Genre: 4x Strategy
Developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K Games

Like the PC version from which this ARM rendition was originally ported, the "Populous"-reminiscent "game world is a paper map", wonderfully polished menuing and fonts, along with the "doesn't take itself too seriously" art direction are all retained-- it's the full title, running on Nvidia's little Nintendo tablet. Downsides? The framerate can get mildly compromised at times-- but in such a slow-paced game, who cares.

As is the case with the graphics, the entire aural package is present here, from the Christopher Tin theme song to the game's myriad technology voice-over proclamations to the varying-language leader vocalizations, and everything in between. Unlike a lot of Switch ports, the music-- some of which is quite sensational, especially the medieval "Brazil" theme, particularly when it goes off-key-- isn't compressed to oblivion.

The biggest thing to discuss with this Switch port is the user interface: how playable is a game like this without a mouse? The shift keys trigger fly-out menus on the left and right; the right analog stick pans the camera, the left analog stick moves the cursor-- clicking it selects the currently centered tile; the d-pad drives menu selections. The game is such a breeze to play with this scheme that one scarcely realizes it wasn't designed this way in the first place!

"Vanilla" Civilization VI has a ton of content: along with the core series concepts, religion and spying are there to be had. Still, the PC version has had not one but two expansions, not to mention numerous balance patches-- all of which are absent from this Switch iteration. What could-- and perhaps should have, given the base game's age-- been a "best of" edition, is the same release PC players had years ago. Cheating AI and lack of new features aside however, playing a full-on 4x strategy game on a handheld is still really cool.