If the ‘January Blues’ are making you feel down then maybe this week’s eShop line-up will perk you up, this being one of those rare weeks where there’s something for everyone.
The week’s biggest release is a toss-up between the cult classic Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath HD and the tactical Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf, with Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha and Football, Tactics & Glory also worthy of attention. Then for fans of all things retro there’s the genre mash-up 198X and two re-releases from SEGA – the legendary Shinobi and Fantasy Zone, priced £5.99 each.
Two entries in The Walking Dead series – A New Frontier and Season Two – also shamble onto Switch this week, while the well-received auto-runner SpeedRunners makes the jump from consoles and the relaxed “flow style adventure†Lumini, first released in 2015, heads over from PC.
TSA was left smitten by Psikyo Shooter Stars Alpha, awarding the retro collection – also due at retail this week – an 8/10. “Barring Sol Divide, this is a great collection of shooters from one of the best in the business. If you’re a fan of the shmup that hasn’t made the leap into these titles on Switch, now’s the perfect time to do so, even if it does only just manage to justify its price versus picking up the games separately,†they said.
198X, a faux retro collection inspired by arcade classics, also garnered an 8/10, this time from Nintendo Life. “While we’re sure many people will consider the game’s shortness a cardinal sin, we’d still recommend you give it a try if you’re a fan of ’80s and ’90s gaming, appreciate lush 2D artwork and desire an experience which firmly lodges itself in your consciousness – even if it doesn’t last all that long,†was their verdict.
I guess we can consider Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath retro too, seeing its 15 years old. The Xbox original gained a cult following upon release thanks to its offbeat humour and alternative take on first-person shooting. Some critics felt that certain areas in this Switch re-release have dated badly, but overall, it remains an experience worth revisiting. Â
Game Revolution found it to be a bounty still worth bagging. “[…] true to its name, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath is a strange game that still sticks out because of its unusual but fantastic tone. It’s strong enough to deserve a sequel or actual remaster from the ground up but, given the unlikelihood of that, a strong port will have to do.â€
We’re still waiting on reviews for Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf (watch this space), but reviews of the PC original suggest it’s a safe purchase.
Football/Soccer, Tactics & Glory was given a going over by both The Metro and God is a Geek, meanwhile, where it gained a 6/10 and a 5/10 (respectively).  Sounds like some extra polish would have gone a long way.
We cast our own critical eye on the side-scrolling party game SpeedRunners when it launched on Xbox One a few years ago, finding it to be both well-designed and addictive. It’s a cliché to say it, but it’s an ideal fit for the Switch.
The full list of new Switch releases for this week can be found below. Next week is looking exceedingly busy too, with around 25-30 games currently on track.
New Switch eShop releases
Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath – £26.99
Along comes Stranger, a tall, dark and enigmatic bounty hunter with a mission to capture troublemakers and scoundrels and return them to civilized townships for incarceration.
But Stranger is keeping a secret and needs expensive surgery to survive. In his quest to earn enough Moolah, Stranger reluctantly accepts the ultimate bounty from the owner of the Mongo River and suddenly his adventure takes a very different turn.
Orn: The Tiny Forest Sprite – £8.99
Beautiful levels and a lovable hero take the spotlight in Orn: The Tiny Forest Sprite, a puzzling platform adventure game. You play as Orn, a tiny forest sprite created by the ancients, the last hope to combat the darkness. Will the powers you gained along your journey help you defeat the darkness?
Arcade Archives XX MISSION – £6.29
“XX MISSION†is a shooting game released by UPL in 1986.
While switching between air and ground attacks, take out the approaching large and small craft and large fleets.
Powering up allows you to use different powerful air attacks and wider ranged ground attacks depending on the ship’s form.
CRAYON SHINCHAN The Storm Called FLAMING KASUKABE RUNNER!! – £8.99
Everyone’s favorite five-year-old, Shinnosuke, makes a Fierce Dash to collect sweets and Golden Balls. Get lots of different costumes using Golden Balls, obtained by proceeding from one stage to another and completing special missions! Enjoy Shinchan and his friends wearing a variety of cosplay clothes, well-known to people familiar with anime and movies!
Sleep Attack – £6.29
Enjoy an amazing new TWIST in Tower Defense! You control the layout of the battlefield, and you decide the paths your enemies follow! Build and place powerful turrets to attack invading enemies. Then rotate the battlefield to force foes down your preferred path of destruction. Be careful though, there are always multiple routes to control! Combine tactical planning with strategic tower upgrades to slow, divert and damage your enemies.
PuPaiPo Space Deluxe – £3.99
PuPaiPo Space is a colorful space shoot-em-up in which you travel from Stage to Stage in search of the legendary space pizza. Piloting your trusty spaceship, you will have to battle waves of opponents, dodge hundreds of bullets, pick sweet power ups and face powerful bosses!
Mosaic – £15.99
You live a monotonous and repetitive lonely life in a cold overpopulated ever-expanding city. The phone is distracting you with meaningless notifications as you move through anonymous crowds on your way to work at a megacorporation where yet another long day with overtime awaits. You have no real sense of meaning – until one crucial day, when strange things start to happen on your commute to work and everything changes.
Dual Brain Vol.2: Reflex – £11.99
Solve the problem within the time limit and aim for a high score.
The high score in the game is registered in the online ranking.
Compete for scores with players around the world.
OmoTomO – £8.99
This game not only provides a relaxing experience with a zen garden environment, but also challenges players with a variety of puzzles, whilst experiencing the growth of the OmoTomO creature. OmoTomO is suited for new and experienced puzzle players, with its steadily rising difficulty.
Sinless – £8.99
Sinless is a unique combination of a classic point and click and a visual novel with many references and inspirations from classics of the genre, such as Snatcher, or Rise of the Dragon. Add to that custom, in-house designed lighting and parallax effects, along with a dedicated awesome Soundtrack and original storyline, we hope you will enjoy your stay!
JEWEL WARS – £8.09
The year is 2039…
All money is now collected and managed through an online network known as Gold Asset.
This includes money generated through illegal and exploitative avenues. And so a plan was concocted to return that money to the world…
Jewel Rush is a fighting action game that can be played by up to 4 players.
Just Glide – £1.09
In Just Glide you control a small, brave paper airplane, making its way forward. Fly through air hoops, avoid incoming projectiles, push through rainy clouds and pierce through obstacles.
The further you make it, the more challenging it gets!
Worlds of Magic: Planar Conquest – £15.29
Planar Conquest is a 4X strategy game inspired by Master of Magic. Created to ensure this amazing playability of games from the past, but wrapped in a modern package.
Lumini – £8.99
Explore the Lumini home world in this relaxing flow-style adventure, overcoming obstacles and keeping your swarm safe while collecting the planet’s energy to bring back your fallen comrades. Split and reform your swarm, evolve and discover new abilities to bring the Lumini back to their former glory…
Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha – £35.99
STRIKERS 1945, STRIKERS 1945 II, STRIKERS 1945 III, SOL DIVIDE, Dragon Blaze, and ZERO GUNNER 2 combine forces in one arcade collection! Bring the arcade home by blasting through these shooters vertically in the popular ‘TATE’ mode for the ultimate shoot-’em-up experience!
FoxyLand 2 – £5.99
Jump, leap,and wallkick to bypass enemies in order to reach the end of the stage to rescue Foxy’s puppers across the island. Play as both Foxy and Jennie in cooperative multiplayer.
WARHAMMER 40,000: SPACE WOLF – £16.19
Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf is a turn-based tactical strategy in which you have to take command of the Space Wolves and join the battle against the wicked servants of Chaos and the sinister Necrons.
SpeedRunners – £12.99
In a city filled with superheroes, getting to crimes becomes a competition on its own. Fortunately there are enough rockets, bombs, grappling hooks, spikes, and other goodies lying around — to make the competition fun and fast. Welcome to SpeedRunners.
SEGA AGES Shinobi – £5.99
Ninjutsu master Joe Musashi returns in this classic side-scrolling platformer. Utilize shurikens, throwing knives, and more to defeat the enemy and free the hostages. Need more time? Use the rewind feature to move back in time to make sure you’re using your best moves.
198X – £8.99
Welcome to Suburbia, just outside the City, sometime in 198X. This is the journey of Kid, a teenager stuck between the limitations of innocent youth and the obligations of inevitable adulthood. The story unfolds when Kid discovers the local arcade – finding new worlds, and new meaning, in video games. For every visit to the arcade – every game uncovered, every move mastered, every demon defeated – Kid grows stronger. And the lines between reality and game start to blur…
5 full-blown arcade stages in 5 different genres
9 expert pixel artists delivering larger-than-life old-school sprites
20+ music tracks from the likes of Yuzo Koshiro and Swedish hit-duo Sinephony
90+ minutes of intense gameplay and pixel-art storytelling
Escape From Chernobyl – £8.99
Dive into the darkness and the dangers of the Chernobyl power plant in this continuation of the Radiation City adventure. Unravel the mystery left unsolved: find what happened to Lauren and the story of the nightmare at its source.
Navigate the accurately recreated Chernobyl power plant complex from the destroyed Unit 4 reactor to the outskirts of the complex at their natural scale.
SEGA AGES Fantasy Zone – £5.99
An interplanetary monetary system collapses as its funds are mysteriously funneled towards the construction of a fortress in the Fantasy Zone. It’s up to Opa-Opa to rescue the Fantasy Zone and find the culprit responsible!
Classic Snake Adventures – £7.99
A reboot of the classic retro game snake introduced in 1997. Remade with gorgeous hand-drawn 2d art and a 3d snake. The snake’s mechanics are completely new. This 3d snake can bend, and change size and speed during game-play, something you won’t see in any other snake games. A state of the art game with the retro beloved gameplay of snake 97.
Football, Tactics & Glory – £35.99
Football, Tactics & Glory reinvents the basics of the football management genre, making it appealing to everyone, not just the most hardcore football management aficionados. The game skips the boring parts of football management games – all those endless tables, numbers, routine and micromanagement. But it is deep enough to keep players engrossed for hundreds of hours.
Ember – £14.99
Back in the earliest days, there was no sun and the world was dark. The heavens opened up and stars fell like beacons into the pitch black world, and they were known as “Embersâ€. Powerful and wise druids of a primordial race, “the Lightbringers,” roamed the land searching for this luminous matter. They performed a ritual of awakening to call the “Embers†out of their deep sleep. Suddenly the world became bright, and the veil of darkness was lifted. The Embers were the embodiment of magical flame, light, and life, but as word spread about the sheer power of the Embers, they came to be hunted and captured…and so the War for Ember began…
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier – £12.99
When family is all you have left…how far will you go to protect it?
After society was ripped apart by undead hands, pockets of civilization emerge from the chaos. But at what cost? Can the living be trusted on this new frontier?
The Walking Dead: Season Two – £TBA
The Walking Dead: Season Two, a five-part game series that continues the story of Clementine, a young girl orphaned by the undead apocalypse. Left to fend for herself, she has been forced to learn how to survive in a world gone mad.
Caveman Chuck – £3.59
Caveman Chuck is a classic 2D platformer where you fight with dinosaurs in stone age. You’re taken back all the way to the Stone Age where you play the role of a crude caveman named Chuck. You’ll quickly realize he shares his cave with his wife, who is heavily invested in the relationship, and as things often have it, she yells at him rather frequently.
Refreshing Sideways Puzzle Ghost Hammer – £20.99
“Refreshing Sideways Puzzle Ghost Hammer” is puzzle game, you join Blocks with Hammer in.
Let’s challenge the mission with finding out the movements of Blocks falling sideways and down!
It’s Raining Fists and Metal – £5.99
Show your opponents what real Metal is! Fight your way to the top by blasting your opponents out of your altar of glory.
Conquer the stage and win the praise of the crowd in this spectacular brawler game! Remember, rhythm is the key to the gates of Metal!
New Switch demos
- The Touryst Demo
- Strike! Ten Pin Bowling DemoÂ
- Oh!Edo Towns Demo
- Pocket Clothier Demo
- The Pyraplex Demo
Next week: Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition, Super Tennis, Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator, It came from space and ate our brains, Actual Sunlight, Music Racer, Horse Farm, Sisters Royale: Five Sisters Under Fire, Eclipse: Edge of Light, Bookbound Brigade, Speaking Simulator, CODE SHIFTER, Skellboy, Prison Princess, Never Again, Aviary Attorney: Definitive Edition, Ash of Gods: Redemption, HYPERCHARGE Unboxed, Heroland, Reknum, Not Tonight: Take Back Control Edition, Milo’s Quest, Touchdown Pinball, and Willy Jetman: Astromonkey’s Revenge.