It’s a case of slim pickings on the PS4 and Xbox One this week. The same doesn’t apply to the Switch, which sees a slew of eShop releases. Nice to see not everything has changed.
There’s a reason behind the jam-packed line-up, however – many of the retro classics which formed the recent Double Dragon & Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle have gained standalone releases, now available for £4.49 apiece. Unless they are coming at a later date, Arc System Works seems to be sticking to the classics such as Double Dragon and River City Ransom – the lesser-known games from the collection are absent.
Scrolling shooter Galaxy Warfighter is one of the few new games to get the review treatment. Weirdly, the majority of new releases are currently eluding critics. Scores for the pixel-art affair are mixed so far, varying from 5/10 to 7/10.
VideoChums felt it deserved 3/5. “If you want to enjoy a laidback shoot ’em up without all the stress usually involved in the genre then you’ll surely have some fun here,†they said.
There are a few belated conversions too. These include the well-received futuristic weapon-based arena brawler Hyper Jam, and the Smash TV-inspired top-down shooter Freakout: Calamity TV Show.
Other new releases include sports sim AFL Evolution 2, the colourful Japanese Fortune Street-style board game Billion Road (which Nintendo World Report enjoyed), and Later Dates – an OAP dating sim. “It’s a lot like summer camp, but with orthopedic shoes, bridge clubs, and more jell-o,†reads the blurb.
New Switch eShop releases
AFL Evolution 2 – £49.99
Tight controls and smart AI help create a true reflection of the modern AFL game.
Pursue your goals with greater depth, now with improved draft, free agency and state leagues running simultaneously with the AFL!
Now includes Guernsey Creator along with Player and Team Management in the FanHub to create and share* your own dream team!
Arcade Archives PLUS ALPHA – £6.29
“PLUS ALPHA” is a shooting game released by JALECO in 1989.
To rescue the 7 kingdoms from tyranny, the warrior girls SELIA and RUMY set out in their fighter ships.
Each of the 3 types of fighter ships has their own unique attacks, so you can switch between them as you battle in style!
The “Arcade Archives” series has faithfully reproduced many classic Arcade masterpieces.
Players can change various game settings such as game difficulty, and also reproduce the atmosphere of arcade display settings at that time. Players can also compete against each other from all over the world with their high scores.
Please enjoy the masterpiece that built a generation for video games.
DOUBLE DRAGON – £4.49
In order to rescue your girlfriend “Marian,” use your legendary fighting style “Sosetsuken” to make your way through the street thugs!
Make good use of the new techniques you will unlock as you level up, and rescue Marian.
DOUBLE DRAGON â…¡: The Revenge – £4.49
The Lee brothers are back to avenge the death of Marian at the hands of the Shadow Warriors!
Fight your way through street gangs, ninjas, giant mutant fighters
as well as spiked ceilings and mechas with sharp claws, by using the newly acquired “Hyper uppercut” or the “Flying knee kick”!
Magicolors – £1.79
Play the well-known 3-piece alignment game of the same color, but with totally different mechanics;
Have fun in a Building block-style VOXEL setting;
Solve challenging puzzles in a unique way, interacting with the scenario using the resources acquired during the game.
Make War – £8.99
Do you want to lead great battles?
Make War will give you the opportunity to play as aliens, which have access to the march of time.
Make War is a tactical game with sandbox elements where you can place a great variety of weapons on the battlefield to perform a vast range of death and destruction.
Renegade – £4.49
Be the one to make all these lawless street gangs bite the dust!
To preserve peace in the city, Mr. K. takes a stand against the street gangs!
The amazing action game is back to life and you wouldn’t believe this is 8-bit action.
River City Ransom – £4.49
Play as Alex and Ryan and cross River City to fight street gangs
and save your girlfriend from the hands of a bad guy named “Slick.”
Improve your fighting experience by powering-up your characters in River City’s shops,
picking-up items for bonuses and using the trash bins and pipes you will find in its streets.
Come and enjoy the original River City Ransom gameplay, that is still being praised nowadays!
Purrs In Heaven – £6.29
Poor Lanna has gone to heaven following a tragic accident.
Fortunately, she has the chance to come back to life. Help the kitten pass all the tests and defeat the guardians, keepers of the 3 pieces of her soul. Do you accept the challenge?
Rocket Rabbit – Coin Race – £7.99
Help Rocket Rabbit race through the hills and tunnels chasing after coins!
Go upside down in the rabbit tunnels and defy gravity!
Jump to avoid the other running rabbits, sleeping turtles, crawling spiders and climbing groundhogs! Or jump on top of them to earn extra coins!
Use coins to buy powerups that will help you last longer and race further! Use cool powerups like invincibility, slo-mo and super speed to enhance your gameplay!
Rocket Rabbit is endless racing fun for the entire family!
Super Dodge Ball – £4.49
This isn’t your regular dodge ball,
you can’t just eliminate the whole team by hitting them with the ball; you’ll need to reduce the opposing team’s HP to zero to win the game!
Play as the newly formed American team and take on the world challenge!
Make good use of every character’s own unique super moves, and seize the victory!
The Casebook of Arkady Smith – £6.99
An open world investigation game set in a futuristic city.
Take on the role of Arkady Smith, the famous investigator.
Explore the vast city, search for hidden clues, solve fiendish puzzles and speak to elusive suspects.
Can you uncover the mystery of each crime?
while True: learn() – £12.99
while True: learn() is a puzzle/simulation game about even more puzzling stuff: machine learning, neural networks, big data and AI. But most importantly, it’s about understanding your cat.
In this game, you play as a coder who accidentally found out that their cat is extremely good at coding, but not as good at speaking human language. Now this coder (it’s you!) must learn all there is to know about machine learning and use visual programming to build a cat-to-human speech recognition system.
Billion Road – £35.99
The core objective in Billion Road is pretty straightforward—travel all across Japan and earn more money than anyone else. You earn money by landing on property squares with investment opportunities, like a sushi restaurant in Ginza or an animation goods store in Akihabara. After you invest, you’ll have to wait until March rolls around for those investments to pay off.
In the meantime, be on the lookout for errant monsters that may shower you with riches…or throw a wrench in your plans! You can also earn extra money by landing on item squares, which can either help you reach your own goals or simply ruin your rivals’ plans. If you finish the game with the most money…you win!
The Fox Awaits Me – £36.89
“The Fox Awaits Me” is a visual novel with multiple choices and endings that features stunning Live2D animation, and swings between sadness, high-energy comedy, and nail-biting fear.
Rover Wars – £8.99
What is this game anyway?
If you are up for a casual yet spicy cocktail of action and strategy, but not planning to spend hours learning how to play, then Rover Wars might just be your thing.
You jump straight into the action with your little Rover to start building factories and hurting enemy units. The tactics in the game are in the resource management, and the placement and type of factories. Factories poop out minions that will find their way to the opposing buildings and destroy them. Once you destroy the enemy base, you win. simple.
Galaxy Warfighter – £6.29
Taking its roots from the classic games in the shoot’em up genre, «Galaxy Warfighter» conveys the old ideas in a new way. Piloting your fighter ship, you have to fight hordes of enemies with unpredictable strategies and attack schemes.
Well, and if you think that the usual enemies are too easy, «Galaxy Warfighter» will put you face to face with the ruthless bosses. You should not underestimate them!
Later Daters – £6.79
You’re the newest resident at Ye OLDE retirement community, where you’ll meet a cast of sexy seniors who are all dying (not literally) to meet you. It’s a lot like summer camp, but with orthopedic shoes, bridge clubs, and more jell-o. It’s an adjustment as you settle in, but who knows: maybe these will turn out to be the best years of your life!
Adventure, passion, and transformation are not experiences reserved for the young. Later Daters makes challenging ageism sexy and teaches poignant lessons about our capacity for love.
Lost Artifacts: Golden Island – £7.89
Claire and her team are in trouble again. Their airplane flew into a terrible storm and crashed on an uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean. When they woke up, our heroes went out in search of help. After wandering a while, Claire found a village of atlanteans and offered to help them get their homeland back, and to teach the wicked ruler of the underwater world a lesson.
Dare to travel an unknown country full of secrets and mysticism in this exciting casual strategy game, Lost Artifacts Golden Island!
Piczle Cross Adventure – £8.99
Piczle Cross Adventure takes the classic nonogram logic-puzzle and turns it into something never before experienced in the genre: a story-driven, RPG-style 2D graphical adventure! Follow our heroes Score-chan, Gig and professor Matrix as they tackle their most daunting challenge yet.
Sniper – £8.09
Grab your sniper rifle and your silenced pistol and kill all the invading soldiers on the island!
Sniper is a tactical first person shooter game where the goal of the game is to kill all the invading soldiers without been seen and killed, so being stealthy is crucial to succeed.
Are you skilled enough to kill all the invading soldiers with a limited amount time and ammunition to complete each wave and as you progress through the game the waves will get harder and harder and with a limited amount of ammo you will need to use it wisely, however at the start of every wave you are given bonus ammo.
A Fold Apart – £16.99
Lightning Rod Games presents A Fold Apart: an award-winning puzzle game that explores the emotional rollercoaster of a long-distance relationship — in a world of folding paper!
Hyper Jam – £13.49
Hyper Jam is a fresh new arena brawler with a dynamic perk drafting system that makes each match different from the last. The hard-hitting fusion of lethal weapons, stackable perks, furious combat, and a killer synthwave soundtrack makes Hyper Jam a multiplayer experience that’ll keep you coming back for more.
Blind Men – £4.99
As the nephew of a retired super villain, there’s nothing Keegan wants more than to become one himself — and what better way than to join the League of Evil? All he needs to do is commit a crime to complete his application.
Unfortunately, Keegan soon finds himself in more trouble than he could have ever imagined when his plans are interrupted by a couple of spies from opposing agencies.
Pick choices that drastically change the story. Will Keegan’s plans be thwarted or allow him to be successful?
Freakout: Calamity TV Show – £8.00
Freakout: Calamity TV Show is a juicy Top-Down-Dual-Stick-Shooter inspired by old school arcade games and more recent Die & Retry shooters.
In a disturbed dystopia filled with mutants and killing machines, you’re the star of a reality show which might get a bit too real. Fight your way through the deadly enemy waves, join the revolution, and try to take down the evil Fizzy Corp.
Theme Park Simulator – £12.99
Do you like Theme Parks?
Enjoy with a 100% pure simulator experience.
Discover a world of fun with “Theme Park Simulator” and enjoy our incredible simulators.
ZHED – £2.69
No timers, no clocks, no stars and no tricks, just pure puzzles for you to enjoy. It’s the perfect brain-teaser that lets you train focus, concentration and memory.
Finding Teddy 2 : Definitive Edition – £8.99
In this side scrolling platform adventure, you will need to upgrade your equipment and fight the evil forces of Anguis the Magician. Your mission will be complete when you’ll find your way out of this nightmare.
Kawaii Deathu Desu – £4.49
In Kawaii Deathu Desu, supernatural beings find themselves incarnated as cute Japanese idols! Halfway between cute and terrifying, these hellish idols start a competition that spans the world with a singular goal; to decide who can claim the throne of the underworld. What type of competition will this be, however? As beings of the underworld, the next to inherit the throne will be determined by whoever can collect the most souls from faithful followers. With that in mind, as idols, there’s no better way to victory than mowing your own fans at shows!
Save Your Nuts – £11.39
Crafty squirrels organize a tournament to challenge other animals in a physics-based competition for the ages. Make daring plays alongside your teammates, grab food power-ups, and tackle your opponents to steal their nuts in this wild multiplayer-focused party game!
Doubles Hard – £5.39
Doubles Hard is a unique puzzle game taking place in a three-dimensional arena. The player’s task is to collect diamonds while avoiding boulders falling from above and other elements. You also need to run from opponents, which makes difficult for the player to pass through the game stages. There are several different types of blocks in the game that make up the board.
Boot Hill Bounties – £12.19
Boot Hill Bounties is the second game in a series that sees Kid and his companions journey deeper into the darkest corners of the Wild West and come face to face with the evil Creed Little, Stampede Sally, Tuco Delgado, Scorpion Saint and Burning Crow. An epic Wild West adventure packed with excitement, intrigue, terror and the occasional dose of humor.
Path of Giants – £6.19
Guide three explorers; Bern, Matchi and Totch on their quest for a lost treasure through icy caverns and snow covered cliffs. Swap between the explorers as you use their teamwork to help solve the puzzles.
Experience a calming atmospheric game with over 80 puzzles split into beautifully handcrafted levels. Control three adorable characters, use their teamwork, leave no one behind, and hopefully find some gold!
Super Pixel Racers – £11.69
The game lets you hop straight into the driver’s seat, but advanced features let players customize their racing experience even further. Your winnings let you purchase new cars of individual driving quality and upgrade schemes, from a pixelated F500 to your very own 16-bit Lancer Evolution. As the game progresses, find out which car suits the different disciplines and yourself best.
CAN ANDROIDS PRAY: BLUE – £5.79
Can Androids Pray: Blue on Nintendo Switch is the definitive edition of the critically-acclaimed 3D narrative game about two angry femme mech pilots at the end of the world, and God.
As featured at the V&A Dundee Museum, A.MAZE 2019, Game Devs of Color Expo 2019, Wordplay 7, and the EGX Rezzed Leftfield Collection.
New Switch demos
- PICROSS S4
- Sky Rogue
- The Casebook of Arkady Smith
Next week: Streets of Rage 4, TRIALS of MANA, Car Trader Simulator, Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown, Help Will Come Tomorrow, ITTA, TaniNani, War & Romance Visual Novel, eSports Legend, Code: Realize ~Future Blessings~, MotoGP 20, Damaged In Transit, Little Busters! Converted Edition, Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition, Yumeutsutsu Re:After, Yumeutsutsu Re:Master, Archaica: The Path Of Light, NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4 ROAD TO BORUTO, Guard Duty, and OMG Police – Car Chase TV Simulator.