The incredible sci-fi mystery 13 Sentinels is a perfect fit for the Switch

theverge.com:

To enjoy 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is to embrace confusion. The game, which originally launched in 2020 on the PS4, is hard to describe, with gameplay that spans multiple genres and a non-linear storyline that involves everything from time travel to android doppelgängers and only gets weirder from there. It demands a lot from players, but the result is one of my favorite science fiction stories in years — and, unsurprisingly, it’s a great fit for the Switch, with a new version for Nintendo’s tablet that launches today.

For a more detailed rundown, here’s my review from when 13 Sentinels first debuted. But the short version is: the game is a mix of a visual novel and a real-time strategy game, which follows more than a dozen characters across events that span multiple centuries. It’s a narrative that likes to trick you. At first, it seems like a simple classic mech vs. kaiju story, where the RTS portions of the game involve high school students piloting powerful mechs to fight off an invading alien force. These sequences are simple but satisfying as you move characters across a grid to destroy increasingly devious creatures, unlocking new abilities along the way.

Mostly, though, 13 Sentinels is a visual novel where you follow the stories of around a dozen Japanese high school students across a handful of different eras, starting in the 1980s. These play out as side-scrolling vignettes, where you can do a bit of exploration, but mostly, you’re reading / listening to dialogue. It definitely requires some patience. What’s most interesting about the story, though, is its structure. At almost any given moment, you can pick from a handful of different characters’ stories, allowing you to follow the path that seems most