Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for March 4th, 2021. Today’s article is all about the new releases, and there are a ton of them. Yes, Shaun’s going home late for dinner again tonight. But there are some very interesting games in today’s batch and I simply had to tell you about them. I also had to tell you about the bad ones, because that’s the job! We’ve also got the lists of incoming and outgoing sales, as always. Let’s get rolling!
New Releases
Gnosia ($24.99)
SwitchArcade Highlight!
Originally released in Japan a couple of years ago as one of the dying gasps of the PlayStation Vita in the market, Gnosia now comes to the West via this Switch port. In a sense, time has made it an easier sell. You see, this is an adventure game where you need to question and debate with other characters in order to discover who among your crew is actually the Gnosia imposter and put them into cold storage. But then time loops around again, and things are more complicated. And so it goes. You’ll be in different roles sometimes, and the Gnosia’s identity is always changing. Maybe you’re the Gnosia and now you need to hide your presence. Thematically, it’s very similar to Among Us. And indeed, the early loops can be finished in a matter of minutes. But in practice its single-player, story-heavy focus makes it something quite different. I’ll have a review of this one soon, but I can tell you right now that I think it is the bumblebee’s knees.
Super Metboy! ($9.99)
SwitchArcade Highlight!
I was a bit skeptical of this game initially, but after playing it for a bit it clicked for me. It’s a lot of fun. You play as this Metboy fellow (or one of his many friends) and need to clear stages that consist of waves of enemies capped off by a boss. Metboy can float, and when he attacks he’ll jump up a little. It feels a little Balloon Fight-ish in action? Except in this game you have a direct means of attack, and can also do a stronger attack from up close. You’ll earn points that unlock cool extras, and coins you can use to buy upgrades between stages. There are also gems you use to buy permanent upgrades you can carry into each new start. Ballon Fight Slayin’ roguelite, I suppose I would call it. You can also play with other people if you enjoy the chaos. I’ll have a review of this one next week.
Estranged: The Departure ($5.99)
SwitchArcade Highlight!
This is a light adventure that takes a couple of hours to run through. For the most part you’re just walking around and observing things, but there are a few small puzzles and action sequences to break things up. It’s actually the follow-up to a short game that was a Half-Life 2 Source engine mod. Unfortunately, we don’t have that original chapter on Switch so you’ll have to make do with this stand-alone sequel. You play as a fisherman who has been stranded on a seemingly deserted island after a nasty storm. It doesn’t take long before you realize there’s a lot more to this place than meets the eye. For the price, this is actually a pretty cool experience. Worth a shot if you like the whole “walking sim" genre.
Ayakashi: Romance Reborn Dawn Chapter & Twilight Chapter ($49.99)
Voltage is back with another visual novel romance story. Compiling both the Dawn and Twilight chapters of Ayakashi, there’s plenty of characters and content to embrace in this release. The Wraiths are attacking the city, and only your character and her hunky Ayakashi friends can turn them away. There are mysteries afoot, and you’ll naturally want to be solving them. But there are also dudes to be smoochin’, so choose your favorite and get to the wooing. A whopping ten potential suitors are on offer here, covering many of the popular types of the genre. The story is the usual Voltage cheese, but that cheese is popular for a reason.
The True ($9.50)
A third-person adventure game with a dash of action and an emphasis on puzzles, The True is a spin-off of a previous game called Laws of Machine that was not released on Switch. It’s the work of a rather small indie developer with only one previous game under their belt, and in that respect it’s somewhat better than you might expect. But I’m not sure I’d go as far as to say that it’s, you know, good. I suppose if you have a hankering for a janky adventure game with some okay-ish physics puzzles, you might get a bit of entertainment out of The True.
Arcade Archives Legend of Makai ($7.99)
Hamster’s been putting a lot of oddball releases out there lately, and this is certainly another one. Legend of Makai was released by Jaleco in 1988, and I sure don’t remember ever seeing it. Maybe you did, though. It’s an action-RPG that seems a bit inspired by Wonder Boy in Monster Land. You have to battle enemies, buy new gear, and make your way through each stage in order to rescue a princess. I can’t speak to the quality of this one in either direction, so feel free to take a gamble if you like the concept and have faith in Jaleco’s name.
Ruinverse ($14.99)
Call Phil, the new KEMCOs are out. This is an EXE-Create JRPG and it looks fairly standard for their works. The hero is named Kit and he is a transporter, which gives him an excuse to travel. His childhood friend, Allie (with an ‘ie‘), has the soul of another being inside of her. Whenever she touches Kit, the souls switch who is in the driver’s seat. Wacky! But also apparently not good for Allie. So Kit and his ragtag party end up on a quest to save Allie and probably the world while they’re at it. You know how this goes, friends. I probably won’t be reviewing this one, but who knows? I do like games with a goofy premise and this one at least checks off that box.
Sticky Monsters ($9.95)
This one is for handheld mode only, friends. That’s because it’s pretty clearly a mobile game ported with as few frills and changes as possible. The idea is that you slide the monsters around, Threes!-style by the looks of it, and try to merge the ones of a similar color together. Once they’re joined, they’ll move together. You need to group together all of the similarly-colored monsters to clear the stage. There are 225 stages in total, and three different difficulty levels. It seems fine for what it is, but between the touch-only requirement and the fact that you have to hold your Switch in portrait mode, it’s probably easier to track down the mobile version or something like it.
Give It Up! Bouncy ($9.99)
Bounce your way through more than 70 levels of precision platforming in this game. Your character never stops bouncing, adding a slight twist to the usual antics. A very familiar twist by this point, but hey, what can you do? There are all kinds of different platforms that you’ll have to take advantage of to reach the end of the level, and an assortment of hazardous traps you’ll need to be careful with. There seems to be a variety of characters you can use, but I’d be surprised if it’s anything more than a cosmetic difference. It’s pretty hard to mess something like this up on a fundamental level, so it’s all about how much you’re into another bouncy platformer.
Sea of Solitude: The Director’s Cut ($19.99)
This is an improved version of the game that hit a variety of platforms in 2019. It tells the story of a young woman who gets so lost in negative emotions that she becomes a monster. As she wanders the flooded, lonely remains of a city she confronts a variety of other monsters who try to block her way. It’s a very sincere game, but one that had quite a few flaws in its initial release. I’m really hoping the extra work put into this release helps it be its best, because I think there’s a really strong message here that could really shine with just a little buffing up. It seems like most of the improvements are related to the story and how it’s told, so I’m not expecting a lot of fixes to the gameplay aspects that also needed some re-thinking. Worth taking a closer look on potential alone, I think.
Mail Mole ($14.99)
You know… not bad. Not bad at all. Mail Mole is a 3D platformer whose main gimmicks revolve around the fact that its main character is a mole. That means you’re spending most of your time digging underground, and your jump involves a bit of charging if you want to reach any sort of height. The controls are great, the framerate is buttery smooth, and the level designs are fairly well-done. Not spectacular, but certainly enjoyable enough to romp through. The big issues here involve the aesthetics. The character designs are quite bland apart from the hero, and the music and sound effects just make the game come off as cheap. I heard that this was essentially a rookie effort from a relatively inexperienced team, and if that’s true then I think they’ve done quite well here. Give it a look if you’re into the genre.
Duel On Board ($7.99)
Pirate battles over grog! What could be a more suitable topic for a multiplayer game than that? Probably a few things, but work with me here. This is a local two-player game where you duel with each other to try to reach the beer at the middle of the ship. Shoot the other player to push them back, and jump to avoid their return fire. All kinds of events can mess with you as you try to have a clean duel, so you’ll have to think quickly to avoid being thrown overboard. There are a few other modes to mess around with when you get tired of the normal duels, giving you a fair bit to do for your money. Seems like an enjoyable game, if a bit on the simple side. I could see it being good for at least one or two party nights, and for the price of the game that may be sufficient.
Kill It With Fire! ($14.99)
Some people really hate spiders. Personally, I love them. They are my cool buddies with too many eyes and legs, and they eat the mosquitoes that annoy the heck out of me. But some of you really don’t like them, to the extent that you might want to burn down your house if you find a sufficiently large arachnid inside of it. This is your game. You play as a licensed exterminator and need to locate and destroy spiders in suburbia. The whole thing is played for laughs, of course. You find the spider, do what you have to in order to get them out into the open, and then squash them with a frying pan. The spiders can’t actually hurt you or anything, so this is really just a goofy game about smashing houses and spiders. Not my thing, but if you need to work out some spider feelings, by all means.
Everhood ($14.99)
You’ve heard of EarthBound-inspired games, but are you ready for EarthBound-inspired games-inspired games? Everhood clearly has Undertale on its mind, but hey, nothing wrong with that. Great games will inspire others, after all. It has a vaguely similar art style, but the gameplay looks quite different. It calls itself an adventure RPG, but the RPG bits seem to be limited to exploration. Battles use a rhythm mechanic where you need to dodge incoming attacks to the beat until the enemy exhausts itself. This looks like it could be very good, but it’s odd enough that I don’t want to recommend it until I have a chance to play it myself.
Counter Recon: The First Mission ($14.99)
Well, this looks pretty dire. I suppose Switch-owning Call of Duty fans tend to take what they can get in the absence of Activision’s franchise, but I somehow doubt this will scratch the itch very well. It’s a single-player FPS with a number of familiar ways to play, right down to the Zombie Mode. You’ll earn XP and level up, getting access to more weapons and upgrading your character’s skills. It checks off all the points on paper, but in practice the difference between objective and reality is all too clear. Look, if you wait for a sale you can grab any of the BioShock or Borderlands games for around this price. Even if you’ve already played those games I can guarantee a replay will be more worth your time than playing this.
Task Force Delta – Afghanistan ($9.99)
Speaking of games of dubious value, here’s another low-rent single-player FPS. This time instead of battling a fictionalized ISIS, you’re in Afghanistan on a mission where you, to quote the game description, “strive for vengeance for terrorist attacks against the United States“. Sigh. You can use an assortment of modern weapons like machine guns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles to, and again I quote, “weaken the terrorists and protect the free world“. I have thoughts, but none of them are appropriate for this article. I’ll just say that having your video game set in a real, completely non-fictional ongoing conflict when you aren’t planning on treating it seriously is tacky at best and… I’m not even going to say what it is at worst. Oh well, here it is. It’s ten bucks, and it’s as poor as this publisher’s other efforts on the Switch. Feel free to play it if you feel like getting a theme park attraction take on America’s 20-year-old-and-counting war.
Qube Qross ($6.99)
Oh, it’s Picross. An odd 3D take on it that is different from the other 3D Picross we know and love. Even with the extra dimension, it’s essentially the same thing you’ve seen before. Use the clues to figure out where to put blocks and create 3D pictures. There are 100 puzzles in total broken into 10 different themes. If you love Picross but want a slightly different spin on it, you may want to give this one a shot.
Mexican Train Dominoes Gold ($3.99)
I’ll confess something here, friends: I have never used dominoes for anything other than setting up elaborate sequences of falling pieces. I know there is a game you can play with them, but I’ve never learned the rules. If I did want to learn, here’s a game that might teach me how. There’s a tutorial here that teaches fools like me how to play, and a few different difficulty modes to challenge those who already understand the rules. You can also choose the relative length of game you prefer. Seems to only be a single-player affair, but I suppose you can’t expect too much for the price. If you’ve been waiting for a dominoes game on your Switch, here you go.
Laid-Back Camp – Virtual – Lake Motosu ($20.99)
From the makers of those Spice & Wolf VR titles, this is another episode-length virtual experience. Not sure if this one works with the Labo VR Toy-Con, but if nothing else you get to sit in the shoes of one of the characters as they enjoy some relaxed camping on Lake Motosu. I think you’re in the role of Nadeshiko Kagamihara? I’m not sure, but it seems like you’re mostly interacting with Rin Shima. Anyway, if you’re a fan of Yuru Camp you might enjoy this, but otherwise I can’t see you getting much out of it. Keep in mind that this isn’t so much a game as a short story you view from the eyes of a character.
Into A Dream ($13.99)
There are a few interesting things going on with this game’s narrative, but apart from its decent presentation that’s about all the game has going for it. The actual brass-tacks storytelling is rough and doesn’t get its point across well, and the gameplay just isn’t very good at all. You’re travelling through a person’s dreams, and that person must be a fan of Limbo because wow, it goes all in on that silhouette thing. Some light puzzle platforming, none of it pleasant, and a whole lot of dialogue that is a least a bit more tolerable if a little murky. Nothing really happens until you hit the last part of the game, where the narrative sort of dumps itself all over the place.
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
This is what we’ve got at the time of writing, friends. I’m sure there will be many more by the time I wake up. Even in the current list, there are some gems. Pawarumi is a fun shoot-em-up, and I will recommend A Robot Named Fight until everyone buys it. The Guns, Gore and Cannoli games have their fans, and you very well might become one too. In the outbox, Limited Run Games’ somewhat middling sale is coming to an end. They’re all neat games, but we’ve seen far lower prices on them before and may well again in the future. Take a careful look through as usual, friends. You may find more to like than just the few that I’ve mentioned.
Select New Games on Sale
Radon Blast ($2.79 from $3.99 until 3/8)
Spider Solitaire ($1.99 from $8.99 until 3/9)
Go! Fish Go! ($1.99 from $3.99 until 3/11)
Hidden Through Time ($4.79 from $7.99 until 3/12)
Pawarumi ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/12)
Warparty ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/12)
Guns, Gore and Cannoli ($5.99 from $9.99 until 3/12)
Guns, Gore and Cannoli 2 ($7.79 from $12.99 until 3/12)
StarCrossed ($4.99 from $9.99 until 3/16)
We should talk. ($5.59 from $6.99 until 3/16)
Neoverse Trinity Edition ($16.80 from $24.00 until 3/18)
Gradiently ($1.99 from $4.99 until 3/23)
Mail Mole ($11.99 from $14.99 until 3/23)
Woven ($1.99 from $19.99 until 3/24)
Cave Bad ($3.99 from $4.99 until 3/24)
Bob Help Them ($6.39 from $7.99 until 3/25)
Draw a Stickman: Epic 2 ($1.99 from $6.99 until 3/25)
Ministry of Broadcast ($7.49 from $14.99 until 3/25)
Crowdy Farm Rush ($1.99 from $5.99 until 3/25)
Demong Hunter ($6.39 from $7.99 until 3/25)
Dungeon Limbus ($11.99 from $14.99 until 3/25)
Subsurface Circular ($2.99 from $5.99 until 3/25)
A Robot Named Fight ($4.99 from $12.99 until 3/25)
Crash Drive 2 ($1.99 from $8.99 until 3/25)
Marooners ($1.99 from $14.99 until 3/25)
Animus ($3.19 from $7.99 until 3/25)
Animus: Harbinger ($3.19 from $7.99 until 3/25)
Creepy Road ($5.19 from $12.99 until 3/25)
Bullet Battle Evolution ($5.99 from $14.99 until 3/25)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, Friday, March 5th
3D Billiards: Pool & Snooker ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/5)
3D MiniGolf ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/5)
4×4 Dirt Track ($5.99 from $11.99 until 3/5)
Almost There: The Platformer ($1.99 from $9.99 until 3/5)
Battleship ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/5)
BFF or Die ($6.39 from $7.99 until 3/5)
Breakpoint ($2.48 from $4.99 until 3/5)
Car Driving School Simulator ($6.99 from $13.99 until 3/5)
Carnage: Battle Arena ($2.99 from $14.99 until 3/5)
City Driving Simulator ($5.99 from $11.99 until 3/5)
Clue: Classic Mystery Game ($14.99 from $29.99 until 3/5)
Cosmic Star Heroine ($10.49 from $14.99 until 3/5)
Cthulhu Saves Christmas ($6.99 from $9.99 until 3/5)
Deadly Fighter 2 ($1.99 from $3.99 until 3/5)
Deleveled ($4.96 from $9.99 until 3/5)
Double Switch: 25th Anniversary ($10.49 from $14.99 until 3/5)
Doug Hates His Job ($4.89 from $6.99 until 3/5)
Dracula’s Legacy ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/5)
Drift Racing Madness ($4.79 from $5.99 until 3/5)
Forgotten Tales: DotD ($7.49 from $14.99 until 3/5)
Fracter ($3.47 from $6.99 until 3/5)
#Funtime ($6.70 from $14.99 until 3/5)
Grave Danger ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/5)
Gurgamoth ($1.99 from $9.99 until 3/5)
Island Flight Simulator ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/5)
LASTFIGHT ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/5)
Mahjong Deluxe 3 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/5)
Moai VI: Unexpected Guests ($9.49 from $18.99 until 3/5)
Night Trap: 25th Anniversary ($10.49 from $14.99 until 3/5)
NUTS ($16.99 from $19.99 until 3/5)
Renzo Racer ($9.99 from $19.99 until 3/5)
Revenge of the Bird King ($3.49 from $4.99 until 3/5)
Roundguard ($8.93 from $19.99 until 3/5)
Saturday Morning RPG ($6.99 from $9.99 until 3/5)
Season Match ($4.99 from $9.99 until 3/5)
Season Match 2 ($4.99 from $9.99 until 3/5)
Season Match 3: CotWC ($4.99 from $9.99 until 3/5)
Secrets of Magic 2 ($4.99 from $9.99 until 3/5)
Secrets of Magic: Book of Spells ($4.99 from $9.99 until 3/5)
Summer Sports Games ($12.49 from $24.99 until 3/5)
Syder Reloaded ($8.39 from $11.99 until 3/5)
Tales of the Orient: Rising Sun ($7.49 from $14.99 until 3/5)
Tales of the Tiny Planet ($7.49 from $14.99 until 3/5)
The Ambassador: FT ($6.70 from $14.99 until 3/5)
The Bridge ($1.99 from $9.99 until 3/5)
Truck Simulator ($5.99 from $11.99 until 3/5)
Tumblestone ($1.99 from $14.99 until 3/5)
UltraGoodness 2 ($3.99 from $4.99 until 3/5)
Winter Sports Games ($12.49 from $24.99 until 3/5)
Wrestling Empire ($14.99 from $19.99 until 3/5)
That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with the rest of this week’s releases, and while the line-up is looking a little thin at the moment I’m sure it will explode by the time I get into the office tomorrow. Speaking of, we’ll also have a list of whatever sales come in, and I have a feeling it’s going to be a fair bit. If there’s any huge news, that may be included as well. I have another trip to the hospital tomorrow, but it should be a short visit so I don’t think it will impact the article any. I hope you all have a fantastic Thursday, and as always, thanks for reading!
