Square-Enix’s Harvestella cross-pollinates farming with role-playing while featuring a combat system that allows you to swap between classes on the fly. Square’s Switch exclusive JRPGs tend to fare well, and this too looks like it could be another hit – the story sees four crystals that control the seasons become disrupted, ushering in a calamity that threatens all life.
If you can’t muster much enthusiasm, worry not – Tactics Ogre: Reborn is out next week, and another four JRPGs from the super publisher are due between now and Christmas. Good Lord.
Speaking of super publishers, EA’s It Takes Two is out now. This award-winning co-op adventure is late to reach the Switch but appears to have been worth the wait.
The Metacritic score currently sits at 88%, with several outlets handing out 9/10s. “A glorious, pure co-op experience, It Takes Two perfects the balance of give and take through its ingenuitive puzzles, stellar storytelling, and enchanting environments. With communication at its core, it truly takes two to tango with this one, and I couldn’t think of a better home for it than the Nintendo Switch,” said Pocket Gamer.
Humble’s Ghost Story is also wowing the critics, blending Metroid, Dark Souls, and Hollow Knight with a rich visual style and an emotional storyline. We’re yet to see a review score lower than 8/10.
“There are emotional moments with the characters that genuinely brought tears to my eyes, terrifying monsters that made me want to stop playing, and boss fights that pushed me to my limits. I loved every minute of my time with Ghost Song, and urge anyone reading to make time for it as soon as possible. You won’t regret it,” said God is a Geek.
We’re still waiting on reviews for Totally Accurate Battle Simulator – or TABS for short. This sleeper indie hit, which entails guiding colossal physics-blessed armies to victory, might be a little too demanding for the Switch we fear. We’re happy to be proven wrong, though.
Then there’s Pilgrims – an adventure game with an appealing art style, which heavily relies on the touch screen to drag interactable item cards onto characters. Trust us – it looks really neat in motion. Lonesome Village, in which you play as a coyote trying to rebuild a cozy village, looks like it’s worth investigating too.
On the retro side of things, there’s Shatter Remastered Deluxe – a brick-breaking bat ‘n ball game with the ability to inhale and exhale, altering the ball’s trajectory. Boss battles feature, being quite creative, and there’s a heavy focus on score-chasing. We awarded it an 8/10 yesterday.
The Samurai Collection (QUByte Classics) brings together The First Samurai and Second Samurai – two cult 16-bit action platformers. It’s looking like one of the better QUByte collections. Missile Command: Recharged also blasts off from Apple Arcade onto consoles. This was one of the first games in the Recharged series, you may be surprised to hear.
Also look out for Kemco’s pixel art JRPG Dragon Prana, first-person survival horror ENOH, business sim Weedcraft Inc, the neon-drenched co-op shooter From Space, and the 32 mini-game packed Garfield Lasagne Party. A delivery driver simulator also turns up on the eShop this week, promising to arrive between the hours of 1pm and 8pm. There’s no prize for guessing what it’s called.
New Switch eShop releases
In a vibrant and colourful world, players will tend their crops, befriend the townsfolk, overcome threats, discover the origins of the world and the truth behind the calamity along the way.
The story begins when the player wakes up in the middle of “Quietus”, a calamity that comes with each change of season and threatens all life.
Embark on the craziest journey of your life in It Takes Two, a genre-bending platform adventure created purely for co-op. Invite a friend to join for free with Friend’s Pass* and work together across a huge variety of gleefully disruptive gameplay challenges.
Master unique and connected character abilities in every new level. Help each other through unexpected obstacles and laugh-out-loud moments. Embrace the heartfelt story of a fractured relationship.
It Takes Two is developed by Hazelight, the industry-leader of cooperative play.
PURE CO-OP PERFECTION – Invite a friend to join for free with Friend’s Pass
GLEEFULLY DISRUPTIVE GAMEPLAY – From rampaging vacuum cleaners to suave love gurus – with It Takes Two, you never know what you’re up against next.
A UNIVERSAL TALE OF RELATIONSHIPS – Discover a touching and heartfelt story you’ll treasure – together!
Weedcraft Inc explores the business of producing, breeding and selling weed in America, delving deep into the financial, political and cultural aspects of the country’s complex relationship with this troublesome and promising plant.
Would-be marijuana moguls will need to prioritize resources carefully as they manage the production and distribution of their weed. Cultivate killer plants, cross-breed them to create unique strains of the devil’s lettuce, hire and manage a growing staff, and be prepared to take on the competition. As in real life, the business of bud presents plenty of opportunity along with a plethora of problems. Decide when and where to take on extra risk to maximize profit, but be careful, the cops and politicians are all working their own angles.
An important, controversial topic presented in an insightful and detailed manner, Weedcraft Inc presents a challenge to those who would rule the reefer, offering a series of diverse scenarios and unique characters to work with (or around) as your budding empire grows. Whether you choose to hobnob with politicians, pay off the police, fight for medical marijuana rights or work the legal system, it’s all in the name of the sticky icky and your cutthroat corporate profits.
The Samurai Collection (QUByte Classics) – £8.99
Confront the Demon King in an all action adventure combining beat’em up combat with platform puzzling and awesomely evil level bosses.
Shatter Remastered Deluxe – £7.19
Shatter Remastered Deluxe brings back the brick-breaking action.
Travel through 10 distinct worlds and battle 10 unique bosses; packed with amazing physics effects, power-ups and special attacks. Take control of the playing field with the innovative “suck and blow” mechanic, altering the game to your benefit and charging up ultimate ability SHARDSTORM.
DORAEMON STORY OF SEASONS: Friends of the Great Kingdom – £44.99
Noby and his friends are back in an all-new Doraemon: Story of Seasons title! The popular mash-up series between the well-known farming franchise adored by players for over 25 years and beloved Japanese cultural icon, Doraemon, gets a new entry, complete with plenty of fresh ways to play!
Grow crops, raise animals, and use Doraemon’s Secret Gadgets to help friends in a fun-filled and heartwarming story that people of all ages can enjoy.
A place where we all feel welcome, A place that feels like home
Bratz: Flaunt your fashion – £34.99
Play as your favorite Bratz character and begin your globe-trotting adventure to become the world’s best fashion reporter.
Start out in your hometown of Stilesville and choose your character from the original Bratz Pack – Yasmin, Cloe, Jade, or Sasha. Then blaze a trail as you chase the biggest style stories, take on quests to help new friends, and play scorchin’ minigames full of bratitude!
Your adventure will take you to some of the most stylish locations: Barcelona, Seoul, and to the Stylin’ Soiree. As you get the latest scoop for Bratz Magazine, you can use the money you earn to shop for rockin’ outfits, customize your characters, and set stylin’ new trends.
You’ll see your social following grow as fans are wowed by your passion for fashion. Get ready to express yourself and turn some heads with the Bratz Pack!
Michael considers himself to be a boring, average 17-year old.
While most of his classmates have discovered their passions and talents, nothing seems to draw his interest.
It’s finally summer and he’s trying to decide what to do with his life after school, when his parents announce a special family trip; One week on a tropical island!
An exotic place where nobody knows him… Perhaps this is a chance for him to become someone else; someone interesting! This genius plan is tested when he meets Rose, an intriguing, quirky girl. Entranced by her, Michael spends seven days in her life…
But not everything is what it seems.
What does she hide behind that beautiful smile?
Sakura MMO 3 concludes Viola’s incredible quest in the world of Asaph.
Only a few months ago, Viola was an average woman bored with her life in Japan. Her only method of escape was via the vibrant and colorful MMORPG, Asaph Online. In Asaph, Viola recruits a party of cute girls and decides to fulfill her biggest dream: having a harem!
The fallen goddess, Iona, has been plotting to bring an end to Asaph for good – and now Viola must defeat her. Will Viola emerge triumphant, or will Iona best her?
As a member of the famous marines commando, you are sent on a perilous mission in an hostile territory.
Defeat the ennemies and their powerfull weapons and fight bosses til victory.
In this game, you play the role of the ET from Varginha who is running away from the army that wants to capture him.
Help the ET from Varginha in many puzzle challenges found in every level of this adventure.
Explore the giant forest and come across many different areas and small puzzle like problems. Find what happens what happens when a group of Teenagers find their way to the forest.
Graphics of Grand Hike are meant to be easy on the eye. All of the sound effects and ambience sounds are highest quality. Every object in the world of Grand Hike is hand placed and optimized to ensure the player has a great time.
You are a blacksmith in the world of the sword, magic and war, in which any blacksmith who knows how to make even the simplest swords is in demand. You start off as a poor unskilled blacksmith, but in time you will gain experience and improve to achieve wealth, fame and power, and change this world!
Take the role of a little purple humanoid as he navigates tricky puzzle stages that change depending on whether he’s wearing his fez-style hat or not! Hatup is a precision platformer with single-screen stages where the objective is to avoid spikes and other traps while collecting keys and toggling platforms on and off.
Are you clever enough to escape each level and move on to the next challenge?
Missile Command: Recharged – £7.99
It may look easy, but the difficulty curve of Missile Command sneaks up on you. Before too long you are intensely focused on taking out incoming missiles and enemy planes, and taking desperate measures to save your remaining cities.
Missile Command: Recharged takes the classic arcade game and adds several layers of oomph and pizzaz. This revamped take on the classic introduces more power-ups, new enemies, and a suite of challenges that limit the number of counter-defenses at your disposal – not to mention co-op across all game modes! An amazing new soundtrack from the incomparable Megan McDuffee perfectly complements the gameplay and adds depth and variety. Of course, you could also test your skills against players across the globe in the 32 challenge levels or the classic endless Arcade mode.
A remastered version of the 2017 web game ‘MIDNIGHT’, collect the seven letters of the deadly sins and repent your past offences in this horror game.
MIDNIGHT Remastered features a non-linear storyline where the game takes place after major events, you must collect and read optional documents if you wish to understand the story.
Pixel Paint is anything but a classic coloring book. The point of the game is for you to put your mind at ease, follow the numbers and fill every last pixel with a corresponding color.
Sink into the gameplay loop of Pixel Paint. Choose your theme, hold on to your Joy-Con™ and enjoy the creative process. Don’t forget that every pixel matters.
Amazing Chicken Adventures – £17.99
Featuring classical music, broken eggs, chicken-inappropriate tools, and mandatory funny hats.
Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch – £34.99
Your vacation at your aunt’s turns out to be far from what you expected. Your once grand family property has fallen into ruins and you find yourself facing a huge challenge.
How to return your ranch to its former glory?
Get caught up in a beautiful horseback adventure! Explore the vast wild stretches surrounding you, meet the residents of the peninsula and forge friendships. Discover the secrets hidden on the island, Breed, tame and train horses – each with their own strengths and characteristics – and take part in thrilling races.
My Life: Riding Stables 3 – £26.99
Put your heart and soul into looking after the well-being of your beloved four-legged friends on a beautiful stud farm, which you can expand over the course of the game. Climb into the saddle and enjoy challenging training sessions, fantastic tournaments, and relaxed rides through the countryside.
Mecha Ritz: Steel Rondo – £13.49
Set in a mechanized world, the story begins with a world-renowned young scientist named Veloce. One day she invented “Mecha” and eradicated humankind with her creation, recreating a metallic world filled with Mechas. Pilot humanity’s last hope, a Mecha imbued with human will, through the onslaught of enemy waves. Yet as the tides of battles turn and the world reveals itself, perhaps there’s more than what meets the eye.
With an FM Synth soundtrack and a distinctive visual design, Mecha Ritz: Steel Rondo combines retro aesthetics with modern sensibilities. Along with the simple controls, handcrafted stages and exciting unlockables, you will find yourself coming back for more.
How to say Goodbye tells the story of a character recently turned into a ghost, lost in an unknown world populated by spirits.
In this narrative puzzle game, move the element of decor and the characters to guide the characters out of the liminal space between life and death in which they are trapped.
Help them find their friends who are prisoners of a mysterious wizard and accompany them on their journey to the other side.
GARFIELD LASAGNA PARTY – £34.99
32 mini-games to discover across emblematic environments such as Garfield’s house, the pizzeria, Liz’s veterinary clinic…
Our friends Garfield, Odie, Arlene et Nermal have taken on an enormous challenge: to participate in a gigantic lasagna party!
A wide variety of crazy games are on the menu: throw snowballs, navigate obstacle courses, slice pizzas… Anything to get ahead of your opponents: win the mini-games, roll the best dice throws… and multiply the low blows by using objects!
Garfield Lasagna Party invites you to play a party game set in the world of everyone’s favorite fat orange cat. With 32 mini-games and 3 play modes, the fun never ends!
A game for the whole family, whether you like lasagna… or not!
Pilgrims is a playful adventure game, created by the team behind Machinarium and Samorost. Roam the land as you please and make new friends, share a laugh with your fellow travelers and help them complete their little stories, your way. How many different solutions can you find?
Run Box Run is easy to pick up and play! Compete in escape-runs with friends and foes online through fun dungeons and silly trivia intermissions. Only the best box will survive and claim the coveted crown!
From Space is a solo and co-op action-shooter for squads up to four players. Take on the challenge of liberating the earth from an alien infestation with your friends, using over-the-top weaponry in a post-apolcayptic world with awesomely stylized graphics. The apocalypse has never been so much fun!
That’s no bubblegum army, that’s an endless horde of menacingly pink aliens taking over our planet! Enough sweet talk, grab your gear, we need you and your squad to defeat the pink pests!
Pirated Code: Admin Edition – £9.99
When an advanced AI program named Seren awakens to find they’ve been installed as the co-pilot of a smuggling ship, they can’t help but be annoyed. This is clearly not what they were made to do… right?
Actually, they can’t remember…
With no memories of their previous directive, they’ll have to (begrudgingly) rely on their newfound crewmates to help them find where they belong.
Pirated Code: Admin Edition is a visual novel that expands the hit game jam game with more chapters, more secrets and unlockable content through different story routes. Follow Seren and their story of self-discovery aboard Dex’s smuggler ship.
On the desolate moon of Lorian, a long-dormant Deadsuit awakens from slumber—armed and combat-ready, memory clear of purpose. But something new is stirring…
Strike out beneath the surface in search of answers in Ghost Song, an atmospheric 2D adventure of self-discovery, ancient mysteries, and cosmic terror. Explore winding caverns lit only by bioluminescent flora, battle strange and powerful creatures, and acquire new abilities to help you unearth this alien world’s long-buried secrets.
Descend deep into the darkness—only then will you learn (or is it remember?) the truth.
Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home – £17.99
Every journey changes the point of view – it grows with the traveller. Our game tells a story about self-exploration, transformation and understanding the world around us.
The plot of the game is inspired by real events, when people began their conquest of space by sending animals to the stars. We intended it to be a kind of a tribute to all the animals that paved the way for humans to go into space. Most of these animals – the first astronauts, did not survive the journey. Our story tells of the adventures of a dog named Bea, who… managed to beat the odds.
Delivery Driver – The Simulation – £16.19
You are a delivery driver! A large american city counts on your deliveries on time! Explore and deliver goods and packages in a large american city and its outskirts. From Midtown to small villages, a shopping mall and an industrial park.
The Grudge is a survival horror, first-person game.
You must place a sacred card in each classroom while avoiding the spirits, and the player will try to exorcise the spirits in all the classrooms while avoiding the spirits and solving the riddles.
An evil king that threatened the world in the past becomes free from his seal after 120 years. The descendants of the heroes who saved the world have to stand up to fight this new evil.
However, will the world overcome the suzerainty and racial pride of humans, elves and dwarves to face this threat?
A fantastic retro RPG with top quality nostalgic pixel art and a game system worthy of modern times.
Battle with more than 20 classes that can be changed in combat and unlock boards to strengthen stats and learn special skills. The formations are also important to get advantages in turn-based battles. In the end, clear a wide variety of conditions in-game to earn high quality rewards!
Aeterna Noctis is an epic non-linear action platforming adventure. Its 16 areas full of challenges and quests will allow you to explore the vast universe of Aeterna taking the role of the King of Darkness in his mission to regain his lost abilities. In this adventure, everything isn’t as it seems, the story is hiding something more profound and unexpected that you as the player will find out.
Chaos, the supreme God has cursed his creation, forcing their leaders to fight for the throne of Aeterna in an eternal struggle, an infinite cycle of light and darkness that maintains balance in the universe.
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator – £17.99
Watch them fight in simulations made with the wobbliest physics system ever created.
When you grow tired of the 100+ wobblers at your disposal you can make new ones in the unit creator.
You can also send your wobblers to fight your friends or strangers in online multiplayer!
Lonesome Village is a cosy, quiet town struggling to rebuild after a strange calamity wiped out their homes.
Take the role of Wes the coyote and help bring this village back from the brink of destruction in a puzzle-filled life sim!
Next week: Sonic Frontiers, Jurassic World Aftermath Collection, Tactics Ogre: Reborn, Sifu, Rush Hour Deluxe – The ultimate traffic jam game, Cobra Kai 2: Dojos Rising, Orcen Axe, Super Woden GP, Geometric Sniper, Orbital Bullet, Space Ducks: The great escape, MULTIVERSEPOOL, Save Room, and (take a deep breath for this one) Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk and Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk.