After launching in Japan just days before Christmas last year, the horizontal shooter Cotton Fantasy finally arrives in Europe this Friday. It seems to have been worth the wait – this is a brand-new entry with modern visuals that’s going down well with critics. We’ll be reviewing it shortly, but initial impressions are that it’s a worthy entry in the long-running series.
Another retro revival is on the cards too. Snow Bros. Nick & Tom Special sees the cult classic single-screen platformer (think Bubble Bobble) gain a HD remaster, adding new levels and music. It’s due at retail too, with extra content, but not for another month or so. It’s a series we have a soft spot for – our local Chinese takeaway had a Snow Bros. arcade cab for many years.
Then there’s Deadcraft, Marvelous’ zombie survival game with crafting, corpse farming, a morality system, slasher combat, and more. It’s looking quite violent and silly, although the visuals do appear a little scrappy in the screenshots. We’ll be taking a closer look soon.
Now for something completely different. They Always Run is a space-western 2D platformer with a three-armed lead. Last year’s PC version was well-received, gaining praise for its fast pace and smooth animation.
Sometimes You’s Behind Closed Doors is one we reviewed earlier this week. You play as a developer trapped in a series of mini-games, where they eventually learn the truth about the company they work for. Despite costing less than a fiver it’s hard to recommend – the mini-games aren’t much fun, and it also crashed on us a couple of times.
Other releases include the cyberpunk visual novel Divination, faux NES package The Legend of the Dragonflame Highschool Collection, retro shooter Galacticon, and the dark point ‘n clicker Goetia 2.
New Switch eShop releases
Snow Bros. Nick & Tom Special – £17.99
Two snowball-hurling snowman brothers power their way through against various enemies. A blast from the past, Nick & Tom are back in this fun and easy-to-play action platformer!
Welcome to DEADCRAFT, a new twist on the zombie survival-action genre!
In a world ravaged by a deadly virus, half-zombie Reid must survive not only by taking an axe, weedwhacker— anything he can get his hands on—to hordes of the undead, but by growing some zombie followers of his own.
Choose your allies and enemies wisely as you try to make it through the apocalypse alive!
Something sinister is in the making, the Willows are vanishing from Fairyland and the Fairy Queen asks Silk to seek the witch Nata de Cotton for help. For a lifetime all-you-can-eat willow supply, as she has an insatiable craving for them, Cotton is willing to help out her old friend and embark on another adventure together.
This brand-new game from the long-standing Cotton series sets the stage for another fantastic adventure, featuring a total of 6 iconic playable characters, including stars from other games! Each character has their own mechanics and attacks, allowing you to choose from different playstyles and find the right match!
While staying true to the iconic Cotton style, several new shoot ’em up mechanics are introduced, like Psyvariar’s Buzz System or Sanvein’s Time Mode.
PigShip and the Giant Wolf – £7.19
In PigShip and the Giant Wolf, you will help a little piglet save his brothers from the Wolf Army and defeat them. Are you ready for a classic Shoot ’em up?
Use the online ranking to compare your best scores with those of friends and players around the world.
The Legend of the Dragonflame Highschool Collection – £4.99
Master the street fighting skills of jumping, punching, kicking, and dodging to defeat your enemies and advance to the next level.
You can throw away items, buy food and learn new powerful special attacks. Develop your character to enhance your profile as a martial arts champion.
You can also use punches and kicks to send trash cans and soccer balls flying and hitting enemies.
In the first installment, you will start a journey to rescue your sister.
In the second installment of the series picks up the suspense from the end of the first game, and takes the adventure to the next chapter of the beatdown, this time during a school trip to Osaka.
Help The Egg to collect coins and power ups in this endless runner. Unlock new characters and defeat enemies.
Egg Runner is a simple yet addictive game that will bring you hours of fun.
Congratulations! You just got hired by Dewitt Corp. for their memory program, your job starts tomorrow.
Our customers come to us to solve their current problems. Your task is to dig into their past and find the right memories to erase to change their present and future.
For each customer, you will receive a series of personal information on your PC that you can analyze. Choose carefully, every memory removed can have enormous effects on the present and future of the customer.
You will be sent to an isolated place to be able to work with peace of mind, we will keep in touch via email.
Galacticon is a video game with the look and feel of arcade cabinet games from the early 80’s that rescues the unbeatable gameplay and fun of those classics, but with touches of “puzzle” to increase bonus points and enter your score in the local high score table (or even in the worldwide leaderboard).
Guild of Dungeoneering Ultimate Edition – £17.99
Instead of controlling the hero you build the dungeon around them. Using cards drawn from your Guild decks, you lay down rooms, monsters, traps and of course loot! Meanwhile your hero is making their own decisions on where to go and what to fight. But will they be strong enough to take on the deepest dungeons? In between dungeon runs you manage your Guild, building new rooms to attract new classes of adventurer and expand your decks of cards with more powerful items.
Without any inventory, the player has to solve puzzles to make their way in this world, gathering information and fundamental elements to get their soul back into the body, using only the power of possession they received as a pure soul.
“Hello! My name is Emily and I just lost my job. So I decided to chase my dream and try to make it as a writer. I have the support of my wife Cleo, and enough savings for a month. After that, we’ll see what happens. But I know I can do it! I just need to stick with writing and submitting short stories each day.”
You play Emily, a struggling writer, trying to make it in the big bad world of short story publishing. You walk around your house, getting ideas, and writing stories. Try not to get too distracted, or you will get sad that you hadn’t written during the day. Get too sad, and it’s game over. She gives up and gets a new job doing something far less fun and stressful.
The galaxy’s inhabitants have been swamped by crime since the fall of the empire. Being able to find anyone, anywhere has become a highly prized skill.
Aiden is a three-armed bounty hunter who must hunt down the most dangerous and elusive cutthroats in the galaxy.
Some bounties are rewarded with money, others with valuable information that Aidan can use to find the people who set him on this path – all while getting embroiled in a galaxy-wide conspiracy.
The Future You’ve Been Dreaming Of – £13.49
Take on the role of a Zashiki-Warashi, a house-bound spirit that can bring good fortune, and peer into Sachi’s life (though she can’t see you). You’ll see some of her more vulnerable moments and have no choice but to intervene from time to time, but it’s all to guide her toward a bright future!
Give her direction while she’s at home and help her grow her parameters in all kinds of ways. Your guidance will determine the future she ultimately heads toward. There are 20 total paths awaiting Sachi, and it’s up to you to help her find them!
Trapped inside the room full of screens is a pair of hands that can predict the future. Ask a question and draw the runes, and these hands will unveil the forthcoming. This is the future you live in, a small world, a city full of uncertainty and doubt, violence and obsession. In a time when people have begun to reject life as an unwanted burden, they’ll have nothing to trust. They’ll come, they’ll seek, and you will give them answers.
You are the Diviner, an enigmatic fortune teller using ancient runes to discern the future even as the technology of a cyberpunk metropolis surrounds you. Converse with your clients to learn their stories, then arrange the runes they’ve drawn to decide the responses you give them. Good or bad, these answers hold the power to stir the fate of humans and robots alike, to change the outcome of this tale in meaningful ways, to deal in death or help your clients avoid it. The decisions and consequences are grey, requiring your intuition as Diviner to bring an end to the madness of a despairing populace.
Behind Closed Doors: A Developer’s Tale – £4.49
You play as Ethan, who works in the office for a small video game development company and trying to support his pregnant wife. It is just a normal week for Ethan: waking up, going to work, coming home, go to bed and repeat day after day. But then, something strange happens. Ethan gets an unusual phone call in the middle of the night, and is somehow teleported to another dimension. Ethan must complete a few unusual trials and try to get back to the real world.
Regular Factory: Escape Room – £8.99
You don’t work in a regular assembly line. Will you unravel the truth?
Regular Factory is an escape room that will test your skills. Solve puzzles, decode secret codes, find hidden objects, and investigate the different rooms of the secret factory where you work while you discover the dark truth.
Solve this mystery by exploring each of the rooms in which this adventure takes place. Will you be able to escape?
There Will Be No Turkey This Christmas – £2.49
On Christmas Eve, a small turkey manages to get inside a barrel, hiding from the Silva family that intended to roast it. Now disguised, it begins a saga of running, hiding, and running a little further in search of freedom.
Next week: Kao the Kangaroo, Redout 2, Remote Life, PAC-MAN MUSEUM+, Pocky & Rocky Reshrined, Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers, Clan O’Conall and the Crown of the Stag, Farm Tycoon, Freezer Pops, Touken Ranbu Warriors, Blow & Fly, Amazing Superhero Squad, Sakura Succubus 5, Senren * Banka, MY LITTLE PONY: A Maretime Bay Adventure, and Super Toy Cars Offroad.