A lot of folks got into the SaGa series a long time ago through its many releases on prior console generations. For me, Romancing Saga 2 on iOS was actually my gateway into the series nearly a decade ago, and I remember struggling with it quite a bit initially because I kept playing it like a normal JRPG. Fast forward to today, I adore the SaGa series as you can see in the photograph at the bottom of this article, and I was surprised to see Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, a full remake of Romancing SaGa 2, announced for Switch, PC, and PlayStation a little while ago.
For today’s double feature, I’ve been playing Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven on Steam Deck through an early demo code and I’ve also had a chance to interview Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven Game Producer Shinichi Tatsuke who was behind Trials of Mana’s remake. We discussed Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, learnings from Trials of Mana, accessibility, potential ports to Xbox and mobile, coffee, and more. This interview was conducted on a video call. It was then transcribed and edited for brevity in the case of some portions.
TouchArcade (TA): How does it feel having worked on a remake of Trials of Mana, a beloved game, and now working on Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, a remake of another classic and beloved game?
Shinichi Tatsuke (ST): Yeah, so both trials of manna and the romancing SaGa series are entries from the pre-square enix merger. It was when Square Enix was Squaresoft. These are both considered legendary titles from square. I do feel that it’s an incredible honor for me to handle the remakes of these two incredible titles. Both romancing SaGa 2 and trials of manna, when we remade these titles, it’s been 30 or almost 30 years since the original release. There was a lot of opportunity for us to kind of improve with the remake. So it was very fun to work on.
So romancing SaGa 2, as you may know already, it’s a very unique game that has a lot of unique systems. So these systems are not only considered unique back then, we felt that these are still considered unique today too. So we felt that even remaking this title, even though it’s been more than 30 years, we felt that it would still be a great title to remake because of its uniqueness. It would still be considered unique for the modern players.
TA: Romancing SaGa 2, the original game, was very challenging. When I played it, I think I got a game over in the first 10 minutes, and that was a nice wake up call for me with it being my first SaGa game. The remake, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, has multiple difficulty options. I wanted to know what were the challenges for you to stay true to the original while still making it accessible? This is likely going to be the first SaGa game for a lot of people with its modern graphics.
ST: I think you bring up a great point because as you mentioned, the difficulty of the SaGa series is very well known throughout the fanbase and again, this is something that you probably already know, but the SaGa series has a lot of hardcore fans in Japan and outside of Japan as well.
And there are a lot of people that would claim that the difficulty of SaGa is what makes the game, that’s what it’s essential for the SaGa title, for the SaGa series. But on the other hand, we have a lot of people that also feel that there’s a very, I guess, high barrier to start playing the SaGa title, because they feel that the SaGa titles are too difficult for them.
So there are a lot of people that say they know about the SaGa series, but have never tried it out before. And when you ask them why, usually the answer is, oh, because it sounds like it’s too difficult.
So because of that, we wanted to cater to both of these groups of fans. So the newcomers that haven’t yet to try the SaGa title, the SaGa series, but also for the hardcore fans. And one of our solutions that we thought was going to be a solution was to present the new newly added difficulty system.
So we have the normal mode and the casual mode. So the normal mode is more catered for the standard RPG fans, but we also have the casual mode for people who just want to experience the narrative or the story of the game.
So in the development team, we also had the core SaGa fans as well so that was our collective decision and solution to come up, solution to kind of resolve this situation where we have a lot of newcomers or people who haven’t played the SaGa title yet, trying to try, we wanted to try to hook them in by adding this difficulty, adding these new difficulty settings.
So this is kind of a metaphor, but when you add, when you have spicy food, so in Japan, the curry is typically very spicy. So what you would do to kind of alleviate that ease to spice is that you would add honey sometimes. So the very spicy curry would be the original Romancing SaGa 2, where it’s just really, really difficult for a lot of players. So we kind of added the honey and the honey being the difficulty option. So like the casual mode. So to make that, to make it easier for our players.
TA: One more question about the difficulty here. How was it like trying to deliver the original experience for veteran fans, but also offering some quality of life improvements into the gameplay and just the game in general? How did you decide which features to bring in to modernize the game, but also keep it very challenging for long time fans?
ST: Our belief is that the SaGa series is not just all about the difficulty. it’s not just all about how difficult the games are. It’s more so how difficult it was to understand the game. For example, in the original release, there were a lot of elements or a lot of data that weren’t visible for the players. One of the examples being the weaknesses of enemies. The weaknesses did exist in the game, but it wasn’t really presented to the players, so players had to figure that out. This also applies to other stats like defenses. Again, it exists in the game, but it’s not displayed for the players. Players had to figure it out on their own to get an understanding of these aspects of the game.
We thought that this wasn’t necessarily really difficult, it was just really unfair to the players. That’s something that we wanted to really improve on, because this is going to be a remake for the modern audiences, so we wanted to get rid of those unfair elements and make it fair and enjoyable for the players. That’s why in this remake, the weaknesses are going to be actually displayed for the players, unlike the original.
There are, again, player areas that we’ve adjusted that just made it too difficult in the original. In order to make it fair and more enjoyable for the modern audiences, we made improvements and focused on that area.
TA: When I started playing Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven on Steam Deck, because I’m playing it on PC right now, it is really good and it impressed me quite a bit with how well it runs. That got me thinking about Trials of Mana, because I played that on PlayStation 4 and Switch, and then I eventually played that on mobile also. I wanted to know, has the team been working to optimize the game specifically for Steam Deck?
Editor’s Note: This was asked before the game had an official Valve rating of Steam Deck Playable.
ST: Yes, so as you have already experienced the demo of the game on your Steam Deck, the full game, the full release, is going to be compatible with the Steam Deck as well, and it will be playable on the Steam Deck.
TA: Can you comment on how long the development was for Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven?
ST: I can’t really provide the details of that, but I can say that we started the main development towards the end of 2021.
TA: What learnings from Trials of Mana remake did you take into Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven to make sure that this is also a remake which fans love?
ST: Because of our experience working on Trials of Mana remake, we felt like we did develop a good understanding of what the players want and what players would enjoy out of remake titles. One of the examples being the soundtrack of the game. We learned that players generally prefer arrangements that are not too different from the original tracks. They would rather prefer something that’s more faithful to the original arrangement. Something not too different to the original. But that being said, back then, the original tracks were released, or the original title was released on older platforms like the Super Famicom, but then we’re releasing the remake on the modern platforms like the PlayStation 5 and whatnot. The technical limitations are very different between these two eras, so we were able to utilize that and then make the quality of the arrangements higher. The general direction of the tracks are going to stay the same, however, the overall quality has been refined for these remakes. That’s the area that we learned and we adapted into the Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven.
Another thing that we learned was that players generally would prefer to, or there are a lot of players that also just prefer the original soundtrack and not the newly arranged tracks. We added an option in Trials of Mana remake that players can switch from two different arrangements of tracks. They can either choose the original tracks as is, or they can choose the newly composed or newly arranged tracks for the remakes. We added that system in Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven as well because we learned that players really loved that choice. Having that choice offered to them for the music was really well regarded, so we added that in Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven as well.
There’s also a couple of different areas that we worked on newly that’s not something that we did on Trials of Mana remake. One of the examples is the graphics. The characters are typically a bit shorter on the Mana series because the graphic style is a bit more on the adorable side. In SaGa, we can’t really keep the same aesthetics in the graphics. The characters are going to be a bit taller in this remake compared to the others. Even when you look at the backgrounds as well, for the Mana series, we added shadow effects into the textures of the backgrounds. Again, SaGa is going to have a different worldview. We wanted to keep it a bit more serious. In order to do that, in order to keep things realistic, like that’s more suitable for the SaGa franchise, we utilized the lighting effects to add these shadows and not the textures like we did for Mana. Even though there were a lot of areas that we were able to utilize and bring in as is for the SaGa remake, there were a lot of areas that we worked on newly as well.
A lot of different knowledge experiences, know-hows that we were able to use, but also new stuff that we figured out on our own with this remake.
At this point, I thanked him and the team for making the “Romancing SaGa 2 Primer” video where he introduced the game in English. I was very happy with that video and I’ve shared it with a lot of my friends who haven’t played a SaGa game before.
TA: Trials of Mana remake eventually came to mobile. I wanted to know if there are any plans to bring Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven to mobile or Xbox in the future.
ST: We do not have any plans to release on those platforms at the moment.
TA: My final question is how do you like your coffee?
ST: I don’t drink coffee because I’m not a fan of bitter drinks. I can’t drink beer either.
I’d like to thank Shinichi Tatsuke, Jordan Aslett, Sara Green, and Rachel Mascetti for their time and help with this interview and preview access over the last few weeks.
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven Steam Deck Impressions
When I was offered a Steam key for Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven to try out the demo beforehand, I was equal parts excited and worried. I was excited because the reveal trailer looked excellent, but a bit worried because I had no idea if it would be a good experience on Steam Deck pre-release. Thankfully, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is not only great on Steam Deck OLED out of the box, but the few hours I spent with the demo made me not even want to bother getting the game on PS5 or Switch to play. It is that good on Valve’s handheld. But what about the remake and how it feels to play? I’m going to cover my early thoughts here.
Right off the bat, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven looks great and sounds fantastic on Steam Deck. This remake also properly introduces the basics of battle, stats, and more gradually. If you’ve played Romancing SaGa 2 before, there are some changes through quality of life improvements with information, how combat flows despite being turn-based, and also the new audio options. If you never played the original, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is shaping up to be a lovely modern entry point into SaGa in general for newcomers. The visuals definitely make it more approachable, but this is very much Romancing SaGa 2 with a fresh coat of paint and some new features. Playing on the difficulty meant to be like the original still is challenging.
As for the remake’s visuals and feel, it is a lot better than I expected. I loved Trials of Mana’s remake, but I think Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven will end up the better remake overall. This may be because I love the original game a lot more than Trials of Mana, but only time will tell on that when I get access to the full release. It also helps that at least on Steam Deck, the PC port is quite a bit better than I expected. When it comes to sound and language options, you can toggle between the new remake soundtrack or the original, English or Japanese audio, and also various graphics options.
The PC port of Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven lets you adjust screen mode (windowed, borderless, exclusive fullscreen), screen resolution (800×450 and more with 720p support on Steam Deck), frame rate (30 to unlimited), toggle v-sync, toggle on dynamic resolution, use graphics presets, toggle anti-aliasing, adjust texture filtering quality, adjust shadow quality, and adjust 3D model rendering resolution. I set most things to maximum or high with shadows on medium and still got a near-locked 90fps on my Steam Deck OLED at 720p.
On the audio side, I stuck to English for my first playthrough. The voice acting is good, but I will likely play the full game with Japanese first to see how I feel when I get it. I might even do English on console and Japanese on Steam Deck. Either way, a lot of care and effort has gone into not only making Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven feel modern, but also retain its SaGa-ness.
I’m looking forward to digging into the full game when I can, and also seeing how the demo feels on consoles. Right now, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a game you should have on your radar if you enjoy RPGs. I hope this leads to more folks trying out other SaGa games as well, but Square Enix needs to give us SaGa Frontier 2 next.
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven launches on October 24th for Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS5, and PS4 worldwide. A free demo will be available on all platforms today and I recommend trying it out.
You can keep up with all our interviews here including our recent ones with Sukeban Games here, FuturLab here, Shuhei Matsumoto from Capcom about Marvel Vs Capcom here, Santa Ragione here, Peter ‘Durante’ Thoman about PH3 and Falcom here, M2 discussing shmups and more here, Digital Extremes for Warframe mobile, Team NINJA, Sonic Dream Team, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and more. As usual, thanks for reading.
When I first wrote about boomer shooters last year on Steam Deck and also on Switch, aside from New Blood and Nightdive, the most common name was Andrew Hulshult who has done some amazing music over the years. He recently was involved with the DOOM + DOOM II re-release that included his IDKFA soundtrack with new music for DOOM II, and having wanted to interview him for a while now, I finally had a chance to chat with him on call for a few hours to discuss game soundtracks, composition, bands he likes, guitar strings, pickups, cold brew coffee, his first film soundtrack, games he’s playing, and a lot more. This interview was done on video call and then it was transcribed and edited for brevity. Just like my interview with Dave Oshry from New Blood, this one was more casual than usual, and this is likely the longest interview on TouchArcade so strap in and grab a cold brew.
TouchArcade (TA): So for those unaware, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Andrew Hulshult (AH): Yeah, my name’s Andrew Hulshult. I’m a composer and sound designer for mainly video games, but I’m starting to move over into film as well. I like to just write music by myself sometimes when it’s not for a game or film. But that’s primarily what I do. I work in the game and film industry doing sound design, soundtracks, and sometimes voice acting.
TA: How did you end up working on the canceled Duke Nukem project and also Rise of the Triad 2013?
AH: Duke Nukem 3D Reloaded was actually just kind of like, I think that was 2010. That’s, I’m reaching back here a little bit. So I think Frederik at the time, Frederik Schreiber, the guy who runs 3D Realms now, or I think he still does, basically he was remaking maps in the middle of Unreal Engine 3 of like some of the original Duke 3D maps and posting them on Gearbox forums, which I think one of them that got a lot of hits was like all of the 3D renders of like Hollywood Holocaust, which is like E1M1 for Duke 3D. That caught my attention as well. I was like, wow, that looks really neat. You know, like I reached out on the forums, I was like, hey, do you need any music? Maybe this would be fun. Like, I really liked Duke 3D back in the day. And he said, yeah, sure. You know, like if you want to remake some of the stuff and hand it off to me.
So I just did some of that. I just had gear laying around and I wanted to kind of learn how to do this anyway. So I just dove in head first and started kind of remaking some of the old Duke 3D tracks. That kind of spawned into, you know, not a lot, not a lot was done in Duke 3D Reloaded. It was just like, you know, like some odds and ends stuff. Somehow that turned into Apogee, Terry Nagy, head hunting us and saying, hey, I have an IP that I’d really like you to work on called Rise of the Triad if you guys want to give it a try. And he had an investor with him at the time who was interested named Dave Oshry And this was a very long time ago. And it’s crazy. Like all those people now are like, you know, on the, we were all on the forefront of like the retro FPS revival stuff.
But basically after Duke 3D Reloaded, yeah, Apogee came, said, hey, we’re interested. And Fred said yes on our side. And we started making Rise of the Triad 2013.
TA: It was funny you mentioned Dave Oshry because when I finally got an interview with him, I think it was easier for me to meet Iron Maiden than get that interview, but after getting that done, I had New Blood covered. I recently also interviewed Nightdive about The Thing, but I needed to complete the trifecta for boomer shooters: Andrew Hulshult. Now that’s finally happening.
We both laugh.
TA: I remember in a prior interview you did, you mentioned how when you were doing the 3D realm stuff, you weren’t aware of how much you were in demand in the industry. So when that door closed, suddenly you had like a, like thousands of opportunities and stuff like that. But, and obviously you’ve gone on to do some of like some huge titles since then. Obviously Doom Eternal DLC is the one which a lot of people think about you. For me, it’s like other titles like Nightmare Reaper and Dusk and stuff like that. I want to know how you’ve changed as a musician and as a professional from back then to now.
AH: Oh, that’s a great question. Man, starting off in the industry with, you know, doing the whole stuff with Interceptor, like where we were, what we were just talking about, it was a completely fresh experience as a musician. So you don’t know what you’re getting into. And then a lot of times you’re like, I don’t even know what I should be getting paid, you know, like you have an idea, but you’re not, you don’t know. And so like wading through those waters is interesting and also dangerous territory. But the stuff that I have learned has been all from, you know, tripping on agreements as you go forward. You sign an agreement, you go for it, you make the money, and on the back end you’re either like, this didn’t really work out, or you’re like, hey, this worked out, we need to make sure that we do this again, you know.
It’s learning the entire time. Because this is the thing that I feel like musicians get hung up on a lot, which is, you know, they just, they want to make really, really awesome, beautiful art for games. And like, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. You should, that should be the core principle that you do. But you have to make sure that you get paid so that you can continue to do it. Because otherwise you burn yourself out and you don’t want to work in the industry anymore. And that, to go back to what you were talking about with, I didn’t know how much, like how in demand I was. I was right at that point. I was about to walk away from everything right after the whole stuff with 3D Realms. I was done with games. I was like, you know what, like there’s not a lot of avenues here and I’m just getting more bitter as time goes on. And the last handful of things I’ve worked on have just bombed so why am I putting all this effort into this?
I should try and do something else. And I didn’t realize until I stepped out from 3D Realms how many people wanted to hire me. And like, it’s one of those weird things where like, I’m sure you can probably relate. When you have a job, like a day job, if you’ve ever just held like a simple, simple day job, you can get sucked into that entire cycle of that job and nothing else matters around.
So an example of this would be, I worked for a music retailer for about 15 years, okay. I was doing well for them. They wanted to give me my own stores. I was working on management. And the cycle that comes with that where you get so wrapped up in the business of that makes you lose focus of lots of other things in life. And that’s kind of what happened to me while I was working with 3D Realms. That’s nothing bad about them. It’s just when you’re working for a company rather than working for yourself, it turns into that.
From the start to now has been like just a crazy learning process. You do have to walk on landmines. You do have to get blown up a couple of times until you figure out what works and what doesn’t. Stepping out from 3D Realms after they said, hey, we don’t have the cash to pay you. It’s like, oh, okay, I guess I’ll go figure this out now. And then all of a sudden, DUSK, you know, like that’s literally the next thing that and AMID EVIL were the very next things that I worked on. It was crazy.
TA: Obviously you get a lot of questions about game music, but what is like, since you brought up this whole thing about how you’ve changed, what is the biggest misconception that people both in the industry and like the players have about video games music right now?
AH: The biggest misconception. Oh, that anybody can do it and it’s a small part. laughs It’s like, you can’t just throw anything in there. Like, man, it’s I’d say that from a public like standpoint of I don’t play games that much and I’m casual kind of thing, some of my friends and some of my family are like, you have the easiest job. I’m like, you have no f***ing idea. You know, walk in my shoes for a day and let’s talk again. Yeah, it’s really difficult because you, you really have to trick yourself into getting into whatever atmosphere or whatever world someone else has painted already. Right. Like they’ve already built everything out. This is their vision. You have to step into it and you have to step into it with respect to their design philosophies. And you also have to have the confidence to say, well, this is what I think we should do and why we should do it. And there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of social confidence that’s needed to do a gig like this.
It’s complex in a lot of different ways. The art side of it is hard enough, like pulling shit out of thin air, is difficult already, but then, um, explaining to people why you want to go this direction and sometimes even arguing to get that direction can be a hassle in and of itself.
So yeah, I’d say the biggest misconception is that it’s easy and that it’s not easy. I swear to God, so many times my friends are like, ah, you’ve got the easiest job. I’m like, no, man, I live, I, I threw a hundred pound boxes from 6 AM to 4 PM. And sometimes I miss that.
Whiskey and coffee fueled half of the @RiseoftheTriad OST. Most songs were composed between 9pm and 3am.
TA: So I also want to talk a lot about your gear, but before that, I think we should discuss some of the game specific things. So let’s start with ROTT 2013. I’ve just sent you a tweet right now, which I wanted to reference. This is quite an old one (linked above). Well, I actually didn’t know much about this soundtrack until recently. I had heard about it and I had heard that a lot of my friends bought that release. They said that it wasn’t that great. I played the original on DOS but not the 2013 version, so I didn’t really hear it all in-game until the Ludicrous Edition and when folks made a big deal about it having Andrew Hulshult’s music. I decided I wanted to properly try it then. I wanted to talk about your thought process between like, you know, redoing those tracks and coming up with your own flare on them, because anyone who, at least any fan of yours, if they listen to that, they know it’s your music. It’s not like, oh, this is just like him doing a cover of someone else. It still feels like it’s you.
AH: The first and foremost thing was to make sure you respect your elders. I wanted to make sure that whatever I did obviously served the fanbase and by proxy served everything that Lee Jackson had written. Lee Jackson and Bobby Prince, as far as I’m concerned, that’s the de facto composers for FPS. The originators. You’re already stepping into something well established back in the day. People are very familiar with this. If you f*** it up, you are toast. That was my first professional gig. Stepping into that kind of pressure.
Just really what it came to, it was all really natural. I heard these songs and I saw the game and what they’re making and I’m like it is kinda jank, but it is fun. It is ridiculous. ROTT is so ridiculous. I was like man, I was talking to Dave and Fred about it. What if we did like rock and metal stuff predominantly? That’s the kind of music I listen to all the time. They said let’s try it. Even Terry was like you should do it.
Really they just kinda gave me free reign to give it a try on some of these things. The first one I did as a demo to work on it was “Goin Down the Fast Way” and I remember I handed that to Terry. Terry is awesome and he has been great to me for my entire career. Never had a bad piece of advice from him. He is the CCO for Apogee by the way. I remember handing him the very first demo of “Goin Down the Fast Way”. His comment coming back to me was “It is in the right direction but it sounds like a diarrhea of sound” Because it wasn’t mixed correctly. I was just excited to hand him something. I was like ok this is one of those moments where I’m going to have to learn how to accept feedback even if it is not from a musician and I know that they mean well. I remixed a couple of things and I think this is what he was talking about and I sent it back to him and he said it was way better and it was awesome. Ok cool, this guy doesn’t just hate me.
It kind of just came from the heart. All the soundtracks I work on, it’s me. Even if it is stepping into someone else’s shoes, I have to remember that the source material comes first, then you put your influences on. So the source material is the structure of the house but you can put up whatever walls you want and paint on it, and hang and decorate, but just make sure that the house is still the same house that people remember.
Now to address the Tweet above, Whiskey and coffee fueled half of the Rise of the Triad soundtrack. Most songs were composed between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. That’s true. Here’s one little tidbit with it too. Terry Nagy, the guy I was talking about, the CCO from Apogee, he would regularly take me down to a bar called Hula Hands. And he would buy the drinks and then he would just take me home and be like, “Alright, now go write some more songs.” It was awesome. I miss those days.
TA: This reminds me of that one track in IDKFA where you used a tremolo to replicate a specific sound and it was the perfect way to do it.
AH: That was Dark Halls in DOOM. It has the tremolo guitar that’s supposed to be the rolling bass synth from that sound. I love that song.
TA: After ROTT 2013, another game I didn’t really play until recently was Bombshell and I literally only bought that game because of your soundtrack. I got it when I was researching boomer shooters for an article and was looking at the games I don’t own. I bought it and didn’t really care for much of it, but the music was great. I kind of think of that soundtrack with Nightmare Reaper where they feel like just metal albums from Andrew Hulshult rather than dedicated game soundtracks. Was this the point in your career where you realized you’re really good at bringing metal into these kinds of games? It felt like a turning point.
AH: That’s that’s a great question too like actually yeah like right around that time I was experimenting a lot with just you know making big atmospheric like synth stuff and like orchestral as you can hear on that soundtrack if you got far enough, laughs, but also like for the for the bigger fights and stuff, I really wanted to start dialing up you know my own sound and my own writing and you know I’d already done the cover stuff I wanted to want to show people what what I could do and so yeah that is kind of really where my introduction to like my own original pieces started coming into place, so yeah that is actually right. I never even thought about that that is where that started and also like I mean I gosh that’s if I think about it, that was 2013 is the end of 2013 is when development started on that, and it originally started as a Duke Nukem game before the lawsuit, and I had an eight string by that time. I was tuning down big time at that point, and there’s a lot of stuff that never made it maybe I’ll put that up on Twitter at some point but there’s a lot of stuff that never never showed up on it because it was a little too aggressive you know but that stuff would later show up in DOOM you know. laughs
TA: When just discovering your music many years ago, everything was really good metal, and this was probably around the time I was mainly listening to metal before I started broadening my horizons. I went through this phase when I was learning guitar and I started listening to more Dream Theater and then got a seven string guitar, and eventually got into Meshuggah. It got me thinking about how when I listen to your music now, you manage doing unique things for each game and make the songs fit the game properly. It isn’t just metal anymore so there’s no worry about being typecast. Did you have that fear that everyone is just going to expect metal from you when you’re behind a specific soundtrack?
AH: Oh man. You just saying that just out loud makes me wow. I still worry about that sometimes. There are moments where I’m like am I getting typecast at this point, and you saying, yeah I don’t have to worry about that anymore, I’m like oh thank god I heard it from someone else where they were you know like, because I don’t want to be like I don’t want to be like straight up known as metal guy you know like I love metal I love playing it I’ll make those records all day long as people as long as people will listen to it and even if they won’t I’ll probably make them, but yeah I like to paint with different brushes like especially when I get older, like I really enjoy mixing sound design with guitars.
I like mixing sound design with orchestral instruments, I like just going full hand on my Eurorack synth stuff over here and just getting lost. As a musician I’m fortunate enough at this point where I can just experiment, and I know I can find, I have the confidence now after working on all these games and having some success with it where I know if I get lost I can find a way out because I’ll find something that I like, and chances are if I like it, I can probably show it to some people who will dig it as well. I’m so glad to hear that you’re like I know that I can get some variety. laughs
TA: I mean if someone just heard DUSK and I’d say if they heard DUSK even that is pretty different. I mean if someone’s not into metal maybe they think dusk sounds the same as bombshell but you can totally tell that DUSK was trying to be like this middle ground of what you like and Nine Inch Nails’ Quake. I think it has one of my favorite guitar tones in gaming right now, and it’s still pretty timeless. I want to move to AMID EVIL. I love the soundtrack to the main game, but I want to ask about the DLC for two reasons. Now the first thing is kind of like a personal topic because I believe you were going through a family emergency during the time when you were recording the soundtrack, right? When I was playing Dragon Quest VIII on the 3DS and my grandfather was in the hospital before he passed away, whenever I think about Dragon Quest VIII now it reminds me of that. So do you go through the same thing with the AMID EVIL DLC music?
AH: I don’t think I’ve been able to sit down and digest it that way yet. But I know exactly what you’re talking about and I’m sure that is what I will absolutely go through. Yeah, to harp back to what you’re talking about, to what you’re referencing, my father had a heart attack. And it was just out of nowhere. And it was on, gosh, I think it was on New Year’s Eve. It was like 9 PM on New Year’s Eve. It was the year before it was released And I was halfway, I was like midway through working on that soundtrack. And it just scared the shit out of me. As anybody would. Your father’s dying And he ended up having like a, all four valves around his heart were like 90-95% clogged. So yeah, he had to have a quadruple bypass. And thankfully, We have a really, really good heart hospital right next to us. And they’re at an age now where they’re on Medicare. I think it’s Medicare. I can’t remember. It’s like once you’re past 64 at a certain age in this country, you can get on Medicare. And you know, like health stuff isn’t as much of a nightmare as it normally is. But they got great care, got taken care of. But it was months.
It took months for all that stuff to happen. And there’s like so many things that happened in between that. Like this was right in the middle of COVID. So like whenever he got, it was right in the middle of the big Omicron spike for the world. So as soon as he got admitted, he couldn’t get to an actual emergency room. He had to sit in another room for like two or three days and they actually had to sedate him for a few days before they could transfer him to another hospital to get looked at. Like it was just crazy. And I was out of my mind. I was crazy at that point. And so once they got to a point where they said we’re going to do surgery and he came out of surgery, I just needed something to occupy myself. Otherwise, I was going to self-destruct.
So I started writing a lot on the AMID EVIL stuff and started really finding that old like playing with a band and writing songs for you kind of vibe going in. And a lot of that stuff in a AMID EVIL, the stuff that’s like got a lot of energy behind it, that is pretty personal for me. There’s a lot of emotions on that soundtrack. There’s also something else that I haven’t talked about in public yet and I’m not going to talk about it here that I started working on that has a lot of that as well. And that’ll still be a while before that pops up. But I’d say that that was my main outlet for a while. You have something to look forward to.
But yeah, like that soundtrack let’s wrap it up. That soundtrack did have a lot of tension and a lot of emotions tied to my father almost passing away and me trying to wrap my head around that. You’re right. I hadn’t thought about that.
TA: The other thing about the AMID EVIL DLC is this specific song I want to touch on: Splitting Time. This song is interesting for a few reasons. It reminds me of some of my favorite game trailers like the song used in the Nioh 2 launch trailer, I’m not sure if you’ve seen it. But more interesting than that is I was playing Street Fighter 6 with a friend of mine and listening to this in the background and he asked me if I was listening to Killer Instinct music? I said it was the AMID EVIL DLC and he wanted to know who made it. It reminded me quite a bit of Mick Gordon’s non DOOM music. We spoke about Killer Instinct and my friend said “they should get Andrew for a new Killer Instinct album” and I wanted to ask if Killer Instinct influenced that song?
AH: No I didn’t actually. But there might be little hints of that back and forth because gosh, there are moments when I went back to that Killer Instinct reboot because I thought Mick did such a great job on it. Where I’m like, man, the production here is exactly what I have been trying to do for like a handful of years, And like that soundtrack was just really inspiring to listen to. I think he’s just, he’s a brilliant composer.
TA: That’s another game I bought because of the soundtrack because when I played DOOM 2016, I was like I need to play more games with this guy’s done the music for and everyone was like Killer Instinct. I was like I’ve never heard this. I didn’t own an N64. What the hell is this game? I bought it and liked the music a lot more than the game.
AH: That whole soundtrack slaps, man. He did a fantastic job on that.
TA: OK, so now let’s go to Nightmare Reaper a bit. I already mentioned how this could be your own metal album. I don’t even think it needs to be related to this game. And this is another game I just bought because the music was so good. And I was like there’s kind of like this disconnect between what I expected in the game and after I heard the music, because I heard the music before playing the game and I was like, OK, I need to get used to this. But so before I ask you about your thought process between doing the music, I want to just bring up this other tweet (linked above) from New Blood’s Dave Oshry, which is interesting for Nightmare Reaper. When I saw that Tweet, I knew I had to bring it up whenever I interviewed you in the future and here we are.
Laughs
AH: Whenever Bruno reached out to me, Bruno is the developer of Nightmare Reaper. Whenever he reached out to me, we just literally started talking about some of our favorite bands and we would just go off back and forth because he showed me a game that he was making. I was like, “That looks cool.” I was like, “Well, let me know if you’re ever interested.” And then we just started talking about music. He’s like, “Would you be interested in working with me on this?” And I said, “Yeah, I think that would be cool.” And he literally was like, “I just want this to be like a metal record from you.” I was like, “Really?” He was like, “Yeah.” He’s like, “You’ve got good influences.” He’s like, “I just want it to sound like you just made a straight metal record.” I was like, “Well, it can’t be just that.” I was like, “But it’ll be mostly that.” You still need to like, we need to, it needs to still be for a game. Because otherwise you’d have me, you know, screaming over top of everything as well.
But yeah, it is pretty close to something I would have written at that time. You know, as you go with a, as time moves on, tastes change. And you know, but like at that time, for sure, that’s what you would have gotten for a metal record. I think that’s pretty close, yeah.
TA: How do you manage doing that and also keeping the soundtrack dynamic for a game then?
AH: Um, play through it a lot of times where you can figure out where you can have rests and lulls. And where somebody’s gonna possibly just walk around and look for things. And then try to write something that you yourself would not get bored of. And that’s still interesting in terms of like, you know, like an ambient track or like a low energy track that still moves a little bit. Just music to explore to, right? And then try and make a piece that complements what that is, but is super high energy or, uh, just higher energy for it. So like, so that those two can work together. You really have to think of it as like, you’re gluing two or three different pieces together. Because like Prodeus has like three pieces.
It has an ambient, it has a light combat, and it has a heavy combat. And they’re structured in triggers throughout that game. So I have to think of how this ambient works with this low combat song and then work with this high combat song. Or this heavy combat song. And do they all move well between each other, um, if you were to just crossfade them at random times, you know? Because that’s what the engine is going to do. So yeah, it’s like, I don’t know, you just, you gotta take one of those pieces of music, build it out first, and then think about the other piece.
TA: Since you brought up Prodeus, that was the next game I was going to ask about. I don’t even remember what happened with Prodeus when it launched on Steam, because I remember being sent a code for it and just tried it out for review, but was blown away by the music. I remember I even joked about that when I wrote about boomer shooters. At the time, it felt like everything boomer shooters was all about New Blood, Nightdive, and Andrew Hulshult. So Prodeus feels like metal, industrial, bass heavy, and punchier in general. It works well with the aesthetic but I think Cables and Chaos is my favorite. You’ve spoken a lot about Prodeus, but I wanted to know what your favorite track is from that and whether you can give us an interesting anecdote from composing which people might not know about?
AH: Cables and Chaos is definitely my favorite one. Like, for sure. Like, that was the moment. Um, so, like, they originally only wanted me to work on, like, the music that first shipped. Not a lot of people know that I went through, like, this whole nightmare where I had to pull the entire soundtrack down across the entire, like, all this digital distribution and put it back up with all the songs because originally there was only, like, ten pieces of music with Prodeus. And then when they were getting closer to release they were like, “Hey, we want to… we want to… we want, like, ten more.” And I was like, “Oh, uh, okay. Well, I’ve already put out the soundtrack. We already agreed on this, so this is weird.” So, um, they showed me what else they were working on in terms of, like, the levels and everything that I hadn’t seen and I was like, “Good lord, these look incredible!” So I got really inspired with that and made a ton of really just more aggressive pieces of music which turned into things like Chaoscaster, Cables and Chaos, uh…I’m just trying to think of the other ones. Dystopian Dimension.
That whole soundtrack is awesome. Like, that whole soundtrack, like, it was built in an interesting time where it’s…it was… half of it was pre-pandemic and the other half was during isolation during pandemic. So, it’s got these really interesting tangents of, uh, the second half of the record’s way more aggressive than the first half. Just because, like, I don’t know, I was at home and I’m like, I can’t get anything out. Like, in terms of my outlet, I can’t go out. I can’t do this. So, like, all of my energy was focused on how aggressive can I make the rest of this, you know? Like, and then we finally get to put it out. I think that was 2022.
Here’s one thing from Prodeus that I thought was super neat. So, Spent Fuel is one of the only times that I’ve been…Well, it was one of the first times I’d done it at the moment. Where I’d taken an idea and I was like, how do I write a concept around this? And really, like, the map they showed me was just, you know, green sludge and radiated bullshit everywhere. It looked like Chernobyl. And, um…I was like, man, I really want to find ways to take things like Geiger counters, uh, and, uh, pulses from, from, uh, from fission reactions and, like, maybe even the sound of the, uh, the flash that happens in the video whenever they’re testing the atomic bomb stuff. Like, anything that’s gamma or uh, radiation that is audible, I want to take that and make a piece of music with it. So, there literally are all of those things in that piece of…that piece of music. So, there is the sound of a nuclear reactor turning on, doing what’s called a pulse, uh, for the first time. And that’s actually used in part of the beat. The Geiger counters used as portions of the beat that kind of sounds like a drum machine a little bit.
I reversed the sound of, uh, the atomic bomb, the initial flash hitting the camera, making this “bzzz” sound. I reversed that and made it pulse back and forth through the beat. And then, you know, later on the music is like a lot of guitar stuff to go with it and everything, but all that stuff that’s going on with the synthesizer is all based around, you know, like radiation. And I was like, “Ah, this is cool!”
Whenever I got done with it, I was like, “Finally!” I had an idea, like a concept idea for a piece of music that stems from like a real life thing and put it all together. So that was like, that’s one of the standout moments for me on that soundtrack. I was really proud of that.
TA: Can you say anything about the DLC music or is that just up to the devs for them to release?
AH: Uh, that’s up to the devs for them.
TA: Anything that’s different or interesting or should we just expect another banger soundtrack?
AH: I’m not sure if they’re going to use the base game stuff or if they want me to work on anything new. I have my suspicions that they’ll give me a shout probably somewhere in the near future, but I haven’t heard from them yet.
TA: I think in a recent interview where you spoke about the Iron Lung soundtrack, which you’re doing, obviously you can’t talk much about it, but I, don’t want to know about the soundtrack specifically, I’ll wait for the movie to come out, but I want to know three things: How is it working on a movie soundtrack? How is it working with Markiplier? How has the budget available for the soundtrack changed how you’re able to approach music composition?
AH: So the first one was, how’s it working on a movie soundtrack? Completely different. Like, I thought that, I thought that I’d be able to walk in and just be like, “Eh, this won’t, this’ll be simple.” Oh. Like, it’s just as challenging as the game stuff, but in a completely different direction. Where I would know exactly to talk to a developer about “Let’s put a piece of music here, let’s put a piece of music here, let’s do that.” I can do that with Mark, but they’re completely different conversations. One is, you know, I know exactly what’s supposed to be happening in the game here, this is, you know, you’re picking up this weapon, or you’re, this adventure is happening in front of you, this is the tone. The other is a film that I may get something out of, but Mark may be intending for a different emotion. So we have to talk about those things back and forth before I make a piece of music. So it’s really interesting. It’s a fun challenge, to be honest with you.
The second one was working with Mark? Mark is awesome. He is so much fun to work with. He hears things that I don’t hear, uh, brings things up in, in my own music, where I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t even think about that.” And he’s very much, um, a musician without, like, being a musician. Like, he doesn’t, he doesn’t write, like, as far as I know, he doesn’t write a bunch of music, like, on the regular, but he understands it very, very well. And will, uh, regularly make decisions when I hand him a piece of music, and he’s like, “Okay, this is, you know, sometimes we will have to cut these back and forth, but I promise you, like, like, to make it work for a scene.” He’s like, “But I promise you, we’ll do it as best as we can, or I’ll do it as best as I can.” I’m like, “Uh, you know, like, maybe I should just recompose the scene.” And every time he cuts something to, like, possibly make it, like, a tiny bit shorter, I’m like, “No, that’s exactly what I would have done. Like, how are you this good at editing this stuff?” Like, it’s, it blows my mind. Um, so he’s been fantastic to work with.
The third is about the budget for the movie soundtrack and how it changes how it affects composition? Budgets were a lot bigger. I’ll just, I’ll just keep it at that. They were, they were, they were much bigger. Um, just because of how much, it wasn’t, like, due to, um, you know, like, “Oh, you’re working on a film now.” It was, it was because of how much music we went through. Um, I wrote demos with them on the set. So, like, they flew me down to Austin and Mark said, “Hey, you know, why don’t you just write music while I’m doing scenes?” I’m like, “Wow, that sounds actually really, really f***ing cool, yeah.” So, I would go down there about once every two weeks and spend about two or three days there, just sitting at, uh, sitting out front while they’re, they’re doing scenes, and I’d be writing music with my headphones, just watching on a monitor, you know, what’s going on in front of me, like, 50 feet in front of me. And so, there was a ton of music from that, and there’s a lot more music that came afterwards that we wrote, and in fact, um, I’m actually about to jump on a call because I think they need one more, one more piece of music.
I’m gonna jump on a call in like two hours, ’cause I think they need one more piece of music. Um, but it’s, it’s just been a lot. There’s a lot there. And it’s picking the emotions that go where. So, like, there would be, I wrote all these songs for, you know, um, catching a vibe of depression, and these songs for catching a vibe of anger, and these vibes for tension, and this, and this, and we have this giant palette to just choose from and pick where we want things to go, and that’s what, that’s what Mark’s been doing. So, yeah, it’s, it’s pretty much, I mean, financially, the exact same thing as, that I would agree on with games, but it’s just, there’s the volume that, like, we’ve done with stuff is like, whoa, that’s a lot! So, yeah.
So, yeah, it’s been great. It’s helped me out a ton. I’d love to work with Mark again after this.
TA: Going from your first movie soundtrack, let’s talk about your first chiptune album, which was Dusk 82. So, was that actually the first time you did any sort of chiptune remixing or composition or arrangement, I should say?
AH: Yeah, the first real one, like, I mean, like, you could, you could argue that, like, the Rad Rodgers stuff has some of that on there, but that’s, like, closer to synth wave more than anything else, I feel like. And, like, that kind of retro feel. So, yeah, this was the first real time that I, like, approached, like, a chiptune. Like, this is, you have to stay within these boundaries of limited technology. And it was literally, like, you know, choose your, choose your sine wave. Do you want, you want sine, or choose your audio wave. Do you want sine, square, or, you know, triangle? So, it’s one of the three. Just building, like, drum kits based off of that and, like, white noise and everything. And, yeah, that was, that was interesting.
Like, when David approached me about that, I was like, “You wanna do what?” You know, like, completely make, like, the Dusk soundtrack and chiptunes of, like, why don’t we just, like, choose a handful of, like, the hits and go from there. Like, the ones that people remember the most, you know? And that was fun. Uh, that was super cool. Just bouncing those back and forth off Dave and David. But, yeah, that was, that was the first time I ever did that. And it was, it was pretty cool. I’m glad people like it.
TA: I think, uh, Dusk 82 was, like, this free pre-order bonus with the Nintendo Switch release. So when I started playing that, I was like, “Wait, did they actually do this for the soundtrack?” And then I looked it up and I’m like, “Of course they did!” I know obviously you’re, like, super busy with, like, a ton of projects, but if you had, like, unlimited time and resources, would you do a chiptune demake of any of your other albums? And if you would, which one would you pick?
AH: Gosh. Which one would be the most interesting is really the, uh, the question there. I think the one that would be the most interesting if I were to do that would be probably AMID EVIL. Because there’s so much going on in some of those, it would be, it would be a lot of fun to go back and, like, hear some of those melodies that are, like, on, like, all string sections and stuff, and here I’m taking all the way down to, like, 8-bit, you know? I think that that would fit really well too. But yeah, if money wasn’t an issue. Yeah, and time. Time’s the biggest one there.
TA: Speaking of time and money, I was going to ask you about remastering one of your old soundtracks, like bringing it to the modern Andrew Hulshult sound. You mentioned that you’d do ROTT 2013 if they paid you to remaster it.
AH: There’s a ton of work involved in that. Doing that just for IDKFA was a ton of work. Like, that was months of getting that together. Um, yeah, I’d love to do that for ROTT if Apogee would be interested in it, but, like, it’s a time thing more than anything else. I think it’s a time thing for them, and it’s a time thing for me. I mean, they’re literally down the street, so, like, they can open up that conversation anytime they want, and it’s just a matter of when, you know? When’s the right time.
TA: WRATH: Aeon of Ruin, I think is a game you composed a long time ago, at least in gaming, like, a few years ago, and it finally released this year. That’s a soundtrack where if anyone hears it, I think they probably wouldn’t expect it to be you when they listen to the soundtrack, and that’s one of the things I love about it, because here, like, he does more than just metal, like, you need to get that into your head, like, that feels like one of those things. How was it working on that soundtrack?
AH: It was interesting back and forth. Jeremiah, the developer on that, the original developer, at first, I think he’ll be okay with me saying this, at first we did not, we didn’t see eye to eye on things, because I wanted straight up, like, almost no guitar at all, Quake, Like, this is what you’re going for, this is the audience, we need to harp even further into this, and he wanted some guitar mixed in there, and like, we would butt heads back and forth on it quite a bit, until we finally came to like a mutual understanding, and I started hearing him out a little bit more, and he started hearing me out, and I was like, okay, okay, I think we’re all good on this.
But yeah, it was, that one was a little, a little more tough, just because the, like, the development cycle was, wasn’t, you know, as people know, like, didn’t, it didn’t go as great, like, towards about halfway through, maybe a little, even a little earlier than that, and I could see some of that happening in real time, just because I know all those guys, so like, it was unavoidable.
So that’s, that’s hard to make art for when you know that the product itself is having some problems. But I think Christalynne Pyle did a good job with wrapping everything up towards the end of it, which was a task in and of itself, for sure. But, I don’t know, there were some weird ideas pitched out there at one point, where like, I think Fred wanted like, like straight up, like really over the top metal tracks at one point. I think they even had a trailer at one point where I was like, this is not the tone of this game. I don’t know where you guys found that music, but like, this is, this is not that.
But I’m glad that everything in the end was able to have some cohesiveness and, and meld together. I really wish that we had time to do some action tracks, like, for that game. Like, I feel like there are moments where that could have, that could have been helpful, but also at the same time, that’s a big what if. You know, like, because there’s two things that you have to take into consideration. Which is, that’s the Quake engine. It’s like the OG Quake engine. You know, what are the limitations that we’re working with here? Can we dynamically swap music, and is it going to work well, just as well as you’ve heard in other titles? And number two, um, would that take people out of it?
Because everybody remembers like the OG Quake having like, you know, every map had its song. Well, I say that. It was a disc running that just played a bunch of music. But basically, every map had a song for it. So, yeah, there’s, there’s a handful of things there. But I like the soundtrack. I think it’s cool. I think it’s, it’s, it’s got some really interesting moments in it where like, one of them where I was, I just said, “F*** it, whatever. We’re gonna, we’re gonna bow a guitar through a bunch of pedals and see what that comes out like.” That’s one of my favorite pieces from that. I think that’s towards the end. But, um, yeah, it was a little bit of a struggle, but I’m glad I still went through it. I had fun, and I think that everybody that worked on it was pretty proud of it by the end.
TA: Now, DOOM Eternal’s DLC. How did it feel for you doing IDKFA and now doing official DOOM music? Like, it’s your soundtrack with David Levy? Did id Software actually talk to you about IDKFA beforehand?
AH: I know that IDKFA was, was passed around that studio a whole bunch, cause I, I’d get, um, DMs from people that work there that are now, like, I consider great friends, where they would reach out in, like, 2015, and 2016, and, like, all the way back as 2014, where they would be saying, you know, hey, I’m working at id right now, I just want you to know that I’m listening to your, to your music while I work, and I was always just like, oh, holy cow, that’s crazy, you know? Um, and I, you know, as far back as that, I was just like, hey, if you ever, you know, if you ever, if you ever need music, let me know, you know? So, but, like, never, never, you know, like, pushing like, the button or the boundaries, cause like, I think it was announced that Mick was working on there in, like, 2015? Like, it was like the year before, or something like that, when they really started showing some of the music, and I was like, oh, they’ve, they’ve, they’ve got that handled, okay, cool. So, um, but I was always interested in, in finding a, a way to work with that studio, cause I love DOOM, and, like, it’s really is, like, the core of my DNA wanting to work in games, is DOOM, and like, Duke 3D, um, so, yeah,
I always wanted to work with them, and IDKFA, I kinda looked at almost as a resume, like, I was like, I’m gonna put this out there, if it gets popular enough, it’ll speak for itself, and it did exactly that, because, uh, in, gosh, that was, that was right at, like, quarter one, quarter two of 2020, when, when they approached me, I think it was, actually it was, I think it was quarter two of 2020, and said, hey, we, uh, we are in a position where we need, we need music, where we need music, and, uh, we need it quickly, and would you be up to the task for this? They fully were, they knew what they were asking was, was a tall order, in a short period of time, and they said, you know, we can absolutely use the base game stuff, but we wanted to at least reach out and, and ask you, because we, we feel like we can trust you, cause I, I’d made relationships with, with, uh, with Marty, some light ones with Hugo, with Chad Mossholder, their sound guy, I knew all of those people by then, and, um, I was like, hey, you know what, it’s, it’s like 35 or 40 days, f*** it, we, let’s do it, it was like, this sounds like a challenge, I’m totally up for it, and, you know, I had to keep my composure the entire time, but in the inside I’m like, oh my god, you know, like, I’m working on an official DOOM game, uh, and when, but when we got done with that, like, I don’t know, it’s one of those weird moments where you go, holy cow, we went from, uh, you know, a mod project, uh, all the way to the official thing, and it’s just, it’s insane, it’s, it’s crazy, I keep running into those portions of my career, I hope they never stop, there are, something always surprises me like that.
TA: I think it’s safe to assume that a lot of people who tell you they love your music bring up Blood Swamps from DOOM Eternal’s DLC. Because I think every person I see on YouTube is like, everyone’s just doing Blood Swamps, it seems like the most popular thing and all, and for you that’s probably a weird feeling because you have this song which a lot of people love or something which you’re really proud of, but you can’t stream it or buy it legally. Can you comment on that in any form? What do you tell people who ask about buying your music from DOOM Eternal’s DLC?
laughs
AH: Well, Bethesda and id own all that stuff, they paid me well for it, so like I was happy to do all that, um, that’s not like a bullshit PR thing, like, for real, they took care of me. They own all that, so you know, if they, if they ever choose to put that stuff out, that would be awesome, I’d totally embrace it and get behind it with that, but sometimes studios do that, sometimes they don’t, and it’s just completely up to their call, but I will tell you that they have no problem with you, you know, grabbing it off YouTube or anything like that, so do that to your heart’s content, throw it on your phone, whatever you want to do, they just, they’re just glad that you like the stuff, and so am I, to be honest, but hey, hopefully one day we can get an official release, like, that would be cool.
TA: Yeah, because I have the DOOM 2016 vinyl soundtrack, and I’d love to have DOOM Eternal music on vinyl as well. Anyway that’s something I’ve been thinking about because it’s probably a difficult situation for you to be in, because people would who want to support you, like, obviously they can buy DOOM Eternal and buy the DLC and stuff like that, but it’s an unfortunate situation for fans, is all, like, I’ll leave it at that.
AH: It’s not really like a weird situation at all. I’m totally okay with whatever, Bethesda and id want to do with that, because they were completely up front, they’re like, we’re gonna own this, what we choose to do with that is…Yeah, yeah, and I was like, yeah, that’s fine, I just want to help, I want to make like, a cool DLC for everybody that’s stuck at home, and I want to write like, some kick-ass music for it. And, so there’s no feelings of like, you know, oh, this is weird because this isn’t out, or anything like that.
I know people are gonna rip it out of the game, I know, like, so do they, and like, that’s fine. But, you know, hopefully, I would like to see an official release one day, but that is completely up to them, and I will respect whatever they want to do, because they’ve been nothing but awesome.
TA: Now let’s just talk about Blood Swamps for a bit, because like, everyone loves the riffs and stuff like that, so, what was your thought process in creating that song? Did they ask you to make something that fit with the base game or tell you to just go wild and be Andrew with the music?
AH: They told me to go wild and just be me, which I was like, that felt pretty dangerous to me, because I was like, man, the, you know, what’s established here from Mick? I’m like, that’s pretty strong. Like, that’d be like somebody walking into another DUSK soundtrack, you know, like, for the Indie Shooter, and then being like, we’re gonna do all synthwave, you know, like, no, that’s not how that works. You have to serve what came before you. You have to show respect to what came before you. And that’s really important for the fans before anybody else. Doesn’t matter with an executive producer, doesn’t matter with the musician, doesn’t matter with the artist. It’s for the fans. Like, you have to make sure that whatever you’re going to do is going to, they’re gonna go, okay, cool, yeah, I understand, you know, why you chose this. So really, for me, looking at it when they were like, hey, you just be you, do whatever you want, what you think serves Doom the best. I was like, well, that’s a no-brainer. I’m gonna, I’m gonna, you know, I’m gonna source some inspiration from 2016 and Eternal, and then write what I would want to write.
So, the colors that I’m painting with are familiar, but the writing that I’m using, what I’m using to paint, or the picture I’m painting is different. So there’s some familiarity there. Because, you know, like, Blood Swamps is quite a bit different than stuff that you would hear on 2016 or Eternal. It’s a little bit more, this is, uh, this is like almost like a traditional metal song. And like, in fact, uh, I remember handing that over to Chad the first time and him being like, “Oh, metal. Alright.” And I was like, “Really? That’s like, you’re surprised. But, um, the, uh, it’s just a little bit more almost traditional. But, um, yeah, there’s, like, it was nice having David and Chad to bounce stuff off of. Because where I would hand them something, like Blood Swamps was originally like just guitar, just, just bass, and just drums. And it started, I started adding things in at, uh, after talking to, um, to Chad and David quite a bit. Where they would be like, you know, “Have you thought about any sound design stuff?” I’m like, “Well, what did you, you know, what are you thinking? Show me the instruments that you’re working with and, you know, like, let’s just talk stuff out.”
We’d have like hour long conversations every single day. And we would all just learn from each other. It was, it was so cool. But, yeah, like Blood Swamps comes from a point, I just remember, I have to write something that if this is the only DOOM game I work on, it has to be just, like, way out there. Like, I have to, I have to, I have to just take my shot. And it has, I have to rip out all of the barriers that are like, “Hey, should I do this? Shouldn’t I do this? Who gives a f***?” Just, just just write the fastest, most aggressive thing that you can think of at this point in time, and we’ll go from there. And that’s what, that’s what Blood Swamps was. And then everything else came after it, I was like, “Okay.” It was like, “We can do different things now.” You know?
TA: I think you mentioned how you had a few weeks to do the DLC soundtrack, but because you had the support system of those two, it was all possible in the end. I think you mentioned that in one of the other interviews.
AH: Yeah, because David was handling, like, on the first DLC, he was handling the cutscene work, and he had his own, like, stuff where he was working on a boss, and a level, and then I got these two levels, so they split up the work evenly between us on both DLCs. And there’d be so many times where I’d call David or Chad and just be like, “Hey, how are you doing today?” You know? And one of us would be like, “Oh my God, I don’t know where to go.” You know? And we would just talk back and forth, and somehow we would give each other ideas. It was magical. Like, it was crazy. Just after talking to David, if I had nothing in my head on what I should write, after talking to David or to Chad, I’d be like, “I know what I need to do now.” It was cool.
TA: Going back to IDKFA a bit, you mentioned how much work you had to put into revisit and, like, Remaster the original soundtrack. What did you think about revisiting those songs? Like, did you feel like, you know, maybe I should have done something differently? Or were you like, “No, I’m happy with this. I just want to preserve it for fans of IDKFA.”
AH: Yeah, it was more of a, it was a little tiny bit of, “I want to do things a little differently.” But, like, I’m talking to really, really small degrees. It was more about preservation than anything else. And if something was being destructive while trying to preserve it, those were the things that I would try to eliminate. An example of that is there was a lot of compression on the original IDKFA. Just because I was still in my early 20s at that point, early to mid 20s at that point, mixing in an apartment that isn’t, like, acoustically sound or anything like that. So I’m making mix decisions that aren’t the greatest, but still hold up. Like, that album still sounds great, but just some of the compression side, like, on the master of it, is a little aggressive.
So when I went back this time around, I actually went through every single one of those songs one by one and just gave it a little bit more head room, a little bit more breathing room, so that if you listen to it enough times, you’re not going to get, like, ear fatigue or something like that. That’s really what I was concerned about. And that’s all of the Doom 1 stuff from the original IDKFA all got that treatment where the threshold has been raised just a little bit so that it sounds a little bit more open and natural. And I replaced a couple snares here and there, and maybe like a kick drum and a bass, but they’re so small I still haven’t seen anybody notice them.
TA: You should revisit Metallica’s St. Anger and do this for all the fans.
AH: It is impossible to fix that! laughs There’s been bands that have done that. I’ve re-recorded that entire record and I see it on YouTube every now and then. I’m like this is… this would have been a cool record if it would have sounded okay, and maybe some structure changes were different, but yeah, it’s whatever.
TA: I think when Metallica did Death Magnetic, they had the Guitar Hero Metallica stems which people used to mix it better than the actual album. How does this keep happening?
AH: James attests to it. Those guys are so big that they legitimately have final say on everything that they do. So whenever they’re touring and you already have Tinnitus and you’re mixing in a tent, I remember them talking about “Yeah, no shit, the guitars are bright.” I was listening to mixes in a tent and making mix decisions on the road. I’m like, “Oh, that makes a lot more sense now.” Like, oh my god. Because the Guitar Hero mixes do sound way better.
TA: This reminds me of when I watched Deafheaven and how amazing they sounded live. You have so many bands that release albums with brickwall mastering ruining the sound of an otherwise good album. It is a shame that some bands don’t get outside help for things like mastering.
AH: Yeah, it’s…I mean I still do my own mastering stuff so I’m the start and finish with all my stuff but I totally get it whenever I see a band that has a record that’s just completely smashed. I’m like, “Yeah.” If I was just a musician who really knew how to play guitar and that’s about it or really knew how to play drums and that’s about it, I understand how this happens. It’s just a bunch of guys in the room going, “Louder! This needs to be louder.” laughs
TA: So you revisited IDKFA’s original DOOM 1 music, but you also did almost a complete Doom II soundtrack. I think there was one track which was on YouTube or two tracks. When you were doing these new songs, how did it feel for you because now you’ve come so far ahead as a musician and did you feel tempted to make it a modern Andrew Hulshult album versus trying to be Doom II? How did you approach that?
AH: Man. This whole IDKFA thing with id’s blessing has been an incredible experience. It feels like I’m closing a chapter of my career with the fans because IDKFA is what got me so many jobs and so much recognition beforehand. Well, IDKFA and Rise of the Triad, but IDKFA was a big one and I still get people that are like devs that reach out that are like, “I know you from the DOOM stuff.” And I’m like, “What? DOOM Eternal?” They’re like, “No, IDKFA. I played that DOOM WAD.” And I’m like, “Oh my god.” So I still get jobs because of that. So whenever I sat down… Whenever Marty Stratton sent me an email about a year and a half ago to ask if I had time to sit down at QuakeCon last year and talk about some things, I was like, “Uh oh. Something’s either gone terribly wrong or he just wants to hang out.”
So we sat down and he was like, “Hey.” He’s like, “I have an idea.” And I was like, “What’s that?” He’s like, “What if we give you a license for the DOOM soundtrack for IDKFA so that you can put that out on all of the streaming platforms yourself and do whatever you want and you give us a license to do with what we’re working on, which was the DOOM and DOOM II remasters.” And I was like, “That sounds cool.” I was like, “I’d love to finally get that out on official sites and everything.” And he was like, “Oh, it’s awesome.” He’s like, “I was hoping you’d say that because this would just be so cool to have this as a selectable thing. Like to go from the Bobby Prince to this if people wanted to.” And I was like, “Yeah.” And I’ve been doing that with soundtracks recently anyways.
About halfway through that whole thing, we were just trading war stories about the industry and just getting along. And I was having a blast. I was thinking, “Man, this is really going to be closing a chapter in my career.” I was getting a little emotional. I was like, “I’ll tell you what.” I was like, “I’ll do you one better.” I was like, “Why don’t we finish DOOM II and make it the real deal?” People have asked for it forever. I’m like, “That would really poke my audience.” They’d be like, “Holy shit! Doom 2 is finally finished!” And he was like, “If you’re up for it, yeah, absolutely.” He’s like, “We’ll get you a license for anything that you do on that as well so that you can put that out as well.”
So, yeah. It was…walking into doing DOOM II was so much fun. Every step of the way. Adam Pyle, the guy that worked with me on Quake Champions, was the guy that I bounced all my mixes off of. He told me at the beginning, he said, “Hey, you know, do whatever you want.” He’s like, “It’s you. It’s the reason people want to listen to it, so I don’t really have much of a say.” I was like, “Bullshit!” I was like, “You worked with me on Quake Champions. I’m going to bounce every mix that I do off of you, and I want to hear feedback from you.” It’s like, “I respect your opinion because we got stuff like we did on Quake Champions because we talked back and forth.” So we did. I’d send him… I’d finish Running from Evil and send it to him, and he’d go, “This sounds great, or, you know, like, what if you did this?” It was only a couple times where he was like, “What if you did this?” I was like, “Oh!” They were always cool ideas. But I really respect Adam’s ability to throw out things every now and then. He’s just a great person to bounce mixes off of. So, just doing those one after another and getting to the end of it.
Once it was all wrapped up, I’m not going to lie, once it was all together, I was just in my office and I was like, “Oh my god!” Having a moment where I had a grown man cry where I was like, “I can’t believe that this is happening. I can’t believe that, number one, I’m going to be part of the original DOOM in an official capacity. Number two, they’re going to ask me to talk at QuakeCon, like, live on stage and announce everything. And number three, they gave me a license for all this stuff so that I can put it out and I can actually make some money off of it. That doesn’t happen with a big studio. They don’t just go, “Here’s the soundtrack. Have fun.”
I don’t know. It’s just still so crazy. It hasn’t really sunk in for me still. I’m still in that weird spot where I’m like, “Yeah, this is out there. We’re promoting it.” And once that’s over, I’m sure I’ll be like, “Oh my god.” You know, like, “Holy cow.” But it’s been fun.
The DOOM II stuff, I wanted it to be something a little bit more fresh on where I’m at as an artist. I didn’t want it to be exactly like IDKFA, like the original DOOM I stuff. Because if I were to do that, I’d have to go back and completely remix all of DOOM I stuff, which I was like, “No, that has to be preserved. People know what that is.” So you can’t touch that. That’s already done. So I thought, “Okay, well what if I just gave them how I would do DOOM II right now?” Which is exactly what it is. All that stuff is like, “Yeah, f*** yeah.” Those are the exact decisions that I would make with synths, with guitars, with drums. I think everything slams. I think it sounds great. So it’s just a picture from 2011, 2012 with the original IDKFA. It got officially released in 2016, but it started working on it as far back as back. So it’s a picture of where I was as a musician, that far back. And then this one is a picture of 2024. So you get it’s kind of like a time capsule.
TA: Was The Healer Stalks one of the new songs because it definitely feels like modern Andrew Hulshult?
AH: Yeah, that was the second one written. I think I almost went in chronological order doing that entire soundtrack.
TA: You and I have both been playing DOOM since the 90s. When I started learning guitar and playing a lot, I started thinking about the DOOM soundtrack and some of the songs definitely have bits that remind me of other band music like Pantera. When you did IDKFA and just heard the music in general, what did you think of that and how does it feel revisiting some of those songs now? Stuff like A New Level and This Love from Pantera instantly spring to mind.
laughs
AH: Yeah. Some of that stuff’s pretty close. Like sometimes, right? But it’s different enough where you’re like, oh, okay. Yeah. But yeah, there’s definitely some inspirations that were taken from like thrash metal for sure. Because I mean, like they always talked about Romero having on like Slayer and Metallica and all that stuff like playing while they were making the game. So it only makes sense that they’re like, you know, hey, make something similar around this. I don’t know exactly how that story went. I wasn’t there. I was like, you know, I was like four. But that makes complete sense in my head. And yeah, going back and listening to them like, yeah, it’s there somewhere in the ballpark of it for sure. Like
TA: So after DOOM II, have you gotten people saying, when are we getting an IDKFA version of Quake and stuff? Because you did one song, right?
AH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did the theme. I think I did that just for fun. And I think I honestly did that as people were, I saw a bunch of forum posts. It was either forum posts or Discord about people not sure like about me on DUSK of all things. Like it wasn’t even like a fully announced game, but they were like, “I’m not sure Andrew”. And I was like, OK, you know what? I was like, f*** you. I’ll just remake the Quake theme. And then you’ll see if I’m the right person for the f***ing job. laughs And so I put that out and people were like, oh, and I remember like a bunch of the comments were like, oh yeah, okay, he can work on DUSK.
TA: Do you listen to that soundtrack often? The original Quake?
AH: Oh, man. I don’t listen to it. Listen to it. But like every time I go fire up Quake, which is about like once twice a year. A little more than that if I’m playing multiplayer with friends. That’s the thing I look forward to the most besides like the level design is the soundtrack just because it’s so out there. Reznor did such a good job on that. It’s incredible. God, I wish it’s a pipe dream, but I’d love to work with him on something and Atticus Ross on something at some point. That would be crazy. But they’re like way up there, you know.
TA: Their movie soundtracks are amazing. I’ve actually been watching some of the movies just because they’ve done the music because I think the audio design in The Social Network is incredible. I think they did like the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles thing, which I still need to watch.
AH: It’s so cool when artists step out of their comfort zone like that, where it’s like you’re known for like you’re angry and depressing music and then it’s like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It’s like now I’m interested. Yeah.
TA: Going back to your music, we covered Blood Swamps being the most popular song which people bring up when they meet you and stuff. I saw this interview with Final Fantasy 14’s composer Masayoshi Soken who was asked about a song which he really liked, but no one actually brings up, and that he thinks deserves more attention. He said Game Theory. I want to know what’s that for Andrew Hulshult.
AH: Splitting Time. Like whenever you brought that up, I was like, oh yeah, from the AMID EVIL DLC. I mean like it’s well it’s DLC. So like by nature, DLC doesn’t get as much attention, you know. But like the AMID EVIL DLC altogether before I talk about the music, the DLC is incredible. Like that’s my that’s one of my favorite things I’ve worked on like in recent memory. Like all the music’s great. Like it was , it was a joy to put it all together. All the sound design, all the traps and everything. It’s just an incredible DLC. If you don’t have it, you should go get it. That’s not me shilling and just oh go buy the game. Like it’s f***ing awesome. They did an incredible job.
TA: Everyone should buy that game and DLC.
AH: Well, I don’t want to look like a shill. If you like it, you like it. Like if you don’t, if you don’t dig it, don’t buy it. You know we’re not not here to like, you know try and sell a bunch of stuff.
But like splitting time finishing up that piece of music. It felt like a real moment where I don’t know. I felt like kind of a shift as an artist where I was. I was way more comfortable with a lot of the more aggressive sound design elements being mixed in with compositions and finding ways to make them gel better. And everything really came together on that track and out whenever halfway through I was like, this is the final boss track. I was like I don’t care what you’re designing. I’m like, this is the final boss track. And you know, two seconds after they started listening to it, they’re like, oh yeah, this is the final boss track. We hadn’t even made the character yet. I was just like, here it is. That one hung around for a long time. And yeah, that’s I feel like that song is very much a good indicator of where I am musically right now.
TA: Now let’s get a bit into the weeds. Let’s talk about your current guitar setup, your pedals, your amps, string gauge, pickups, I want to know whatever you’re using.
AH: So the guitar I’m using the most is a Caparison Dellinger 7. I actually just had a pickup swap on it where I put some Seymour Duncans. I think I put an SH5 in the bridge and an SH2 in the neck on this one. Specifically because the SH5 on it has a really interesting thing where it doesn’t emphasize the low mids a whole bunch but they still cut through really well. So whenever you’re sitting there and like, you know, like chugging on stuff and you have to track that four times, it just sits a lot better in the mix than if you were to just use like stock pickups. There’s nothing wrong with Caparison stock pickups. They’re great. They’re super, super punchy. But for my mixing style I just, I know what I want in terms of pickups so I just, I swap those out.
I also did the same thing actually last week with the 8 string. This is a Caparison Brocken 8 string. I don’t think they make this anymore. I swapped out the pickups on this one as well to a gosh, what is it? It’s Duncan. They’re really, really famous 8 string pickups by Duncan. And I can’t remember what they’re called now.
TA: I didn’t know Seymour Duncan even had 8 string pickups.
AH: They do 8 and like, I was originally going to get some Fishman Fluences for it because they seem like they would hold the top end in the midrange a little bit better but after I don’t know, I’ve just always been a Seymour Duncan guy. And after finding a couple that I really liked at a shop called Tone Shop up the street from me. I was like, man, I really want to put these in my 8 string and they have a tech there that’s just incredible at what he does with all my guitars. So I was just like, hey, order those and I’ll just leave the guitar with you and like a week later they came back and I was like, yeah, that’s exactly what I wanted, sounds incredible.
I’ve got my Caparison 7 and 8, and I still have all the guitars that I’ve had over the years for the most part. I’ve got another Schecter 8 string here that is a really cool color. It’s super neat, like, it actually changes from blue to purple.
TA: I think it is called Prism or something like that. John Petrucci has something like that on one of his guitars.
AH: But yeah, this one has like the EMGs in it and it’s a cool guitar. It still plays great. Like, I still like it. But let me show you something that’s actually pretty sweet. So I still have, I bought this in like 2004. And I still have it. This is the guitar that I actually wrote all of IDKFA or most of it on and I wrote all of, I tracked all of Rides of the Triad with. It’s just a Schecter C6. It’s like just stock. It even still has the plastic in the back which is crazy. But yeah, this is like, I still have this guitar. I was like I was so close to going up to id, like which is just on the street for me and being like after IDKFA was finished, I almost was just like, here, you guys, you need this. You know, like, hold on to this or something. Like this is the one. But like, I don’t know. It’s not like a mainline DOOM game, you know? Like, it has to be something like a mainline game where I’d be like, I wrote this on this guitar here. You know, if you want this, it feels like it belongs to you. And also, part of me is like, no, don’t do that. Like, hang on to it.
TA: Ok now string gauges.
AH: For string gauges, 10 to 59 on 7 strings. And on 8 strings, I think it’s 10 to 65. And then typically on 6 strings, I just like 10 to 46.
TA: Do you use D’Addario strings? I use them mostly.
AH: I use D’Addario for the most part, but I bounce back and forth sometimes to Ernie Ball.
TA: What about your amp setup and your pedals and stuff like that?
AH: So amps, I’ve sold almost every amp I’ve ever owned. I had a JC-120. I had a couple of those Crate Blue Voodoos way back in the day. The ones that were like, yeah, the ones that were, were basically copies of those Ampeg tube amps that they made a long time ago. I had a Valve State 8100. I had a bunch of amps and a bunch of VHT cabinets as well too. And I sold all of them years ago. I’ve really just been like working inside the box for the most part with like neural DSP plugins into an RME interface and I also went as far as getting one of these recently, which is a Neural DSP Quad Cortex. So basically this is all of their plugins built into like a really nice processor. But for a project I’m working on recently they were like, hey you need an amp. And I was like, yeah, you’re probably right. I do need an amp. So I went and bought this and I plug it into two 100 watt Seymour Duncan power stages. Okay.
They’re like, they’re these little tiny like 100 watt power amplifiers. They’re solid state power amplifiers. And I run the stereo out from that thing into the left and right side of those and those go into two Engel 2×12 cabinets. Which, okay, Engel 2×12 cabinets are awesome. Ever since I heard a Rammstein record that used them I always wanted to grab one because I was like, god, those things sound huge.
TA: I wasn’t sure about this because a friend of mine said he was sure AMID EVIL was recorded on an Axe FX Ultra.
AH: Any guitar stuff I’ve done has used either Native Instruments Guitar Rig from way back in the day. Like IDKFA used a ton of Native Instruments Guitar Rig 5 and Guitar Rig 4. But pretty much everything since DUSK has used Neural DSP for guitar work. It’s just me plugging directly into my RME UFX and sometimes I’ll use pedals going into it like the Exotic BB Preamp but most of the time it’s just a dry DI signal getting manipulated inside the box.
So, the ones that got the most use on DUSK were the Moogerfooger low pass filter. Believe it or not, like anytime you hear the sound of something becoming kind of lo-fi or anything. It was always run through this filter. It was pretty cool. But the thing I like about it the most is the drive circuit on it. Like I don’t even like it that much as like a filter filter. The drive section on it is just so aggressive that it’s a really interesting sound and like that sound that you hear on the DUSK soundtrack which is like all of the really high high end that’s like really high energy. It’s almost like the Nine Inch Nails stuff. A ton of that comes just from driving the front end of this thing. And same way with the Fulltone Catalyst. But yeah, it’s just a few of them. I think there’s one more that I use a lot. I don’t think I have it here. It’s the ZVEX Fuzz Factory which is just an insane sounding pedal. It just sounds like garbage. And that’s why I like it. It just sounds like you are destroying a signal which is perfect. I’m cool. That sounds cool. That’s a great effect. I like that.
TA: You’ve accomplished a lot in your career so far with recognizable music. As a musician, how have you been learning to improve your own skills like programming drums, software, and how do you balance doing that while you have a lot of folks who want to work with you on new projects?
AH: Every day is just like I don’t know. If you’re not teaching yourself something every day, this is my train of thought. If I’m not trying to sound better in my own head, whatever I think is better, I’m wasting my time. So if I feel like the drum kit I’ve used like two or three times on two to three different records, if I’m like that feels stale. If I then go if it feels stale and I know the ends and outs of it and how to make it sound good then I need to change that drum kit. I need to find something different and work with it and see if I can get some different sounds out of it. So I’ll change instruments and just purposefully put myself in positions where I don’t know where I’m at or what sounds good with it just so that I can find my way out of it.
It’s kind of like limiting yourself, like putting yourself in a box that’s really important as an artist to make sure that you are working within a certain scope of things and going hey, you know, here’s something that’s completely unfamiliar, get used to it and this is what you have to work with. So, yeah, like I don’t know, just constantly challenging myself is part of who I am for the most part. So, it’s just how it always goes.
TA: I’m glad you brought that specific bit up because in another interview of yours you mentioned how once you got to your thirties the most important thing became getting good sleep which a lot of people take for granted in their twenties. So my question is that trying to have a routine is very important even if you can’t stick to it 100%. What does a day in your life look like right now?
AH: A day right now looks like about, a typical day is about anywhere between 6 to 7 hours of sleep which is about what I need I’ve found out, like it’s like somewhere around there, sometimes 8 and then randomly I’ll have days where it’s like, oh you need like 11 hours I don’t know why, but I feel fine waking up completely recharged with like 6 and a half to 7 and a half hours of sleep. So what I’ll do every morning is I’ll wake up, I’ll go take a shower immediately, like that’s the only way I can start my day is like I feel like I’ve got to it feels like I’m washing off yesterday I don’t know how else to explain that and then I gotta have a coffee and then I gotta start writing things on a whiteboard that’s right over beside me to the left because otherwise I’m just gonna spin my wheels all day long and think, oh I should do this, I should do that, I’ll be thinking about everything I need to do and then never actually do anything. I don’t know if that’s ADD, ADHD or whatever that’s undiagnosed, I’m sure it is to some degree which I’ll get to that at some point but until then I have the whiteboard and as long as I write stuff down on it on what I want to do that day, I’ll knock it all out, every single piece of it. But what’s super important for me to do is just plan out the day early on and then everything just comes to it afterwards.
The other thing that’s kind of new for me too is around like 4 o’clock typically I’ll now try and do, this has been within the last 3.5 months, I’ll try and do about 20 to 30 minutes of cardio. Just because I feel like for some reason elevating my heart rate really takes me from hey I could focus before to now I’m super laser focused and can get through whatever I need to and it also puts me in a much better mood if I’m having a shit day.
TA: You’ve previously mentioned that you love playing Cities Skylines. Did you play Cities Skylines 2?
laughs
AH: Yeah, but you know like I haven’t gone back to it yet. I need to try it again at some point. But oh boy like it needed some more time in the oven whenever I tried it. Like no offense to them. I was just like wow.
TA: I mean you probably tried it on like your proper gaming PC. I just like to play Steam games on a Steam Deck and I could get it at 5 fps or something after a bit of playing.
AH: Even with the 3080 I think I was at points I was sitting there at like 35 frames a second. I’m like really? With the 3080? This is where we’re at huh? Okay.
TA: Do you still play Hunt: Showdown and did you try the new Hunt: Showdown 1896 update?
AH: Yeah. They had some really interesting choices with their UI that they just pushed with this one that a lot of people aren’t in favor of. I’m getting a little more used to it as time goes on. But man there are some things they need to hammer out with it. But yeah I still play that like a couple times a week with my buddies in New Blood. Like with Dylan who’s working on Gloomwood. I’ll play it with David every now and then. I’ll play it with Mason who’s the developer on Faith. Like we’re all, just like we all just hang out. We’re all just friends. So Leon, me and Leon play it I think the most. Leon’s the lead on AMID EVIL. But yeah like New Zealand and America playing an online fps game is a wild thing but we have a great time doing it.
TA: Before we wrap up, I want to know your favorite bands and artists right now in and out of video games.
AH: I’m pretty boring on this one to be honest with you. I need to branch out a little more. Favorite bands outside of video games right now like for sure and they’ve sat there for a while is Gojira. I really like their mixing. I like how tight they are live. I like their choices on composition. I don’t feel like they write a bad song. I could throw out the obvious ones. Metallica is another one just because James Hetfield’s right hand is like what inspired me to play guitar. Like how fast you can do those things is crazy.
Outside of or in video games I’d still say I still think and it’s going to be a weird choice because you’re like well you write all this aggressive music. What is Jesper Kyd? That guy is just like great on everything he touches and everything he touches is always unique. But I always go back to his early stuff like the Hitman franchise because it’s just so strange and like it really suits those early games really well. If you listen to it outside of it, it feels like a really weird cold kind of soundtrack. Even from the very first game which has a lot of interesting things like almost drum and bass choices. It still feels like a cold front.
You know, like a Hitman. And I always just find that stuff fascinating. How he was able to take so many different genres of music between all those games and still make them fit correctly for that character. So yeah and I think he worked on the Darktide stuff more recently which I need to give a listen to. Everybody’s told me that’s incredible but I don’t know I was knee deep in like four active developments whenever that game came out. So I just haven’t given it a chance.
TA: Hypothetical situation, if you had no time or budget constraints, if you could compose for any single game and any single movie which would you pick?
AH: So let’s see for any game if it had the right direction I’d really like to take a shot at like a Duke game. Because I feel like that is an IP that could be brought back if it’s brought back in the right way. And you have to think that’s really going to be dictated by whoever the creative production is at the time. So if it was done in the right way I’d love to step into that.
Either that or I’m going to throw another one out to you. I’d love to work on Minecraft. Just like chill out you know. Like just make something that’s completely chill. So those are completely two opposite sides of the spectrum.
But as far as a movie, man, that’s a great question. Let me think about it for just a second. Man on Fire. Like I love Denzel Washington’s work as number one: as an action hero I think he’s great. But number two whenever he is able to have enough time to put drama into things. And like either I don’t know how else to explain it other than he does a f***ing crazy fantastic job.
Either Man on Fire or American Gangster. One of those two soundtracks I think I could do would be great to work on. Because there’s so many different emotions between both of those films. It’s a big roller coaster that doesn’t go up and down once. It goes up and down and does like a loop. And like you know, it takes you side to side. Like both of those films do that really well. 01:48:40.760 –> 01:48:42.760
TA: You have a lot of bands you’ve been listening to for a long time like Metallica. What are your thoughts on their recent or new albums?
AH: I can find things I like on like the records that they put out because like I’m a die hard. Even with this last Megadeth record. I could still find stuff that I like I can chew on. No problem. Absolutely. But you know these guys aren’t going to write like another Master of Puppets. That comes around once in a lifetime. You know what I mean? And they struck it four times. Like with Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and …And Justice for All. So like to even just get that is crazy. But I do find things that I like on all their newer stuff. Like I think What was the 2016 record that they had? Hardwired to Self Destruct. Yeah I think that that actually had some real moments of really really good writing on it.
Specifically the last track. I felt like Hardwired was a great track. But I also thought Moth into the Flame was written super well. There’s a handful of just really really really good writing on that record. On 72 Seasons, there’s still a handful that I really like. But they don’t sync as much for me. And I’m not sure if it’s because I’m looking for something faster or not. Which that’s just not where they’re at at the moment. That’s not what they’re writing. And that’s okay. I will say the last track on that record I feel like is perfect. It’s so good. I can’t remember what it’s called off the top of my head at the moment. I’m terrible with song names sometimes. It’s crazy. It’s like 11 minutes and it feels like a 5 minute and 30 second song. I remember listening to it the first time. I was like gosh. There’s so much emotion thrown into this song that it’s just a joy to listen to. I love it when I can tell that someone really dumped all their emotions onto something. That’s when it really strikes a chord for me.
But yeah even the last stuff from Slayer, there’s things that I can find that I enjoy. but I know I’m not going to get the revolutionary record that we had growing up. That’s okay. I’m just glad they’re still making music. And it’s still pretty sick.
TA: What’s the most random piece of music memorabilia that you’ve held onto for a long time?
AH: I had a friend that I worked with a long time ago who fell on hard times at one point and he was friends and and like worked with Pantera for a long time. And he was like man he’s like I’m trying to get rid of this stuff I’m like why don’t you just hold on to it and like like here’s here’s you know here’s some cash if you need some cash to get by. He’s like no no no he’s like you hold on to it just pay me for it. I was like okay so I’ve got this vinyl of the Great Southern Trendkill that’s one of the original vinyl releases, but I also have a plaque that came like it was given to one of their either their sound or their lighting crew at one point and it’s like for the tour in Japan for the Great Southern Trendkill that same time. And I was like where did you get this you know like what the hell. And he’s like yeah we just you know had him and I knew the guy and he had like five or six of them that they gave him by accident so he gave me one. I was like oh okay all right. So I have both of those things in my closet they’ve hung out with me for like gosh I want to say 15 16 17 years now but those old ones will never go away.
Some people keep expensive booze in a decanter. Teah and I keep home made cold brew coffee. pic.twitter.com/7DJlgWcjaB
TA: Ok for my last question, how do you like your coffee? I usually ask this at the end, but I remember an old Tweet of yours (linked above) made me even more curious about your answer.
AH: Yeah man I like the cold brew stuff. I loved hot coffee forever but like cold brew I don’t know the longer I go the easier it is to just sit on a desk and sip on. I don’t have to be like that’s hot. I can just be like no we’re just getting all of the caffeine all at once if I want to. So cold brew coffee. Cold brew black.
I’d like to thank Andrew Hulshult for his time and help with this interview over the last few weeks.
You can keep up with all our interviews here including our recent ones with FuturLab here, Shuhei Matsumoto from Capcom about Marvel Vs Capcom here, Santa Ragione here, Peter ‘Durante’ Thoman about PH3 and Falcom here, M2 discussing shmups and more here, Digital Extremes for Warframe mobile, Team NINJA, Sonic Dream Team, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and more. As usual, thanks for reading.
Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics ($49.99)
As a fan of Marvel, Capcom, and fighting games back in the 1990s, Capcom’s line of fighters based on Marvel’s characters were like a dream come true. Starting off with the excellent X-Men: Children of the Atom, these games just kept getting bigger and better. Moving on to the wider Marvel Universe with Marvel Super Heroes, then the at-the-time unbelievable crossovers between Marvel and Street Fighter, on to the over the top Marvel vs. Capcom, and then the wildly over-the-top in all the right ways Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom kept raising the stakes. That wasn’t the end of the series, but it takes us up to the end of what is covered in Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics. Oh, and you get Capcom’s excellent Punisher belt scrolling beat ’em up as some extra mustard. A fantastic set of great games.
This collection appears to have been handled by whoever did the Capcom Fighting Collection, and in most respects it has similar features and extras. That unfortunately extends to only having a single save state across the entire collection, shared by all seven games. That was annoying enough in a collection full of fighting games, but it’s even worse with a beat ’em up in here where you might want to, you know, save your progress independently of whatever you’re up to in the fighters. Oh well. Everything else here is as you would want it. Lots of options like visual filters and gameplay options, great extras including an extensive array of art and a music player, and rollback online multiplayer. New to this set is NAOMI hardware emulation, and whoever Capcom had on the job did it well. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 looks and plays great.
I’m not going to knock it for this, but I do want to say that I wish some of the home versions were included. The PlayStation EX versions of the tag-team based games are different enough that it would be neat to have them in here, and the Dreamcast version of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 has a lot of fun extras that make it a superior choice for home play for the solo player. I also wouldn’t have minded if Capcom had tucked its two Super NES Marvel games in here, even if they aren’t the greatest of games. Well, the collection’s name says Arcade Classics, and unlike with Blizzard it seems the word is being properly applied here.
Marvel fans and fighting fans alike have a reason to rejoice with this fine collection. The games are superb, they’ve been treated with care, and you get a good suite of extras and options. Only having a single save state shared between the games is a serious bummer, but otherwise I can’t find much to pick on here. Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is another must-have compilation from the folks at Capcom, and it plays great on the Switch.
SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5
Yars Rising ($29.99)
I’ll admit that I was pretty skeptical of this game from its announcement. I like Yars’ Revenge a lot. One of my favorite 2600 games. So when I read that WayForward had been tapped to make a Metroidvania-style Yars game starring a young hacker with a bare midriff code-named Yar, I felt like I had accidentally surfed over to a parody site. Just the perfect storm of “why”, you know? So do I have to eat those words? Yes and no. First and foremost, this is a good game. WayForward does a solid job with this kind of thing, and so it did here. Looks and sounds good, plays well, and the map layouts are fine enough. In true WayForward fashion, the bosses tend to drag on too long, but it’s not a deal-breaker.
Commendations must also be given to WayForward for doing its best to handle a bit of a tough ask in trying to connect this game to an ancient single-screen shooter. You get to play Yars’ Revenge-style sequences fairly often, the abilities you earn are evocative of the original game, and it connects to the relatively fleshed-out lore as well as it can. It still feels like a massive stretch, but I suppose Atari has little choice but to try to make long passes like this one. Its classic library can only be Recharged so much, after all. It just feels like a game that is torn between two audiences with very little overlap, and I’m not sure if that was the right call versus doing something wholly original.
Still, while the argument can rage on about whether or not this made sense conceptually, there’s no doubt the game itself is enjoyable. I don’t think the finest in the genre have much to worry about, but if you’re looking for a Metroidvania game to sink your teeth into over the course of a weekend or so, you won’t have a bad time with Yars Rising. And who knows? Maybe they follow up on this once or twice and it all feels natural.
SwitchArcade Score: 4/5
Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland ($24.99)
I’m a few years too old to have much nostalgia for Rugrats, though not so old that I didn’t watch it with my younger siblings from time to time. Like, I know the names of the main characters and the theme song. Don’t ask me about the movies or the grown-up versions, and certainly don’t ask me to recall any specific episodes. I know the Rugrats, but I have no special warm and fuzzies for the brand. With that in mind, I didn’t really know what to expect from Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland. I heard someone say it was like Bonk, and that does fit Tommy’s physical build if nothing else. Well, only one way to know for sure. I started up the game, picked Tommy, and went into the tutorial stage.
First thing to hit me was the crisp visuals. Crisper than the show, if my memory serves. The next thing to hit me was the awkward placement of the controls. Luckily, there’s an option for that. The music was the Rugrats theme, so that all checks out. There were some Reptar coins to collect, and some simple puzzles and enemies to deal with. Alright, no problem. Platformer with some exploration in the levels, a tried and tested formula. Not very Bonk-ish, but that was never promised.
At a certain point Tommy had taken a few hits, so I decided to swap over to Chuckie to enjoy his full life meter. I then noticed that he had a very familiar jump. A very high but somewhat hard to control jump. Surely they didn’t? I swapped over to Phil, who had a low jump, then to Lil who could… float. They did. They really did! Folks, this is a Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA)-inspired game! Sure enough, the enemies I had just been stomping on could also be picked up and thrown. There were also blocks I sometimes had to pick up and pile up to reach higher places. Slightly non-linear stages with lots of verticality! Stages where you have to dig in sand, and you know Phil is the expert digger of the bunch. Awesome.
I mean, there are some homages to other platformers in here, but the main gameplay evokes what is probably one of the higher-selling classic games that never gets riffed on. Not bad, not bad at all. The boss battles are even interesting and enjoyable. After playing for a while, I even noticed I could swap the visuals and soundtrack between the spiffy modern versions and NES-level 8-bit renditions. It plays well either way, and both styles have their merits. Oh, and you can use a filter. There if you want it. But yes, creative and fun. Inspired by a game I love quite a lot. Uses its license well. You can play multiplayer! Aside from the control issue, the only gripe I have is that it’s a bit too short and simple.
Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is a better game than I expected it to be. It’s a quality platformer in the style of the Western Super Mario Bros. 2, with some extra elements and features to keep it from being too close to its source. The Rugrats license has been implemented well, though I did find myself wishing it had voice acting for the cut scenes. A little on the short and breezy side to be sure, but worth a play for fans of platformers and the Rugrats alike.
Later this month on September 27th, NIS America will release FuRyu’s action RPG Reynatis for Switch, Steam, PS5, and PS4 in the West. Ahead of the launch, I had a chance to talk to Creative Producer TAKUMI, Scenario Writer Kazushige Nojima, and Composer Yoko Shimomura about the game, inspirations, collaborations, how the project came into being, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, coffee, a potential Xbox release, and much more. This interview was conducted in parts with TAKUMI’s portion being done on video call with Alan from NIS America translating and then it being transcribed and edited for brevity. The portion with Kazushige Nojima and Yoko Shimomura was done over email and is towards the end of this interview.
TouchArcade (TA): Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Furyu right now.
TAKUMI: I’m a director and producer at Furyu. A lot of my work involves creating new games and working on brand new projects. For Reynatis specifically, I’m the person who came up with the main idea for the game. I produced it, I directed it, and I saw pretty much everything through from the beginning to the end so anything and everything related to Reynatis, I handled everything.
TA: I’ve been playing FuRyu’s games through many publishers in the West from the 3DS days, leading into PS Vita, PS4, PS5, PC, and mostly on Nintendo Switch. It feels like Reynatis has the most hype around it from any game which I’ve seen from FuRyu. How does that make you feel as a creative producer?
TAKUMI: First of all, I’m very happy. I take it very positively. I’m just simply pleased that people like it so much. About the buzz and attention it is getting, it feels like it’s actually more from abroad than inside Japan. I’ve been checking things out on Twitter and I noticed that a lot of times whenever they post information about the game, when they post trailers, when they post things like that, a lot of the comments that they’re receiving are from people outside of Japan. And so he says it seems like the fan base for this game abroad is large, or will be large.
And it also seems like, as you mentioned, up till now, this game has been receiving more feedback and more positive user interaction than any other FuRyu game in the past. So I’m really pleased to see how it seems to be being received in the West so far.
TA: Okay, so the game is obviously available now in Japan for people who live there to buy on console. How has the response been from players in Japan for the game?
TAKUMI: As someone who’s liked Final Fantasy Kingdom Hearts and things like that, I feel that the fans of those works, basically the works of Tetsuya Nomura in particular, seem to have really latched onto the game. They really appreciate what I’m doing and I really get the sense that they kind of understand everything. I’ve seen that as they’ve been playing the game, they’ve been noticing things and seeing how the story progresses and being like, “Oh, yeah, that’s how it should be,” or, “Yeah, I kind of expected that to happen.” And so they’ve gotten really excited and really delved into the world of Reynatis. They’ve also, kind of without really even being prompted, have kind of taken things farther to the next level, like, “I wonder where he’s going to take the story from here. I wonder what’s going to come next. I wonder…” All these little sub things that he hadn’t really had a chance to maybe flesh out or think about yet are things that the fan base has already decided to move forward with and already decided to start thinking about what’s going to come in the future.
Of course a creator, that makes me feel incredibly pleased and also kind of gets my creative juices flowing as it were, too, to think about what I want to do next. On the gameplay side of things, FuRyu games always kind of have areas that stand out a little bit more than others or have things about them that make them kind of unique and very FuRyu you could say. A lot of players have come to appreciate those things, too, and really enjoy those things as well. So for the people who really have always appreciated FuRyu games and have played them up until now and enjoyed them, they seem to be liking and enjoying the game as well. So far on both of those fronts, it seems that user reaction has been positive and people have really been enjoying it.
TA: I’m glad you mentioned Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy because from when the game was revealed, a lot of my friends who are hardcore Kingdom Hearts fans and who have been following Final Fantasy for a long time, everyone brought up Final Fantasy Versus XIII’s trailer and everyone’s trying to draw parallels with that and talking about how is this connected here, is that connected there? Can you comment on whether Final Fantasy Versus XIII’s trailer and that whole hype cycle over there had any influence on the project.
TAKUMI: So that question is a sensitive question, it’s a sensitive topic. There’s things that I can and cannot say in regards to it, but one thing I want to point it specifically is that as a fan of Nomura-san’s work and as someone who saw that original trailer for Versus XIII, and purely wondered what would this game have been like, what kind of game would this have been, how would it have played, and all these things like that running through my head, as a fan, I wanted to put myself on the same level as other fans. And as a representative of that fan base, I wanted to create my own take on it. If this game would have come out, maybe it would have turned out like this. So that feeling in terms of how Reynatis is related to Final Fantasy Versus XIII, you could say it’s something like that.
I can’t speak too much beyond this little window of speaking, but I have talked to Nomura-san. They’ve talked about several things about this,and the idea is that Nomura-san knows what he’s thinking and the things that they’ve talked about. As a fan and as somebody who really loves these works, I really wanted it to be from one fan to all the other fans out there. I feel like that group of fans who did love those games, that’s who Reynatis is for.
At the end of the day, all that really comes from that specific title is the inspiration. So seeing that initial trailer and that initial thought of “I wonder what this would be like” was an inspiration, certainly, for Reynatis. Reynatis is something that is wholly his own. It’s something that totally came from me as a creator. It is dyed in my own color as a creator. Everything that I wanted to express as a creator is what’s in this game. It’s not a copy or a rip-off of something else that’s come before, something that might have existed. It’s completely wholly my own. This was simply an initial spark of inspiration to make me think about what this world would be. Everything else about this world that is Reynatis is something that I made myself and created myself.
TA: So out of the many FuRyu games I’ve played over the years since Lost Dimension and stuff like that, my favorites are The Caligula Effect 2, Crymachina, and The Alliance Alive. Every single game usually has I’d say 75% of it is really good with memorable story, music, and stuff like that. But there are some aspects which fall short, and we usually see either technical shortcomings or some people might not like the gameplay or something like that. So I wanted to know if you’re happy with the current state of the game because I know there are updates planned.
TAKUMI: The game originally came out on July 25th in Japan, and from there, we had an actual play session where we streamed it, and there were people watching on Twitter, commenting, and since then, people have had a chance to play the game and receive their comments.
Obviously, to recreate the game, or to do things on a fundamental level, that’s impossible, but obviously, small things that we can brush up, as we are going through, for example, boss balancing, the amount of time that enemies come out, little quality of life features that kind of have to do with those things, all of those things will be addressed in the updates that are coming out. There’s an update coming out on September 1st in Japan, and then either with that, or a little bit before that, we plan to, again, start addressing some of those issues
Beyond that, obviously, if there’s any bugs or any kind of technical flaws or things like that, those are all intended to be addressed to over the coming months, because the last DLC is scheduled to come out in May, and so up until that time point, we are going to continue to work on the feedback that we’ve received, and implement as much as we can, as is reasonable and possible, into the game.
One thing I also want to point out is that specifically for players in the West, the version of the game that you be getting, essentially, will be a version that’s been refined and brushed up, compared to everything that’s come out in Japan, so please look forward to the best version of the game when it does come out here in the West.
TA: So I read the NIS America translated Famitsu interview with Takumi-san, Yoko Shimomura, and Kazushige Nojima in two parts (here and here). It was the two-part long interview and was really nice. So first, thank you to NIS America for translating that officially for us. Secondly, I wanted to touch on the part about how you approached both of them because it was very interesting and funny. I wanted to just ask you about that. How did you approach them directly? Is it just something like you messaged them or do you approach their representatives or the companies at all?
TAKUMI: It was pretty much what I said in the interview. Most of this was direct. I reached out to them directly. I didn’t contact them through a company. I didn’t do super formal emails or uptight things. The thing about Shimomura-san specifically is that Furuyo had actually done some work with her in the past on some other titles, so I kind of had an in there, but even still I ended up reaching out to her through X / Twitter.
For Naora-san, who was the illustrator for the game, it was a PM to him on X / Twitter. Kaburagi-san, who also did the illustrations, I spoke with him on X. Nojima-san, they did a lot of LINE. Even once the project had begun, a lot of the communication was still done via PMs and via private messaging and things like that. At no point was it ever really a very formal thing. I would just kind of reach out to people as necessary and say, “hey, what do you want to do about the music?” or something like that. It’s a lot rougher than you might have imagined in terms of how a company normally performs its business.
TA: That’s hilarious. It makes sense why you contacted them because they are very talented folks, and while the premise and game seem interesting, I wanted to know what prior works of theirs made you reach out to them individually? What are your favorite works by them?
TAKUMI: Well, basically, I’ve been playing Kingdom Hearts since I was a kid. I think the big part is that my personality and values were formed by Kingdom Hearts. So, when it comes to Shimomura-san’s music, I have a strong image of Kingdom Hearts. And then, in connection with that, I’ve been playing titles like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X. I think Nojima-san’s scenario has a strong feeling from that. I think I’ll just say that I wanted to do Nojima-san’s scenario with Shimomura-san’s music.
for Shimomura-san, obviously, most people think of Kingdom Hearts. It’s a really, really special game. It’s a series that I started playing when I was little. It influenced my values and who I am as a person. So, that was someone that I really wanted to work with specifically.
In terms of Nojima-san, obviously, I’m a big fan of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy X, and works like that. I wanted to work with them because I just wanted to work with them. I liked their work and he wanted to work with them.
TA: I wanted to know, before the game started production, what games did you play that maybe inspired some aspects of this thing? Did you start doing research and playing more action games from other developers to see how they are?
TAKUMI: I’m honestly an action game fan to begin with. So, whether it be older titles, whether it be more recent titles, I feel like I’ve played them all. Whether you’d want to call that research or not is kind of something different, but I have played them and I have enjoyed them and obviously, there’s a lot of things that I’ve taken inspiration from, you could say, from within that.
However, one thing I want to point out really specifically is that, and this is something you know as someone who’s played many FuRyu titles, is that FuRyu size-wise and scale-wise doesn’t have the budget to do something like a Final Fantasy VII Remake or a Rebirth. That’s just on another level. When I was creating the game and thinking about what I wanted to do, I thought carefully about what would be fun for the players. What will the players enjoy? Let’s make that and then let’s also try to make everything within the game something that’s fun.
So for example, even beyond the gameplay, you have the scenario, you have the story, you have all of these things that individually are disparate, but all of them together are what makes Reynatis the experience that it is. I want players to experience it as a whole and not so much as an action game solely, for example. If you compare Reynatis to something like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, it’s obviously not going to compete on that level. Where it can compete is on this level as an entire package, as a game experience that is the sum of its parts beyond being some specifically one thing.
TA: Can you talk about how long Reynatis has been in production?
TAKUMI: About three years, give or take.
TA: So how was it working for the team during the pandemic?
TAKUMI: The pandemic was just at its peak. I think it was a time when we couldn’t meet face to face and talk about it. But I don’t think I was in that much trouble. The development company that was actually developing it was basically all-in-one, and we were able to work with the top development team. If we had been able to communicate with them, I think we could have made the game without any problems.
After the pandemic actually settled down, we were able to meet face to face. We were able to communicate while eating together. I don’t think there was a big problem in terms of development because we couldn’t meet face to face because of the coronavirus. Things kind of kicked off right at the beginning of the pandemic, specifically when it was really difficult to go out and actually meet people.
Truthfully, at the very beginning, we didn’t have a lot of opportunity to actually meet face to face and talk about things.However, A, as time went on, and B, because we were having lots of meetings and things like that, the people that we were working with to develop it, all of them actually were in the office. Because we had a good direct line of communication with the development staff, the head of the development staff, we felt like there were no issues there.
Also, as the project continued, things loosened up, and so I was able to meet people face to face. We were able to go out to eat and talk and have meetings and things like that. So things proceeded smoothly. Even in the midst of the beginning of the pandemic, when it was more difficult to meet people, I don’t feel that it really impacted the work negatively.
We were able, and I specifically was able to do my work without any problem, and things proceeded well. So there were really no issues from that sense in regards to the pandemic situation.
TA: So one of the things I noticed is, before the game was officially revealed for localization, there was a lot of hype around “NEO: The world ends with you. Everyone was speculating if this is part of the same universe or what’s happening And now we have an official collaboration, which is officially licensed and stuff like that. So I wanted to know two things: As a fan, play NEO :The World Ends with you and how did you approach Square Enix for the collaboration?
TAKUMI: I played the original on DS in the beginning. I played the smartphone game that only lived for a brief period. I played Final Remix when it came out on Switch and then of course NEO: The World Ends With You as well. I’m a simple fan just like everyone else when it comes to the series. I have played them all.
For the collaboration, I did go directly to Square Enix as a company and approached them from an official capacity as a company. Thinking in the console game space, looking at collaborations between companies it’s very rare. All I can think of is that there was a collaboration between Capcom and Konami using Metal Gear Peace Walker and Monster Hunter 2G. Aside from that, I can’t really think of anything else in terms of console creators coming together to make it. Because this is something that hasn’t really happened before, it had to be a bit more official. On the flip side, because it hasn’t happened before, there was really nobody I could talk to internally to be like, “Hey, so how do I go about approaching this? How do I go about making it happen?” I got a lot of feedback like “Oh, that’s impossible. You can’t do that.”
However, I have the kind of personality where I’m very strong and straightforward with things. I said “No, no, no, look, if it’s not impossible, there’s a way to do this. I’m going to find a way to do this.” The simplest thing in that case was to drop the plan, to go to Square Enix directly and say, “Hey, look, I’m making this game. I really like The World Ends With You. The setting for my game is also Shibuya. Is there anything we can do together?” That’s basically how the collaboration came about.
TA: Can you comment on what platforms Reynatis was always planned for? What was the lead platform?
TAKUMI: All of the platforms were decided from the beginning, but as you mentioned, you have to come up with a lead platform. In this case, it would have been the Switch and so the Switch was the main, and then the others came out from there.
TA: In the past, whenever I played FuRyu games, regardless of how much I liked them, the lead platform usually has some technical issues. I remember playing The Legend of Legacy on 3DS, which had a lot of technical issues, but now it’s perfect when you play it on modern platforms. Reynatis is a very visually striking and good-looking game from its trailers. So I was just wondering how it would run on Switch.
TAKUMI: I understand where you’re coming from. Even though the Switch is the lead platform, honestly speaking, this game pushes the Switch to its limits. Within me, there’s two rules I have to fulfill for this game. One is the producer, and the other is the director. As the producer, I have to be more mindful of things like unit sales. How many players are going to purchase and play the game? So within that, obviously, it makes the most sense that you release a game on as many platforms as you possibly can to maximize those elements.
On the flip side, as the director and as a player myself, it would have been great to focus on maybe one platform like PS5 or something to really push things to the next level. But at the same time, that’s a balance that I have to maintain within all things. There was a lot of internal struggle within how to handle that. But at the end of the day, the balance was essentially taken within those two elements of myself that I had to do. I’m happy with what came out.
TA: So far, FuRyu games release on consoles in Japan and get ported to PC for the Western releases. Has Furyu ever considered doing PC internally in Japan for these games?
TAKUMI: Actually, there was a title that came out recently that we did internally on PC. So it is something that we have been thinking about and working internally on. So yes, games are coming out made by us specifically for PC platforms.
At this point, Mr. Sonobe, FuRyu Localization Coordinator, added that FuRyu has established a partnership with NIS (America) to sell full-priced console RPGs due to their expertise in translation, promotion, and sales capabilities.
TA: The reason I ask is because we’ve seen a lot of promotions in Japan for Steam versions from publishers there. Like SEGA does with competitions for Like a Dragon and Steam Deck. Obviously you need to release on Switch, but you now also have a high end handheld PC. I see a lot of interest for Steam versions. Do you see more people recently asking for PC versions in Japan?
TAKUMI: Please take this as my opinion specifically and not a representative of the industry. For me and the people around me, the two worlds are very different. There’s the world of console gaming, as we call it, and then there’s the world of PC gaming. Those worlds don’t necessarily meet, and it seems like the players of one specific place, like console or PC, generally want to keep their play experiences limited to that space specifically. If you were to divide it up into three things, you would have consoles, you would have PCs, and then you would have smartphones. And so these are kind of the three arenas that exist. And these are kind of the three arenas that people generally tend to stay in when they’re developing and releasing games.
I don’t even necessarily know people who play on PC who have a Steam Deck or who want to play specifically on it. If they want to play a console game, they would play it on console if they had the desire to do so. That’s kind of where I feel the industry is specifically in Japan.
TA: Because you mentioned smartphones, I think FuRyu has one title which is available in the West on smartphones through another partner, Arc System Works, which is The Alliance Alive Remastered. I believe it uses NIS America’s translation for English. Do you have plans as FuRyu to do more smartphone ports of premium games?
TAKUMI: As a company we don’t have a plan to make games specifically for smartphones. It is more that our division specifically is focused on making console games and we believe that consoles are a place that can provide specific experiences that can only be provided by console games. The reason you saw something like The Alliance Alive Remastered come out on smartphones, was because we felt that it would be appropriate and because we thought it would still play well on the smartphone. For something like a super hardcore action game or something that would require more intricate controls, that wouldn’t really be suitable to be on smartphones so it wouldn’t happen. Our plan and goal going forward is to develop first for console and to bring out the best we can do in the console gaming space. IF that work is suitable enough to be brought to a smartphone, and still be able to be played well, and it doesn’t lose any of its intrinsic fun that you have from playing on console, then we will think about it in the future, but it kind of is on a case by case basis.
TA: So I play FuRyu games on multiple platforms, but there’s one platform that hasn’t seen FuRyu support much. This question isn’t just from myself, but also from readers who usually want to know why some games aren’t coming to Xbox. only myself, but a lot of our readers also usually ask us to check in on the possibility? I know there could be many reasons for why, but I still wanted to ask you directly about this if there are plans to do Xbox Series X versions of these games from FuRyu?
TAKUMI: Personally, I would like to do Xbox versions of the games but the reality is that in Japan there’s not enough demand from consumers. There’s not enough recognition from consumers for the platform itself to be able to justify being able to make an Xbox version. To talk about things from a development standpoint, you have to understand that adding another platform to the development cycle means you have to account for that within the schedule. Within that as well, the development team has to have the experience to be able, having worked on that platform, to be able to develop it appropriately for that platform. Because the team doesn’t have that experience, it suddenly becomes a very high hurdle to clear and be able to make this game. I would definitely like for us to be able to do it. I find it would be something that would be interesting. It’s just the reality of it that it’s a difficult thing to do for the reasons I mentioned.
TA: Reynatis is coming out in the West in a few weeks. I wanted to know what you’re most excited to see when players get their hands on the game in the West?
TAKUMI: I really want players to enjoy playing the game for a long time. Nowadays, you kind of have an issue that when a game comes out, it’s not uncommon for spoilers to get posted, whether that be videos or things like that. We’ve worked really hard to make sure that those spoilers don’t get out there. One of the ways that they’ve avoided having things spoiled is by having this– we talked about it a bit earlier–but by having this free DLC release schedule going forward that will bring up new story content and secret story content.
There’s going to be one that comes out October 1 that will be global. NIS America will release the game in the West in September. So players will kind of have to catch up first, but after that, they get to experience everything in real time with the Japanese player base as well as the updates come out. I hope that this is something that encourages people to keep playing the game and to play it for a long time to come and to really enjoy what they’re playing and seeing all the secrets and things that they have, because these are things that, again, are going to be not spoiled because it’s all coming out at the same time once the game gets released in the West.
TA: One of my favorite aspects of FuRyu games is always the art and music. That’s usually consistently very good. I wanted to know, are there any plans after all the DLC is out to have a Japanese release of the full art book covering everything and a full soundtrack?
TAKUMI: At the moment there are no plans specifically to do either of the things that you mentioned, but in regards to the music I really think Shimomura-san made a fantastic soundtrack and I would love to be able to get that out there to people in some fashion. So, hopefully we can do it, but there are currently no plans.
TA: Unrelated to Reynatis which we’ve covered a lot, I wanted to know what you’ve been playing outside of work in the last year, like in 2024, which you’ve enjoyed a lot, and what platforms you’ve been playing on?
TAKUMI: So for this year, I played Tears of the Kingdom and I played Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Generally speaking, due to everything going on with Reynatis, I have a feeling that I didn’t get to play as much as I would have liked for everything else, but those are the two ones that I remember playing the most. Platform-wise, I probably played most on PS5.
As an addition, I’m a huge Disney fan and I’m also a big fan of Star Wars. All the information coming out about the new Star Wars materials has gotten, like, kind of reawakened that fire that I have, for the Star Wars property, so I’ve really been enjoying Jedi Survivor.
TA: What project that you’ve worked on so far is your favorite. If it is Reynatis, talk about another one as well.
TAKUMI: So I’ve only worked on two games: Trinity Trigger and Reynatis. To talk about Trinity Trigger, I was only the director on that game so I didn’t have the opportunity to do anything on the Producer’s role so thinking about the broader scope of things and how to reach out to customers on that. That’s something I felt was an area missing for me. I really wanted to do it. As a result of having that feeling on Trinity Trigger, I was able to, when the time came to Reynatis, I was able to take on the role of Producer, Creative Producer, and Director and therefore I was able to do everything that I wanted to do in this game. To oversee every single aspect of it.
By the same token, because Trinity Trigger was the first game I had worked on and I directed, I was able to do a lot of what I wanted to do with it. It is of course a title to him that remains really deep in his memory, but the game that I have the most affection for is Reynatis.
TA: For a lot of people, when they see FuRyu’s games, there are quite a few available on current platforms. Reynatis has the most hype. What would you like to say to folks who are excited for this who have not played a FuRyu game before?
TAKUMI: One of the things that I feel is most representative of FuRyu titles in general, is that they all have a very strong theme. If you look at each and every one of these games, the theme is very strong. The message reaching out to people is very strong. Reyantis is no different. This might be a rough or harsh way to put it, but if there are people who feel that they are weak, if there are people out there who feel like they are being put down by society, they can’t live and carry out their lives like they want to, I want you to play Reynatis.
One of the big themes in the game is that within Japanese society itself, there’s a very famous expression that you’ve probably heard many times before: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down” People in Japan have a tendency to go with the flow, and supplement themselves into what the rest of society wants them to do or say, and as a result of that, many people kind of feel really pressured and they’re stifled within what they actually want to do. Whether it be in Japan or outside, if you feel that way, this is absolutely the game for you. The message within this is very strong and I feel like it will resonate with people who feel like they maybe are put down by society or that they are not a place they want to be in society.
Going back to what we spoke about before, while the game might not be able to compete in the arena of graphics or richness in setting, the game does have a message that resonates just as strongly as for Final Fantasy VII if not more. I believe it can compete and beat it in that. I think that because the message in the game is so strong, it will remain in people’s hearts and minds and it will be something that will be a really positive and memorable experience for them. I hope people pick up the game for those reasons.
This part of the interview with Yoko Shimomura and Kazushige Nojima was conducted over email.
TA: How did you get involved in the Reynatis project?
Yoko Shimomura: Via a sudden attack from TAKUMI. (laughs)
TA: What have you learned composing for games for many years now and how do you implement these learnings in your future compositions and recent ones like Reynatis?
Yoko Shimomura: It’s difficult to put into words. I think that experience does become a new power, but I mainly compose via feeling, so turning that into words is difficult.
TA: My favorite soundtracks done by you are definitely LIVE A LIVE, Radiant Historia, and Street Fighter II. I’m very curious about the Reynatis soundtrack. What has been your favorite part of working on it so far?
Yoko Shimomura: Thank you! The night before recording, even though I was totally worn out mentally and physically, I just had more and more compositions flowing out of me, which was fun. (laughs) I was really ablaze with the idea, “I’m definitely going to finish this!”
TA: As a composer you have a very distinct style that when someone hears a work by you, they know you composed it. How do you feel that your style is recognizable through multiple iterations of technology?
Yoko Shimomura: I wonder! I get told that a lot, but I don’t really understand it myself. People have said that in the past, my compositions tended to be different based on the work, so there isn’t really a feel that they were all composed by me. I think maybe my style hadn’t quite come out yet.
TA: Were you inspired by any other games when working on the Reynatis soundtrack?
Yoko Shimomura: I wasn’t influenced by any other work in particular.
TA: You’ve worked on the scenarios of many of my favorite games of all time. How do you approach different games today compared to how you worked in the 90s?
Kazushige Nojima: It depends on the game genre. For games where the narrative comes first, players today want a character who is a convincing portryal of a fully-fledged person, rather than a character that is an avatar for the player, as was common in the past. In that case, it then becomes important to give the world the character inhabits a sense of presence. I do like those old games that were more akin to a fairytale, though. I’d like to work on one again in the future.
TA: How did you get involved with this project?
Kazushige Nojima: I received a call from my old acquaintance, the composer Ms. Shimomura. She asked if it was OK to share my contact info with TAKUMI. Things started from there.
TA: Is it influenced by Versus XIII in any way?
Kazushige Nojima: I didn’t think it was when I was writing it, but I can’t say for certain.
TA: Having now seen the game’s scenario all the way, what is your favorite aspect of it, and what do you think fans of your other work should pay attention to here?
Kazushige Nojima: It’s difficult to answer this while avoiding spoilers. I think that Marin’s change in mannerisms [throughout the course of the game] is well-depicted.
TA: What have you enjoyed playing this year and have you played Reynatis yet?
Kazushige Nojima: I’ve been doing nothing but dying in it, but I’ve enjoyed ELDEN RING. I’ve also enjoyed Dragon’s Dogma 2. Embarassingly enough, I’m only partway through REYNATIS. Sure enough, I’m just not good at action games, so for the games I mentioned, I’m enjoying the atmosphere of their worlds. I think the game I’ve played the most of is Euro Truck Simulator.
TA: So now the last question is for everyone here. How do you like your coffee?
TAKUMI: I don’t actually like coffee. *laughs* I don’t like things that are really bitter. I generally go for iced tea or black tea. If I’m going to drink coffee, I’m going to put a ton of cream, milk, or sugar to drink it. It is kind of funny that in university, I worked at Starbucks so I had to know a lot about coffee, so it is kind of funny that way.
Alan Costa: I like coffee with milk or soy milk. If I’m drinking iced coffee, I like just an americano with just ice and no sugar.
The two responses below were via email.
Yoko Shimomura: I like iced tea. I drink it all the time. I like doubling up [on the bags] to make it strong.
Kazushige Nojima: Black. And strong.
I’d like to thank TAKUMI, Alan Costa, Chihiro MacLeese, Mr Sonobe, Anna Lee, and Lottie Diao for their time and help with this interview.
Editor’s note: I unfortunately lost the recording I took myself where the other attendees from NIS America and FuRyu mentioned how they had their coffee and could only include these two.
You can keep up with all our interviews here including our recent ones with FuturLab here, Shuhei Matsumoto from Capcom about Marvel Vs Capcom here, Santa Ragione here, Peter ‘Durante’ Thoman about PH3 and Falcom here, M2 discussing shmups and more here, Digital Extremes for Warframe mobile, Team NINJA, Sonic Dream Team, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and more. As usual, thanks for reading.
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 6th, 2024. Well, this is the last one. You’ll see one more special from me next week with a few reviews that have specific embargo dates, but this is the final regular SwitchArcade Round-Up for TouchArcade by yours truly. We’ve been at this for several years and I wish I could have seen the Switch through to its end with these articles, but circumstances dictate another course. We’re going out with another chunky one, with a pair of reviews from our pal Mikhail, a pair of Shaun reviews, a handful of new release summaries, and the usual lists of new and expiring sales. Let’s ride one last time!
Reviews & Mini-Views
Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU ($49.99)
After Imagineer’s success with the Fitness Boxing games that led to the hilarious but good Fitness Boxing Fist of the North Star, I didn’t know what IP the team would work with for a new fitness game. When Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU was announced, I thought it was a smart collaboration, but was curious to see how the game felt after Fist of the North Star. I’ve been playing it over the last few weeks alongside Ring Fit Adventure and I’m impressed with Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU in many ways.
If you’re new to the Fitness Boxing series, these games, as the name suggests, use boxing and rhythm game movements to get you into shape through daily exercises, mini-games that also get you sweating, and more. With Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU, everyone’s favorite vocaloid gets in on the action and there’s even a separate dedicated mode for her songs in addition to the normal songs included in this release. Keep in mind that this is a Joy-Con only game so you can’t play it with a Pro Controller or any third party accessories as far as I’m aware.
As with other games in the series, there are difficulty options, a free training mode to do as you please, warmups, and tracking with reminders and the systemwide alarm that can remind you even if your Switch is in sleep mode. There are cosmetics you can unlock through the points you earn by playing as well. I can’t comment on the DLC yet, but as for the base release, I liked Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU more than Fist of the North Star aside from one issue.
The audio in Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU is great, but the main instructor’s voice isn’t great. I ended up turning this voice down because it felt out of place with the rest of the game, and just sounded a bit weirdly directed.
Just like the Fitness Boxing Fist of the North Star release from Imagineer, Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU is a solid fitness-focused game that does a great job of bringing Miku to the world of Fitness Boxing to try and appeal to her fans. While it is a competent fitness game with its daily workout, customization, and tracking, I feel like it would be better as a complement to something like Ring Fit Adventure or your own other exercise routine rather than being the sole exercise you do during the week. -Mikhail Madnani
SwitchArcade Score: 4/5
Magical Delicacy ($24.99)
Magical Delicacy from sKaule and Whitethorn Games is one I hadn’t paid much attention to until a friend of mine linked me to an Xbox Game Pass announcement for it. Since then, I’ve played it on Switch as well, but feel like it needs a bit more time in the oven. I adore Metroidvania-style platformers and cooking games, but it feels like Magical Delicacy takes the good bits of both genres while not putting them together in the best way possible. This results in a game I adore in parts, but one where the flaws hurt a bit more.
You play as Flora who is a young witch in a story that’s equal parts mysterious, magical, and wholesome. Your aim is to cook meals and craft for various folks, and I was surprised at how well the exploration was implemented aside from the backtracking that annoyed me sometimes. I expected it to be lacking compared to the cooking and crafting, but the team nailed the Metroidvania elements. There are some issues with ingredients in the crafting and in how inventory is managed. This is made a bit worse by the UI that I took a while to get used to with interaction.
Magical Delicacy makes a great first impression with its gorgeous pixel art visuals, lovely music, and tons of settings. The latter includes UI scale and text options that are both very useful when playing on Switch in handheld mode. I feel like Magical Delicacy would have benefited a lot from an early access release or will from potential updates.
When it comes to the Switch version, it plays very well aside from some seemingly frame pacing-related hiccups. It has good rumble as well. Having played it on Xbox Series X, this is definitely a game I’d play more on a portable so a Switch or Steam Deck version would be best. I just play the genre more on handhelds.
Magical Delicacy is a game I should’ve loved given it is basically a blend of a Metroidvania and a crooking/crafting game, but it feels a little undercooked (I couldn’t resist) in parts thanks to some inventory and backtracking issues. While it is a very good game right now that feels at home on Switch, a few quality of life updates and polishing will make it an essential. -Mikhail Madnani
SwitchArcade Score: 4/5
Aero The Acro-Bat 2 ($5.99)
A lot of companies tried their hand at the whole mascot platformer thing in the 16-bit era in the wake of Sonic the Hedgehog‘s explosive success. Like, the sheer number of them is just baffling. Even more than I remembered. Not many of them managed to see sequels, but Aero The Acro-Bat is part of that elite few. How each member of that club got there is its own story, but in Aero’s case it seems to have been a combination of the first game going over well enough, and sheer force of will to try and make fetch happen. Sadly, fetch did not happen. Aero spin-off Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel launched several months after Aero 2, but outside of that Aero was never seen in another original title again.
Does that make Aero The Acro-Bat 2 a bad game? I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem like it was a big enough success to merit another follow-up, at the very least. But then again, Sunsoft’s parent company had recently lost a ton of money on a bad investment involving golf courses, and that certainly put it in a fiscally conservative mood for a while. Either way, I don’t think the fault can be placed on the quality of the game. It’s as good as the first game was, with all that implies. A more polished experience that in shedding some of those rough edges loses some of its character, but a decent enough platforming romp.
I was fully expecting this release to be in Ratalaika’s usual emulation wrapper, but much to my surprise there’s been an upgrade in the presentation. This feels a lot more tailor-made for the game, and in terms of both options and extras I think this is a far better experience overall. Box and manual scans, achievements, a gallery of sprite sheets, a jukebox, a bunch of cheats, and more. I frankly have no complaints at all about how the game plays and the suite of features here. The only nit I will pick is that you only get the Super NES version of the game here. I feel like the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive version should have been included too, just to keep everyone happy.
Those who enjoyed Aero The Acro-Bat should naturally give Aero The Acro-Bat 2 a shot. I even think those who were slightly put off by the first game’s quirks might have a better time here. I really have to commend Ratalaika for stepping up its game with the emulation wrapper for this release. Perhaps I’m being greedy, but I’d love to see the first game updated with a similar interface just for consistency. A fine release for Aero fans and those on the look out for 16-bit platformers to play, and one that makes me optimistic for the remaining reissues of this series.
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
Metro Quester | Osaka ($19.99)
I got quite a bit of enjoyment out of the original Metro Quester when it released a while back. It’s a bit of a bear to get into, but once you understand its rules and what you have to do, it’s an immensely satisfying dungeon-crawling turn-based RPG. Experimenting with party builds to try to find the optimal team was a task I truly enjoyed taking on. With that in mind, I was very happy to see that there was another game in the series coming. Metro Quester | Osaka feels a little more like an expansion pack than a proper sequel, but I’m more than happy with that given how much I got out of the original.
The story here is a prequel to the original game, and we’ve moved to Osaka as a setting. You get a whole new dungeon to explore, and some new character types to do that exploring with. Osaka is a much wetter location, so you’ll need to use your canoe to travel over the water in places. With the new dungeon comes new weapons, skills, and enemies to deal with. Definitely more to chew on here for those who have wrung out the original game, and if you had a good time there then you will enjoy this one, too.
That said, this game shares much of its broader mechanics with the original Metro Quester. If you need an explanation, please check out my review of that game for more details. Short version: turn-based combat, top-down dungeon exploration, and a whole lot of inching your way outward a little further each time before having to head back to camp. You know, the good stuff. Those who are careless will find themselves in hot water very quickly, as planning and cautious play is practically a necessity in this game.
Those who found themselves fully absorbed in Metro Quester will find plenty to enjoy in Metro Quester | Osaka, and new players should probably just skip right to this game. It’s more of an expansion pack than a sequel, but that in no way should be taken as a bad thing. Rather, it just seems like the designer wanted to send players on another adventure that pushes out the existing systems in some fascinating ways. It’s certainly a game you’ll have to be patient with to get the most out of, but those willing to invest the time will enjoy the dividends.
SwitchArcade Score: 4/5
Select New Releases
NBA 2K25 ($59.99)
NBA 2K is back… in 25 form! You know, I find myself wondering something. What happens to the name of this series when we hit the year 2100? NBA 2K100? Just feels weird. We’ll have to talk about that when the situation arises, I suppose. Apparently this year’s version has improved gameplay, a new feature called Neighborhood, and some nonsense about MyTEAM. I’m not going to pretend to know what’s going on here, so instead I will just toss out the amount of space you’ll need on your memory card for this game and then move on. Here we go. 53.3 GB!
Shogun Showdown ($14.99)
Got room in your heart for another riff on Darkest Dungeon? This one has a Japanese-inspired setting, and there are a few bits in here that change things up a little. Setting all of that aside, this is very much a familiar style of game and I think it’s a decent enough example of such to be of interest to those on the hunt for another one.
Aero The Acro-Bat 2 ($5.99)
Well, there’s a review up above this section, but in case you’re in the habit of skipping down the page, let me fill you in. This is the somewhat more polished sequel to the successful Aero The Acro-Bat, all done up in Ratalaika’s emulator wrapper. Said wrapper was given additional effort for this release, and it looks good! The version of the game included is the Super NES one, and you can play the North American release or the Japanese one. I wish the Genesis/Mega Drive version was in here, but I can’t imagine Aero fans being unhappy with this overall outside of that.
Sunsoft is Back! Retro Game Selection ($9.99)
Sunsoft is back! Okay, Sunsoft has been back for a while now, and you probably don’t need a trio of heretofore non-localized Famicom games to sell you on that. So instead let the games sell you on themselves, as you get a trio of unique and varied titles in this bunch. A side-scrolling action platformer, an adventure game, and an action-RPG of sorts. I reviewed this set a couple of days ago, so I advise checking that out if you need more details. Short version: if you like weird old games, this is a good pick-up.
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
Some fun stuff in the inbox today, including a really good price on the Cosmic Fantasy Collection. A little dear at its normal price, but at 40% off I think it is worth considering for retro RPG fans. I’ll also call out the enjoyable platformer Tinykin, which is at its lowest price yet. Have a good look through those lists and see what catches your eye.
Select New Sales
Zombie Army Trilogy ($8.74 from $34.99 until 9/12) Zombie Army 4: Dead War ($14.99 from $49.99 until 9/12) Wild Seas($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/12) Chants of Sennaar($14.99 from $19.99 until 9/13) The House of Da Vinci 3 ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/13) Warhammer 40k: Boltgun ($15.39 from $21.99 until 9/13) Toziuha Night: Dracula’s Revenge($1.99 from $4.99 until 9/16) Monkey Barrels ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/19) Banchou Tactics ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/19) Transiruby($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/19) Picontier($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/19) Kamiko($1.99 from $4.99 until 9/19) Fairune Collection ($3.99 from $9.99 until 9/19) Alchemic Dungeons DX ($3.19 from $7.99 until 9/19) Ninja Smasher! ($6.39 from $7.99 until 9/19) Ninja Striker! ($1.99 from $3.99 until 9/19)
Great Ambition of the Slimes ($9.59 from $11.99 until 9/19) Shinobi Non Grata ($11.99 from $14.99 until 9/19) Let’s Build a Zoo($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/20) Owlboy($8.74 from $24.99 until 9/20) Hakuoki: Wind & Blossom ($44.99 from $49.99 until 9/20) Omen of Sorrow ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/20) Dungeonoid 2 Awakening($4.49 from $8.99 until 9/20) The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt CE ($23.99 from $59.99 until 9/22) Knights of Grayfang ($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Gale of Windoria ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Justice Chronicles ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Armed Emeth($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Jinshin($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Alphadia Genesis($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Grace of Letoile ($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/26)
Tinykin($6.24 from $24.99 until 9/26) Despot’s Game ($4.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Cosmic Fantasy Collection ($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/26) Cosmic Fantasy ($15.90 from $26.50 until 9/26) Cosmic Fantasy 2 ($15.90 from $26.50 until 9/26) Spirittea($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Punch Club 2: Fast Forward ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Railway Empire 2($37.49 from $49.99 until 9/26) Lil’ Guardsman($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Potion Craft Alchemist Simulator($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Euphoria($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/26) Of The Red, the Light, & Ayakashi ($25.06 from $50.13 until 9/26) Modern Combat Blackout ($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/26) The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/26) Arrest of a Stone Buddha ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/26) Fading Afternoon ($16.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Astor: Blade of the Monolith ($14.99 from $24.99 until 9/26) Tamarak Trail ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/26) Rigid Force Redux ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Yaga($6.24 from $24.99 until 9/26) Rabi-Ribi ($13.99 from $19.99 until 9/26)
Sales Ending This Weekend
Dead in Vinland: True Viking ($2.79 from $27.99 until 9/7) Gunslugs($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/7) Gunslugs 2 ($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/7) Heroes of Loot ($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/7) Heroes of Loot 2 ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/7) Meganoid($5.39 from $8.99 until 9/7) NOISZ re:||COLLECTION G($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/7) Phoenotopia: Awakening ($6.99 from $19.99 until 9/7) Space Grunts ($8.39 from $13.99 until 9/7) Stardash($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/7) Superhot($9.99 from $24.99 until 9/7) Dormitory Love ($24.49 from $34.99 until 9/8) Dying Light: Definitive Edition ($9.99 from $49.99 until 9/8) Fur Squadron($2.79 from $6.99 until 9/8) Tchia: Oleti Edition($23.44 from $34.99 until 9/8)
That’s all for today, this week, this month, this year, and forever, friends. I haven’t been very loud about this, but this is not only the end of the SwitchArcade Round-Up, but also of my eleven and a half years at TouchArcade. I’ll still be writing here and there at my blog at Post Game Content as well as putting up exclusive articles on my Patreon, but other than that I think I’m hanging up the ol’ webs on this specific kind of work. Twenty-six years in this end of the business is a good run, and I’m ready for new challenges. Do look for me at one of the aforementioned places, hit me up on BlueSky and say hi, and if you’re a fancy executive looking to hire a very seasoned writer, I’m your guy.
With that said, I will extend the highest possible gratitude to all of TouchArcade’s readers for being with me on this leg of my life’s journey. I treasure all of you more than you can know. I wish you all the sincerest happiness in your lives, and forever and always – thanks for reading.
Well here it is, friends. This will be the last of my retro game eShop lists, mostly because I am running out of retro consoles with a good variety of games to choose from. I’ve left one of the best for last, though: the PlayStation. Sony’s first whack at the ol’ console market succeeded beyond any expectations, and it’s little wonder it built a library so full of great games that we still see re-releases to this day. Sure, these games gave Nintendo a black eye a quarter of a century ago, but it’s all smiles now for everyone who can enjoy them on their platforms of choice. We’ve got ten of our favorites here, in no particular order of course. On with the PlaySta-Show!
Klonoa: The Door to Phantomile – Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series ($39.99)
Klonoa is a really great game that probably didn’t get as much attention as it deserved, but got enough that it didn’t go totally unnoticed. Probably one of the more successful 2.5D platformers on the console, even. You play as a little floppy-eared cat-creature who is navigating the world of dreams to stop a dangerous threat. Vibrant visuals, snappy gameplay, interesting bosses, and a surprisingly impactful story for what it is. The second game, originally released on PlayStation 2, isn’t quite as good as the first, but you have to get them as a set anyway.
Final Fantasy VII ($15.99)
This is one of the big ones, isn’t it? The Japanese RPG that finally woke the wider Western market up to the genre, Square Enix’s biggest success ever, and one of the main instruments of the PlayStation’s rocket to the top of the business. Sure, there is that remake of Final Fantasy VII out there, but I hope by now that people realize what that really is. If you want to play the original Final Fantasy VII story, you’ll have to risk getting your eye poked out on some sharp polygons. Still a very good game, and it’s not hard to see why so many people took to it the way they did.
Metal Gear Solid – Master Collection Version ($19.99)
Another very big name from the PlayStation, Metal Gear Solid dragged a franchise that was more or less dormant into the spotlight of a much bigger stage. The Metal Gear Solid series got a lot sillier over time, and perhaps started gazing into its own belly button a little too deeply. But it’s hard to argue with this first game, which feels less like a bizarre trip through Kojima’s philosophical musings and more like an episode of GI Joe. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a very fun game to play, either. And hey, if you enjoy it enough, both of the PlayStation 2 follow-ups are available on Switch too.
G-Darius HD ($29.99)
Alright, let’s venture into the weeds again just a little bit. G-Darius took Taito’s classic shoot ’em up series into 3D, and it’s amazing just how well it made that transition. Sure, those chunky rough-textured polygons haven’t aged as well as the sprites in the 2D games, but there’s a real charm to them. The vivid colors, enjoyable enemy-catching mechanic, and creative bosses make for one heck of a solid shooter.
Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition ($19.99)
I could almost fill this entire list with Square Enix games, but I’m going to leave it with this one and Final Fantasy VII just to give other games a chance. Chrono Cross had an impossible job: follow up one of the most well-liked Japanese RPGs ever made. And no, it couldn’t quite manage that task. People today do not speak of Chrono Cross the way they do Chrono Trigger, and that’s fair. But pull it away from that comparison and you’ll find a really clever and gorgeous RPG with a huge cast of (admittedly poorly developed in the main) characters to recruit and play with. Also, one of the best video game soundtracks of all time. Feel free to @ me, I’m right.
Mega Man X4 – Mega Man X Legacy Collection ($19.99)
I love just about every Mega Man game to some extent, but I am well aware that my vision is clouded by bias stemming from a severe case of childhood nostalgia. As such, when it comes to recommending games in the series with clearer eyes, there are only a few games in each series I feel good about putting in the hands of non-fans. With the Mega Man X series, it’s just two games: Mega Man X and Mega Man X4. While I enjoyed the games between them, X4 just feels like it has itself put together better than most of its siblings. This was a short-lived slice of balance, because things went off the rails again with the next game. But hey, don’t take my word for it – buy the Legacy Collections and see for yourself!
Tomba! Special Edition ($19.99)
You know, there were a lot of games published by Sony as first-party releases that it ended up not owning. I always assumed Tomba was as much a first-party property as Crash Bandicoot was, but… oh wait, I guess it was. Anyway, Tomba! is a really interesting platformer. It incorporates a lot of adventure game elements, but the action is on point too. Just don’t forget that that creator of Tomba! is the same guy behind Ghosts ‘n Goblins. It might seem breezy at first, but it’s going to challenge you as it goes on. Very neat game, and I’m glad it’s available again.
Grandia – Grandia HD Collection ($39.99)
Okay, technically Grandia was a SEGA Saturn game first, but the PlayStation port was clearly used as the basis of this HD release so I’m putting it here. Grandia comes from many of the same people who made Lunar, and it channels much of its spirit. In a time period where many RPGs were taking heavy cues from Evangelion, Grandia dared to be a bright and cheerful adventure. It also has a very satisfying combat system that builds on what Game Arts was doing with the Lunar games in strong ways. The other game in this set isn’t too shabby either.
Another true icon of the PlayStation era, Lara Croft had five adventures on the PlayStation by the time the console reached its end. The quality varied from game to game, and some of them were stronger at some things and weaker at others. If you asked me to pick the best one, I think I’d have to go with the original. It was more focused on actual raiding of tombs and less on action, and I think that was putting the best foot forward as far as the Core Design period of the franchise went. But this is another chance to make up your own mind, because you get the first three games here whether you like it or not.
moon ($18.99)
Let’s finish up with a deeper cut. Originally only released in Japan, moon was something of a deconstruction of the contemporary RPG. Indeed, its creators refer to it as an anti-RPG. In practice, it’s more of an adventure game than anything else, and it is very… punk? Can I call it punk? There are parts of the game that aren’t very fun at all, but it’s also not trying to be fun all the time. There’s an interesting message to this game if you see it through, and I’m glad we finally got to see this come out in English.
And that’s the list, friends. Are there any PlayStation 1 games you enjoy on the Switch? Feel free to sound off down in the comments and let us know what you’re thinking! It’s always interesting to hear the opinions of others on this kind of thing. I hope everyone has enjoyed this series of articles as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. As always, thanks for reading!
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 5th, 2024. Thursday already, eh? Where does the time go? We’re going in hard on the reviews again today. I have two for you, covering Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate. Our pal Mikhail chimes in today too, with his looks at Nour: Play With Your Food, Fate/stay night REMASTERED, and TOKYO CHRONOS & ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos TWIN PACK. We then move into the finest new releases of the day, then sweep up with the lists of new and expiring sales. Ah, Thursday. I shall miss you when it is Friday. Let’s go!
Reviews & Mini-Views
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club ($49.99)
It seems like the latest trend is making sequels to decades-dormant franchises. Video games, always trying to be like Hollywood. Nintendo has rather unpredictably decided to resurrect Famicom Detective Club, a series mainly known in the West through the “blink and you’ll miss it” remake of the first two games that came out on Switch a couple of years back. I feel like there may be a connection here. At any rate, for the first time this millennium we have a brand new Famicom Detective Club adventure! That’s nifty.
The challenge with bringing back an old brand is in deciding how faithful to the original the new game should be. The risk of being too faithful is that the game could be seen as old-fashioned or out of date, but change too much and there’s a chance fans could be completely turned off. Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club leans more toward maintaining the style of the recent remakes, themselves hewing quite closely to the originals. It’s an odd blend, to be sure. The visuals are as good as anything you would see in similar games from modern times, and the story certainly pushes a little further than what the Nintendo of the 90s would have done even in Japan. But the gameplay feels very old-school, and I think that is a determining factor in whether or not you enjoy this game.
A student is found dead with a paper bag over his head that has a smiling face on it. This digs up some old unsolved murders from eighteen years ago that featured a similar calling card, which raises all manner of questions. Then there is the urban legend about Emio, a killer who promises to give his victims an eternal smile. Has a previous killer resurfaced after all this time? Is it a copycat? Is there really any such thing as Emio? The cops are stumped, so it’s time to call in the Utsugi Detective Agency! Using the powers of going around to places and badgering people, you’ll do what the law enforcement was powerless to: find the truth!
Basically, you’re searching around every scene for clues, talking to all of the people you meet (sometimes you need to press the issue and ask multiple times to get what you want), and trying to find the connections you’ll need to solve the case. Think of the sections of Ace Attorney outside of court and you’re not too far off the mark. Depending on how well you take to this kind of gameplay, you mind find parts of the game to be annoying or a slog. There are certainly bits I feel could have been handled more smoothly, and it feels like specific chains of logic needed just a little more signposting. Well, this is a Cat Hair Mustache genre, and I suppose by that standards Emio isn’t doing anything particularly egregious.
And you know what? That’s where I’m going to leave it. I have some criticisms of the story, but I enjoyed it on the whole. It was engaging, twisty, and well-written. Some of the plot beats didn’t hit me the way it seems they hit others, but I can’t really talk about that in detail without ruining the story. And I really don’t want to do that, because this is a tale that is best experienced fresh. I liked more than I didn’t, and when it picks up it really picks up.
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is not the sort of thing we typically see from Nintendo, but if there was any rust on the team it assuredly doesn’t show. It’s perhaps a little too adherent to the original games in its mechanics, and while the plot is mostly excellent there are some times where the pace falls off or things resolve in ways I didn’t find as satisfying as I would have ideally hoped for. Still, these are minor complaints for what is otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable mystery adventure. Welcome back, Detective Club. Don’t stay away so long this time.
We’re starting to get a nice little set of TMNT games on the Switch, aren’t we? You can enjoy the Konami classics in the Cowabunga Collection, get an incredible modern take on the arcade beat ’em up formula with Shredder’s Revenge, bring the modern arcade home in Wrath of the Mutants, and now satisfy your urge for something with a little more home console flavoring in Splintered Fate. There are a couple more on the way, too. We’re swimming in Turtles! With Turtles? Turtles, they’re everywhere. So how is this one?
Not too shabby, actually. I mean, if you’ve played this on Apple Arcade then you know the deal, and if you’re reading this site then the odds are somewhat decent you have. But just in case, let’s go over the broad pitch. Basically, imagine taking a TMNT-style beat ’em up and blending it with Hades. Alright, that pretty much does it. You can go it alone in the usual roguelite style, or play with up to four players via local or online multiplayer. Mikhail and I did the online multiplayer thing together and it worked rather well, so that’s a good way to go. The game is fine when you’re on your own, but adding more people predictably improves the experience. That’s TMNT for you.
Anyway, some kind of shenanigans occur with Shredder and a mysterious power. Splinter is in trouble, and the Turtles have to try to figure out how to save him. When all you have is a katana, every problem looks like a Foot Soldier. Slice, dice, and/or bludgeon whatever enemies come in front of you, dash tactically to avoid attacks, pick up some perks that you can enjoy in your current run, and collect another currency to score some permanent upgrades. If you die, it’s back to the lair to try again. Roguelite beat ’em up. But with the Turtles, so it’s automatically better than it would be without them. It isn’t particularly inspired, but it does its job well enough.
I wouldn’t call Splintered Fate a must-have in general, but TMNT fans will probably enjoy this twist on the usual fare. The multiplayer is well-implemented, and it’s good to see that important TMNT element wasn’t passed over despite this being the kind of game that is usually played solo. Those without an affinity for the Turtles can find better roguelite games to play on the Switch, but with this being such an intensely competitive genre on the platform it’s to the credit of Splintered Fate that it can manage to keep pace at all. Not bad.
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
Nour: Play With Your Food ($9.99)
When Nour: Play With Your Food originally released on PC and PS5, I was a bit surprised to see it not also released on Switch and mobile. It felt like a perfect fit for touchscreens as an experimental food art experience. I played it on PC and liked it quite a bit, but this isn’t a traditional game for everyone. If you enjoy playful sandbox-like experiences and love food, you will likely find a lot to love in Nour: Play With Your Food, but the Switch version is a bit lacking.
If you’re new to Nour: Play With Your Food, it has you playing with specific food types across different stages with interesting music and a lot of over the top nonsense (compliment). It feels like a combination of an interactive app made for those who love food and art equally. Initially, you only get access to the basics, but I found myself surprised at how much the developers added to let you literally play with your food as the name suggests. This is when I realized why it might not be as easy to play on a touchscreen.
I am disappointed in the lack of touchscreen support on Switch though. Aside from that, Nour: Play With Your Food was a bit of a heavy game on Steam Deck as well, and you can see the cutbacks on Switch to have it run decently. The biggest issue is the load times being long both docked and handheld on Switch.
Nour: Play With Your Food is worth experiencing if you love food, art, and interactive apps. While the Switch version isn’t the best way to experience it, Nour still feels best on a portable, and I hope it does well enough to get more DLC or even a physical release. We don’t see many releases like this in gaming, but games like Nour and Townscaper are the perfect compliment to more-involved RPGs and story-driven games. -Mikhail Madnani
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
Fate/stay night REMASTERED ($29.99)
Fate/stay night REMASTERED launched about a month ago on Nintendo Switch and Steam worldwide. I was hoping to have it covered sooner, but the month has been really busy and Fate/stay night itself is very long. Before covering the game itself, I want to take you on a bit of a journey. Many years ago, a close friend convinced me to watch Fate/Zero as one of the first few anime I watched from start to finish. Back then, I wanted to experience more from the universe, but there wasn’t really something interesting I could officially play in English. I ended up importing the PS Vita version of Fate/stay night Realta Nua just to own it, and since then have basically been playing whatever Fate-related release or Type Moon property we see in the West. This includes Fate/EXTELLA, Fate/Samurai Remnant, watching Fate/stay night, and even trying out Fate/Grand Order for a bit.
All of that led to me being very glad that Aniplex brought over Witch on the Holy Night and Tsukihime‘s remake recently, but there was the one game I was hoping we’d see released in English somehow. I didn’t bother with fan translations, and kept hoping we’d see Fate/stay night in English. Here we are. It still feels unreal that this is in English and on Switch. But is it worth your time and money? Well I can save you some time and say absolutely on both fronts with a few caveats.
Fate/stay night REMASTERED is a remaster of the 2004-released Type Moon visual novel covering the story of Emiya Shirou, the Holy Grail war, and more. This is basically the best entry point into the Fate universe, and I know there are many who have only experienced it through anime and other games so far, so this is now a chance to see the origin of the series as it was meant to be. Fate/stay night REMASTERED even with its few quality of life features is still a 55+ hour experience at least, and that makes the low asking price shocking. I get that this is a remaster of an older game, but the volume of text and work done really makes it one of the best value releases on the eShop this year.
If you already played the original versions of Fate/stay night in Japanese, Fate/stay night REMASTERED does a lot to improve the experience. Obviously it adds English, but the 16:9 support is welcome. It also feels like a lot more work went into this than I initially expected. I’ve been playing a bit of the PS Vita release to compare, and the developers of this remaster have done a great job at making Fate/stay night look good on modern displays, but don’t expect the gorgeousness of Tsukihime‘s recent remake.
While I love Fate/stay night itself, I’m glad that the developers actually put in touchscreen support on Nintendo Switch. I played most of Fate/stay night REMASTERED on my Switch Lite (which is sadly busted now) and then synced it to my Switch OLED to play at home and also docked. It feels perfect on Nintendo’s hybrid system. Hopefully it gets more platform releases in the future like iOS and PS5 so more can experience it.
Speaking of more platforms, I also played a good amount of Fate/stay night REMASTERED on Steam Deck. It works perfectly out of the box. If you were wondering where to play Fate/stay night REMASTERED assuming you owned a Steam Deck or Switch, get it wherever you want but make sure you play it. It is that good.
There’s nothing really holding Fate/stay night REMASTERED back right now aside from no physical release on Switch, and I hope it does well enough to get one in the future to go on my shelf with Witch on the Holy Night and Tsukihime.
Fate/stay night REMASTERED is basically an essential for visual novel fans and I still can’t believe it is not only available in English, but also on both Switch and Steam. The low asking price makes it an even easier recommendation. While it may not look as good as Tsukihime‘s recent remake, Fate/stay night REMASTERED is still worth your time, and I’m glad I finally got to play it in English after all these years of owning the Japanese PS Vita release. -Mikhail Madnani
SwitchArcade Score: 5/5
TOKYO CHRONOS & ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos TWIN PACK ($49.99)
As someone who didn’t bother with VR outside of borrowing a PS VR headset on PS4 Pro years ago, I know I’ve ended up missing out on some great games. When looking at what my friends who own current VR headsets talk about, in addition to games like Thumper or Beat Saber, I used to see rumblings of TOKYO CHRONOS and ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos mentioned. Both were praised for their stories and also for being full experiences in VR. I never got to experience the stories until TOKYO CHRONOS & ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos TWIN PACK hit Switch through Izanagi Games just over a month ago.
When you first boot up TOKYO CHRONOS & ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos TWIN PACK on Switch, you get to choose which game you want to play. The first game has you experiencing the story of high school friends in an alternate version of Shibuya, lost memories, killers, and more. If you’ve played many visual novels or adventure games, the narrative here will feel very predictable in parts, but it isn’t bad. It has good visuals and I feel like trying it out in VR after seeing how it feels on Switch just for the novelty of a full visual novel in VR.
ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos on the other hand is a lot better with its production, music, writing, voice acting, and characters in general. It also goes beyond being a pure visual novel in parts, and I love when developers do this. Punching above your weight in a visual novel usually makes for a more memorable experience when coupled with important story beats. ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos is the standout of the two, but I think the pack is definitely worth buying if you’re ok with the controls and movement in the demo.
Aside from some aspects of the stories not hitting as hard, the Switch version has some performance issues when it comes to camera movement. These aren’t a dealbreaker, but it is distracting having that happen during first person and other encounters. The rest of the Switch features more than make up for it though with touchscreen support (my favorite feature in adventure games) and good rumble.
TOKYO CHRONOS & ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos TWIN PACK is a great experience on Nintendo Switch with its touch controls and rumble support added to make it even more immersive. I’m glad I got to finally experience these stories since I never owned a VR headset, and I hope to see more from this team in the future. If you enjoy sci-fi stories, I urge you to download the demo at least to see how this one feels on Switch. -Mikhail Madnani
SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5
Select New Releases
Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku ($49.99)
This might be the winner for the title that does the most clear and concise work in explaining a game’s content. At least for 2024, anyway. So yes, this is Fitness Boxing. Featuring Hatsune Miku. It has 24 songs from Miku and friends, plus 30 more from the Fitness Boxing series. Plenty of tunes to punch it out to, in other words. Mechanically, it looks like the other games in the series. No surprise there. Pick it up if you want a Fitness Boxing game featuring Hatsune Miku.
Gimmick! 2 ($24.99)
I reviewed this yesterday, but in case you missed that, allow me to bring you up to speed. This is a very faithful follow-up to the original cult favorite, building on its foundations a bit, bringing in a slick new presentation, and still as hard as that piece of a Subway pizza sub you lost under the sofa back in the 90s. If you don’t mind a challenge and enjoy clever platformers, you’ll want to check this one out.
Touhou Danmaku Kagura Phantasia Lost ($29.99)
Are you tired of switching between games based on whether you feel like playing a rhythm game or a bullet hell shoot ’em up? Touhou Danmaku Kagura Phantasia Lost is here to save you from the inconvenience! There are two modes in this game, and it kind of feels like peanut butter and chalk in some sense. But the Touhou theme ties them together, and for fans of the property I’m sure it will pass muster. At least you know the music will be good?
EGGCONSOLE Hydlide MSX ($6.49)
We’ve already seen one version of Hydlide release in EGGCONSOLE, but here’s another one for good measure. It came after the one we have, but before the NES one. It falls somewhere in between them as a result, and I suppose if you are a Hydlide super-fan then you’ll want to grab as many versions as they release. For everyone else, I’m not sure how much more you’ll get out of this MSX version if you already played the PC-8801 release.
Arcade Archives Lead Angle ($7.99)
Well, at least Hamster’s mixing it up a little. This is a 1988 Seibu Kaihatsu release, a follow-up to Empire City 1931. It’s one of those gallery shooters that were all the rage at the time, though I can say with some confidence that Lead Angle was not all the rage at the time. It’s a decent enough example of the genre though, so if you enjoy this sort of game you probably shouldn’t be too quick to push the plate away. Shooting gangsters! You don’t see that kind of theme all that often anymore either, come to think of it.
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
Not much excitement going on today, but No Man’s Sky is never a bad choice. The rest of the good games in the inbox are frequently on sale, so do what you will with them. Oddly, one could say the same about the outbox. I’ll leave all of that business to you today, as I don’t have any strong feelings on the matter.
Select New Sales
No Man’s Sky ($23.99 from $59.99 until 9/17) The Last Campfire($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/17) XALADIA: Rise of the Space Pirates X2($8.09 from $17.99 until 9/18) Scars of Mars ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/18) Die for Valhalla ($3.59 from $11.99 until 9/25) Moonlighter($3.74 from $24.99 until 9/25) Thea: The Awakening ($5.39 from $17.99 until 9/25) Children of Morta($5.49 from $21.99 until 9/25) Dungeon of the Endless ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/25) Yes, Your Grace ($2.99 from $19.99 until 9/25) Hypnospace Outlaw ($4.99 from $19.99 until 9/25) Nowhere Prophet($2.49 from $24.99 until 9/25) Soccer Story ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/25) Family Man ($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/25) South of the Circle ($6.49 from $12.99 until 9/25) Wingspan($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/25)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, September 6th
Ambition: A Minuet in Power ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/6) Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey ($2.39 from $15.99 until 9/6) Fear Effect Sedna ($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/6) Galak-Z The Void Deluxe ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/6) Kingdom Rush($5.49 from $9.99 until 9/6) Kingdom Rush Frontiers ($5.49 from $9.99 until 9/6) Kingdom Rush Origins ($8.24 from $14.99 until 9/6) My Time at Portia ($4.49 from $29.99 until 9/6) PowerWash Simulator($17.49 from $24.99 until 9/6) Skulls of the Shogun ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/6) Suhoshin($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/6) The House of Da Vinci 2($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/6) Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/6) Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD ($10.49 from $29.99 until 9/6) Violet Wisteria ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/6) What the Fork($4.49 from $17.99 until 9/6)
That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow to finish things up, with more reviews, new releases, and sales to look at. Hey, did you know? I have an at-the-moment dormant blog that is going to get active again soon. You can find it at Post Game Content. If you like reading Shaun’s thoughts on games, you’ll certainly find some there. I hope you all have a thrilling Thursday, and as always, thanks for reading!
In the latest look at retro game offerings on the Nintendo Switch, I’ve opted to take a different approach. You see, there aren’t quite so many distinct Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS ports on the Switch as some other consoles. I know, it surprised me too! So they’re going to be sharing a list, much like how they shared a few years on retail shelves. While you can find plenty of great games from the Game Boy Advance in the Nintendo Switch Online app, we’re instead looking at those games that dare to exist in the wilds of the Switch eShop. We’ve got ten of our favorites here, four from the Game Boy Advance and six from the Nintendo DS. No particular order, of course. On with the show!
Game Boy Advance
Steel Empire (2004) – Over Horizon X Steel Empire ($14.99)
We’ll start off with a decent little shoot ’em up, Steel Empire. While the original Genesis/Mega Drive version is the better game in my opinion, this isn’t a bad take at all. Worth playing just to compare with the other version, and it’s certainly a breezier experience in some ways. Steel Empire is a pretty cool game no matter how you play it, and it’s one that even those who don’t normally get into shooters tend to enjoy.
Mega Man Zero – Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection ($29.99)
While the Mega Man X series started to flounder on home consoles, the true successor to the Mega Man crown was rising up on the Game Boy Advance. Mega Man Zero is the start of an excellent series of side-scrolling action games, and one that perhaps didn’t figure out how to present what it wanted to do in the smoothest way. Those rough edges would get sanded off as the series went on, but the first game is where you want to start. Feel free to continue on from there.
Mega Man Battle Network – Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection ($59.99)
Yes, I’m double-dipping on Mega Man here. But I think it’s warranted here, because Mega Man Zero and Mega Man Battle Network are very different kinds of games, and both are very good at what they do. This one is an RPG with a unique battle system that manages to incorporate a bit of action to go with the more strategic elements. The core concept of this whole virtual world existing inside of electronic devices is a clever one, and the game doesn’t do things halfway with it. The returns diminished harder on this series than they did with Zero, but there’s plenty of fun to be had here.
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow – Castlevania Advance Collection ($19.99)
Another collection where you’ll probably just want to run the whole board, but if I have to pick one best one it’s clearly Aria of Sorrow. When I’m in the right mood, I’d rather play this than even the amazing Symphony of the Night. The soul collecting system encourages grinding, and the gameplay is so fun that I don’t even mind that. Throw in an unusual setting and some fun secrets and you’ve got a real winner here. One of my favorite third-party Game Boy Advance games full-stop.
Nintendo DS
Shantae: Risky’s Revenge – Director’s Cut ($9.99)
The original Shantae was something of a cult hit, but the low distribution numbers meant that relatively few people had a chance to play it. It was with the DSiWare release of Shantae: Risky’s Revenge that the Half-Genie Hero had a chance to make a bigger splash, and she certainly did that. Indeed, this established Shantae so well that she hasn’t missed a console generation since. This game kind of sits on a fuzzy line since it was sort of built from the ashes of a Game Boy Advance game that never released. Curiously, that game will be getting a release soon and might fit this list when it does.
Look, if you’re really bothered about the lists being imbalanced, you could (and maybe should) count this as a Game Boy Advance game. That is the console where it originated after all, it just wasn’t localized at that time. Anyway, you probably know Ace Attorney. Fun adventure games that blend on-location investigations with overly dramatic court scenes. Goofy humor, but rather good stories. This first game completely knocks it out of the park, and while I might prefer later installments I wouldn’t be able to argue against anyone who said this was the best.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective ($29.99)
From the creator of Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick is just as well-written but has its own cool gameplay hook. You’re a ghost and need to use your abilities to save people, all with an eye to figuring out the truth behind your own untimely demise. This game is a complete wild ride and I recommend everyone play it from start to finish. It was a bit slept on in its original Nintendo DS form, and I’m glad to see Capcom hasn’t given up on it. Reward them for their tenacity.
The World Ends With You: Final Remix ($49.99)
The World Ends With You is, quite frankly, one of the top games on the Nintendo DS. Ideally, it’s the place where you should play the game. It’s just so tightly built around that hardware and its capabilities that none of the ports have been able to get just right. Still, time marches on. The Switch version of this game will do just fine if you don’t want to dig up a working Nintendo DS, and you really should play it somewhere. Why not here? A great game in just about every possible way.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow – Castlevania Dominus Collection ($24.99)
The Castlevania Dominus Collection just released not long ago, and it collects all of the Nintendo DS Castlevania games. This is another case where all of the games are worth playing, and I’m picking Dawn of Sorrow simply because having its gimmicky touch controls replaced with more fitting button controls makes for a significant improvement. But really, play all three of the Nintendo DS games in this collection. They’re all great in their own ways.
Etrian Odyssey III HD – Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection ($79.99)
This is another franchise that in some ways can’t exist easily outside of the DS/3DS ecosystem. But Atlus made a good attempt here, and I think the results are playable enough. Each of the Etrian Odyssey games stands alone, and they’re all pretty substantial RPGs. Etrian Odyssey III is the largest of the three, and while it’s more than a little wooly, it’s well-worth sinking your teeth into.
And that’s the list, friends. Are there any Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS games you enjoy on the Switch? Feel free to sound off down in the comments and let us know what you’re thinking! It’s always interesting to hear the opinions of others on this kind of thing. As always, thanks for reading!
After tackling the best party games on Switch in 2024, the recent release of Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club being as amazing as it is pushed me to write about what I consider the best visual novels and adventure games on Switch to play right now. I’ve included both because some games are pure visual novels while some are adventure games (and not visual novels). This list has quite a few games from across regions and release years, and I hope you find something you end up loving here. As usual, this list is in no particular order.
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club ($49.99) + Famicom Detective Club: The Two-Case Collection
When Nintendo not only remade both Famicom Detective Club games back in 2021, I couldn’t believe it. They were amazing adventure games, and my only complaint really was the lack of a physical release back then. Fast forward to 2024 and Nintendo has released Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club physically and digitally as a brand-new entry in the series, and I’ve been floored playing it. Not only does it feel like a true series entry which might be a negative to some, but this might be one of the most lavish productions I’ve seen in a game like this ever. I don’t want to get into spoilers, but the ending is shockingly good and it really justifies its M rating. I definitely didn’t expect to have a new Famicom Detective Club game in 2024 on my top games of the year list, but Nintendo managed to do that with Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club. Download the demo now.
If you’d rather play the first two games before Emio, grab the Famicom Detective Club: The Two-Case Collection. If you are ok with some old school design and gameplay for adventure games, you will adore these.
VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action ($14.99)
If you’ve been reading the few “best Switch games” lists I’ve been doing this year, you’ve seen me feature VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action twice before already, but as you know, I’m not going to pass up an opportunity to write about one of my favorite games of all time. VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action is notable for its story, music, aesthetic, and most-importantly the characters. Having played it multiple times over the years on every system, it also feels right at home on Switch, and is a game I recommend to everyone literally. I don’t care if you like point and click adventure games or not. Go ahead and mix drinks and then change some lives.
The House in Fata Morgana: Dreams of the Revenants Edition ($39.99)
The House in Fata Morgana: Dreams of the Revenants Edition is the definitive edition of one of my favorite stories in any medium. It includes the original game and much more to deliver a stunning version of a masterpiece in storytelling. This one is a pure visual novel, and I’m glad that after its many releases, it found a lot of success on Switch, where it plays best. If you want to play something that will stay with you for a long time, this gothic horror experience will do much more. It also happens to have some of the most incredible music ever.
Coffee Talk Episode 1+2 ($12.99 + $14.99)
Ok this one is cheating since the games are sold separately on the eShop and the physical releases I imported from Japan are also separate, but since there’s a bundle of both games sold in North America on Switch, I’ve included both Coffee Talk games as one entry here. I love them both, and while they didn’t hit the same highs as VA-11 Hall-A, Coffee Talk perfectly satiated what I wanted from a game set in a coffee shop, and delivered a very relaxing experience with a great story. If you enjoy coffee and listening to interesting people with great pixel art and music, this is for you.
Type Moon’s visual novels: Tsukihime, Fate/stay night, and Mahoyo (Variable)
This is another entry where I’m cheating. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to include just Tsukihime or Witch on the Holy Night (Mahoyo), but then the recent release of Fate/stay night Remastered made things even harder. Instead of worrying too much, I’ve included all three as essential visual novels in this article on Switch. They are all very long but very good. If you’ve wanted to sample a classic visual novel, go with Fate/stay night, but I recommend Tsukihime’s remake on Switch to everyone. Witch on the Holy Night is probably the game to play after these two in terms of quality.
PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo ($19.99)
Square Enix’s PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo reminds me of Nintendo’s Emio in a way that I’m surprised it even exists, let alone turned out this good. I went into it with no expectations, but was blown away by the narrative, its delivery, and even some wall breaking that I enjoyed quite a bit early on. Square Enix released one of the best mystery adventure games I’ve played with amazing characters, great art, and interesting mechanics here, and it is worth your time if you want a fantastic new horror adventure game.
Gnosia ($24.99)
People call Gnosia a sci-fi social deduction RPG, but it is more of an adventure and visual novel hybrid for me. Your aim here is identifying the Gnosia among a group using information you gather and then vote to put the Gnosia into cold sleep. You and your crew both improve over time, and aside from some RNG issues to get two specific outcomes, Gnosia was a fantastic experience. I liked it so much on Switch that I bought the physical release on both Switch and PS5 in addition to getting it on Steam. This one might not be for everyone, but it remains one of the nicest surprises in the genre.
Steins;Gate Series (Variable)
Spike Chunsoft’s Switch releases of the Steins;Gate series, especially Steins;Gate Elite, are as important as Fate/stay night when it comes to introducing newcomers to visual novels to the genre. While I still hope the publisher brings over the original version of Steins;Gate, Steins;Gate Elite is an easy recommendation for those who watch anime and want to get into a great visual novel. The Steins;Gate games are must plays only after you experience the original story in Steins;Gate Elite. I’ve cheated here as well by including multiple games, but my list my rules.
AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES and nirvanA Initiative (Variable)
AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES and nirvanA Initiative from Spike Chunsoft brought Zero Escape creator Kotaro Uchikoshi and No More Heroes character designer Yusuke Kozaki together for an incredible set of two adventure games that honestly feel too good to be true when it comes to the budget behind them with the quality they delivered on story, music, and characters. While a lot of folks lament the lack of Zero Escape on Switch, I think the two AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES games are absolutely worth experiencing at full price, and gems of the Switch library. Don’t make us wait too long for a new game in the series please.
NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD ($19.99)
When it comes to adventure games or visual novels, I’m often recommended games where a friend will say “trust me and just play it but don’t look up anything about it”. One such game was NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD when I first played it on PC. It is an adventure game with multiple endings that can flip flop between disturbing horror and wholesome moments. It revolves around the daily life of a young girl trying to be the best streamer. I liked this one enough to pre-order the Switch limited edition from Japan, and I’m glad I did so. It is unforgettable.
Ace Attorney Series (Variable)
Capcom has now brought the entire Ace Attorney series to Switch with the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy (1,2,3), Apollo Justice Trilogy (4,5,6), The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (1+2 of those), and the two Ace Attorney Investigations games in this week’s Ace Attorney Investigations Collection release. I would say there are no excuses now, but this adventure game series is beloved for a reason and it has spawned a fanbase that has lasted for years since the DS debut in the West. If you are new to the series, I recommend The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles as the best entry point even above the original trilogy which feels dated in ways. Either way, you can now play the entire series on one handheld, and I love that.
Spirit Hunter: Death Mark, NG, and Death Mark II (Variable)
Another series rather than a single game? Yes. Aksys Games and Experience Inc’s Spirit Hunter trilogy is now fully available on Switch, and it manages to blend horror adventure and visual novel elements with one of the most striking art styles I’ve ever seen. It is a bit harder to recommend this series given how grotesque some of the designs are, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget some of the images I’ve seen while playing the Spirit Hunter games with their excellent localizations and stories. I hope we see a new entry in the next few years.
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim ($59.99)
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim isn’t a pure adventure game, but one that has real-time strategy battles. I usually try and include a fantastic game at the end and the double whammy of not being a full adventure game and also being one of the best games I’ve played in a decade has me ending this feature on Vanillaware and Atlus’ sci-fi masterpiece 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. I first played this on PS4 and enjoyed replaying it from start to finish on Switch thanks to the OLED screen in handheld mode. Regardless of where you play it, you need to experience 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim.
If you made it this far, you’ve realized that this isn’t a top 10 but more, and the games are ones I recommend playing at full price. I didn’t want to cut out something I like a lot to hit an arbitrary number of games featured and that’s why I even included some full series here instead of just individual games. That’s my list of the best visual novels and adventure games on Switch to play in 2024. If you have a game you think I should’ve included, please let me know in the comments below. I’m always on the lookout for more amazing stories in two of my favorite genres that feel perfect on Switch. As always, thanks for reading!
Note: I’m working on a separate list of otome games since there are too many good ones in that subgenre.
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 4th, 2024. The long summer has more or less come to an end. It was sometimes hot and uncomfortable, but we had some good times that are worth remembering. I’m a little older and a little wiser than I was at the start, and I’m grateful I got to make that journey with all of you. As we head into another new season in our lives, I just want to say that no matter what happens from here you were all the best summer pals a person could ask for. In today’s article? Tons of reviews! A few new releases! Some sales! Let’s get this done!
Reviews & Mini-Views
Ace Attorney Investigations Collection ($39.99)
One thing I will say about the Nintendo Switch generation of gaming: it’s given us second chances at a lot of fish that got away from us in the past. Trials of Mana! Live A Live! The original Fire Emblem! And now, the one and only Ace Attorney game that remained unlocalized comes to us by way of the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, a set including Miles Edgeworth’s two post-Trials & Tribulations adventures. One thing this series has proven good at is building on plot threads established in previous titles, and the second Ace Attorney Investigations title does this quite well. It’s one of those sequels that makes the original better in hindsight, and it’s amazing to finally have it officially in English.
The Ace Attorney Investigations games, in focusing on Miles Edgeworth, show us how things look from the prosecution’s side of things. Outside of a couple of new gimmicks, things aren’t all that different mechanically. Search for clues, question witnesses, and try to crack each case. Still, the very different and rather cool presentation helps liven things up, and Edgeworth as a protagonist certainly lends the narration a particular feel. The pacing has less structure to it than the usual Ace Attorney games, and that can sometimes make some cases feel exhausting, but by and large I think anyone who enjoys the main games in the series will be happy with this sub-series. If you find the first game to be a bit of a drag, stick it through to the second. It’s a lot better, and as mentioned it makes some of the things you suffer through in the first game make more sense.
In terms of bonuses, this feels more like the Apollo Justice set than it does the others. A gallery mode is on offer with art and music to enjoy, a story mode lets you chill out and let the game beat itself, and you have the option to switch between the original graphics/soundtrack and the fancy new stuff. There’s a dialog history you can access if you miss something that was said, which is something that should be a stock feature in games like this. I’m glad to see it.
The two games in Ace Attorney Investigations Collection offer an interesting contrast, and taken as one whole I think it’s a great experience overall. Getting the second game localized officially is amazing, and the suite of options and extras make for an excellent package. With this, every Ace Attorney game outside of the weird crossover with Professor Layton is now available on the Switch. If you like the series enough to have picked those up, you’ll definitely want to grab this as well.
SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5
Gimmick! 2 ($24.99)
It is enormously odd to see a sequel to Gimmick!. I just want to say that before moving on. One of Sunsoft’s later games for the NES, Gimmick! didn’t even manage to get a release in the West outside of Scandinavia. Here we are thirty years later, and not only is the original game more widely available than ever, we now have a follow-up. This game was developed by Bitwave Games with no involvement from the original creator, but it’s incredibly faithful to the original anyway. Maybe too faithful in ways for some tastes, but there’s nothing wrong with a first sequel hewing closer to the line than farther.
Six very lengthy levels of challenging physics-based platforming await you here, and as with the original you’re going to be up against the wall pretty quickly. There’s an easier mode this time, however, so those who want a slightly less bumpy ride can opt for it. Indeed, if you want to play the normal (Gimmick) difficulty, you’ll have to pass a little test right off the hop. The way protagonist Yumetaro’s star attack works is quite familiar also, with it serving as weapon, vehicle, and all-purpose puzzle solver all at once. One new element comes in the form of collectibles, often serving as rewards for completing more difficult sections that aren’t necessary for progression. These take the form of new customization options, but simply completing the more demanding tasks feels good in and of itself.
It’s not a terribly long game if you just try to bolt through the whole thing, but it’s going to be a tough one either way. In that respect, it’s also quite similar to the original. You’ll die a lot here, often in spectacularly stupid ways, but generous checkpointing keeps the aggravation from boiling over. Well, most of the time. The adorable look and lively music also try to keep the fire from burning too hot, but don’t for one second underestimate Gimmick! 2. For all of its small concessions, this game understands that part of what made the original game so memorable came from its challenge. Platforming mastery is a must, and you’ll need to make clever usage of Yumetaro’s star and the enemies to make it much farther than the first level.
Gimmick! 2 defies the odds by being a very good follow-up to a decades-old game made by another team entirely. It builds on the original game in some smart ways, but it never feels like it’s paying too much homage to be its own thing. If you enjoyed the first game, you’ll be thrilled with this. Platformer fans who aren’t put off by a high level of challenge will also want to check it out. That said, if you’re looking for something easy-going, don’t be fooled by the look of Gimmick! 2. It’s just as tough of a nut to crack as its predecessor, even with an easier difficulty setting.
SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5
Valfaris: Mecha Therion ($19.99)
Valfaris: Mecha Therion takes a real risk with its game design, dropping the action-platformer set-up of the original game in favor of shoot ’em up action along the lines of Lords of Thunder. The most surprising thing is that it kind of works. Indeed, the biggest problem is that it’s sometimes a bit too much for the Switch’s aging hardware to do proper justice to. I don’t think anyone can really be blamed here. This is just where we’re at in the console’s lifespan now, I think. It’s not terrible, mind you. If this is the only option you have, you’ll still get a kick out of Mecha Therion‘s intense action, rocking soundtrack, and creepy visuals.
There’s a fun juggling act going on in Mecha Therion thanks to how the weapons are set up. You’ve got your usual gun, but when it runs out of energy it weakens significantly. You’ve got a melee weapon that you can use to slice bullets and enemies, which recharges your gun energy. Finally, there’s a rotating third weapon or item. You start off with a lock-on missile attack, but you’ll have access to others. You can also dash, an offensive and defensive maneuver depending on the situation, and it has its own cooldown. With how many enemies and obstacles the game throws at you, mastering the rhythm of keeping your weapons ready and fending off shots is essential and satisfying.
Don’t come into Valfaris: Mecha Therion expecting a similar kind of game as the first, but you can look forward to a similar vibe. It’s a heavy metal shoot ’em up with a style all its own, and it thankfully avoids many of the traps that so many games that try something different in this genre end up falling into. You’ll get better performance on other platforms, and in this genre that’s important, but this Switch conversion will absolutely do the job should it be your console of choice.
SwitchArcade Score: 4/5
Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash ($44.99)
Saying a licensed game is for the fans feels like a truism. Of course it’s for the fans. Some do a better job of pleasing that bunch than others, but typically speaking fans of the property used in a licensed game will get more out of it than non-fans. Which boils all of this down to two main questions. First, just how much fan service is baked in? In Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash, I can say that there is enough to please those who enjoy the exploits of these horse-girls. Indeed, I think that is the one thing the game does best. The writing is good and fits the property, and there are lots of meta-systems built in that reward you with things for the fans.
The second question pertains to whether or not there is anything here for non-fans. Regrettably, I can’t be as positive here. You get a small number of half-baked mini-games to play, and while the presentation is solid there just isn’t much to do here if you aren’t really into Umamusume. You just play the same four mini-games again and again, watching a story unfold that only fans are going to properly enjoy. One of those mini-games offers so little interaction that I hesitate to even count it. The other three are better, but they just don’t have the staying power that a party game needs. The best part of all of this is an unlockable mini-game, and even that is a meager meal.
Even for fans of the property, Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash feels like it emphasizes the wrong things at great expense. I think a great job has been done here in terms of serving the look, sound, and world of Umamusume, and the wide array of unlockables might be enough to keep those dedicated to the horse-girls interested for a while. But it fades far too fast, and if you’re lacking that attachment to start with, you’re probably going get tired of this well before the final furlong.
SwitchArcade Score: 3/5
Sunsoft is Back! Retro Game Selection ($9.99)
I think when Western game enthusiasts think of Sunsoft, if they think of Sunsoft at all, they probably think of games like Blaster Master, Batman, or Fester’s Quest. Recently some of the publisher’s rarer treasures have gotten a new shot at fame, bringing Ufouria, Gimmick!, and Trip World into the light. Even short-term mascot Aero the Acro-Bat and his buddies are getting play again. But there is a whole other side to Sunsoft that is less well-known in the West, and what makes it amusing is that it is what the company is mainly known for in its home country of Japan: charmingly rough-around-the-edges 8-bit games. Sunsoft is Back! Retro Game Selection aims to change that, offering up three such games in one very reasonably priced package.
In this collection, you get the straightforward side-scrolling platforming of Firework Thrower Kantaro’s 53 Stations of the Tokaido (just rolls off the tongue, don’t it?), the adventure game Ripple Island, and the slightly hard to categorize action game The Wing of Madoola. All three games are delivered in a wrapper with most of the basic features you would want. That includes save states, rewind, some display options, manual scans, and a little art gallery for each game. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that all three games have been fully localized, all the way down to their title screens. For Ripple Island, that was no small task! This is the first time we’ve seen these games get an official release in English, and that’s worth celebrating on its own.
So how are the games? A real mix, friends. 53 Stations is a frustrating game due to how your weapon is awkward to use against the swarms of enemies that appear, but there is a real charm to it thanks to how hard it leans into its theme. Ripple Island is a good adventure game, and I would lightly recommend it to anyone who enjoys that genre. The Wing of Madoola is the most ambitious game of the three, and it sometimes feels like it misses as often as it hits, but it’s worth putting some time into. None of these will make the list of top NES games by any means, but I wouldn’t call any of them bad either. Vexing, perhaps.
Sunsoft fans and those who like digging into the margins of console libraries will get a real kick out of Sunsoft is Back! Retro Game Selection‘s offerings. Each game has been handled with care, and it’s great to see some games that missed their shot at localization back in the day finally get a chance. Hopefully this is just the first of a series of such collections, but even if this is all we get, it’s nice to see another side of this once-mighty publisher’s library of classics.
SwitchArcade Score: 4/5
Select New Releases
Cyborg Force ($9.95)
If you like run, but also gun while running, you might want to give Cyborg Force a look. It’s a very tough action game in the vein of things like Metal Slug and Contra, and you can play alone or bring a buddy along for some local multiplayer fun. This has been out for at least a few months on a number of other platforms, including the NEOGEO, so you can probably find some feedback out there if you’re in need of it. I think fans of this genre will be into it, at the very least.
Billy’s Game Show ($7.99)
I know, this looks like a Five Nights rip-off at a glance. Thematically, it kind of is. But this is actually more one of those games where you’re moving around trying to find stuff while a weird creep stalks you. You have to hide or run away when he shows up, because you have no way to stop him. You’ll also need to watch out for traps and keep the three generators running, because you do not want the power to go out. Not my kind of thing, but it might be yours.
Mining Mechs ($4.99)
A very descriptive title that doesn’t leave me with much to add. Use mechs to do some mining. Collect ores and treasures, sell them, buy upgrades or better mechs that allow you to make even further progress underground. The deeper you go, the more dangerous it gets. As you reach certain profit levels, the story will progress. Not the fanciest of dining, but for a fiver I imagine you’ll get a fair amount of enjoyment from it.
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
A tiny inbox, with very little worth getting fussed about. I know, I know. I don’t get to decide that. The outbox has some treats worth mulling over, however. I’ll let you comb through those lists. It is important to learn to find things on one’s own sometimes, I think.
Select New Sales
Nora: The Wannabe Alchemist($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Deflector($1.99 from $22.99 until 9/10) Sky Caravan ($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) The Blind Prophet ($1.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) They Know ($1.99 from $6.99 until 9/10) Conjured Through Death ($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/15) Dark Days ($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/24) Another Bar Game ($3.89 from $5.99 until 9/24) Cook Serve Delicious($4.41 from $12.99 until 9/24) Blood Will Be Spilled($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/24) Feudal Alloy ($3.39 from $16.99 until 9/24)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, September 5th
Adventure Bar Story($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/5) Anomaly Agent($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/5) Avenging Spirit ($2.99 from $5.99 until 9/5) Bug & Seek($11.24 from $14.99 until 9/5) Burst Hero ($5.99 from $11.99 until 9/5) Cat Quest II($3.74 from $14.99 until 9/5) Corpse Party ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Deadcraft($5.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Dice Make 10! ($3.59 from $3.99 until 9/5) Eldgear($12.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Evil God Korone ($3.35 from $3.95 until 9/5) F1 Manager 2024 ($27.99 from $34.99 until 9/5) Fairy Elements ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/5)
Freedom Planet 2 ($18.74 from $24.99 until 9/5) Genso Chronicles($9.74 from $14.99 until 9/5) Gibbon: Beyond the Trees($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/5) Hide & Dance!($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/5) Magical Drop VI($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/5) Marchen Forest($6.99 from $34.99 until 9/5) Mom Hid My Game!($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/5) Mom Hid My Game! 2 ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/5) My Brother Ate My Pudding! ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/5) Port Royale 4 ($17.49 from $49.99 until 9/5) SCHiM($17.49 from $24.99 until 9/5) Silent Hope ($13.99 from $39.99 until 9/5) Super Toy Cars Offroad ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) The Sinking City ($5.99 from $49.99 until 9/5) Untitled Goose Game($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Wing of Darkness ($5.99 from $29.99 until 9/5) WitchSpring R ($35.99 from $39.99 until 9/5) Yggdra Union: WNFA ($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/5)
That’s all for today, friends. There are still more reviews coming this week, so do look forward to those. Plenty of new releases coming to the eShop in the next couple of days, which is about what you would expect from September. Let’s try to reconvene tomorrow, but if we get separated somehow and are trying to find me, you can always head on over to my personal blog Post Game Content. It’s rarely updated, but something tells me I’ll be back into the swing of it soon. I hope you all have an amazing Wednesday, and as always, thanks for reading!
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 3rd, 2024. In today’s article, I have a few more reviews for you. Some lengthy thoughts on Castlevania Dominus Collection, a look at Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn, and some quick critiques of a pair of Pinball FX tables that recently arrived as DLC. After that, we check out the new releases of the day including the quirky and cool Bakeru, then roll into the latest sales and expiring discounts for the day. Let’s get into it!
Reviews & Mini-Views
Castlevania Dominus Collection ($24.99)
Say what you will about Konami in the modern era, but it has been absolutely killing it with most of its classic collections. Castlevania in particular has been enjoying a great deal of love in this regard, with Castlevania Dominus Collection being its third on modern platforms. This time around, the focus is on the Nintendo DS trilogy of games in the franchise. The development chores have again been handled by M2, with the usual excellent results. But there’s more here than meets the eye, and with everything taken into account this may well be the most essential Castlevania collection yet.
I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Let’s talk about the main course first. The Nintendo DS era of Castlevania was a historical one in some ways for the franchise, and not all of them good. On the positive side, all three of the games had a unique identity and make for a surprisingly varied trio. Dawn of Sorrow is a direct sequel to Aria of Sorrow. It hit very early in the Nintendo DS’s life, and is thus cursed to some stupid touchscreen gimmicks that have thankfully been mitigated in this release. Portrait of Ruin shoves the touchscreen nonsense into a bonus mode, relying on an interesting dual-character gimmick to distinguish itself. Order of Ecclesia really mixes things up, with considerably higher difficulty than its predecessor and a design that calls back to Simon’s Quest of all games. All good games. Great even? Would recommend.
On the negative side, this was the last gasp of the run of exploratory Castlevania games created by Koji Igarashi, who gave the series a kick in the pants with Symphony of the Night when it needed it most. Returns were diminishing, and Konami thought it had a better play in MercurySteam’s Lords of Shadow. Well, hindsight is 20/20 I suppose. Were these games so distinct from each other because IGA wanted to stretch his creative legs, or was it a desperate attempt to find something that would stick with an increasingly disinterested audience? We’ll never know. I do remember at the time many people were feeling exhausted with this type of Castlevania, and I will shamefully admit that despite buying them on day one every time and playing the heck out of them, I was also feeling like the series was falling into a rut. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?
So, weird thing here is that these games don’t appear to be emulated, but are instead native ports. That allowed M2 to do neat things like replace the annoying touchscreen seals in Dawn with far more manageable button presses, and show you not only the main screen and the status screen at all times, but also the map as a third screen. What is this, a Nintendo TS? There are still some very DS-like aspects to these games, but they all had to work with a controller for docked mode, and so they all do. This actually makes Dawn of Sorrow a lot better, and I would now put it within my top five Castlevania games of all-time.
In terms of options and extras, there is plenty here. For general options, you get a choice of which region of each game you’d like to play, the ability to swap confirm/cancel button mapping, and the choice of whether you want the left stick to be mapped to character movement or the touch cursor. The latter is important for one of the bonus modes in Portrait of Ruin. There is also an incredibly adorable credits sequence where one of the unsung heroes of the series achieves his dreams. Make sure you watch them. There’s a nice gallery where you can view some art, manual scans, and box art for each of the three DS games. You can also listen to the music from all of the included games, and when the music is this good you know that’s a treat. You can even make your own custom playlist of tunes.
Once in-game, you can make use of save states and a rewind feature, remap the controls as you like, adjust how the three screens are laid out, choose from a handful of background colors, and adjust the levels on the different audio elements. There is also an exhaustive compendium for each game, with information on equipment, enemies, items, and other points of interest. Pretty much anything you would need to enjoy these games to the maximum. About all I could ask for is perhaps a few other screen arrangement options that allow me to make the play area bigger, but that’s a very minor nitpick. This is a great way to enjoy three very cool games, and for the price it’s an absurd value.
But wait! There’s more! The absolutely dreadful arcade Castlevania game, Haunted Castle, has been included here. I’m not sure why it was left off the first collection and shunted to the otherwise shooter-heavy Konami arcade collection, but here it is. Here too you get a variety of options, including the virtually necessary option for unlimited continues. Seriously, this game is brutally unfair. Good music, a terrific opening that sees Simon in a snazzy tux, but the game itself is horrible and completely irredeemable. Or… is it?
The last extra, and it feels ridiculous to call something so substantial an extra but it’s M2’s wording not mine, is a complete remake of Haunted Castle. Much like when it took on the task of remaking Castlevania: The Adventure with Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth on the Nintendo Wii (please reissue all of the Rebirth games), M2 basically took a look at the original game and decided to make a good one instead. Haunted Castle Revisited takes a lot of cues from the arcade original, but it really does its own thing virtually from top to bottom. Yes, we have a new Castlevania game! A very good one! It’s tucked away in the Extras tab of a Nintendo DS collection, but it’s here!
If you like Castlevania, you really should buy Castlevania Dominus Collection. There’s an entire new Castlevania game here and it kind of rules. You also get what you’re ostensibly buying the collection for with the three Nintendo DS IGAvanias, presented in as fine a form as you could hope for. The original Haunted Castle is also here. If, on the other hand, you don’t like Castlevania, we are not friends. And finally, if you don’t know Castlevania, you should pick up all three of the collections and get to the good times. Another absolutely stellar showing from Konami and M2.
SwitchArcade Score: 5/5
Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn ($19.99)
I’ve been through a bit of a roller coaster with Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn. I’ve enjoyed all of Tengo Project’s releases so far, and I believe its versions of Wild Guns and The Ninja Warriors are definitive in every way. I had a few issues with Pocky & Rocky, but overall that was also a very enjoyable romp. Shadow of the Ninja seemed like a different kettle of fish in a lot of ways, however. The Tengo Project team members didn’t have much to do with the original game, and this was an 8-bit game being updated rather than a 16-bit one. I also personally don’t think the original game is as good as Wild Guns, The Ninja Warriors, and Pocky & Rocky were. As a result, when this remake was announced I was a little hesitant.
Then I had a chance to play the first little part of the game at the Tokyo Game Show last year, and I enjoyed that well enough to get excited again. Now that I’ve played through the game a few times, I’ve settled somewhere in the middle. I think relative to the other games from this developer, Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn is a bit less well-rounded. The improvements from the original game are many, from the excellent presentation to a more refined weapon and item system. You don’t get any fun new characters in this one, but the two existing playable characters have been differentiated. It is, as one would expect, better than the original game while maintaining the important aspects of its spirit. If you loved Shadow of the Ninja, you’ll really love this.
If on the other hand you’re like me and only found the original to be a decent action-platformer, you probably won’t land much further from that mark with Reborn. Having access to both the chain and the sword at all times is a great improvement, and the sword on the whole is more useful than it was in the original game. The new inventory system is cool, adding a little spice to a game that needed something like that. The presentation is excellent, and you would never know it was based on an 8-bit game. There are a couple of rude difficulty spikes, and I think this is actually a more challenging game on the whole than the original. Perhaps that’s necessary, as it’s not a very lengthy affair overall. It’s the best Shadow of the Ninja you could play, but it is still Shadow of the Ninja.
Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn is another solid effort from Tengo Project, and in some ways is the most substantial improvement over its predecessor of any of their releases yet. Whether or not you should pick it up is really going to depend on how you feel about that original game, because the core is still very much in line with that NES title. Those without any prior experience will find an enjoyable but not essential action game here, one that very much subscribes to an 8-bit design sensibility.
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
Pinball FX – The Princess Bride Pinball ($5.49)
Just a couple of quick Pinball FX DLC reviews, partly to celebrate the massive update Pinball FX has received that finally makes it properly playable on Switch. To go with that, two new tables were released as DLC: The Princess Bride Pinball, and Goat Simulator Pinball. The former is based on the cult classic movie, and it includes not only real voice clips but also video clips from the film. Now that’s the kind of thing I want to see in these licensed tables, Zen. Mechanically speaking, this table feels like something you could actually see a real physical version of. Relatively straightforward to learn, relatively authentic to the license, and satisfying to score attack on.
Zen Studios doesn’t always hit with its licensed tables, often missing things like music, real voices, and likenesses. The Princess Bride Pinball is one of the better ones in that regard, and I think any fan of the movie who isn’t allergic to pinball would do well to check it out. It’s not the most innovative of tables, relying on a lot of well-worn design choices, but I think that too fits. A good time for newcomers or veterans alike.
SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5
Pinball FX – Goat Simulator Pinball ($5.49)
Then we have Goat Simulator Pinball, and this one understands its license equally well. That means this is a very odd table in a lot of ways, and it certainly could only exist in video game form. You’ll get involved in a lot of silly goat-related incidents, adding effects to your ball to trigger various elements of the table. It’s a little bewildering at first, but stick with it and you’ll be rewarded. More of a table for the veteran players, I think. Goat Simulator fans with no pinball experience will probably have some difficulty getting a handle on it enough to see some of the funnier antics.
Goat Simulator Pinball is another solid piece of DLC from the folks at Zen Studios, who have made so many tables by now that they likely relish a chance to do something off-the-wall like this. It’s a tricky table to learn, but once you do you’ll get to see some truly wacky stuff. Fans of the Goat Simulator games who can stick with the game long enough to learn the ropes will be rewarded, but it’s going to take a bit more work to get there than with some other tables.
SwitchArcade Score: 4/5
Select New Releases
Bakeru ($39.99)
If you read my review yesterday, you’ll know I really enjoyed this breezy, charming 3D platformer from the fine folks at Good-Feel. Play as a tanuki named Bakeru who is on a mission to save Japan from an evil overlord who has trapped people in an eternal festival. Battle enemies, get interesting Japan trivia from hidden poo, collect souvenirs, and maybe even laugh here and there. The framerate in this Switch version is inconsistent, so tech heads may want to play it elsewhere. If you don’t mind that aspect, this is a nice game to play on your Switch.
Holyhunt ($4.99)
This is a top-down arena-based twin-stick shooter. It describes itself as a love letter to 8-bit games, but I don’t really remember seeing many games like this back then. At any rate, it looks amusing enough for what it is. Shoot, shoot, dash, dash, get new gun, repeat. Watch out for bosses. That kind of thing.
Shashingo: Learn Japanese with Photography ($20.00)
I don’t normally include these language-learning things since we’re more game-focused here, but this one at least seems to have some additional effort put into it. You go around, take pictures of things, and learn the Japanese names for them. Would I spend twenty on it? Probably not. But everyone learns in different ways, and this might be how you learn.
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
Some decent games in the inbox today, including OrangePixel’s selection of great pick-up-and-play titles. Alien Hominid is enjoying an extremely rare discount, and you can also scoop up Ufouria 2 at a nice price. Over in the outbox, titles from THQ and Team 17 are finishing up their latest discounts. Check out their publisher pages as I’ve only included a handful for each. Have a gander through both lists, as ever.
Select New Sales
Space Grunts ($8.39 from $13.99 until 9/7) Meganoid($5.39 from $8.99 until 9/7) Stardash ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/7) Gunslugs($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/7) Gunslugs 2($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/7) Heroes of Loot ($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/7) Heroes of Loot 2($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/7) Warhammer 40k Dakka Squadron ($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/9) Castle Crashers Remastered ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/10) Alien Hominid HD ($9.59 from $11.99 until 9/10) Alien Hominid Invasion ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Conscript($17.59 from $21.99 until 9/15) Overdelivery($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/15) Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption ($2.99 from $19.99 until 9/16) Agent Intercept($7.99 form $19.99 until 9/16)
Secret Files Tunguska($2.09 from $14.99 until 9/16) Secret Files Puritas Cordis ($2.09 from $14.99 until 9/16) Secret Files Sam Peters($2.02 from $6.99 until 9/16) Lost Horizon ($2.09 from $14.99 until 9/16) Lost Horizon 2($2.09 from $14.99 until 9/16) Zombo Buster Advance ($1.99 from $3.99 until 9/16) Skautfold Usurper ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/17) Nuclear Blaze($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/17) Helvetii($5.09 from $16.99 until 9/17) Heidelberg 1693($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/17) Sophstar($6.49 from $12.99 until 9/17) Harmony’s Odyssey ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/17) Ufouria 2: The Saga ($17.49 from $24.99 until 9/17) Promenade($12.49 from $24.99 until 9/17) Shinorubi($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/17) Last Night of Winter ($6.99 from $9.99 until 9/17) Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/18) Nobody Saves The World ($9.99 from $24.99 until 9/23) Summer in Mara ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/23) Guacamelee 2 ($4.99 from $19.99 until 9/23) Railbound($2.59 from $12.99 until 9/23)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, September 4th
Capes($29.99 from $39.99 until 9/4) Fates of Ort($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/4) Floogen($1.99 from $3.99 until 9/4) Fluffy Horde ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/4) Gum+ ($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/4) Hopping Girl Kohane EX ($16.74 from $24.99 until 9/4) Kingdom Come Deliverance($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/4) Kona II: Brume($11.99 from $29.99 until 9/4) Metro 2033 Redux ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/4) Metro Last Light Redux ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/4) Outward Definitive ($23.99 from $39.99 until 9/4) Overcooked Special Edition ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/4) Rolling Car ($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/4) Stunt Paradise ($5.19 from $7.99 until 9/4) Tiny Pixels Vol 1 Ninpo Blast ($3.99 from $4.99 until 9/4) Worms WMD ($5.99 from $29.99 until 9/4) Yoku’s Island Express ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/4)
That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new releases, more sales, and perhaps some news. Maybe a review? No promises. I think we’re officially in the season of TOO MANY GOOD GAMES, so hold on to your wallets and enjoy the fun. It’s probably the Switch’s last holiday ride, so let’s make it worth the while. I hope you all have a terrific Tuesday, and as always, thanks for reading!
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 2nd, 2024. I think it’s a holiday today in the United States, but here in Japan it’s Monday as usual. That means I’ve got some goodies for you, and in our typical week-starting fashion that means a bunch of reviews. Three written by yours truly, and one from our pal Mikhail. I take a look at Bakeru, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, and Mika and the Witch’s Mountain. Mikhail dives once more into Peglin, a game he can speak to better than anyone else at TouchArcade Towers. Beyond that, we’ve got a bit of news from Mikhail, and a massive list of deals from Nintendo’s Blockbuster Sale. Let’s get to it!
News
Guilty Gear Strive Nintendo Switch Edition Coming January 2025
Arc System Works has done it. They’re bringing Guilty Gear Strive to Nintendo Switch on January 23rd with 28 characters included and rollback netcode for online battles. It won’t be crossplay sadly, but should be good for playing offline and with other Switch owners. I adore the game on Steam Deck and PS5, and will definitely try this one out. Check out the official website here.
Reviews & Mini-Views
Bakeru ($39.99)
Bakeru is not Goemon/Mystical Ninja. It is made by some of the people who worked on that series. There are some superficial similarities. But it is notGoemon, and coming into it expecting Goemon is both a disservice to Bakeru and yourself. Bakeru is Bakeru. Goemon is still on the milk carton, to the upper-left of the Sunset Riders. Expectations set, let’s talk about this game instead. Bakeru comes to us by way of Good-Feel, a studio that has frequently worked with Nintendo on games in the Wario, Yoshi, and Kirby franchises. Most recently, it developed Princess Peach: Showtime!. Its specialty appears to be in cute, low-friction, well-polished platformers. Guess what Bakeru is?
Bad things are going down in Japan, and a little goober named Issun stumbles on some assistance in the unlikely form of a tanuki named Bakeru. With his mighty abilities to change forms and wield a taiko drum and drumsticks, Bakeru might just be the guy for the job. You’ll tour Japan prefecture by prefecture, whacking baddies, grabbing cash, talking to poop, and looking for secrets. You’ve got more than sixty levels to play here, and while I wouldn’t say they’re all super-memorable, it’s an easy-going experience that remains rather engaging throughout. I genuinely enjoyed the collectibles in this game more than those in most platformers I’ve played, just because they usually reflect the location you’re in. Lots of little nuggets about Japan, and some things that even a long-time resident like me didn’t know.
Boss fights! Okay, this is one part where I’ll allow comparisons to Goemon. Or any other Good-Feel game, I suppose. This is a development team that understands the value of a good boss battle, and gosh are they fun here. Creative spectacles that nicely reward the player for winning. Indeed, Bakeru takes a lot of creative swings for what is essentially a straight-up 3D platformer, and I will admit some work out better than others. Well, that’s how this kind of thing goes. I genuinely appreciated the ones that worked out well, and I can forgive the ones that didn’t. I kind of fell in love with this game despite seeing all of its flaws as I went along. It’s that sort of game. Intensely likeable.
The only real fly in the ointment here is the performance on Switch, something I believe Mikhail talked about in his look at the Steam version of the game. The framerate is quite variable here, at times climbing up to 60 fps but frequently dipping considerably when things get busy. With the full admission that I am not a person that tends to be bothered by inconsistent framerates, I will say that it wasn’t enough of an issue to dampen my enjoyment of the game. But if you are more sensitive to that than I am, I want to make it very clear that there are still problems here despite the improvements since the Japanese launch last year.
Bakeru is a highly endearing little 3D platformer, one with a well-polished design and lots of fun ideas to spice things up during its relatively lengthy adventure. It really commits to its bit, and that part of it is almost infectious. Some framerate issues keep this from being all it could be on Switch, and I think people who come into this expecting Goemon are going to be disappointed by the fact that it’s not even trying to be that, but otherwise this is a highly-recommended title to close out your summer with.
SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter ($19.99)
There was a lot of merch put out around the releases of the films in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Video games were a big part of that, and it’s kind of impressive how many Star Wars games we saw put out in that era after going entire generations of consoles with only a handful. And while the movies weren’t exactly critical darlings, it’s inarguable that they opened up a lot of new story-telling avenues. Remember Boba Fett? The guy with the cool armor who got knocked into a living pit by a guy who couldn’t even see? Well, here’s his dad! He also has cool armor, and is also defeated in a very undignified way. But maybe you’re wondering about how his life was before we met him in Attack of the Clones? Star Wars: Bounty Hunter fills in that story, whether you asked for it or not.
This is the tale of Jango Fett, a bounty hunter so cool and awesome that an entire army ended up being cloned from him. The finest in the galaxy! Don’t ask what happened ten seconds after he had to face off against a Jedi Master. Cool armor! Besides being the number one manhunter in the business, what else made him fit to be the model for the clone army? That’s what this game is about, actually. Jango’s try-out for the job, if you will. He is sent to hunt a Dark Jedi by the totally innocent Count Dooku, and if he picks up a few extra bounties on the way, more’s the better.
That’s pretty much how this one goes. You take on each level with a particular target in mind, but there are optional targets you can find, mark, and bring in dead or alive. You get access to a wide array of weapons and other toys, including the iconic jetpack. It’s pretty interesting at first, but the gameplay doesn’t really change things up enough as it goes on so it’s quite repetitive over the long haul. It has a lot of problems you would expect from a 2002 video game, an era where some of this stuff was still being figured out. Targeting is an absolute mess. Cover doesn’t work as well as you might hope. Level designs are often trying to be open but somehow end up feeling cramped and badly sign-posted. Even in its time, this was an average game at best, tied to the worst Star Wars movie. Well, at least that’s not the worst Star Wars movie anymore.
In some ways age has not been kind to Bounty Hunter, but Aspyr has done what it could to improve it without changing too much. The game looks and runs better than it ever did, and the new default control scheme is a lot better. Nothing was changed in how it saves your progress mind you, so be prepared for the very real possibility of having to start the lengthy stages over if you mess up too much. Oh, but you can unlock a Boba Fett skin, so that’s neat. If you were ever going to play this game, this new version is the way to do it.
There’s a certain nostalgic charm to Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. There is a particular flavor to games from the PlayStation 2/GameCube/Xbox generation of consoles, and this game is absolutely steeped in it despite the nips and tucks made by Aspyr in the porting process. And it’s really in that capacity that I can most confidently recommend it, when I think about it. Are you in the mood to time travel back to 2002 and play a thoroughly rough-edged yet genuinely earnest action game? Here you go. If on the other hand you lack that proclivity, this might be a bit too much Jank-o Fett for you.
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain ($19.99)
After some horrible video games based on Nausicaa, Hayao Miyazaki put his foot down in a very Miyazaki way and essentially forbade any further games based on his work. Did that extend to all of Ghibli? I’m not sure, the story isn’t clear on that. It seems likely, since we have not seen even one video game based on a Ghibli movie since then. I respect that, but it does mean I will never have my epic Porco Rosso open world flying game. It happens. Game studios Chibig and Nukefist clearly had another Ghibli movie in mind when they made Mika and the Witch’s Mountain, and I’ll trust your reasoning skills enough to sort out witch on your own.
You’re a rookie witch, ready to get going on witchy things. The teacher you were sent to see decides to chuck you off the mountain top, breaking your flying broom. Get back up and she might help you out, but your broom isn’t going to bring you there in its current condition. The good news is that there is a town nearby with someone who can fix brooms and even make new ones. The bad news is nothing is free in this world, so you’ll have to take up a job delivering packages to earn some scratch. Zipping around on your broom makes that kind of a job a bit easier and a lot more fun, and the town in question has a lot of things that need delivering.
That’s pretty much how it goes. There are some side jobs you can do, but most of the time you’ll be going back and forth in the world trying to get things where they need to go, when they need to go, and hopefully with a minimum of damage done in the process. It works well enough, and the vibrant world and interesting cast of characters contribute greatly to the experience. The Switch is clearly struggling with all of this at times, and the resolution and framerate both take regular hits depending on what part of the world you’re in and what’s going. I would imagine this would play better on more powerful hardware, so if you have that option you might want to take it. Otherwise, people who can forgive some technical flaws (and we’re Switch owners, I imagine most of us are getting good at that) will probably be able to roll with the punches here.
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain wears its inspiration on its sleeve, and it is so dedicated to its core gameplay mechanic that it can wear a little thin before the game is up. It also suffers from some performance issues on the Switch. With all that said, I can’t say I didn’t have some fun zipping around on my broom, delivering packages to a bunch of quirky characters. This is one of those games where if you think the concept sounds good, you’ll probably like what you get well enough.
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
Peglin ($19.99)
About a year ago, I reviewed the early access version of Peglin on iOS. We also featured it as our Game of the Week when it hit mobile. Peglin, a pachinko roguelike, has always had a lot of promise, and things have only gotten before for it through major updates over time. Last week during Nintendo’s Indie World and Partner Direct combo, Peglin was announced and released for Switch. I thought the team had just brought the current game to Switch, but I didn’t realize it was actually 1.0 until a few hours later when I got the game.
Peglin hit 1.0 last week on Steam and mobile as well alongside the Switch debut, and it definitely is a more complete experience now, but Peglin is a great game for a very specific kind of person. Your aim is to, well aim, your orb to target specific pegs on the board. This lets you damage enemies (above the board) and you make your way towards the end of each zone map like you would in Slay the Spire. There are events, bosses, shops, tons of battles, and more in Peglin, and it is very difficult early on.
As you make your way through the zone, you can upgrade or unlock new orbs, heal, and collect relics. You don’t just need to get your orb to a specific portion of the board at the bottom though. Peglin’s strategy is aiming so you correctly use critical or bomb pegs depending on the situation with enemies. You can also refresh the board by hitting a specific peg. There’s a lot to take in at the start, but it all clicks soon and you will be humming the songs even when you aren’t playing Peglin.
Having played Peglin on Steam and mobile, I was curious to see how the Switch port would feel. It is mostly great when it comes to performance. The aiming isn’t as smooth as on other platforms, but I got around this by using touch controls. Aside from that, the load times are longer than mobile and Switch. These aren’t huge issues given how some recent Switch ports ship in a miserable state, but it is worth keeping in mind if you own multiple platforms and are curious where to buy Peglin. I’d say Peglin is best on Steam Deck, but the second place is close between mobile and Switch.
While the Switch has no achievements, there’s a system in place inside Peglin to track those. I like it when developers do their own achievements since the Switch lacks them on a systemwide level. You can ignore these as usual, but I liked the addition here.
One feature I wished to see in 1.0 was cross save across platforms. This likely isn’t feasible for a small developer, but some way to carry over or unlock things on Switch from mobile/PC would’ve been nice.
Other than that, my only issues with Peglin on Switch have to do with the load times and aiming not being smooth. Hopefully these can be improved over updates because more free updates are coming as confirmed by the developers at Red Nexus Games.
I already thought Peglin was fantastic even in its early access state. While some balance issues hold it back a bit, it is an essential on Switch if “pachinko x roguelike” sounds good to you. I also love that the developers made full use of the Switch hardware features by adding good rumble, full touchscreen support, and button controls making it so that you can play however you want. Now we just need a physical release. -Mikhail Madnani
SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
Okay, wow. A lot of stuff on sale, and while I’ve got a lot of it here this is only scratching the surface. I’ve put together another article with what I think are the best picks from the sale, so keep your eyes open for that as well. Anyway, good luck with all of that. I’ll meet you at the bottom.
Select New Sales
Avenging Spirit($2.99 from $5.99 until 9/5) NOISZ re:||COLLECTION G ($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/7) Fur Squadron($2.79 from $6.99 until 9/8) Agnostiko Origins($13.74 from $24.99 until 9/9) Sonic Mania ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle ($13.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Puyo Puyo Tetris ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap ($5.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Super Bomberman R($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) The Red Strings Club($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Goat Simulator The GOATY($5.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Downwell($2.00 from $2.99 until 9/10) Sayonara Wild Hearts ($7.79 from $12.99 until 9/10) Ghostbusters: The Video Game ($7.49 from $29.99 until 9/10) Hotline Miami Collection ($6.24 from $24.99 until 9/10) Torchlight II ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Huntdown($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions ($7.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Streets of Rage 4($11.24 from $24.99 until 9/10) Disc Room ($3.74 from $14.99 until 9/10) Kathy Rain: Director’s Cut ($4.94 from $14.99 until 9/10) Mayhem Brawler($6.79 from $19.99 until 9/10) TMNT Shredder’s Revenge ($16.24 from $24.99 until 9/10) Gal*Gun Returns ($16.49 from $49.99 until 9/10) Gal*Gun Double Peace($13.19 from $39.99 until 9/10)
Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Infernax($13.39 from $19.99 until 9/10) Rise of the Third Power ($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Astroneer($11.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Lair Land Story ($5.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Return to Monkey Island ($12.49 from $24.99 until 9/10) Shiro($2.19 from $4.99 until 9/10) Horgihugh And Friends($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Card Shark ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Pac-man Museum+ ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Sonic Origins($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Sonic Frontiers ($20.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Sonic Superstars ($29.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Escape Academy: Complete Edition($17.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Gunbrella($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/10) Unicorn Overlord ($41.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Terra Nil($14.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) Reverie Knights Tactics ($6.24 from $24.99 until 9/10) Windjammers 2 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Two Point Hospital: Jumbo Edition ($7.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Blizzard Arcade Collection ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Monster Hunter Rise + Sunbreak Deluxe($24.49 from $69.99 until 9/10) Gloomhaven: Mercenaries Edition ($7.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Fae Farm ($41.99 from $59.99 until 9/10)
Mr. Sun’s Hatbox ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Best Day Ever($5.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Willy Morgan & the Curse of Bone Town ($7.49 from $24.99 until 9/10) FEZ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/10) Tales of Kenzara: ZAU ($13.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Make Way ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) ARK: Ultimate Survivor Edition ($24.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Cult of the Lamb Cultist Edition ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Life is Strange 2 ($12.79 from $31.99 until 9/10) Strayed Lights ($5.19 from $12.99 until 9/10) Rakuen: Deluxe Edition ($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) Valrithian Arc: Hero School Story 2 ($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Stones Keeper ($8.79 from $19.99 until 9/10) Bat Boy($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Jack Jeanne ($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Bandle Tale: League of Legends Story ($12.49 from $24.99 until 9/10) Song of Nunu: League of Legends Story($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Convergence: League of Legends Story ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) The Mageseeker: League of Legends Story ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Vanaris Tactics ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) The Last Spell($14.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) Charon’s Staircase ($2.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) The Vale: Shadow of the Crown($14.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Dungeon Drafters ($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/10)
Pentiment($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Demon Slayer KnY – Sweep the Board ($41.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Tetris Effect: Connected($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Boomerang X ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Tenderfoot Tactics($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) CEIBA($4.39 from $9.99 until 9/10) LEGO Marvel Super Heroes ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Tears of Avia($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Vengeful Guardian Moonrider ($11.04 from $16.99 until 9/10) Dorfromantik ($11.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi ($29.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Persona 3 Portable($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Persona 4 Golden ($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Persona 5 Royal ($29.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Persona 5 Strikers($17.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Persona 5 Tactica Digital Deluxe ($39.99 from $79.99 until 9/10) Astebros($7.79 from $12.99 until 9/10) Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble ($37.49 from $49.99 until 9/10) GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon ($14.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) Ys Origin ($5.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Archetype Arcadia($20.09 from $29.99 until 9/10) Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster ($24.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood ($10.79 from $17.99 until 9/10) Solar Ash ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Adore($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10)
Prison City ($7.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) Two Point Campus ($7.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) OMNIMUS($4.39 from $9.99 until 9/10) Ring Racer ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/10) RWBY: Arrowfell ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) The Dragoness: Command of the Flame ($11.69 from $17.99 until 9/10) Die After Sunset ($13.39 from $19.99 until 9/10) Outer Wilds($14.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) COCOON($14.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) The Talos Principle ($4.49 from $29.99 until 9/10) Alien: Isolation ($14.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Dicefolk($11.24 from $14.99 until 9/10) Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown ($23.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Heads Will Roll: Reforged($14.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Eternal Threads ($14.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Paper Trail($13.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Spellbearers($10.04 from $14.99 until 9/10) Wrath: Aeon of Ruin ($20.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Spy x Anya: Operation Memories DE ($45.49 from $69.99 until 9/10) Luxor Evolved($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) MotoGP 24 ($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Reigns: Beyond ($3.24 from $4.99 until 9/10) The Mildew Children ($6.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) Class of Heroes 1 & 2: CE ($27.99 from $34.99 until 9/10) Tengoku Struggle: Strayside ($34.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Plague Inc: Evolved ($5.09 from $14.99 until 9/10)
Catherine: Full Body($9.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark ($7.49 from $29.99 until 9/10) Spyro Reignited Trilogy ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Wobbledogs($8.19 from $19.99 until 9/10) Adventure Academia: TFC ($17.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) McPixel 3($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) Crypt of the NecroDancer($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Her Majesty’s Spiffing ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) South Park: The Stick of Truth ($7.49 from $29.99 until 9/10) Into the Breach ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/10) Raging Loop ($10.49 from $29.99 until 9/10) Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Rogue Legacy ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Rogue Legacy 2 ($13.74 from $24.99 until 9/10) Valkyria Chronicles ($4.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Valkyria Chronicles 4($5.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Minit($2.49 from $9.99 until 9/10) Contra Anniversary Collection ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Castlevania Anniversary Collection ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Castlevania Advance Collection ($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Reigns Game of Thrones($1.99 from $3.99 until 9/10) Spirit Hunter: Death Mark ($19.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Spirit Hunter: NG ($24.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II($34.99 from $49.99 until 9/10)
SEGA AGES Sonic the Hedgehog ($2.39 from $7.99 until 9/10) Darkest Dungeon ($7.49 from $24.99 until 9/10) GRIS($3.39 from $16.99 until 9/10) The Lara Croft Collection($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) Gorogoa($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/10) Enter the Gungeon ($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/10) Exit the Gungeon ($2.49 from $9.99 until 9/10) Ion Fury ($6.24 from $24.99 until 9/10) Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid ($4.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Power Rangers: BftG Super Edition ($12.49 from $49.99 until 9/10) Minecraft Legends Deluxe Edition ($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Minecraft Dungeons Ultimate Edition ($24.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Parasite Pack($3.19 from $7.99 until 9/12) Rider’s Spirits ($4.19 from $5.99 until 9/12) Shockman Collection Vol. 1 ($7.69 from $10.99 until 9/12) Cities Skylines ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/12) Empire of Sin ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/12) Demon’s Tilt($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/12) Shadowrun Trilogy ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/12) Date Z($13.49 from $14.99 until 9/14) Gerda: A Flame in Winter ($6.99 from $19.99 until 9/14) Cardfight! Vanguard Dear Days($48.99 from $69.99 until 9/20) West of Loathing($4.18 from $11.00 until 9/20) Shadows Over Loathing ($15.87 from $23.00 until 9/20) Adventure Field Remake ($2.99 from $4.99 until 9/20) MADiSON($20.99 from $34.99 until 9/20) Frowntown($7.79 from $12.99 until 9/20) Infantry Attack: Complete ($2.99 from $10.99 until 9/20) 100 Demon Fantasia ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/20) Shadow Gangs ($14.39 from $23.99 until 9/22) Suicide Guy: The Lost Dreams($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/22)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, September 3rd
Balatro($13.49 from $14.99 until 9/3) Blade of Darkness ($2.75 from $14.99 until 9/3) Door Kickers ($1.99 from $11.99 until 9/3) Kamitsubaki City Ensemble ($3.59 from $3.99 until 9/3) Neodori Forever($1.99 from $4.99 until 9/3)
That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with more reviews, some new releases, more sales, and perhaps some news. The typhoon has fizzled out, giving way to hot temperatures and sunny skies. I suppose I’ll take it for a day or two. I hope you all have a magnificent Monday, and as always, thanks for reading!
It’s that time again: eShop sale time! Nintendo’s calling this one the Blockbuster Sale, so I’m sure we can expect a lot of VHS tapes and stale candy. Hm? Oh, it means big games. Alright, that does make some sense. At any rate, there are a ton of games on sale right now, too many to really deal with on your own. As ever, TouchArcade is here to help you out with a list of fifteen hot discounts you should consider. No first party games, but there are still a ton of great games to pick from. No particular order as usual, so let’s get into the deals!
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim ($14.99 from $59.99)
A unique blend of side-scrolling adventure and top-down real-time strategy gameplay, 13 Sentinels tells the story of thirteen individuals from various points in time who must battle against invading kaiju in an alternate 1985. They do that through use of their Sentinels, large mechs designed for taking down giant monsters. It has a very good story and the presentation is at the level we’ve come to expect from Vanillaware. The RTS bits are… somewhat less good, but they’re not bad. A sleeper hit that is well worth checking out at this deeply discounted price.
Persona Collection ($44.99 from $89.99 until 9/10)
If you need to fill a few months’ worth of free time, this will be the best forty-five bucks you could spend. You get Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal, all excellent RPGs and great Switch ports. That works out to fifteen bucks per game, and each of them will easily keep you busy for hours on end while also teaching you the important value of friendship as a means of defeating any evil. It totally works in real life, too!
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R ($12.49 from $49.99)
I’ll start with a proviso: if you mean to seriously get into JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R, you’re probably better off heading over to one of the other platforms where it runs at 60 fps. This Switch port is solid enough to play, however, and JoJo fans will likely have a good time with it. This is a quirky fighter in a lot of ways, and it’s well-suited to the license. Something a little different if you’re tired of the usual Capcom fighters and Mortal Kombat games.
Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1 ($41.99 from $59.99)
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 could have been better than it is, particularly with regards to performance and game options. It has received a number of updates to improve it, however, and for what it is, it’s an easy title to recommend. You get a bunch of absolutely top-tier games to play and some really cool extra materials to dig through. Sure, there isn’t much new here for people who have played these games before. But for those craving Metal Gear on the go, or those who somehow haven’t dug into these titles in the past, Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 is a fantastic value with this tidy discount.
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown Deluxe Edition ($41.99 from $59.99)
Ace Combat 7: Unknown Skies is an excellent port of a high-quality action game, and it fills a gaping hole in the Switch’s library almost perfectly. It’s more approachable than you might expect, and it’s very easy to get sucked into both its story and gameplay. It’s unfortunate that the multiplayer seems to have a handful of oversights and balance issues, but you’ll get your time and money’s worth out of the campaign and its many unlockables all on its own. Definitely one to add to the collection for those feeling the need for speed.
Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection ($39.99 from $79.99)
Hm, I guess this is an Atlus list now. The excellent Etrian Odyssey series came to Switch with these HD remakes of the first three games. These are awesome, challenging games that just kept upping the ante with each new installment, and trying to buy the Nintendo DS cartridges now can get very expensive indeed. The signature mapping feature doesn’t work as smoothly here as it did on the DS, especially if you’re playing docked, but it’s as good as it can be. Plus, you can use auto-mapping if you don’t want to deal with it. At half the usual price, you get a lot of game for your buck here.
Darkest Dungeon II ($31.99 from $39.99 until 9/10)
Embrace the fact that Darkest Dungeon II isn’t interested in building on the original game’s structure but rather in doing its own thing, and you’ll be able to enjoy the charms of this moody, chunky roguelite. Its merits are many, from its distinctive style to its combination of traditional story-telling bits and the magic of emergent, personalized stories. Roguelite fans will want to check it out, even if Darkest Dungeon fans might feel like pushing away from the table and going back to the original.
Braid: Anniversary Edition ($9.99 from $19.99)
One of the poster children of the indie boom that kicked off in the late 00s, Braid came back with a big splash in this fancy Anniversary Edition. You get a nicely remastered version of the original game, with one of the best developer commentary features seen in a game so far. Braid might not have the punch it once did, but only because so many games that followed were so heavily inspired by it. Even if you’ve played it before, the discounted price should be enticing enough for a replay.
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes – Definitive Edition ($11.69 from $17.99)
Might & Magic – Clash of Heroes: Definitive Edition doesn’t add very much to the original, but it was already a strong game that stands for itself quite well in modern times. Dotemu did a capable job of bringing it to the Switch, and it fits the platform almost as well as it fit the Nintendo DS. If you’re looking for a cool puzzle game that offers both a substantial single-player mode and enjoyable multiplayer gameplay, you’ll likely be quite satisfied with what this game has to offer.
Life is Strange: Arcadia Bay Collection ($15.99 from $39.99)
While the Switch versions of the games in Life is Strange Arcadia Bay Collection suffer from a number of visual and technical flaws compared to other platforms, the games themselves still shine as brightly as ever. It’s hard to say what the future holds for this franchise, but if you’re new to it all and just want a quick and slightly dirty way to explore its origins, picking this up at its sale price is a fine enough way to do that.
Loop Hero ($4.94 from $14.99)
Loop Hero is as hard to put down as the finest of idle games, but with enough meat on its bones to make it feel like your input actually matters. It’s the kind of game that has something to offer no matter how much or how little time you have to throw at it, and one that will likely keep you coming back now and then to play again. While it isn’t the most challenging of affairs, it’s certainly engaging and full of enough surprises to keep your interest over the long haul.
Death’s Door ($4.99 from $19.99)
Death’s Door is one of those nice combinations of a superb presentation and strong gameplay. The game could coast well enough on either of those points, but it hits them both and is excellent as a result. There’s nothing overly deep about the gameplay mechanics, and its brand of action is going to be familiar to most. The most impressive bits are the bosses, which require strong pattern recognition and good reflexes. The gorgeous sights and sounds along the way add tremendously to its atmosphere, doing their part to keep the player pulled into this unusual, compelling world. Action-RPG fans will certainly want to give this a go.
The Messenger ($3.99 from $19.99)
This is the lowest price yet for the Switch version of this popular indie action game, and it’s so low that I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to give it a punt. What seems like a straightforward ninja action game gets bigger and more ambitious as you go, and it juggles things relatively well as it does so. It’s not a perfect game, and I feel like its star has faded a bit over time, but it’s one of those indie games that everyone with any love for 8-bit and 16-bit classics should at least try out once.
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 Turbocharged ($14.99 from $49.99)
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 – Turbocharged is just as fun of an arcade racer as the first game, and the various tweaks and improvements to the formula makes it a far smoother experience. Some players might run into some issues with the challenging post-game content, but that’s why it’s in the post-game. If you enjoyed the first game, you’ll probably like this one even more. Series newcomers should feel comfortable jumping immediately to this sequel, too. For fifteen bucks, it’s hard to go wrong if you like racing.
Pepper Grinder ($9.74 from $14.99)
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, especially with a little shaved off the sticker price.
And those are our picks from the Blockbuster Sale on the Nintendo Switch eShop. There are plenty more great games on sale right now besides these, so make sure to check your wishlists and dig into the pages for your favorite publishers just to be sure you aren’t missing anything. If you have any sales you’d like to share, please hit those comments below. Thanks for reading!
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 30th, 2024. In today’s article, we have a handful of new releases to look at as we bid farewell to August. A few decent ones, and a few unique ones. Outside of that, there isn’t much more than the lists of new sales and expiring discounts. This has been a busy week for me in many ways, but we should be back to the normal routine next week. Let’s get to what we’ve got!
Select New Releases
Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash ($44.99)
I say thee neigh, Umamusume! Everyone’s favorite horse-girls arrive on Switch with this party game for up to four players via local or online multiplayer. There are four different minigames to play, and you get a full story mode with twenty-five playable characters to enjoy. It’s unbridled excitement for fans of the series, so if that’s you it’s time to start horsing around with your friends. I give you free rein to be as sore of a winner as you like, but get ready to hoof it if they get mad about it.
Super Dark Deception ($17.99)
Take Dark Deception, and then imagine how that would look as a sprite-based 2D game. Would it look like Super Dark Deception? Maybe not, but someone’s idea of it clearly did because here we are. Try to escape the mazes with your life intact, using anything and everything at your disposal to avoid being killed by the roaming creatures that go bump in the night. At launch, the game only includes the first chapter, consisting of four levels. More will be added over time as free DLC, but do consider that relatively low amount of content and admittedly uncertain future before purchasing.
Forest, Fields and Fortresses ($4.99)
A tile-placing puzzle game where you’re building a kingdom one piece at a time. There are two modes of play here. One is a puzzle mode where you have a set number and type of pieces and need to place them in such a way that you’ll earn enough gold to pass. The other mode is called Adventure Mode, where you can unlock and use a variety of starting maps and a random assortment of pieces to build with. Not bad at all if you’re looking for an affordable bit of puzzling fun today.
Date Z ($14.99)
A choice-based visual novel dating sim where you have to find a date by Friday or die. Well, no pressure there. There are five potential partners to woo, and naturally a bunch of different endings to uncover. I was ready to write it off as another in the big pile of games like this, but then I saw the above screenshot. How do I not include a game with that kind of screenshot on its store page?
Bedrotting ($14.99)
Well, this is a horror game premise I haven’t seen before. You play as a young girl who has been in a car accident. While your body is fine, your mental state isn’t. You can’t seem to get up out of your bed, basically. You need to survive for twenty days, which means eating, using a bucket as a toilet, and doing whatever you can to keep yourself together. That last bit becomes a very big problem as strange visions start to appear. Are they real? Your imagination? Does it matter? One for the enjoyers of creepy games, I’d say.
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
Not quite as interesting a list of new sales as yesterday’s, but if you’re looking to fill up on Pinball FX tables a number of them are discounted right now. Retro City Rampage DX and Shakedown: Hawaii are at their lowest prices yet, and that may be of interest to some. Over in the weekend outbox, the latest sale from Limited Run Games is wrapping up. Grab what you must.
Select New Sales
WitchSpring R($35.99 from $39.99 until 9/5) Dice Make 10! ($3.59 from $3.99 until 9/5) Bug & Seek($11.24 from $14.99 until 9/5) The House of Da Vinci 2($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/6) Kingdom Rush ($5.49 from $9.99 until 9/6) Kingdom Rush Origins ($8.24 from $14.99 until 9/6) Kingdom Rush Frontiers ($5.49 from $9.99 until 9/6) Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey($2.39 from $15.99 until 9/6) Charlie Brown Christmas Pinball DLC($2.74 from $5.49 until 9/9) Marvel Pinball Collection 1 DLC ($11.99 from $23.99 until 9/9) Tiny Thor($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/12) Cilla($5.59 from $6.99 until 9/12) The Legend of Dark Witch($3.49 from $6.99 until 9/12) The Legend of Dark Witch Ep. 2 ($8.99 from $9.99 until 9/12)
Brave Dungeon + Dark Witch Story ($4.49 from $8.99 until 9/12) Forward To The Sky($9.79 from $48.99 until 9/13) Wall World($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/13) The Oregon Trail ($17.99 from $29.99 until 9/19) Sherlock Holmes The Awakened ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/19) Mercenaries Saga Chronicles($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/19) Shadows of Adam($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/19) Retro City Rampage DX ($3.49 from $14.99 until 9/19) Shakedown Hawaii($3.49 from $19.99 until 9/19) Rise: Race the Future ($6.59 from $16.49 until 9/19) Speed Overflow ($7.79 from $12.99 until 9/19) Path to Purge($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/19)
Sales Ending This Weekend
Another Crab’s Treasure ($23.99 from $29.99 until 8/31) Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore ($11.99 from $19.99 until 8/31) Cosmic Star Heroine ($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/31) Dark Quest 3 ($7.59 from $18.99 until 8/31) Geometry Survivor ($1.99 from $4.99 until 8/31) Hot Wheels Unleashed ($5.99 from $39.99 until 8/31) Hot Wheels Unleashed GotY Edition($11.99 from $79.99 until 8/31) Jurassic Park Games Collection ($17.99 from $29.99 until 8/31) Night Trap ($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/31) Oddworld Soulstorm ($17.49 from $49.99 until 8/31) Operation Wolf Returns ($10.49 from $29.99 until 8/31) The House in Fata Morgana ($19.99 from $39.99 until 8/31) Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery ($13.96 from $19.95 until 9/1)
That’s all for today, this week, and this month, friends. As mentioned in the opening paragraph, this was an unusually busy week for me beyond my work here on the site. I apologize if things have seemed a bit light as a result. We’ll be back to the normal schedule next week, and that means plenty of reviews, new releases, sales, and some news. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and as always, thanks for reading!
In our tour through retro games available to buy on Switch, we’ve worked our way through the NES, Game Boy, and SEGA Genesis selections among other more recent console libraries. This time we’re taking a look at the games that originated with Nintendo’s 16-bit console, the Super NES. While you can find plenty of great games from the console in the Nintendo Switch Online app, we’re instead looking at those games that dare to exist in the wilds of the Switch eShop. We’ve got ten of our favorites here, plus five more games that we’d like to see. No particular order, of course. Oh, and to cut off potential comments at the pass: Mega Man X isn’t here because I feel the input lag in the Legacy Collection hurts it too badly. Stone-cold classic, just not a great play experience on Switch. On with the show!
A very rare case of a Konami franchise born on a SEGA platform, Rocket Knight Adventures was a game Super NES owners could easily envy. While that game never came to Nintendo’s console, a version of the sequel did. Sparkster is the name of two distinct games, and the Super NES offering bearing that title is probably the better of the two. Not quite up to the original game, but plenty of fun.
Rock ‘n Roll Racing – Blizzard Arcade Collection ($19.99)
Before Blizzard became a household name for joking about phone ownership, it was making some very good console games. Also a pretty iffy Justice League fighting game, but we’re not here to talk about that. Instead, we’re talking about the highly enjoyable isometric racer that fused exciting gameplay with a fantastic licensed soundtrack. This game alone is worth the price of admission for this collection, but you get a handful of other cool Super NES games with it.
Top Racer – Top Racer Collection ($19.99)
More popularly known under the title Top Gear, Top Racer is one of the better choices in the racing genre on the Super NES. It rides the line between arcade and sim very well, and the soundtrack is absolutely outstanding. You get all three of the games in this set, and I’d argue the second game goes toe-to-toe with the first. The third game… well, how about those first two games, eh?
Secret of Mana – Collection of Mana ($39.99)
Square Enix seems to favor remakes with its Switch takes on its Super NES classics, and while those aren’t technically against my rules for these lists I think I’ll go with a purer choice. Secret of Mana can be found in the excellent Collection of Mana alongside the Game Boy original and the Super NES third game in the series. The emulation was handled by M2, so it’s working just as it did back in the day, bugs and all. Secret of Mana is a thoroughly enjoyable action-RPG, despite its many rough edges. You get to save Christmas at the behest of Rudolph! What more do you need? A fluffy dragon you can ride in a Mode 7 overworld map? Well, you get that too!
TMNT IV: Turtles in Time – TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection ($39.99)
The 16-bit generation was the era of beat ’em ups, and Turtles in Time jostles with Streets of Rage 2 for the title of king among the many challengers. It looks almost as good as the arcade game, plays even better, and leans into its time-traveling gimmick in a lot of fun ways. One of the best games on the Super NES full-stop, and I’m glad we’re able to buy it on modern consoles for the time being.
Contra III: The Alien Wars – Contra Anniversary Collection ($19.99)
Lots of Konami here again. It occupies a lot of spots in these lists, but it has earned it. Here’s the third Contra game, and the first to have no roots in the arcades whatsoever. It aims for a more futuristic setting and feel, and in true Konami style it pushes the hardware in a variety of fun ways. Sure, those Mode 7 overhead levels don’t play quite as well as you might like them to, but there’s no denying the style that runs through this entire game.
Super Castlevania IV – Castlevania Anniversary Collection ($19.99)
For some people, this is the best action-based installment in the Castlevania series. I’m not sure I’m fully on-board with that, but this is one heck of a great game. The visuals, sound effects, and music create an incredible vibe, and Simon’s overpowered whip skills make you feel like a real pro. The Super NES would see a lot of great action games, but few of them are as confidently showy as this one. A highly memorable game, and if you’re looking for a somewhat fairer entry point into the series this is one of the better choices.
Zombies Ate My Neighbors – Zombies Ate My Neighbors & Ghoul Patrol ($14.99)
Okay, Konami published this back in the day, but it’s really a Lucasarts title. A really unique one, at that. A stage-based top-down action game with tons of wacky enemies, locations, and tools you can find and use, Zombies Ate My Neighbors offered an experience you couldn’t find anywhere else on the console. Play alone or pull in a friend, especially if you want to make an actual go at beating this tough game.
Aladdin – Disney Classic Games Collection ($29.49)
The debate rages on about which 16-bit console version of Aladdin is better, but the nice thing about the Disney Classic Games Collection is that it doesn’t force you to choose. Both are here, have fun. Since this is a Super NES list, we’re talking about that version of the game. Directed by Shinji Mikami, who later got up to some zombie nonsense, this version of Aladdin can’t match the authentic presentation of the Genesis game, but makes up for it with some excellent Capcom platforming action. A bit of a breezy affair, but that’s not so bad sometimes.
Let’s squeeze a puzzle game in here to finish things out. Call it Bust-A-Move, call it Puzzle Bobble, either way you’re in for a good time. Shoot the bubbles, make the matches, and try to clear the field before you get squashed. A charming presentation and some devilish stage designs make this a hard one to put down. Sure, the sequels have a lot more to offer, but you can have plenty of good times with this version all on its own.
And… 5 Super NES Games We’d Like to See on Switch
Chrono Trigger
I mean, of course. One of the best games on the console, and cited by many as the finest game in the genre. It’s a bit silly that it isn’t on Switch, even if there are probably good reasons for it. Well, this is a wishlist. I don’t care about reasons! I want results! Bring me pictures of Chrono! Er, bring me Chrono Trigger on Switch!
SimCity
The theme of these picks is going to be licensing issues from here on out, though I have to believe SimCity is somewhat possible. All we need is Electronic Arts and Nintendo to come together to make it happen, and it’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Why don’t we have any SimCity on Switch? Mysterious stuff. Give me this one and I’ll forget about how you parked the IP in the river, EA. For a while, anyway.
Terranigma
The one that got away for North American Super NES owners. Quintet’s run on the Super NES was outstanding, and I’d love to see all of them available to buy again. If I had to pick just one, it’s this one. A very enjoyable action-RPG with a story that will definitely stick with you, wrapped up in a gorgeous package that rivals what Square was doing on the console in a lot of ways. I’m hoping this can one day slip out of the vault it’s currently trapped in, even if that place isn’t on the Switch.
U.N. Squadron
There’s something about U.N. Squadron that tends to click with people who aren’t usually into shoot ’em ups. Maybe it’s the manga/anime-born style. Perhaps it’s the lenience afforded by the life bar. The cool jets? Maybe it’s the cool jets. Whatever the case, it would be amazing to see this game get a reissue. It’s tied up with a license which probably makes things difficult, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Capcom makes it happen someday.
Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage
The author’s bias on full display here, wow. Maximum Carnage? That iffy beat ’em up based on the comic event where Spider-Man defeats Carnage with the literal power of friendship? Yes. I love this game. It is stupid and kind of bad and I love it. I want it, even if I have to put up with it being packaged with Separation Anxiety or something. Get Green Jelly on the phone, patch Marvel into the conference call, find whoever bought the husk of LJN/Acclaim, and get it done.
And that’s the list, friends. Are there any Super NES games you enjoy on the Switch? Any you would like to see? Feel free to sound off down in the comments and let us know what you’re thinking! It’s always interesting to hear the opinions of others on this kind of thing. As always, thanks for reading!
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 29th, 2024. We’ve got another big plate of new releases to check out today, and that’s going to be the bulk of the column as it usually is on Thursdays. We also have a relatively hefty list of new sales to delve into, and that’s really about it. We can’t have Nintendo Directs every day, after all. Let’s get to the games!
Select New Releases
Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club ($49.99)
After a few decades without any sequels, Famicom Detective Club is back. This new case is very faithful to the original games, for better or worse. You get an entirely new mystery to unravel, and in terms of the presentation it’s relatively similar to the remake releases in Switch a little while back. Can you solve the latest serial murder case? I’ll be giving it a try in my review, coming soon.
Gundam Breaker 4 ($59.99)
Mikhail has already written a veritable book on this game in his review, so I’ll just direct you towards that if you want a full breakdown of the gameplay and how it performs on Switch. The short version is that you’re building and battling Gunplas, and while this Switch port is obviously going to falter behind the others in terms of performance, it does the job well enough that if it’s the option in front of you, it’s more than fine. Anyway, go read Mikhail’s review. It’s a goodie.
Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn ($19.99)
Tengo Project has had a very good run with its remakes/re-imaginings so far. Wild Guns Reloaded, The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors, and Pocky & Rocky Reshrined brought back some 16-bit cult favorites with a lot of awesome extras. Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn sees the team applying its touch to an 8-bit game, and as you might imagine it’s quite a bit more different from its source material than the aforementioned games. Still, if you’re fixing for an action-platformer with a classic style, this will serve you. I’ll be reviewing this early next week, so watch for that.
Valfaris: Mecha Therion ($19.99)
This is a follow-up to Valfaris, but don’t expect more of the same kind of gameplay you saw in that game. No, this is a 2.5D side-scrolling shoot ’em up, and it’s decent enough. I think some people were caught off guard by the genre shift and were put off as a result, but embrace the change and you’ll find plenty to enjoy. Yes, this is another one I’ve got a review coming up for. Funny how that works!
Nour: Play With Your Food ($9.99)
I’d like to pretend I know what’s going on with this game, but I really don’t. Those sure are some nice images of food, though. And you’re meant to play with all of that? Take some pictures, I guess? Look for secrets? Maybe I’ll dispatch our pal Mikhail to investigate this further. It seems like his sort of thing.
Monster Jam Showdown ($49.99)
If you like monsters, or you like jam, then… I have no idea if you’ll like this game. It’s about Monster Jam, the monster truck thing. No preserves or strawberries or goblins at all. Well, what can you do? It has support for multiplayer, both local and online, and seems to have plenty of modes and such to play around with. It seems to have met with a middling reaction on other platforms, but monster truck fans don’t have a whole lot of choices in front of them, I suppose. If that’s you, do what you must.
WitchSpring R ($39.99)
I think this is a remake of the original WitchSpring, but I might be wrong about that. WitchSpring to me was always the mobile “we have Atelier at home” series, and in that capacity and at that price point, it served its role well enough. Now that it’s getting very near to the price of an actual Atelier game, I’m not sure if I’m quite so on board with it. But if you’re willing to give it a go, it does look like the nicest WitchSpring game so far.
Depths of Sanity ($19.99)
Oh, this is one of those undersea exploration games. Those always have an interesting vibe to them. This one leans into the fantastical horror side of things, as you might expect from the title. You’re trying to figure out what happened to your missing crew, and you’ll have to poke around a big, dangerous interconnected underwater world to sort it all out. Yes, there will be fighting. This one is well-regarded on other platforms by fans of exploratory action games, and I suspect it will find an eager following on the Switch as well.
Voltaire: The Vegan Vampire ($19.99)
Kids, am I right? Voltaire is rebelling against his vampiric daddy by taking up a vegan lifestyle to prove there are other ways to live than biting necks. Daddy doesn’t dig that, and is going to try to teach his son a lesson. What this amounts to is farming, of course. This is the Switch, after all. But also some action, because you’re going to need to fend off daddy’s attempts to mess things up for you. I’m a little bit burnt out on this genre at the moment, but if you’re more energetic about picking up a hoe than I am you might want to check this one out.
Marble Abduction! Patti Hattu ($11.79)
One of those marble roller games, this one with seventy stages and eighty marbles to collect. There are some secret collectibles to find, and special challenges that will score you some of the rarer marbles. The usual appeal is here of trying to go as fast as you can without flying off the track, so if that’s your thing then here is a heaping helping of it.
Leo: The Firefighter Cat ($24.99)
We’ve seen a few firefighting games on the Switch so far, but most of them aim for a somewhat realistic style. But you know what? Kids can often be interested in firefighting too, and there might be something in a firefighting game more geared towards their tastes. There are twenty missions here, and it seems to have the main details you would want to see in this kind of thing. I doubt it’s Fancy Feast, but it will probably do the job for the right kind of kid.
Gori: Cuddly Carnage ($21.99)
And on the opposite end of the cat game spectrum, here is a grotesque action game about a hoverboarding cat who slices and dices his foes with glee. Early reports seem to indicate that the game itself is decent enough, but this Switch version suffers from a lot of technical issues that drag down the overall experience to a meaningful degree. Not to the point where there isn’t any joy to be had in it, but worth thinking twice about if you’re bothered by framerate issues at the very least.
Arcade Archives Finalizer Super Transformation ($7.99)
You know, I consider myself a relatively knowledgeable fellow when it comes to video games. But every once in a while, Hamster pulls out a game for Arcade Archives that I really have no memory of, and this 1985 Konami vertical shooter fits that bill. The gimmick here is that instead of a ship, you’re a transforming robot hero of some sort. Let’s call it a Blundam. Grab power-ups to change your form or activate various powers. As shooters go, this is very much a post-Xevious pre-Tiger Heli affair. There’s a charm to that, if that’s the flavor you’re after.
EGGCONSOLE Xanadu Scenario II PC-8801mkIISR ($6.49)
A very early example of an expansion pack for a video game, Xanadu Scenario II gives you a whole new underworld to explore. Since this was originally an expansion and not a new game, the gameplay mechanics and many other elements are identical to the first game. It’s naturally more difficult too, so you’ll likely want to finish the first game before trying this one. The most noteworthy thing about it? This game features the debut of the legendary video game composer Yuzo Koshiro, then just 18 years old. That might be reason enough alone to drop the cash for this depending on your tastes and interest in gaming history.
The Backrooms: Survival ($10.99)
A bit of horror, a bit of survival, a bit of roguelite, and overall a game that many players have enjoyed over on PC. You can play with up to ten players online, and that’s really the ideal experience for this game. Playing solo, it’s going to be more of a specific taste thanks to its repetitive-by-design nature.
Can of Wormholes ($19.99)
You are a sentient tin can, and you need to deal with worms in a variety of ways in this clever little puzzle game. You get one hundred hand-crafted puzzles to solve, and the game is really sharp about sprinkling in new ideas as you go so that it never gets stuck in a rut. Something of a whiff of Stephen’s Sausage Roll about it, and that is in no way a bad thing. A real winner for puzzle game fans, if you ask me.
Ninja I & II ($9.99)
A pair of modern NES games running under emulation that are essentially a ninja spin on Wario Ware-style microgames. All of them are competitive, so you’re either pulling in a friend for local multiplayer or going up against a CPU that may or may not drive you up the wall. Kind of neat to see game like these running on NES specs, if nothing else.
Dice Make 10! ($3.99)
Sometimes these unassuming titles can be a lot of fun, and this is one that does it for me. You have two modes of play here, one with Tetris-style falling blocks and the other where you’re just placing pieces like those wood block puzzle games. Regardless of which version you play, your goal is make rows or columns where the faces of the dice add up to ten or multiples of ten. They’ll clear out, and on you go with the next line. Yes, I like it. Very good.
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
It’s the 30th anniversary of The King of Fighters, and Hamster and SNK are celebrating with a sale on every single game in the series on Arcade Archives. Time to finish your collection if you haven’t got them already. There are also a ton of Pixel Game Maker Series games at their lowest prices yet, so if you’ve been holding off on those, perhaps now is the moment. Nothing too thrilling outside of those, but you might as well check while you’re at it. A few good indies in the outbox, so I recommend giving that a scan as well.
Select New Sales
Kamitsubaki City Ensemble ($3.59 from $3.99 until 9/3) Floogen($1.99 from $3.99 until 9/4) Rolling Car($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/4) Fluffy Horde ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/4) Gum+($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/4) Stunt Paradise ($5.19 from $7.99 until 9/4) My Time at Portia ($4.49 from $29.99 until 9/6) SpongeBob Krusty Cook-Off ($4.94 from $14.99 until 9/9) PPA Pickleball Tour 2025 ($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/11) Talisman: Digital Edition ($2.99 from $5.99 until 9/12) Mystic Vale($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) Baron of Blood ($4.95 from $9.90 until 9/12) Fighting Fantasy Legends($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) Deathtrap Dungeon($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) White Eternal($3.24 from $6.49 until 9/12)
ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters ’94 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters ’95 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters ’96 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters ’97($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters ’98 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters ’99 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters 2000($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters 2001 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters 2002 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters 2003 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) Kittey 64 ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/12) Last Bloody Snack ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Cat and Tower ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/12) PGMS Cat and Castle ($3.74 from $4.99 until 9/12) PGMS Pentacore ($6.59 from $9.99 until 9/12)
PGMS BombMachine Gunzohg ($3.95 from $5.99 until 9/12) PGMS Pearl Vs Grey ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) PGMS Hunter of Devil($3.74 from $4.99 until 9/12) PGMS Lunlun Superherobabys DX ($3.74 from $4.99 until 9/12) PGMS Storm Swordsman($5.27 from $7.99 until 9/12) PGMS Project Nosferatu ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/12) PGMS Ninja Runner ($2.50 from $5.00 until 9/12) PGMS Ninja Sneaking R($3.59 from $5.99 until 9/12) PGMS Ninja Sneaking VS ($3.60 from $6.00 until 9/12) PGMS Angel’s Gear($7.49 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Angel’s Blood($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Ninja Otedama R ($3.59 from $5.99 until 9/12) PGMS Tentacled Terrors ($8.99 from $11.99 until 9/12) PGMS Loplight ($3.29 from $4.99 until 9/12) PGMS ClaM KNight($2.99 from $5.99 until 9/12)
PGMS Jetman ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Lab ($4.19 from $6.99 until 9/12) PGMS Steel Sword Story S ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Arcanion: Tale of Magi ($6.59 from $10.99 until 9/12) PGMS Shiba Mekuri ($2.74 from $5.49 until 9/12) PGMS Buraigun Galaxy Storm($8.99 from $11.99 until 9/12) PGMS Block Slime Cave ($3.50 from $7.00 until 9/12) PGMS Game Battle Tycoon ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/12) PGMS MessiahEnd Refrain($2.99 from $4.99 until 9/12) PGMS Oma2ri Adventure ($2.47 from $4.95 until 9/12) PGMS Dandan Z($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Cham The Cat Adventure ($5.49 from $10.99 until 9/12) PGMS Verzeus ($7.91 from $11.99 until 9/12) PGMS Oumuamua ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Jewelinx ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12)
Sushi Battle Rambunctiously ($13.99 from $19.99 until 9/13) My Incubi Harem ($2.99 from $4.99 until 9/13) Hot Blood ($7.49 from $9.99 until 9/13) Jenny LeClue Detectivu ($2.99 from $24.99 until 9/18) Asterix & Obelix Slap Them All($12.49 from $24.99 until 9/18) The Sisters 2 Road to Fame ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/18) Noob: The Factionless ($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/18) New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja($11.99 from $29.99 until 9/18) Garfield Lasagna Party ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/18) Muv-Luv Remastered($26.99 from $29.99 until 9/19) Muv-Luv Alternative Remastered ($35.99 from $39.99 until 9/19)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, August 30th
#BLUD ($19.99 from $24.99 until 8/30) 8th Millennium: WAtPG ($7.49 from $29.99 until 8/30) Alpha Particle ($3.39 from $9.99 until 8/30) Batman: The Enemy Within($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/30) Batman: The Telltale Series ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/30) Empire of Angels IV ($6.79 from $19.99 until 8/30) Enter Digiton: Heart of Corruption ($2.39 from $7.99 until 8/30) Forager($6.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Hell Well($2.49 from $4.99 until 8/30) Midnight Fight Express ($11.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Mineko’s Night Market ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Moonscars($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/30)
OBAKEIDORO($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Puddle Knights ($2.99 from $9.99 until 8/30) Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic($6.99 from $9.99 until 8/30) Slay the Spire ($8.49 from $24.99 until 8/30) Space Mercenary Defense Force($3.49 from $4.99 until 8/30) Super Woden GP ($5.99 from $11.99 until 8/30) Supraland($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Surmount($9.89 from $14.99 until 8/30) The Last Dragon Slayer($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/30) The Last Worker ($3.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Thunder Ray ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/30) Unpacking($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Void Bastards($8.99 from $29.99 until 8/30)
That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow to finish up the week, with the remaining new releases, sales, and major news items on the schedule. Maybe some reviews? Perhaps. We’ll see. There’s a huge typhoon blowing through here this week, and I should acknowledge there is a chance I won’t be able to get to my office to do tomorrow’s article. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I hope you all have a thrilling Thursday, and as always, thanks for reading!
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 28th, 2024. Gosh, that presentation yesterday sure had a lot of good stuff in it, didn’t it? A bunch of shadow dropped games, too. That means our usually quiet Wednesday is anything but, and that’s not a bad thing. We’ve got a bit of news, a look at all the new games on the eShop today, plus the usual lists of new and expiring sales for the day. Lots to see, so let’s get going!
News
The Partner/Indie World Showcase Had Plenty to Offer
Sandwiching together two slightly smaller versions of the usual types of Directs was an interesting choice, and it means we got a bunch of announcements. I can’t go through all of them here, but highlights included some shadow drops we’ll talk about in the New Releases section, Capcom Fighting Collection 2, the Suikoden I & II remakes, Yakuza Kiwami, Tetris Forever, MySims, Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition, new Atelier and Rune Factory games, and many, many more. I’d advise just setting aside some time and watching the video. Skim if you must. Plenty of great games there for a variety of tastes.
Select New Releases
Castlevania Dominus Collection ($24.99)
One of the many cool shadow drops from the Direct was a third Castlevania collection. This one includes the three Nintendo DS games: Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia. It also includes the absolutely rancid arcade game, Haunted Castle, and as an extra, a remake of Haunted Castle by the folks at M2. It’s a lot better. As you would expect from this developer, this is a top-notch treatment that features great emulation and pretty much all of the features you’d want. An absurd value for the price.
Pizza Tower ($19.99)
The Wario Land-inspired frenetic platformer dashes on to the Switch with this Direct shadow drop. Make your way through the five massive floors of the Pizza Tower in order to destroy it and save your restaurant. If you miss Wario’s handheld adventures, you’ll really want to grab this. If you have no strong Wario feelings but like platforming, you should also give this a look. We’re hoping to review this one, but we’ll have to see how things go.
Goat Simulator 3 ($29.99)
The shadow drops continue. Look, it’s a Wednesday. If it weren’t for these, we wouldn’t have much at all. Anyway, Goat Simulator 3. You know how Goat Simulator works by now. I can’t verify how this game runs on Switch, but I know more powerful consoles struggle with it in places. So, you know, proceed with caution. Though I suppose even if it does run badly, it might just play into the whole sh**post nature of the game. Well, I leave it to you to decide. Silly goats doing silly things in an open world, may or may not make your Switch vomit blood.
Peglin ($19.99)
I know it’s cliche to armchair quarterback and talk about companies leaving money on the proverbial table, but I genuinely think Electronic Arts made a giant mistake by not putting Popcap’s games on the Switch in some form or another. Maybe even a collection? Well, they didn’t. They aren’t going to. And so we must scratch that itch in other ways, and for my fellow Peggle fans I can’t recommend Peglin enough. This one has been available on mobile for a while, and it’s just as good here on Switch. It’s basically Peggle blended into a turn-based RPG roguelite. We’ll have a review of this soon in case you need more details.
Doraemon Dorayaki Shop Story ($20.00)
How can Kairosoft spice up its now incredibly well-worn formula for simulation games? Well, I suppose one way is to add a license to the mix. That’s what we’ve got here with Doraemon Dorayaki Shop Story, a standard Kairosoft shop sim featuring the characters from the popular Doraemon manga and anime series. A decent effort has been made to do the license justice, and you might even spot some characters from the manga artist’s other works popping in as customers. Cute.
Pico Park 2 ($8.99)
More Pico Park for the Pico Park fans out there. Up to eight players can join in via local or online multiplayer, and this is one game where the rule of the more, the merrier is in full effect. Play through a bunch of puzzle stages that require some sharp thinking and cooperation to solve. One for those who didn’t get their fill with the first game, but not really different enough to be likely to pull in anyone new. And that’s fine.
Kamitsubaki City Ensemble ($3.99)
An affordable little rhythm game featuring music from Kamitsubaki Studio. Hit the notes, follow the story, enjoy the tunes. Not the fanciest dining, but for that price it doesn’t have to be.
SokoPenguin ($4.99)
Yes, that’s a Sokoban-style crate-pushing puzzler starring a penguin, alright. One hundred levels. You know if you want it or not.
Q2 Humanity ($6.80)
More quirky physics-based puzzles, over three hundred this time around. You’ll have to make use of your character’s abilities in addition to drawing to solve the problems now. Up to four players can get in on the fun, either via local or online multiplayer.
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
Mostly NIS America games in the inbox today, but you can also score some deals on Balatro, Frogun, and The King of Fighters XIII Global Match if you want. The outbox has a fair bit in it, so you’ll probably want to have a careful look through there and see if there’s anything you want.
Select New Sales
Bilkins Folly ($12.59 from $19.99 until 9/2) Balatro($13.49 from $14.99 until 9/3) MLB The Show 24 ($19.79 from $59.99 until 9/10) Frogun($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/11) Frogun Encore ($11.04 from $12.99 until 9/11) Death Road to Canada ($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/11) Demon Gaze Extra ($17.99 from $59.99 until 9/12) The King of Fighters XIII GM ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/12) Lapis x Labyrinth ($7.79 from $29.99 until 9/16) Raiden III Mikado Maniax ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/16) GrimGrimoire OnceMore ($24.99 from $49.99 until 9/16) Void Terrarium 2 ($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails ($24.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles ($24.99 from $49.99 until 9/16) Saviors of Sapphire Wings/Sword City ($17.49 from $49.99 until 9/16)
Disaster Report 4($17.99 from $59.99 until 9/16) Labyrinth of Galleria: TMC ($24.99 from $49.99 until 9/16) The Cruel King & the Great Hero($13.49 from $29.99 until 9/16) R-Type Final 2 ($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) The Legend of Legacy HD ($34.99 from $49.99 until 9/16) Poison Control($3.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Labyrinth Legend ($5.99 from $14.99 until 9/16) Giraffe and Annika ($9.99 from $29.99 until 9/16) LA-MULANA($4.99 from $14.99 until 9/16) LA-MULANA 2 ($9.99 from $24.99 until 9/16) The Princess Guide($3.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Ys VIII Lacrimosa of DANA ($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory ($4.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Fallen Legion: Revenants($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) RPG Maker MV ($14.99 from $49.99 until 9/16) Happy Birthdays($7.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Penny-Punching Princess($3.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) The Longest Five Minutes ($3.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Disgaea 4 Complete+ ($17.49 from $49.99 until 9/16)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, August 29th
A Cat & His Boy($1.99 from $2.99 until 8/29) Alan Wake Remastered ($14.99 from $29.99 until 8/29) April’s Diary ($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/29) Astebreed($3.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Bio Inc. Redemption ($10.49 from $14.99 until 8/29) Botany Manor ($22.49 from $24.99 until 8/29) Crashout Xtreme ($2.49 from $9.99 until 8/29) Cyber Citizen Shockman ($4.19 from $5.99 until 8/29) Dead Cells Castlevania Bundle ($18.89 from $31.49 until 8/29) DoDonPachi Resurrection ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Double Dragon & Kunio-kun Bundle($19.99 from $39.99 until 8/29) DRAINUS($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Ebenezer & the Invisible World ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Escaping a Fireworks Factory($2.00 from $4.90 until 8/29) Espgaluda II($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/29)
Gematombe($4.49 from $14.99 until 8/29) Gnosia($17.49 from $24.99 until 8/29) Gunman Tales ($2.09 from $6.99 until 8/29) Gynoug($3.49 from $6.99 until 8/29) Hero of Fate ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/29) Kero Blaster ($2.99 from $9.99 until 8/29) Kowloon High-School Chronicle ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Matchpoint: Tennis Championships ($31.99 from $49.99 until 8/29) Mighty Goose ($7.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Moonshine Inc($15.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) My Little Universe($6.74 from $14.99 until 8/29) Noel the Mortal Fate ($9.99 from $24.99 until 8/29) OnlyUP! ($5.27 from $7.13 until 8/29) Operation Steel ($5.99 from $9.99 until 8/29) Overboss($13.49 from $14.99 until 8/29) Pogo Joins the Circus ($2.49 from $9.99 until 8/29)
Radiant Silvergun ($7.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Red Colony ($2.99 from $6.99 until 8/29) Red Colony 2 ($2.99 from $6.99 until 8/29) Red Colony 3 ($2.99 from $6.99 until 8/29) Remote Life ($9.49 from $18.99 until 8/29) Retro Mystery Club Vol.1($7.90 from $9.90 until 8/29) Retro Mystery Club Vol.2 ($7.90 from $9.90 until 8/29) Retro Revengers ($7.90 from $9.90 until 8/29) River City Saga: Three Kingdoms ($20.99 from $29.99 until 8/29) Satay Shop Tycoon ($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/29) Smashing the Battle ($2.49 from $4.99 until 8/29) Smashing the Battle Ghost Soul ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/29) Spy Bros. ($4.79 from $7.99 until 8/29) Super Sean 007 ($2.49 from $9.99 until 8/29) Taboo Trial($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) The Good Life ($15.99 from $39.99 until 8/29) The Ouroboros King($6.99 from $9.99 until 8/29) The Sokoban($8.99 from $17.99 until 8/29) UNO Ultimate Edition ($7.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Vera Blanc: Supernatural Mysteries ($5.59 from $7.99 until 8/29) Within the Blade ($3.29 from $10.99 until 8/29)
That’s all for today, friends. Tomorrow is Thursday, and that means we’ll have another pretty big day for new games. The new Famicom Detective Club is among them, but there are other big names in there too. We’ll have summaries of the games worth summarizing, plus whatever sales and major news items roll in over the course of the day. I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday, and as always, thanks for reading!
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 26th, 2024. In today’s article, we get the week started with a somewhat lighter edition than we usually go with. No reviews today as I’m a bit busy on other projects, which means we just have a few new releases to go through plus the usual lists of new and expiring sales. Well, at least one of the new releases is interesting. The sales lists aren’t too shabby either. I’ll have some reviews tomorrow, hopefully. Let’s head on in and check out what we’ve got!
Select New Releases
Fragrant Story and Papaya’s Path ($7.99)
Ah, the sordid tale of Fragrant Story, one of the would-be final Nintendo 3DS releases. There’s a lot of confusion out there around this game, so let me sort it out. Despite being a seemingly star-studded tactical role-playing game, those who bought the game on its release were surprised to get a game that lasted all of twenty minutes. The real story? Nintendo’s deadline for 3DS releases was coming quickly, so the developer pushed an unfinished game to the eShop. It was later updated into its intended from, a far more substantial game that lasts more than ten hours. So don’t worry if you see anything about this game being ridiculously short. It’s not. This version has the updates already packed in, and is a pretty solid pick-up for eight bucks if you’re into the genre.
Quack Jump ($3.99)
A simple platformer, but a functional one. It tries to keep things fresh through its 40-level run by sprinkling in new gimmicks as you go. For four dollars, it’s amusing enough.
Underground Station ($7.90)
Something of an idle game where you’re trying to repay your debts by working in a dungeon. It doesn’t look very fancy, but on a day where we have to wade through Moist Editions of AI-generated bikini anime girls, we take what we can get.
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
Okay, let’s check that inbox first. Another sale from Limited Run Games, which is nice if you’re missing any of their quirky releases. Most of TROOOZE’s junk is on sale, of which I’ve listed only a few. Some Team 17 sales, too. Over in the outbox, the recent somewhat rare sale on the Front Mission remakes is drawing to a close. You might want to add them to your collection if you’re interested, because it seems like they’re discounted far less frequently than Forever’s other games.
Select New Sales
Jurassic Park Games Collection ($17.99 from $29.99 until 8/31) The House in Fata Morgana ($19.99 from $39.99 until 8/31) Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore ($11.99 from $19.99 until 8/31) Night Trap($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/31) Cosmic Star Heroine($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/31) Phoenotopia: Awakening($6.99 from $19.99 until 9/7) Enoh($5.49 from $19.99 until 9/13) CosmoPlayerZ($5.49 from $10.99 until 9/13) Knowledge Keeper ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/13) Three Minutes to Eight ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Fall of Porcupine ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/13) Star Gagnant ($22.80 from $38.00 until 9/13) Moon Dancer($13.29 from $18.99 until 9/13) Re:Touring ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/13) Life of Slime($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/13)
Cybertrash STATYX($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/13) Awesome Pea 3 ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/13) Itorah($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/13) Pizza Tycoon ($2.09 from $14.99 until 9/13) Lacuna($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/13) Alien Survivors: Starship Resurrection ($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/13) World War: Battle of the Bulge ($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/13) World War: D-Day Part One ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) World War: D-Day Part Two($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Out Racing: Arcade Memory($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/13) Last 4 Survive: The Outbreak ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Modern War: Tank Battle ($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Counter Delta: The Bullet Rain($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Haunted Dawn: Zombie Apocalypse ($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/13)
Urban Warfare: Assault($11.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Operation Scorpion: Takedown ($11.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Hamster on Rails($5.99 from $14.99 until 9/14) Ultimate Chicken Horse ($6.74 from $14.99 until 9/14) Our Field Trip Adventure ($3.99 from $14.50 until 9/15) Overcooked! All You Can Eat ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/15) Worms Rumble ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/15) The Survivalists ($2.49 from $24.99 until 9/15) Blasphemous 2 ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/15) Moving Out ($7.49 from $24.99 until 9/15)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, August 27th
Aeterna Noctis ($8.99 from $29.99 until 8/27) Arise: A Simple Story($2.99 from $19.99 until 8/27) ATONE: Heart of the Elder Tree ($1.99 from $14.99 until 8/27) Badland: GotY Edition ($1.99 from $5.99 until 8/27) Bang-On Balls: Chronicles ($9.99 from $24.99 until 8/27) Blazing Beaks ($1.99 from $14.99 until 8/27) Bus Driving Simulator 22 ($2.99 from $27.99 until 8/27) Chippy & Noppo ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/27) Cult of the Lamb ($12.49 from $24.99 until 8/27) Descenders($4.99 from $24.99 until 8/27) Everdream Valley ($9.99 from $24.99 until 8/27) Flame Keeper ($3.99 from $11.99 until 8/27) Front Mission 1st: Remake ($17.49 from $34.99 until 8/27) Front Mission 2: Remake ($23.44 from $34.99 until 8/27)
Gamedec: Definitive($2.99 from $29.99 until 8/27) LOUD: My Road to Fame ($1.99 from $7.99 until 8/27) Nine Parchments ($4.39 from $19.99 until 8/27) Ready, Steady, Ship! ($8.99 from $14.99 until 8/27) Red Wings: American Aces($1.99 from $11.99 until 8/27) Soundfall($4.49 from $29.99 until 8/27) Summum Aeterna ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/27) SuperEpic: The Entertainment War ($1.99 from $17.99 until 8/27) Terra Flame ($15.99 from $19.99 until 8/27) Tools Up ($1.99 from $19.99 until 8/27) Trine 2: Complete Story ($3.73 from $16.99 until 8/27) Trine 3: Artifacts of Power ($4.39 from $19.99 until 8/27) Trine Enchanted Edition($3.29 from $14.99 until 8/27) War Titans ($1.99 from $14.99 until 8/27) Xiaomei & the Flame Dragon’s Fist ($8.99 from $14.99 until 8/27)
That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new releases, more sales, and perhaps some reviews and news. It really depends on what else I’ve got to deal with. Wish me luck in getting things done in a timely manner. I hope you all have a magnificent Monday, and as always, thanks for reading!
For our next dive into the retro games available on Switch, we’re going all the way back to 1989. Er, and then to 1998. We’re heading back to the old monochrome beast and its colorful successor: the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. While there is a robust selection of games from these handhelds in the Nintendo Switch Online app, we’re instead looking at those games that dare to exist in the wilds of the Switch eShop. We’ve got ten of our favorites here, plus five more games that we’d like to see. No particular order, of course. Time to Play It Loud!
Shantae ($9.99)
Once a genuine scarcity that would cost you hundreds of dollars to get your hands on in any legal capacity, Shantae is now quite readily available in digital form. This game is considerably rougher than its sequels, but it pushes the Game Boy Color hardware in a lot of interesting ways, providing a platformer with a bit more to it than the average Game Boy hop-and-bop. Wow, I haven’t seen the term “hop-and-bop” in something like twenty-five years. Well, there you go. Shantae: it’s pretty good fun.
Trip World DX ($19.99)
Here’s another game that would have cost you a pretty penny to play officially until very recently. Trip World is an interesting platformer from Sunsoft that offers up a short but sweet experience. This release of the game does a full-on colorization job while also including a number of extras to dig into. It’s an excellent way to play this quirky, charming tale.
Final Fantasy Legend II – Collection of SaGa Final Fantasy Legend ($19.99)
Time to wade into the compilations, and we’ll start with one that is all Game Boy games: Collection of SaGa. You get all three games in the Final Fantasy Legend series here, and they’re all really good handheld RPGs. I’m picking out Final Fantasy Legend II to highlight here, simply because I think it’s the best of the three. It has plenty of the weird mechanics that make SaGa games so interesting, but feels more well-rounded and approachable than the first game. Probably the best turn-based RPG on the system pre-Pokemon.
Final Fantasy Adventure – Collection of Mana ($39.99)
Going hand in hand with the Final Fantasy Legend games, Final Fantasy Adventure is the game that kicked off the long-running Mana series. As such, you’ll find it in the Collection of Mana with the two Super NES follow-ups. Again, all games worth playing. This action-RPG provided an excellent alternative to the superb Link’s Awakening on the system, with a snappy pace and some surprisingly ambitious storytelling. It’s been remade a couple of times, but there’s nothing quite like the original.
TMNT III: Radical Rescue – TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection ($39.99)
Konami did some great Game Boy games, and it has made a handful of them available through its various collections. The Cowabunga Collection has all three of its original Game Boy TMNT games included, and I think they all have their merits. The open-ended, pseudo-Metroidvania TMNT III: Radical Rescue is the pick of the bunch, though. Plenty of action as you would expect, but the additional layers from exploring the world, rescuing your brothers, and finding all the upgrades makes this one you can really sink your teeth into.
Operation C – Contra Anniversary Collection ($19.99)
After the somewhat tepid attempt to bring Castlevania to the Game Boy via Castlevania: The Adventure, one would be forgiven for thinking there was little hope the tense run-and-gun action of Contra would survive the transition. Surprisingly, Operation C turned out to be really awesome. Sure, you can’t play with another player. Strictly a solo affair. But it’s fast, fun, and challenging in the way you want a Contra game to be. Perhaps there was hope for Konami action-platformers on the handheld after all!
How’s that for foreshadowing? Yes, after mostly biffing the first Game Boy Castlevania game, Konami turned things around in a big way with Belmont’s Revenge. This is an excellent Castlevania game, one that easily hangs with the home console entries even if it can’t quite surpass them. Given it was sandwiched by some less-than-great games, it’s possible many players skipped out on this one thinking it would be the same. If you haven’t played it yet, here’s a handy way to do that.
Ninja JaJaMaru: The Great World Adventure – Ninja JaJaMaru: Retro Collection ($14.99)
Ninja JaJaMaru: The Great World Adventure isn’t the best game in this bunch by any means, but I think it’s an important representation of some of the more off-beat titles that filled out the library around the releases from huge publishers. Some proper work was put into this reissue, too. It has a new localization and has been colorized, giving a nice spit-shine to a game that might not have topped anyone’s lists for such an effort. While The Great World Adventure is the only Game Boy game in the lot, this collection is an interesting one to poke at in general.
Xtreme Sports ($9.99)
WayForward’s most famous wholly-original property on the Game Boy Color is obviously Shantae, but Xtreme Sports is no slouch either. Essentially a collection of sports mini-games tied together with an open world, Xtreme Sports is a lot better than it has any right to be. The graphics are good, the gameplay is great for pick-up-and-play grazing, and those looking to completely finish everything will find a stiff challenge ahead of them.
The Rescue of Princess Blobette – A Boy and His Blob Retro Collection ($9.99)
Another game that is here more for its unique feel than anything, The Rescue of Princess Blobette brings the home computer-esque puzzle-adventure gameplay of the NES original to the small screen quite well. In some ways it’s a more polished game than its predecessor, delivered in a more compact and well-paced form. If you like games that take some figuring out due to occasional bits of opacity, you’ll love this one.
And… 5 Game Boy and Game Boy Color Games We’d Like to See on Switch
Batman: The Video Game
Yes, it’s kind of weird that Batman is using a gun the whole way through this early Game Boy action game. But it’s also weird that Keaton’s Batman gleefully murders bad guys, so let’s just call it a sign of the times. The important thing is that this is another really great Sunsoft Batman game, and while I know the odds of any of these movie-based Batman games ever resurfacing are next to nil, I will never stop asking.
Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal
I’m generally avoiding games that I think might show up on Nintendo Switch Online at some point, which means most first-party Nintendo stuff is out. I really hope I’m wrong about this, but something tells me that while the Pokemon spin-offs will probably keep appearing in the subscription service, the mainline games won’t. Thus, I formally request the ability to purchase and play these fine Game Boy RPGs on my Switch.
Gradius: The Interstellar Assault
I waffled between including this or the excellent R-Type DX, but ultimately we have R-Type Dimensions on Switch to scratch that itch, whereas Gradius: The Interstellar Assault only exists in Game Boy form. For a platform whose display should have made it terrible for shooting games, the Game Boy had a good handful of excellent ones. This was Konami’s second kick at the Gradius can on the platform, and while that first one was fine this one really kicked things into gear. Honestly, I just kind of want a Gradius collection in the vein of Konami’s Contra, Castlevania, and TMNT ones. If that happens, this game ought to be in there.
Metal Gear Solid
Lots of Konami in this article, I’m coming to realize. Anyway, this is arguably the best third-party Game Boy Color exclusive. Just about everything that was great about the PlayStation Metal Gear Solid was somehow squeezed into this completely original adventure. This game completely blew me away at the time thanks to that fidelity, and it still impresses me today. Yes, much of the template was laid down in the MSX2 Metal Gear 2, but it’s cool to see something like this on a Game Boy Color. Maybe this will show up in the next Metal Gear collection?
Dragon Warrior Monsters
Pokemon spawned a lot of imitators, but to be fair to Dragon Quest it had monster-catching elements in the main games before Pokemon arrived. So, you know. We forgive you, King. Dragon Warrior Monsters is one of the better Game Boy games inspired by Pokemon‘s success, and I think it would be terrific to see it available on Switch. And you know what? It is available on Switch, but only in Japan. Come on, Square Enix. Just drop the Western ROM in the wrapper and help some Dragon Quest fans out!
And that’s the list, friends. Are there any Game Boy or Game Boy Color games you enjoy on the Switch? Any you would like to see? Feel free to sound off down in the comments and let us know what you’re thinking! It’s always interesting to hear the opinions of others on this kind of thing. As always, thanks for reading!
Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 22nd, 2024. In today’s article, we’ve got a handful of new releases to check out. That’s unusual for a Wednesday, but I suppose it makes up for the slowness of the last couple of days. After summarizing those, it’s time for the lists of the latest sales and expiring discounts. Star Wars and Capcom, if one must make long stories short. Let’s get to those games!
Select New Releases
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain ($19.99)
If you’ve ever been watching Ghibli’s classic Kiki’s Delivery Service and felt like playing a video game version, you might be into what Mika and the Witch’s Mountain is offering. I mean, it isn’t Kiki, but it’s clearly inspired by it. You play as an apprentice witch who has to fly around on her broom to deliver all kinds of packages to the various residents of a mountain town. The game has a nice, colorful vibe and I’m certainly going to be investigating it further to see if it lives up to its initial potential.
My Lovely Empress ($19.99)
A lovely wife, a lovely daughter, and now a lovely empress? Phew. In this game you play as an Emperor who reigns over a massive empire. Seems like you’ve got it all, but your wife passes away and suddenly none of it matters anymore. Still, you’ve got to keep things running. This is a simulation game of sorts, but one with a heavy narrative bent that will eventually lead to you having to make a critical choice. The previous games in the series have been fascinating despite their rough edges, and I expect this will deliver in the same way.
Cyber Mission ($9.99)
I’d call this a run-and-gun action game, but it’s probably better classified as a fly-and-gun action game. You play as a cyber trooper who is on a mission to destroy hostile alien forces. If you don’t feel like being a one-trooper army, you can grab a friend or family member for some local co-op multiplayer. Looks like a pretty good time for those enjoy things like S.C.A.T. or Contra, and reasonably priced to boot.
Mangavania 2 ($4.99)
More Mangavania for those who want it. A gentle reminder that these games are not Metroidvanias, just linear stage-based platformers with very light exploratory elements. If that’s your thing, this does that. Not terribly well, mind you. But it does it. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.
White Eternal ($6.49)
After his friend goes missing during the harsh winter, Simon sets out from his mountain town to try to find out what happened to them. This is a turn-based RPG where you explore a land cursed to harsh winters (Winnipeg?), seeking out allies and battle monsters as you go. You can actually get in battles where you have as many as sixteen party members. Neat! The description promises over twenty hours of gameplay, which would be quite a lot of game for the price.
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
Bounty Hunter is already on sale? Wow. Well, that’s good news for Star Wars fans, who likely already own everything else in that sale. We also have a good selection of the usual Capcom stuff, a sale on the Tomb Raider remasters, and a very deep discount on the Switch version of Heads Up!. Over in the outbox, don’t forget to stock up on Picross. Everyone needs more Picross! Have a look through both lists.
Select New Sales
Star Wars Bounty Hunter ($14.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Battlefront Collection ($28.00 from $35.01 until 8/28) Star Wars The Force Unleashed ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Republic Commando ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Episode I Racer ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Jedi Academy ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Jedi Outcast ($4.99 from $9.99 until 8/28) Star Wars KotOR ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Star Wars KotOR II: Sith Lords ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Tomb Raider I-III Remastered ($22.49 from $29.99 until 8/28) MythForce($14.99 from $29.99 until 8/28) Heads Up! Phones Down Edition ($1.99 from $39.99 until 8/28) Street Fighter 30th Anniversary ($9.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Ultra Street Fighter II TFC($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Capcom Fighting Collection ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/10)
Capcom Fighting Bundle ($19.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Monster Hunter Generations Ult. ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Monster Hunter Rise + Sunbreak ($19.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil Revelations ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil Revelations 2 ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil 0 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil 4($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil 5($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil 6 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Mega Man Legacy Collection ($7.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Mega Man X Legacy Collection ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Mega Man Zero/ZX Collection ($9.99 from $29.99 until 9/10)
Mega Man Battle Network Collection ($29.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Mega Man 11 ($9.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective ($19.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Shinsekai Into the Depths ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Okami HD ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Ghosts n Goblins Resurrection ($9.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Capcom Arcade Stadium Bundle($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Bundle ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Disney Dreamlight Valley Gold ($45.49 from $69.99 until 9/10)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, August 22nd
A Fragile Mind ($2.99 from $5.99 until 8/22) Bunny Garden ($19.54 from $22.99 until 8/22) Conjured Through Death ($2.24 from $14.99 until 8/22) Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania ($6.99 from $9.99 until 8/22) Football Manager 2024 Touch ($19.99 from $49.99 until 8/22) Hard Racing Stunt Car Driving ($1.99 from $4.99 until 8/22) Hero’s Hour ($8.99 from $17.99 until 8/22) Inkulinati($17.49 from $24.99 until 8/22) Insurmountable($18.74 from $24.99 until 8/22) Life of Delta($6.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Love on Leave ($12.49 from $24.99 until 8/22) Maid of the Dead ($15.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Pickleball Smash($7.99 from $39.99 until 8/22) Picross LogiartGrimoire ($15.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Picross S Genesis & Master System ($7.99 from $9.99 until 8/22)
Picross S8 ($7.99 from $9.99 until 8/22) Picross S9 ($7.99 from $9.99 until 8/22) Plantabi Little Garden ($4.54 from $6.99 until 8/22) Sentimental Death Loop ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Smurfs Kart($13.99 from $39.99 until 8/22) Starward Rogue Complete ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Survivor Castaway Island($11.99 from $29.99 until 8/22) The Night of the Rabbit ($14.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Trinity Fusion ($14.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Ultimate Racing 2D 2($6.69 from $9.99 until 8/22) You Suck at Parking ($6.79 from $19.99 until 8/22)
That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with the big Thursday new releases. Should be some goodies in there. I hope, anyway. August. It’s rough. We’ll also have whatever sales and major news items that arrive during the course of the day. I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday, and as always, thanks for reading!
