Out this week: PlayStation Portal, Super Mario RPG, Flashback 2, Teardown, Persona 5 Tactica, KarmaZoo, Prison City, more

While there are a good number of big name titles due between now and Christmas, it seems that the majority of publishers have decided upon this week to launch their most prominent winter releases.

There’s even new hardware out, with Sony launching the £199.99 PlayStation Portal handheld, allowing PS5 and PS4 games to be remotely played over your WiFi network. It features an 8-inch LCD screen that supports resolutions up to 1080p, along with haptic feedback and adaptive triggers.

That’s joined by the Super Pocket arcade handhelds – one loaded with 12 Capcom arcade games, and the other 18 Taito games. Both are Evercade cartridge compatible, allowing the libraries to be expanded. At £49.99, it’s an inexpensive way to see what the Evercade is about. Hands-on impressions regarding the build quality are positive too.

Speaking of Evercade, owners have two new carts to mull over. Full Void is a standalone game, recently released on consoles, that takes the form of a pixel art adventure similar to Flashback and Another World. Home Computer Heroes Collection 1 meanwhile brings together seven indie/homebrew home computer games, including Amiga FPS Citadel and a C64 demake of Farming Simulator.

As for new releases, SNES remake Super Mario RPG and the often-delayed Hogwarts Legacy are due on Switch. The developer of Super Mario RPG was revealed as ArtePiazza just days ago – they’ve worked on a bunch of re-releases and remakes for Square-Enix, so it should be in safe hands. Hogwarts Legacy’s gameplay footage appears decent too, casting aside fears of another Mortal Kombat 1 debacle.

We can also expect Konami’s rhythm action game Super Crazy Rhythm Castle, voxel-based heist sim Teardown, ninja battler Naruto X Boruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections – which features over 130 playable characters – a console release of Jagged Alliance 3, Frontier’s PS5/Xbox Series RTS Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin, and SEGA’s tactical RPG spin-off Persona 5 Tactica.

Microids has a trio of titles due. UFO ROBOT GRENDIZER – The Feast of the Wolves is the first ever video game incarnation of the ‘70s anime UFO Robot Grendizer, mixing third-person shooting, exploration, and brawling. Flashback 2 is another that’s a long time coming – the first Flashback dates back to 1992. Industry veteran Paul Cuisset is at the helm, and it takes the form of a 2.5D adventure set across five large levels in five different locations.

Then there’s the side-scrolling beat’em up Asterix & Obelix – Slap Them All! 2 We weren’t huge fans of the original, which felt like a two hour game stretched out to 6-7 hours by a ridiculous amount of padding. Hopefully this sequel doesn’t suffer the same fate. Or at least has more variety.

Another licensed game launching this week is The Walking Dead: Destinies. It appears to have had more time and attention put into it than some of GameMill’s other recent licensed games, but early footage still suggests we shouldn’t set expectations too high. Bluey: The Videogame may become a sleeper hit too. Who doesn’t love Bluey?

Then for indie releases there’s Devolver Digital’s online collaborative platformer KarmaZoo, the Spirited Away inspired Spirittea, pixel art side-scrolling shooter Prison City, PSone-style stealth slasher Christmas Massacre, and the wet ‘n wild Barton Lynch Pro Surfing. Thanks, Australia.