Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for May 31st, 2019. Today we’ve got a bunch of awesome news items, a ton of somewhat mediocre new releases, and some genuinely great sales that are going to leave your wallet shedding green tears. In fact, there was so much of everything else today, I had to bump my intended reviews to avoid making this article too long for this dimension. Let’s have a look at all of it, shall we?
News
‘Cadence of Hyrule’ Set for a June Release
Recently, there’s been a lot of speculation about the potential release date of Cadence of Hyrule, the Zelda-flavored spin-off of Crypt of the Necrodancer. Up until now, all we’ve had to go on officially is a vague “Spring 2019" release schedule. Well, no matter how you measure it, in the Northern Hemisphere “Spring 2019" only has a few weeks left in it. So unless the game is getting booted to the Southern Hemisphere’s “Spring 2019", we know it has to be releasing pretty soon. Some data that was mined by someone a few days ago had people speculating a May 30th release date, but like 97% of video game rumors, it turned out to be wrong. Luckily, Nintendo of Japan included the game in its latest Indie World video, confirming a June release date in the process. That means there aren’t going to be any delays, and if they’re really sticking to the “Spring 2019" thing, the game will be out sometime in the first few weeks of June. Yay!
‘Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’ Now Supports the Labo VR Kit
If you’re anything like me, you picked up the Labo VR Kit, played with it for a day or two, and are now using it to ward off evil spirits in your haunted pantry. Well, if you’re looking for a reason to pull it out and use it again, Nintendo has at least one idea. The latest update to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate brought a few things with it, and one of those things is support for the Labo VR Kit. Obviously, you can’t play the full game this way, but you can engage in some limited matches in certain stages offline, or take on the role of a spectator and watch the CPU beat itself up. Neat, but I suspect the haunted pantry will come a-callin’ again really soon.
‘Katana Zero’ Updates with New Modes, Currently 20% Off
Katana Zero is a pretty brilliant game. Violent and stylish as heck, and if that sort of thing is what fires you up, it really is amazing. The only problem is that the game is a bit light on things to do once you’ve finished it. The latest update aims to address that. It adds two new modes to the game. Hard Mode throws in some new enemies, revamps the levels and bosses, and generally makes things a lot tougher. Speedrun Mode skips all the cut-scenes and stabilizes enemy behavior. It also lets you check out a full range of statistics. If you want to try getting through the game as fast as possible, this is going to be the way to do it. The game is also currently 20% off as part of Devolver Digital’s anniversary sale, so it’s as good a time as any to grab it if you haven’t yet.
Warning! A Huge Update Approaches ‘Devil Engine’ Later This Year
If you like your shoot-em-ups hot, Devil Engine‘s debut earlier this year likely brought a smile to your face. Well, here’s another cause to crack a grin, friends. A massive expansion to the game will be available later this year. It’s called Ignition, and it blasts you right out of the gate with six, count ’em SIX, new stages. That effectively doubles the number of stages in Devil Engine, so if you want to think of it as a whole new game, I think that’s fair. It also adds new unlockable shaders and features, some new ships to play as, and a new announcer. And for those who love quality music, there’s also a brand-new arranged soundtrack from some truly talented composers. The Ignition expansion is still a ways off, but you can look forward to it hitting sometime this winter.
‘Dandy Dungeon: Legend of Brave Yamada’ Arrives on Switch June 27th
If you’re looking for a game with a lot of heart, it’s hard to find a better example than the quirky, lovable Dandy Dungeon. The original version of the game released on mobile, and it really impressed me back when I reviewed it. It’s the product of Onion Games, the amazing little Japanese independent developer headed by Yoshiro Kimura of Chulip and Little King’s Story fame. Dandy Dungeon will be making its way to the Switch quite soon, as it appears to have a release date of June 27th. The game will cost $24.99 and presumably will be slightly altered from the original design to accommodate that up-front pricing.
Who You Gonna Call? ‘Ghostbusters Remastered’ Comes to Switch in 2019
Back in 2019, something genuinely miraculous happened: a new Ghostbusters story was created and released with the full participation of the original cast. And it came not in the form of a movie or a TV series, but as a game. Ghostbusters: The Video Game was as close to a proper Ghostbusters 3 as we’re ever going to get, and it was the last time the late Harold Ramis returned to his iconic role of Egon Spengler. Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis wrote the story, and longtime hold-out Bill Murray even reprised his role as Peter Venkman. As a game, it was just good, but as Ghostbusters fanservice? Honestly, I almost shed a tear when I played it. And then it slipped into the same hole that most licensed games fall into, and I expected we’d never see it again. Yet somehow, it’s coming to Switch and a number of other platforms in a remastered form sometime in 2019. I will absolutely be there again to answer the call.
New Releases
Toon War ($4.99)
Tired of trying to keep up with all of the great twin-stick shooters on the Switch? Well, here’s something different for you: a terrible twin-stick shooter! The controls feel bad, the difficulty is all over the place, and the whole thing just comes off as cheap. Which, hey, it is a cheap game. But a cheap bad game is still a bad game, and that’s just what Toon War is. You’d hope that with a name like Toon War that it would at least bring some interesting whimsy or humor with it, but nope. It’s just a poor-looking game that isn’t very much fun at all.
Season Match 2 ($9.99)
Did you like Season Match? If so, you might like Season Match 2. Well, that was easy. I’m going home now. What? I have to write more or else the screenshots will look too crowded? Ugh, fine. Stupid Shadowy Consortium. Well, this is a game where you tap tiles to remove all of the similar tiles touching them. It’s stage-based, and you get 70 of those here so that’s a good weekend or so, depending on how rabid you are. It costs twice as much on Switch as it does on Steam, which is infinity times more than it costs on mobile where it is free. I guess the visuals are okay for this sort of thing? I don’t know, this specific type of matching puzzler isn’t my jam. But if you like stuff like Pet Rescue Saga for its gameplay and not for the antics of the insidious mastermind Dave the Puppy, maybe this might be okay? Maybe.
Arcade Archives Alpine Ski ($7.99)
Ah, the Arcade Archives. Almost all of the releases fall into one of three categories: games that are still fun to play, games that are basically historical curios in 2019, and games that really have no reason to be re-released except that Hamster is trying to keep a weekly schedule. Fortunately, Alpine Ski is not the third type. Unfortunately, I’m not sure it belongs to the first group, either. This is a pretty basic skiing game, and while the core mechanics are fun, it’s just a bit too simple to spend much time with these days. I really need to have a yeti attacking me at random to get into games like these. But if you feel differently about Alpine Ski, know that Hamster has done a good job as usual with it.
Selma and the Wisp ($9.99)
Limbo sure inspired a lot of games, and this certainly seems to be one of them. Follow the story of a little girl and a wisp that guides her. Travel through weird locations and use the combined abilities of the pair to solve a variety of puzzles. I don’t know, it’s not completely awful. It’s very atmospheric and if you somehow didn’t play Limbo you might even get into the story here. But the puzzles aren’t great and the game just doesn’t feel very good to play. I can really only recommend this one if you’re the sort of person that needs a dark, moody puzzle-platformer served up on a regular basis in order to live. Otherwise, there are probably better things to do with your time and money.
Crypt of the Serpent King ($2.99)
Three bucks for a first person dungeon crawler? What’s the catch? Oh, I see. It’s another game of extremely questionable quality. Today is pretty rough, friends. Well, I’m not sure what you could expect for this price. It’s a very limited game that sees you engaging in very limited real-time combat against some very limited enemies in order to get a key to battle a boss. It’s supposed to be procedurally-generated, and I suppose it is, but it all starts feeling identical before too long. It feels like an unfinished game in a lot of ways, but I’m not sure I’d even be all that interested in whatever a finished version of it would look like.
Golem Gates ($24.99)
If you’ve ever played a game called Battleforge, this is a lot like that. It’s an RTS mixed with some card game mechanics, and while it certainly has some balance issues, it’s pretty fun. You can play it online with other people, too. Of course, the usual problem arises when bringing something like an RTS to a controller-based system: the controls just don’t work as well as you would like them to. Granted, everyone else is working with the same handicap, so I guess that’s fine. You certainly get a ton of content to enjoy whether you’re playing alone or with others, so it’s a nice punch for the price. But it’s definitely not for everyone even in its original form, and adding fiddly controls sure doesn’t do it any favors.
Warlock’s Tower ($4.99)
SwitchArcade Highlight!
Oh good, a game I can finally really recommend. Warlock’s Tower is a neat little puzzle game where you play as a mail carrier who has to deliver a peace offering to a warlock who plans to destroy the world. To do that, you’ll have to ascend his tower, which presents a slight problem due to the fact that every single step you take in said tower drains your life. Basically, you start each floor with a certain number of lives, and every step will take away one of them. You have to get to the floor exit without running out of lives, something that is quite easy at first but eventually becomes extremely complicated. The game throws lots of obstacles and gimmicks at you, and a second character comes into play as well. It’s nothing mind-blowing, but it’s a really nice puzzle game at a very good price, if you ask me.
PixARK ($39.99)
The launch of ARK: Survival Evolved on the Switch was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. The game ran horribly on the system, which wasn’t terribly surprising given the game runs pretty badly even on much beefier hardware. Some time has passed and now we’ve got the spin-off of that game also available on Switch. PixARK is already working from a bit of a cornered position, to say the least. It’s more clearly patterning itself after the king of the genre, and at a higher price than said king, to boot. The game itself has gotten heavily mixed reviews on other platforms, and is also known for running pretty poorly on hardware that should be able to handle it without much issue. Basically, I wouldn’t go running into buying this game. I’ll have a review ready sometime in the next week, so if you’re interested, at least hold out until then.
Super Arcade Soccer ($6.99)
There are lots of advantages of the rise of independent game developers and a more global digital marketplace. For example, we get to see a lot of weird, niche games that no publisher would have taken a risk on releasing outside of its home territory back in the day. But the other side of that is that we also get tons of takes on popular mainstream ideas with virtually no filter. Six zombie games for you, four generic RPGs for that kid over there, and how about a dozen soccer games for the road? As you would expect from the name, Super Arcade Soccer is a simpler take on the world’s most popular sport, and that’s certainly an idea that has appeal to it. Unfortunately, I don’t think this one gets things quite right. It feels awfully slow for an arcade-style take on a sport, for one thing. It’s not bad, and the developer has certainly been very active about updating the game on other platforms, but for my admittedly ignorant-about-soccer tastes, it’s just missing a certain something.
Watermelon Party ($4.99)
Who needs another arcade-style multiplayer party game? N-no one? Oh dear. Ah, I’m just teasing. So, Watermelon Party. In this one up to four players battle against each other to see who can lay down their track pieces the quickest, in order to scoop up all the watermelon slices. That’s all there is to it. I’m not sure if it even has a single-player mode, to be honest. Look, it’s a cute idea for sure, but even at this price, I think you need to have a little more meat on the bones. Most of the individual mini-games in a Mario Party game are about as substantial as this.
Robot Squad Simulator ($14.99)
Take control of various robots and perform a number of different tasks. And by robots, I don’t mean the ka-chunk ka-chunk Gundam-style things. More like the beeeyuuuuu drone-type bots. You know, the real ones. Defuse bombs! Cut stuff underwater! I don’t actually know what else real robots do, but you’ll probably do some other things too! From what I’ve heard, this is a bit of a slow one, and it’s definitely not for everyone. But a few people seem to take to it, so if you’re interested in the subject matter, you may enjoy it. Heads-up: this is more expensive than it is on Steam even at a normal price, but at the time of this writing the computer version of the game is on sale for about two and a half bucks. So if you have an okay computer and you’re thinking this sounds neat, that’s definitely a cheap demo at the very least.
Mowin’ & Throwin’ ($14.99)
SwitchArcade Highlight!
So yes, if you really do need another couch co-op party-style game today, this is probably the one to go for. Compete against other players to see who can have the most mowed lawn when the timer expires. Items will pop up as you work, and you can toss them at other players to mess them up. It’s a fun game, especially if you can fill out a full four players. Please note, however, that it does not support online play. It’s also not that great of a single-player experience. But if you have nearby friends who like to play these kinds of games that inevitably end in tears and blood, this will fit nicely into the rotation whenever you get bored of Overcooked.
Sales
If you don’t automatically buy every awesome-looking new game as they come out, today is either going to be a very good day for you or a very bad one, depending on your account balance. Devolver Digital is having an anniversary sale, and almost all of its games are on sale as a result. Some of these, like Gris, Ape Out, and even the relatively new Katana Zero are at their lowest prices yet. Almost every Devolver Digital game is worth owning to some extent, so yeah… good luck with that. Besides those, we’ve also got a deal on the amazing SteamWorld Quest along with deep discounts on many of the usual suspects. Luckily, there isn’t much to worry about in the outbox for the weekend, so feel free to throw all your pennies at today’s sales.
New Games on Sale
SteamWorld Quest ($21.24 from $24.99 until 6/13)
Hue ($7.99 from $9.99 until 6/20)
Duke of Defense ($9.99 from $14.99 until 6/20)
She and the Light Bearer ($7.49 from $9.99 until 6/13)
Legend of the Tetrarchs ($13.49 from $14.99 until 6/6)
Phantom Doctrine ($16.19 from $17.99 until 6/6)
The Swords of Ditto: Mormo’s Curse ($10.49 from $14.99 until 6/7)
Lost King’s Lullaby ($8.49 from $9.99 until 6/13)
The Knight & the Dragon ($4.99 from $9.99 until 6/6)
Risky Rescue ($3.34 from $4.99 until 6/19)
Katana Zero ($11.99 from $14.99 until 6/7)
Reigns: Game of Thrones ($1.99 from $3.99 until 6/7)
Reigns: Kings & Queens ($3.99 from $7.99 until 6/7)
The Red Strings Club ($10.49 from $14.99 until 6/7)
Hard West ($9.99 from $19.99 until 6/19)
Ghoulboy ($4.99 from $9.99 until 6/6)
V.O.I.D. ($1.59 from $3.99 until 6/13)
Space War Arena ($10.49 from $14.99 until 6/13)
Ape Out ($10.49 from $14.99 until 6/7)
Downwell ($1.49 from $2.99 until 6/7)
Pikuniku ($6.49 from $12.99 until 6/7)
Guess the Character ($1.19 from $2.99 until 6/13)
GRIS ($11.89 from $16.99 until 6/7)
Toki ($19.99 from $29.99 until 6/12)
Destruction ($7.99 from $9.99 until 6/12)
Mother Russia Bleeds ($7.49 from $14.99 until 6/7)
MechaNika ($4.49 from $5.99 until 6/10)
Super Hyperactive Ninja ($4.49 from $8.99 until 6/13)
I Hate Running Backwards ($7.49 from $14.99 until 6/7)
Syberia 3 ($14.99 from $49.99 until 6/12)
Six Sides of the World ($5.00 from $10.00 until 6/6)
Broforce ($7.49 from $14.99 until 6/7)
Planet Alpha ($9.99 from $19.99 until 6/10)
Behind the Screen ($7.99 from $9.99 until 6/12)
Robbotto ($0.99 from $9.99 until 6/13)
Minit ($5.99 from $9.99 until 6/7)
Not A Hero: Super Snazzy Edition ($6.49 from $12.99 until 6/7)
Crossing Souls ($7.49 from $14.99 until 6/7)
Defoliation ($7.99 from $9.99 until 6/12)
Yesterday Origins ($9.99 from $29.99 until 6/12)
Ice Cream Surfer ($4.00 from $8.00 until 6/6)
Goetia ($0.99 from $9.99 until 6/19)
Sparkle Zero ($0.49 from $4.99 until 6/19)
Sparkle 3 Genesis ($0.49 from $4.99 until 6/19)
No Thing ($0.19 from $1.99 until 6/19)
Gekido Kintaro’s Revenge ($6.92 from $9.89 until 6/6)
Bit Dungeon Plus ($4.49 from $8.99 until 6/6)
A Hole New World ($4.99 from $9.99 until 6/6)
Millie ($0.49 from $4.99 until 6/19)
Frederic: Resurrection of Music ($0.59 from $5.99 until 6/19)
Frederic 2: Evil Strikes Back ($0.49 from $4.99 until 6/19)
Qbik ($0.49 from $4.99 until 6/19)
Enter the Gungeon ($7.49 from $14.99 until 6/7)
Caveman Warriors ($3.89 from $12.99 until 6/13)
Transcripted ($0.99 from $7.99 until 6/13)
Gear.Club Unlimited ($17.99 until $44.99 until 6/6)
Maria The Witch ($2.49 from $4.99 until 6/6)
Heroes of the Monkey Tavern ($4.99 from $9.99 until 6/12)
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime ($8.99 from $14.99 until 6/6)
Disc Jam ($5.99 from $14.99 until 6/3)
Akane ($3.74 from $4.99 until 6/21)
Tumblestone ($3.74 from $14.99 until 6/21)
The Bridge ($2.49 from $9.99 until 6/21)
Sales Ending This Weekend
Bargain Hunter ($11.24 from $12.49 until 6/1)
Mantis Burn Racing ($6.99 from $19.99 until 6/1)
Beekyr Reloaded ($4.99 from $9.99 until 6/2)
Mecha Storm ($11.99 from $19.99 until 6/2)
Spartan ($1.59 from $3.99 until 6/2)
Superola and the Lost Burgers ($1.99 from $5.99 until 6/2)
Tardy ($3.99 from $9.99 until 6/2)
Voxel Sword ($5.60 from $7.00 until 6/2)
We. The Revolution ($17.99 from $19.99 until 6/2)
Zombie Panic in Wonderland DX ($7.50 from $8.99 until 6/2)
And that’s it for today’s article. That also ties a nice little ribbon on the week and the month. June is going to be wild with new releases, and the first week is setting the pace with great games like Slay the Spire, Timespinner, Perchang, and tons of others hitting in the next seven days. So what are you picking up today? What are you playing this weekend? Feel free to comment below and let me know. As always, thanks for reading!
