The Switch misses out on a fair few of this week’s big releases, yet it’s still a busy week for the system with a handful of exclusives of its own.
There’s even a first-party release on the agenda. Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is a new version of NES Remix, only loosely based on the infamous NWC tournament that toured the US in 1990. 150 challenges await, spread across thirteen NES titles. As many have been quick to mention, it doesn’t actually feature two of the games that played a part in that contest, seemingly down to licensing. Rad Racer was by Square, while Tetris is under the wing of licensor The Tetris Company nowadays.
Review scores have been wildly mixed – everything from TechRadar’s 2/5 to God is A Geek’s 9/10. “Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition feels like a release schedule filler. While the multiplayer features are robust, they’re hardly innovative, and really it’s just a package of sliced-up classic games with a timer attached to them,” said Digitally Downloaded, who opted for a 7/10.
Hot Lap Racing meanwhile is the rarest of things – a semi-realistic racer for the system with licensed vehicles and tracks, launching simultaneously on PC. The first review scores to hit the tarmac are both 7/10s from Nintendo Life and Game Grin. “Hot Lap Racing has a huge selection of classic and modern cars to drive on some awesome tracks, but the difficult tutorial may scare players off,” said GG.
At £26.99, the Roguelite hack ‘n slash TMNT: Splintered Fate – an Apple Arcade conversion – is a tad more expensive than we expected, but it seems to be worth it. The Metacritic score currently sits at 77%. Nintendo World Report awarded it an 8/10 and made comparisons to Hades, while The Gamer went with a 7/10.
The Switch also gains a belated conversion of Deliver Us The Moon – a narrative adventure that dates back to 2020. “The game continues to deliver a thrilling sci-fi experience whilst picking your brain with challenging puzzles. However, the Switch’s hardware constraints mean that said experience is significantly diminished with low texture resolution, low frame rates, and long load times,” warned Hey Poor Player.
The appropriately bleak Darkest Dungeon II is hitting Switch in addition to other formats this week. It sounds like it’s more than just a mere sequel, making some notable changes – including stagecoach travel sections, turning the whole thing into an apocalyptic road trip. The PC version was well received, and this console version is generally gaining even higher scores, resulting in an 82% Metacritic currently.
Pathea’s Let’s School is a belated conversion too, and couldn’t be any more different. It’s a colourful, low poly, school management/construction sim. Reviews are just starting to go live, and while it doesn’t appear to have any high grades yet, it isn’t quite flunking either. CGM noted that the Switch version is lacking touchscreen support and other features we’ve come to expect.
SCHiM is finally out too. For those who haven’t kept an eye on this one, it’s a stylised 3D platformer of sorts with puzzle elements, featuring a blob-like creature leaping from one shadow to the next. It seems to be going down reasonably well with critics.
We’ve reviewed a few of this week’s releases, all of which fall into the shoot’em up genre. Over Horizon X Steel Empire brings together an obscure and robust 1991 NES shooter, along with the MD and GBA versions of Steel Empire – the cult 1992 steampunk shooter, that puts a zeppelin and a biplane under your control. The GBA version boasts improved presentation over the MD iteration but is largely the same. The £13.49 price tag makes this worth considering. Satryn DX meanwhile is a single screen twin-stick shooter influenced by Robotron, complete with an online leaderboard. It’s very liberal with its power-ups, giving it a rare addictive quality.
Then there’s the bullet hell style RPM – Road Punk Mayhem, set in a post-apocalyptic world with biker gangs. It’s very stylish, but also very short – even by genre standards. You may even struggle to get your money’s worth.
Other releases include the comical Bum Simulator – in which it’s possible to throw pigeons at people, and generally cause carnage – the fast-food infused 2D auto runner Ninja Chowdown: Glaze of Glory, an EGGCONSOLE release of the Japanese command-based adventure SEILANE, and the pixel art puzzle platformer Frogurai. Not to be confused with the recent Frogue. Or Frogun.
New Switch eShop releases
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate – £26.99
When Splinter is kidnapped by Shredder, mysterious portals simultaneously appear across NYC. With April and Metalhead analysing recovered artifacts for clues, the Turtles battle to recover their father from the clutches of the Foot Clan. However, as the gang gets ever closer to Splinter’s otherworldly location, an even greater threat lingers in the shadows…
In Splintered Fate, brace yourself for fast-paced, roguelike action where no two runs are the same. With randomised power-ups, room layouts, and boss modifiers, the excitement never ends. Take control of all four Turtles, each wielding unique powers, and team up with friends for bodacious co-op gameplay. Explore iconic NYC locations, upgrade your Turtle powers, and prepare to face off against formidable enemies.
With thrilling combat and endless challenges, Splintered Fate promises to keep you engaged in the FIGHT, ADAPT, REPEAT portal loop. Be ready to restore peace to the city!
Hot Lap Racing offers a thrilling “”simcade”” racing experience driven by an in-house physics engine built exclusively for the game. Explore the dynamic history of motorsport, spanning from GT Cross to Formula 1, and engage in competitive races against friends or online opponents!
In Let’s School, you take on the role of a principal tasked with the challenge of revamping and managing your alma mater! The game features two core mechanics: the construction and designing of the school and managing the dynamics of students and teachers.
Each student has unique interests and aspirations, making your role as headmaster more complex. Balancing factors like your school’s reputation, satisfying students’ basic needs, overseeing academic pressure, and managing aspects like clothing, food, and travel provide an immersive and challenging experience. Aside from the usual responsibilities of a headmaster, you are also tasked with managing various issues that originate outside the school, including mysterious dangers and potential threats that might cause things to go bananas!
Darkest Dungeon II is a roguelike road trip of the damned. Form a party, equip your stagecoach, and set off across the decaying landscape on a last gasp quest to avert the apocalypse. The greatest dangers you face, however, may come from within…
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition – £24.99
Take on over 150 retro speed-running challenges in Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition for Nintendo Switch. Hone your skills and see if you have what it takes to be a champion!
Set, beat and perfect your times in the single player Speedrun Mode. See how quickly you can grab the first Super Mushroom in Super Mario Bros. or how fast you can gobble up an enemy in Kirby’s Adventure.
Deliver Us The Moon is a Sci-Fi thriller set in an apocalyptic near future, where Earth’s natural resources are depleted. A lunar colony providing a vital supply of energy has gone silent. A lone astronaut is sent to the moon on a critical mission to save humanity from extinction. Will you save mankind or be forgotten in the dark abyss of Space?
B-PROJECT RYUSEI*FANTASIA – £44.99
Put your headphones on and get swept away with this colourful, idol, visual novel experience.
Do you love boybands, JPop? Have you ever dreamed of being the driving force behind a successful idol group? Well now you can experience it in visual novel form!
Step into the hardworking role of A&R (Artist & Repertoire) to the talented idol group, B-Project. Take 14 young members under your wing, each with different personalities and struggles. It’s your job to support them, help them grow, and allow them to flourish!
RPM – Road Punk Mayhem – £6.29
Get ready for a high-octane adventure in RPM – Road Punk Mayhem, a top-down vertical shoot’em up that combines intense bullet hell mayhem with cel-shaded style! Inspired by arcade genre classics, RPM – Road Punk Mayhem lets you choose from 3 pilots of questionable sanity as you cruise through post-apocalyptic stages laying waste to enemy vehicles.
From tanks and helicopters to armored jets and monster trucks, your opponents won’t pull any stops as they try to destroy your little fighter craft. Pick up fuel and warp-enabling stopwatches to keep moving, combo your way to huge score multipliers and use bombs to clear roadblocks! How long can you survive the wastelands? Challenge online leaderboards and push your damage-dealing skills to the limit!
The Gravity Trickster – £12.59
Defy gravity and traverse tricky 3D platforms and mind-bending challenges as you navigate your robot to the end of each level, collecting keys, coins, cosmic cubes and more as you go! Can you find and beat the elusive bonus levels?
Rivalia: Dungeon Raiders – £13.49
Rivalia is an ARPG / Roguelite singleplayer video game, with a cartoon art style that aims to combine the best of both genres.
Taking control of 4 different characters you may confront a series of challenging opponents that threaten the life as you know it.
The game takes place in the castle of Rivalia, whose reality has been distorted due to a powerful spell. Our heroes’ mission will be to regain control of the castle by ending its curse and bringing peace to the kingdom.
Witch Guardians: Quest for the Ancestral Magic – £4.90
In the magical kingdom of Alvera, magic is an eternally flowing life force, protected by witches since time immemorial. When a dark threat arises, a group of young witches known as the Guardians of Alvera must embark on an epic adventure to save their world. Led by Luna, a young witch with latent power, these heroines must face dangerous challenges, uncover ancient secrets, and unleash the true power of friendship and magic to restore light and hope to their home.
Pirate Year Thousand: The Kraken Piece – £4.90
Explore mysterious islands, battle sea beasts and reveal conspiracies in your search for the lost map. Can Carter and his crew survive the betrayals and find the truth before the evil Captain Black and his undead armada claim the ocean for themselves?
Embark on this exciting story and sail into the unknown, where adventure awaits you with every wave and danger lurks in every shadow.
For years, the Vick family has been obsessed with the mysteries hidden within the great Pyramids of the Valley of the Kings. Pharaoh’s Secret will test your ability to solve intricate puzzles and come out unscathed from multiple encounters with murderous mummies and traps lurking around every corner. Use different objects to unlock doors, break walls… Find a way to reach elevated areas by using boxes that you can move from one point to another, or blow up dynamite cartridges to unlock impassable walls. Use sarcophagi to hide from Anubis soldiers and look for fire torches to avoid attacks from mummies and other beings that inhabit the deep tombs of the Pharaohs. You have decided to enter their dark and dangerous corridors in search of treasures and riches, but escaping won’t be that easy.
You will play the role of a heroic spirit resurrected from the dead, accept the entrustment of the God of Chaos, and once again enter the terrifying abyss that has long been occupied by demons and monsters!
In the abyss, you will face thousands of abominable monsters simultaneously, and they are endless and seemingly endless! There is no need to be afraid, although there is no way to retreat, the artifact in your hand is powerful, and the bullet command room can annihilate a large number of enemies.
Bum Simulator is a sandbox game bursting with inappropriate humor and memorable characters. Apart from day-to-day survival, you can enjoy many unique features.
You can throw pigeons at people and watch as the panic ensues. Not fun enough? Upgrade your birds with explosives and let chaos reign. Still not satisfied? Wait until you see the fully upgraded pigeonado skill…
Mix alcohol with stuff you found on the ground to create powerful mixtures. Drink them (if you dare) to get a boost, or throw them at your enemies for a devastating effect.
Stories from the Outbreak – £17.99
Stories from the Outbreak is a turn-based roguelike zombie RPG. The combat is heavily strategic, allowing customisation in team composition and character progression, and the game features dozens of trinkets that provide passive bonuses following the best roguelike design practices. Between combats, you must make decisions about traversing the landscape, and written events force you to navigate the moral complexities of surviving in a hostile environment.
The ordinary gaming night among four friends takes a chaotic turn when they find themselves transported to a preposterous fantasy realm teeming with thousands of wacky monsters!
Equip yourself with pizza frag-grenades, enchanted fidget spinners, unleash preposterous magic spells, or even fling your very own friends into the fray to repel the relentless hordes of monsters determined to obliterate you.
Satryn DX is a little twin stick shooty featuring infinite levels of chaotic, physics-based baddie blasting. save your friends to increase the score multiplier. the bigger the score, the more power-ups will spawn. i hope your brain enjoys this reward loop.
Welcome to feudal Japan, a world of samurai and danger.
Play as a heroic frog samurai tasked with taking down the deadly snake clan and bringing an end to the war. Your agility and speed will be tested as you go over obstacles, walls and ceilings, and navigate through portals.
But be careful, the snakes won’t give up without a fight. You’ll need to use all your frog skills to defeat them and save your kingdom.
Join the epic battle between frogs and snakes and prove yourself as the ultimate Frogurai!
EGGCONSOLE SEILANE PC-8801mkIISR – £5.39
It is an adventure game released in Japan by Micro Cabin in 1987. Players take on the role of a field mouse named Prill and embark on an adventure to rescue the animals of a village turned to stone by the Demon King Pazul, as well as his kidnapped sister.
The game follows a command selection system. Players choose commands such as “talk,” “call,” “listen,” “examine,” and “eat” depending on the scene, advancing the scenario accordingly. It can be considered a classic adventure game. While some old adventure games were known for their difficulty or getting stuck, this game lacks such frustrating elements, making it enjoyable even for beginners. While there are challenging parts in the story, players can resort to trial-and-error with commands if they get stuck.
One of the highlights is undoubtedly its unique world view, similar to other titles like “Harry Fox” from the same company. The various animals that appear behave almost like humans, and interacting with them or exploring the world gives players a sense of stepping into a picture book.
Backroom Escape: Labyrinth Horror – £4.99
The player finds himself in a mysterious maze. The player’s goal is to find a way out of this dark place by solving riddles, collecting items and avoiding dangerous monsters lurking around every corner.
Players will explore labyrinthine corridors and rooms that constantly change and mysteriously take them to new places. Their lives will be threatened by various dangers, from monsters to traps and riddles that must be solved in order to move forward.
Risk, tension and an atmosphere of mystery pose a real challenge for fans of horror games.
Suddenly an Ogre brings back the magic of classic gamebooks with a captivating virtual twist. Step into a nostalgic journey where your decisions shape the story. Will you save your sister and become a hero? The choice is yours!
Discover Sandoria, a realm born from the bravery of heroes Sage Roberts and Sir Sayles, who defeated the Demon King centuries ago. As Dean, the young Lord of Sayles, your adventure begins with a quest to defend your people from ruthless bandits. Join forces with the steadfast knight Flei and the determined messenger Krucia to confront a looming threat that endangers the entire kingdom.
Navigate through dangerous galaxies, face unexpected hazards like wormholes, asteroid showers, and space squids, and keep the engines fueled up. Fix hull breaches and extinguish fires to prevent explosive disasters. No day is ever dull when you’re a spaceship recovery engineer!
Ninja Chowdown: Glaze of Glory – £8.99
Ninja Chowdown: Glaze of Glory is the ultimate challenge for fans of martial arts and food. Embark on an action challenge full of surprises. Play as Donatsu, the chubby ninja and use your secret arts to fight along 35 action packed levels, in which to collect donuts and defeat members of evil food clans such as the Travelling Rollnin, Pizza Pierates or Barbaricans.
Experience a powerful tale of love and loss from the perspective of a cat, who bears witness to the most intimate moments of a couple’s life. A Lost Note takes players on a journey through a variety of immersive environments, each with its unique visual style and atmosphere. Players will explore a winter environment with cherry blossoms blooming in the snow, a fall environment during golden hour, a mystical forest with strange and fantastical creatures, and a dark forest with tall and twisted trees. These environments provide a diverse range of moods, from peaceful and serene to mysterious and foreboding, creating a rich and engaging world for players to explore.
SCHiM is a game about jumping from shadow to shadow, while interacting with a relaxing and lively environment.
What is a schim?
A schim is the soul and spirit of an object, thing, or living being. Everything in the world has one. A schim should never be separated from their thing! This does happen to your schim, this schim who is attached to a human being is separated from them early on in the game.
Can you get back to him before it’s too late?
Over Horizon X Steel Empire – £13.49
Get ready for a real space adventure!
In Over Horizon, you and your trusty spaceship will traverse a number of bizarre worlds. With three different weapons which you can upgrade and combine any way you want, you will face the massive bosses and various enemies that will come your way.
Also, relive gaming history and fire up your engines on some of the most important classic shmups – fully playable on modern platforms. Set in a Steam Punk-centered world, Steel Empire lets you choose between the Striker Airplane or the Zeppelin equipped with an areal mine launcher to fight back against the Motorhead Empire’s invasion.
Next week: Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow, Exhausted Man, The Star Named EOS, Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure, Tokyo Xanadu eX+, CONSCRIPT, Super Woden GP II, Monument: Invasion, Chrysolite, Speed Overflow, Some Some Convenience Store, TACTICAL BANDITS, Abathor, Escape Fear 2: Hide And Seek Horror, and Sportitions’24.