We’re mere hours away from the start of a long weekend. If you’re hoping to spend the next four days playing new Switch games, the ever-dependable eShop has you covered.
RPG fans can jump into LUNAR Remastered Collection, which brings together two PS1/Saturn role players – Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (1996) and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete (1998). They’re visually enhanced, feature a choice of battle speed, and now have more language options. The first Lunar also now has a combined inventory for your party. Screenshots suggest we’re in for something handled with a lot of care.
This week’s EGGCONSOLE re-release meanwhile is none other than Nihon Falcom’s 1990 Japanese PC RPG Dinosaur. Despite not featuring any gigantic beasts, it seems RPG fans are keen to see what this one is about. As per usual, it’s arriving at a low entry point due to remaining untranslated.
Sticking with retro, there’s Jeff Minter’s reimagining of Atari’s I, Robot – a very early arcade shooter that featured 3D visuals, pitting you against an evil overseer. It looks set to follow in the footsteps of Akka Arrh, taking a classic while turning it into a psychedelic light show. New transitional shooter stages also feature.
Then there’s Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate – a scrolling pixel art brawler with one-on-one fighter elements – and DOKAPON! Sword of Fury, a remaster of a cartoony PS1 board game RPG, now with quality of life features. The PC version launched earlier this year and seems to have gone down reasonably well.
Just in time for easter, Rusty Rabbit is making an appearance too. It’s a 2.5D action platformer based around using a mech to excavate dirt, with RPG-style progression, enemies to encounter, and loot to find. It could be a surprise hit, looking reasonably polished.
We can also expect the cartoony racer Hot Rod Mayhem – which has a campaign mode and 15 different vehicles – the neon hued three minute battle royale Irisy Aqua, a re-release of the cult puzzler Monument Valley and its sequel, and Moving Houses – a physics based game based around packing up and moving house. The clue was in the title.
New Switch eShop releases
Reimagined in Minter’s signature assault of colors, shapes and sounds, this new take on the eclectic arcade title is built from the ground up with new challenges, new twists, and a whole lot of llamas.
The premise of I, Robot is simple: You take control of an ox-headed robot on a mission to outwit the all-seeing eye. In each level, you’ll navigate across tiles, flipping each tile to proceed to the next. Make sure you don’t jump while the eye’s watching, or you’ll be zapped away in a flash. If you make it across the tiles, you’ll race down a tube blasting away any enemy shapes that move into your path and try to stop you. And you have to do all this inside of the 3D space of Minter’s kaleidoscopic visualizer.
LUNAR Remastered Collection – £44.99
Dive into the enchanting worlds of LUNAR: Silver Star Story Complete and LUNAR 2: Eternal Blue Complete, two beloved JRPGs that have captured the hearts of gamers for generations.
LUNAR: Silver Star Story introduces Alex, an aspiring Dragonmaster who bands together with his friends to combat the perilous emergence of the Magic Emperor and stop him from taking over the world.
LUNAR 2: Eternal Blue picks up a thousand years later, and follows Hiro and his friends as they set out in search of the Goddess Althena alongside an enigmatic girl named Lucia. On this grand quest, fend off enemies like Borgan and White Knight Leo, who hunt down the group to eradicate what they deem to be the “Destroyer of Lunar.”
This definitive remastered edition features enhanced graphics, audio, and quality-of-life improvements that will satiate that hunger for 90s nostalgia–better than you remember! Embark on these two adventures with updated language support, now available in English, Japanese, French, and German.
Hot Rod Mayhem – £17.99
Start your engines, gearheads – it’s time for Hot Rod Mayhem! Prove yourself as the ultimate little racer by putting your speed and swerving skills to the test in wild races and one-of-a-kind trials! Use perilous pick-ups, like the tricky Marble or the Homing Dart, to leave your opponents in the dust!
Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate – £24.99
“Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate” is a side-scrolling beat-’em-up with the heart of a fighting game, showcasing nostalgic pixel art. Experience the biggest and most expansive entry in the “Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds” series to date!
One day, on his way back from exploring Smokestack Mountain, Stamp encounters a rust digging team known as the “BBs” and ends up joining them in a quest to delve deeper into the heart of Smokestack Mountain.
Along the way, Stamp discovers records from ancient information storage devices called “D-TAMs” scattered throughout the ruins. One of these records appears to belong to his estranged daughter, hinting at her peril and revealing hidden truths about the world he once believed in.
To unravel many mysteries and follow his daughter’s trail, Stamp continues his journey into the depths of the ruins…
Monument Valley 1&2 Bundle – £16.99
Step into a world of stunning architecture, impossible geometry, and meditative puzzle-solving. Guide Ida and Ro through surreal landscapes, manipulating monuments to uncover hidden paths and solve intricate illusions.
With every chapter and DLC included, Monument Valley 1 & 2 Bundle is the definitive way to experience these award-winning games, now beautifully reimagined for new platforms.
There comes a time in everyone’s life when they must leave their home behind and find another. Now in Moving Houses, it’s your turn… whether you really want to leave or not. Enjoy a silly physics-based game about moving on as you box up your life while immersed in casual comfy gameplay and the instant gratification of task-based gamification of packing chores. Be neat, be careful or be a chaos goblin. The choice is yours!
The fast action and story driven game features brutal first person gameplay, offering the player multiple weapons, big variety of enemies, bosses, a story of the sci-fi realm, challenge after challenge, characters, and lots of satisfying FPS bloody gun-play.
Irisy Aqua is a strategy battle royale game. You will be one of the seven characters and fight against others to destroy towers. Every battle ends in about three minutes, so everyone can enjoy this game casually, even if you are not good at PvP.
DOKAPON! Sword of Fury – £20.99
Spin the wheel and set off on an exciting adventure with your friends!
Defeat monsters, purchase weapons, and level up, just like in an RPG. Once you’ve gathered enough strength, face off against powerful bosses in epic fashion! Your journey will take you across a wide, diverse world… Just don’t forget that your true goal is to get filthy rich!
Money is everything! Anything goes, as long as it lines your pockets…and as long as you’re cool with it! Will you walk the path of thievery and plunder, or will you hold firm to your morals? Will you join hands with your friends, or plot to betray them? It’s dealer’s choice around these parts!
Play even with faraway friends in Online Mode, and feel free to pause your adventure anytime with the Autosave function; it’ll be ready and waiting for you whenever you’re available again!
Enjoy the thrill of walking the fine line between hiding and getting caught!
Share Joy-Con™, and up to 4 players can join in the fun!
Reach for the ultimate high score!
Play as Leila and traverse through all phases of her life, uncovering her pivotal life moments. By unraveling puzzles imbued with the fragments of her narrative, you’ll comprehend the motives behind Leila’s life decisions. As you delve deeper into her psyche and her emotional landscape, you’ll discover facets of your own self mirrored in the life journey of this seemingly ordinary woman.
A fast-paced, 2D action game, where your goal is to destroy the endless waves of flying orb bots and fly higher with every run, until the Leviathan is saved!
LunarLux is an anime-inspired action-adventure RPG that takes place on the Moon! A thousand years ago, humanity lived on the now volcanic and lifeless earth-like planet known as Terra. Due to the planetary catastrophe, ASTRA, humans were forced to find a new home. Unfortunately, no habitable planet existed within a reasonable distance, so the remaining survivors made their way to Luna, the moon that orbits Terra.
Vinebound: Tangled Together – £3.99
Vinebound is a co-op first roguelike for 1-2 players where you have to coordinate attacks with a ping-pong cooldown to defeat hordes of enemies.
Can your friendship survive the botanical mayhem of Garden Lands?
Troubles and decay struck the cities, the villages were gripped in the vices of madness, and people began to look for a reason to fight in order to throw out their aggressors.
You are the Necroking. Put on the crown of a powerful necromancy magic and embark on a dark and twisted journey to bring chaos and destruction to settlements desecrated by life itself. Raise an army of skeletons and other vile creatures to conquer your enemies and establish your dominion!
Use your blunderbus to launch yourself from platform to platform, taking down enemies in graceful bullet-time aerial battles! Hone your skills and unlock even tougher encounters!
You are an ambitious penguin who brandishes a stylish bandana and aspires to be a parkour master.
Run, jump, dive, and swim through different and six unique zones containing challenging levels to demonstrate your esteemed parkour prowess. Choose from multiple difficulty settings including easy, normal, and hardcore modes.
Your helicopter crashes in a remote, icy wilderness en route to delivering batteries to a mysterious research facility.
Now, you must complete your delivery before you freeze to death or get eaten by a strange presence stalking you.
Thought Experiment Simulator – £6.19
Engage in a quirky, voice-acted exploration of philosophical dilemmas, where humor meets profound thought. It takes about 2 hours to finish.
EGGCONSOLE DINOSAUR PC-8801mkIISR – £5.39
“Dinosaur” is a role-playing game released in 1990 in Japan, featuring a rare 3D perspective for Nihon Falcom. With its dark and serious storyline, unique world-building—including spell names like “I Witness the Death-Dancing Maiden”—the game captivates players with its distinct atmosphere. But its gameplay mechanics are just as noteworthy.
Next week: Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics, Old Skies, Hegzis, Sunderfolk, The Hundred Line – Last Defense Academy, Cave of Illusions, Atama, Deep Deep Deep Nightmare, Clash of Rivals, and Sunseed Island.