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# TLDR: Outlast 1 gets a 8/10, while Outlast 2 gets a 7/10. 1 is the superior title, with better scares, atmosphere, tension, story, etc. 2 has better visuals, amazing sequences that top the first game, and gameplay improvements, but is worse in narrative and gameplay structure (AKA, The way levels are designed.) They both have their share of issues, tedious gameplay, and they can both lose their horror appeal, but these are both solid games that will give you your moneys worth.
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# Albums:
[Outlast 1 Screenshots](https://imgur.com/a/4bBgdlr)
[Outlast 2 Screenshots](https://imgur.com/a/YMXrfwG)
[Outlast 2 Gameplay](https://imgur.com/a/WBkWOWq)
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Welcome back to a different post than usual. So I had wanted to cover both of these games individually, in separate reviews, but after replaying both a few times, I had decided that it isn’t really necessary: while they are different in many ways, fundamentally both games share very similar traits. So I’m gonna lump them together and review both games in one long post. This is also a semi follow up to my Alien Isolation review, since these are survival horror games.
With that said, Outlast 1 and 2 on Switch are both on sale quite frequently. It should be noted that I wrote a lot of this nearly a year ago, so its a bit outdated Still, if you’re still looking for some horror games, will these do it for you?
So to begin, I’m gonna discuss the games visuals first, and the performances on Switch for both games. before talking about the gameplay in each title, and the differences.
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***The Ports on Switch:***
***Some of my favorite ports on Switch at the moment,*** I think they’re both just fantastic. Not only do they look great, but they both run very smooth as well. The decision to make it 30 FPS instead of 60 was smart. And it meets that number is consistently at 30 FPS. Image compression and rendering is really smooth here: both games use visual blur in motion and depth focusing a lot to cheat with the visuals, and really you’re going so fast in both of these games that you’ll usually never stop to see any lower textures. Even when you do stop to look around, it’s pretty impressive: Outlast 2 in particular looks nearly photo realistic during certain points with it’s designs. If you didn’t know what the PS4 or PC versions looked like, you honestly would have a hard time seeing any graphical downgrades. Im about to break down the visuals in a bit, but overall, both of these ports are great. They run smoothly, they look good, and any issues they have are just general issues with the game itself, like some small bugs. Im gonna attach in album of images and screenshots, mostly from 2, that really capture how good it looks.
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***Gameplay in both titles:***
I will go into nitty gritty details for each individual game, but generally, both games are ***first person survival horror games,*** that revolve around you exploring dark spooky locations, indoors or outdoors, and then, 9/10, running away from enemies or hiding from them. Both games have you use a camera that can record events that you witness, or to use its night vision to help you see, because there will be many times where its pitch black and you can’t see two feet in front of you. You have no tools to help you fight in either game so you are always forced to flee or hide in every scenario with enemies. There are mechanics that 2 adds that 1 does not have, but this is the most general description I can give for both titles.
First, they both ***control*** well. I think the button placement is a little weird at first, but you get used to it. Crouching with A just doesn’t feel natural to me though. Platforming and jumping can feel a little sluggish until you get used to how you move, in both games. In terms of the running/hiding: you hide more in Outlast 1, and run WAY more in 2. More on that later. Exploring is also more or less the same: you need to explore for batteries to keep your camera powered on so you can see in the dark. The games do award your sense of curiosity if you go off the scripted path, even if it’s just for a document or expanded lore.
***Batteries*** are your absolute best friend. You save those damn things like your life depends on it. You will quickly see how fast your battery drains, which is a problem, because of how many areas are totally pitch black. ***Documents*** scattered throughout both games are recommended for you to look for, especially in 2 since they are borderline required for you to read to understand what is going on in the story, but for the most part, it is just for lore and background information on characters or locations.
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***The Sound and Music in these games are both fantastic.*** I think 2 overall did these things better, but the tense pounding music as you’re being chased and the sounds of footsteps, wind, general voices and screaming you hear, are all excellent consistently. I strongly recommend you listen to some of the heavier tracks from 2, the composition is really wonderful. A lot of the atmosphere, not just in any game but especially in horror comes from these two areas, so thankfully they were done with lots of care and attention
The last thing I wanna mention is the ***process of recording things with your camera.*** Even if you have it recording the entire game it doesn’t actually save as a video for you to view later. Rather there are certain sections in the game that they want you to record, lets say a dead body, to which you will be notified that you can view your notes and get a little description of it. This differs a bit between the two games so I’ll explain what that means as well, later.
So! From here, i’m going to make separate sections for both titles and discuss them at length. Let’s start with Outlast 1
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# Outlast 1/Whistleblower
Im gonna combine the DLC Whistleblower with my general thoughts of 1. Keep in mind that in the Outlast bundle on Switch, you get the first game and Whistleblower together. So you’re not missing out on content. Outlast 2 is sold separately, but on discounted sales, they are both cheap, so its not too bad.
Anyways, looking at ***Outlast,*** we follow our protagonist Miles, a journalist who gets a tipoff about some shady ass occurrences going on at Mount Massive Asylum. So he enters and finds that the place is overrun, bodies are everywhere, and there are both crazy inmates and literal monsters out to kill poor old Miles who is just trying to escape. The goal of the game is to both get out of the Asylum but also investigate why everything there is happening: what drove the inmates mad? Where did these monsters come from? You’ll need to evade some colorful characters and keep Miles alive through this nightmare experience.
***The story*** is very basic, but has a lot of little lore surrounding it that makes it interesting to experience, like the details about the corporation behind the asylum, the inmates themselves, etc. Miles is mute and never speaks, but he still pants and breathes in noticeable fear. And screams when in pain. You experience a lot of Mile’s character through recording what you see with his camera, and his little journal entries. He’s actually quite a snarky guy that tries to keep his head together as he survives one near death experience to the next. So you end up liking him quite a bit, and because the game is a first person horror game we see through his eyes and his perspective, so we feel.. an inherit need to protect him. It works. Most people, myself included, like him more than Blake in 2, who we will talk about…
***The inmates*** you have to avoid all very memorable. Father Martin is one of the first you meet, and seems to be one of your only allies in this game. Chris Walker in particular, this giant ass hulking doughy monster dude that chases you around and just ploughs through everything. He’s probably the scariest one to most. There’s a set of twins that see you from afar and discuss how they’re going to mutilate you. A scientist named Trager has one of the best hiding sections in the entire game. They got characters right in these games for the most part.
***In Whistleblower,*** it serves as both a prequel to the events in the main game, and a follow up to events that happen after the ending. Here, you play as Waylon who was already working in the facility, until he decides the ethics of what he’s doing are too much and wants to expose the company for their horrible actions. Needless to say, he is caught and must escape from the facility. He encounters his own enemies that he must avoid, like a cannibal and more memorably, a man who’s really really really looking for a wife. The general plot is nearly the same as the main game, but we see the story behind the asylum and company in a more expanded light, so it feels like a different experience. Waylon himself is also likable, similar to Miles. And his own recordings and writings are more focused on his family, who he is desperately trying to get back to. So you still feel that need to help him escape. Whistleblower is a little shorter than the main game, but it feels like enough of a story to warrant it’s own title basically.
***Gameplay***. compared to 2, 1 has a lot of slower sections, and moments in which you hide and wait for openings to escape or do something. For example, generally you need to get items, like a key or pressing buttons, to progress further through an area, and an enemy like Chris will be walking around trying to find you. So you need to both avoid the enemy while also collecting the items and staying alive. The game has a pretty good variety of instances where you need to stay alive, from full on chases through the rooms, to methodically moving your way up an area, hiding under beds, in closets, and crouching in the dark. One of my favorite moments was deep down the sewers, where it is actually pitch black, even with your night vision, and you’re trying to get to a ladder to escape, all while Chris is walking around and all you can hear his heavy footsteps pounding against the water. I don’t find the game to be scary after a certain point, but that was easily the scariest moment. The game in general has really good moment to moment sections, and they all feel pretty consistent in quality and tone.
***There are a couple of major issues with the first game,*** and the biggest one is that these sections, particularly with Chris, can be kinda broken and take all of the tension out of it. So lets say Chris is chasing you right, and you squeeze in between a bookshelf to get away from him. Chris, despite a massive hulking monster, and having the strength to tear through walls and doors on his own, cannot get past this bookshelf. He will look at you on the other side, then turn around and walk away. There is no way for Chris to get you if you are on the other side of the bookshelf, which is absolutely horrible for a game that is trying to be scary. Some sections turn into me just finding areas where the enemy cant get to me and waiting for them to walk somewhere else. There are not many areas like this to be fair, but it happens more than once, and it is a total immersion killer, at least to me. Moreover, the game absolutely kinda fizzles out near the end, as it plays all of it’s best cards near the start and middle of the story. This mostly applies to 1 rather than Whistleblower though, as the latter is a lot more condensed and focused.
***The general atmosphere*** of the asylum is really well done. The rooms are densely detailed, every area feels different. The inmates are all pretty unique as well, and you really feel like this place has existed for a while. They did a great job in this area. The music is generally just atmospheric to me, but still very well done, and compliments the sections of the game in just the right way. The soundtrack is honestly one of the better parts about the game, as themes like Chris chasing you have become pretty iconic. Personally, while I think its very good, I don’t particularly love it.
This is more or less all I want to say about the first game. I really enjoyed it and it’s still a great time, but I think it loses a lot of it’s magic on closer inspection, and especially if you play other horror games before it. There is still a lot to appreciate here, so I would say its totally worth your time.
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# Outlast 2
***Outlast 2,*** ok… Im not really sure where to start with this one. The best way I can describe it is that it is one of the most demented, disturbing, and uncomfortable games you can possibly play. Not because its the scariest or is about the most disturbing things, there are other games that explore more, but the way everything is presented to the player is meant to unsettle and gross you out.
This game is one that has no light, or hope, or anything remotely positive about its premise. Its aim is to drag you down in its descent into madness. I’ll go into detail about this in just a bit. I must admit, there is something about this game that just ***captivates me*** in a strange way. I’ve given it way too much thought and too much of my time. So keep in mind even when I start to vent my frustrations, I have a very soft spot for this one, and I kinda love it a lot.
***So the general story behind this game*** follows your protagonist, Blake, who is a cameraman working with his wife Lynn, a reporter for a company. They take a helicopter out to a rural area where a story was uncovered that a minor was murdered during her pregnancy. Right away this should give you an idea of what you’re getting into…. Anyways, as they are trying to report the story, the helicopter flies into some mysterious ray of light and crashes. Blake awakens to find the pilot killed and his wife missing. Blake takes his camera and begins to search around the area, in the hopes of finding Lynn and surviving. From there, the narrative follows a cult in the area, as well as other groups not a part of the cult, and all the disturbing things they do, and Blake soon finds himself in their crosshairs as they relentlessly chase after him.
Periodically, it becomes apparent that ***Blake is slowly starting to go kinda crazy,*** as he begins to have flashbacks to his time at a Christian school in his childhood. You will be taken out of this sections with the cult and finding Blakes wife to be dropped into these school sections, which are also deeply disturbing, with the reason why becoming more apparent the more you play. So there’s a bit of a dual narrative happening here.
***I want to quickly go over some gameplay differences now that we are at 2, in comparison to 1***. First, there is more importance to recording things with your camera, as now you are actually taking short videos of things you see to watch later. For example, before the crash at the start of the game, you are recording your wife as she practices her report to give on the air. You can look at the camera whenever you want and rewatch this recording. Later on as you encounter more gruesome things to record Blake will comment on them as you watch, and as I said before, he is starting to go crazy so much of his dialogue will go from reasonable observations to sometimes incoherent rambling. On a smaller note, alongside batteries, Blake will be able to carry bandages as well, which will heal him up if he takes too much damage.
As I said before, ***this game really highlights the chases.*** There are rarely, if any moments where the game wants you to hide. I can only think of like… maybe 2 or 3 sections where you have to. Some have called this game a ***running simulator***, and I honestly cant disagree. You run so goddamn much in this game, even if you are severely injured Blake did not skip Leg Day. I do actually think these chases are still enjoyable, even if there are too many, though a major complaint this game always had is a lack of navigation during the chases. The path to take is pretty linear like last time, yet the maps are designed in a way where they come off as really big and you can take all kinds of paths to get to your destination. Usually, the off-road paths lead you to areas with documents or batteries instead. To be frank, I never really understood this particular criticism. The maps can be big yeah, but the general area you need to go through is usually spelled out pretty well: like if theres an enemy in front of your path you gotta get around them to progress. I will concede that there are more than one moments I can remember where this was actually an issue, but at the most you’ll die once and you’ll know where to go next time. The checkpoint system was fine enough to where this didn’t feel annoying. But overall, I would say ***the gameplay in 1 is better.*** Not as cinematic or flashy, but better in terms of just structure and overall design of the levels.
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I actually find this one really fun to just ***speedrun?*** The first game is good for this as well but because there are so many more chases you can really just steamroll through the game and juke through enemies with these gorgeous visual and great music.
***To get something out of the way right now, I have to mention the way the game transitions into these school sections***, and back into reality (and vice versa) are some of the best ive ever seen in any game ever. Not only is there no obvious loading times, but the segways are so incredibly smooth and happen at very unexpected moments. For example, You can be squeezing through a crack in the corner of a room, with the camera pressed up against the wall, and then you come out, with the camera swerving around to find youre in the school. Or, you hide in a locker within the school, and exit out of it, and suddenly youre inside a cultist house in the real world, coming out of their closet. Its difficult to put into words how well done it is without showing you, but I have included an example of this in my collection of photos and videos. Its incredible honestly how they were able to do in such an effective way, I have to give credit to the developers for doing it. Easily my favorite part about the experience.
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On that note, ***these visuals are so goddamn impressive.*** Not even just as a port but… wow, this game looks incredible. The lighting is superb, the houses are densely detailed. The weather effects are perfect, the wind rustling against pieces of cloth, creaking doors, etc. The general framing of each area is excellent. You can look at the screenshots for yourself to see that so many of them look like paintings or promotional pics you’d see for trailers and stuff, but they’re just screenshots of my time in the game. The first game already looked pretty good, but they went above and beyond with 2, like wow. Theres a ton of just small details both in the modern sections and the school flashbacks that will make you go “that looks great.” I love the tiniest things like if you pan the camera down to Blake’s feet you can see how many bandages and batteries you have in your shirt pockets, and in general his clothes will get more dirty and bloody the longer you go.
So to give you an idea of the lengths they go to make you feel ***uncomfortable***: in one of the first areas, you have to go through this building to reach a chapel, and you come down into a basement where there is a pile of dead baby corpses all arranged to resemble a cross. The first game had a lot of these disturbing elements, like nudity and other graphic content, but in 2 it is significantly more magnified. The story has elements of rape, suicide, how the cult is physically ill with conditions like syphilis and gonorrhea, how all the children in the cult are dead, etc etc. Again, it is less about what the game is actually about but rather how everything is ***presented***. They actually hide or block out a lot of gruesome imagery, yet the sound design and voice acting really elevated these feelings of uncomfort. The game is about these topics like religion, sexual urges, sexual assault, pedophilia, and rape, and they really play up the fact that many minors and children were victims. So they really aim for these unsettling topics to get these reactions out of you. This is what I meant when I said this is a game with no real hope or light at the end of the tunnel. In the first game, you are motivated with this ***idea of escaping*** the asylum, and how while it is disturbing, it is more you avoiding these elements while you are trying to escape. In Outlast 2, these elements are put on full blast for you to experience. There is no avoiding it the conflict like you are trying to do in 1, rather you are being directly shown everything. Again, it is hard to put into words, but experiencing the game for yourself, it becomes obvious.
So you may have noticed up until now that I have not really discussed what I think about the story itself, or even Blake.
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# Blake and the Story
Yep I have to make a whole section about this. This is where I really have the most issues with the game. Let’s start with ***Blake.*** First of all, I don’t dislike him, and I think he makes a fine protagonist for this game, however, I find that he is a much much weaker character than Miles or Waylon in almost every way. The biggest difference is that Blake is fully voiced and has tons of dialogue in this game. Miles and Waylon are mostly mute and communicate through grunts, screams, heavy breathing, and their journal entries. Blake is constantly talking and expressing himself whenever he sees something disturbing. This is not a bad thing, but the problem comes down to how this is executed.
So what do I mean by this? As I said earlier, it is obvious that Blake is slowly going insane the farther into the story you get. For one, These flashbacks to the school should cue you in that something isn’t right about what is happening, and what he is seeing. When viewing his recordings on the camera, it is clear that what he’s saying about the recording does not match up with what is being shown whatsoever, and that his comments become increasingly more disturbing and demented. Sometimes when the game tells you are recording something, you look at it for review and find that it is all static and there’s nothing there. So there’s a lot of examples of Blake going crazy because of what happens in the story, and these are great!
***The problem*** is that there is not nearly enough of this in the game in the moments where it really matters. To start, most of these examples I listed are not mandatory to view, and optional. You do not have to record anything, and when you do, you do not have to view them and listen to Blake. So when you are just playing the game and watching the cutscenes, he mostly comes off as sane and rational, but just freaked out and unsettled by everything he has seen.
There is a ***disconnect*** between how they want to present Blake and how it works in tandem with the plot. Sure, these flashbacks do a good job at showing Blake going crazy, but because he is SPEAKING and reacting to everything in the game, this needed to be translated into the narrative more aggressively. One of the more frustrating things about this game is the cut content, and a portion of this is that a lot of audio from Blake was removed, of him singing to himself, repeating things, laughing, etc. None of this is in the game, and it needed to be, 100%. They are trying to tell us Blake is going insane, yet I have to go out of my way to even get an idea that its happening. So because of this, I feel that the story really really suffers and does not get the intended connection they wanted to get with the player, and Blake.
***So now to transition into how this affects the story,*** the narrative itself is just full of so many holes, not just because of cut content, but how it is nearly mandatory for you to view documents to understand what is happening. In the first game, these documents do explain some things that you cant figure out otherwise, but for the most part they are just fluff for the lore to make the story and universe more meaty. If you skip every single document in the game, you get a good enough understanding regardless of what is happening, why the inmates are crazy, and what you need to do to survive and escape. In 2, You have no clue why these cultists are crazy, why they want you dead, why they kill all of their children, why there is a division between those in the cult, and those that are not, why Blake is having these Flashbacks, and the list goes on. If you skip all the documents, you will 100% be confused as to what the Hell is even happening. Hell, even when you DO read these documents, it won’t really give you much clarity on the details you actually wanna know about by the end. More on that later.
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***The Characters*** in this game are interesting on paper but almost all of them are barely in the game. The villains in particular… Idk what happened here. You think of the 1st game and you think of Chris. You think of this game and honestly the only one that comes to mind is one you encounter in the school flashbacks, Everyone else is forgettable. It’s a real shame because the lore behind this cult, the school, Blake’s childhood is all really intriguing and they barely did anything with it.
A part of these issues are indeed due to ***cut content.*** There are sub plots that are dropped by the end of the game that they had wanted to expand more on, but opted to not go through with it out of development issues. But even without that, just the way the story plays out in general dosent give you enough room to experience or judge anything properly. The villains are barely in the story, and the game cuts so much between the school and the cult that you don’t really get a feel for either section of the story, etc etc. The ending in particular… ***this fucking ending man…*** left a very bitter taste in my mouth. There is a comic that sort of expands more on what happens afterwards, involving the corporation from the first game, but it choses to omit the actual information we want to know, or explains it in a way that still leaves us with more questions. On my subsequent playthroughs I ended up liking the ending more, but to say its good would be giving it too much credit if you ask me.
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That’s kind of all I want to say about Outlast 2. Hopefully I outlined my issues with the story enough, but also why I still like it? I find this to be more frustrating than 1 because Outlast 2 has the potential to be an amazing game. All the pieces are here yet they dont quite fit together in this way.
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# Conclusion
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Overall I really enjoy both games, and I would highly recommend them. **The order does not matter** since these games don’t really have much connecting each other outside of some documents, but I would say overall, ***1 is the superior title.*** If you could only get one or the other, get the first game. It helps that it also comes with Whistleblower, vs 2 which has nothing but the main game. But if you play 1 and really liked it, I think you will at least get something out of the sequel. Great ports of solid games, and check them out for sure.
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# Final Scores For:
# Outlast 1/Whistleblower: 8/10
# Outlast 2: 7/10
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Thank you all for reading. This took a lot of time over a long span of nearly a year to write all this in chunks, just felt unmotivated to write these. I really enjoy making these posts as a hobby, and to get comments and feedback if you agree or not. I see these as like a blog to basically post my thoughts on what I play, but the backlog is so huge that I felt so overwhelmed to make posts that I didn’t want to make any. Anyways, I will try to get some done soon, and not have a year long gap in between. I keep teasing Witcher 3 in my posts, so honestly I think I will finally make it. I got the screenshots, I beat all the DLC… it’s gonna be a good time. Again, thank you for reading this far. Hearing from others makes me feel like making these posts are worth it.
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# Check out some of these other posts I have made if you’re curious!
[Alien Isolation](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/jkma3t/alien_isolation_on_switch_review_a_terrifying/)
[The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/hute42/the_infectious_madness_of_doctor_dekker_full/)
[This is the Police 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/hgh4nt/do_not_buy_this_is_the_police_2_on_switch/)
[This Is the Police](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/esmu7w/this_is_the_police_review_strategyadventure_game/)
[Worse Than Death](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/hab1vd/worse_than_death_on_switch_full_review/)
[Telling Lies](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/gqpko4/telling_lies_on_switch_full_review_no_spoilers/)
[Assassins Creed 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/godh2m/an_exhaustive_lengthy_review_of_assassins_creed_3/)
[Assassins Creed: The Rebel Collection](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/ff8sfb/thoughts_on_the_assassins_creed_rebel_collection/)
[Police Stories](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/gn1l2i/police_stories_on_switch_full_review/)
[2064: Read Only Memories](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/ggmlu9/2064_read_only_memories_full_review_on_switch_no/)
[Resident Evil Revelations 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/fl4bbe/thoughts_on_resident_evil_revelations_2_for/)
[Resident Evil Revelations 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/fjt7dd/thoughts_on_resident_evil_revelations_1_for/)
[The Coma: Recut](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/etvgj4/the_coma_recut_full_review_on_switch/)
[The Banner Saga Trilogy](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/eq8qpq/thoughts_on_the_banner_saga_trilogy_on_switch/)
[Hard West](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/en4azu/hard_west_review_a_hidden_gem_on_switch_lenghty/)
[A Case of Distrust](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/dvywjz/a_case_of_distrust_on_switch_full_review_lengthy/)
[The Long Reach](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/dv1tgi/the_long_reach_on_switch_full_review_and_thoughts/)
[No Thing](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/devw16/no_thing_on_switch_full_review/)
[One Night Stand](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/debmr9/one_night_stand_on_switch_full_review_and_thoughts/)
[Return of the Obra Dinn](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/ev9079/return_of_the_obra_dinn_full_review_on_switch_a/)
[Ace Attorney Trilogy](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/flfylh/review_of_the_ace_attorney_trilogy_for_switch_no/)