Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ launch is impeccably timed, arriving at a time when people desperately need a form of escapism. You’ll find no better way than embarking on Tom Nook’s package holiday; a voyage to a remote location with no nightmarish supermarkets.
As noted in our review round-up, we were surprised by the number of perfect scores New Horizons has received. 8s and 9s were always a given; top marks from a dozen outlets less so. It’s the quality of life improvements that helped it snag the most prestigious of accolades, along with plenty of ideas that push the franchise forward.
While the Switch is without DOOM Eternal this week, requiring some extra development time, it does gain DOOM 64. And at the bargain price of £3.99. This early N64 release was developed by Midway, leading to a few design choices you may not expect, but it was still worthy of the DOOM name. Many refer to it as the “forgotten DOOM†due to it being overshadowed by GoldenEye just a few months after it launched.
The first review out the door is a respectable 7/10 from The Metro. “Doom 64 is a relic but while first person shooters usually age faster than most other genres this is still highly enjoyable, and its balance of mindful violence and environmental puzzle-solving works very well,†they said.
Surprise release Exit the Gungeon is an altogether different shooter launching this week, putting a side-scrolling twist on the original. It’s bullet hell dungeon climber, in which the heroes carry forever changing weapons. Expect reviews to surface over the next few days.
Then there’s La-Mulana 1 & 2: Hidden Treasures Edition, a full-price package offering two treasure-laden and tough as brass Metroidvanias. The Metacritic currently stands at 80%, including a lofty 9/10 from Noisy Pixels: “If you want a game that will challenge your wits and gaming skills, look no further than La Mulana or La Mulana 2. Although they can sometimes feel like they are a bit too challenging or their puzzles are too obtuse, I think this is precisely what Takumi Naramura intended. As far as Metroidvanias go, La Mulana 1 & 2 are first class.â€
Other releases for this week include picross sequel Travel Mosaics 2: Roman Holiday, casual hidden object puzzler The Secret Order: Shadow Breach, Bomberman-blaster Explosive Jake – from the creators of last month’s Bucket Knight – and the return of Ittle Dew 2+.
Failing that, there’s Pooplers – a game about pooping babies. We’ll stick to DOOM, thanks.
New Switch eShop releases
Animal Crossing: New Horizons – £49.99
A carefree new life is just beyond the horizon! Step off the plane and onto your very own deserted island where new friends, discoveries and opportunities are waiting for you. Paradise is what you make it in Animal Crossing: New Horizons for Nintendo Switch!
This Strange Realm Of Mine – £11.99
This Strange Realm Of Mine is a First Person Shooter mixed with Poetry and Psychological Horror.
In REALM you explore your afterlife. On your quest you’ll find characters in different situations, with their problems and thoughts on life. You can invite them to your tavern, a safe-haven in the midst of all the chaos. You’ll also meet Ulrich, a spiritual guide who’ll take you through your experience as a lost soul.
You’ll come across monstrous beings who are eager to put their teeth in you. There are several ways to rid yourself of them, ranging from guns to melee weapons. Be ready to get your hands dirty and watch the blood drip slowly from the roof and walls.
Deep Diving Adventures – £15.99
Deep Diving Adventures will enable you to experience what it takes to be a modern diver. With relaxing exploration, you will discover the uncharted waters of the world while carefully monitoring your oxygen level and decompression. Gather forsaken relics, visit sunken vessels, discover unknown species and be rewarded by Professor Adams for your findings. Each submerge gives you the opportunity to uncover mysteries that would prefer to remain forever forgotten, such as the lost city of Atlantis.
Travel Mosaics 2: Roman Holiday – £6.29
Travel Mosaics 2 brings a unique take on a classic nonogram puzzle, offering varying difficulty settings, recognizable and fun images, trivia questions and much more.
The Walkers are going on a sightseeing tour to the most famous attractions Rome has to offer! Tag along and explore charming historic locations of the Eternal City as you solve colorful nonograms – it’s a journey of a lifetime!
Super Bit Blaster XL – £3.19
Your ship can not stop moving; so you must turn and use your boost/brake to keep from crashing into an ever increasing amount of enemies and obstacles
Your ship is always shooting, so make sure to pick up more ammo and the wide variety of awesome power ups, pick ups and boosts to help you survive longer
Get the highest score you can while collecting coins to buy more ships that are faster, shoot faster, or have more shields
Knight Swap – £0.89
The goal in each level is to move the white knights to where the black knights are placed (and vice versa) using the features of the board.
One simple goal, taken to a completely new level of complexity and originality.
Sky Racket – £11.39
Sky Racket is the world’s first Shmup Breaker, mixing the classic genres of shoot ’em ups and block breakers!
Blast bullets back at baddies while flying over whimsical worlds filled with vivid, kooky colors! Grab your laser tennis racket, a stylish scarf and your best buddies to battle a horde of fluffy enemies trying to blow you up back to the ground.
Exit the Gungeon – £8.99
Exit the Gungeon is a bullet hell dungeon climber immediately following the adventures of the misfit ‘Gungeoneers’ and their journey for personal absolution in Enter the Gungeon. The Gungeon has become a paradox and is collapsing! Armed with an ever-changing weapon, an insatiable need to loot, and the trusty dodge roll, each of our heroes must ascend and escape via their own unique route of increasingly perilous elevators. Battle against the last and most bitter of the Gundead at a frantic pace, slowing down just long enough to chat with some familiar faces… and a few new ones. Shifting rooms, enemies, bosses, bizarre weapons and items all combine to ensure that no two attempts to Exit the Gungeon are the same.
Top Speed: Drag & Fast Racing – £6.99
Choose any car you want from an astounding selection of 69 cars – you can drive classic stock rides, new heavily modded dragsters, and even national police vehicles from 5 different countries.
Nothing will stop you from burning rubber on the streets. All races take place off the grid, away from the traffic, so you can get crazy with burnout, plow the asphalt, and race without limits.
Explosive Jake – £4.49
Explosive Jake – classic arcade game. Not only humans afraid of dark and deep dungeons. Our hero – a little skeleton with unhealthy crave of explosions, which trying to escape from dangerous castle dungeons. Help him to avoid enemies and explode the way out.
Thunder Paw – £4.99
Thunder was out playing with his ball in the fields, when he suddenly heard a loud explosion near his house! He rushed home, worried about his parents, only to find no one was there. Just a single letter that said his parents had been kidnapped! It’s up to Thunder to rescue his parents!
Dominate your enemies with a trusty weapon by your side! Each defeated enemy will drop special gems that make your gun even more powerful!
Quell Memento – £5.99
Set within an old abandoned house, the player restores order to the jumbled memories of the last occupant, and in doing so embarks on a haunting journey of self-discovery and reflection.
Suitable for all ages, this is an experience that will stay with you long after you put it down.
Mist Hunter – £5.39
Combat – frantic combat that incentives to use and change all the weapons constantly. Almost every enemy has weakness to the Mist it has been corrupted by. Use the same type of Mist as the enemy to obliterate them in seconds.
Fluid movement system – gives a high degree of traversal freedom from the get go. Double jumps and dashes that can be later upgraded and infused with special traits.
100 of upgrades – that can drastically change the play style
LA-MULANA 2 – £22.49
Experience a classic tale of exploration, puzzle-solving, and deadly action with LA-MULANA 2!
Renowned archaeologist Lemeza Kosugi has gone missing, and only his daughter Lumisa can find him! Enter Eg-Lana, an upside-down version of the legendary ruins of La-Mulana. Think fast, act fast, and whip hard in order to overcome dangerous traps and elaborate puzzles in your quest to uncover unfathomable secrets. What will you find at the end of your journey: triumph, or defeat?
LA-MULANA – £13.49
Experience a classic tale of exploration, puzzle-solving, and deadly action with LA-MULANA!
Your destiny awaits in La-Mulana! Take control of archaeologist Lemeza Kosugi and navigate through puzzles, traps, and deadly Guardians in order to claim the Secret Treasure of Life. You’ll need sharp wits, quick reflexes, and most importantly, all the courage you can muster. Will you succeed in unraveling the secrets of La-Mulana, or will you fall victim to the dangers that surround you?
Diabolic – £4.49
This Slasher RPG takes you to a dark fantasy world where hordes of monsters now rule over a once prosperous land. Fight them with a dynamic and intuitive combat system and level up your skills to defeat all 10 levels and the final Dragon-boss.
There are various enemies, each requiring a different approach from you. Attribute your skill points to develop a personal build throughout the game. You can choose to become an unstoppable tank, a deadly archer or a powerful mage, or combine all of these aspects in a unique way.
Lust for Darkness: Dawn Edition – £11.69
A special edition of the psychological horror of seeking satisfaction on the border of two intertwining worlds. An intriguing plot with erotic and occult themes guides the player’s character through the Yelvertons’ Victorian mansion and a perverse land.
Pooplers – £8.09
The game is diversified by power-ups and a mother who refers each toddler to a cot as soon as she sees her child pooping on the floor.
Staying in a cot reduces the chance of winning in a given round. A humorous game, however, has a number of elements that diversify the gameplay and allow you to create tactics.
Visit beautiful maps, to poop around. House, farm, seabed or even space ship.
DOOM 64 – £3.99
Celebrate DOOM’s 25th anniversary with DOOM 64, originally released on Nintendo 64 in 1997. Take the fight to Hell at home or on-the-go with DOOM 64’s triumphant return to Nintendo Switch!
Fight against demons in your crusade to hunt down the Mother of Demons and stop Hell’s invasion. As you battle through more than 30 action-packed levels, be on the lookout for enhanced weapons and secrets to help you put an end to the demonic threat.
Ittle Dew 2+ – £11.29
Ittle and Tippsie crash onto yet another island filled with loot, puzzles and mysterious inhabitants! They immediately set out to steal eight pieces of a raft from increasingly improbable locations including beaches, prairies, an art exhibit and some dude’s basement.
Ittle Dew 2 is a charming and humorous 3D Action Adventure game with a focus on exploration and combat. Tackle the game’s dungeons in any order and discover the many secrets of its expansive overworld. With four main weapons, combat and puzzling is streamlined, yet upgradeable inventory items add RPG-like character progression!
Nerdook Bundle Vol. 1 – £26.99
One-man indie developer Nerdook is a master at making games that are easy to pick up and play, but impossible to put down. This collection includes three Nerdook gems: Monster Slayers, Reverse Crawl, and Vertical Drop Heroes.
Indie Puzzle Bundle Vol 1 – £35.99
Entertain your brain with four perfectly perplexing puzzle games! This bundle contains Glass Masquerade, Letter Quest Remastered, Pipe Push Paradise, and Slayaway Camp: Butcher’s Cut.
Factotum 90 – £6.99
You’re in deep space and something’s collided with the ship. Main power is offline and you’re trapped. It’s lucky you have access to this terminal. It’s a little old but with these two deck robots and some clever thinking you might be able to get power back online and save the day.
Take control of two walker robots as you tackle 30 decks that include engineering, labortories and high security sectors. The robots cannot be operated at the same time so you have to alternate between them, figuring out how to use them as a team to make it through each deck. Switch between the walkers at any time and make use of switches, lifts, bombs, energy beams and teleports as you aim to restore power, reactivate the life support and solve the mystery of the collision. An unknown voice on the other end of the terminal is your only guide.
Beyond Enemy Lines: Essentials – £8.99
Beyond Enemy Lines: Essentials continues the trilled and intense combat experience from Beyond Enemy Lines: Covert Operations with a new campaign, additional Single Missions and weapons to utilize.
Think your way in, observe the enemies and sneak into their base. Rescue an as hostage held agent from an unknown arms dealer, adapt to changing weather conditions, and use the the darkness of the night to your favor in this unforgiving, intense experience where skill and tactical decisions matter!
SeaBed – £17.99
SeaBed is a critically acclaimed yuri-themed mystery visual novel told through the perspectives of three separate characters: Mizuno Sachiko, a designer plagued by hallucinations of her past lover; Narasaki Hibiki, Sachiko’s friend and a psychiatrist researching the workings of human memories; and Takako, Sachiko’s former lover who has been rapidly forgetting her past, including how or why the two women drifted apart despite being together since childhood.
All three live in different worlds, but seek the same goal. To separate truth from illusion. To make sense of their own lives.
Ghost Sweeper – £4.49
After many centuries the dark lord is resurrected from his ashes, coming back to his castle and cursing the lands all around!!
Now many ghosts and undead wander freely haunting every place, giving to the people only one option, escape!
But when the hopes seem fade away… usually the heroes appear! The “Ghost Sweepers” are here! Ready to kick out some clumsy monsters!
The Secret Order: Shadow Breach – £13.49
There are dark secrets that have an annoying tendency to crawl back into the light, escaping oblivion. But there is also Sarah Pennington, the most skilled agent of the ever-watching Secret Order, who is there to face them.
Join Sarah, a member of the order of the griffins, in her biggest and most challenging adventure. The mysterious dragon clan has unearthed an item of a past long forgotten and now the mystery hidden within this relic threatens to devour the world as we know it. As Sarah, you will have to stop this monstrous incursion with your wit and the help of your fellow agents. Your investigation will take you to distant places, both in space and time, to discover the origin of this adversity. Prove once again that the world is safe, while the order of the griffins is on the watch.
Silent World – £3.99
The world you once knew has been lost to nuclear devastation. Facing this new world alone, you begin your search for other survivors…
Mutants roam the demolished city, and you’ll have to move silently to avoid them and deadly traps scattered throughout the modern ruins.
All you have to help you is a single match, which you’ll have to use to light your way and find a safe path out of this hostile world.
Dezatopia – £14.39
Strange and unusual creatures inhabited Earth’s underground, unknown to humankind. This was until Momoko, a fashion-obsessed high school girl, accidentally discovered them. Together, they plotted to combine the civilizations above and below the surface to create a new world: Dezatopia.
New Switch demos
- Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King
- Moving Out
- TRIALS of MANA
Next week: Saints Row IV: Re-Elected, Gigantosaurus The Game, Children of Zodiarcs, ONE PIECE: PIRATE WARRIORS 4, Rhythm of the Gods, Bug Academy, Colorgrid, Deep Sky Derelicts: Definitive Edition, Hyperspace Delivery Service, Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York, Mekorama, Grand Guilds, Dream Gallery, Sin Slayers: Enhanced Edition, NecroWorm, Trailer Trashers, Railway Empire – Nintendo Switch Edition, and Repressed.