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After the release of Tears of the Kingdom, I was afraid that we would never see a new game in the style of the 2D Zelda game. Yet, I have been proven wrong when this game was announced. To be very honest, I didn’t have very high hopes for this game. Especially since this game was announced this summer and released in late September. I felt that this game going to be a game to fill a gap while the developers are working on a much larger game. Now, the game is released, and I have played through a fair chunk of it. So, what is my opinion on this game? Well, that’s what I’m going to tell you in this first impressions article, while I all invite you to leave a comment of your thoughts and/or opinions in the comment section down below.

Renewing the Echoes

After a short introduction where you play as Link, the main story of this game is introduced. There are all consuming interdimensional rifts appearing all over Hyrule, and it’s eating various people in the kingdom.

Link gets eaten by one of those rifts while freeing Zelda and when Zelda tells her father, the king, about these rifts… A new rift appears and replaces the king with an evil clone of himself. Zelda gets thrown in the dungeon and there she meets a fairy named Tri. This fairy gives Zelda a special staff where she can summon objects into the world using echoes. With those echoes, she escapes the dungeon and sets out on an adventure to save Hyrule from doom before the land is fully consumed by the rifts.

Something I always love about the Zelda games is that there is a different core mechanic at the base of the game. In this game, we get two things. We got the rifts to another dark world, but we also got the magical staff, which we can use to summon various echoes into the world. These echoes mean you can tackle this game in various different ways. But I’ll talk more about that later in this article.

In terms of story, this game is hitting all the same beats as your typical Legend of Zelda game. It might be disappointing, to some, that in this game there is no voice acting anymore apart from the grunts and various emotional noises. Personally, I think it adds to the charm of this game. That’s because the characters in this game are way more expressive. While the story isn’t going to leave you at the edge of your seat of “what’s going to happen next”, it’s still well quite enjoyable, and the more expressive characters add quite a lot to the charm and atmosphere of the game.

Something I really like is how in this game, you are free to explore the world at your own peace. This game isn’t limiting you to go in a certain order. While this game isn’t fully open world like Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, it’s somewhere in between. You can tackle parts in a different order. Like the first two major dungeons can be done out of order. Each area is its self-contained puzzle, and everything you need can be found in that general area.

In my introduction of this article, I said that I was afraid that was afraid that this game would be a short one where you were able to beat it in a few hours. That it was going to be a game that’s supposed to hold players over for the “next big 3D Zelda title”. To my surprise, this game is rather lengthy for a 2,5D Zelda game. It clocks in at 25 hours of casual playtime, which is, to my knowledge, one of the longest 2,5D Zelda games.

Climbing with beds

Something I find myself doing quite a lot while playing this game was climbing the area with beds. I summoned various beds stacked on top of each other to climb a wall. Since, I wanted to know if the developers hid a secret on that cliff face.

The exploration of this version of Hyrule is a blast to do. While you visit a lot of familiar places and meet your usual suspects like the Zora and the Gerudo, it’s a treat seeing them again. The only thing I missed a bit is showing the impact of the rifts. Something that this game only tells through dialogue was how things got impacted by the rifts. I wish it was shown a bit more visually. Like different animations of the characters before and after. But maybe, Tears of the Kingdom set the bar a bit too high for those expectations where each major area had a certain curse.

In terms of gameplay, this game really leans into the echoes mechanic. It also remembers that Zelda is a princess and didn’t really have combat training. So, you have to use summoned enemies to your advantage to let them fight for you. Now, you do have a sword, but you can only use it when your power meter has charge. I always reserved that for the dungeon bosses or when the situation got pretty dicey. Since recharging that meter is either done with potions or by defeating monsters from the rift world. These enemies aren’t exactly common in the overworld, and the energy bar drains fast.

In general, this game hits the same general gameplay beats as all other Zelda games. You go from dungeon to dungeon, learning a new technique or skill, defeating the boos and moving forward to another dungeon. There are also side quests in this game, that give you a nice reward. In this game, you also have a nice system to keep track of these side quests, like in Tears of the Kingdom. Something they also brought over from that game is the cooking system to a degree.

That’s something I personally feel mixed about. Maybe it’s me, but I feel the ingredients are quite rare to come by and there is no real way to farm certain ingredients like in Breath of the Wild. I have to admit that it adds a certain charm to this game, but I feel it’s a bit under implemented here. Like when you first meet the potion creators Deku shrubs, they talk about recipes… And I had a hard time finding any.

Like in Tears of the Kingdom, you can also eat most of the ingredients without cooking them. While I personally dislike the fact you have to do two clicks to consume an item, I do understand why they did it. To avoid you consuming them too much. Yet, this is a change from the two previous games and I honestly really feel it’s a set backwards. A fine solution would be to give the player an option to switch between both systems.

Grezzo playset

This game was co-developed by Grezzo. Their previous original Zelda game was Tri Force Heroes. But, this game looks very similar in graphical style to the remake of Link’s Awakening on the Nintendo Switch from late 2019.

This game looks like a plastic toy set and it looks amazing. While I was playing this game, I felt amazed at how expressive they were able to make everything without breaking the illusion that this is a toy set brought to live by our imagination. I don’t have a lot of complaints about the visuals and animations. And most of my complaints aren’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.

Just like, I don’t have any complaints about the music and sound design of this game. If you take the music and sound design in a vacuum, you would say that it sounds just like very other Zelda game. It sounds like a remix of the familiar melodies we all know and love from the Zelda games. But, this isn’t a problem, since it sells the illusion that you are a child playing with a sort of Playmobil toy set of Hyrule and trying to recreate the sound effects and music of the game.

In terms of controls, this game plays like a dream. I rarely had problems with the controls and something I really like is the fact that with one press of a stick, you can see a view from on top when you feel the camera is blocking something. Now, there is one thing that I do have some things to criticize about. And that’s about the jumping.

It’s pretty difficult sometimes to judge how high Zelda can jump. I had moments in combat where I wasn’t aware I could jump on a higher ledge until I saw an enemy jumping backwards on that ledge. I also got tripped up several times with how far Zelda can jump. Her jump is shorter than I think, and the amount of times I jumped into a pit misjudging the jump is quite a lot. Something that would have helped is something a small landing shadow when Zelda was coming down. Then again, that must have been a nightmare to implement… So, maybe I should keep her shorter jump just better in mind.

Now, something else. Something I really like is how this game has two difficulty modes. I’m playing through this game on the normal difficulty setting and I have to say, I’m happy that I did. This game can lure you into a false sense of security. I wouldn’t say that this game is hard, but it isn’t a cakewalk either. You really need to keep your wits about you and think fast sometimes.

Being aware of what’s around you is also quite important since this game loves to hide things in little side area’s and using the map system is a must. I love how you can put pins and such on the map. Yet, I have to admit that I still keep notes in my phone like: “treasure in Gerudo dungeon, need to check later”.

The more I play through this game, the more I realize that the critiques I can make about this game are more on the minor side. Like how it feels like a waste of time when you are scrolling through a long list of echoes when you just want to find one. An easy solution would be to give the player an ability to favorite certain echoes. But then again, the sort function in the quick menu has “most used”, “recently learned” … So, it’s kinda that.

Now, you have two save slots in this game. So, you can play through this game and let a friend or a sibling play through a different slot. Now, this game also autosaves for you frequently, in case you forget to save. The game also keeps like several autosaves in case you want to return to an earlier point.

Something I really like is how this game also has a quick travel system. The system works similarly like an owl statue in Majora’s Mask or a water vane in Link Between Worlds. It makes it easy when you feel stumped by a puzzle and want to return later. The fast travel locations are very fairly placed all over the land.

While I went quite critical in this game, the more I played it, the more it won me over. This game is a new 2,5D Zelda adventure game I hope we were going to see again. The last new, non remake 2,5D Zelda game was released almost 11 years ago. And, I’m so happy to see a return to this style. I’d love to see a this style also making an appearance very so often since it’s clear there are still various unique ways to explore Hyrule and tell a story about the Hyrule legend without going fully 3D.

Apart from a few small complaints you read in this article, I honestly don’t have any major complaints about this game. This is a game I’m going to finish for sure, since I’m enjoying my time with this title quite a lot. If you are into the series, I highly recommend this title to you. If you enjoy exploration and playing with unique mechanics, I also think this game is for you. This game is totally worth it’s price tag and it pleasantly surprised me.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another one, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Civilization 7, the very long-awaited latest instalment in developer Firaxis' beloved 4X strategy series, finally has a release date and will be launching for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC on 11th February next year.

But that's not all! As well as providing a date for strategy fans to furiously circle in their 2025 calenders, Firaxis has shared a first look at Civilization 7 in action following June's moody, if ultimately rather uninformative, cinematic trailer. And today's gameplay debut reveals a new aesthetic somewhere between the vibrantly cartoony (and somewhat divise) artstyle of Civilization 6 and the more realistic approach of earlier titles in the series.

And there's more where that came from; Firaxis will be expanding on the features glimpsed in tonight's trailer as part of a 20-minute gameplay showcase set to air at 9.30pm BST/1.30pm PT on Twitch, shortly after Gamescom Opening Night Live is through. And you might also want to stick around Eurogamer, as we'll have plenty to say about Civilization 7 ourselves.

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Those Xbox players among us who have been waiting to get their hands on open-world adventure RPG Genshin Impact, I have good news.

At this evening's Gamescom Opening Night Live, the team revealed Genshin Impact will be making its way to Xbox Series X/S and Game Pass on 20th November. It is available to wishlist now on the Microsoft Store.

The news was shared along with a new Natlan gameplay trailer (below). Earlier this year, Genshin Impact was once again accused of cultural appropriation from fans and voice actors in response to the reveal of its new cast of Natlan characters.

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Dying Light developer Techland has shown off a new game in its zombie series that began life as a DLC for Dying Light 2 Stay Human.

Announced during Gamescom Opening Night Live, Dying Light: The Beast is a solo or four-player co-op experience pitched as a "tight" 18-hour ride through a fresh area of the franchise's world.

Dying Light protagonist Kyle Crane, once again voiced by Roger Craig Smith, returns here, a decade on. In-game, Crane has been in captivity, and experimented on. The upside? You have zombie DNA powers to unleash that beast on enemies.

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Amazon Games has announced King of Meat, a new game from ex-Lionhead and Media Molecule developers.

The party game is part co-op action multiplayer and part dungeon builder. Players team up online in the fictional King of Meat TV show to complete dungeons filled with enemies and traps; then dungeons can be created from scratch and shared with the game's community.

Developer Glowmade is led by Jonny Hopper who previously worked for Lionhead on the Fable series and Media Molecule on LittleBigPlanet, along with other staff from those companies.

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Sony is pulling Horizon Forbidden West from its PS Plus subscription service in the coming weeks.

The first-party Sony game is now listed under the 'Last Chance to Play' section on PS Plus, along with the likes of NieR Replicant, Marvel's Midnight Suns and Alien Isolation.

This upcoming removal of Forbidden West comes just a few months after Horizon Zero Dawn was also removed from the service, which as Tom wrote at the time seemed a surprising move by Sony.

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Just when Geoff Keighley had started to fade from your memory, he comes rubber-banding back with a vengeance - snap! It's Gamescom week and it kicks off with Opening Night Live this evening from 7pm UK time (other Opening Night Live timings here). A pre-show with additional announcements will begin at 6.30pm UK. We'll be watching and reporting on it live, as always, right here, so you can either keep abreast of announcements while you do something else, or you can join in with your thoughtful and amusing comments. Please keep us company. Please.

What do we expect to see today? Well, probably Geoff Keighley, but also the new Indiana Jones game, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Dune Awakening. We're also expecting Little Nightmares creator Tarsier to unveil its new project, which could be exciting. On top of that: Diablo 4 expansion Vessel of Hatred, Civilization 7, hero shooter Marvel Rivals, Lost Records (the project made by the creators of Life is Strange), Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 (which was recently delayed), and Black Ops 6. Keighley's best pal Hideo Kojima has also been tweeting enigmatic silhouetted pictures of actors who are presumably playing roles in Death Stranding 2.

And before you ask, "Yes, there will be new game announcements," Keighley said on X.

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Nintendo's 135-year history will soon be brought to life inside the walls of a new purpose-built Nintendo Museum in Kyoto, Japan - and ahead of its opening on 2nd October, legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto has revealed some of its intriguing exhibits in a new video tour.

The Nintendo Museum has been built on the site of the factory where Nintendo originally made its Hanafuda cards, and which was later used for quality checks during the Famicom era. That building and its unremarkable carpark are no longer standing, however, now replaced by a shiny two-floor monument to Nintendo's history and a Mario-themed plaza.

Miyamoto's 13-minute tour begins on the second floor of the museum, where several huge curved glass displays - containing many of the products Nintendo has released since its founding in 1889 - can be found. This whole area is intended to chart the evolution of Nintendo's approach to entertainment, from its earlier non-video game products - including copy machines, baby strollers, RC cars, and pitching machines - into more familiar territory, beginning with 1977's early video game forays, the Color TV-Game 6 and Color TV-Game 15.

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Nintendo and Level-5 have announced a delay for Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, which was originally due to launch for Switch on 10th October.

"To all of you who have been looking forward to the release, we apologise for any inconvenience caused and sincerely appreciate your understanding," Level-5 said in a statement sharing news of the delay. "Thank you for your patience."

Level-5 hasn't yet suggested when Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time might now release, nor did it offer any reason for the delay. Could the studio be waiting for Nintendo's next generation of hardware, tentatively dubbed Switch 2? I suppose time will tell.

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Dead Cells today has received its final major update, The End is Near, after seven years of development.

This will be the 35th update to the game, which has received a number of DLCs to expand gameplay and reference other popular games, from Castlevania to Hollow Knight.

The End is Near expands on the curse mechanic, with three new mobs, three new weapons, and three new mutations.

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Vampire Survivors' free Darkasso update is now available on Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox, and mobile devices.

"It's been a while since we added a new major feature, so we tried not to spoil the contents of this patch immediately," Poncle teased in the patch notes. "Hope it worked to keep the contents a bit of a surprise."

New additions include nine new extra achievements, a new challenge stage and relic, two new "special character skins", and five new Arcanas to spice up your experience.

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During Lockdown, the only thing more scarce than flour was Switch fitness game Ring Fit Adventure. It was the perfect thing at the perfect time: a game that provided a home workout in a period when you had to stay home. Strap the controller to you, grab the oversized resistance wheel thing, and get moving. Everyone wanted one, and the desire for it lingered long after Lockdown. Today, Ring Fit has sold more than 15m units - it's one of the most successful games on Switch. Nintendo sensed there was a market and Ring Fit proved it. And it's not just Nintendo: companies like Peloton, with its uber-expensive exercise bike and integrated workout platform, have shown people will pay significant amounts of money to gamify their fitness needs, and it's into this exact space a new challenger has arrived.

It's called Quell and it's currently £190, and I tried it this week and I really liked it. The topline thing you need to know is that it delivers a punishing workout. It's more intense than Ring Fit; after a short demo plus a 20-minute regular session, I was dripping sweat freely on the rug in Quell's smallish London office. There was no air conditioning - enough said. That's not to say Ring Fit can't be intense but it's generally a calmer experience. Quell is designed to push it up a notch.

The second thing to know is that Quell feels more actively gamey than Ring Fit, which I was quite surprised about. It's built with roguelike principles in mind, so you try to see how far you can get in the game but also build and customise a loadout as you go. Do you want this power or that one? That kind of thing. And then between runs, you equip the items you earned, affecting your power and statistics, adding a layer of role-playing game progression to the mix. "Real fitness. Real gaming," is the company's motto, so you get a sense of the areas it's trying to push on.

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Nintendo is dropping a free three-part demo for its upcoming horror, Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club from next week.

From Tuesday 20th August, players will be able to grab the prologue and chapter one.

Chapter two will drop on the morning of the 23rd August, and the third and final freebie, chapter three, will be available on 28th August.

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Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney has said he has "no regrets" over his company's decision to break Apple and Google's terms of service back in August 2020 - something that saw the hugely-popular Fortnite booted off both iPhone and Android storefronts.

The carefully choreographed stunt sparked four years of legal wrangling over Apple and Google's app store policies - and has ultimately led to Epic Games launching its own mobile store today on Android worldwide and on iPhone in mainland Europe, thanks to policy changes demanded of Apple by the EU.

"We've probably lost a billion dollars not having Fortnite on iOS the past four years," Sweeney said, in a briefing to press ahead of the Epic Games Store on mobile going live. "But what's the price of freedom?"

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The enhanced version of classic point-and-click adventure Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars now has a release date: 19th September.

This "Reforged" version will be available across PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Series X S, Nintendo Switch and PC (Windows, macOS and Linux).

The game's redrawn visuals have been upgraded to 4K, but there's also a new story mode UI including subtle hints aimed at new players.

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Flame Fatales, the all-women and femmes charity speedrunning event from Games Done Quick, returns for another week-long programme of impressively swift gaming feats this weekend.

This year's Flame Fatales (which will be the event's fourth outing since its launch back in 2021) gets underway on Sunday, 16th August. More specifically, things kick off at 6:15pm BST, with a Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores 100% speedrun by RE_doc19.

Seven days - and more than 50 speedruns - later - this year's Femme Fatales comes to a close at 4:06am BST with a Super Mario Odyssey Talkatoo% speedrun by CheeseJay. In between, you can expect speedruns for the likes of Persona Dancing, Sonic CD, Broken Age, Stray, the Resident Evil 2 remake, Rez, and plenty more - as outlined in this year's full schedule.

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For many, scaling Mount Everest has stood as the ultimate challenge of one's strength and endurance. An achievement of a lifetime. For long-time Doom players, however, there is an equivalent: NUTS.WAD. Legend has it that NUTS.WAD descended upon Doom players in the year 2001: a map from the future in which players are dropped into a single map with more than 10,000 enemies and a handful of power-ups. And now - for the first time ever - it's playable on a games console.

I'm half-joking, of course, but the ability to load in any Doom mod is just one great feature found in the latest version of Doom and Doom 2. Helmed by Nightdive in cooperation with id Software and Machine Games, this new version is worth looking at as it is the most feature rich, best-performing version of Doom on consoles. It's available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series consoles, Switch and even last-gen PS4 and Xbox hardware. The game was transitioned over to Nightdive's KEX engine and brings with it a vast array of enhancements - 120fps support on consoles, 16-player multiplayer including co-op, and a new soundtrack from the legendary Andrew Hulshult.

But it was the mod support that was my first destination and with it, the chance to see how Nightdive's work would cope with the NUTS.WAD challenge. This pushes beyond the limits of what Doom engine was intended to handle and now we can test it on console and the results are interesting. Before we go on, it's worth stressing that all current-gen machines can handle 4K gaming at 120fps - and yes, that includes Series S. The engine is optimised and fast - all the included content and every map I tested runs like greased lightning. I wanted to raise this caveat because the challenge of NUTS.WAD is so extreme and cruel that I don't want people to get the wrong idea. The fact that you can run NUTS.WAD at all is cause for celebration!

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UPDATE 20/8/24: Well, there you go. Following last week's Deadline report, Amazon has officially unveiled Secret Level, a new "adult-animated anthology series featuring original stories set within the worlds of some of the most beloved video games".

It's a 15-episode series from the creators of Love, Death & Robots, and it'll feature stories inspired by Armored Core, Concord, Crossfire, Dungeons & Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, PAC-MAN, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament, Warhammer 40,000, and a variety of PlayStation Studios games.

And if that takes your fancy, you'll be wanting to circle 10th December on your calendar - which is when the series arrives on Prime Video - then check out its teaser trailer below.

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Among Us developer InnerSloth has announced a collaboration with Dungeons and Dragons web series Critical Role.

This collaboration means players can now bedeck their little space beans with a number of items worn by those intrepid members from Vox Machina, Mighty Nein, or Bells Hells. I am talking about Artagan's Incredible Brows Visor or the Dust of Deliciousness Nameplate, to name but two.

"Getting to work alongside the wonderful crew of the hit TTRPG show Critical Role to bring some of their magic to Among Us for Gilmore's Curious Cosmicube has been mind blowing," InnerSloth said. "Be sure to go to our in-game store and spend some Stars before the Cosmicube is gone."

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Chinese gaming giant NetEase has taken to Gamescom 2024 to announce its latest title, Floatopia. The newly unveiled game promises to expand the selection of Animal Crossing-like life sims on both PC and consoles.

Atsuko Tanaka, 61, died on August 20th, 2024, after succumbing to an undisclosed illness. Best known for providing the Japanese voices of Bayonetta, Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft, and Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell, Tanaka worked on countless video games, movies, and anime throughout her career- bringing characters to life with honor and passion.… Read More »Atsuko Tanaka, Bayonetta’s Japanese voice actor, has passed away

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It isn’t surprising, but today’s Gamescom Opening Night Live presentation hasn’t had much for Nintendo fans to look forward to. Nintendo isn’t at Gamescom, so first-party games aren’t here. Not only that, but the presentation has had very few third-party and indie games shown that are going to be releasing on the Nintendo Switch. This… Read More »Little Nightmares 3 coming to Switch next year

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Today, in support of SEGA’s return to gamescom 2024, Sonic Team released a new Sonic x Shadow Generations trailer focused on Shadow’s all-new Doom Powers. From surfing on water to flying over obstacles, the trailer is filled with high-speed gameplay and highlights the new abilities, stages such as Chaos Island from Sonic Frontiers, and boss challenges fans can… Read More »Sonic x Shadow Generations trailer showcases Shadow’s Doom Powers

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Nintendo is excited to announce it is coming to PAX West 2024 in Seattle from Aug. 30 – Sept. 2 with a new The Legend of Zelda adventure, the biggest Mario Party experience yet, and some competitive spirit with Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition and STAR WARS: Hunters. Additionally, My Nintendo members are encouraged to check-in when they arrive to earn My Nintendo… Read More »Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and Super Mario Party Jamboree will be at PAX West 2024

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Computer peripheral manufacturer SanDisk has announced that it is launching a range of Pokemon-themed microSD cards today in celebration of Gamescom. The Pokemon-branded SD Cards include Pikachu, Gengar and Snorlax. They are available as follows, Pikachu is 256GB, Gengar is 512GB and Snorlax is 1TB. They are available for purchase on the Western Digital store.… Read More »SanDisk launches new Pokemon-themed microSD cards

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Since its initial release in 2017, roguelike Dead Cells has come a long way- partnering with the likes of Castlevania and Hollow Knight, and delivering update after update at every step. But now, Motion Twin and Evil Empire are preparing to send it off with a bang. Update 35: The End is Near will be… Read More »Dead Cells ends off its 7-year run with last major update

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Nintendo has lifted the lid on the four games which will be part of the recently announced Mega Game Trials promotion for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. PowerWash Simulator, Enter the Gungeon, Tetris Effect: Connected and Cassette Beasts, are the four games you will be able to download. Nintendo Switch Online subscribers will be able to… Read More »Nintendo announces four new Game Trial games for Switch Online subscribers

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Nintendo has stated on social media that Level-5, which is no stranger to delays, has had to push back the release of Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, which was planned to launch on the Nintendo Switch on 10th October. A new release date has yet to be announced and neither has a… Read More »Level 5’s Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time delayed

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The Pokemon Company announced at the end of Pokemon Worlds 2024 that a new batch of lovable Pokemon are joining the free to play title Pokemon UNITE on Nintendo Switch and smartphone platforms. Armarouge will be the first to join the battle on 12th September and will be followed by Darkrai in October and Psyduck… Read More »Armarouge, Darkrai, and Psyduck coming to Pokemon UNITE

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The Pokemon Company has revealed the locations for Pokemon Worlds 2025 and Pokemon Worlds 2026 and both events will be set in California in The United States. Pokemon Worlds 2025 will be set in Anaheim, California and Pokemon Worlds 2026 will be set in San Francisco, California. This will give potential trainers plenty of time… Read More »Pokemon Worlds 2025 and 2026 will be set in California

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The surprise announcement of a new Famicom Detective Club game caught many off guard, and today they announced a demo is coming to the Nintendo Switch eShop on the evening of August 19, 2024, which will allows us to play the prologue and first chapter of the three-chapter game for free.

Nintendo also stated, “Players can carry their progress forward to the full version of the game if purchased,” after it launches on August 29.

In Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club, a student has been found dead in a chilling fashion, his head covered with a paper bag with an eerie smiling face drawn on it—much like the victims of Emio, the Smiling man—a killer of urban legend. Playing as an assistant private investigator, you are tasked with helping police solve this crime, which is reminiscent of a series of unsolved murders from 18 years ago. Has a serial killer returned, or is this the work of a copycat? Are these crimes inspired by the Smiling Man urban legend, or the origin of it?

As part of the continuing adventures of the Utsugi Detective Agency, for the first time in the Famicom Detective Club series, play as familiar character Ayumi Tachibana during select portions of the story. As an investigative duo, you’ll dive deeper into this intense story of suspicion, isolation and fragility.

[Source: Nintendo PR Email]

Crossy Road Castle, the co-op platformer from developer Hipster Whale with over 350 million downloads worldwide, will make the hop, skip, and jump to Nintendo Switch on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024.

More from the press release:

“Forge ahead solo, or gather up to three pals to overcome all ten towers together with local or online multiplayer and cross-platform play. Experience an endlessly replayable gauntlet tailored to any skill level for hours of fun with friends and family. With new content and limited-time events dropping regularly, Crossy Road Castle keeps the fun fresh.”

For more information about the game, check out https://www.crossyroadcastle.comhttps://www.crossyroadcastle.com.

Turtles In Loop

HIGH Fluid combat and solid build diversity.

LOW Paper-thin story.

WTF The Shredder knows who Plato is?!

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is an honest attempt at the roguelike genre featuring the four titular heroes in a half-shell.

The setting and art direction successfully mimic Nickelodeon’s beloved TV series, all the way down to the constant banter between Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Donatello, as well as with the inclusion of the handful of familiar baddies they have to beat (and re-beat, and re-beat again) throughout the campaign.

All of this is to be expected by TMNT fans, and the game rightfully delivers on all fronts when it comes to allowing up to four players to spend an afternoon controlling the ninja rascals while slicing through hordes of cutesy foes. However, aside from that specific draw bolstered by some admittedly infectious dynamism, there isn’t much here to warrant prolonged attention. 

As mentioned, Splintered Fate is structured as a roguelike, meaning players will progress through randomly-generated stages in linear fashion while earning currencies, learning skills, and besting bosses at regular intervals during a full run lasting roughly 30 minutes. It’s played from a top-down perspective that allows players a clear view of the action, instantly making it a fair (yet chaotic) romp given the sheer quantity of enemies that will fill up the screen.

The plot has the turtles dealing with an enigmatic character who’s kidnapped their master and locked him away in another dimension. They urge the boys to complete a series of stages accessible through a portal conveniently placed within their hideout. With (roughly) each new attempt, the turtles accrue clues on how to ultimately rescue Splinter and get him back. Unfortunately, the runs don’t vary much, and players will have to witness the same collection of bland, uneventful-looking biomes and the same bosses in the very same order (with only slight random variations from time to time) over and over again. 

While the plot isn’t anything to write home about, each line of dialogue is dutifully recorded with a cadence that resembles the TV shows, and it goes a long way to selling the experience to fans. Granted, not every videogame needs to propose a philosophical basis for why we, as players, “need” to willingly initiate the next chapter of play while postulating semi-hidden meta-commentary on the nature of life, but Splintered Fate is an example where it’s clear from the get-go that story doesn’t matter — and truth be told, allowing oneself to get entangled in building an all-powerful turtle is incentive enough to keep restarting the same loop for a good while.

Unsurprisingly, up to four people can play together, either locally or online, each controlling one of the turtles while trying to navigate the ever-increasing onslaught of enemies with brightly colored area-of-attack indicators heralding each offensive move. Splintered Fate does a fine job of intuitively teaching newcomers its core mechanics and allowing them to get into a rhythm before long — the action is always zappy, fluid, and entertaining, with various combinations of enemies and bosses aggressively racking up the difficulty to eventually force the player into a more calculated, hit-and-run style. Learning how to spot tiny gaps between enemies’ attack chains to land a crunchy critical strike is as satisfying and rewarding as one would hope.

In addition to this smooth teaching curve, Splintered Fate also features a fair amount of character variety and RPG elements, evident from the very screen when we get to select a character.

While each turtle uses a different weapon with a unique attack speed, reach, and combos, Leo can store up to two special attacks at once, Donatello heals between rounds and more quickly recharges a “Tool” attack, Raphael is all about scoring critical hits and Michelangelo receives multi-hit bonuses — and is generally more likable than the rest!

On top of that, players get to pick between various boosts upon clearing a room, allowing them to apply elemental damage-over-time effects like fire, lighting, and poison (or whatever “ooze” is supposed to be), as well as increasing their chance to score a critical hit or dodge an enemy swing. Defensively, we can use a small dash move to get out of danger, which replenishes after a few seconds to remind us that situation awareness is supremely important in Splintered Fate. 

While this may sound a bit complex, that’s not the case in practice. Once the action starts and upon clearing a room, a selection of two or three powers appear on screen that players can choose from in true roguelike fashion. For example, playing as Donatello, I might be prompted to choose between prolonging the invincibility period of my Tool attack or increasing the reach of my Special attack, making it easier to strike fools in all directions at once.

Aside from that choice system, we also earn currencies that can be spent to bolster certain aspects of our build — things like getting a revive that automatically respawns the character upon death, or permanently increasing things like health points or faster move speed. Of course, such a scheme coalesces into a satisfying advances, as even failed runs allow one to make critical upgrades across the board, boosting the desire to surmount each of Splintered Fate’s challenges.  

On the flip side, this system proved unable to combat the staleness that started to creep in once I had successfully been through a dozen successful runs. Of course no game is meant to last forever, but replay and variety are hallmarks of the roguelike genre and in this way, Splintered Fate comes up a bit short. It’s a good time while it lasts — especially for Turtles fans — but more content, more variety and perhaps a little more narrative would have boosted the experience to the next level. But still, it’s OK!

Rating: 7 out of 10 

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Disclosures: This game was developed and published by Super Evil Mega Corp. It is currently available on Switch, PS5, XBX and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch Lite. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the game, and it was completed. About 45 minutes were spent in online multiplier with two other players, while the maximum player count is four. 

Parents: This game has received an E rating from the ESRB and contains Fantasy Violence. The game features the titular cartoon characters as they battle through hordes of enemy ninjas and robots in an attempt to track down and save their kidnapped master. The writing, action, and art direction are all faithful to Nickelodeon’s long-running Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. 

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue in this game is shown via textboxes and fairly well-acted voiceovers, so they’re easy to keep track of even mid-fights. All enemy attacks are clearly telegraphed on-screen with easy-to-note areas of attack. I’d say this game is fully accessible. 

Remappable Controls: This game doesn’t offer a controller diagram and the controls are not remappable. However, the controls are displayed at all times during gameplay at the screen’s corners for easy reference. On the Switch, the face buttons are for striking, using special attacks, and dashing in and out of danger, while the left stick moves the character.

Darkest Dungeon II is a turn-based, dungeon crawler, rougelike where you form a party of four and ride a stagecoach into what’s left of the world in an apocalyptic landscape. This game was a good mix of difficult challenges and fun strategy without many bugs, so let’s get into it.

When you first open Darkest Dungeon II, you’re shown a brief disclaimer that basically states that the game is difficult. After that, you get a cutscene that explains the game’s basic story and lore—the world is at its end, and you, a scholar, recruit a band of survivors to help you make a trek up a dangerous mountain to defeat an eldritch monster that resides in the mountain, or die trying.

After this, you hop right into the game. The first thing you do is choose your heroes. There are fourteen heroes from which you select four for your party. You only start with four heroes, but you’ll unlock more as you play.

There are two main parts to the game: the stagecoach and fighting. In the stagecoach, you drive across the land and choose paths to take while running into encounters, fights, and obstacles. The stagecoach is a little difficult to control, as the slightest movement of the joystick will throw the stagecoach from side to side. At the end of each area, you reach an Inn where you can heal your heroes and have them build bonds with each other which will help them out in and out of battle.

It’s during the fights that your choice of heroes matters. They have different stats that make them better or worse at certain things. Movement stats determines their place in the combat order. Each hero can have five moves at a time, and you can unlock more moves that you can change in between battles. The combat can be kind of complicated, but, fortunately, the game has built-in tutorials for every aspect, not just the combat. Besides that, the combat is just downright difficult sometimes. Random number generation can really screw you over in Darkest Dungeon II, so be wary of that.

Outside and within combat, each hero can acquire stress. Stress goes from 0-10. At low levels of stress, not much will happen. At higher levels, however, you’ll start to see some negative banter between the heroes. This will cause your heroes to not like each other as much and cause problems in and out of battle. Once heroes reach stress level 10 there is an 80% chance they will have a meltdown and a 20% chance they will be resolute. Meltdowns debuff the hero and make the other heroes like them less. Becoming resolute does the opposite and heals the hero, buffs them, and makes the other heroes like them more.

Darkest Dungeon II’s graphics are absolutely amazing. The game does an great job of contrasting 2D pictures with 3D models, and it looks beautiful. From the 2D characters and their attacks to the 3D stagecoach and 3D world outside of combat. Everything just fits so well together and is animated together so perfectly. I especially like the gloomy colors used to depict the wasteland of what’s left of the world.

The audio is also very enjoyable. The music isn’t repetitive, and each area is well represented by sound effects. While there isn’t a lot of music, it shifts into different songs after about a six-minute loop. This makes it so fights don’t go stale and are that much more intense and fun.

There was only one bug that I came across in the game and I don’t even know how it happened. While in a fight, the tutorials opened and I was unable to close them no matter what I did. No buttons worked, and it wouldn’t go away until I closed the game and reopened it. Again, I don’t know how it happened, but it’s a highly destructive bug that may cause you to restart a very good play-through.

Darkest Dungeon II is very fun. The graphics and audio are astounding, and the gameplay, while frustrating at times, still makes for a fun and enjoyable experience. When paired with the expertly written story, it makes for a great game. If you like the challenge of rougelites and roguelikes, this game is for you.

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I don’t know if I’ve ever played a video game quite like Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid. Imagine a JPRG where the young hero who’s supposed to embark on an epic adventure to save the kingdom doesn’t actually embark, and instead just spends a month fishing, exploring caves, and resurrecting the town festival. That’s this game.

But that’s not to say there’s no adventure to be had. On the contrary, Natsu-Mon is all about finding your adventures where you are. You play as Satoru, a young boy whose parents run a traveling circus. The circus runs into some issues in scenic Yomogi Town, so Satoru is left in the care of an innkeeper while his parents attempt to resolve those issues. With nothing more than his childhood curiosity and a school assignment to guide him, Satoru sets out to make this an August to remember.

And how does he do that? By exploring. By talking to people. By basically just running around until something catches his eye. Gameplay is mostly centered around total childhood freedom—the kind few kids have anymore, at least where I live.

Occasionally, the game gives Satoru specific tasks to complete. He may wake up, for example, and find himself invited to accompany friends to a specific location. These provide scripted moments that help prevent Natsu-Mon from feeling completely aimless. For the most part, however, how Satoru spends his day is up to the player. There are always bugs and fish to catch, all of which are documented in his notebook.

There are coins and treasures to find (were 20th-century Japanese homeowners really this cool with kids traipsing across their rooftops?). There are paid jobs to accept. There are ghost girls to…wait. Ghost girls?

Part of what makes Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid so endearing is that it expertly captures the wonder of being a kid. Did that little girl by the tree just vanish into thin air? Is she a ghost? Well, unless someone has a better explanation, she has to be. Let’s play games with her and find out!

Natsu-Mon provides bigger goals, too. One of your first tasks is to climb some specific buildings. Your stamina meter, however, won’t let you get close. So, you have a month to increase the meter and figure out how to get to the top of those structures. What a great goal that is. I recall my own childhood when a friend and I decided to hop the barbed-wire security of a radio tower and climb to the top. Did we make it? Of course not. Our stamina meters weren’t high enough. And it was also quite scary. And stupid. But we tried. Memory achieved!

Satoru has to uncover and complete all of these tasks over the course of a full day. They begin with breakfast and a morning exercise session (provided he was home in time for a good night’s sleep the day before).

Then, he’s free to roam until supper when he’s automatically located and returned home. He then gets the evening to wrap things up, but has to be home by 10:00 if he doesn’t want to oversleep the next day. This was annoying at first, as the game didn’t provide a clock; you have to buy that yourself once you make enough money. Maybe the point was to miss your bedtime, but I preferred to just hang around the inn until weariness took over. Even with the clock, it sometimes wasn’t worth abandoning my current task to complete the long journey home in time for bed, even with the ability to take the bus.

The length of the days can be adjusted to suit your playstyle. You can get more done by making the days last longer, but the adventures lose their sense of urgency. You also lose replayability that way. Tear through the game on short days, and you’ll be more likely to play again, making different decisions on how you spend your time. Shorter days, however, also make it more difficult to complete certain assignments and jobs, which can be frustrating (especially those that require precise movements).

This is especially true of the tasks that require platforming or reaching far-off locations. The game’s open world is colorful and nicely detailed, but getting around can sometimes prove difficult. This is largely due to somewhat clunky controls, especially when platforming is in the mix. And because Satoru can climb nearly anything, he’ll often start climbing things you don’t want him to.

Natsu-Mon also doesn’t do a great job of guiding you on your tasks, or even helping you figure out how to go to bed. Random exploration was very fun at the beginning, but by the time you’re approaching the end of August, a little more help on how to get things done would’ve been appreciated. A fortune-telling circus member eventually shows up to help, and you may even locate a mystical port-a-pot to help you get home in an instant. Still, expect some gaming sessions to be more productive than others. Maybe that’s a development decision—you can’t expect to complete a childhood’s worth of adventures in a month, right? Especially when there’s already a DLC adventure to embark on.

Also, it forces you to talk to people, and that’s one of the game’s greatest strengths. Almost every person you meet has something to contribute. Even better, their individual quirks (and Satoru’s response to them) make them fun to engage with. The conversations are a joy to experience, even if you are oddly forced to select every dialogue option before leaving them. And, like in real life, you never know which conversation will end up shaping the course of your summer.

These all combine to create a chill, Animal Crossing-type experience that will make older gamers wistful. It affected me a bit differently, as I had these types of days in my childhood. I explored creek bridges in search of black snakes. I climbed abandoned grain silos. I never hopped on a box car and rode it 30 miles into a neighboring town before disembarking and calling my dad for a ride home, but I have a buddy who did.

Rather, Natsu-Mon makes me wistful for an environment where kids still have this type of freedom (or even just desire it). I imagine that’s why the game was made, as that sense of wonder and curiosity is deeply woven into its core. That makes it a game worth experiencing, provided childhood adventures haven’t lost their appeal. Who needs to go fight God on some interstellar plane when there’s a lighthouse to climb literally right there?

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SNK VS. CAPCOM SVC CHAOS is a retro fighting game. If you know Street Fighter, King of Fighters, or any of the many and varied 2D offerings, you’ll know exactly what to expect here; two fighters duke it out over three rounds before moving on to the next opponent.

Before we get into whether this particular outing is worth your time, here’s a quick history lesson. SNK VS. CAPCOM SVC CHAOS marks the third installment in this particular crossover series, debuting at the arcade way back in 2003. Although both companies developed games for the series, this outing was developed by SNK, confirmed by the appearance of SNK first in the game’s title.

Let’s talk characters. The roster is robust, bringing together 36 characters in total. Team Capcom uses classic Street Fighter personalities such as Chun Li, Dhalsim, Vega, Ryu and Ken. The SNK side brings the likes of Shiki, Mr. Karate, Earthquake, and Kasumi Todoh into the fray. These tough guys hail from such SNK outings as Art of Fighting and Samurai Shodown. Despite this seemingly vast collection of fighters, there are still plenty missing. You won’t find the likes of E. Honda, Zangief, or Cammy here, for example.

The single-player mode disguises the simple premise of brawling with a story involving the end of the world. It seems a group of fighters is drawn into an afterlife tournament in purgatory. The winner will be granted a wish, and the fate of all life hangs in the balance, etc. 

But, in reality, we’re here to fight. One of this port’s best features is that it doesn’t change a thing about the combat. It takes the original outing and…puts it on the Switch. This means the classic early 2000s graphics and fighting style remain intact. For fans of the original, this perfectly recaptures the essence of the game, providing a sweet dose of nostalgia along the way.

Unfortunately, the original game was average to begin with. The fighting, though solid, is unbalanced in one-player mode. Even on the easiest difficulty setting, some foes stand dumbly waiting to be hit, while the next combatant takes you out easily. This leads to a frustrating experience, especially since you can’t continue. In real life, you could add another quarter; here, it’s back to the beginning, despite a countdown asking if you’d like to continue. How do I do that, exactly?

The graphics are nice, if a little bland. We’re stuck in a post-apocalyptic version of the afterlife, so many of the backdrops are a little foreboding. You can fiddle with the settings to change the screen size, which I appreciate. You can keep it at the original size, make it larger, or stretch it to fit the entire screen. The latter is a zoomed-in experience that, while it’s a nice option, doesn’t look great on a big screen. When playing at a more reasonable size, you can also choose the backdrop, from plain black borders to artwork using some of the characters.

Speaking of artwork, there’s a gallery in the menu for those wanting to see the characters portrayed in unique ways. I imagine fans in the early 2000s would have appreciated this crossover event, even if it was the third in the series, and the gallery presents some neat artwork depicting characters from different worlds colliding. 

In fact, there are a few such additions that provide an extra incentive to play. For starters, there’s an online mode, allowing you to compete with another player from around the world. This is easy to use, with the ability to create a room or find a random player to challenge. I was also pleased with the smooth network experience.

There’s also an option to turn on hit boxes. I’m not sure how valuable this is, but it places a couple of colored boxes around each fighter during combat, presumably to see exactly where your hits will make the most impact. It would be nice to get an in-game explanation on this. It also can’t be toggled on and off while playing; to do that, you have to quit and return to the main menu. If it becomes an eyesore while playing, that’s just bad luck I guess.

Overall, SNK VS. CAPCOM SVC CHAOS is a faithful port of the 2003 original, with a few extras thrown in for good measure. It’s not the best 2D fighting game around, but fans of the original will appreciate the extra details.

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This week’s eShop roundup kicks off with an update to the wonderfully quirky Cult of the Lamb, bringing local co-op to the game. We were huge fans of the original release, and an update like this sounds like a promising way to enhance the experience.

Meanwhile, a classic Pokémon title has joined the Switch Online collection. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team, originally released in 2005 on the Game Boy Advance, is now available to play for free if you have an online subscription.

There’s an interesting sale on this week, too, with Bethesda games like Doom and Wolfenstein discounted. If those styles are your jam, be sure to check out the current deals.

As always, there’s a long list of new titles to consider, so let’s get to it! Check out the new releases below and let us know which games you’re playing this week.

Nintendo Switch

• Cult of the Lamb – Unholy Alliance Update– Heretics never rest, and the Lamb is in need of an ally. Unholy Alliance introduces a new playable character to Cult of the Lamb: the Goat! Summoned by blood and born in corruption, this wicked new ally can join the holy Lamb in local co-op. Crusade through dungeons, slay heretics, build your cult and seek new powers together. But there’s more: In addition to co-op play, the Unholy Alliance expansion also adds new tarot cards, relics, buildings, fleeces, follower traits, follower quests and other secrets to discover! The Cult of the Lamb – Unholy Alliance Update is available now on the Nintendo Switch system.

Game Boy Advance – Nintendo Switch Online

• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team – All of a sudden, you’ve found yourself in a different world, one where you’re now a Pokémon yourself and can speak and interact with other Pokémon. But what is your true purpose and destiny in this Pokémon world? That’s the real mystery! As the hero of this journey, you’ll begin the game by taking a personality quiz, with the results determining which Pokémon you will become out of several options. From there, you’ll select your partner Pokémon before being whisked to a world full of Pokémon to befriend and dungeons to explore. Form your rescue team, take on mysterious changing dungeons and engage in strategic, turn-based battles in this game originally available on the Game Boy Advance system!

Digital spotlight

• Capture the Moment! – Grab your Nintendo Switch and get ready for World Photography Day on Aug. 19! Make memories (and take selfies!) as you catch, battle and train Pokémon in the Paldea Region in the Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet games. Or you take in-game photographs that capture Pokémon in their native environments in the New Pokémon Snap game. No matter your photography techniques or style, you can enjoy some picture-perfect fun with these games and more on Nintendo Switch.

DLC

• DREDGE – The Iron Rig – The Iron Rig is the second official expansion** for DREDGE –  a cosmic horror fishing adventure with a sinister undercurrent. This content adds a new constructable destination with its own story, items and adversities that can be experienced at any stage in your playthrough. Gather, craft and deliver your way through the mysteries of The Iron Rig, revisiting areas from DREDGE to investigate ancient disturbances stirring in the deep. You will assist the Ironhaven Corporation in constructing facilities that unlock items, gadgets and more, but what are they truly here for? Find out in DREDGE – The Iron Rig, available today!

 Nintendo eShop sales

• QuakeCon 2024 Sale – Celebrate QuakeCon with savings up to 85% off on select Bethesda games like DOOM Eternal, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus! This sale lasts until Aug. 22 at 11:59 p.m. PT. For more information and to view the full list of games, visit https://www.nintendo.com/store/sales-and-deals.

Also new this week

• Aery – Ancient Empires
• Amazing Drawing: Coloring Book Simulator
• Arcade Tanks World: Tank Battle Simulator
• Arco
• Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians
• Bizarre – Available Aug. 17
• Castaway – Available Aug. 16
• Cooking – Available Aug. 16
• Cup Killer – Sandbox Game – Available Aug. 16
• Cyber Mission – Available Aug. 21
• D.C.K.: Dock Chess King – Available Aug. 18
• Dadish Collection – Available Aug. 16
• Elrentaros Wanderings – Available Aug. 16
• Energy Lab – Available Aug. 21
• Exit Station 7
• Guayota
• Hidden Through Time 2: Discovery
• Ice World: The Frozen Age
• Just Crow Things
• Lunar Nightmare – Available Aug. 16
• Magical Delicacy
• Mangavania 2 – Available Aug. 21
• Mika and the Witch’s Mountain – Available Aug. 21
• Minami Lane
• Murder Is Game Over: Streaming Death – Available Aug. 16
• Mute Crimson DX – Available Aug. 16
• My Lovely Empress – Available Aug. 21
• Overboss
• Parking Jam – Available Aug. 16
• Parking Masters
• Phantom Spark
• Rack and Slay – Available Aug. 19
• Rewind or Die – Available Aug. 16
• Space Rift
• Squiggle Drop
• Stumble Guys – Available Aug. 20
• Supermarket Manager 2024
• Synaxarion Christian Stories: Holy Martyr Neophytos
• Tactical Strike: Special Forces Shooter
• The Godfeather: A Mafia Pigeon Saga
• The Sirena Expedition – Available Aug. 16
• Thief Puzzle – Available Aug. 16
• Tiles Match
• Turn to Mine – Available Aug. 16
• Ultimate Fishing Supermarket Simulator 3D
• World Wars II – Airplanes Battle

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The Star Named EOS is an escape room-like puzzle game in which you play as a girl named Dei, a photographer following in her mother’s footsteps. Each level in this game is based around recreating pictures your mother had sent you while on her journey. And with each level completed, you learn more about her story and the secrets of your family.

Each level starts with a cutscene, reading part of a letter from your mom. The letters contain a picture, as well. The first one you receive is of a window, taken from inside a train. The window has red curtains and a vase of flowers sitting on its sill. After looking around the room, you’ll find clues hinting towards recreating this photo. To do so, you have to solve puzzles such as finding keys, codes, and more.

With each puzzle you complete, you’ll obtain more objects. In the first level, you’ll find curtains and flowers like in your mother’s photo. Once these are placed in the right position, you can take a picture exactly like your mother’s with your own camera. This transports you to the train on which the original photo was taken, where you find a new letter with a new picture to recreate. Once you solve this level and complete your copy of the new photo, you’re transported to where that one was taken, and so on and so forth.

Along with insight into your mother’s story, each level provides “bonus pictures” you can get. You have access to your camera at any time, which can become very useful. For bonus photos, however, there is a cryptic indicator as to what you should be taking a picture of—usually a sticker of some kind. Getting all three bonus pictures gives you access to extra information of your location, and you can tell if you captured the right photo by whether its polaroid border is colorful and decorative, or just plain white.

While using the camera, you can zoom in and out. This allows you to use them like binoculars, enabling you to see clues that are farther away.

You access the camera with the X button, zoom in and out with ZL and ZR, and take pictures with R. The other controls for this game are just as easy. You look around with the right stick, and move your cursor with the left. You interact with objects and puzzles by clicking A, and access your inventory with Y. In your inventory will be the pictures from your mom, and any items you find to help solve puzzles and recreate photos.

The Star Named EOS uses entirely hand drawn imagery, which helps this game to feel more genuine and interesting. The music also helps add to its overall emotion and mystery which allows its touching story to be told in a heartwarming way. The game is fun, creative, and captivating. It’s also fairly short, making it a fun and quick play that’s hard to interrupt.

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Arranger is an indie action-puzzle game for the Nintendo Switch. This top-down adventure features a sliding-tile mechanic that creates all sorts of interesting problems to solve. Let’s delve into the ins and outs of this unique outing.

The plot follows a girl named Jemma—yes, I now share a name with a cool video-game protagonist, and I couldn’t be happier. It seems our in-game Jemma mysteriously arrived in a peaceful town as a baby. Now that she’s old enough, it’s time to leave the relative safety of her village to seek adventure in the outside world.

Of course, things are dangerous beyond the city limits. An entity known as static has corrupted objects, and Jemma sets about putting things right. Our plucky heroine is ready to take on any challenge that comes her way. These tend to come in the form of blocked passages, requiring a little lateral thinking to work out how to continue.

Arranger’s trick is that the ground beneath Jemma moves with her. The whole world is divided into squares, allowing you to slide across each area, moving objects with you. This gimmick is easy to pick up, and opens many possibilities. For example, if a passage is blocked by an enemy, sliding a sword into it will let you through. Other traps might involve a laser to somehow block or a button to press. It’s head-scratching at times, but satisfying to solve.

Something I didn’t expect to find among the puzzles were boss fights. These are an excellent break from the brain teasers, presenting unique and elaborate ways to defeat each one. Perhaps you have to loop a long enemy back around and onto itself by sliding certain tiles. Or maybe you need to arrange objects to sit atop buttons to open up a way to attack. It’s unlike any traditional boss design I’ve played, and I love it.

Arranger does a great job of balancing this danger with light-hearted characters and dialogue. There’s plenty of humor among the quirky characters. I particularly enjoyed getting to know the stay-at-home inhabitants of a village who receive everything via mail (delivered by robot birds, no less) and have consequently lost the ability to socialize. How do you convince them to come out of their homes? It’s all part of the adventure. 

Apart from the main quest, Jemma also embarks on interesting side quests, such as using moving tiles to pair two animals. Those shy creatures aren’t going to procreate without a little intervention, it seems. To further focus the adventure on these types of puzzles and characters, Jemma doesn’t have any kind of health bar or life meter to stress over. In fact, she can’t die at all. This balance makes the game more accessible to players of all ages. 

Graphically, Arranger looks terrific. The top-down style reminds me of SNES-era titles, presented in a colorful world. Cutscenes use a comic-book layout, capturing emotion through static images. Even the background is special, with interesting backdrops behind the action that gives the game an artistic feel.

Overall, Arranger is a creative outing with a perfectly balanced sense of adventure. The light-hearted tone couples with the unique sliding mechanic to present something different and, most importantly, fun. This is a title worth checking out. 

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The Nintendo Switch now hosts Parasol Stars – The Story of Bubble Bobble III, a fun entry in the surprisingly confusing franchise. Mind you, it’s not confusing in gameplay but in the naming of all things. Because what was the second game? Was it Rainbow Islands subtitled The Story of Bubble Bobble II? Or was it Bubble Bobble Part 2 on the NES? The fact that I can name a couple of additional entries with similar claims demonstrates the worthiness of a clarifying collection. Instead, we get this single entry, Parasol Stars, a likable game subtitled The Story of Bubble Bobble III. Of course, the arcade game Bubble Memories makes the same claim…

In some ways, Parasol Stars feels quite different from the original Bubble Bobble game that I grew up playing on the NES. To begin with, my favorite dinosaur/dragon duo, Bub and Bob, aren’t here. Instead, we have their human personas (Bubby and Bobby), a bubbleless and not nearly as cute pair. This duo is also a bit wider in human form, so you must adapt to the hit detection. But their parasols have many comparable functions, and, ultimately, you have similar goals to Bubble Bobble. In that way, there is no mistaking that this is a Bubble Bobble entry. It has the same pick-up-and-play vibe, with plenty of enemies to eliminate and even more goodies to collect. This balance of the familiar with the fresh works. And I’m delighted it’s on Switch, as I never did pick this up in my younger years for my TurboGrafx – 16, whether due to availability, cost, or both. (Despite the arcade style, it debuted on the PC Engine).

As my wife and I are big fans of its NES predecessor, we were anxious to enjoy this game in co-op. Although we never played this specific entry, our prior Bubble Bobble know-how, combined with the expected ‘simple to learn tough to master design,’ allowed us to jump into the game quickly and adjust to the new parasol mechanic. Hitting an enemy with your closed parasol temporarily neutralizes them as a threat. But if you hope to defeat them before revival, you must fling them with an open parasol. It’s different, but not any more challenging.

That said, after relaxing our brains in the early goings, soaking in the colors and such, the challenge does eventually arrive. Later planets (above the Rainbow Islands) and their accompanying bosses ramp up the difficulty with a greater emphasis on careful timing. This version of Parasol Stars has plenty of optional cheats for those who want them, such as infinite lives or even invincibility. While I’m happy these are available to pick from, as similar options were missing from some prior ININ releases, they could break the game. Depending on the combination, frequency, or coupled with liberal rewind use, a fair game could become an absolute breeze. So these are best limited as options for the youngest or least-experienced players.

The screens are just packed, meaning your eyes won’t have a chance to get bored. While still set up with single screens, they often scroll, and the wider-feeling presentation is well suited to a game designed around flinging enemies. The soundtrack’s advertised as “catchy and memorable,” and I’ll confirm the former. I also suspect the latter will prove true as we revisit this replayable game after a while. Happy tunes kept our heads bobbing and faces smiling, while determined notes during boss encounters reminded us of the distress of these planets. My one wish is for an in-game music player, but it feels like ININ releases rarely let the soundtracks shine to their full potential.

Extras? These aren’t something ININ has traditionally handled well with these types of releases. I can think of plenty (I won’t list them to pad out this review), but they could’ve added value to the game for both existing fans and those new to it. And, of course, I’d enjoy additional Bubble Bobble games, period. But it’s not like Parasol Stars has seen wide re-release since the early ‘90s. At $9.99, it’s fair for what would’ve been a full-priced game in 1991.

Note that this game is available physically through Strictly Limited. Previously, I advised caution with this company due to many well-documented issues. As I’m still waiting for a game I ordered from them two years ago, I must change my recommendation. Avoid this company altogether! Buy Parasol Stars off the eShop.

Though some extras would’ve been beneficial, Parasol Stars is a likable release in many ways. It’s straightforward fun yet still offers plenty of excitement as you find secret doors, the “Hurry” message appears, and more. Bubble Bobble fans will want to scoop up this “third” entry, as will fans of quarter munchers, even if this classic skipped the arcades for the home console realm. This game’s nearly a must-have if you can enjoy it with someone in co-op.

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A cute dungeon crawler, Elrentaros Wanderings takes you on an adventure between two worlds. You play as a young adventurer who explores dungeons, defeats monsters, protects the townsfolk and occasionally pays a visit to the school you attend in a different, less exciting world.

The majority of the game takes place in the fantasy world of Elrentaros. You camp outside town as you earn the trust of the locals. At the start of the game, there is one mysterious dungeon at the edge of town. As you progress, you unlock more until there are a total of six. The first five dungeons have various missions you can complete to gain coins, equipment, and special items that you can use to assist people in the town. The sixth consists only of boss fights.

Befriending the various townsfolk is a mechanic in itself. When you have spoken to them enough times, completed enough missions for them, and raised your likeability level enough, you can equip them as a support. This offers you boons to your dungeon runs equating to gifts you’ve given them.

The types of missions you have to complete fit into broadly similar categories. For instance, unlocking all the warp panels to the bonus rooms, completing the dungeon with equipment of a certain level or below, or avoiding or winning with a particular type of attack. This means that, later in the game, you might be able to guess your way into completing some missions on your first attempt (completing a dungeon without your HP dropping to 0 is a standard first mission), but it’s rare to get through them all at once. This gives you a reason to go back into each dungeon trying out different types of weapons and being cautious of different enemies.

Each dungeon in Elrentaros Wanderings is made up of a number of stages to explore and a boss battle. As you complete the missions, you unlock new variants of the same dungeons with more powerful monsters spawning in different places, with new missions and greater rewards. The dungeon layouts remain the same each time, so there is a risk that the game can get a bit repetitive, especially if you get stuck on a tricky mission that is blocking the story from progressing.

However, the dungeons are very beautifully designed, each with a distinct style, making them genuinely fun to explore a few times without getting dull. This is complemented by fluid animation and bold designs when it comes to the enemies you face and the moves they use. Monsters are unbearably cute, based on wild animals, with different creatures corresponding to different classic party classes, ranging from adorable little bunnies and birds to monstrous swine and floating octopodes.

The points at which new challenges unlock are staggered cleverly so you can’t jump straight to the next difficulty level of one dungeon without using a different dungeon as a stepping stone. This introduces a natural element of variety to the game that flows comfortably with the narrative.

Instead of leveling up your character, you pick up equipment with varying levels and special abilities that you can unlock. This means you can challenge yourself to try a harder dungeon using lower level equipment if you want to really test yourself outside of the story.

Dialogue in Elrentaros Wanderings is more of a visual novel than a truly interactive experience. There are a handful of dialogue options for your character, but they don’t have a huge impact on the story. But otherwise this aspect is crafted well enough. All the characters are well designed and written, with distinct looks, personalities and ways of connecting to the protagonist as you get to know them.

The sections that take part in the “real” world at school may as well not exist. There isn’t any action to it; it’s all conversation with very few dialogue options, so can be clicked straight through with minimal consequences to the overall game. It’s still well written and the relationships easily established, with a fun parallel to their visual equivalents in the fantasy world. But you spend considerably less time at school, and the lack of action means you feel less engaged in that world. At the end, you get the option to choose which world to stay in, but the choice doesn’t feel like one with much weight.

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As Pure Nintendo’s resident NES fanboy, I suspected I’d be a practical choice to take a closer look at Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition. The wording makes me wonder with some excitement about future volumes like NES Edition 2, SNES Edition, and so forth. But as far as this debut installment, how does it fare in the twilight years of the Nintendo Switch? While certainly better than not, there’s undeniable unevenness. It’s a highly amusing but borderline apathetic release. It’s lively fun yet also shockingly lackadaisical. Allow me to share why that is.

I say debut, but it doesn’t take eagle-eyed players to see this release as inordinately similar to the NES Remix games. The structure, flow, and even specific individual challenges are recycled here, minus the terrific remixed stages. It makes comparisons impossible to avoid, which unfortunately does NWC: NES Edition no favors. Because while the previous games were content-rich, this package, though fun, unfortunately, is far from that.

To be clear, the 13 games from where these challenges are curated are among my favorites. For instance, The Super Mario Bros. trilogy has such consequence, high quality, and sheer fun that there’s little I could add. But let’s stick with Mario for a minute and think about some of the other NES games featuring him. He was on the cover of black box Pinball, a game with nearly 2 million copies sold. It’s sadly missing here. Similar to Dr. Mario, which sold even better, just shy of 5 million copies. How about Mario in the sports realm? He was a referee in the 3 million seller Punch-Out!!!, and graced the cover of a pair of golf games that sold over 5 million copies; where are these? I could go on, but it illustrates a significant point: Nintendo’s once-celebrated first-party NES library is now falling into neglect.

And it’s odd because some of the missing games would better fit the narrow speedrunning focus of this package as replacements. Ice Climber, with its spotty collision detection, would be preferable as a polished remake to the snippets included here. Similar to The Lost Levels, a game that continues to surprise me if only because of Nintendo’s seemingly revisionist love affair with it. Even Kirby’s Adventure (a top-five NES game for me) is questionable, as the pink puffball is better for floaty exploration rather than rushing through stages.

Still, let me stress that the bulk of these games and their associated challenges aren’t just fun, they also get you hooked. I genuinely enjoy trying to shave off a second or two when grabbing the screw attack in Metroid or the harp in Kid Icarus. I feel similar when entering the hollow tree in The Legend of Zelda and crossing the cliffs in The Adventure of Link. Lengthier challenges are also present. The final one in Donkey Kong requires beating all three levels of the NES port, for example. Each game’s last challenge (“Legend-difficulty”) has an awesome Classified Information spread that looks straight out of a lost issue of Nintendo Power! Just note that not every game has an equal number. For instance, Excitebike only has six.

As a solo player, you initially earn coins to unlock every game challenge while doubtless trying to achieve the highest letter rankings. S ranks can be demanding to earn. I cut a Zelda challenge finish time by half but stayed stuck at A++! Later, you can save up to buy all the player icons (sprites) for your profile. 

With local friends (up to eight), the party mode offers some enjoyment. I played this with my wife and had good fun, and I’m sure to have fun with a bigger group of friends down the road. NWC: NES Edition won’t be a party staple, though, just one to bust out occasionally due to the limited content. Party mode ranks don’t affect your personal speedrun ranks, which is not only something worth noting, it’s something I appreciate.

Beyond that, you better hope you’ve paid for a Nintendo Switch online subscription to get longevity out of this package. World Championships and Survival modes change every few days with a mashup of random challenges. I’m someone who “Has a Lifetime of NES Memories.” Imagine how humbling it’s been to see my world rankings hover in only the top 60%. But my skill level compared to Famicom Wizards doesn’t diminish my NES nostalgia. Racing ghost data of players worldwide is mildly entertaining for as long as the service lasts. Still, I’d greatly prefer leaderboards to compare times with my wife or PN colleagues. Improved online implementation is a must for whatever hardware follows the Nintendo Switch.

The default settings have a small-screen setup, with wasted real estate for things I doubt the majority desire (replays of your personal best runs, instructions that give too much info). Ensure you fiddle with the options to your desired preferences to properly enjoy these timeless 8-bit graphics while making the gameplay as smooth as possible. Sadly, there is no option to update this game at the time of this writing (three weeks or so from release). I’ve noticed a couple of minor bugs (emulation issues with Zelda and an “Error Has Occurred” menu booter in Kirby. I hope these get patched quickly. How about some DLC while you’re at it, Nintendo? I’d like to see Donkey Kong Jr. or Ice Hockey—both million-plus sellers represented in NES Remix.

At its best, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is a game I love, and I say that as someone typically not a speedrunning fan. But Nintendo did not give the NES the same respect here that they did in the NES Remix titles. This approach is more indifferent without question, reflecting a company going through the motions with this release. Only Nintendo can still manage to pull off a game this good—possibly one of my favorites of 2024—despite such bad habits.

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Western Digital has teamed up with The Pokémon Company International and Nintendo to drop some epic new SanDisk microSD cards, featuring your favourite Pokémon! These cards are perfect for Nintendo Switch users who want to expand their game library without constantly juggling downloads and deletions. Catch ‘Em All: Pokémon-Themed SanDisk microSD Cards These new microSD…

The post Western Digital Launches Pokémon-Themed microSD Cards appeared first on Invision Game Community.

Witches aren't all intimidating - Mika and the Witch's Mountain is a little tale of a little witch who wants to please her mentor, Olagari, who lives on top of Mont Gaun so she can get admitted into magic school. However, if she's the only student, does that even make it a school? Read more: Mika and the Witch's Mountain Review

For those who love dungeons - If you've ever found yourself enjoying the combat in a game like Rune Factory more than any other gameplay element, Elrentaros Wanderings might just be the game for you. Read more: Elrentaros Wanderings Review

Plunderin' bots on the high seas - It's been a long time but we finally have SteamWorld Heist II so pull your anchor up and let's sail on to a new adventure. Read more: SteamWorld Heist II Review

2K and Firaxis have revealed more information about Sid Meier's Civilization VII at gamescom 2024. After first publishing a teaser trailer at Summer Game Fest 2024, the companies revealed the release date and gameplay details for the new game at the European gaming event.

A new trailer for Civilization VII appeared first during the gamescom 2024 Opening Night Live stream. It showed a quick montage of in-engine footage, including buildings from various civilizations and units from different ages. The main highlight of this trailer was the release date announcement.

The new game will be available on February 11, 2025. While prior entries used to appear first on PCs with consoles like Nintendo Switch getting them later on, this trailer's ending segment hints that Civilization VII will be available simultaneously on not only PCs but also the PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox platforms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK_JrrP9m2U

Soon after that, Firaxis held an official gameplay showcase stream dedicated to the game on the series' official YouTube channel. The new game will have civilizations tied to each of the three different eras, and the leader character the player chooses is no longer tied to their original civilization.

For example, while Hatshepsut is originally related to Egypt, the player can choose to have her lead the Aksum civilization instead in the Antiquity Age. As the game progresses in age, the player will have to choose a different civilization for Hatshepsut to lead, such as Songhai or Mongolia in the Exploration Age, and Buganda in the Modern Age.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc3_EO6Bj2M

2K has also updated the game's Steam page with additional bonus editions that provide both in-game content at launch and post-launch DLC that 2K will release in the future. People who have pre-purchased any edition of the game—including the standard version before release—can get the native American civilization Shawnee and Tecumseh as a playable leader.

Sid Meier's Civilization VII will be available for PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X, and Xbox One on February 11, 2025.

The post Civilization VII Release Date and Gameplay Revealed appeared first on Siliconera.

A few years on from the two-case collection of Famicom Detective Club remakes, Nintendo is following up on the promise and potential of this visual novel series with the first fully new entry in 27 years. Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is coming out at the end of this month, putting our youthful sleuths through the wringer of another traumatic murder case.

From today and through to the game’s launch on 29th August, Nintendo is teasing out the first few chapters of the game with a free demo, and we’ve sampled the prologue and first chapter of the game a little ahead of time.

It’s another day at Utsugi Decetive Agency, with our 19 year old protagonist (who you get to name) continuing on as an assistant detective at the agency. Barely have you said hello to Utsugi when the phone rings with the police calling you to a strange and unsettling crime scene.

A body has been found that morning, a teenager still in middle school… but they were found with a paper bag on their head, marked with a smiling face.

This quickly grows into the revelation that this could be tied to a decades old case that Utsugi was aware of and the urban legend of Emio – The Smiling Man, a person with a bag on their head who finds crying girls and tells them quite specifically that they’re going to give them a smile that lasts forever. But is this the same killer? A copycat? Something else entirely?

If you’ve played the remade Famicom Detective Club duology, or even the more jovial Ace Attorney series, you’ll immediately find your footing with the visual novel-style gameplay of this game.

The early conversations and interactions through the Prologue and Chapter 1 gradually set out the scope of what you’ll have to do. Most of the time you’ll select ‘Ask/Listen’ and potentially a sub-topic to engage in conversation with someone, but sometimes the conversation might dry up, nudging you to ‘Look/Examine’ the person or the environment to prise out new clues, or to ‘Think’ and have your internal dialogue nudge you down another path. Thankfully you are generally prompted by highlighted words when you need to think or if there’s something new to ask about, though you might end up still simply tapping through all the options to try and find the one with new info.

There’s further options, to call over to another person, dip into your journal with all the collated details on people, and more, though the opening chapter only touches on this lightly.

One thing that does return for the chapter conclusion is the case review, a sit down chat with Ayumi to go over the facts and latest discoveries and try to draw some conclusions. It’s basically a mini quiz to see if you’ve been paying even a modicum of attention, though you can also point out suspects that could be a bit of a punt.

Emio – The Smiling man seems to take a few incremental steps forward in terms of the game presentation. The art style is very much in keeping with the 2021 remakes, but I feel like there’s a shade more animation to characters in their idle states, their hair waving gently in a breeze, and the like. Animation to go along with dialogue is snappy and to the point, fading between motions to quickly relate a motion, but without dragging thing out. Helpful when the game’s voice work is Japanese only, so you  can skip through dialogue as fast as you can read.

But while this is a more serious kind of mystery than an Ace Attorney, that doesn’t mean there isn’t space for some unusual and memorable characters. In particular detectives Kuze and Kamihara are polar opposites to one another, Kuze being very intense and by-the-book, while Kamihara is a rather unserious character in some ways, deliberately a bit mean, it seems.

This is really just the very beginning of the case, and I can read barely anything into how it’s going to progress at this point, but I’ve no doubt that there will be plenty of twists and turns, more murders, and a gradually emerging gallery of suspects.

Chapter 2 will be available within the demo later this week on 23rd August, before the third chapter is added on 28th August ahead of the full launch. I’m already keen to peel back more of the mystery in the coming days.

May 31: Little Nightmares III has been delayed, and will not be making it out this year as originally planned. Bandai Namco now intends to publish the title in 2025. Little Nightmares III was first unveiled at Gamescom last August. It’s a notable shift for the series as the first two titles were made by Tarsier Studios. This one is...

The post Little Nightmares III delayed to 2025 appeared first on Nintendo Everything.

Following its announcement in June, we now have a release date and proper look at Civilization VII with a fresh gameplay trailer. The video just debuted at Gamescom: Opening Night Live 2024. Civilization VII now has a release date of February 11, 2025. The game will come in the form of a standard version and Deluxe Edition – if you...

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