Out of the 25 (twenty-five!) new releases lined-up for the Switch this week, it’s the oldest out of the lot that piques our interest.
Arcade Archives VS. SUPER MARIO BROS. (£6.29) marks the first time this arcade-tailored rendition of Super Mario Bros. has reached a home console. Intended to be a coin guzzler, it features more enemies and fewer power-ups. It also had six new levels, which eventually made their way into The Lost Levels. In the absence of Virtual Console for Switch, it’s easy to imagine this being a big seller.
Unsurprisingly, the wealth of the 25 (twenty-five, twenty-five!) releases are conversions of older titles. Familiar faces include the popular roguelikes Enter the Gungeon (£10.99) and Heart&Slash (£12.59), physics-based platformer Max: The Curse of Brotherhood (£14.99), Korean horror The Coma: Recut (£17.99), and the mobster run-and-gunner Guns, Gore & Cannoli (£8.99).
We also have The Deer God (£7.19) and Bloody Zombies (£10.99), two games which we’ve reviewed on other systems. The Deer God is a pixel-art platform adventure about life and reincarnation, featuring looping level design – new locations don’t appear until beating existing quests, prompting you to run indefinitely until working out what to do next. We slapped the Xbox One version – a Games with Gold freebie – a 6/10 back in 2015.
Bloody Zombies is a darn sight newer, arriving on PS4 and Xbox One just a few months ago. It’s a brash and brutal scrolling brawler with online play that takes a while to master – if you don’t make good use of special moves or learn how to block/evade, then you’ll face the ‘Game Over’ screen often. We gave the PS4 version 7/10 in September.
Pulstar (£6.29) is this week’s NeoGeo title, meanwhile – a well-liked shooter from 1995, featuring rendered visuals.
Time to round up the remaining release:
TINY METAL – £19.99
An indie take on Nintendo’s Advance Wars that has its heart on its sleeve. Nintendo Life was left largely impressed, awarding it 9/10: “Upon this handsome foundation Area35 has crafted a tactical wargame which is every bit as compelling, addictive and challenging as its inspiration, while adding in a storyline of surprising drama and complexity.â€
Brawlout – £17.99
Another that takes inspiration from a key Nintendo franchise. Namely, Super Smash Bros. The character line-up features more than a few indie stars, including pugilists from Hyper Light Drifter and Guacamelee.
Floor Kids – £15.99
Get down on the floor with this sketch-book style breakdance battler.
Tiny Troopers Joint Ops XL – £9.99
This cutesy overhead shooter graced the PS4 some time ago, gaining mixed reviews. User reviews on Metacritic are curiously negative, in fact.
Crawl – £12.99
A randomly generated arcade dungeon crawler for up to four players, complete with a twist – players can take control of every trap and monster within a dungeon, even the hulking final boss.
Frederic: Resurrection of Music – £4.85 until 4th Jan (£5.39 thereafter)
A “one-of-a-kind adventure†that places you in the boots of a recently resurrected Frederic Chopin, out to save the world of music from mass-produced popstars.
Mom Hid My Game! – £4.49
A Japanese ‘Escape Game’ from Kemco, which sees a child try to find his confiscated console. Also available on New 3DS.
Plague Road – £8.39 until 28th Dec, £11.99 thereafter
A roguelike base-building strategy RPG with hand-drawn style 2D visuals. Nintendo Life felt it was missing a layer of depth, resulting in a lukewarm 6/10.
Puzzle Box Maker – £13.49
The description for this pixel-art package is vague. Seems you can create simple platforming stages and share them online.
RXN -Raijin – £28.79
A premium priced Japanese vertically-scrolling shooter.
Woodle Tree Adventures – £4.49
A ‘90s style 3D platformer that looks a tad similar to Super Mario 3D World.
The Next Penelope – £10.99
This fast-paced racer is similar to Micro Machines, only with a risk-reward system. Might be worth a pitstop.
60 Seconds! – £8.50
Possibly influenced by Fallout, this dark comedy adventure entails collecting supplies to survive a nuclear attack.
Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King – £13.49
Another 2D dungeon crawler, this time taking cues from Zelda: A Link to the Past. Five dungeons feature, offering over 15 hours of play.
FruitfFall Crush – £4.99
The notorious Wii launch game is back, now with a more appealing price point.
Hammerwatch – £8.99
Also out on Xbox One this week, Hammerwatch is a top-down hack and slasher with four-player support. Online multiplayer is coming at a later date.
In addition to Mom Hid My Game! the New 3DS also gets Breakout Defense 2 (£5.99), while the regular 3DS receives the open-world block battler Battleminerz (£4.99), The Legend of Dark Witch 3 Wisdom and Lunacy (£9.89), and Mario Party: The Top 100 (£34.99) – the final retail release of 2017.
A new Mario Party is usually a reason for celebration, but this year’s iteration has been met with mediocre reviews. The Metacritic currently stands at a sloppy 59%, with one of the latest reviews being a dismal 4/10 from God is a Geek. “What The Top 100 really showcases is that the Mario Party series is in a need of a major shake up, it’s in need of a reinvention, not a wistful look at the past,†they said.
Next week: The Queen’s Speech – VR Edition, Table Flippin’ Monopoly, and Revenge of the Turkey Curry.