and, while they won’t grab you and lock you into getting hit, they will strike at you multiple times when they attack. The only ways to prevent a Blister Head or to take them down for good is by using a Hemolytic Injector as Grace, or by destroying the head. These things make the game go from nerve wrecking to terrifying, the prospect that an enemy you spent a lot of resources taking down can come back increases the tension every time you backtrack. Plus it makes you consider your resources more, forcing you to think about when and how to use your ammo or Hemolytic Injectors. 

These are, of course, not all you’ll be fighting. There are a variety of monsters and experiments for you to fight against, not only new faces but some that you’ll find familiar if you’re a fan of the series already. Though, I think it would be better if I just kept that to myself, it would be cruel if I were to ruin too many surprises and, trust me, there are some you’ll want to see with blind eyes. 

Conclusion

Resident Evil Requiem takes everything Capcom has been experimenting with the franchise over the last few years and blends it all together to great success. The fear you experience as Grace Ashcroft is just as frightening as the last two main line titles, and playing as Leon is just as fun as it always has been. While this may not be the starting point for a newcomer to the series, I still highly recommend it to anyone who’s interested. In the renaissance that is modern day Resident Evil, this game is just further proof of how fun the series is. 

9.2/10

Mario Tennis Fever

(available on Nintendo Switch 2 only)

Mario Tennis Fever is the latest in the Mario Sports spin-off series and part of the marketing for Mario’s 40th anniversary; it’s coming at a time that really isn’t optimal. Granted, Mario Tennis Aces did well on the Switch, but Golf and Strikers were not received well and were largely criticised for their lack of content at launch, among many other issues like a lacking single player.

Mario Tennis Fever tries to shake things up with a new Fever Racket system, where you get a new superpower when you power up the meter which can affect the game. For example, the Shadow Racket creates a duplicate of yourself, the volcano racket creates a lava plume that will affect the opponent’s side, the Mud Racket can slow opponents down if they walk on certain areas of the court, so on and so forth. You have to be careful, because it is a risk and reward system, your opponents can hit the effect back at you if the reward doesn’t successfully bounce.

The game also touts an adventure mode, which revolves around Daisy getting sick and the team looking for a Golden Apple to cure her, somehow turn into their baby forms, and attend tennis academy. I’ll go more into my thoughts on that later into the review.

That being said, there isn’t too much to this game. It’s a tennis game starring Mario characters and it does what it says on the tin, but how does this sports game turn out?

PROS

• Multiplayer

Obviously, a Mario sports game needs a strong multiplayer. That is very apparent here. I’d say for the most part that that is strong. I’ll go into Special Mode in a bit more detail later, but the basic tennis is genuinely enjoyable, especially when you play with good friends online or in person. In fact, I did several online matches for this review, and not only can I say the connection was stable, but it ran very well and there were very little frame rate drops. The fever racket system does a very good job in affecting the gameplay, especially considering that you now have a health meter, which when you reach 0, it slows you down significantly and in doubles matches it can force the game into a 2 v 1 situation.

The game does have several rackets with different abilities, and you should try them all out to see which one suits your style of play the best but bear in mind that doubles matches can get very chaotic with several powers on the field at once.

The game controls very well, I have very little against the control scheme, it essentially comes down to different buttons being assigned to different types of shots, and this isn’t a button-mashing game, you do have to apply a bit of strategy to succeed, but not as much that younger players won’t be able to pick it up.

• Visuals

Now this is a Switch 2 exclusive, and I’m not surprised at how good it looks. Granted, this isn’t one of the best-looking games on Switch 2, but it is very visually strong. It also helps that all the court designs are individually strong. You get some typical tennis courts and some versions of the courts from the story mode, but you also get callbacks to other Mario games so you can see Waluigi’s Pinball and the Airship from Mario 3, and a whole tennis court from Mario 1 is here too!

It is a strong entry, but I personally believe while I think there’s better things to come for Switch 2, it’s definitely one of the more visually striking games that we have right now.

• Special Modes

The game does offer different modes. There’s a Tower Mode which is like a challenge mode, I didn’t do too much of it, but it at least provides a bit of extra content. There are also some single player tournaments, but I have to say because the AI is a bit too forgiving for single players, I didn’t play too many of these either.

The special modes are definitely the standouts; they provide lots of great content. Some of them aren’t amazing and do require multiplayer to be fun, I’m thinking of Ring Mode particularly here, but there are five modes in total, and they are all strong in their own way.

I think the most notable for me was Waluigi Pinball which could really go insane with the additional Pinball physics which definitely added to the chaotic run. Ring Shot is fine, it’s basically a game where getting your ball through rings gets you more points, Rocket Factory is alright but it’s basically a randomiser for the special Fever Rackets.

The standout for me was the Wonder Court Match, which was based on Mario Wonder. It involves being the first to collect seven Wonder Seeds, which then triggers an effect that changes part of the gameplay, and can turn the match into chaotic fun. Honestly, it was incredibly fun to play.

• Character Selection

The biggest complaint that a lot of Mario Sports games have had is that they were simply lacking in content that wasn’t made up until later. Mario Tennis Fever launches with 38 characters. Granted, you don’t get them all immediately and you have to unlock a large majority of them, but you get them all relatively quickly and none of them are locked behind Adventure Mode. Some people are going to be disappointed with some of the characters that didn’t make it into the game, but it still has a decent variety of characters.

MIXED

• Online Multiplayer

I did praise the fact that the online multiplayer does function well, and has very few frame rate drops, and I have no issues with the ranked match system. I didn’t win that many, but I had a good go. The most fun I had was doing the online lobby matches with my friends, but there’s a few issues: if you have a large group of people and you want to do several kinds of matches, you’re going to need multiple rooms. It’s four people per room if you’re doing doubles, and two people if you’re doing singles. If you want to change the rules or the amount of people you have in your room, you have to close the room and start another one. This also goes if you want to do special modes as well, this also requires you to close down the lobby and reset it. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it did make some online sessions a bit more difficult.

CONS

• Adventure Mode

I don’t understand how the developers of these games keep getting so close with good ideas for single player content in the sports games but then don’t go the full way with it.

The plot line is bad, and it’s similar to the recent Mario Golf’s Adventure mode, where it’s trying to replicate the old Gameboy Colour RPG games, it was basically those elements that Golf Story and Sports Story were trying to emulate. Those games are worth your time, and you can play them on the Gameboy app which comes with your online subscription.

The problem with these games is that it doesn’t work. I will say that it’s not as bad as Mario Golf’s Adventure mode which felt like a complete waste of time, but it does have a lot of the same issues, mainly the fact that it’s rather aimless in its ideas and it’s quite restrictive. Your stats will only go up as much as that part of the story wants them to go up, so it’s incredibly linear in that way, and this isn’t helped by the fact that this is essentially like Mario Golf, a tutorial with a story attached to it. I found it very dull. Once again, another sports game that fails to impress with its single player content.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Mario Tennis Fever is a strong multiplayer experience with a weak single player outing. The game plays well in docked and handheld mode, I enjoyed the gameplay and overall, it has a good frame rate and visuals, with some good gameplay to back it up when you’re doing multiplayer. However, I also think that playing with random people isn’t as fun as playing it with your friends, and I really enjoyed my time with the game but I’m not sure how much it will hold my attention in a few months’ time. That being said, I do think that this is worth a purchase at the time, because if you wait for a sale, you may get it when not many people are still playing multiplayer.

FINAL SCORE 7.5/10

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is a remake of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, sometimes it feels like a from-the-ground remake but other times it feels like a remaster. Doing a remake of 3 makes a lot of sense in some regards, in terms of the chronology in the series it is the first story that takes place and it is a fan favourite especially considering it followed on from Metal Gear Solid 2, which at the time had very mixed reviews, so this game going more back into the roots of the series definitely hit well.

If you jump into this as your first Metal Gear Solid game, it does at some points assume that you’re familiar with the franchise and it’s story up to that point- considering that at the time this was a prequel that was basically designed to answer the question of ‘how did Big Boss become Big Boss?’. Since this is very faithful, I really won’t be commenting too much on stuff that has been retained, most notably the story which has received no changes and even has the exact same voice lines repurposed for this one. The story is great, I personally don’t think it’s as good as Metal Gear Solid 1’s story, which I think is the best in the series, but as a whole, Metal Gear Solid 3 is very strong in its narratives, especially since at this point the team couldn’t really write a story which didn’t have to be fantastical since they had to meld real world history into the narrative. In this case, it basically acts as a massive epic about the tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War.

This review is mainly going to focus on what is new here: the new gameplay as well as how the game looks and sounds. Considering that the original is very easily accessible thanks to the Metal Gear Solid Collection that was released on modern platforms. 

PROS

• Classic Gameplay

While most of my playthrough was done with the new style of gameplay, I did try the classic gameplay out, and if you want some nostalgia, it plays out well and it will be as you remembered it from before. Much of it has been retained for the new style of gameplay, for example, the medicine system of healing yourself is still the same and hasn’t received much change in that department. 

• Cutscene Quality

I played most of the game in Performance Mode, and I’ll say that I don’t think it’s a massive leap from the PS2 especially since we got those HD remasters to compare it to, but once you get into those cutscenes it becomes apparent where Unreal Engine 5 has been put to good use. In those moments, the game looks fantastic. I will stress however that it isn’t as impressive of a leap as the Silent Hill 2 Remake that came out last year, which I feel is a fair comparison as they’re both remakes of PS2 games that received iconic status and both were announced around the same time and both released on PS2 within a few years of each other. 

MIXED

• New Style of Gameplay

I have my thoughts on the new style of gameplay, I personally think that on some levels it’s better and in other ways, it’s worse. Since we’re not playing from the traditional perspective of a Metal Gear Solid game or a third person perspective of most action games, there is a bigger amount of scope that comes into planning your stealth missions. I think it also makes you appreciate the different forms of camo to make yourself hidden. 

The downside for me is that I think the camera makes it more difficult to spot enemies, and as a result I ended up failing a lot of stealth missions simply because I didn’t have the ability to tell where an enemy was. It hasn’t helped that because there are no new changes in the game that in this mode you don’t have access to a radar or much of a detailed map of where the enemies are, so planning out your stealth isn’t exactly easy to do. 

Still, I would still say that it provides a challenge for returning players and I did enjoy my time since while I do think it makes the general gameplay harder, it actually made the boss fights easier. While a couple of the bosses still retain their difficulty (particularly the later ones) a couple of them were easier- the Fear didn’t take me too long to beat, but I have been told that in Hard Mode he lays out way more traps, and the end was unbelievably easy, I beat him on my first attempt, I didn’t even had to do the old trick where you turn the clock forward and he dies of old age. 

• Use of the Voice Cast

Personally I’m glad on some levels that they didn’t get rid of the old voice cast, but it’s not as if these are new lines that have been recorded. These are iconic performances, and I stand by that the cast are all excellent in their roles, but I do think that there are occasions where it’s very easy to tell that these are voice lines that weren’t meant for this game in particular, and it can be noticeable. There are sometimes where they struggle to get the models to match up with the old voice lines.

• Difficulty

On one hand, I am kind of glad that the difficulty was retained, but if this is your first time playing a Metal Gear Solid game, put it on Easy Mode. This game is hard, and you have to make your difficulty decision at the start of the game, you can’t change it halfway through. 

If there’s one issue I do have, I think that it doesn’t allow players to get a feel for the game and adjust it to their taste, especially considering that the impact of difficulty can’t be felt until partway through, and if you of course want to see it through to the end. Unlike the other Metal Gear Solid games, I would say that there is a lot less drops and items for you to pick up, and of course, that is for you to thematically feel the mission, you are doing jungle warfare. 

There are a couple of items that I felt were unbelievably scarce, which I don’t remember from the original. I didn’t play the HD version from the collection to prepare for the release of this one, so I could be completely wrong, but I swear most of the medicine items dropped a lot more than they do in this version, which can be a big problem when you’re fighting the End and the Fear who can inflict a lot of status conditions onto you. The food items dropped well, since I took part in a lot of hunting to get more food, but there are other aspects too. I swear the enemies are way more sensitive to your actions compared to the original, so I will definitely say that this game is harder than the PS2 original, but of course your opinion on that will vary on your opinion of the original game and how much you want a challenge this time.

CONS

• Historical Footage

While the whole game has received an update and looks quite good in Unreal Engine 5, I would say that I think the historical footage took a hell of a hit. These are the cutscenes that they couldn’t change from the original PS2 game, however their solution wasn’t great. I’m wondering if this had something to do with Konami getting licenses for that footage again, which involved taking the HD versions of 2 and 3 prior to the collections coming out off of storefronts, because the method that they have come to is that they have essentially have put them on the screen but increased the size of the pixels and pushed it way further forwards towards the camera, so several images feel stretched out and you don’t get to see much of the footage. 

It even effects the stuff that they didn’t have to use historical footage for, in the conversation between Linden Johnson and Kruschev, they didn’t use historical footage of either of them, they just used drawings, but it still looks pretty bad I know this is a minor complaint, but I liked how they handled historical footage in the original game and this ay kind of reminded me of the terrible cutscenes in Sonic Colours Ultimate. 

• Performance Issues

This was noted prior to the game coming out by Digital Foundry, but it was something I picked up on myself. I played the game on an original PS5, and judging from what I’ve heard meant that I got the better end of the deal because it apparently has worse performance on the PS5 Pro- you know the console that costs £700? 

I did notice some performance dips from time to time, mainly in areas that has to generate lots of guards. I will stress that while these issues are there, they didn’t ruin my time with the game, and I still think that the game runs pretty well for the most part and it never dipped below 50FPS. I think I noticed on a couple of occasions it had issues running a couple of areas, but I have to note that there were some drops in certain areas and I do have to stress that the fact there are reports of issues on the PS5 Pro means that it does need a patch. I haven’t heard anything about it running badly on Xbox or PC.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is a fine remake, but it’s not one that leaves me as impressed as Silent Hill 2. It’s a good game, don’t get me wrong, but I just think I enjoyed my time with the caveat of ‘this wasn’t as impressive as I hoped’. Most of what you like is intact, and the time looks really good in certain parts, but as a whole, this doesn’t feel like this was a remake from the ground up like with the Silent Hill 2 remake. It just feels like blown up PS2 assets with Unreal Engine 5.

Metal Gear Solid 3 is one of the best games in the series, so if you haven’t played that before, I will say that this is a good version of the game, but I think your appreciation of this will vary if you’ve played the readily available version in the collection. My final thoughts are that as a fan of the series I think it’s worth a purchase, but since the updates are overall mixed and there’s not really anything new, you might want to wait for a sale on this one, but I can stress that the performance issues are the only thing that’s truly egregious.

FINAL SCORE: 7.5/10

Mario Kart World

(Available for Nintendo Switch 2 only)

Nintendo launches their brand new console generation with a new Mario Kart – which is a real difference in launch strategy since most of the time Nintendo likes to launch a console with a strong single player game with games like Mario 64, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Breath of the Wild.

Mario Kart World does make some sort of sense to launch this console with, Mario Kart 8 was the best selling game on the Nintendo Switch 1, having come out one month after the console’s release and building up extremely good lifetime sales. Adding an open world aspect to the game was what Nintendo wanted to do to entice new players over the new console, but the game has been met with some controversy- mainly the fact that in America, it is being sold for $80- a brand new price hike in game software. Last I checked, it was £73 in the UK, another major price hike just not to the same extent. As such, I’m really going to be asking myself if this game is worth that extra price tag, but it won’t play too much of a factor in my scoring since I want to judge the game that we’ve got regardless of price.

This game was confirmed to have started development as a Nintendo Switch 1 game but was then swapped over to the Nintendo Switch 2. While I think you could have this game on the first Switch, I don’t think it would be the same quality as it is here. If you come into this from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, you’re going to have a very different experience, because while there are several distinct tracks with 30 at launch, they are all interconnected on an open world map. As a result, the game offers three modes- Grand Prix, where players go through 4 races to see who is the best of a total score depending on position in each race, Knockout Run, which acts as a Battle Royale involving you racing across the open world and if you’re not in specific location at a time you will be eliminated, an the return of Battle Mode.

There’s also Free Mode where you can just drive across the world and take part in several challenges. There’s not much to them, but they are surprisingly addictive.

Basically, the game is trying to do something similar to Forza Horizon and also a bit of Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing, since now your car can turn into a jet ski to glide across water as well as some parkour for driving against walls but I found that difficult to get the hang of.

PROS

• Grand Prix and Knockout Run

I wasn’t too sure how I would feel about the Grand Prix mode since the big difference this time is that rather than just going from track to track you now drive to the next course, so for example for Mushroom Kart you do 3 laps from Mario Bros Circuit, then you drive from there to Crown City. I will stress a couple of things- the track design is very good and all of the tracks can be done as a three lap race- some exceptions notwithstanding for courses that were designed with more than 3 laps in mind. You will lose some laps in Grand Prix mode or in the Online Mode, because in online races if you select a course nearby the one you just did it will have you drive to said course and all but one of the laps will be taken up by just driving to said lap, so you can have some trouble getting used to this, but you can go into free roam mode and learn the tracks for yourself there with no pressure.

The game does a have a good mix of new and returning tracks, but I think the people in charge of this game really liked Mario Kart 7 since there was 4 of those tracks, but when I actually double checked they didn’t get too much of an emphasis over others since Mario Kart Wii showed up a lot here too as well as Mario Kart 8. I would make the argument that one in particular looks better than the version on the Switch.

The track design is really good, and if you did have a way of not having a three lap course on each I would have marked the game down, but the fact that you have an option for both means that I actually really enjoy this new way of doing Grand Prix and online races, it certainly made sitting around and waiting for the track to be selected more interesting.

As for Bowser’s Castle, I think it’s okay and is a slight step up from 8 Deluxe in terms of track design but it’s not as visually memorable. For Rainbow Road, I don’t want to spoil too much about it, but it was always going to be better than 8 Deluxe, since that was one of my least favourites.

Knockout Run is the new mode that has been added. I’ve already explained that it’s like Battle Royale where you drive to several courses in a rally and 4 racers get eliminated each time until you have one left standing. This was the best new mode in the game, it’s utterly addictive and it adds an extra sense of pressure since if you lose time by being hit by an item, you may not get the time to recover! I love this mode and it has obviously taken a lot of the player base by storm since it was much easier to get into a lobby for this mode over the main racing experience, but we’ll have to wait how that progresses as more people get a Nintendo Switch 2.

As for the item selection, I think it’s pretty good. The new items are a mixed bag. I like the new Hammer Bro item, but the Golden Shell loses effectiveness after a certain point in the game. Probably my favourite returning item would be the Mega Mushroom, I missed it in the last game so it’s return is so welcome.

• Soundtrack

This game has one of the best Mario Kart soundtracks ever made! It’s a good mix of new and old, and even draws from the rest of the Mario series and creates great remixes out of nowhere. Honestly, this is a soundtrack that I really want to come onto Nintendo’s music app, because I would love to listen to this as time goes on.

• Graphics and Performance

Obviously this is the first 1^st party Nintendo game that was made specifically for the Nintendo Switch 2, so there isn’t much to compare it against since unlike Nintendo’s other 1^st party releases this game has been made with this console in mind and isn’t an upscale. I will stress however with all that said, it looks very good and runs well at a very stable 4K 60fps most of the time. I rarely had framerate drops and it’s a very good looking game, the team did a phenomenal job. I’ve already commented that the track design looks very good, but I will say that in terms of the open world that sometimes the tracks blend into the open world too well so you may not know where the track begins unless you’re familiar with it.

The performance never dipped online, in fact it was really not noticeable half the time that I was playing online.

MIXED

• Free Roam

I will stress that I like this mode! It was surprisingly well done. You actually can press the start button on the opening menu and go straight into Free Roam as the last character you played as, and it’s very easy to swap characters, you just select the map and press a character and you’ll be warped to where they are.

I felt this was very enjoyable when I was playing this game in Handheld Mode (which by the way, the game runs very well in this mode too).

My issues with this mode lie with the challenges. They are good, I especially like the ones that were used in the water since the water physics in this game are fantastic and some people have even suggested that Nintendo do another Wave Race game, but the challenges are a bit too short- they’re at most 30 seconds long! They don’t really stand out. I would like some beefier challenges in future content updates, and you don’t get much from unlocking them either, just tags to place on your ride for online mode.

• Character Selection

There’s not much wrong with the character selection, you get a few extra characters to unlock by getting a cup in each of the Grand Prix’s, but they’re just the Mario mainstays. It’s stretched out a bit by offering outfit selections for each of the characters which you unlock by consuming food items in either the Grand Prix, Knockout Run or Free Roam- but you’re probably best off doing that in Free Roam mode if you’re aiming to unlock specific costumes since they are locked to certain foods. The food also does act like a mushroom and provides a boost, so not too surprising there, so it’s not exactly a new item per se.

The problem I have is that the character roster is also bulked out by not only the Mario NPCs but there are several characters missing. It’s great we got newcomers like Pauline, but the Koopalings are entirely gone and Donkey Kong is the only one from his side of the universe there. I wasn’t expecting characters like Dixie or Funky Kong to make the cut but I was definitely expecting Diddy Kong! Put simply, I would like a few more characters to be in the game in the future.

• Battle Mode

Battle Mode is what you’d expect it to be, and it’s not bad. Personally, it will never be as bad as Base Mario Kart 8 Battle Mode, but the problem I have with it is that there is no specific Battle Mode maps, so there isn’t much character. Other than that, it’s pretty typical. I only really tried out Balloon Battle online and it was fun especially considering that most of the items are returning so you just keep playing until someone gets a red shell, but overall it’s not so memorable.

CONS

• Unlocking Characters

Now it’s really annoying to unlock all the different costumes if you don’t have a guide. But the worst one is unlocking all of the NPC characters! It’s just pure luck that you get transformed into a NPC character that you haven’t unlocked already- and this is the only method I found to unlock them so far. I will dispel the myth that there is no Mirror Mode in the game, it is unlockable, but it does require quite a few achievements in order to unlock it. You might want to look that one up online, though there is still at the time of review no 200cc mode in the game. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is future content update material.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I really like Mario Kart World. It feels like a step up from Mario Kart 8 in many ways. The track design is really good, I do like the open world even if it isn’t as good as a Forza Horizon open world in terms of things to do, Knockout Run is one of the most enjoyable modes to date, and the item selection is really good this time around- there aren’t many bad items in the bunch, I’m not upset that Kart customisation is gone, I honestly thought that it was a bit unnecessary. The physics are great even if the parkour element is hard to get a hold of, and I really think that the character selection does need an update, plus unlocking the NPC characters needs to be streamlined.

But, this has been incredibly addictive! I have been playing it non stop and just enjoying my time in Free Roam mode to learn the tracks and get new costumes while I’m waiting on the train, and I really have been enjoying my time online. I didn’t get a chance to test performance out when doing Local Multiplayer for this review, but the performance and graphics were great in both docked and handheld mode. I’m not sure I can justify the increased price tag for the content available at the release, I would recommend getting the bundle now before they include Paid DLC down the line. It’s a really great game.

FINAL SCORE: 9/10

And now Reece’s review

Mario Kart World is the flagship launch title for the brand-new Nintendo Switch 2 as well as the 10th Mario Kart game overall.

Mario Kart World is a racing game that sees the player compete on over 30 courses in both single player, local wireless with friends or online against players across the globe to get the highest ranking they can.

Pro:

Graphics.

Being the flagship game on Nintendo’s new console a lot of resources were put into the  development of Mario Kart World.

This is clearly seen with the graphical overhaul compared to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. With the new and improved animation style where the drivers and karts are more expressive with plenty of pull and stretch in their animations when drifting or performing tricks off ramps.

The game runs at 1440p in Docked Mode when playing on a TV screen and 1080p in Handheld Mode. This is in comparison to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe that ran at 1080p in Docked Mode and 720p in Handheld mode.

This makes the game visually look crisper and sharper on the Nintendo Switch 2 and on a TV when in Docked Mode. Aside from the resolution the game also looks much more vibrant with its new art style moving away from the futuristic high tech look of Mario Kart 8 with its anti-gravity mechanic to the more natural environmental focused design and more saturated colours to help the game pop when played in Docked Mode.

Frame Rate.

Mario Kart World performs a lot better than I was expecting after seeing the brand- new expansive courses and open world style along with the 24 player races. As the game still run at a fixed 60fps when offline playing single-player and even when venturing online I never encountered that much persistent lag or dropped frames when playing with others around the world.

Even in handheld mode I did not notice anymore dropped frames compared to playing the game docked so was very impressed playing the game on the go. The only downside is that the game with its great performance and amazing visuals drains the battery pretty fast compared to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. This is because from a full change in handheld mode the Nintendo Switch 2 went flat in roughly 3 hours. To help with this I would suggest reducing the brightness and turning off the rumble function with the vibrating Joy-Cons.

24 Player Races.

The biggest change seen when racing is that the number of drivers has doubled from 12 drivers to now 24 during a race. This makes the game a lot more intense since more drivers means more chaos, especially when 200cc gets added in the future due to being the only gameplay mode not in the game at launch.

It can make it more frustrating to get 1^st place and earn three stars in all the Grand Prix and Knockout Tours, but it is worth it as long as the player isn’t always in first place with a target on their head from all the other 23 racers on the track.

50 Drivers.

Mario Kart World features the most characters on the roster in a Mario Kart game at launch and features most of the typical fan favourites returning.

In addition there are now unlockable extra drivers based on enemies and characters from other games that the community has dubbed NPC drivers to distinguish them from the main cast.

Unfortunately a few regular drivers have not made their return in Mario Kart World that have been in multiple prior games and these include fan favourites like Diddy Kong, Dry Bowser and the Koopalings.

The most obvious missing character is the player’s avatar with the Mii. As Mario Kart World is the first game to not include them since Mario Kart Wii launched nearly 20 years ago from the debut of Mario Kart World.

Nintendo did create a huge DLC pack for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe called the Booster Pass that included 48 tracks but also 8 characters. So in the future if Nintendo creates another DLC on the same level then the missing characters could make a return along with new characters never before seen.

120+ Costumes.

After ten entries Mario Kart finally includes costumes for its drivers aside from the Mii driver with all of the main drivers getting at least one extra costume unless they are one of the NPC drivers. Players get new costumes by eating certain meals from items at food stops and each costume is unlocked by eating certain foods across the map and can’t all be received from the same food repeatedly.

These costumes can be all new designs or call-backs to prior games like Mario and Peach’s having costumes from Mario Odyssey to wholly new designs never seen before like the various All-Terrain series of costumes that multiple drivers can unlock.

Tracks.

The tracks in this game were all fantastic with more having a focus on driving in the various environments than only being circuit racers like most tracks in other games. In total there are 30 tracks with 2 tracks (Crown City and Peach Stadium) having bonus variations that the player races on in some of the different cups.

Then of those tracks there are 16 new tracks and 14 retro tracks making their return from prior games with most being either Mario Kart 7 or Mario Kart Wii tracks. The highlight is the new Rainbow Road, as it is just a visual triumph and looks so incredible with a wide variety of locales with natural based tracks to the more fantastical Boo Cinema track in the Leaf Cup.

Knockout Tour.

Easily the best part of this game is the new Knockout Tour mode that sees the player choose one of eight new cups that has four tracks like in Grand Prix in each. However instead of simply racing round the course now the player has to race against the other races through a series of checkpoint along the route of those four courses.

Then whoever is in the last four positions gets eliminated from the race until only the final four remain with first place winning overall.

This mode is pretty fun with the offline CPUs driving but the most enjoyment is when playing with friends or online with other people around the world, as real players put up more of a challenge than the regular CPU A.I can.

Rails and Walls.

The new movement mechanic in this game is the ability to now ride the rails available in the game to build up boosts and reach other paths on tracks to get an advantage over other racers or shortcuts.

The anti-gravity mechanic from Mario Kart 8 has also now been upgraded to no longer be solely on anti-gravity section of tracks, as now players can ride any wall or vertical surface as long as they get onto it first either by jumping onto them by ramps or doing tricks into them.

Open World.

The new game direction for Mario Kart World is now the ability to drive Free Roam outside the courses when not in a race.

This mode offers a lot of freedom and fun to drive around the map solo or with friends to then find collectibles, but the best part is being able to test out tracks and shortcuts while not being in a race or time trial.

It’s also how players unlock additional costumes for the cast along with Stickers as rewards for finishing the P Switch challenges, the ? panel and the Peach Medallions. So the open world has plenty to do and explore since all the tracks are loaded in at once for the player to drive between and take in the sights of the full map that normally aren’t seen when driving by in Grand Prix or Knockout Tour.

Photo Mode.

A very unexpected feature is the new photo mode that the player can use by pausing Free Roam and pressing the minus button. This gives the player a lot of options with a lot of poses along with expressions unique to all the characters to help give them more personality.

In addition to the usual zooms, tilts and frames but the option I found most useful was having the ability for the driver to face the camera which a lot of photo modes in other games don’t do.

Unfortunately photo mode has the big downside of cutting the frame rate in half down from 60fps in normal gameplay down to 30fps.

Con:

Grand Prix Intermissions.

In a decision that some fans are happy with but I personally did not enjoy was being forced to do intermissions for the Grand Prix.

As in prior games all tracks were made up of three laps of the chosen track but not anymore as now instead the player will only play one lap of their chosen track in each cup.

With the other two laps instead being counted as the drive to the track along way that mostly involve driving through straight highways and not that many turns. This makes it very frustrating when wanting to play the tracks back-to-back in Grand Prix mode but instead spending only a third of the time on the actual track players want to race on.

This carries over online with random players where for some reason the player cannot chose a three-lap version of the track as the game will force an intermission onto the player. So to get around this players instead have to choose “Random” to force the game to load a three-lap version of whatever track is chosen.

Item Balancing.

While it is a lot of fun and chaotic to have 24 players on each race at a time it does come with a very frustrating downside if the player is usually at the front of the pack. As now there are an extra 12 drivers who all get the chance to pull a powerful item from an item box including the Lightning or the Blue Shell.

In most of my races I have found that instead of the usual 0-1 Blue Shells from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe I am now seeing 3 or more Blue Shells in each race on a three-lap track with this becoming even more apparent on Knockout Tour due to how long the intermission highway parts are.

This can make it very frustrating when trying to get three stars on the Knockout Tour as the player has to be in 1^st place at every gate along the way otherwise they will only get two starts or less.

Driver Selection Menu.

The user interface for the driver choice is a complete mess in Mario Kart World and so frustrating to use and navigate quickly.

Now with 50 drivers to choose from with over 120 costumes to collect really clutters the entire screen instead of making it a neat choice like in every other game having all the drivers on one screen instead of needing to cycle between screens.

To declutter the screen I would suggest taking inspiration from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe when it brought in extra colours for Yoshi and Shy Guy.

As keep all the drivers on the one screen, but when you select the driver it then brings up a sub menu where the player then chooses the costume out of the ones unlocked while making the others non-selectable.

This would not only declutter the screen to only having the default drivers but speed up choosing the driver as the player no longer needs to cycle past every other driver and costume in the way to choose a later driver on the roster.

Kart Customisation.

One of the best recent additions to the franchise was the ability to customise a player’s kart fully starting with Mario Kart 7 on the Nintendo 3DS. Players were able to choose the kart, wheels and glider in Mario Kart 7, Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe compared to Mario Kart World where it has now been removed and simplified. Instead players only get to chose their specific kart and driver to race with so players loose a lot of freedom in customising the Kart to specific tracks or playstyles.

Battle Mode.

Battle mode has seen such an unfortunate downgrade in Mario Kart World because unlike in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe the Battle Mode no longer takes place in unique arenas. Now each map is usually a part of a race track or a certain part of the Free Roam map that the player is now confined to for the match. This makes Battle Mode feel extremely rushed and unfinished to be put in to make sure there was enough content for the game to launch with instead of just the usual racing modes.

NPC Drivers (Unlocking and Roster).

While Mario Kart World does have 50 characters on its roster, a majority of those are random enemy NPCs from prior games like Goomba or Spike. While some of these will be unlocked at the start of the game like Cow or Sidestepper the rest will need to be unlocked through random RNG that is out of the player’s control. This is done by having another driver in the same race use the Kamek Orb on the player ahead of them to unlock a new NPC Driver. Unfortunately these are course specific for a lot of them like Swoop or Fish Bone and cannot be unlocked through other methods making them incredibly time consuming to unlock.

An easier and more rewarding way would be to unlock them through encountering then in Free Roam or as rewards for beating Time Trials or winning each Grand Prix and Knockout Tour with a Gold cup for example.

Free Roam Progress.

The three things for players to do in free roam are the nearly 400 P Switch challenge, finding 150 ? Panels and finding all 200 Peach Medallions, however the game only shows you how many P Switches and Peach Medallions the player has collected on the map screen so far, but doesn’t tell the player how many there are overall or in each location of the map making so without a guide it will be nearly impossible to find them all. This is an issue since the game does track the ? Panels around each course but do not do the same for the two other collectibles.

Rewards For Free Roam.

Unfortunately with all the challenges that players complete in free roam the only rewards are more stickers to show off on the player’s kart or profile. To help cut down the randomness of unlocking the NPC drivers through Kamek Magic instead it would be a lot better if players could also unlock those drivers through finding them in free roam. This would help cut down on grinding certain tracks repeatedly and hoping the other drivers pull and then use the Kamek Magic item on the drivers ahead as a lot of these drivers are course specific.

Conclusion:

An amazing launch title for the Nintendo Switch 2 that does a phenomenal job showing off the new console’s hardware and capabilities.

This will definitely be one of my most played games going forward to play with friends but also online and would recommend it to people who buy the Nintendo Switch 2 due to how much content is in the game at launch alone.

Score: 9.0/10