Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for February 3rd, 2020. In today’s article we’ve got a trio of Mini-Views for you to check out, a trio of new releases summarized, and a rather robust list of sales to dig through. News? Well, my general aversion to reporting rumors means we don’t have much to talk about today in that regard, but there’s nothing wrong with focusing on some games, right? Right. Let’s get to them!
Mini-Views
198X ($9.99)
Style over substance. It sometimes works. It seems to be what 198X is banking on, because my goodness this game is stylish as all get-out. Unfortunately, it’s also a lot less substantial than you’d like it to be. The game amounts to five mini-game callbacks that vary in terms of quality and authenticity. The beat-em-up is simple but fun, the shoot-em-up is surprisingly solid, the racer looks the part but doesn’t feel it, the auto-runner is enjoyable but out of place, and the dungeon-crawler is just awkward. All of these games are glued together by a narrative that seems to want to say something but doesn’t know what to say, leading it to fall back on tropes so generic that they fail to have any impact at all. Still, the magic trick of the visuals, sound, and rapid-fire pace make it worth running through once if you have the appropriate level of nostalgia.
SwitchArcade Score: 3/5
Sisters Royale: Five Sisters Under Fire ($13.99)
It’s been ages since developer Alfa System released the last game in the Castle of Shikigami series. Many of the people that worked on that series are still at the company, so that experience still resides there within a larger team that has been doing all kinds of things in the intervening years. You can see that in Sisters Royale. It has an enjoyable scoring system that leans heavily on grazing bullets and effective use your attacks, multiple characters with their own unique offensive capabilities and absurd storylines, and a few level gimmicks to keep you on your toes. The graphics are a bit plain, opting for somewhat cheap-looking polygonal constructs over sprites, and those who aren’t really into the scoring metagame will probably find the game a little too slight for the price. Is this another all-time classic of the genre like Shikigami? Probably not, but it upholds Alfa System’s legacy quite well.
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
Seek Hearts ($14.99)
Well, it’s another Kemco/EXE-Create joint, and as usual, it passes the time. The story has an interesting premise and the character building system, which involves customizing your character using parts, is reasonably engaging. Still, the game can’t escape the usual problem of feeling too similar to almost every other product of this publisher/developer pairing. It feels like it was cobbled together in rather slipshod fashion under serious time, money, and enthusiasm limits. That’s fine enough for a few bucks on a platform without many good new JRPGs, but for fifteen bucks on the Switch, with the usual assortment of extra IAPs on offer? Eh. You can get this for half as much on mobile and there’s nothing lost in doing so, even assuming you really want to play it.
SwitchArcade Score: 2.5/5
New Releases
Please The Gods ($9.99)
Please The Gods is an indie RPG that draws on Finnish mythology to create a rather interesting setting and story. Note that while this is an RPG, it is more along the lines of tabletop RPGs like HeroQuest/Warhammer Quest, so there’s a lot of dice-rolling and a heavy luck component to the gameplay. If that’s a kind of thing that bugs you, don’t say that you weren’t warned. It only takes four or five hours to get through it even if you pace yourself, making for a nice little adventure that you don’t need to commit a month to in order to clear. A bit rough around the proverbial edges, to be sure, but for the price I think it’s neat enough.
Skellboy ($20.00)
This voxel-tastic action-RPG sees you in the role of a skeleton that can swap its body parts as it goes along. Those body parts give you different properties, so you’re encouraged to mix and match regularly. The visual style of the game is quite distinctive, with a sort of 2D-in-3D style that generally works out. It’s a bit clunky in places, but it works fairly well overall. I’m hoping to have a review of this one somewhat soon, so if you need more details, I suppose you could wait for that.
Orbitblazers ($19.99)
This game touts itself as a racing game, but while it’s timed you’re probably going to need to focus more on avoiding obstacles and making good jumps along precarious platforms. There are 20 courses in total that are set across four different galaxies, and there’s a local multiplayer mode where a second player can join in and compete. You can try to get the best time or aim for a high score, and online leaderboards presumably provide the incentive to try to improve on both of those. Not really my sort of thing, but it seems well-made for what it is.
Sales
It’s a big list of sales, though there aren’t any really big names to draw your attention. In absence of anything like that, I’ll point out a few games I feel are worth picking up. Hard West and Q-YO Blaster are both worth picking up at their sale prices, Biolab Wars is a fun Contra-style romp that will give you your buck-and-a-half’s worth, and Picross Lord of the Nazarick is an exceptionally rare case of a Jupiter-developed Picross game getting discounted. Not a lot in the outgoing list, but if you like rhythm games you may want to give Muse Dash a look. It’s not on sale all that often.
Select New Games on Sale
Them Bombs! ($9.79 from $13.99 until 2/18)
Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae ($7.14 from $11.90 until 2/21)
Drift Legends ($4.99 from $9.99 until 2/21)
Clue: The Classic Mystery Game ($14.99 from $29.99 until 2/8)
Mimic Hunter ($0.99 from $4.99 until 2/21)
Pizza Parking ($1.49 from $5.99 until 2/21)
Battleship ($3.99 from $19.99 until 2/8)
SpaceColorsRunner ($1.19 from $5.99 until 2/21)
It’s Raining Fists and Metal ($4.54 from $6.99 until 2/8)
Last Encounter ($10.49 from $14.99 until 2/21)
Spartan ($1.99 from $3.99 until 2/22)
Street Basketball ($0.59 from $5.99 until 2/21)
Tower of Babel – No Mercy ($8.99 from $9.99 until 2/21)
Violett ($0.99 from $9.99 until 2/20)
Sparkle 3 Genesis ($0.49 from $4.99 until 2/20)
No Thing ($0.19 from $1.99 until 2/20)
Agatha Knife ($5.99 from $11.99 until 2/10)
Sky Rogue ($9.99 from $19.99 until 2/7)
Persian Nights: Sands of Wonders ($1.49 from $14.99 until 2/20)
Gabbuchi ($5.59 from $7.99 until 2/20)
Hard West ($1.99 from $19.99 until 2/20)
Xenon Racer ($9.99 from $39.99 until 2/17)
Phantom Doctrine ($1.99 from $19.99 until 2/20)
Q-YO Blaster ($0.99 from $9.99 until 2/20)
Metaloid: Origin ($5.59 from $6.99 until 2/18)
Gunpowder on the Teeth: Arcade ($0.49 from $4.99 until 2/20)
Omen Exitio: Plague ($2.49 from $9.99 until 2/20)
Biolab Wars ($1.33 from $1.99 until 2/20)
Reknum ($4.24 from $4.99 until 2/20)
Milo’s Quest ($3.99 from $4.99 until 2/17)
Touchdown Pinball ($1.98 from $3.00 until 2/20)
Not Tonight: Take Back Control ($22.49 from $24.99 until 2/7)
Picross Lord of the Nazarick ($6.99 from $9.99 until 2/14)
Sweet Witches ($2.49 from $9.99 until 2/10)
Kitty Powers’ Matchmaker ($11.99 from $14.99 until 2/17)
EQQO ($5.40 from $6.00 until 2/7)
Never Again ($12.59 from $13.99 until 2/6)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, Tuesday, February 4th
Hungry Shark World ($1.99 from $9.99 until 2/4)
Midnight Evil ($0.99 from $9.99 until 2/4)
Muse Dash ($20.99 from $29.99 until 2/4)
Tactical Mind 2 ($1.99 from $4.99 until 2/4)
That’s all we’ve got for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with a few new releases including the game based on the Netflix Dark Crystal series, whatever interesting news hits in the next day, and of course the usual sales stuff. I’m still chewing on a couple of very big games for reviews, so I’m keeping very busy. But also playing Link’s Awakening for no good reason, because that’s how I shirk my work. Anyway, I hope you all have a great Monday, and as always, thanks for reading!
