Annapurna Interactive is on a roll of late – something that doesn’t look set to end soon. Stylish speed running FPS Neon White is their latest to wow critics, with review scores being a mixture of 8s and 9s. At the time of typing, it’s one of the best-reviewed games of the month.
Not only does it boast slick presentation, but it also features a twist – weapons can be exchanged for God-like powers. Elements from other genres are present too, including ideas pilfered from visual novels, dating sims, and card-based roguelikes.
“From its excellent writing, music, and presentation to its intense and satisfying core gameplay, Neon White is one of the most exciting things we’ve played all year, and it’s a game we can’t see ourselves putting down for a long time as we try to best our previous times, “ said Nintendo Life.
Reviews of the anticipated TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge are emerging too, and it’s good news for fans – the Metacritic score for the Switch version currently stands at 85%, with a couple of outlets dishing up top marks. Most seem to agree that it’s on-par with Streets of Rage 4 – high praise indeed.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is so very far from being just a cheap nostalgia play; it’s a lovingly crafted, action-packed experience with fun and playful callbacks to classic Turtles games, a pantheon it will surely be joining,” said Nintendo World Report.
If you’re into scrolling beat’em ups, you’re in luck – Final Vendetta is also out this week. This ‘90s arcade style throwback comes from the Bitmap Bureau, creators of the excellent Xeno Crisis and Battle Axe. They’ve managed to work their magic on multiple genres so far, giving us reason to believe this will be another gem. It’s due both at retail and on the eShop.
Then there’s Horgihugh and Friends, a 16-bit style pixel art shooter from Japanese studio PiXEL. We’ve been playing it over the last couple of days and found that Parodius is a reasonable comparison thanks to its cutesy, colourful, visuals, and its line of outlandish bosses. It’s also due both at retail and the eShop. Look out for a review soon.
Jumanji: The Curse Returns makes a surprise appearance too. No, this isn’t another movie tie-in from Outright Games – it’s a four-player digital board game from a smaller indie developer, which also features mini-games. The PC version gained mixed reviews on Steam. Zorro: The Chronicles is another licensed game creeping out of the shadows, taking the form of a third-person stealthy hack ‘n slasher. Based on a CGI TV show, it’s aimed at younger gamers.
Other new releases include the surprisingly dark action RPG Omori, low-fi reclamation puzzler Cloud Gardens – which Nintendo Life rather enjoyed – colourful autonomous factory sim Autonauts, PSone style shooter Thunder Kid II: Null Mission, destruction game LumbearJack, and the turn-based RPG The Hand of Merlin.
And if you think this week is stacked, just wait until next week. It’s a big one!
New Switch eShop releases
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge – £22.49
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge features groundbreaking gameplay rooted in timeless classic brawling mechanics, brought to you by the beat ’em up experts at Dotemu (Streets of Rage 4) and Tribute Games. Bash your way through gorgeous pixel art environments and slay tons of hellacious enemies with your favorite Turtle, each with his own skills and moves – making each run unique! Choose a fighter, use radical combos to defeat your opponents and experience intense combats loaded with breathtaking action and outrageous ninja abilities. Stay sharp as you face off against Shredder and his faithful Foot Clan alone, or grab your best buds and play with up to four players simultaneously!
Neon White is a lightning fast first-person action game about exterminating demons in Heaven. You are White, an assassin handpicked from Hell to compete with other demon slayers for a chance to live permanently in Heaven. The other assassins seem familiar, though… did you know them in a past life?
Ye OLDE Cribbage Club: A Later Daters Game – £5.39
Cozy up with your favorite Ye OLDE residents with a cracking cribbage contest.
What is cribbage? Only the best board and card game combo ever played, enjoyed by many a senior citizen and old soul. Count card combos to peg your way through the board and crush your opponent. Chat with the Later Daters NPCs and hear their stories along the way.
The Ye OLDE Cribbage Club is a part of the Later Daters game series. Later Daters is an award-winning dating sim where you play as an octogenarian looking for love, featuring seven charming datable characters.
When his kids board a bus for a suspicious field trip, Dadish sets off to find them before they’re turned into radish soup! Along the way he’ll splash through a sewer, get lost in the desert, ride a dolphin, and reluctantly reunite with his estranged spouse. Help Dadish rescue his children once more, in his most fun and challenging adventure yet.
Thunder Kid II: Null Mission – £6.99
The Robot Empire is back, and this time, they’re kidnapping all the humans! Take the role of Thunder Kid once again, rescue the hostages and track down the enemy’s mysterious new leader before it’s too late! Take down enemy bots and massive enemies in a unique blend of retro style that can be enjoyed by casual players and speedrunners alike.
Like its predecessor, Thunder Kid II: Null Mission is a low-poly 3D run ‘n’ gun action game controlled from behind the main character, shifting the perspective of genre classics and adding bullet hell elements while retaining its hallmark features. You’ll have to run, jump and shoot your way across colorful and varied 3D environments, from caves and swamps to cityscapes and even the skies, all set to an energizing chiptune soundtrack!
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 portrays the aging process as a rollicking romp and reminds us of what the elderly can teach us about our capacity for love.
Remember if the chairs are a-rockin’ don’t come a-knockin!
We offer you an interesting game with a lot of puzzles in which you need to look for differences between two almost identical images. Do you think that they are the same at all? Then look closely and you will definitely see that the first impression is deceptive. The theme of the game is entirely devoted to camping and summer vacation, so it is sure to inspire you to new tourist achievements.
Choose your playstyle: no matter if front line combat monster, mage or ranged fighter it’s in your hands how you want to develop your character. Every action has consequences, so make your decisions wisely. Death may be just around the corner.
Three years have passed since Count Uria´s plots. The Vanquishers of the Nine Hordes long parted ways but life in Aventuria went on. Cassia, a young woman of noble descent, has only one goal: She wants to claim the Shark Throne, no matter the price; and be it only for one day.
Unfortunately, there are two problems that potentially foil her plans. First of all, she spends her days incarcerated in a dungeon and secondly, there is already a man on her throne: Marwan. She is neither fond nor proficient in matters of diplomacy or politics, so she chooses a more… practical approach. She intends to break out of prison and overthrow Marwan to claim the throne herself. For this, she needs strong allies. She needs to recruit an army of Sellswords and rally the Vanquishers of the Nine Hordes around her.
Sounds like a solid plan, doesn’t it? But then again, how cunning must one be to escape the dungeon’s walls; and how reckless must one be to gather and command the worst scum of the realms?
The Hand of Merlin is a turn-based rogue-lite RPG in which Arthurian legend clashes with cosmic horror. Recruit a company of up to three mortal heroes and guide them in spirit on a desperate journey from Albion to Jerusalem. Explore a richly-imagined medieval setting on the brink of apocalypse. Trade with merchants, improve your heroes and unearth ancient relics. Search for the lost fragments of your soul, scattered across the multiverse – and save as many worlds as you can.
JUMANJI: The Curse Returns – £14.99
Get ready – the jungle’s coming to challenge you! With every roll of the dice, dangerous wildlife escapes into the town and can only be stopped by you reaching the center of the board. Be careful, if the jungle overpowers you and your team – everyone loses!
I Love Finding Critters! – Collector’s Edition – £8.99
I Love Finding Critters is a classic hidden object game where you can search for a huge assortment of animals!
Squirrels, hamsters, chicks, ducks, and so many more!
Find them all in beautiful scenic locations and solve puzzles and play mini games as you go along.
Complexity and speed! Certainly, Supaplex HARD will require greater preparations! There are many tasks that need relatively long planning and quick responses. New ports have been added here, that switch on gravity and invisible walls. If you have managed to accomplish Supaplex CLASSIC successfully and you are eager to continue this incredible adventure with a new level of complexity and passion, then Supaplex HARD is what you need. What can we say about Supaplex HARD in plain words? It is COMPLEXITY AND SPEED!
Jack is a humble bear with a simple dream: to return nature to its former glory with the help of his trusty axe and his animal friends. Slice and dice through machinery, slap some sense into wasteful humans, and work with wacky woodland critters to thwart the sinister plans of up-and-coming industrial giant Evil Works.
Horgihugh And Friends – £26.99
“Shoot down 16-bit bad guys in Horgihugh and Friends!
At the end of a brutal war, countries decided to dismantle their weapons. When the Gozareans attack, two retired pilots realize their trusty vintage fighter planes are the only means of combating the alien’s powerful weapon-nullifying technologies. Taking to the skies, Hugh and Figaro are the world’s last wings of hope.
Plant seeds, repurpose hundreds of discarded objects and create unique structures for nature to reclaim.
Cloud Gardens relaxing nature encourages creativity and is filled with an enormous catalogue of objects and plantlife to choose from.
Share your creations with other gardeners, download looping videos of other dioramas, and embrace generative soundscapes by Amos Roddy, composer of Kingdom.
Part garden simulator, part dystopian landscape builder, part puzzle game, Cloud Gardens aims to fill you with satisfaction without the frustration.
Sneak into your photographer friend’s room and find out what she’s hiding! Neko Secret Room is a naughty action puzzler where you have to solve the grid-based brain teasers of ChanOS to hack into a database of saucy photos. Select pieces of each image and swap them around to discover the correct combination and restore the completed scene. The lovely clients shown within are surely worth the effort!
In addition to image puzzles, you’ll find other interesting activities in your friend’s room, whether it’s playing darts, going through her wardrobe and trying on clothes, dancing or just admiring her cats! Even the simplest of pleasures can be extra exciting when you’re somewhere forbidden, right?
Travel the universe creating settlements on uninhabited planets with the sole goal of setting worlds in motion through the power of automation.
Fresh from your spaceship you must harvest stick and stone and begin your settlement building efforts. Create rudimentary crafting items from blueprints and slowly build a number of workerbots to aid in your efforts. Teach and shape their artificial intelligence with a visual programming language, then instruct them to begin the formation of your settlement. Marvel as a planet you’ve shaped becomes home to a civilisation of workerbots, happy to do your bidding!
Play as Zorro or his sister, Ines, in this action and stealth game inspired by the animated series Zorro The Chronicles. Free the people, restore justice and mock Sergeant Garcia by signing your name with the tip of your sword!
OVERLORD: ESCAPE FROM NAZARICK – £22.49
Escape the Great Tomb of Nazarick
At first, Clementine will be unarmed and, thanks to her amnesia, unable to exercise the full extent of her abilities.
She will need to explore every inch of the Great Tomb of Nazarick in order to regain her arsenal of weapons and powers and use them to make her escape.
Lines Universe – beautiful Numberlink-based puzzle game involving finding paths to connect colored tiles in a grid.
Perfect Gold: The Alchemy of Happiness – £7.19
Perfect Gold: The Alchemy of Happiness is a short, coming-of-age visual novel about two former friends who escape detention in order to celebrate the Sunflower Festival. Set in the magical city of Castlecoast, readers get to know Audrey Clary, an alchemy student and heiress who secretly dreams of a different life, and Marion LaRue, a rebellious elemental magic student in search of someone she once loved.
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Final Vendetta is a hard-hitting action packed beat ‘em up for 1 or 2 players in the vein of classic arcade titles. Featuring stunning pixel art and a thumping soundtrack with exclusive tracks from Utah Saints! Brawl with bad dudes and tough girls as you fight through dangerous environments.
Collect elements and use them as either armor or weapons on your quest. Gather as much treasure as possible on your travels and compare your highest score with players all around the world.
Each time you enter the Plunder Dungeons they’ll be slightly different. Keep your wits about you and maybe you’ll come face to face with the rarest and most powerful creatures.
Search for valuables stashed in abandoned barns ranging from old clocks, musical instruments, antiques, gold, weaponry to even vintage cars and motorcycles and sell them for a profit.
Run your family business. Look for valuable items and sell them in your pawnshop. Every item has a value, so collect everything and search everywhere!
Bid on auctions and sales to get access to closed-off properties. Who knows what kind of dusty treasures you can find there?
Tales of Aravorn: Seasons of the Wolf – £19.99
In this visual novel RPG game, you can play as either Shea or Althea, twins from the ice-shrouded village Ninim.
The twins’ tale starts on a day like many others when one of the siblings finds a young wolf and decides to take it with them.
Their epic journey will take the siblings to the desert-wrapped city of Dingirra, and to the storm-shrouded port of Shacklesplit.
Explore the corruption-riddled halls of Dingirra, and contest with the crimelords who claim it as their own domain. Sail the high seas and get back home safely!
Explore a strange world full of colorful friends and foes. Navigate through the vibrant and the mundane in order to uncover a forgotten past. When the time comes, the path you’ve chosen will determine your fate… and perhaps the fate of others as well.
Next week: Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, Shadowrun Trilogy, Sonic Origins, Capcom Fighting Collection, Pocky & Rocky Reshrined, Wreckfest, Fall Guys, BROKEN MIND, ElecHead, Sudocats, Cube Decider, Sakura Spirit, Ruggnar, The Psychoduck, Milky Way Prince – The Vampire Star, Firegirl: Hack ‘n Splash Rescue DX, REDO!, Drunken Fist 2 : Zombie Hangover, Steve Jackson’s Sorcery, and Why Pizza?