Lanota

Lanota's particular attention to bringing a new way to play a dynamic rhythm game by offering a circular playing field pays off and with a tracklist longer than your arm, you'll be hard pushed to get through this one quickly.

Lanota is a fun music rhythm game with a nice storytelling component that brings the whole package together under a fantasy setting. The different difficulty options, the speed settings, and how you can play all songs in either Tune or Purify depending on your skill level and experience with rhythm games make it possible for all types of players to enjoy this Nintendo Switch release, even if you can only play the game while in Handheld mode.

It utilizes the touchscreen well and mixes up a genre that can get stale from game to game. Each song brought clever ways of utilizing their Tuner setup that kept things interesting as you played through the extensive list of songs. While anything beyond that was a letdown, if you're looking for a solid game with fantastic tracks, Lanota doesn't disappoint.

There are rhythm games available for the Switch that have better stories, there are some with more familiar music, and there are some that can be played in both portable and docked mode. Still, fans of the genre would be remiss to overlook Lanota. The gameplay is fantastic and can be as easy or challenging as you want thanks to the multiple skill level settings. The music is greatly enjoyable, too, You're not likely to play through each song again just to jack up your ranking, but there will surely be some that will stick with you even when you're not playing. Which reminds me…I need to do some more research on Kitkit Lu. Anyone have an album to recommend?

It's still delightful, but perhaps a game that would have been better off in the hands of developers with a greater capacity for music curation.

If you’ve got a hankering for a rhythm game to play on your Switch, Lanota has more than enough to keep you busy for some time.

Without a doubt Lanota was a massive surprise for me, as its unassuming presentation and opening levels completely gave me a different impression of what to expect than what was delivered. Keep in mind, I’m considering that a very good thing though as the gameplay is refreshingly different and sometimes hectic, with the playfield exhibiting a somewhat crazy mind of its own at times moving around the screen and making your life even more challenging keeping up with what it’s throwing at you. If you’ve been feeling like the genre’s in a bit of a rut and are willing to overlook its weaknesses Lanota is a fabulous rhythm game worth checking out.