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Tag: Games

  • New ‘Goat Simulator 3’ DLC and Switch Port Teased in 10 Year Celebration Video – TouchArcade

    New ‘Goat Simulator 3’ DLC and Switch Port Teased in 10 Year Celebration Video – TouchArcade

    Coffee Stain is celebrating 10 years of Goat Simulator and Pilgor with a brand-new video out now that goes over the many releases the franchise has seen over the years. The most recent releases are Goat Simulator 3 hitting iOS and Android as a premium release a few months ago, and it coming to Steam after being an Epic Games Store exclusive for a while. I still can’t believe it has been that long since Goat Simulator debuted, but here we are. The video stops with a tease for “2024 and beyond” revealing DLC and what is obviously a Switch port tease. Beyond that, there seems to be more planned, but the highlights for us are the DLC for Goat Simulator 3 ($2.99) and it coming to Switch. I’ll no doubt try and cover the game on Switch (whenever that port happens) as well after playing it on multiple systems already. Watch the Goat Simulator 10 year celebration video of Pilgor’s journey below:

    If you’ve not gotten it yet, you can buy Goat Simulator 3 on the App Store for iOS here on Google Play for Android here. Check out my review of the game on iOS here and Steam Deck here. If you want to try other games in the series, they are all here on the developer page on the App Store. These include Goat Simulator PAYDAY, Goat Simulator Waste of Space, Goat Simulator MMO Simulator, Goat Simulator GoatZ, and Goat Simulator itself. If you’d rather get them on Steam, check out the full bundle here. Have you played Goat Simulator 3 on any platform yet and what do you want to see from DLC?

    Mikhail Madnani

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  • ‘SaGa Emerald Beyond’ Switch vs PS5 vs Steam Deck vs iOS – What Platform Should You Buy It On? – TouchArcade

    ‘SaGa Emerald Beyond’ Switch vs PS5 vs Steam Deck vs iOS – What Platform Should You Buy It On? – TouchArcade

    Last week, Square Enix launched SaGa Emerald Beyond worldwide for iOS, Android, Switch, Steam, PS5, and PS4. This is the first worldwide simultaneous multi-platform launch of a game in the series as far as I’m aware, and both Shaun and myself have been playing it across platforms. Stay tuned for his full review. Until then, you can read my early impressions of the game here and my interview with Akitoshi Kawazu, Kenji Ito, and Tomokazu Shibata here. Just like with Dragon Quest Builders, I’ve compared every version of SaGa Emerald Beyond we had access to across game features, content, visuals, performance, and more.

    Note: For this feature, SaGa Emerald Beyond has been played on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 12, iPad Pro (2020 model), Nintendo Switch (OLED Model), Nintendo Switch Lite, Steam Deck (256GB LCD), Steam Deck OLED (1TB), PS5, and the PS4 version played on PS5.

    What is SaGa Emerald Beyond?

    If you’ve not followed the game or tried the demo yet, SaGa Emerald Beyond is the newest mainline entry in Square Enix’s long-running SaGa series. It features a superlative turn-based combat system with 17 worlds that can be explored in any order including many new characters. It feels like a blend of SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions and SaGa Frontier in many ways, but has its own unique charm. SaGa Emerald Beyond also features an incredible soundtrack.

    SaGa Emerald Beyond iOS port – controller support, cloud saves, and a premium price

    Before comparing platforms, I wanted to briefly cover the iOS version of SaGa Emerald Beyond since there’s no demo for mobile in any region. SaGa Emerald Beyond is priced at $49.99 on iOS and Android just like the console and PC versions which might be a big surprise to some. The way I see it, Square Enix is bringing a full game day and date without any cut content to mobile alongside the Switch, PlayStation, and Steam versions. The caveat here is that Square Enix is a bit erratic when it comes to fixing issues that may arise with future iOS releases and any mobile game in question. Aside from that, SaGa Emerald Beyond on iOS has controller support (but it needs a bit of work) and a manual cloud save backup system in place.

    For controller support, my 8BitDo, Xbox Series X, Razer Kishi, and Backbone One worked, but there are no button prompts. The game also lacks manual camera movement on iOS as of now. I didn’t see any setting to enable this for use with touch, and the right stick on every controller did nothing in the game. The d-pad also doesn’t seem to work like it does in the console and PC versions. You need to use the left analog stick for all menu navigation on iOS.

    SaGa Emerald Beyond has one single graphics option to prioritize graphics or performance. This isn’t a 60 or 120fps option though sadly. The iOS version of SaGa Emerald Beyond (outside Japan) also lacks Steam’s dual audio option to use either Japanese or English voiceovers. You are limited to just English voices.

    SaGa Emerald Beyond does have fullscreen support on my iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 12, and iPad Pro with no black bars or artwork to fill space like in SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambition. The downside is there is no improved UI option for a smaller screen so some text sizes and touch targets feel smaller than they should be. These will be less of an issue on Plus or Max phones.

    Which version of SaGa Emerald Beyond has the best visuals?

    When it comes to image quality, the art style scales well and it looks good regardless of the device I played it on. The differences are in aspect ratio and resolution. For resolution, the Switch version is the worst of the lot, but not by much. The PS5 and PC versions offer the best image quality followed by modern iOS devices and PS4. The big differentiator in visuals is the aspect ratio support. The PC and iOS versions support wider aspect ratios. As for handheld or portable play, the PC version on Steam Deck is the best for sure. I don’t have a very recent iPad Pro model to check there, but at least on iPad Pro (2020) I am pleased with how it looks.

    Which version of SaGa Emerald Beyond has the best performance?

    For performance, I consider load times and frame rate across platforms. The PC version is the only version that supports above 60fps and the PS5 version is capped at 60fps as of this writing. The PS4, Switch, and mobile versions target a lower frame rate. SaGa Emerald Beyond can even do 90fps on the Steam Deck OLED screen and higher when tweaked and running on an external display (even for the LCD model). I am disappointed that there is no 60fps or higher option on iPhone 15 Pro and iPad Pro. Even the PS4 version played on PS5 is capped at 30fps. The worst performing version across the board is Nintendo Switch with it not even being able to maintain 30fps and seeing big drops during specific combat encounters. The Switch version needs a patch before I will be able to recommend it.

    If you played SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions, the load times here are slower than that even when running off an SSD on PC and PS5. While these load times are longer than they should be on all platforms, the Switch has the worst load times across the board, and it is just about twice as long to load the game and then load your save compared to PS5 and Steam Deck. The load times in my testing rounded up are below for the devices. I tested the game load time from launching it to when you get control on the title screen and how long it takes to load a save.

    Nintendo Switch OLED:
    Launch to title screen – 26 seconds.
    Loading a save – 26 seconds as well.

    Steam Deck OLED (SSD):
    Launch to title screen – 12 seconds.
    Loading a save – 9 seconds.

    PS5 version:
    Launch to title screen – 12 seconds.
    Loading a save – 7 seconds.
    PS5 Activity Card from dashboard to in-game – 17 seconds total (a bit less than normal launch).

    PS4 version on external hard drive:
    Launch to title screen – 15 seconds.
    Loading a save – 13 seconds.

    iPad Pro (2020):
    Launch to title screen – 16 seconds
    Loading a save – 9 seconds.

    iPhone 15 Pro:
    Launch to title screen – 12 seconds.
    Loading a save – 9 seconds.

    Which version of SaGa Emerald Beyond has the most features and content?

    The actual game content is the same across the board. Only the Steam version of SaGa Emerald Beyond has dual audio support letting you use either English or Japanese voices (as shown in the screenshot above). All other versions (outside Japan) include only English voiceover as far as I can tell.

    When it comes to features and content aside from languages, the Steam version obviously includes additional graphics options. The PC version on Steam also supports keyboard and mouse controls with rebinding options.

    What we want from SaGa Emerald Beyond updates and patches

    Aside from the text size options and some animation speed up or skip options for all platforms, I’d love to see the team give players the option to switch between different UI modes like in SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions so that the game interface scales better depending on the screen size or device. I used to use the modern screen mode on TV or iPad with a controller, but stuck to the classic screen mode when playing on iPhone or Nintendo Switch in handheld. Beyond that, I’m shocked to not see a 60fps option on modern iOS devices. Hopefully some of this makes it in through potential updates.

    Which version of SaGa Emerald Beyond should you buy?

    If you have access to a Steam Deck, my favorite version of the game by far is the PC version played on a Steam Deck or a Steam Deck OLED. Not only does it have rock solid performance and crisp visuals, but it also is the only version (PC) with dual audio support. This is the best portable version of the game with modern iOS devices coming up second.

    As for playing on TV, the PS5 version or the PC version are the way to go. PC offers higher frame rate support as well if you have a high refresh rate monitor or TV. The Switch version is the one I recommend the least right now due to its much longer load times and the performance being the least stable of any device I tested.

    Hopefully this article helped you decide which version of SaGa Emerald Beyond you should get since all versions launched together worldwide at the same asking price. I’m glad to see SaGa back with a new game after so many years, and will be looking forward to the upcoming remaster of SaGa Frontier 2 whenever that happens.

    SaGa Emerald Beyond is priced at $49.99 and out now on iOS, Android, Steam, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch worldwide. You can buy it on the App Store for iOS here, Google Play for Android here, Steam here, Switch here, and PlayStation here. A free demo with a different protagonist per platform is available on Switch, Steam, and PlayStation.

    Mikhail Madnani

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  • ‘Class of Heroes’, ‘Toridama 2’, Plus Today’s Other New Releases and the Latest Sales – TouchArcade

    ‘Class of Heroes’, ‘Toridama 2’, Plus Today’s Other New Releases and the Latest Sales – TouchArcade

    Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for April 26th, 2024. We’ve reached the end of another week, and that means we have to mop up the remaining releases before we put it in the books. There are a few interesting titles in the bunch, and we’ve got summaries of all the games worth summarizing. After that, we’ve got another hefty list of new sales to check out. Those Golden Week sales won’t stop popping! The weekend sales outbox is also here, but it’s a lot smaller. Well, let’s get to the getting on with it!

    New Releases

    Class of Heroes 1 & 2: Complete Edition ($34.99)

    Class of Heroes: Anniversary Edition ($19.99)

    Class of Heroes 2G: Remaster Edition ($19.99)

    Once upon a time, there was a PlayStation that was also portable. It had its own games and everything, no streaming needed. This “PlayStation Portable” played host to quite a few cool RPGs, including a series called Class of Heroes that was kicked off by the developer behind a lot of the Japanese Wizardry spin-offs. These games are basically that developer’s style of Wizardry game but with a more colorful vibe. At any rate, here are the first two games in that series, fully playable on your Switch in remastered form. I’ll be doing a review of both of these soon, but if you like your dungeon crawlers and don’t mind them a bit hard to gnaw on, you’ll probably enjoy these.

    Zombies, Aliens and Guns ($5.99)

    This is one heck of an ugly aesthetic, but what can you do? Anyway, this is a top-down shooter featuring more than thirty stages of zombie- and alien-blasting action. You get the usual things, like different weapon and some big boss battles, and you can’t fault the variety in stage themes. There are worse ways to spend six bucks, especially if you have a friend in the vicinity to play it with you.

    TORIDAMA2: Brave Challenge ($7.99)

    Toridama was a fun little surprise when it came out a few years back, and it’s nice to see it get a follow-up. The idea behind the original game and its sequel is that you have to play a bunch of minigames that test your nerves. Hold out as long as you possibly can, push things to the absolute limit, and so on to maximize your score. This time around there are twenty-five minigames to play, and that bizarre sense of humor that made the first game such a kick is here in full effect. If you enjoy games like Wario Ware or Rhythm Heaven, give this a shot.

    Horrific Xanatorium ($7.99)

    Always interesting when KEMCO releases something that isn’t a generic turn-based RPG. This is a visual novel set in a world ravaged by a pandemic that causes all those infected with it to suffer from delusions and hallucinations. The protagonist has been infected and his sister has taken him to a sanitorium to recover. He soon starts to harbor suspicions about the hospital director, and sees monsters lurking around. Surely an effect of the virus… or is it?

    Tell Me Your Story ($10.99)

    Standard RedDeer Games warning: do not buy this game at full price. The publisher intentionally inflates the normal price to make it look more appealing when it does its regular deep discounts. One should be applied to this game by the time you read this, I suspect. That disclaimer aside, this is a cute story based game about a girl who is going through her grandmother’s things with her, listening to her stories about them. You’ll solve various little puzzles as you play, and none of it is very strenuous. Depending on your mood, this might be of interest to you.

    Tales From The Under-Realm: Hazel ($11.99)

    Another visual novel from Gamuzumi, which means it was probably very lewd in its original form and has to settle for being slightly lewd here on Switch. A witch named Hazel is thrown into a prison cell with an assassin named Sasha. The other main character in the plot is Tori, a paladin who is interrogating her. You’ll have to make some choices as you work your way through the story, and those choices will determine where the story ends up. Trust an assassin, or trust a holy cop? Your call.

    The Bin Bunch

    Dracula VS Monsters ($4.99)

    Cyberpoly RPG – Dark City ($9.99)

    Life Bubble ($7.99)

    Finding America: The Pacific Northwest Collector’s Edition ($9.99)

    Sales

    (North American eShop, US Prices)

    Let’s pick out a few interesting things from these sales, shall we? Axiom Verge 2 is cheaper than it’s ever been on the eShop, and so is Arcade Paradise. Solid good times with both of those. In the Square Enix end of things, the Voice of Cards games are at new low prices, and so are games like Dragon Quest Treasures and Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song. Do note that this list is curated; most of Square Enix’s library is on sale right now. Have a nice look through and see what grabs you.

    Select New Sales

    Axiom Verge 2 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 5/2)
    Innocence Island ($1.99 from $19.99 until 5/2)
    Super Mega Baseball 4 ($19.99 from $49.99 until 5/7)
    Burnout Paradise Remastered ($5.99 from $29.99 until 5/7)
    Fe ($3.99 from $19.99 until 5/7)
    Sentimental Death Loop ($11.99 from $19.99 until 5/9)
    Arcade Paradise ($9.99 from $19.99 until 5/9)
    Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest ($40.19 from $59.99 until 5/9)
    Harvestella ($29.99 from $59.99 until 5/9)
    Paranormasight ($11.99 from $19.99 until 5/9)
    Dragon Quest Monsters: Dark Prince ($20.19 from $59.99 until 5/9)
    Tactics Ogre: Reborn ($24.99 from $49.99 until 5/9)
    Theatrhythm Final Bar Line ($24.99 from $49.99 until 5/9)
    Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song ($14.99 from $24.99 until 5/9)
    Dragon Quest Treasures ($29.99 from $59.99 until 5/9)
    Dragon Quest Treasures Deluxe ($32.49 from $64.99 until 5/9)


    Octopath Traveler ($29.99 from $59.99 until 5/9)
    Octopath Traveler II ($35.99 from $59.99 until 5/9)
    Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII ($24.99 from $49.99 until 5/9)
    Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII Deluxe ($34.99 from $69.99 until 5/9)
    NieR Automata ($23.99 from $39.99 until 5/9)
    The DioField Chronicle ($23.99 from $59.99 until 5/9)
    NEO: The World Ends With You ($23.99 from $59.99 until 5/9)
    Dungeon Encounters ($11.99 from $29.99 until 5/9)
    Voice of Cards TBoB ($11.99 from $29.99 until 5/9)
    Voice of Cards TBoB + DLC ($15.19 from $37.99 until 5/9)
    Voice of Cards TFM ($11.99 from $29.99 until 5/9)
    Voice of Cards TFM + DLC ($15.19 from $37.99 until 5/9)
    Voice of Cards TIDR ($11.99 from $29.99 until 5/9)
    Voice of Cards TIDR + DLC ($15.19 from $37.99 until 5/9)
    Voice of Cards Trilogy ($29.99 from $49.99 until 5/9)
    Voice of Cards Trilogy + DLC ($38.99 from $64.99 until 5/9)


    SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions ($8.99 from $29.99 until 5/9)
    Collection of Mana ($19.99 from $39.99 until 5/9)
    Dragon Quest ($2.99 from $4.99 until 5/9)
    Dragon Quest II ($3.89 from $6.49 until 5/9)
    Dragon Quest III ($7.49 from $12.49 until 5/9)
    Final Fantasy XII TZA ($19.99 from $49.99 until 5/9)
    Final Fantasy VII ($6.39 from $15.99 until 5/9)
    Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD ($19.99 from $49.99 until 5/9)
    Rayman Legends DE ($7.99 from $39.99 until 5/9)
    OddBallers ($4.99 from $19.99 until 5/9)
    Livestream 2: EfTHP ($17.49 from $24.99 until 5/9)
    Mechblaze ($7.99 from $9.99 until 5/9)
    Maid of the Dead ($16.99 from $19.99 until 5/9)
    Witch’s Rhythm Puzzle ($3.99 from $4.99 until 5/9)
    Touhou Spell Bubble ($27.49 from $54.99 until 5/9)
    Demon Sword: Incubus ($9.99 from $14.99 until 5/9)


    Prince of Persia The Lost Crown ($29.99 from $49.99 until 5/9)
    Scott Pilgrim vs. The World DE ($4.89 from $14.99 until 5/9)
    9th Dawn III ($7.99 from $15.99 until 5/10)
    A-Train All Aboard Tourism ($41.99 from $59.99 until 5/10)
    Neo ATLAS 1469 ($24.99 from $49.99 until 5/10)
    Fate/Samurai Remnant ($40.19 from $59.99 until 5/13)
    Atelier Ryza ($23.99 from $59.99 until 5/13)
    Atelier Ryza 2 ($29.99 from $59.99 until 5/13)
    Atelier Ryza 3 ($38.99 from $59.99 until 5/13)
    Samurai Warriors 5 ($29.99 from $59.99 until 5/13)
    Touken Ranbu Warriors ($29.99 from $59.99 until 5/13)
    Blue Reflection Second Light ($23.99 from $59.99 until 5/13)
    Super Cyborg ($1.99 from $6.99 until 5/14)
    Jumbo Airport Story ($7.00 from $14.00 until 5/15)
    Mega Mall Story ($6.00 from $12.00 until 5/15)


    Dead in Vinland: True Viking ($5.59 from $27.99 until 5/16)
    Mechstermination Force ($1.99 from $11.99 until 5/16)
    Retro City Rampage DX ($4.49 from $14.99 until 5/16)
    Human: Fall Flat ($5.99 from $19.99 until 5/16)
    Panzer Dragoon Remake ($2.49 from $24.99 until 5/16)
    KnifeBoy Rebooted ($5.49 from $14.99 until 5/16)
    Unables ($8.70 from $12.99 until 5/16)
    The Jump Guys ($9.09 from $12.99 until 5/16)
    Rising Dusk ($7.90 from $9.90 until 5/16)
    Flooded ($6.49 from $12.99 until 5/16)
    Retro Revengers ($7.90 from $9.90 until 5/16)

    Sales Ending This Weekend

    Fire Race ($1.99 from $4.99 until 4/27)
    Kao the Kangaroo ($10.49 from $29.99 until 4/27)
    Mimi the Cat: Mimi’s Scratcher ($3.99 from $4.99 until 4/27)
    PuzzlePet: Feed Your Cat ($3.99 from $4.99 until 4/27)
    Sokobalien ($3.99 from $4.99 until 4/27)
    Storyblocks: The King ($3.99 from $4.99 until 4/27)
    Wild Seas ($3.99 from $4.99 until 4/27)

    That’s all for today and this week, friends. We’ll be back next week with more reviews, more new releases, more sales, and perhaps some news. Technically I am heading into a week of holidays here, but I can’t afford that so I’ll be back here manning my post as usual. Fortunately, I enjoy my work for the most part. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and as always, thanks for reading!

    Shaun Musgrave

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  • Square Enix Has Discounted the Entire ‘SaGa’ Series To Celebrate Today’s Launch of ‘SaGa Emerald Beyond’ on Mobile – TouchArcade

    Square Enix Has Discounted the Entire ‘SaGa’ Series To Celebrate Today’s Launch of ‘SaGa Emerald Beyond’ on Mobile – TouchArcade

    Square Enix is celebrating the global worldwide launch of SaGa Emerald Beyond () with a discount on the entire series of games available on iOS and Android. The publisher also shared some new artwork on Twitter to celebrate the launch. Check it out here. If you’ve not kept up with SaGa Emerald Beyond, read my preview of it here and my interview with the team including Akitoshi Kawazu, Kenji Ito, and Tomokazu Shibata here. If you’ve never played a game in the series before, the current discounts from now until May 6th on mobile make it a great time to sample one of Square Enix’s best series. The games discounted include Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song Remastered, SaGa Frontier Remastered, Romancing SaGa 2, Romancing SaGa 3, and an Collection of SaGa Final Fantasy Legend.

    The full list of SaGa games discounted until May 6th on iOS and Android is below:

    The best entry point into SaGa remains SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions ($8.99) if you’ve wanted to try these games. Read Shaun’s reviews for Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song Remastered here, Romancing SaGa 2 here, Collection of SaGa Final Fantasy Legend here, Romancing SaGa 3 here, SaGa Frontier Remastered here, and SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions here. You can also get SaGa Emerald Beyond on iOS, Android, Switch, Steam, and PlayStation beginning today for $49.99. If you’ve played them before, will you be grabbing SaGa Emerald Beyond today?

    Mikhail Madnani

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  • Cinematrix No. 44: April 25, 2024

    Cinematrix No. 44: April 25, 2024

    Can you name a Liam Neeson movie set in space?

    Joe Reid

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  • ‘Genshin Impact’ Version 4.6 Update Download Now Available on iOS, Android, PC, PS5, and PS4 – TouchArcade

    ‘Genshin Impact’ Version 4.6 Update Download Now Available on iOS, Android, PC, PS5, and PS4 – TouchArcade

    As of a few hours ago, Genshin Impact (Free) version 4.6 update is live on all platforms bringing in Arlecchino (who I just pulled) as a playable character and a Weekly Boss, a new region in Fontaine, the Inazuma music festival, and more. As for the new areas, the Nostoi Region, Sea of Bygone Eras, and Bayda Harbor have been added with new events, new monsters, and an TCG update bringing in new characters and action cards. Pre-installation went live a few days ago with a larger than usual download if you didn’t do it yet. On my iPhone 15 Pro, the download for Genshin Impact 4.6 within is under 500MB after pre-loading it. If you didn’t pre-load, expect a large update this time. Watch the newest Genshin Impact version 4.6 “Two Worlds Aflame, the Crimson Night Fades” character trailer below:

    If you’d like to play Genshin Impact and don’t own it yet, you can download it for free on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. The PC version is available on the official website here and the Epic Games Store. If you play on iOS, with iOS 14.5 or iPadOS 14.5 and later, you can use PS5 and Xbox Series X|S controllers to play Genshin Impact. We featured Genshin Impact as our Game of the Week when it released and awarded it our 2020 Game of the Year. I also featured it as one of the best iOS games to play with a controller. What do you think of Genshin Impact 4.6 based on its trailers so far and will you be rolling for Arlecchino?

    Mikhail Madnani

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  • We’re at Peak Sports Right Now for a Reason

    We’re at Peak Sports Right Now for a Reason

    Photo: Steph Chambers/Getty Images

    On March 15, 2020, in the hallowed pages of the New York Times, I published one of the dumbest things I’ve ever written. (And there are many contenders for that title.) Four days after that fateful March 11 night when the NBA shut down, then-President Trump made his sniffly, error-filled, and super-not-reassuring Oval Office speech about COVID-19, and we all learned that Tom Hanks was sick, I (and others, it should be said) worried that sports themselves might be in some sort of existential peril. If you promise to be gentle, I will quote myself:

    [N]o one knows when there will be games again. And when they do return, it remains an open question whether the world of sports will be able to fully recover. I suspect that it will never be quite the same.

    You’ll never believe this, but: It turned out fine. In fact, I think you could argue that sports writ large are booming in a way they haven’t in decades. Just about every single professional and college league, even Major League Baseball, has seen a dramatic uptick in television ratings over the last year, and most are well-positioned in a TV and streaming world that values sports advertising dollars more than ever. The NBA playoffs are as thrilling as they have been in years. (BANG! BANG!). The NFL Draft, which is several hours of huge men awkwardly stuffed into suits reading names off Excel spreadsheets, will be watched by tens upon tens of millions of people. College football is so popular that it has fundamentally and forever changed how athletics on college campuses work. And, perhaps most exciting, women’s sports are exploding with more people now watching women’s basketball than men’s. People are even optimistic about the Olympics this summer, and people are never, ever optimistic about the Olympics. You could make a very strong argument that we are at peak sports right now.

    This is partly because, well, sports are awesome and people (and buffalo with the voice of Buck Bennett) enjoy watching awesome things. But I believe the main reason for this is that sports are fulfilling their primary purpose — to serve as a distraction from the outside world — particularly well at the moment. Regardless of how much time my fellow Knicks fans and I invest in the team’s playoff run, sports do not actually matter much to our lives, which is why they’re so fun to obsess over. They’re an ultimately harmless place to put all those emotions and hopes and anxieties that we struggle with every day. If my team wins, I am happy, and if they lose, I am sad. That is pure; there is nothing else in the world like it. This is why sports are the perfect distraction — distraction from despair, distraction from boredom, distraction from loneliness, distraction from the fact that someday you and I and everyone we know is going to die. The more people need distraction, the more they are going to turn to sports.

    And in this election year, if there’s one thing the people are clearly saying, over and over, it’s that they want to be distracted.

    There are countless polls showing that Americans are significantly less interested in this presidential election than the last one, despite, or perhaps because of, its almost paralyzing importance. This certainly checks out anecdotally; the quickest way to elicit an eye roll from just about anyone in my life is to bring up the election, or the Trump trial, or anything about politics at all. (And I live in a swing state!) In many ways, such studied apathy is a sign that one of President Biden’s signature campaign promises, to essentially get us back to a world in which we did not have to think about politics every 30 seconds, has been kept —not that it’s the sort of thing anyone would give him credit for. But it’s an apathy that Americans, for better or worse, are determined to hang on to. It’s telling that in contrast to 2020, the most politically active sports year in history, the sports world is staying out of politics almost entirely this year. No sports leagues are avoiding states because of legislation. (After all the fuss from four years ago, the MLB All-Star Game will be back in Georgia next year.) LeBron James isn’t hosting any rallies for Joe Biden; his athlete activism organization More Than a Vote doesn’t even exist anymore. The Rock’s shutting up. Leagues, teams, players … they’re all staying out of it.

    This does not make them unusual: This makes them just like the rest of us. The impulse to tune out is an entirely sane one and, again, why sports are here in the first place. And, even as someone who believes this election is considerably more important than the last one, or really any in my lifetime, I must admit that I do get it. I remember covering the 2016 Republican Convention in Cleveland for Bloomberg Politics, being at Quicken Loans Arena when Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination with an apocalyptic speech that was so terrifying it made my stomach turn. After a campaign like that one, and a speech that overwhelming, all I could think the next morning was Wow, I really want to watch a baseball game right now. I yearned to escape from the world that Trump was beginning to take over. I wanted to go somewhere where I could, for a few hours anyway, pretend it wasn’t happening.

    The “stick to sports” mantra has always been a ridiculous one; you can’t separate sports from politics because you can’t separate anything from politics. Every aspect of sports is affected by politics, from the anthem before the game, to how the stadium you’re watching the game in was funded, to how much the person you bought your hot dog from is getting paid. But more than any other field, sports is a place where you can purchase the illusion that you are experiencing something outside the realm of politics. And that is an extremely desirable and profitable illusion right now.

    Not only do I understand this impulse, I actually think it’s healthy. It’s not healthy to be in a hair-on-fire state all the time. The election is still more than six months away. Polls are turning in a more positive direction. Trump has taken so much of our energy and attention already; it’s reasonable that so many people don’t want to give him more. Really, it’s fine. As long as once the NBA playoffs are over, and the World Series concludes, and everyone has left the Olympics in Paris, and November rolls around, we all remember to get our eyes back on the (other kind of) ball.


    See All



    Will Leitch

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  • ‘Corn Kidz 64’, ‘Ready, Steady, Ship!’, Plus Today’s Other Releases and Sales – TouchArcade

    ‘Corn Kidz 64’, ‘Ready, Steady, Ship!’, Plus Today’s Other Releases and Sales – TouchArcade

    Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for April 19th, 2024. After yesterday’s absolute avalanche of new releases and sales, today is rather quiet by comparison. We have several new releases to look at, and a few of them are decent enough. There are summaries of all of the games worth summarizing, a couple things in the bins, and then the usual lists of new and expiring sales to cap off the week. Let’s get to the weekend!

    New Releases

    Corn Kidz 64 ($6.99)

    I’ll give this developer one thing at the very least: it has a real knack for evoking the Nintendo 64 era of 3D platforming. Like, maybe not the very best games of that era, but not far off from the likes of Glover or 40 Winks or what-have-you. Anyway, here’s Corn Kidz 64, and all it wants to do is remind you of those warm and fuzzy days of sitting on the floor in your pajamas and playing Nintendo 64. Even if you never lived those days. Only seven bucks? Goodness.

    Ready, Steady, Ship! ($14.99)

    A quirky little affair, this one is. It’s trying to tap into the Overcooked co-op chaos vibe, but it only supports two players so it loses some points right off the hop. The actual gameplay is fun, as you try to assemble paths for boxes to reach the right trucks, a task that becomes increasingly complex as you work through the thirty stages on offer. Son of Musgrave and I have been playing this a fair bit for my review, and one thing I should mention is that there is a fair number of bugs and glitches that can mess up attempts at perfect runs. It’s not bad, but it was disappointing that Mrs. Musgrave couldn’t join us. Full review will be coming soon.

    Scheming Through The Zombie Apocalypse Ep2: Caged ($4.99)

    Here’s the second chapter of this adventure game series about the retired sales-rabbit Hank and his puppy pal Larry. Make choices, engage in scavenging missions, loot and trade goods, and in general try to do what the title says you should do. The rules for episodic games apply here. If you played the first and enjoyed it, get this. If you played the first and didn’t enjoy it, think carefully. If you didn’t play the first, you definitely shouldn’t start with this one.

    Where is Drake? ($9.99)

    Yeah, where is he?

    The Bin Bunch

    Cat Piano ($5.99)

    Magical Girl Dash ($4.99)

    Sales

    (North American eShop, US Prices)

    Well, let’s see what we have today. Some Bandai Namco games, that’s nice. Oh, Draknek puzzle games. We all love those. Cave shoot-em-ups and Radiant Silvergun? Yes, always good. Have a look through those lists, because they’re a lot more manageable today. You might find something that rolled in a little too late for the kick-off of yesterday’s sale.

    Select New Sales

    Mr. Driller DrillLand ($4.79 from $29.99 until 4/29)
    Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series Bundle ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/29)
    My Hero One’s Justice 2 ($9.99 from $39.99 until 4/29)
    Dragon Ball: The Breakers SE ($8.99 from $29.99 until 4/29)
    Tales of Vesperia DE ($9.99 from $49.99 until 4/29)
    Digimon World: Next Order ($24.59 from $59.99 until 4/29)
    Katamari Damacy Reroll ($7.49 from $29.99 until 4/29)
    We Love Katamari Reroll + RR ($8.99 from $29.99 until 4/29)
    JoJo’s Bizarre Adv.: ASB R Deluxe ($24.49 from $69.99 until 4/29)
    Little Nightmares II ($9.89 from $29.99 until 4/29)
    Taiko no Tatsujin RA 2 ($14.99 from $29.99 until 4/29)
    Dragon Ball Z Kakarot ($14.99 from $59.99 until 4/29)
    Just Shapes & Beats ($12.99 from $19.99 until 5/2)
    Bonfire Peaks ($9.99 from $19.99 until 5/3)
    A Good Snowman is Hard to Build ($3.74 from $14.99 until 5/3)


    Sokobond ($3.74 from $14.99 until 5/3)
    Cosmic Express ($3.74 from $14.99 until 5/3)
    A Monster’s Expedition ($12.49 from $24.99 until 5/3)
    Patrick’s Parabox ($13.99 from $19.99 until 5/3)
    Cruis’n Blast ($19.99 from $39.99 until 5/8)
    The Amazing American Circus ($2.99 from $14.99 until 5/9)
    Radiant Silvergun ($9.99 from $19.99 until 5/9)
    Espgaluda II ($11.99 from $19.99 until 5/9)
    Mushihimesama ($11.99 from $19.99 until 5/9)
    DoDonPachi Resurrection ($11.99 from $19.99 until 5/9)
    Telenet Shooting Collection ($35.99 from $44.99 until 5/9)
    Valis: Fantasm Soldier Collection ($27.99 from $39.99 until 5/9)
    Valis: Fantasm Soldier Collection II ($31.49 from $44.99 until 5/9)
    Valis: Fantasm Soldier Collection III ($49.49 from $54.99 until 5/9)
    Starward Rogue ($9.74 from $14.99 until 5/9)


    Beyond a Steel Sky ($9.99 from $39.99 until 5/9)
    Anomaly Agent ($11.24 from $14.99 until 5/9)
    Alfred Hitchcock Vertigo ($4.99 from $19.99 until 5/9)
    Reknum ($1.99 from $4.99 until 5/9)
    The Rumble Fish + ($6.39 from $7.99 until 5/9)
    The Rumble Fish 2 ($11.99 from $29.99 until 5/9)
    The Quest for Excalibur: Puy du Fou ($7.49 from $29.99 until 5/9)
    May’s Mysteries: TSoD ($3.74 from $14.99 until 5/9)
    Grand Mountain Adventure Wonderlands ($8.74 from $34.99 until 5/9)
    Piczle Puzzle & Watch Collection ($1.99 from $7.99 until 5/9)
    Piczle Lines 2: Into the Puzzleverse ($3.74 from $14.99 until 5/9)
    The Trotties Adventure ($8.99 from $14.99 until 5/9)
    My Universe: Interior Designer ($7.49 from $29.99 until 5/9)
    My Little Universe ($8.99 from $14.99 until 5/9)
    The Smurfs 2: Prisoner of Green Stone ($23.99 from $39.99 until 5/9)
    The Sisters Party of the Year ($2.99 from $29.99 until 5/9)

    Sales Ending This Weekend

    Modern Combat Blackout ($1.99 from $7.99 until 4/20)
    TT Isle of Man RotE 2 ($5.99 from $59.99 until 4/20)
    Alicia Griffith: LM ($2.09 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    Big Adventure: Trip to Europe 5 ($11.99 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    Brightstone Mysteries: The Others ($2.09 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    Dead Cells ($12.49 from $24.99 until 4/21)
    Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania ($7.99 from $9.99 until 4/21)
    Detective Agency: Gray Tie ($2.09 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    DREDGE ($17.49 from $24.99 until 4/21)
    First Time in Hawaii ($9.59 from $11.99 until 4/21)
    I Love Finding Furbabies ($7.99 from $9.99 until 4/21)
    Just Find It ($7.99 from $9.99 until 4/21)
    Magic City Detective: SD ($11.99 from $14.99 until 4/21)


    Magic City Detective: WoR ($11.99 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    Maze of Realities: FoD ($11.99 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    Maze of Realities: RoL ($11.99 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    Moving Out 2 ($14.99 from $29.99 until 4/21)
    My Lovely Pets ($2.09 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    Mystery Box: Hidden Secrets ($7.99 from $9.99 until 4/21)
    Nature Escapes 2 ($11.99 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    Nature Escapes 3 ($11.99 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    So Much Stuff ($2.99 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    Twin Mind: MJ ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    Twin Mind: NH ($5.99 from $14.99 until 4/21)
    Twin Mind: PoL ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/21)

    That’s all for today and this week, friends. We’ll be back next week with more new games, more reviews, more sales, and even more news. Maybe! I have a huge pile of games to review right now, so do wish me luck with my work this weekend. I hope you all have a fantastic Friday, and as always, thanks for reading!

    Shaun Musgrave

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  • Huge New ‘Peglin’ Mobile Update Adds a New Boss, Revamped Forest Map, Run Summaries, Seeding, Secrets, and More – TouchArcade

    Huge New ‘Peglin’ Mobile Update Adds a New Boss, Revamped Forest Map, Run Summaries, Seeding, Secrets, and More – TouchArcade

    Red Nexus Games’ pachinko roguelike Peglin (Free) has gotten its second major update of 2024 on iOS and Android today. This update, version 0.9.55, went live about a week ago on Steam, and it focuses on a new boss, run summaries, support for seeding, secrets, many balance adjustments, a new item indicator, visual improvements, and a lot more. Details for the bug fixes, new content, and all the balance adjustments are on the Steam page here. If you own the game on mobile, the update notes only focus on facing Cruciball 16 with the new boss on the visually revamped forest map, but you should check out the Steam news post linked to see just how much has been added or changed in this update. It is good to see so much support just months after the last update, and I can’t wait to see what the developers have in store for the game leading into version 1.0. Watch the gameplay trailer for Peglin below:

    Peglin is set to hit 1.0 this year, and it likely will be a game of the year contender if it keeps up the current quality of updates. If you’re interested in checking out the game right now, read my review of Peglin on iOS here covering the state of game from a few months ago. I also interviewed Red Nexus Games here covering the game, pricing, and a lot more. Peglin on mobile is a free to try game, and you can grab it on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. We featured it as our Game of the Week when it launched. Check it out on Steam here where it is a premium release. Head over to our forum thread for more impressions and discussion around the iOS version. Have you played Peglin before on mobile or PC, and what do you think of today’s big mobile update?

    Mikhail Madnani

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  • Beyond’, ‘ArcRunner’, Plus Today’s Other News, Releases, and Sales – TouchArcade

    Beyond’, ‘ArcRunner’, Plus Today’s Other News, Releases, and Sales – TouchArcade

    Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for April 17th, 2024. A time zone conundrum plagues us again today, friends. I’m here in the past, writing this article. You’re here in the future, after what is looking to be a very big Indie World Showcase. It’s very likely that the list of new releases here doesn’t reflect what you see in your eShop right now, but we will have to catch up tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ve got summaries of all the games on the current schedule, plus the latest sales. Oh, and a link to that presentation, of course. Let’s get to work!

    News

    Check Out Today’s Indie World Showcase

    Probably… probably by the time you see this, the Indie World Showcase will have already aired. It’s scheduled for 7:00 am PT/10:00 am ET, and even from my seat here in the past I doubt this article will be posted before that. With that being the case, you should be able to watch it in the video I’ve linked here. What will be there? That’s a question I can’t answer as I write this, but rumors are all over the place as usual. We’ll catch up on the big stuff tomorrow.

    New Releases

    Reigns: Beyond ($4.99)

    Yes, it’s another Reigns game. You probably know how these work. You just swipe to make choices and maybe engage in some minigames along the way. The theme this time is that you are in an intergalactic indie rock band and are trying to make it to the top. Recruit band members, play gigs, and get into all kinds of trouble along the way. Our pal Mikhail will be reviewing this one soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that if you’re curious as to how this one turned out.

    ArcRunner ($19.99)

    A roguelite shooter for up to three players via online multiplayer, ArcRunner sees you playing as a cybernetic tactical operative on a mission to shut down a rogue AI on a space station. There are a few things to deal with along the way, mainly in the form of a bunch of killer robots. Well, I’m sure you’ll be fine. This has been out on other platforms for a bit, and it seems to have found some fans. Maybe you’ll be one of them? I’ll leave it to you to dig in further and see if it’s your thing.

    The Mildew Children ($9.99)

    This is a 2D adventure with a heavy narrative component. It’s a horror fairy tale about a village filled with children who follow some nasty traditions, and specifically follows a witch named Kyrphel who has to perform a dark ritual in order to save her home. Don’t expect too much in the way of puzzles, as this game is more interesting in telling its tale. But it’s a good story for what it is, and if you enjoy this kind of thing and the premise intrigues you, I think it merits further investigation.

    Sales

    (North American eShop, US Prices)

    A small, small list. Still, there are a few good games in there hitting some low prices. I’m sure we’ll see a lot more later in the week, so don’t blow all your money now. I will call out one thing from the outbox, and that’s Gotta Protectors. I love that game so much, and it’s very rarely on sale. Get it while you can.

    Select New Sales

    Saltsea Chronicles ($18.74 from $24.99 until 4/24)
    Warp Drive ($6.24 from $24.99 until 4/24)
    Electrician Simulator ($11.99 from $19.99 until 4/30)
    NBA 2K24 Kobe Bryant Edition ($8.99 from $59.99 until 4/30)
    NBA 2K24 Black Mamba Edition ($24.99 from $99.99 until 4/30)
    TOEM ($4.99 from $19.99 until 5/1)
    Braveland Trilogy ($2.99 from $14.99 until 5/1)
    Shalnor Legends 2: ToT ($3.99 from $9.99 until 5/1)
    Crash Drive 3 ($1.99 from $19.99 until 5/7)
    Sigi ($1.99 from $4.99 until 5/7)

    Sales Ending Tomorrow, April 18th

    Battle Axe ($7.49 from $29.99 until 4/18)
    Clive ‘N’ Wrench ($14.99 from $29.99 until 4/18)
    Final Vendetta ($9.98 from $24.95 until 4/18)
    God of Light: Remastered ($2.99 from $4.99 until 4/18)
    Goroons ($4.00 from $10.00 until 4/18)
    Gotta Protectors Cart of Darkness ($8.99 from $14.99 until 4/18)
    IIN ($4.00 from $10.00 until 4/18)
    Pan’orama ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/18)
    Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments ($5.99 from $29.99 until 4/18)
    Terraformers ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/18)
    Twilight Survivors ($2.69 from $2.99 until 4/18)

    That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with the big Thursday list of releases, some catch-up news from today, and whatever sales roll in during the next twenty-four hours or so. This has been one of those weeks where I haven’t gotten done nearly as much as I wanted to, but I guess some weeks are like that. I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday, and as always, thanks for reading!

    Shaun Musgrave

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  • Reviews Featuring ‘Freedom Planet 2’ & ‘Terra Memoria’, Plus the Latest Releases and Sales – TouchArcade

    Reviews Featuring ‘Freedom Planet 2’ & ‘Terra Memoria’, Plus the Latest Releases and Sales – TouchArcade

    Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for April 16th, 2024. In today’s article, we’ve got a handful of reviews for you to dig into. I have my thoughts ready on Freedom Planet 2, Terra Memoria, Moonglow Bay, and Tengoku Struggle, and it’s a real assortment to be sure. After that, we have some new releases to look at including a new game featuring Inugami Korone, my very favorite Vtuber. After that, it’s sales time! Lists of new and expiring sales, as you like it. Let’s get this week going!

    Reviews & Mini-Views

    Freedom Planet 2 ($24.99)

    I liked the first Freedom Planet more than I like most Sonic games. Just mentioning that now so that you know where I am coming from. I felt like the story bits were a little too much, but the actual gameplay mechanics and level designs were outstanding. I also really enjoyed the boss battles, though some of them were a little long for my liking. It wasn’t hard to spot its origins as a Sonic fan game, but it was an incredibly well-made one. My hopes for the sequel were that it could find a better story-to-gameplay balance, and that it could properly break free from its source of inspiration and fully become its own thing.

    Well, I didn’t get everything I wanted, but Freedom Planet 2 is a solid improvement on the original. The cutscenes are a lot easier to tolerate, as they’re shorter and better paced. The game still feels like Sonic at times, but I think it’s moving in a good direction in that regard. Perhaps the most important thing is that the game itself shows a lot of enhancements across the board. The presentation is better, the level designs are more interesting, the various characters feel more natural within those stages, and the mechanics have been tightened up. It’s a terrific 2D action game, and fans of 2D Sonic should have a great time with it.

    I won’t belabor the point here. Freedom Planet 2 takes everything Freedom Planet did right and does it better, while also making sure to improve on the things it didn’t do well. It’s still not a perfect game by any means, and it can’t quite escape the orbit of Sonic the Hedgehog. But maybe it doesn’t have to? Maybe it isn’t meant to? Perhaps it’s just fine if it’s a really great riff on Sonic‘s gameplay. It knows what it wants to be and executes on that amazingly well. If you like 2D platformers, you’ll want to put this game on your shopping list.

    SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5

    Terra Memoria ($19.99)

    One thing I’ll give Terra Memoria: it has a lot of charm. I can really feel the passion that went into its creation, and early on it had me enchanted. The world design is intriguing, the characters who make up your party are distinctive, and the combat system takes a lot of cues from Grandia. That’s a good place to draw inspiration from. But the more the game went on, the more it lost me. The characters don’t get much development or fleshing out, the sub-systems often feel like an afterthought, and the battle system quickly becomes repetitive. By the end, I felt like I had played through a KEMCO RPG. A KEMCO RPG with an outstanding presentation, mind you.

    The game is set in Terra, a fantasy world where magic makes everything go ’round. All is fine until some ancient robots awaken and start attacking. Six characters come together in these circumstances and must explore both the past and present to figure out what’s gone wrong and why. The turn-based battle system sees you exploiting weaknesses to try to delay the enemies’ turns, and it’s fun but never really challenges you to try new tactics. Nothing in the game demands more than simply picking at the enemies’ weaknesses with the best magic you’ve got.

    There’s also a crafting system in here that you’ll mainly be using to build up your town/base, which is an enjoyable mechanic even if it isn’t very essential. There are other side quests beyond the town-building to complete, so the game certainly checks off the necessary boxes. But despite the game running a respectable twenty-ish hours, it never quite takes off the way you would hope. It feels like there’s half a game missing here. Not so much a missing second half, but rather bits and pieces cut from the game as it stands.

    There’s a lot to like in Terra Memoria, especially in the game’s outstanding presentation. It’s clear its creators are fans of the RPG genre, and the foundation is here for something really great. Unfortunately, after a solid start the game doesn’t really build on things very well. Characters are paper-thin, the combat system quickly stagnates, and it all starts to feel like you’re just going through the motions. There’s enough gas in the tank here for me to recommend it to fans of the genre, though.

    SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5

    Tengoku Struggle -Strayside- ($49.99)

    The latest visual novel release from Idea Factory and Aksys comes from many of the same people that worked on Olympia Soiree, a game that our pal Mikhail reviewed and really enjoyed. I’ll say this for Tengoku Struggle: you can tell it’s from the same writer as that game. There are a lot of heavy adult themes in this game, including sexual assault and necrophilia. Most of the guys in this game don’t hesitate to threaten the heroine in very forceful ways. Maybe that’s your thing, maybe it’s not. But consider yourself advised, if nothing else.

    Rin Enma is the adopted daughter of the King of Hell, and she’s just passed her final tests and taken a position as a Hell Guardian. She has no memories of her life before she died, and is simply dedicated to helping her father as best as she can. When some sinners use a loophole to escape Hell, Rin’s father tasks her with going to the human realm to track them down. To help her out, Papa sends four of his best “dogs” – some of Hell’s worst sinners. They’ll all have to live together in a house in Asakusa, a task made all the more arduous by the fact that Rin has a strong dislike of men. Their investigation will reveal a lot of secrets, and Rin might just find love along the way.

    You’ve got five routes to play here, each with a good and bad ending. Some are a lot better than others, and this is one of those games where it feels like it’s strongly pushing you towards one particular pairing. Everything is written well enough, dialogue-wise, and some of the routes have interesting stories to tell. The truth behind Rin’s existence isn’t too hard to figure out before it’s properly revealed, but there are a few shocking twists up the writer’s sleeve. I only ended up really enjoying two of the routes, and one of them did absolutely nothing for me at all. It sometimes felt like the writer was going a little too over the top without good reason to. I will say that I absolutely loved Papa Enma, whose voice actor completely sells the bizarre character he’s portrayed as here.

    While Tengoku Struggle shows the usual high production values and polish seen in Idea Factory’s other visual novels, I found the story here just wasn’t quite up to the usual output we see from the developer. There’s some good in it, and the best route is certainly worth experiencing if the premise has intrigued you. The writer’s tendency to try to shock the reader in cheap ways gets a little out of hand here, and some of the romances really aren’t sold well. A decent effort, but given the generally high-quality output of Idea Factory in this genre, Tengoku Struggle has some difficulty making its mark.

    SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5

    Moonglow Bay ($24.99)

    A tale as old as time, by this point. A decent game that is heavily dragged down by its terrible technical performance. To be clear, even if the game ran well, Moonglow Bay has its fair share of design issues. It’s a life sim of sorts where you’re fishing, cooking, interacting with townspeople, and running a business. These aspects aren’t balanced as well as they could be, with the basic tasks becoming incredibly tiresome very quickly and the business aspect undercooked and easily exploitable. The story has trouble finding a consistent tone, and the interface can often feel unintuitive.

    None of this is as big of a problem as the technical side of the game, though. The game absolutely chugs as you walk around through the voxel-style world, to the point that I was almost feeling nauseous at times. A game that looks like this really shouldn’t run this poorly, so I’m hoping it’s an optimization issue that the developer can fix with some patches. Moonglow Bay is also extremely buggy. I ran into full-stop crashes back to the Switch’s home menu more often than I’d like, and sometimes cut-scenes would play multiple times in a row. I managed to get stuck in objects a few times, too.

    It’s frustrating because despite the flaws in the game’s design, I found myself enjoying the basic loop well enough. It’s no Stardew Valley or anything, but it’s fine. I was really cheering for the protagonist as they tried to bring themselves and their town back to life. This is a game I want to enjoy, but it’s very difficult to do so in its current state. Had I not been playing the game for review, I would have bailed out very early due to how queasy it made me feel.

    Moonglow Bay has a lot of good aspects to it that unfortunately are balanced against some balancing and pacing issues. All of this is overshadowed by the game’s buggy, unpolished state here on the Switch. Between framerate issues, crashes, collision mess-ups, and other bizarre bugs, it’s hard to properly get into the world the game is trying to build. I’m hoping the game can improve with some updates, because there is something here that compelled me when the problems weren’t pushing me away.

    SwitchArcade Score: 3/5

    New Releases

    Evil God Korone ($3.95)

    Yubi-yubi! The best Vtuber doggo comes to the Switch in this Korone-themed twist on Tsugunohi. Just like in the regular game, you’re walking to the left continuously as scary things happen. Korone is known for her occasional yandere tendencies, and she leans into it here as she goes full-blown evil god on us. Water in the fire, why?! Okay, this has a very particular audience. They know who they are, and they will probably pick it up even if they are base cowards who hate horror. No confidence.

    Dream Tactics ($17.99)

    A promising looking strategy RPG that blends deck-building elements with a fairly traditional take on the genre. The Dream World is in trouble, and you’re the only one that can save it. You’ll have to assemble a team and gather an assortment of cards as you battle your way through the evil Pillow Legions. The developers cite the Game Boy Advance era as their source of inspiration, and at least from what I’ve seen that tracks well enough. I’ll have to spend some time with this one to see if it’s as good as it seems.

    The Bin Bunch

    ZooKeeper ($10.99)

    Overdelivery – Delivery Simulator ($7.99)

    Perfect Knife ($0.99)

    Sales

    (North American eShop, US Prices)

    A tiny list of new sales, but I sure can’t argue with Gimmick or Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf at those prices. Over in the outbox… not much at all. Not much at all. Well, I’ll leave it to you. It won’t take too long for you to scan both lists; I suspect you already have as you’ve read this.

    Select New Sales

    Gimmick! Special Edition ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/22)
    Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf ($2.49 from $9.99 until 4/24)
    Bendy & the Ink Machine ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/25)
    Hexapoda ($4.99 from $12.99 until 4/29)
    Kittengumi: The Sakabato’s Thief ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/29)
    Outer Terror ($7.99 from $9.99 until 5/3)
    Virus Rush ($1.99 from $7.99 until 5/3)
    Evil Nun: The Broken Mask ($13.99 from $19.99 until 5/3)
    She Sees Red: Interactive Movie ($2.49 from $9.99 until 5/4)

    Sales Ending Tomorrow, April 16th

    Blazblue Centralfiction SE ($12.49 from $49.99 until 4/16)
    Blazblue Cross Tag Battle ($4.99 from $19.99 until 4/16)
    Instant Tennis ($1.99 from $9.95 until 4/16)
    Pinball M: The Thing Pinball DLC ($4.66 from $5.49 until 4/16)
    Railgrade ($19.49 from $29.99 until 4/16)
    Sheepo ($3.84 from $10.99 until 4/16)
    Stay Cool, Kobayashi-San! ($1.99 from $13.99 until 4/16)
    Torn Away ($12.75 from $15.00 until 4/16)
    Xiaomei & the Flame Dragon’s Fist ($8.99 from $14.99 until 4/16)

    That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with more reviews, more sales, more new releases, and perhaps some news. I had a nice weekend despite a lot of issues bearing down on me. I credit the fine weather and a rare chance to sleep in on a Sunday. I recommend both things. I hope you all have a magnificent Monday, and as always, thanks for reading!

    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Civilization VI’ Is Unplayable on iOS 17.4 and Later, No ETA On When It Will Be Fixed – TouchArcade

    ‘Civilization VI’ Is Unplayable on iOS 17.4 and Later, No ETA On When It Will Be Fixed – TouchArcade

    Ever since it launched on mobile Aspyr Media has been slowly releasing new DLC and updates for Civilization VI (Free) on iOS and Android. The most recent content updates have been for the Leader Pass while we’ve seen minor bug fix updates a few months ago. Ever since iOS 17.4 hit, the game has not been playable on iOS or iPadOS devices running it or 17.4.1. I hadn’t played the game on mobile at all since updating, so was not aware of this. Thanks to a tip from a reader over the weekend, I’ve been looking into this and have tried launching the game on all devices I have at home. Across four different iPhones and three iPads, the game does not let you play anymore. It gives you an error on launching, and remains on the splash screen shown below. I tried reinstalling it and had no luck. Aspyr confirmed that it is aware of this over a month ago, but there is no ETA on a fix.

    Games and apps breaking on newer iOS versions isn’t new, but when you have a game like Civilization VI that costs more to get the DLC and game (outside sales) on mobile than other platforms, you expect some level of support. As of this writing, I don’t recommend buying the game on iOS until this is fixed. Who knows how long it will take as we still don’t even have updates to improve the visuals for iPads from years ago, let alone the current ones. If you’ve not played it yet, read our initial iPad review here and my updated review with expansions and more here based on how the game was when it still worked on up to date iOS versions then. I also reviewed the New Frontier Pass content and the state of the game in 2021 on iOS here. You can try out Civilization VI for free on the App Store for iOS here, and I recommend checking it again when either iOS or the game get updated to make sure it works before buying. I’ve reached out to Aspyr to check in on the status of the fix, and will update this news story if we hear back.

    Mikhail Madnani

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  • Nintendo Switch Online Retro Game Updates, Plus Today’s New Releases, Sales, and News – TouchArcade

    Nintendo Switch Online Retro Game Updates, Plus Today’s New Releases, Sales, and News – TouchArcade

    Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for April 12th, 2024. In today’s article, we’ve got a couple bits of news items to get us going. And it’s a good thing we do, because this is not a strong day in any other regard. Several new releases, but not terribly good ones. Some sales, but not a lot. An unusual Friday, but perhaps one well-suited to my schedule today. So a light read today, but I think it’s still an enjoyable one. Let’s finish up the week!

    News

    ‘Super R-Type’ and More Have Been Added to Nintendo Switch Online

    Nintendo just sort of does whatever with the retro game collections that are part of the Nintendo Switch Online subscription. Sometimes you go weeks without anything new, sometimes Nintendo lets you know a week in advance that games are coming, and sometimes we just get stuff dropped out of nowhere. Today is one of the latter days. Three new treats in the Super NES app for you to play: Super R-Type, Wrecking Crew ’98, and Amazing Hebereke. The latter two have previously seen releases in Japan only, but they are more than playable even if you don’t know Japanese. Some fun picks, to be sure. All you have to do is update your app and you can enjoy the new games.

    Library of Ruina Switch Digital Pre-orders Now Live

    Arc System Works America and Project Moon released a new trailer for the upcoming deckbuilder and begun digital pre-orders for the game on the eShop for Nintendo Switch. This new console version of the library battler features Japanese voiceover options not present in the original release. The store page mentions hundreds of hours of gameplay. I’ll see how that ends up being for my review. Stay tuned for that. Until then, you can pre-order Library of Ruina on Switch for $39.99 ahead of its April 25th release date in the West.

    New Releases

    Outer Terror ($9.99)

    This wave of Vampire Survivors-inspired games isn’t going to pass anytime soon, is it? Here’s one more! It’s not very good, but perhaps its exploration elements will convince you that it’s worth the spin. Still, I can’t imagine any reality where I would recommend this over Vampire Survivors or Brotato, both of which will also leave you with more money in your pocket.

    King Krieg Survivors ($5.99)

    Another generic Vampire Survivors imitator, and another one of them that makes the poor decision of being more expensive than the real thing. It seems competent enough if you’re extremely hungry for another one of these kinds of games, but don’t expect anything new or interesting.

    Japan Train Models – JR Freight Edition ($9.99)

    These must be doing well enough for the publisher, because here’s a fourth one. This one focuses on the freight trains of Japan Railways. Like before, there isn’t really a game here. It’s more of a digital train model set. Build dioramas, check out all of the angles of the two licensed train types, and so on. If that sounds like a good time to you, then here you go.

    Glorious Savior ($14.99)

    It’s KEMCO RPG time, and it’s another one of EXE-Create’s efforts. If you have any experience with this publisher’s work in recent years at all, you probably know what you’re going to get here. It’s okay as this sort of thing goes, but like many of KEMCO’s titles it really doesn’t feel like something you should pay fifteen bucks for.

    Cryptrio ($4.99)

    A falling block puzzler where all of the pieces are monsters. You need to match three of the same type to make them disappear, which isn’t such an odd conceit for a game like this. What spices it up is that the monster pieces all have their own shapes you’ll have to deal with. And of course, you’ll want to set up some chains too. Every once in a while a boss will roll in and give you a hard time. Not bad for the very reasonable price.

    Farmyard Haven ($5.29)

    Another one that is more an exercise in relaxation than any sort of challenge, Farmyard Haven allows you to build a farm the way you like. There aren’t any particular restrictions, and you don’t need to worry about gathering resources or anything like that. There’s no way to win or lose. Just make a farm. Then start over again and make another farm. This is so mechanically similar to this publisher’s other game, Cozy Hamlets, that whoever wrote the eShop description forgot to swap out the name. Is it for you? I cannot tell you that. Ask your heart.

    The Bin Bunch

    Color Road ($4.99)

    Park Them All! ($4.00)

    Make It Fly! ($4.00)

    Exploration Adventures ($7.99)

    Fight Club ($14.99)

    Sales

    (North American eShop, US Prices)

    Well, it’s that kind of day. Maybe you’ll find something good in the inbox, but nothing in there is getting me excited. The weekend outbox is much larger, so you might have a better shot of finding something cool in it. I’ll let you comb through it yourself, though. Well, one pick: Haiku, the Robot. That’s a good one. The rest is in your hands.

    Select New Sales

    Tanuki Sunset ($8.49 from $16.99 until 4/19)
    Oxytone ($3.99 from $7.99 until 4/19)
    Raid on Taihoku ($6.59 from $10.99 until 4/23)
    RichMan 4 Fun ($8.99 from $11.99 until 4/23)
    Hero’s Hour ($16.19 from $17.99 until 4/25)
    Leafy Trails Collection ($7.49 from $9.99 until 4/25)
    Pretty Girls Klondike Solitaire Plus ($4.19 from $5.99 until 4/26)
    Burning Secrets ($2.99 from $4.99 until 4/26)
    Ravva & the Phantom Library ($5.99 from $9.99 until 4/26)
    Alive Paint ($2.49 from $4.99 until 4/26)
    Diorama Dungeoncrawl ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/26)
    Slime Girl Smoothies ($8.99 from $14.99 until 4/26)
    Magic Exposure ($2.49 from $4.99 until 4/26)
    Tricky Thief ($2.49 from $4.99 until 4/26)
    Rick Henderson ($2.79 from $7.99 until 4/26)
    Horatio Goes Snowboarding ($2.44 from $6.99 until 4/26)
    Takotan ($2.37 from $6.99 until 4/26)
    Thunder Ray: Origins ($11.98 from $19.98 until 4/26)
    Hero of Fate ($8.99 from $14.99 until 5/2)
    Space Warrior ($1.99 from $2.99 until 5/2)

    Sales Ending This Weekend

    A Painter’s Tale: Curon, 1950 ($3.49 from $6.99 until 4/13)
    Abandon Ship ($8.74 from $24.99 until 4/13)
    Alba: A Wildlife Adventure ($5.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Alt-Frequencies ($1.99 from $7.99 until 4/13)
    Ashwalkers ($7.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Astria Ascending ($15.99 from $39.99 until 4/13)
    Astrologaster ($3.49 from $9.99 until 4/13)
    Before I Forget ($3.99 from $7.99 until 4/13)
    Born of Bread ($23.99 from $29.99 until 4/13)
    Cassiodora ($10.19 from $16.99 until 4/13)
    Double Kick Heroes ($7.69 from $21.99 until 4/13)
    Dungeon of Naheulbeuk ($7.99 from $39.99 until 4/13)
    Elypse ($13.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Fates of Ort ($5.09 from $14.99 until 4/13)
    Foretales ($12.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)


    Ghost of a Tale ($7.49 from $24.99 until 4/13)
    Gravity Circuit ($15.39 from $21.99 until 4/13)
    Guild of Ascension ($6.79 from $16.99 until 4/13)
    Healer’s Quest ($5.24 from $14.99 until 4/13)
    Instant Sports ($3.74 from $14.99 until 4/13)
    Instant Sports Plus ($14.99 from $24.99 until 4/13)
    Instant Sports Summer Games ($4.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Instant Sports Winter Games ($11.24 from $24.99 until 4/13)
    Iris & the Giant ($4.49 from $14.99 until 4/13)
    Lethis: Path of Progress ($5.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Letters: A Written Adventure ($8.24 from $14.99 until 4/13)
    Linelight ($2.99 from $9.99 until 4/13)
    Mari & Bayu: The Road Home ($9.34 from $16.99 until 4/13)
    Nocturnal ($12.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Out of Space: Couch Edition ($2.49 from $9.99 until 4/13)


    Pompom: The Great Space Rescue ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/13)
    Revita ($11.04 from $16.99 until 4/13)
    Ruggnar ($7.69 from $13.99 until 4/13)
    RUN: The World In-Between ($5.49 from $9.99 until 4/13)
    ScourgeBringer ($5.09 from $16.99 until 4/13)
    Skabma: Snowfall ($17.49 from $24.99 until 4/13)
    Souldiers ($10.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    The Nom ($1.99 from $4.99 until 4/13)
    They Always Run ($10.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Venice 2089 ($3.49 from $6.99 until 4/13)
    Vernal Edge ($14.29 from $21.99 until 4/13)
    Void Scrappers ($1.99 from $3.99 until 4/13)
    Haiku, the Robot ($10.99 from $19.99 until 4/14)
    Islets ($11.99 from $19.99 until 4/14)
    Salt & Sacrifice ($7.99 from $19.99 until 4/14)
    Salt & Sanctuary ($4.49 from $17.99 until 4/14)
    Save me Mr Tako: Definitive Edition ($2.99 from $14.99 until 4/14)
    The Forest Quartet ($2.99 from $9.99 until 4/14)

    That’s all for today and this week, friends. We’ll be back next week with more new releases, more sales, more reviews, and some news. My trip to the hospital was uneventful, which is how we want trips to the hospital to be. I’ll have to go back around in June, but such is the schedule these days. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and as always, thanks for reading!

    Shaun Musgrave

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  • Reviews Featuring ‘PuzzMiX’ & ‘Expeditions’, Plus Today’s New Releases and Sales – TouchArcade

    Reviews Featuring ‘PuzzMiX’ & ‘Expeditions’, Plus Today’s New Releases and Sales – TouchArcade

    Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for April 8th, 2024. In today’s article, we start things off with a few reviews for you. I take a look at Inti-Creates’ latest release PuzzMiX, while our pal Mikhail has his thoughts on Expeditions: A MudRunner Game and Stacklands for you to consider. After that, we have some new releases. Mostly bin stuff, but it’s a Monday so what can you do? We finish things up in the usual fashion with the lists of new and expiring sales. The latter in particular is a big-pants bunch today, so prepare a drink and snack in advance. Let’s get the week going!

    Reviews & Mini-Views

    Expeditions: A MudRunner Game ($49.99)

     

    Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment’s MudRunner and SnowRunner games have been excellent relaxing experiences for me despite the complexity. I’ve treated them like great podcast games and slowly been playing through the base release and post-launch content over the years. When Expeditions: A MudRunner Game was announced, I was curious, but also wondered how different it would feel. I liked the prior games enough to pre-order the Supreme Edition of Expeditions: A MudRunner Game on Steam to play on Steam Deck, but how does it look and feel a month later and how is the Switch version? I’m going to cover both of those things here.

    Expeditions: A MudRunner Game takes the base laid by SnowRunner to deliver a fresh and slightly mechanically different take on the tried and tested formula. This sees new gadgets, more physics, interesting missions, customization, and more all come together to deliver a game made for off-road enthusiasts who like driving, roads, and everything about navigation in the wilds.

    You will be planning your missions in Expeditions: A MudRunner Game by deciding on vehicles, loadouts, learning more of the locations through revisiting them, using various gadgets like the drone, and more all with some fantastic physics-based systems. If you’re new to the series or these games, there’s a ton of depth, but the tutorials are very good. I would still recommend revisiting older locations to get a better feel and to learn how to deal with specific parts of the terrain.

    The structure of Expeditions: A MudRunner Game and its unlocks make it so that I’ve been replaying different parts of it a lot while aiming to learn and optimize how I approach specific situations in the game. The exploration focus hooked me more than prior games, and while Expeditions: A MudRunner Game obviously doesn’t have as much content as SnowRunner that has seen years of updates, this is a super solid base to build on with future content.

    Expeditions: A MudRunner Game has the potential to be my favorite of the three as well, but I know it isn’t going to please everyone. While I have enjoyed playing an hour or so almost daily, the hand holding might turn some off compared to what fans of these games are used to. Aside from that, the gadgets add a layer of strategy to exploration that I love.

    Since launching, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game has gotten two decent-sized updates fixing quite a few annoyances and some balance, but I almost feel like some of the fixes from the most recent update should’ve been there from the start. That’s the benefit of this Expeditions: A MudRunner Game 1 month later review though. Saber is great with updates and if you held off on Expeditions: A MudRunner Game before, it has already improved. It still needs some quality of life improvements in its mission structure and with the freedom you get on maps though.

    Having played it for a few weeks on Steam Deck before playing it on Switch, I was shocked at how well the actual gameplay has been translated over to Nintendo’s hybrid. A game that cannot run at a locked 60fps on Steam Deck was no doubt going to need some compromises for Switch, and thankfully they are mostly image quality related here.

    I haven’t played MudRunner (much) and SnowRunner on Switch to comment on how Expeditions: A MudRunner Game feels compared to them, but my main complaint with the port is the visuals docked and the performance handheld. Expeditions: A MudRunner Game looks good for the platform in handheld mode, but I wouldn’t recommend playing it mostly docked if you have another platform. The frame rate isn’t perfect in both modes, but the drops felt worse in handheld mode.

    I hope future updates can improve the performance and load times on Switch, because I’ve enjoyed having Expeditions: A MudRunner Game on both my Switch OLED and Switch Lite to play as a break from other games. Right now, the best portable version is on my Steam Deck OLED for sure though, but this is a good port of a complex game for Switch.

    I ended up liking Expeditions: A MudRunner Game a lot, and keep going back to it almost daily. This is definitely going to be a game I have installed on both Switch and Steam Deck for the foreseeable future to play as a break from other releases. If you have the option to play on a current generation platform, I’d recommend getting Expeditions: A MudRunner Game there. The team has done a good job in bringing this full game to Switch despite its visual compromises. If the performance in handheld mode can be improved, this will be an easier game to recommend on Switch. -Mikhail Madnani

    SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5

    Stacklands ($14.99)

     

    I’ve said this before, but one of my favorite things about reviewing games is discovering developers and games. With Stacklands, I discovered Sokpop Collective, and was surprised and disappointed in myself for not having heard of it before a few months ago. Stacklands is a card-based construction and management game that debuted on PC back in 2022. Before playing it on Switch for review, I spent a good amount of time with the Steam version, which was very successful for the team.

    Stacklands is immediately elegant and accessible. It meticulously brings in mechanics from a few notable genres while providing the dopamine hit you get from opening card packs all while looking gorgeous with relaxing music. I can see why this game got so popular on Steam when it launched, and it really feels like it would be perfect on iPad with touch controls. We will wait to see if it ever shows up there, but how does it feel now and play on Nintendo Switch?

    The core gameplay loop involves using your villagers to gain resources, make money, and fight. You do this by dragging cards on top of each other. Every action requires some time, and this is where Stacklands starts to unfold. Your aim is to manage your villagers, resources, look at the timers, and try and progress each day or moon as it is called in-game. If you don’t have enough food, your villagers will starve and die, resulting in a game over if you have none left.

    While management and building are big parts of Stacklands, combat also is a thing here. Dragging a villager onto a creature results in a battle taking place automatically. You unlock equipment as well. Games in the genre usually overwhelm right from the get go, but Stacklands handles onboarding and progression very well. Things get hectic later on, but you will be familiar with the game by then.

    Stacklands on Switch has a few interface issues. Performance is mostly fine, but my complaints are with the interface using a controller. Stacklands not having touch screen support on Switch is very disappointing. I’d also have loved to see Joy-Con pointer controls when docked if that is possible because this game was built for mouse (or touch based on how good it plays with touch on Steam Deck). The other issue on Switch is the text regardless of the scaling can look blurry in some situations.

    In its current state, Stacklands is a fantastic game held back by some interface issues on Nintendo Switch. If you have the option to play it with a mouse or touch controls on Steam, I recommend getting it there. The Switch version and the controller support in general for the game need a bit more work for the game to be an easier recommendation. Stacklands has definitely sent me down the Sokpop Collective rabbit hole and I’ve been checking out some of the team’s other games. Hopefully we see some more come to the console soon. -Mikhail Madnani

    SwitchArcade Score: 4/5

    PuzzMiX ($3.99)

    This was a curious release to see from Inti-Creates. While the company is more known for quality takes on well-established concepts than sheer innovation, I wouldn’t call any of its previous games a shameless clone of something else. Well, there’s no getting around that here. PuzzMiX is essentially a reskin of Aladdin X’s viral hit Suika Game. You’re not merging fruits, and everything is a little bouncier and glitchier, but the only genuine gameplay difference is that any pieces that spill out of the top of the box have five seconds to get back in before your game is over. As you play, you’ll unlock more music tracks you can listen to during gameplay. The theming here naturally ties back to the Azure Striker Gunvolt series.

    It’s disappointing, because I believe there is room to build on the Suika Game concept. Even something like a story mode would be an interesting twist. But no, we’ve just got the same idea here. I don’t think it even works quite as well, because the way objects interact with each other can sometimes be bizarre and twitchy, almost like one of those amusing old Havok physics engine glitches. The five-second rule implemented here seems almost out of necessity, as pieces will regularly shoot straight up into the air because of a weird collision. The only real advantages it has over Suika Game are its more varied soundtrack and, if it means anything to you, the Gunvolt theme.

    Considering the pedigree and potential here, it’s hard not to be a little disappointed in PuzzMiX. It’s little more than a Gunvolt-themed copy of Suika Game, and one that plays worse than the game it has patterned itself after. The basic joy of merging smaller things into bigger things remains, and the price is certainly hard to argue with. Still, with little to offer beyond what Suika Game does, there’s no reason to recommend this over its source of inspiration beyond the theme and soundtrack.

    SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5

    New Releases

    Last Bloody Snack ($9.99)

    A short psychological horror game where you delve into the mind of a disturbed boy named Cody. You’ll have to navigate a twisted nightmare version of Cody’s home, solving puzzles while being relentlessly pursued by a monster. It’s a bit on the small side, and I should probably mention that it’s free over on Steam and itch. Still, it seems to be reasonably well-liked and might be worth the tenner for you.

    Cosmic Hare ($3.99)

    This is basically Peg Solitaire, but with a space rabbit motif. There are a few additional twists on top of that, but that’s the basic conceit and I think you should be able to figure out if it’s your thing or not just from the premise.

    The Bin Bunch

    Find Room 96 ($4.29)

    Fire Race ($4.99)

    Helium Run ($0.99)

    Sales

    (North American eShop, US Prices)

    The list of new sales doesn’t have too much in particular I’d get up in arms about, but I think The Alliance Alive is a nice little RPG for that sale price of fifteen bucks. That outbox, though… the big Partner Showcase sale is wrapping up, so it’s time to buy anything you’re going to. Have a careful look through the list and double-check your wishlist to make sure you’ve grabbed everything you’re interested in.

    Select New Sales

    Gravity Circuit ($15.39 from $21.99 until 4/13)
    Venice 2089 ($3.49 from $6.99 until 4/13)
    A Painter’s Tale: Curon, 1950 ($3.49 from $6.99 until 4/13)
    Born of Bread ($23.99 from $29.99 until 4/13)
    Elypse ($13.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Skabma: Snowfall ($17.49 from $24.99 until 4/13)
    Abandon Ship ($8.74 from $24.99 until 4/13)
    Nocturnal ($12.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Vernal Edge ($14.29 from $21.99 until 4/13)
    Mari & Bayu: The Road Home ($9.34 from $16.99 until 4/13)
    Cassiodora ($10.19 from $16.99 until 4/13)
    Pompom: The Great Space Rescue ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/13)
    Foretales ($12.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Ruggnar ($7.69 from $13.99 until 4/13)
    Souldiers ($10.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)


    They Always Run ($10.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Instant Sports ($3.74 from $14.99 until 4/13)
    Instant Sports Summer Games ($4.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Instant Sports Winter Games ($11.24 from $24.99 until 4/13)
    Instant Sports Plus ($14.99 from $24.99 until 4/13)
    RUN: The World In-Between ($5.49 from $9.99 until 4/13)
    Revita ($11.04 from $16.99 until 4/13)
    Ashwalkers ($7.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Letters: A Written Adventure ($8.24 from $14.99 until 4/13)
    Guild of Ascension ($6.79 from $16.99 until 4/13)
    Astria Ascending ($15.99 from $39.99 until 4/13)
    Dungeon of Naheulbeuk ($7.99 from $39.99 until 4/13)
    Alba: A Wildlife Adventure ($5.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Before I Forget ($3.99 from $7.99 until 4/13)
    Healer’s Quest ($5.24 from $14.99 until 4/13)


    Astrologaster ($3.49 from $9.99 until 4/13)
    Alt-Frequencies ($1.99 from $7.99 until 4/13)
    Out of Space: Couch Edition ($2.49 from $9.99 until 4/13)
    Linelight ($2.99 from $9.99 until 4/13)
    Iris & the Giant ($4.49 from $14.99 until 4/13)
    ScourgeBringer ($5.09 from $16.99 until 4/13)
    Ghost of a Tale ($7.49 from $24.99 until 4/13)
    Double Kick Heroes ($7.69 from $21.99 until 4/13)
    Lethis: Path of Progress ($5.99 from $19.99 until 4/13)
    Instant Tennis ($1.99 from $9.95 until 4/16)
    The Alliance Alive HD Remastered ($14.99 from $49.99 until 4/22)
    CRYMACHINA ($39.59 from $59.99 until 4/22)
    The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails ($27.99 from $39.99 until 4/22)
    TLoH: Trails into Reverie ($39.99 from $59.99 until 4/22)
    The Caligula Effect 2 Digital Deluxe ($34.99 from $64.99 until 4/22)
    Block Buster Billy ($5.99 from $9.99 until 4/22)
    Disgaea 7 Digital Deluxe ($55.99 from $79.99 until 4/22)
    Whateverland ($4.99 from $14.99 until 4/22)
    Freak Crossing ($2.99 from $4.99 until 4/26)
    Kao the Kangaroo ($10.49 from $29.99 until 4/27)
    Fire Race ($1.99 from $4.99 until 4/27)

    Sales Ending Tomorrow, April 9th

    13 Sentinels Aegis Rim ($17.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    A Short Hike ($4.79 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    Absolute Tactics: DoM ($17.49 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    AEW Fight Forever ($41.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Aggelos ($3.74 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    AI: Nirvana Initiative ($23.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    AI: The Somnium Files ($7.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Akka Arrh ($11.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Alice Gear Aegis CS CoS ($19.49 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Alien: Isolation ($14.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Alisa Developer’s Cut ($13.49 from $17.99 until 4/9)
    Alphadia Neo ($8.99 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    ANONYMOUS;CODE ($41.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Aokana: 4 Rhythms Across the Blue ($8.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Arcade Classics Collection ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)


    Arcade Spirits: New Challengers ($7.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Arcadian Atlas ($15.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Astebros ($5.19 from $12.99 until 4/9)
    Atari 50: The Anniversary ($27.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Atelier Marie Remake ($34.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Athanasy ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Backroom Constructions ($3.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery ($9.09 from $12.99 until 4/9)
    Berserk Boy ($16.00 from $20.00 until 4/9)
    Berzerk: Recharged ($8.49 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Bilkins Folly ($14.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Blair Witch ($5.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Bleak Sword DX ($6.69 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Bloodstained: RotN ($11.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Blossom’s Bloom Boutique ($1.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)


    Bomb Rush Cyberfunk ($25.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Bone’s Cafe ($8.99 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Boomerang X ($4.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Borderlands 3 UE ($29.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Bullet Rodeo ($1.99 from $11.99 until 4/9)
    Bustafellows ($7.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Cassette Beasts ($14.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Castlevania Advance Collection ($11.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Castlevania Anniversary Collection ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Cat Girl Without Salad ($3.43 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    Caverns of Mars Recharged ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    CEIBA ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Charade Maniacs ($24.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Citizen Sleeper ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Conan Chop Chop ($5.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Conglomerate 451 Overloaded ($2.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)


    Contra Anniversary Collection ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Cook, Serve, Delicious 3 ($2.00 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Croc’s World 4 ($1.99 from $4.99 until 4/9)
    Cult of the Lamb CE ($17.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Curse of the Sea Rats ($12.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Danganronpa: THH AE ($5.99 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Dark Pictures Anthology Little Hope ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Darksiders III ($17.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    DC League of Super-Pets ($9.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Deep Space Shooter ($1.99 from $3.99 until 4/9)
    Deflector ($1.99 from $22.99 until 4/9)
    Dinosaurs: Mission Dino Camp ($24.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Disco Elysium The Final Cut ($11.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Divinity Original Sin 2 DE ($24.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Dokapon Kingdom Connect ($24.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)


    DOOM 1993 ($1.99 from $4.99 until 4/9)
    DOOM 2016 ($7.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    DOOM 3 ($3.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    DOOM 64 ($1.99 from $4.99 until 4/9)
    DOOM Eternal ($9.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    DOOM Eternal Deluxe ($17.49 from $69.99 until 4/9)
    DOOM II Classic ($1.99 from $4.99 until 4/9)
    Doraemon Story of Seasons: FotGK SE ($19.79 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Dorfromantik ($11.99 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Dropsy ($1.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Dyadic ($2.09 from $6.99 until 4/9)
    EA Sports FC 24 ($17.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Enter x Exit the Gungeon ($12.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Fae Farm ($41.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Fairy Fencer F Refrain Chord ($17.49 from $49.99 until 4/9)


    Fairy Tail ($35.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Falling Out ($4.94 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water ($27.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse ($34.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark ($7.49 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Filmechanism ($11.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Fitness Circuit ($19.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Floppy Knights ($5.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Forgive Me Father ($18.74 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Freddi Fish 4 ($10.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Ghost Sync ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed EE ($12.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    ghostpia Season One ($13.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Ginsha ($13.35 from $17.80 until 4/9)
    Goat Simulator: The GOATY ($5.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)


    God Eater 3 ($9.59 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    GRID Autosport ($24.99 from $34.99 until 4/9)
    Guns, Gore and Cannoli ($2.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Haunted House ($15.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Hellboy Web of Wyrd ($12.49 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Hidden Through Time 2 ($9.74 from $12.99 until 4/9)
    Hot Wheels Unleashed ($5.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Huntdown ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Hyperdrive Massacre ($2.00 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    I Hate Running Backwards ($1.99 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Immortals Fenyx Rising ($8.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Inertial Drift ($2.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    It Takes Two ($19.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Jack Jeanne ($34.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    JoJo’s Bizarre Adv. All-Star BR UE ($33.99 from $84.99 until 4/9)


    Jumanji: Wild Adventures ($23.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Kardboard Kings: CSS ($13.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Kingdoms of Amalur Re-Reckoning ($17.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Kitiara Fables ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Knight vs Giant: Broken Excalibur ($14.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Labyrinth of Zangetsu ($20.09 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    LEGO 2K Drive ($19.79 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Light Fairytale Ep. 1 ($2.49 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Light Fairytale Ep. 2 ($2.49 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    LUMINES Remastered ($4.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    LUNARK ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Maglam Lord ($11.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Maneater ($13.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Mars or Die! ($4.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Mary Skelter Finale ($12.49 from $49.99 until 4/9)


    Metal Gear Solid Collection Vol.1 ($47.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Metal Max Xeno Reborn ($15.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Mondealy ($5.99 from $11.99 until 4/9)
    Monster Jam Steel Titans 2 ($17.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Mr. Run and Jump ($18.74 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Mugen Souls Double Pack ($46.80 from $69.99 until 4/9)
    Mutazione ($11.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    My Life: Farm Vet ($17.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    NeverAwake ($17.49 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Nexomon Complete Collection ($12.49 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Ni no Kuni II RK Prince’s Edition ($9.59 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection ($26.79 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    No Man’s Sky ($29.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening ($44.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Nora: The Wannabe Alchemist ($1.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)


    OMNIMUS ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Pajama Sam 3 ($10.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Paradise Killer ($7.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    PAW Patrol World ($27.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Pentiment ($13.39 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Persha & the Magic Labyrinth ($3.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Persona 3 & 4 Bundle ($21.71 from $39.49 until 4/9)
    Persona 3 Portable ($11.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Persona 4 Arena Ultimax ($8.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Persona 5 Strikers ($17.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Persona 5 Tactica: Deluxe ($47.99 from $79.99 until 4/9)
    Persona Collection ($49.49 from $89.99 until 4/9)
    PictoPull ($3.49 from $4.99 until 4/9)
    PixelJunk Monsters 2 ($2.24 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Planet Cube Edge ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)


    Potion Permit ($13.39 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Prison City ($7.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    qomp2 ($17.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    QUAKE ($3.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    QUAKE II ($3.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Quantum: Recharged ($6.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Quick Race ($2.03 from $5.49 until 4/9)
    Rain World: Downpour ($11.99 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Red Dead Redemption ($34.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Redout Space Assault ($2.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Remnant From the Ashes ($29.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Return to Monkey Island ($14.99 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Risen ($22.49 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Roots of Pacha ($18.74 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Saints Row The Third: Full Package ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)


    SEGA AGES Phantasy Star ($2.39 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    SEGA Genesis Classics ($5.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Serious Sam Collection ($8.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Shiren the Wanderer: Tower of Fortune ($5.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Sifu ($15.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Sine Mora EX ($4.49 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Skater XL ($31.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Skullgirls 2nd Encore ($6.20 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Smile For Me ($10.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Song of Nunu: A LoL Story ($17.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Sonic Origins Plus ($23.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    South of the Circle ($5.49 from $12.99 until 4/9)
    Spinch ($6.74 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Star Trek Prodigy Supernova ($14.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Star Wars Episode I Racer ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)


    Star Wars KotOR ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Steins;Gate Elite ($11.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Stones Keeper ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Super Bullet Break ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Super Crazy Rhythm Castle ($27.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Super Inefficient Golf ($2.00 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    Super Mega Baseball 4 ($19.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Tales of Symphonia Remastered ($19.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Tempest 4000 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    TES V: Skyrim ($29.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    TES V: Skyrim Anniversary ($34.99 from $69.99 until 4/9)
    Tetris Effect Connected ($19.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    TEVI ($27.99 from $34.99 until 4/9)
    The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood ($13.49 from $17.99 until 4/9)
    The Excrawlers ($3.99 from $7.99 until 4/9)


    The Jackbox Party Pack 10 ($20.99 from $34.99 until 4/9)
    The Last Faith ($20.99 from $27.99 until 4/9)
    The Last Friend ($3.74 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    The Medium – Cloud Vers. ($19.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    The Sin ($2.99 from $5.99 until 4/9)
    The Spirit and the Mouse ($10.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    The Spy Who Shot Me ($3.19 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    The Tartarus Key ($12.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    The Walking Dead: First Season ($3.74 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt CE ($23.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    They Know ($1.99 from $6.99 until 4/9)
    TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection ($23.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Torchlight II ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Tormented Souls ($7.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Trek to Yomi ($7.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)


    Two Point Campus ($9.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Two Point Hospital Jumbo Edition ($5.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher ($24.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Undernauts Labyrinth of Yomi ($29.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Valkyria Chronicles 4: CE ($9.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    We Love Katamari Reroll + RR SE ($19.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Wet Steps ($2.49 from $4.99 until 4/9)
    White Day: A School Named Labyrinth ($14.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Windstorm ($11.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Wolfenstein II: New Colossus ($5.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Wolfenstein Youngblood ($4.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Wolfenstein Youngblood Deluxe ($5.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Wreckfest ($19.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Zoeti ($16.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)

    That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new releases, more sales, some reviews, and perhaps some news. I’ve been in a bit of an Atari 2600 mood recently, and I spent the weekend doing more poking at Atari 50. What a lovely little set that is. I hope you all have a magnificent Monday, and as always, thanks for reading!

    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘No Umbrellas Allowed’, ‘Kudzu’, ‘PuzzMiX’, Plus Today’s Other Releases and Sales – TouchArcade

    ‘No Umbrellas Allowed’, ‘Kudzu’, ‘PuzzMiX’, Plus Today’s Other Releases and Sales – TouchArcade

    Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for April 5th, 2024. In today’s article, we’re wrapping up the week with a look at a frankly bizarre selection of new releases. It’s not a bad thing, mind you. But if you’re looking for conventional games, today probably isn’t going to be for you. After summarizing the new titles, we head on over to the sales to see what’s new and what’s expiring. Perhaps due to the massive sale that kicked off one week ago, we don’t have a whole ton to chew on today, but there’s enough. Let’s go to work!

    New Releases

    No Umbrellas Allowed ($19.99)

    This game is set in a dystopia where the population is controlled via rainfall and greed is against the law. You work in a department store and need to buy and sell goods from customers who come in. Buy low, sell high, but be careful not to attract the attention of the authorities. Our pal Mikhail will be leaving his umbrella at the door and taking a look at this one in a review soon.

    PuzzMiX ($3.99)

    If you thought Inti Creates was above making a shameless Gunvolt-themed reskin of Suika Game, you were tragically mistaken, my friend. At least the music is good, right?

    Super Destronaut Landed X Loaded ($4.99)

    Previous Super Destronaut games have offered up takes on Space Invaders and Battlezone, and now we’ve got a new game that seems heavily inspired by Super Crate Box. Well, that’s not the worst game to draw ideas from. I haven’t been able to play this one yet, but it’s not a pricy punt if you just want to jump in.

    Kitchen Crisis ($14.99)

    You might think this would be an Overcooked-style affair. I know my first thought was that it was going to be something like that. But no, this is a bit of a different thing. More of a tower defense game, if you can believe it. You’re cooking for aliens, and your cooks will more or less do their thing on their own. You need to prepare the kitchen by placing the stations and equipment in the best positions to keep things flowing. Oddly compelling.

    Kudzu ($4.99)

    Up until now, most of the Switch releases from this publisher have been modern NES indie releases, but this time we have a modern Game Boy game instead. Kudzu is an action-adventure game about a labyrinth and the brave explorer who is trying to find his lost master inside of it. Perhaps he’ll find the answers to the maze’s mysteries while he’s at it? I’ve heard decent things about this game, and this seems like as easy a way as any to try it out.

    Life of Slime ($4.99)

    This… is a very quirky game. It’s primarily a platformer, but it has some adventure elements to it as well. You’re a slime named Slami who doesn’t end up going to university, and instead moves to the city to try to find a different path in life. Even though pretty much every character is a slime, there’s a lot of relatable situations in this game’s story. And, you know, some that aren’t relatable. I don’t know if I would call it a good game so much as an interesting one, but I know that’s the vibe that some of you out there really like. If so, consider the dinner bell rung.

    Greed 2: Forbidden Experiments ($15.99)

    Search for the hidden objects… in the laboratory of a sinister cult!

    Notebook Artillery ($4.99)

    This isn’t exactly a fancy dining experience, but if you want a simple yet functional take on Worms/Scorched Earth-style artillery games, here you go. It supports two players via local multiplayer, or you can do a little target practice on your own. Honestly, I’d probably just grab Worms W.M.D. on sale over this because of how much more you get in the package, but if you want to support an indie instead I won’t think worse of you.

    NibansenPlus ($4.00)

    Solve the puzzles and make your escape… from a mysterious and somewhat cursed subway line!

    The Bin Bunch

    Stunt Scooter Simulator ($12.99)

    Offroad Jeep Quest: Mountain Trails ($7.99)

    Spy Guy Hidden Objects Deluxe Edition ($8.99)

    Heisting ($4.99)

    Devil’s Calling ($4.99)

    Sales

    (North American eShop, US Prices)

    You can grab a couple of Kairosoft’s sims at their lowest prices yet, if that’s a bucket you’re looking to fill up. The real treat of the day is Gotta Protectors, however. It’s never been this cheap before and it very rarely goes on sale. I haven’t listed it, but the DLC is also on sale and it is very much worth picking up the whole package. Some good titles in the weekend outbox as well, so make sure you check both lists carefully.

    Select New Sales

    Retro Mystery Club Vol.2 Beppu Case ($7.90 from $9.90 until 4/12)
    Gotta Protectors Cart of Darkness ($8.99 from $14.99 until 4/18)
    Dungeonoid 2 Awakening ($6.29 from $8.99 until 4/19)
    Paper Dash City Hustle ($6.99 from $9.99 until 4/22)
    Sword of the Vagrant ($3.99 from $9.99 until 4/25)
    Cattails: Wildwood Story ($13.39 from $19.99 until 4/25)
    Bio Inc Redemption ($11.24 from $14.99 until 4/25)
    Kwaidan: Azuma Manor Story ($3.99 from $24.99 until 4/25)
    Pocket Harvest ($6.00 from $12.00 until 4/25)
    Dream Town Island ($7.20 from $12.00 until 4/25)
    Epic Astro Story ($6.00 from $12.00 until 4/25)
    Pocket Academy ($3.96 from $12.00 until 4/25)
    Drone Delivery Simulator ($2.99 from $6.99 until 4/25)
    Apex Heroines ($17.49 from $24.99 until 4/25)
    Bus Tycoon Night and Day ($1.99 from $13.99 until 4/25)
    Sherlock Holmes The Awakening Deluxe ($17.49 from $49.99 until 4/25)

    Sales Ending This Weekend

    Bit.Trip Collection ($2.39 from $9.99 until 4/6)
    Saboteur ($5.60 from $8.00 until 4/6)
    Saboteur II: Avenging Angel ($5.60 from $8.00 until 4/6)
    Saboteur SiO ($7.69 from $10.99 until 4/6)
    Astebreed ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/7)
    DRAINUS ($13.99 from $19.99 until 4/7)
    Gnosia ($17.49 from $24.99 until 4/7)
    Kero Blaster ($2.99 from $9.99 until 4/7)
    Mighty Goose ($7.99 from $19.99 until 4/7)
    Orangeblood ($5.99 from $19.99 until 4/7)
    Record of Lodoss War: Wonder Labyrinth ($14.99 from $24.99 until 4/7)
    The Good Life ($19.99 from $39.99 until 4/7)
    Touhou Luna Nights ($12.59 from $17.99 until 4/7)

    That’s all for today and this week, friends. We’ll be back next week with some new games, more sales, some reviews, and a bit of news. The usual song and dance, but at least we’re spinning the hits. I have a lot of RPGs on my plate right now. Let’s see if I spend the weekend working on them or if I shrug off my work and play some Game Boy instead. The eternal battle, it seems. I hope you all have a nice weekend, and as always, thanks for reading!

    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘Girl Genius’, ‘Flightpath’, Plus Today’s Other New Releases and the Latest Sales – TouchArcade

    ‘Girl Genius’, ‘Flightpath’, Plus Today’s Other New Releases and the Latest Sales – TouchArcade

    Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for April 3rd, 2024. In today’s article, we’re doing the usual Wednesday thing. That means we’ve got a slightly thinner broth to work with today, but we’re going to do our best with it anyway. A small handful of new releases to look at, and some small lists of sales both new and expiring. I had some other ambitions about what I wanted to do today, but things didn’t work out, so here we are. Let’s get to it!

    New Releases

    Flightpath: Adventures in Venaris ($9.99)

    Oh, it’s a widescreen vertical shoot-em-up. I don’t have much love for this kind of set-up, but I know that’s a personal hang-up. You might be fine with that, and with that in mind you might be fine with this game. It also has ten procedurally-generated stages, three different characters to choose from, branching paths, an upgrade system, and a fair bit of story content. This isn’t my style of shooter at all, so I’ll just leave things here and let you figure it out.

    Girl Genius: Adventures in Castle Heterodyne ($29.99)

    An action-adventure game from the developers of Teslagrad, based on a series of graphic novels I can’t say I’m familiar with. The game has been out for a bit on PC, and while it doesn’t seem to have gotten a ton of attention it does look like those who played it largely enjoyed it. Is that enough to punt on it for thirty bucks? I don’t know, but it at least merits further investigation.

    Knowledge Keeper ($4.99)

    And here’s a little puzzle game if you’re looking for an affordable one today. Gather up the shattered fragments of some important crystals that got broken somehow. Come on now, Knowledge Keeper. You have to take care of crystals. Don’t just leave them on the coffee table or what-have-you.

    Frowntown ($12.99)

    A comedy RPG? Like, an RPG where you play as a stand-up comedian? I haven’t seen that before, and that’s not something I can say about most game concepts. On-stage you have to pick the right jokes and try to win over the crowd, while off-stage you have to make careful choices that can have a major effect on your stats and the progression of the story. If you’re looking for something different today, this is assuredly that.

    Sales

    (North American eShop, US Prices)

    Not much in that inbox today. Not much at all, really. The outbox has a few interesting things in it, including Assault Suits Valken, Quest of Dungeons, and Spy Bros. I think I can leave this one to you to sort out, as both lists are relatively brief. Look, I’m sure things will pick up as the week draws to a close.

    Select New Sales

    Deflector ($1.99 from $22.99 until 4/9)
    Bullet Rodeo ($1.99 from $11.99 until 4/9)
    Nora: The Wannabe Alchemist ($1.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    They Know ($1.99 from $6.99 until 4/9)
    Mechanic 8230 Escape From Ilgrot ($1.99 from $14.99 until 4/10)
    That’s A Cow ($1.99 from $5.99 until 4/10)
    Gem Wizards Tactics ($1.99 from $12.99 until 4/10)
    Circa Infinity ($1.99 from $9.99 until 4/10)
    Super Tennis Blast ($4.49 from $14.99 until 4/23)
    Super Soccer Blast ($3.99 from $7.99 until 4/23)
    Super Volley Blast ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/23)
    Farmer Simulator Evolution ($2.99 from $19.99 until 4/23)
    Bus Driving Simulator 22 ($2.99 from $27.99 until 4/23)

    Sales Ending Tomorrow, April 4th

    Assault Suits Valken Declassified ($9.99 from $24.99 until 4/4)
    Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King ($3.74 from $14.99 until 4/4)
    Crystal Chip Collector e ($3.49 from $4.99 until 4/4)
    Even if Tempest Dawning Connections ($37.49 from $49.99 until 4/4)
    Petit Petit Petit ($6.49 from $12.99 until 4/4)
    Pocket Quest ($2.39 from $7.99 until 4/4)
    Quest of Dungeons ($2.24 from $8.99 until 4/4)
    Re:Cento ($1.99 from $2.99 until 4/4)
    Rebel Transmute ($17.99 from $19.99 until 4/4)
    Sherlock Holmes The Awakened ($13.99 from $39.99 until 4/4)
    Slayin 2 ($2.99 from $11.99 until 4/4)
    Space Papers: Planet’s Border ($2.39 from $7.99 until 4/4)
    Spy Bros ($5.59 from $7.99 until 4/4)
    Unturned ($14.99 from $24.99 until 4/4)

    That’s all for today, friends. Tomorrow is Thursday, and that means we’ll have a very big list of new games to consider. Almost twenty titles on the schedule so far, with Freedom Planet 2 leading the charge by my measure. We’ll do our usual summaries of all the games worth summarizing, plus deliver any sales and major news items that pop up during the next day. I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday, and as always, thanks for reading!

    Shaun Musgrave

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  • Reviews Featuring ‘Pepper Grinder’ & ‘Not Tonight 2’, Plus Today’s New Releases and Sales – TouchArcade

    Reviews Featuring ‘Pepper Grinder’ & ‘Not Tonight 2’, Plus Today’s New Releases and Sales – TouchArcade

    Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for April 1st, 2024. It’s Easter Monday! It’s April Fools! But here at TouchArcade Towers, it’s just another day. We’ve got a bunch of reviews for you today, friends. Our pal Mikhail takes a careful look at Not Tonight 2, while I’ve got my takes on Pepper Grinder, Felix the Cat, and One Last Breath for you. After that, we take a look at the new releases of the day. Not the most bumper of crops, I’m sure you can guess. We finish things up with the usual lists of new and expiring sales. Let’s get going!

    Reviews & Mini-Views

    Not Tonight 2 ($19.99)

    No More Robots is back with another Switch port of one of its PC games in Not Tonight 2. I assume this means we are one step closer to Slayers X hitting Switch but only time will tell. Before digressing further, Not Tonight 2 is a follow-up to the original Not Tonight: Take Back Control Edition on Switch, and is an interesting take on that formula with three stories, mini-games, and some Papers Please thrown into the fray. As a sequel, I like what it does, but some aspects might not hit as hard depending on what you’re looking for.

    It had been a while since I played the original game, and trying out Not Tonight 2 on PC reminded me of how good it was. I didn’t finish the game on PC though. I decided to wait for a console release. When No More Robots announced the Switch release, I knew it would be worth waiting for, and it has been for the most part having now played it.

    If you’ve not played Not Tonight before, I recommend getting it first, or grabbing the bundle of both if you’re curious about these games. As No More Robots‘ first sequel release as far as I’m aware, Not Tonight 2 is quite a bit more ambitious, and I think it is going to be a love it or hate it kind of game for fans of the original. I ended up more positive on it through the different stories being told. Some might be turned off by the humor within the more serious stories, but I always love that in a narrative.

    In Not Tonight 2, you will explore, make choices, go through a lot of dialogue, and play minigames. As I said before, it has also been inspired by the amazing Papers Please. The developers describe Not Tonight 2 as an “American document-checking road trip, fusing a time-pressure RPG with a politically charged, dark comedy where every decision matters”. That is quite long but an accurate summary of the game. This is accompanied by a great visual style as well.

    Not Tonight 2 has a few performance hiccups on Switch that aren’t huge issues compared to it running perfectly on Steam Deck, but it wins in controller support. I couldn’t get the PC version on Steam Deck to work without the virtual cursor regardless of using the Deck itself or an external controller. The Switch version plays well across the board, but I would like touchscreen support because adventure games like this benefit from the option of tapping to move around or selecting things. Basically the ideal control scheme for Not Tonight 2 would be a mix of controller and touch/virtual mouse support.

    For some fans of the original, Not Tonight 2 might feel erratic in some ways, but I enjoyed it almost as much as the original on Switch. I recommend it to fans of the original and those who enjoy Papers Please. It just needs some performance improvements in certain areas. -Mikhail Madnani

    SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5

    Pepper Grinder ($14.99)

    I like Pepper Grinder. It knows what it wants to do, and it does that thing without fussing around, then has the courtesy to end before it runs out of ideas. To honor it, I’ll try to make my review equally efficient. First, the things I like. The drill-based mechanics are clever and result in some fast-paced, exciting platforming. The visuals are appealing. I enjoyed finding the secrets in each stage. The difficulty curve felt pretty good outside of a few hiccups. It’s even fun to replay the stages.

    Second, the things I didn’t like. The boss battles aren’t very good. I found them tedious and frustrating, and I was never happy to see one. And while I appreciated that the game didn’t drag itself out too long, I feel like the game ended a little quicker than I’d have ideally preferred. There was definitely room to keep going a little longer here and explore some concepts more.

    Pepper Grinder is an enjoyable, unique platformer with a zippy pace, interesting mechanics, and some cool level designs. The boss battles are a bit clunky and only subtract from what is otherwise a very tight experience. It’s also worth noting that the game is quite brisk in its run-time, so do take that into account before buying. I personally think it ends a little too soon, but that’s not a terrible problem for a game to have.

    SwitchArcade Score: 4/5

    Felix the Cat ($24.99)

    Certainly a curious pull, but not one I’m entirely opposed to. At some point Konami bought Hudson, adding its catalogue of titles to its collection. Konami has enough to deal with in its own library, let alone throwing a large one like Hudson’s to the mix. So anytime I see a Hudson game get a rerelease, I’m happy. That it’s a licensed one this time makes it even more welcome. Most of the time games with a license get passed over, especially when it’s a license that doesn’t exactly put butts in seats anymore. With all that taken into account, I’m glad to be looking at Felix the Cat on my Switch.

    The title doesn’t have the word ‘collection’ in it, and whoever made that call was probably right. There are three games in here, technically speaking, but when you get right down to it you’re really just getting one. Back in 1992, Hudson released Felix the Cat for the NES. It was kind of a tie-in to the 1989 movie and part of an attempted revival for the older-than-Mickey kitty. Then, in 1993, Hudson ported the game to the Game Boy. We get both of those games here, along with the previously unreleased Japanese Famicom version. The Famicom version doesn’t seem to have any differences from the NES one apart from having Japanese language instead of English. The Game Boy version cuts out some stages and stage pieces but otherwise closely resembles the NES game. So yes, really just one game.

    How is that game? Not too shabby, really. It’s very much a Hudson platformer, all the way down to a life meter/timer that ticks down and has to be periodically restored by picking up food items (milk, here). At the same time, it’s also post-Super Mario Bros. 3 and has clearly picked up some lessons from that game. The controls are tighter, and the game is considerably more fair than earlier Hudson games. Perhaps too fair, as it’s a rather easy game even by modern standards. I suppose the important thing is that it’s fun, and it is. Felix’s Magic Bag of Tricks is put to full use here, and you’ll get to make use of a variety of abilities as the game goes on. It never really flies as high as it probably could have, but it’s an enjoyable game to run through a few times. The Game Boy port is also worth a spin or two.

    It’s all powered by Limited Run Games’ Carbon Engine, and it’s very much in line with its other releases using that wrapper. The emulation gets the job done, and you can make use of a rewind feature and a save state on each game. That’s about all you get, so don’t go looking for cool extras to contextualize these games. It’s about as quick and dirty as it gets, and I think that brings us to the proverbial elephant in the room here: the price. Not something I like to consider when doing reviews, as prices can and do fluctuate, but I will say that at this initial price point, I would expect a little more meat on the bone. There are as many games here as we could have, so perhaps that additional meat could have taken the form of some historical goodies? I don’t know, but the package feels a bit too thin here overall.

    If you’re looking for an official way to play the NES Felix the Cat, this is certainly the most affordable way to do so. It’s a pricy cart in the aftermarket, so having it widely available again along with its Game Boy counterpart is welcome. The game itself is a pleasing romp, albeit not much more than that. Still, I can’t help but wish there were some extras here. Every game has a story behind its creation, and telling this one would have helped make the package more special. Alas, we just get the game and a couple variants of it in a plain brown bag. Not bad, but it could have been so much better.

    SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5

    One Last Breath ($17.99)

    There were times where I felt that One Last Breath might really take off and reach the potential it was scratching at during its relatively brief run time. There’s a certain beauty to the game’s desolate environments, with nature reclaiming abandoned structures. The sound design is quite good, too. A few puzzles, particularly the ones that involve the main character Gaia using her nature powers, were enjoyable. But these were bright spots in an adventure that far too often feels rote and too opaque for its own good.

    You’re left to your own devices to figure out how everything works in this game, but there fortunately isn’t too much to it. You can run, crouch, and have a context-sensitive “use” command. It’s up to you to figure out what you can and can’t interact with, how to deal with dangers you run into along the way, what you need to do to proceed, and so on. A lot of the time it involves slowly dragging crates around. You’ll probably die a lot while you try to sort things out. The graphics, while looking nice on their own, can sometimes be hard to visually parse. I fell to my death a lot that way. You’ll just reappear at the last checkpoint though, so figure out what you did wrong and keep moving.

    One Last Breath has some good qualities, but they’re counter-balanced by pacing issues, dull puzzle designs, and an overall excess of vagueness. There is some optional content to help extend things, but it ends up feeling like a chore to complete. Some of the sights and sounds are worth experiencing, but I found myself bored with this game at least as often as I found myself entertained.

    SwitchArcade Score: 3/5

    New Releases

    What They Don’t Sea ($4.99)

    A cute little platformer about exploring the sea to find algae samples for some kind of new energy project. Make friends with the friendly creatures, avoid the unfriendly ones as much as possible, and keep an eye on your air supply. One cool thing is that the developer, Team Atlantis, consisted of a group of middle school girls. They first came up with the game at the Girls Make Games summer camp, though this was back in 2019. They worked with some professional developers to polish up their original concept, and the result of that is what we have here.

    The Bin Bunch

    Drift Force Xtreme: Ultimate Car Simulator 2024 ($9.99)

    Bungee Run ($0.99)

    Labyrinthia Nightmares: The Journey of Little Fluffypuff ($11.99)

    Bubble Bunny ($2.99)

    Lots of Things Collector’s Edition ($9.99)

    Alien Invasion ($9.99)

    Sales

    (North American eShop, US Prices)

    Look, I didn’t write a review of Berserk Boy, but if you like challenging 2D action games like Mega Man X then you’ll definitely have a good time with it. You can now grab it at a solid discount. The Trine games are at their lowest prices yet, and if you want to get your Castlevania on in Dead Cells there’s a discount for that. The outbox is rather small, so give that a look while you pass on by too.

    Select New Sales

    Berserk Boy ($16.00 from $20.00 until 4/9)
    Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope ($19.79 from $59.99 until 4/11)
    Trine Enchanted Edition ($3.44 from $14.99 until 4/12)
    Trine 2: Complete Story ($3.90 from $16.99 until 4/12)
    Trine 3: TAoP ($4.59 from $19.99 until 4/12)
    Nine Parchments ($4.59 from $19.99 until 4/12)
    My Lovely Daughter ($2.99 from $14.99 until 4/15)
    My Lovely Wife ($5.99 from $14.99 until 4/15)
    Pan’orama ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/18)
    Teppo & the Secret Ancient City ($3.99 from $7.99 until 4/19)
    Party Friends ($1.99 from $7.99 until 4/19)
    Toodee and Topdee ($4.99 from $19.99 until 4/19)
    Forrader Hero ($3.99 from $4.99 until 4/19)
    TT Isle of Man RotE 2 ($5.99 from $59.99 until 4/20)
    Modern Combat Blackout ($1.99 from $7.99 until 4/20)
    Dead Cells ($12.49 from $24.99 until 4/21)
    Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania ($7.99 from $9.99 until 4/21)
    DREDGE ($17.49 from $24.99 until 4/21)
    Moving Out 2 ($14.99 from $29.99 until 4/21)

    Sales Ending Tomorrow, April 2nd

    Among Us ($3.25 from $5.00 until 4/2)
    Clue ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/2)
    Golfinite ($1.99 from $12.99 until 4/2)
    Monument ($1.99 from $7.00 until 4/2)
    Right and Down ($2.99 from $9.99 until 4/2)
    SUPERHOT ($12.49 from $24.99 until 4/2)
    The Cub ($8.99 from $14.99 until 4/2)
    Untitled Goose Game ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/2)
    Warhammer 40k: Dakka Squadron ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/2)

    That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with more reviews, some new releases, more sales, and maybe even some news. I had a nice Easter weekend, even if we can’t really do a full-on celebration here in Japan due to lack of materials and ingredients. There was chocolate, there were eggs, what more do you need? I hope you all have a magnificent Monday, and as always, thanks for reading!

    Shaun Musgrave

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  • ‘House’, ‘Stacklands’, Plus Today’s Other Releases and a Massive List of Sales – TouchArcade

    ‘House’, ‘Stacklands’, Plus Today’s Other Releases and a Massive List of Sales – TouchArcade

    Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for March 29th, 2024. Yes, I know. It’s Good Friday. One of those holiday things. Not here in Japan, unfortunately. And if I’m going to be at the office anyway, I might as well keep on writing. Thus, I have all of the new releases of today for your consideration, and a curated list of sales from the massive Partner Showcase Sale that Nintendo kindly activated after I went home last night. Let’s finish the week!

    New Releases

    Forrader Hero ($4.99)

    This one is a turn-based tactical roguelite whose main gimmick is that you can only move forward, not backward. There are a few different characters to use, each with their own skills, which gives the game even more replay value. It’s well-made for what it is, so if you’re looking for something affordable that will easily carry you through the holiday weekend, you might want to consider this.

    Re:Touring ($9.99)

    A color-based first-person puzzle game with twenty-six levels to play through. As is often the case in this kind of thing since the creation of Portal, the setting is a research facility. An abandoned research facility, even. I’m sure that’s all fine. The game includes palette options for those who have visual impairments and a hint system in case you happen to get stuck on a particular puzzle.

    House ($14.99)

    A horror adventure where you’re exploring a house that’s trying to kill you and your family. There are multiple endings in play, and they depend heavily on whether you choose to follow the path of light or darkness. This has been out on PC for a few years, and it enjoys a very sunny reputation among players over there. That’s about where I have to leave you on this game, since I’m a complete chicken.

    7 Days Heroes ($9.99)

    An AI has gone rogue, as they tend to, and is turning the population into zombies. Not a very creative AI, then. Three heroes and their dog will stand up for humanity and hopefully save the day before it’s too late. There are thirty stages spread across seven different areas, with some weapons and items you can scoop up to give yourself an edge. Seems like an amusing little run-and-gun platformer, as long as you come in with the appropriate expectations.

    Coffee, Plis ($10.00)

    A game for up to four players via local multiplayer where you need to serve coffee to customers. This… doesn’t look like terribly fancy dining to me, friends. Like a very rough spin on Overcooked, to my eye. But I have not played it yet, so that’s really just my first impressions talking from watching some videos. Take it with the appropriate grain of salt.

    Rallyallyally ($7.99)

    This is a party-style racing game for up to eight players via local multiplayer, with the main twist being that the leader of the race controls how the road unfurls. Their goal is to bring the road to the finish line, while the rest of the players chase after the unrolling road. A really unique idea, and one that I could see a lot of people enjoying at their multiplayer gaming nights.

    Stacklands ($14.99)

    This is quite the interesting card game. It’s a village-building game where you need to stack cards on other cards to create interactions that will in turn help your village grow. Things get very chaotic and messy in a hurry as your village gets bigger and more complex, but I can’t deny that the game is both extremely engaging and quite a lot of fun. Definitely worth it for fans of strategy games. Our pal Mikhail is working on a review for this one so stay tuned for that.

    The Bin Bunch

    Jigsaw Puzzle Nature ($4.99)

    Fruity Puzzler ($8.99)

    Go Kart Mania ($9.99)

    3D Printer – PrintMaster Simulator ($11.99)

    Sales

    (North American eShop, US Prices)

    Yes, there is a huge sale on right now. Even going through and picking out some highlights, I still ended up with a large list for you. Our pal Mikhail just threw a Frisbee at my head with a note attached that says “Buy Pentiment“, so maybe do that little thing if you’re so inclined. Beyond that, I encourage you to check through the lists and look at your own wishlist on the eShop as I’ve only scratched the surface here.

    Select New Sales

    Fur Squadron ($3.49 from $6.99 until 4/5)
    Harvest Moon: Winds of Anthos ($39.99 from $49.99 until 4/8)
    Wild Guns Reloaded ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/8)
    Quick Race ($2.03 from $5.49 until 4/9)
    The Excrawlers ($3.99 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    Zoeti ($16.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood ($13.49 from $17.99 until 4/9)
    Red Dead Redemption ($34.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    ANONYMOUS;CODE ($41.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Mondealy ($5.99 from $11.99 until 4/9)
    Backroom Constructions ($3.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    The Spy Who Shot Me ($3.19 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    TEVI ($27.99 from $34.99 until 4/9)
    Arcadian Atlas ($15.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Skater XL ($31.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Roots of Pacha ($18.74 from $24.99 until 4/9)


    Pentiment ($13.39 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    The Last Faith ($20.99 from $27.99 until 4/9)
    PAW Patrol World ($27.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Astebros ($5.19 from $12.99 until 4/9)
    Jumanji: Wild Adventures ($23.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Forgive Me Father ($18.74 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Dark Pictures Anthology Little Hope ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Super Crazy Rhythm Castle ($27.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Knight vs Giant: Broken Excalibur ($14.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Bilkins Folly ($14.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    PictoPull ($3.49 from $4.99 until 4/9)
    Persona Collection ($49.49 from $89.99 until 4/9)
    Hellboy Web of Wyrd ($12.49 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    The Jackbox Party Pack 10 ($20.99 from $34.99 until 4/9)
    Prison City ($7.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed EE ($12.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)


    My Life: Farm Vet ($17.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Pajama Sam 3 ($10.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Freddi Fish 4 ($10.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Persona 5 Tactica: Deluxe ($47.99 from $79.99 until 4/9)
    Wet Steps ($2.49 from $4.99 until 4/9)
    Haunted House ($15.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Borderlands 3 UE ($29.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Persha & the Magic Labyrinth ($3.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Berzerk: Recharged ($8.49 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Quantum: Recharged ($6.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Bomb Rush Cyberfunk ($25.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Fitness Circuit ($19.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Bleak Sword DX ($6.69 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Guns, Gore and Cannoli ($2.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    LEGO 2K Drive ($19.79 from $59.99 until 4/9)


    Remnant From the Ashes ($29.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    AEW Fight Forever ($41.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    We Love Katamari Reroll + RR SE ($19.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Labyrinth of Zangetsu ($20.09 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    LUNARK ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Dokapon Kingdom Connect ($24.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Smile For Me ($10.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Fairy Fencer F Refrain Chord ($17.49 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Sine Mora EX ($4.49 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Ginsha ($13.35 from $17.80 until 4/9)
    qomp2 ($17.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Dinosaurs: Mission Dino Camp ($24.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Mugen Souls Double Pack ($46.80 from $69.99 until 4/9)
    The Sin ($2.99 from $5.99 until 4/9)
    Fae Farm ($41.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)

    Song of Nunu: A LoL Story ($17.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    OMNIMUS ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Rain World: Downpour ($11.99 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Sonic Origins Plus ($23.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Metal Gear Solid Collection Vol.1 ($47.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Athanasy ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Mr. Run and Jump ($18.74 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    JoJo’s Bizarre Adv. All-Star BR UE ($33.99 from $84.99 until 4/9)
    Super Inefficient Golf ($2.00 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    The Walking Dead: First Season ($3.74 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    LUMINES Remastered ($4.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Shiren the Wanderer: Tower of Fortune ($5.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Jack Jeanne ($34.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Cassette Beasts ($14.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    The Tartarus Key ($12.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)


    ghostpia Season One ($13.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Serious Sam Collection ($8.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Cook, Serve, Delicious 3 ($2.00 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Kingdoms of Amalur Re-Reckoning ($17.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Monster Jam Steel Titans 2 ($17.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Redout Space Assault ($2.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Mutazione ($11.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Hot Wheels Unleashed ($5.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Kitiara Fables ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Boomerang X ($4.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Conglomerate 451 Overloaded ($2.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Tetris Effect Connected ($19.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Bone’s Cafe ($8.99 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Stones Keeper ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Charade Maniacs ($24.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)


    Darksiders III ($17.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Disco Elysium The Final Cut ($11.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Bustafellows ($7.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Mary Skelter Finale ($12.49 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Star Wars KotOR ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Undernauts Labyrinth of Yomi ($29.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Danganronpa: THH AE ($5.99 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Ni no Kuni II RK Prince’s Edition ($9.59 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Conan Chop Chop ($5.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Maneater ($13.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Persona 5 Strikers ($17.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Immortals Fenyx Rising ($8.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    PixelJunk Monsters 2 ($2.24 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    SEGA AGES Phantasy Star ($2.39 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    SEGA Genesis Classics ($5.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)


    I Hate Running Backwards ($1.99 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Castlevania Anniversary Collection ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Castlevania Advance Collection ($11.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Contra Anniversary Collection ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Arcade Classics Collection ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Valkyria Chronicles 4: CE ($9.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Skullgirls 2nd Encore ($6.20 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Hyperdrive Massacre ($2.00 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    Divinity Original Sin 2 DE ($24.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    GRID Autosport ($24.99 from $34.99 until 4/9)
    Alien: Isolation ($14.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Saints Row The Third: Full Package ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Goat Simulator: The GOATY ($5.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Steins;Gate Elite ($11.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Mars or Die! ($4.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)


    TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection ($23.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Dorfromantik ($11.99 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Alice Gear Aegis CS CoS ($19.49 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    No Man’s Sky ($29.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt CE ($23.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Torchlight II ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Maglam Lord ($11.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Arcade Spirits: New Challengers ($7.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Metal Max Xeno Reborn ($15.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    DC League of Super-Pets ($9.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Wreckfest ($19.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Curse of the Sea Rats ($12.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    NeverAwake ($17.49 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Akka Arrh ($11.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Light Fairytale Ep. 1 ($2.49 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Light Fairytale Ep. 2 ($2.49 from $9.99 until 4/9)


    Return to Monkey Island ($14.99 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    White Day: A School Named Labyrinth ($14.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Dropsy ($1.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Atari 50: The Anniversary ($27.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Kardboard Kings: CSS ($13.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Doraemon Story of Seasons: FotGK SE ($19.79 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Cult of the Lamb CE ($17.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher ($24.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Planet Cube Edge ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Caverns of Mars Recharged ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Risen ($22.49 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Trek to Yomi ($7.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Deep Space Shooter ($1.99 from $3.99 until 4/9)
    Tales of Symphonia Remastered ($19.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Alphadia Neo ($8.99 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Floppy Knights ($5.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)


    Persona 3 Portable ($11.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Persona 3 & 4 Bundle ($21.71 from $39.49 until 4/9)
    Dyadic ($2.09 from $6.99 until 4/9)
    Falling Out ($4.94 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    The Spirit and the Mouse ($10.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Sifu ($15.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Star Trek Prodigy Supernova ($14.99 from $49.99 until 4/9)
    Blossom’s Bloom Boutique ($1.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Absolute Tactics: DoM ($17.49 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Potion Permit ($13.39 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Nexomon Complete Collection ($12.49 from $24.99 until 4/9)
    Citizen Sleeper ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Persona 4 Arena Ultimax ($8.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Super Bullet Break ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery ($9.09 from $12.99 until 4/9)
    Tormented Souls ($7.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)


    Filmechanism ($11.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Windstorm ($11.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    The Last Friend ($3.74 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Ghost Sync ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    13 Sentinels Aegis Rim ($17.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Tempest 4000 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark ($7.49 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    AI: The Somnium Files ($7.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    AI: Nirvana Initiative ($23.99 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    God Eater 3 ($9.59 from $59.99 until 4/9)
    Hidden Through Time 2 ($9.74 from $12.99 until 4/9)
    CEIBA ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/9)
    Alisa Developer’s Cut ($13.49 from $17.99 until 4/9)
    Enter x Exit the Gungeon ($12.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)


    Aggelos ($3.74 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Cat Girl Without Salad ($3.43 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    Star Wars Episode I Racer ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Huntdown ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Paradise Killer ($7.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    Inertial Drift ($2.99 from $19.99 until 4/9)
    A Short Hike ($4.79 from $7.99 until 4/9)
    Spinch ($6.74 from $14.99 until 4/9)
    Aokana: 4 Rhythms Across the Blue ($8.99 from $29.99 until 4/9)
    Two Point Campus ($9.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Two Point Hospital Jumbo Edition ($5.99 from $39.99 until 4/9)
    Suhoshin ($5.99 from $14.99 until 4/11)
    Yohane the Parhelion Numazu in Mirage ($26.99 from $29.99 until 4/11)
    Everyday Today’s Menu for Emiya ($24.99 from $49.99 until 4/11)
    Football Manager 2024 Touch ($33.49 from $49.99 until 4/12)
    Dungeon of the Endless ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/12)
    Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments ($5.99 from $29.99 until 4/18)
    Twilight Survivors ($2.69 from $2.99 until 4/18)
    God of Light: Remastered ($2.99 from $4.99 until 4/18)

    Sales Ending This Weekend

    Cat Survivors ($1.99 from $4.99 until 3/30)
    Chickenoidz Super Party ($2.49 from $9.99 until 3/30)
    Choice of Life: Middle Ages 2 ($1.99 from $6.99 until 3/30)
    Devastator ($2.09 from $6.99 until 3/30)
    Gemini Arms ($6.64 from $9.59 until 3/30)
    Inferno 2 ($1.99 from $4.99 until 3/30)
    Jack ‘n’ Hat ($1.99 from $7.99 until 3/30)
    Kovox Pitch ($1.99 from $6.99 until 3/30)
    Luckslinger ($1.99 from $9.99 until 3/30)
    Missile Dancer ($6.99 from $9.99 until 3/30)
    Raging Blasters ($10.29 from $14.70 until 3/30)
    Rakuen: Deluxe Edition ($19.99 from $24.99 until 3/30)
    The Bug Butcher ($1.99 from $7.99 until 3/30)
    Blasphemous 2 ($17.99 from $29.99 until 3/31)
    Dredge Deluxe Edition ($20.24 from $26.99 until 3/31)

    That’s all for today, this week, and this month, friends. We’ll be back on Monday, the ol’ April Fools Day, with another edition filled with reviews, new releases, sales, and perhaps some news. I hope you all enjoy your holiday weekend (if you have one), and as always, thanks for reading!

    Shaun Musgrave

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  • New ‘Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop’ Gameplay Trailer Showcases Game Modes and Teases New Characters Coming in Updates – TouchArcade

    New ‘Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop’ Gameplay Trailer Showcases Game Modes and Teases New Characters Coming in Updates – TouchArcade

    Following Apple’s announcement of April 2024’s new games headlined by a brand-new exclusive Puyo Puyo game in the form of Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop, Sega has released a new gameplay trailer for it. Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop launches on April 4th exclusively for Apple Arcade, and the new trailer goes over the game modes, multiplayer, tutorials, and also ends with a teaser for new characters and modes coming in future updates. I’m curious to see how much content is included in Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop at launch. We’ve had some games release with what feels like cut down content to push out updates. Since this is the first Puyo Puyo game in the West in a while, I hope it makes a good first impression. Watch the new Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop overview trailer for Apple Arcade below:

    As shown in the trailer and revealed with the game’s original announcement, Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop will have online multiplayer for up to four players in total. It will also have a narrative, photo mode, and more when it launches. If you’d like to play Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop and have an active Apple Arcade subscription, you can sign up here to be notified for when it goes live or have it downloaded. Check out the official Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop website here. I’ll definitely be playing Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop when it arrives next week. What do you think of Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop and did you play the localized Puyo Puyo Tetris games?

    Mikhail Madnani

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  • The Time Is Now: Rep Your High School Like a Gaming Pro at This ANZ Fortnite Tournament – POPSUGAR Australia

    The Time Is Now: Rep Your High School Like a Gaming Pro at This ANZ Fortnite Tournament – POPSUGAR Australia

    Gaming is an escape from the everyday — a chance to make friends and enjoy a break from the pressure. There’s no doubt that the obsession with digital worlds starts in schooling years, and more and more young people are leaning toward pursuing a career in gaming. Now, they’ll have the chance to take their gaming dreams to the next level. Introducing: Acer’s first Predator League Academy.

    You might have heard of the Predator League before, where esports teams from all over the APAC region come together to battle it out in “Valorant“. This time around, it will pit Australian and New Zealand high school teams against each other in an all out “Fortnite” battle. But the fun doesn’t stop there.

    Each Acer Predator League Academy round will take place weekly from April to October 2024 (AKA terms two and three). What’s more, the final will be played on a massive stage at Sydney’s South by South West (SXSW) festival. Get ready for true test of nerve, teamwork and potential!

    Spectators will also be in for a treat, as Aussie gaming icon Lachlan Power and Loserfruit of PWR will be spearheading the hosting duties. With the personality and banter that these creators bring to their own channels, we’re surely in for a show.

    “Gaming and competitive esports is a huge industry,” Loserfruit said, “So being able to help promote an experience such as the Acer Predator League Academy that enables young people to showcase their skills in a fun and competitive environment, is great and something I’m really looking forward to.”

    Register your school for Acer’s Predator League Academy on the website before it closes on April 14, 2024. To qualify as a team, you’ll need four students and a teacher to complete registration.

    Who will come out on top? Only time (and skill) will tell… Here’s to big dubs for you and your team.

    Angeline Barion

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