News

SwitchArcade Roundup: An Animated ‘Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’ Trailer, ‘Super Mario Party’ Joy-Con Bundle Release Date, and the G-A-M-E of the D-A-Y.

Posted on by Phillip Stortzum

Welcome to your SwitchArcade Roundup for November 12th, 2018. After an impromptu week of vacation (my favorite kinds of vacations), your letter questin’ P-A-L Phil is here to deliver a new slab of news, impressions, and eShop discounts for you to enjoy. That’s on top of stuff I missed last week, such as the YouTube app arriving on the Switch, Trine 1-3 getting announced (with the first game already released as of this past Friday), and various smaller bits of gaming news.

Now, let’s get settled in comfortably for it’s time for the Game of the Day!

Game of the Day

Letter Quest Remastered ($2.99 from $11.99 until November 22)

On sale for a super low price, I couldn’t help but pick this next game for the Game of the Day. It’s Letter Quest Remastered, and it’s a fun battler where you fight monsters, one after the other, with the power of words. You’re given a selection of fifteen letters to create a word and these letters are replaced and replenished with new letters as the old ones are used. Some letters are stronger to use in words than others. Common letters like vowels and the letter “S" aren’t as strong as letters like “J", “X", and “Z", but they can lengthen words to create some strong attacks.

The main campaign pits you against level after level where each has up to four stars to earn. Each star is earned by completing a different challenge within a level. The first star is always to defeat all of the monsters, while another is beating the level within a set time limit. These are rather easy to deal with. It’s when you get to the third and fourth stars where the scenarios become gradually more challenging. Some require you to battle without the use of the vowels “I", “O", and “U", while others require you to only use four letters words (and no, not THOSE kinds of four letter words–it’s a family game, for cryin’ out loud). Monsters, too, have their own rules to them. Some can’t take damage if you use words that are three letters or less, for instance.

As you play through Letter Quest Remastered, you’ll accumulate gems that can be spent on a variety of upgrades to your grim reaper’s scythe, armor, and health to improve attack, defense, and the amount of hearts you have in each quest. There are also books that can get equipped, offering percentage-based bonuses to health received, gems earned, and glorious goodness like that.

Letter Quest Remastered offers a brilliant concept taking the forming of words to attack and eventually defeat enemies in an RPG-like fashion. The variety in the game is quite surprising, considering how simple the concept is–brilliance notwithstanding. From enemies that can change your board of letters by replacing a handful with tiles with various effects (such as poison tiles, which if used in a word, will damage your character–or just outright replacing letters) to fun little “Hangman" style mini-games for treasure that pop up in certain levels, Letter Quest Remastered keeps changing things up throughout its duration to spell out a mighty good time. The game is a perfect pick-up-and-play experience that for its currently low price you’d be S-I-L-L-Y not to download it.

News

Nintendo shares new minute-long animated trailer for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Did you know that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is less than a month away from release? If you didn’t, Nintendo certainly isn’t shy about making folks aware of this fact, as a new animated trailer for the game has revealed itself ahead of the game’s December 7th launch. It’s the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate mural come to life, and fans all over are making note of the lack of music in the trailer, seeing this as an opportunity to get creative. Just check out a couple of examples. The game with everyone returning in it has a game trailer that goes with everything!

New Super Mario Party Joy-Con bundle arrive on store shelves next week

One heck of a deal will soon become available to Switch owners and perspective purchasers (and even gift-givers for the holiday season!) of Super Mario Party. While the game’s been out for over a month now, this is an all-new bundle which includes the game and a pair of neon Joy-Cons of the green and yellow varieties. Normally, a pair of Joy-Con controllers would run you $79.99, but with this bundle you can get them with a copy of Super Mario Party for only $99.99. That’s quite a bit of savings. Likewise, you could say that Super Mario Party only costs $19.99 with this bundle, but let’s not split Mario’s mustache hairs here! The Super Mario Party Neon Green/Neon Yellow Joy-Con bundle hits store shelves on November 16th.

Kirby Star Allies receives a new trailer showcasing its Wave 3 update

The long-awaited Wave 3 update for Kirby Star Allies is coming soon to the Switch, and with it comes the biggest update yet. Three new Dream Friends are going to be added to the roster: Magolor from Kirby’s Return to Dream Land, Taranza from Kirby: Triple Deluxe, and Susie from Kirby: Planet Robobot. Also included is a brand-new mode where you can play as every Dream Friend within the game called Heroes in Another Dimension, including more difficult versions of the base game’s bosses. This absolutely free downloadable delight that will be Kirby Star Allies‘s Wave 3 update arrives on the Switch on November 30th.

THQ Nordic reveals three games are coming to the Switch

Today, THQ Nordic let loose the news that three games will be heading to the Switch in early 2019. These three games are the Zelda-like Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy (originally appearing on the Nintendo GameCube back in 2003), the point-and-click fantasy adventure The Book of Unwritten Tales 2, and the crime caper The Raven Remastered. All three games are planned to be sold both in physical and digital formats for a price of $29.99 apiece.

Five Nights at Freddy’s ports are coming to the Switch courtesy of Clickteam

The creator of Five Nights at Freddy’s unleashed a load of news pertaining to the series in a Steam Community topic, but the most relevant bit of information for Switch owners comes from this little section regarding the game’s console ports, which are about 20% complete:

“I’m working closely with the people at Clickteam to create new, improved, HD ports of all of the original games! They will be released on Android, iOS, Switch, XBox and PlayStation!"

Sales

Surprisingly, the Nintendo eShop did not get overloaded with discounts while I was away for the week. I was half-expecting to still be finding discounts and adding them to this list as of now–and I started this on Sunday morning! (You see, the joke here is that the list of eShop sales would be so long that even though I started over 24 hours ago, I’d still be writing the list.)

Regardless, I imagine the majority of new discounts on the eShop will arrive next week just in time for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, “Throw Your Wallet in a Fire" Thursday, and whatever else we have here in the United States to celebrate capitalism.

For the time being, check out some new discounts from over the past week, and make sure you pick up Tennis in the Face and Time Recoil if you’re interested in them, for their discounts expire tomorrow.

New Games on Sale

 

  • Mugsters ($8.99 from $14.99 until November 14)
  • Overcooked Special Edition ($9.99 from $19.99 until November 14)
  • Raging Justice ($7.49 from $14.99 until November 14)
  • The Escapists: Complete Edition ($10.49 from $14.99 until November 14)
  • The Escapists 2 ($11.99 from $19.99 until November 14)
  • Worms W.M.D. ($17.99 from $29.99 until November 14)
  • Hyper Sentinel ($4.93 from $12.99 until November 15)
  • Pool Panic ($9.98 from $14.99 until November 15)
  • Roarr! Jurassic Edition ($7.19 from $7.99 until November 15)
  • The Walking Vegetables: Radical Edition ($10.39 from $12.99 until November 15)
  • Forgotten Anne ($17.99 from $19.99 until November 16)
  • Super Beat Sports ($11.24 from $14.99 until November 16)
  • Deru – The Art of Cooperation ($13.49 from $14.99 until November 17)
  • Deployment ($7.89 from $9.99 until November 17)
  • Shadow of Loot Box ($6.39 from $7.99 until November 17)
  • Butcher ($4.99 from $9.99 until November 18)
  • Lichtspeer: Double Speer Edition ($4.99 from $9.99 until November 18)
  • Serial Cleaner ($5.99 from $14.99 until November 19)
  • Super Volley Blast ($7.99 from $9.99 until November 19)
  • The Flame in the Flood: Complete Edition ($7.49 from $14.99 until November 19)
  • The Adventures of Elena Temple ($1.99 from $4.99 until November 20)
  • 1979 Revolution: Black Friday ($4.07 from $11.99 until November 22)
  • BINGO for Nintendo Switch ($2.49 from $4.99 until November 22)
  • Bleed ($3.59 from $11.99 until November 22)
  • Bleed 2 ($4.49 from $14.99 until November 22)
  • Bouncy Bob ($0.14 from $4.99 until November 22)
  • Die for Valhalla! ($7.19 from $11.99 until November 22)
  • Don’t Die, Mr Robot! ($1.79 from $8.99 until November 22)
  • Fall of Light: Darkest Edition ($7.49 from $14.99 until November 22)
  • Frost ($4.41 from $12.99 until November 22)
  • Hollow ($1.99 from $19.99 until November 22)
  • INK ($3.59 from $8.99 until November 22)
  • Letter Quest Remastered ($2.99 from $11.99 until November 22)
  • Mahjong Deluxe 3 ($15.99 from $7.99 until November 22)
  • Paranautical Activity ($2.71 from $7.99 until November 22)
  • Realpolitiks ($18.74 from $24.99 until November 22)
  • Shikhondo – Soul Eater ($4.75 from $13.99 until November 22)
  • Slain: Back From Hell ($4.99 from $19.99 until November 22)
  • Slayaway Camp: Butcher’s Cut ($5.09 from $14.99 until November 22)
  • Super Ping Pong Trick Shot ($2.49 from $4.99 until November 22)
  • Swap This! ($0.99 from $1.19 until November 22)
  • The Coma: Recut ($5.99 from $19.99 until November 22)
  • Three Fourths Home: Extended Edition ($2.24 from $8.99 until November 22)
  • Typoman ($9.09 from $12.99 until November 22)
  • Full Metal Furies ($14.99 from $19.99 until November 25)
  • Life Goes On ($6.49 from $12.99 until November 25)
  • Johnny Turbo’s Arcade: Heavy Burger ($15.99 from $19.99 until November 26)
  • Earthworms ($2.79 from $7.99 until November 29)
  • The Way Remastered ($4.49 from $14.99 until November 29)
  • Space Ribbon ($4.99 from $14.99 until November 30)

 

Sales Ending Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 13th

 

  • Tennis in the Face ($2.49 from $4.99 until November 13)
  • Time Recoil ($8.39 from $13.99 until November 13)

 

My first day back on the SwitchArcade Roundup has hopefully been a good one, but I’ll leave you to judge my performance! In the meantime, coming up this week I’ll have impressions of the Switch versions (what else, of course!) of Crashlands and The Bug Butcher, though probably not in that order. Until next time, keep your Joy-Cons charged and your Switches loaded with great games!