Next week is looking lighter than usual for new releases (Massage Freaks, anyone?) so it’s fortunate that this week has a few noteworthy new games to tide us over.
Hot on the heels of last week’s Nintendo-published Live A Live comes the colossal JPRG Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Reviews went live on Tuesday, with a handful of critics dishing out top marks. Consensus is that it’s one of the best RPGs on the system, while also being a technical showcase.
The Gamer opted for a 5/5, saying that “Monolith Soft has crafted a JRPG that is so colossal yet also intricately focused.” Nintendo Life also awarded it 10/10, while Destructoid chose a 9.5.
The Metro, meanwhile, went with a 9/10. “Another major success for Monolith Soft; Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a contender for the Nintendo Switch’s best role-playing game and one of its most impressive technical achievements,” was their verdict.
While Bandai-Namco’s Digimon Survive – a game over four years in the making – has turn-based battles, it reportedly plays more like a visual novel with survival elements. It switched studios during its development, the effects of which may be visible. Keep an eye out for reviews.
Jaleco’s 1991 arcade game Avenging Spirit also makes a surprise Switch release, being something of an oddity. It’s a run and gunner where you play as a ghost, able to leap into different characters – from commandos to robots. Over 20 different characters feature in total – an impressive amount for 1991. Boss battles also feature, along with two endings.
Then there’s the 2D swordplay action platformer Azure Striker GUNVOLT 3, which features new character Kirin – who can be switched with Gunvolt on the fly. It has been developed especially with the Switch in mind, promising a smoother experience than before.
Turrican Anthology I and Turrican Anthology II have quietly arrived on the eShop. This may be down to their asking prices – an eyebrow-raising £29.99 each.
Anthology I includes Turrican (Amiga), Turrican 2 (Amiga), Super Turrican (SNES), Super Turrican Director’s Cut (SNES), and Mega Turrican Score Attack (Mega Drive.)
Then on Anthology II there’s Turrican 3 (Amiga), Mega Turrican (Genesis/Mega Drive), Mega Turrican Director’s Cut (Mega Drive), Super Turrican 2 (SNES), and Super Turrican 1 Score Attack (SNES.)
Other new releases include the accident-avoidance sim Train Valley: Console Edition, roguelike-arcade game LootLite, comical 1920’s murder mystery Lord Winklebottom Investigates, and the 1990s-set Japanese horror Yuoni – which appears to be based around hide and seek. Maybe the protagonist will bump into Avenging Spirit’s hero.
New Switch eShop releases
Digimon Survive – £TBA
An Unexpected Adventure Awaits…
Celebrating the franchise’s 20th anniversary, Digimon Survive is a tactical RPG with a focus on storytelling and turn-based battles. Takuma Momozuka goes on a school camping trip only to find himself transported to a mysterious world full of monsters and danger. Join Takuma and Agumon as you craft your story and fight your way back home in Digimon Survive.
Engaging Story
Experience anime-style storytelling filled with exciting drama, animated cutscenes, and a unique cast of characters designed by Uichi Ukumo.
The Power Is Yours
Your choices dramatically affect gameplay through multiple endings. From creating strategic allies to Digimon Digivolutions, every decision counts!
Original Soundtrack
Enjoy an amazing soundtrack with over 15 songs produced by world-renowned composer Tomoki Miyoshi.
Thrilling and Strategic Gameplay
Defeat your opponents in classic, turn-based tactical combat.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 – £49.99
A heartfelt RPG adventure awaits in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 for Nintendo Switch. Join Noah, Mio and their friends as they traverse epic landscapes, battle ferocious creatures and fight to break the never-ending cycle of violence that binds their homelands.
Beautiful card decks, unique ART style and ZEN mode.
One of most addictive card games you have ever played.
Play solitaire the way you never played before!
Win and unlock new awesome decks!
Color by number type of gameplay with over 280 unique images split into 7 categories is sure to make you relaxed. Achieve a ZEN like calmness, satisfaction and a simple feeling of fulfilment after each picture. Even if ZEN is not your thing, you can go a bit faster by using powerups. Pictures you can discover and unlock include cute animals, nature, vehicles and even characters from Digital Melody Games such as the famous Timberman!
Viki Spotter: Professions – £4.49
In this game you have to go on a journey into the adult world. Together with the brave girl Viki you will learn about what adults do at work. You will see a lot of pictures, but some of them are wrong and you have to find all differences. If any task will be too difficult for you – there is an excellent assistant in the person of the little girl Viki who will always find what is hidden from your eye!
Lootlite – £TBA
Dragons steal everything they come across… That’s something the new inhabitants of this peculiar peninsula discover when they arrive.
You must help all these unfortunate heroes to recover all that stolen treasure…
LootLite is a roguelike-arcade in which you can embody different heroes to try to recover their stolen treasures, through a huge area full of secrets, hidden paths and all kinds of weapons that will make your playthrough easier.
There is no rest, even in the afterlife.
A classic action game that introduced a unique system for possessing and controlling other characters is now available on the Nintendo eShop.
While out on a walk with his girlfriend, our hero is gunned down by an evil syndicate that wants to harness ghost energy. This syndicate plans to ransom the poor girl, who is the daughter of a prestigious scientist, to force her father to cooperate. But our hero’s adventure isn’t over. In fact, it’s just beginning. He’s come back as a ghost so that he can rescue his girlfriend from her kidnappers and finally rest in peace.
This game is only playable in 2D.
Hot“Sento Girls”and love – £7.29
This is an adventure game that depicts the slapstick mishaps of a crossdressing boy. He decided to dress up as a girl as part of running his grandma’s traditional Japanese bathhouse (Sento).
Is it really possible to run the Sento without his crossdressing being exposed?
Romeow: to the cracked Mars – £2.49
Collect the spaceship components and place the cat flag on the orange planet. Enjoy this relaxing puzzle game with him.
Romeow is a relaxing and charming puzzle game about a kitten who dreams of going to space. He will need to go through shuffled paths to be able to assemble his ship and achieve his goal.
Lord Winklebottom Investigates – £15.99
It’s the 1920s and the world’s foremost detective is about to embark on his most challenging case yet. A mysterious invitation to an isolated island results in a grisly murder and a race against time to track down the killer. Thankfully, in this world that’s not quite like our own, there’s nobody better to crack the case than the great detective and gentleman giraffe, Lord Winklebottom.
Join Lord Winklebottom and his steadfast companion Dr Frumple as they investigate the murder of their old friend. Uncover clues, interview suspects and solve puzzles to crack the case, capture the killer and uncover the horrifying dark secret at the heart of the Isle of Barghest!
Ai is a grade-schooler in 1990s Japan who is about to realise just how isolated she is. Forced to play children’s games in a world of never-ending dusk, Ai is hunted by otherworldly entities as her life hangs in the balance. When these horrors begin to bleed into the real world, Ai must accept that she has only three choices: hide, run, or die.
Strange Horticulture is an occult puzzle game in which you play as the proprietor of a local plant store.
Find and identify new plants, pet your cat, speak to a coven, or join a cult. Use your growing collection to influence the story and unravel Undermere’s dark mysteries.
Explore the lands beyond your store to find new plants, but be careful! The dark woods and lakes are not always friendly to a simple herbalist. You might discover powers beyond your wildest dreams – or lose your mind completely. Use context clues to determine which places to visit, and which to avoid!
Using your trusty encyclopedia and clues found on your explorations, you’ll learn more about the strange plants you come across. By identifying each plant, you will be able to use their effects to influence the story — from hypnotic hallucinogens to powerful poisons.
Captain Velvet Meteor: The Jump+ Dimensions – £18.89
Welcome to the Jump+ Dimensions!
Damien’s life is flipped upside-down when his family moves him to Japan. A shy boy, he copes with his newfound loneliness with the power of his infinite imagination and creates an imaginary hero named “Captain Velvet Meteor”! In his imaginary world, Damien sets off on an adventure with his favorite Jump+ heroes and fights to adjust to his new home and find himself.
Experience Damien’s struggles living in Japan for the first time as he interacts with his family in his Grandmother’s home. Then dive into the Jump+ Dimensions, the world of Damien’s imagination, where he takes part in strategic battles that include puzzle and stealth elements. Use signature attacks of your Jump+ companions through Power and Assist Combos to unleash massive damage on hoards of enemies. Or get strategic with abilities that inflict status effects or knock enemies aside to help control the battlefield.
Become Captain Velvet Meteor and help Damien conquer his fears in a tactical adventure enjoyable for players of all ages and skill levels!
Azure Striker GUNVOLT 3 – £23.39
The next installment in the high-speed 2D action Gunvolt series is finally here with Azure Striker Gunvolt 3. Balancing both an involving story and satisfying gameplay, Gunvolt 3 is the most extravagant entry in the series yet!
Play as both new star Kirin and series protagonist Gunvolt as you switch between them on the fly while conquering Gunvolt 3’s many stages and bosses. Story Mode+ which keeps the exciting action uninterrupted by the rich story. New to Gunvolt 3 are Image Pulses, collectable summons and equipment called forth from Gunvolt’s own memories. Over 150 varieties are available to collect!
Gunvolt 3 was developed targeting the Nintendo Switch hardware, allowing for more crisp visuals and astounding effects to go along with the high-speed action!
Koumajou Remilia: Scarlet Symphony – £26.99
Koumajou Remilia: Scarlet Symphony has been loved by many gamers since its initial release, highly praised for its quality gameplay and soundtrack as well as Banpai Akira’s sharp and gothic reinterpretation of Touhou characters.
This title is the enhanced version of the original game that supports HD remastered graphics and a variety of bonus features. In hopes that more gamers would enjoy Reimu’s adventure, the game now supports 6 languages including English. Fans of the original game and the Touhou Project can’t also miss the full Japanese voice acting, which is the exclusive feature for the enhanced version.
Get ready to blaze through your enemies with as much firepower as you can carry! It’s hunt or be hunted in a game of side-scrolling survival. Arsonist Heaven is an action platformer presented in retro pixel art style. Take the role of a hunter in a flame-retardant hazard suit and equipped with a jet pack as you traverse a wide variety of biomes, from forests and icy mountains to deserts and volcanic caverns.
But be careful! Each stage is filled with roving enemies. Some monsters attack with brute force, while others carry melee weapons or emit magic projectiles. To even the odds and eliminate them before they take you down, you’ll need to utilize an arsenal of unique firearms, launchers and flamethrowers. Once ammo is depleted, be sure to have another weapon on-hand or you’ll be left defenseless! The jet pack could be your savior, but fuel is limited. It’s a brutal ballet of balancing resources as you outlast the opposition!
A couple of years after the events of PLOID and Uchusen the Ploids have formed the patrol that protects time and space to avoid repeating the story of V.O.I.D. and PLOID with Dr. Elo… You are turning into the ultimate PLOID X but something is wrong with your memories. You must travel into the multiverse in search of the sacred disks that contain the necessary information to be able to take the final step and evolve.
Turrican Anthology Vol. I – £29.99
The Turrican series was created by Factor 5 back in 1990. The first two games in this collection, Turrican and Turrican 2, were released on the Amiga and started the legacy of the well-known series. A must-play for any retro game fan! Super Turrican followed in 1992 and developed some key features of the series. Players can now also check out the Super Turrican Director’s Cut which adds new content with the extension of an existing stage and the addition of one completely new extra level. As last entry in the Turrican Anthology Vol. 1, the new Mega Turrican Score Attack comes with an extra level completing this full action-packed Turrican experience!
Turrican Anthology Vol. II – £29.99
The Turrican series was created by Factor 5 in 1990. Turrican 3 and Mega Turrican were developed and released in 1993 for Amiga and Mega Drive/Genesis and diverged from the original Turrican formula. With the implementation of the Plasma Rope, the player could now grapple and swing across the stage. Super Turrican 2 introduces a new look and feel, including vehicles like the desert buggy and motorcycles. The new Mega Turrican Director’s Cut comes with a secret level unlocked from the start. The last entry to complete the Turrican Anthology Vol. 2, Super Turrican Score Attack adds a completely new large level!
Superpanda comes back in a whole new adventure, full of dangers, epic quests and monstrous bosses.
Across 30 levels filled with secrets, quests and loot, fight your way through hordes of evil monsters and other creatures – jump on their head or throw them bullets to get rid of them.
With its precise gamepad controls, fluid movement, and smooth animations, Superpanda 2 will entertain you for long hours…
South of the Circle is an emotional narrative experience with a deep multi-layered cinematic story. The main plot asks questions about the consequences of life choices, of pursuing either career or true love, manoeuvring between now and the past. You play Peter, a Cambridge academic who crashlands in Cold War Antarctica.
As he searches for help, his past unwinds before him, revealing how the pressures of power and his own aspirations have led him into this crisis he must somehow escape. A love story between him and fellow academic Clara develops, and Peter learns the weight of all the things he has promised. Like memories from childhood, some promises stay with us forever.
Train Valley: Console Edition – £10.79
Build railroads in order to connect cities, tunnels and bridges. New railways are cheap when laid across bare fields, but can be expensive when demolishing forests, villages and other existing structures.
Manage increasing traffic by constructing, switches, sidings and spurs so that multiple trains can run without delays, at the same time.
Stay accident-free by precisely controlling trains during crucial moments, using pause for planning (you can build railways and schedule trains while on pause).
Next week: Frogun, Massage Freaks, Toy Soldiers HD, Hot Lap League: Deluxe Edition, Before We Leave, After Wave: Downfall, 90” Soccer, Sofiya and the Ancient Clan, and Roll The Cat.