 Put the streamers, inflate the balloons, and pour a glass of champagne. This is episode 25 of my eShop Games Worth Buying series, meaning that I have found on the eShop, downloaded, played, enjoyed, reviewed, and then edited for you to see. With 10 games in each episode, today we're hitting 250 games. That's just a lot of games. I want to thank all of you for watching these videos, watching my content. Thank you to today's sponsor, which we'll get to, for helping me afford to buy this many games. Because you gotta remember, for every game I enjoy, there's two or three I downloaded to try and didn't like. There will definitely be something that you'll want to download and try today, so let me know what your favorite is down below. You can even suggest a game if I haven't talked about it yet. And do I have to say it? And a very early hair flip on that subscribe button. And let's get started. From our friends at Devolver Digital, and yes, I do mean that Devolver Digital, Today is only the beginning, comes Boomerang X. Harness the power of a mystical Boomerang to fling yourself through the air, slicing down arenas, swarming with evil creatures, similar to doom, staying agile and constantly moving is key. As soon as you start to slow down, you're going to get overrun with creatures both small and gigantic. Oh, and when I said friends at Devolver Digital, I meant it. They even sent over the Boomerang from the game. Maybe because I'm Australian, they thought that I would need it, little stereotypical, but you know, don't really love being stereotyped, but it's a cool Boomerang. It says on the back that they only had 50 made, and I have lucky number 13. I really appreciate owning one of the 50. That's pretty cool. Thanks. I really love the flow and movement of Boomerang X, which is good because that's 95% of the game. The game is strictly linear, moving location to location, triggering waves of enemies. It's all about how fun, fast-paced and furious the action is. There's loads of different abilities to use in combat. Obviously, you can just throw this bad boy, but you can also charge it up for a longer shot, and you can instantly recall it at any time, or you can force Paul yourself towards the location of the Boomerang. I use this all the time as my movement around the arenas, getting the advantage of enemies, or just getting out of the way of an attack or for platforming. If you kill multiple enemies with one throw, you get a special ability you can trigger at any time and wipe out entire hordes at once. The variety of enemies is what makes each wave so unique and exciting. Many creatures have specific ways of being killed, like a frog who hides its weak spot on its stomach, or a massive giraffe thing that has multiple spots that need to be destroyed. It's all about timing your moves and abilities, getting control of the battlefield, and staying in motion. Once you get good at the game, you'll spend like 95% of your gameplay in the air, just flying around and killing things. It really is just you and one Boomerang, but it never feels repetitive. And that's good game design. Eugene, back at it for a third time trying to hack your system. Your Express VPN keeps blocking me, but thankfully I developed this. It's a computer program so advanced, not even Express VPN can handle how robust and intense, and oh no! How? Egypt? You know the drill. Once again, Express VPN encrypted your data, securing it from my prying eyes, and changed your location, routing your connection through one of Express VPN's 3000 plus servers, hiding your real IP address, and sending me to freaking Egypt! Using the internet without Express VPN is like building several giant pyramids. Why would you do that? Express VPN will protect you at home, at work, or anywhere online. Other than your own security, there is a fun side to Express VPN too, like with Netflix and gaming. Streaming services have a ton more content that's regional, but you can take your Express VPN and just put yourself in Australia. And now you have a bunch of new shows to check out, like Rick and Morty or Brooklyn Nine-Nine. And with gaming, you can use it with Steam, for example. When games release, you can download them a whole day earlier, if you're in Australia. Try it out by going to expressvpn.com forward slash beat em ups and find out how you can get three months free. Bet it was aliens. I love when I can feature a $5 game in one of these videos, and with Islanders, I can do just that. It's a relaxing minimalistic strategy game about building cities on colorful islands. It's pretty simple. You start with a small randomized island and choose what you want to build first. You have the freedom to put anything wherever you want, but certain buildings or objects will earn you higher points if they're placed close to or far away from other things. For example, houses and mansions will get a bonus for being close together or near the town center. Sawmills will get a bonus for being close to trees, but will also lose points for being too close to another existing sawmill. Once you get enough points, you can either keep building on the island or move on to the next one in your playthrough. It's all procedurally generated and the goal is to rack up as many points as possible before game over. Then you start again and try to build more and get further next time. It's just so easy to pick up and play with bright visuals and easy controls. It's simple, sure, but it's $5. The devs were even nice enough to reach out to me and send me a code without me asking, but they also sent over an extra one and said it was for Kim if she wanted one too. No one ever does that, so I really appreciated that. It was super nice. So as far as I can tell, the Slime Rancher Portable Edition that just dropped on Switch is the full Slime Rancher experience just on the Switch. It's a little confusing because calling it Portable Edition to me sounds like it's a lesser or downscaled version of the full game. I could only compare it to something like Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition, but this is the full game. It's even running at 60 FPS and has all the DLC. So not only is it not just a portable edition of the full game, it's the definitive edition. I get the devs were going for a play on words with plot-able as plots is Slime Rancher's in-game currency, but you have to have played the game to get that joke. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I just worry a little bit that this will scare off potential buyers. Anyway, so now that we know it's the full game, I highly recommend giving this one a shot. It is the perfect game to have portable. Slime Rancher is a little Stardew-y meets Pokemon-y. You play as Beatrix living light years away from Earth on far, far range. Here there are strange and adorable creatures known as Slimes. There's pink slimes, exploding slimes, rocky slimes, and my favorite, the cute little cat slimes. Sorry, I like cats. Actually, there's loads more too, but the fun is getting out there, exploring and finding them all yourself. You'll grow your range as you add more slimes to it and feed them, because once you feed them, they'll poop, and their poop are called plots. Yes, some of you have already put this together. Plots, again, is the in-game currency, so you pay in poop, poop, money. You suck up all the plot poop and use it as currency to upgrade your backpack or expand your ranch. Different types of plots will be worth way more than others, so that's your motivation to get out there and find all the rare slimes and keep them nice and fed so you can make it rain that sweet, sweet dookie money. There's a sequel to this indie gem on the way, so play the first one now. Okay, Dreamscaper is exactly why I am so glad that Kickstarter exists. This one took me by surprise. I was given a code for it, I downloaded it, and then it just sat there on my Switch for weeks. The icon is kinda boring, I gotta be honest. But then there I was on a Twitch stream and we decided to just find out what it was, and we all loved it. Dreamscaper is an endlessly replayable action roguelike, and if you liked games like Hades or Dead Cells, you're gonna love this too. By night, you delve deep into your subconscious, facing nightmares in an ever-changing world filled with unique items, abilities, and challenges, with these intense and brutally difficult boss battles at the end of each level. Once you die to them, and you probably will, you wake up into the real world. There you can explore the city of Redhaven, build relationships, and unlock permanent upgrades in order to take on the next dream, stronger than ever. The gameplay loop of playing, earning, upgrade materials, dying, then using those materials to grow, jumping back into the game, stronger than before is as addicting as always. You know, I used to think I would never like games like this. The idea of permadeath and loops never interested me, and it's the weirdest thing, but I think it's becoming very clear that this style of game has grown on me, and now, they're some of my all-time favorites. I think it says less about me, and more about the genre itself, having developed and evolved its formula into something really quite impressive. The amount of sheer possibilities in each run, mixed with the satisfaction of absolutely crushing a boss fight that used to wipe you out in one hit. It's an adrenaline rush so exciting, it's almost impossible to not keep giving the game just one more run before you stop. The art style is beautiful, and I vibe with it so well. The soundtrack is magical, and adds so much depth to the world. The combat system is deep, rich, and expansive, rewarding skilled players for mastering positioning, timing, and quick reflexes. There are so many different weapons from bats to yo-yos, and then you have these crazy magical abilities in ranged combat. The combinations and variations just seem limitless. I wish I could go back in time and help support its Kickstarter. It's unbelievable to me that they did all this on a $52,000 budget. That's nothing for a game. I could have become an NPC in the game for $2,000. Is it too late for that? Devs, hit me up. We'll figure something out. Look, I know my audience like I know the back of my switch. Oh, actually, I can't show you that yet. So I know that most of you already have, or you're gonna love, Garden Story. You play as Concord, a small grape entrusted with the huge responsibility of rebuilding the community and defending it from an unknown force called The Rot. Garden Story is fairly similar to Stardew in the sense that it shares crafting, building, and combat elements. However, where Stardew was mostly focused on the crafting side, Garden Story leaned much harder into the combat, giving you multiple weapons to switch between while battling different types of rock and even throwing big, awesome boss battles at you. A really interesting system in Garden Story is Memories. Along your journey, Concord will form memories of its closest friends and fun moments, or when you complete certain tasks or goals, like the amount of hits taken from enemies. Once unlocked, you can equip the memory to increase Concord's stats or to give buffs. At the start, you can only equip one at a time, but as you progress, you unlock up to nine memory slots. Each memory has a description of what caused it, so not only do you get rewarded for doing more things in the game, but they also act as a great way to look back at fun moments gone by. What's kind of weird though is the whole gardening side of the game doesn't really play a part in the story. Weird for a game called Garden Story. It's not until the tail end that you start to dabble around with planning a few crops and trying to figure out how to craft some stuff. The battling really does take up the focus of the main game, but once you wrap up the story, you can focus on whatever you want. Elder Souls is, shockingly, a Souls-like game. The name might be a bit boorish in that regard, but it's actually more of a case of the developers showing appreciation for From Software's games and the clear inspiration that went into this one. In fact, this is Fallen Flag Studio's first ever game and that in itself is quite impressive. Uh, thankfully, for me, the combat is fast paced. Personally, I'm not a fan of how slow and clunky some Souls-like games can be. This is much quicker while still having things like the stamina bar that depletes as you dash around or use light and heavy attacks. There's three different classes you can choose between an upgrade. Each suit varying play styles, but you can respect them at any time. So there's no harm in trying one out on your playthrough and seeing if it fits. While you're out exploring the world, you'll come across side quests and a cast of unique characters to interact with. But no other enemies or creatures throughout the land. This game is strictly a boss rush experience with these crazy, tough and ruthless boss battles one after another and they are tough. I gotta be honest, I didn't finish this one. Just like with most of the Souls games, I decided my life was better spent doing other things, but I don't make these lists just for me. I make them for you. And I can still tell a fun game when I play it, even if I don't have the stomach for it. The pixelated art style is done wonderfully. The character and bosses look incredible and the world itself is haunting and mystical. I can tell that a lot of you are gonna love this one. That's why it's here. It's called being unbiased, okay? Moving on to something I do love, dodgeball academia. Dodgeball academia is a fast-paced sports RPG set in a world where dodgeball is life. And we will, we will rock you. First up, this vibrant and drawn art style is fantastic and the reason I was drawn to the game in the first place. I mean look at it. If that doesn't suck you in, maybe the soundtrack will as it's pretty freaking badass too. The game is narrative driven, set in a dodgeball school. Yes, a school just for dodgeball. With a large, lovable and charming cast of characters. Look at all these guys. Don't you just need to get to know each and everyone? I really enjoyed the writing, which was nice because there's a fair bit of reading, but there's also a lot of dodgeball playing. It's a real-time dodgeball battle. You have a special bar you can charge by catching balls or just by powering up Super Saiyan style. There are different kinds of dodgeballs too. Ones that drain health or slow speed. Enemies can throw balls at varying speeds too, but none of that is as distracting as cars racing across the match or any of the many other field hazards that pop up game to game. It always felt fresh, doing its best to throw new twists and turns at you all the time. As far as the RPG mechanics, you got a leveling system, a bunch of different party members, equipment, side quests, the whole shebang. I can almost guarantee that somewhere down the line, limited run games is gonna take this, snatch it up, and turn it into a physical release because it just has that vibe and it's a great game. Um... Calculator is a unique Nintendo Switch title that has you using the Switch screen or your TV as a giant calculator. The point of the game is to do math. If you press one of the number buttons, it will add that number into the text field. Then, by pressing other commands like plus or minus, you can add or subtract other numbers respectively. There is some fun to be had here, like using the numbers you can spell out words, like hell or even boobies. So be honest though, many of the controls went over my head. I still don't know what the atan or kosh buttons do. The game never really told me and I'm not sure how you win the game. There seems to be a high score system, but I keep accidentally wiping mine by hitting this C button. I guess you guys give it a shot multiplying some numbers together at home and let me know how big you can get your high score. To be honest, I much prefer the sequel. Battle calculator. This one's even pricier at $15, but at least here we have multiplayer. One to four players wait for a number to appear on the screen, then try to be the first person to make that number. It's great stuff, but I gotta say the visuals here are a serious downgrade from the prequel. Really not sure what happened there, but either way, please don't buy either of these. A fantastic switch port always needs to be appreciated because it's so rarely done right, but in the case of Strange Brigade, they nailed it. It's a very arcadey co-op third-person shooter for up to four players and death better playing with a friend or few, but you can still play it solo and have some fun. Each character has a different special ability and starting weapons together. You blast through waves of the undead, mummies, minotaurs, and giant boss battles. You explore the maps, fighting and exploding things as you go, finding puzzles that are actually really fun to solve. Some are relatively easy, but others were real brain teasers. The more optional puzzles you can solve, the more you're rewarded with hidden treasure and upgrades. We always look forward to the next big horde area where you can trigger the wave and it locks you into the location. The only way to get out is to survive and kill everything in sight using your weapons, special abilities, and even the environment and many of its traps to wipe out loads of creatures at once. I gotta tell you, it's really fun to play. The controls are great, it feels smooth, and there is so much variety in the levels. Laying on Xbox, I can tell you this game is shockingly gorgeous with some expansive, stunning views and vistas, beautiful shadows and reflections. So I was really worried about how this switch port would manage to pull it off. But they kept a solid 30 FPS while also keeping a lot of those shadows, reflections and lighting elements. Overall, it looks fantastic. They even managed to get tons of the undead swarming your switch at once without too much drain on the system. I honestly don't know how they managed to pull it off, but this is just one heck of a game to have a friend or two next to you as you all sit in handheld mode and just blast through waves of the undead while snacking on some munchies and watching a movie. Like, I don't know, it's just a great arcadey hit. Well, I can't do a list of the best indies on Switch without talking about one of the best indies of all time and one that paved the way for all the others to come. Fez. The creation of Fez is a history lesson longer than I have time for today, but if you have time, there's a great documentary called Indie Games The Movie. It goes into fantastic detail about how Fez and other small indie games managed to take over the gaming world at a time when only AAA big budget titles stood a chance. Fez is a puzzle platformer set in both 2D and 3D worlds. You play on the 2D view but you can rotate that view three-dimensionally around four sides. You use this rotation mechanic to reveal new paths through the levels connecting platforms that were unreachable before. How the game was designed and constructed is beyond me and such a marvel to behold. Like, imagine sitting there designing level after level that each works in this rotating space. I mean, no wonder it took five years to develop. The blueprints alone must have taken most of the time. It's hard to even explain the reaction your brain has when you rotate a thin platform around to see a huge expansive area just out of view on the other side. Or a platform that was so far out of reach is now right next to you allowing you to progress even further or maybe there was just a hidden door or vine that wasn't visible from three other angles. You explore the levels looking for cubes to progress in the main game but if you want an even harder challenge you can seek out the optional anti-cubes and those can be a real pain in the d*** but solving those harder puzzles is so satisfying. Fez both created and perfected this weird 2D, 3D style of game genre and it's as worth playing today as it was in 2012. And that is another nine, I mean 10 really great games on the Switch. Even just these 10 games I feel like they're all so fun they're all worth playing like conjoined if you bought them all you have just endless hours of fun not counting ones like Dreamscape which is actually endless hours of fun and it doesn't stop there there's a ton more eShop games that just released and I haven't even had a chance to play them yet. Making these big videos is the only way I can talk about all the great games I want to. I hope you found something that you're gonna play today and I hope you have a good time playing it. Let me know down below like the video if it helped you out subscribe if you want to and I guess here's to another 25. All right, bye. Oh and uh click the link in the description and support the sponsor of the video. Thank you.