Bandai has upped the game in terms of monster maw-based home furnishings, developing a Gengar mouth bed. The ~$250 accessory acts as decoration, guest accommodation, temporary nap space, it’s probably working for someone (no judgment)… few items in the average home serve as many purposes at once as this one hungry cartoon ghost.
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I’ve been playing the Space Invaders Forever collection whenever I get a spare moment on my Switch. And Space Invaders games, descending as they do from an arcade game with an average playtime of a minute or two, are eminently spare-moment-friendly. The three games in the collection are all Space Invaders variants, from the rhythm-rave Space Invaders Extreme to the mobile mashup Arkanoid vs. Space Invaders, all different, and all absolutely worth visiting or revisiting.
However, there’s something missing from this Space Invaders collection. Like… Space Invaders. If you want that, you’ll have to use the Japanese eShop account you use for demos (you have one, right?), get some Japanese eShop credit, and purchase the Space Invaders Invincible Collection. I know this sounds like a lot of work for ancient games, but it’s on sale right now for about $30, the same as Space Invaders Forever, and it comes with all the same games plus Space Invaders in both monochrome and color, Space Invaders Part 2, Majestic Twelve, and Super Space Invaders ‘91. I’m guessing anyone interested in a Space Invaders compilation is going to want a bigger Space Invaders compilation.
I watched the Indie World video today with my kids between homeschool activities. After the trailer for beautiful pastel cat-cafe adventure Calico, my daughter grabbed the Switch and loaded up the eShop to see if it was available yet. She kept monitoring the shop intermittently until it was up, then bought it immediately.
In other words, the theme, look, and subject matter of Whitethorn Digital’s new game have an instant appeal. I haven’t heard how it is yet from my young critic…
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Thanks to @karobit for pointing this one out on Eric’s twitter. Right now, Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus The Awakening of Golden Jazz, which I just now typed out without a reference of any kind and yes I will take a trophy for my achievement, is on sale on the Switch eShop for just $4.80, down from $40!
For Jake Hunter people, this game offers the same kind of slow-paced, methodical detective story in a new visual style and a new environment. For those yet in the Jake Hunter Crew, it’s all that minus constantly missing Jake Hunter’s hairstyle. It’s a nice, languid kind of vacation game!
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Here’s my favorite bit out of The Game Awards, which I’ve been told happened last night. In February, Capcom is launching Capcom Arcade Stadium on Switch, a free download that comes packed with free 1943, with more arcade games as paid DLC bundles. Here they are:
These old games will be more playable thanks to rewind as well as speed and difficulty settings!
Capcom previously tried this strategy back on PS3 and Xbox 360 with the Capcom Arcade Cabinet series. I don’t know the pricing on this new set, but I feel like there’s a lot to be said about choosing your own retro bundle!
Additionally, Capcom announced a new Ghosts ‘n Goblins game, which looks really, really nice!
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I don’t have the Power of Tingles so I don’t know if this Pikachu by the Patio video gets the job done. For me it’s just a weirdly quiet, cute video. Which, I mean, fine. But I really hope the Pokemon Company did the research and the meticulous foley work to perfectly target people’s sound-liking neurons. Like, someone’s job at the Pokemon Company involved researching ASMR videos, for Pokemon. For work.
Anyway, if you like this, don’t worry, there are Squirtle and Charmander videos too.
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I don’t think I’ll ever get used to new Taiko no Tatsujin releases, especially when they just kinda show up on the eShop like no big deal.
The latest two are both RPGs featuring taiko rhythm game battles, which is something I want to experience. The question is whether to start with Taiko no Tatsujin Rhythmic Adventure 1 (”Don-chan leaves the past behind for a great adventure, that transcends time and space, to the future! Warp to different eras to stop the bad guys from destroying history!”) or Rhythmic Adventure 2 (”Don-chan and his friends have a great adventure in the mystery spots of the world! Find out the secrets of a mysterious phenomenon occurring around the planet and save the world!”)
The answer, of course, is both.
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I don’t know if Pixel Game Maker Series STEOS -Sorrow song of Bounty hunter- is a good game, but I know that what it represents is very cool. Users of the Pixel Game Maker MV game design software (basically the RPG Maker of top-down or side-scrolling 2D games of all kinds) can submit their games to Gotcha Gotcha Games Inc. for potential publishing, opening up actual game development and publishing in a new way.
I will note that I don’t exactly know what the terms of the publishing deal are! I mean, I’m sure there are terms.
Though I’m sure it’s not part of the Gotcha Gotcha submission process, this first release has deep roots in DIY amateur game publishing, as its producer is Tatsuya Suzuki, who directed Echochrome, a game that found its way to PSP via a Sony “Game Yarouze” competition.
Future releases include Dungeon of Nazarick, a spinoff of the Overlord light novel series; The Witch & the 66 Mushrooms, an original metroidvania-type game; along with La-Mulana creator Takumi Naramura’s Medium-Naut and a new game called Puzzl Pedestrians by Chibi-Robo creator Kenichi Nishi! And… you?
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I’m here providing a service to both you and Eric. It’s important that you know that Spike Chunsoft’s updated port of Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate is available as of today on both Switch and PC. Roguelikes have exploded in popularity in the last few years, and Shiren is the granddaddy of (a specific but popular and influential subgenre of) them all.
The new version includes two bonus dungeons, a music player, streaming displays, and a rescue system that opens up the worldwide playerbase to come help you when you die.
This is a service to Eric because I’m hoping that my posting this will give him a few more minutes to play Shiren.
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Has there ever been a better concept for a game adaptation of anime than this? Laid-Back Camp - Virtual is a set of two VR-compatible “Virtual Camping Adventure” games that allow you to accompany the characters from the show on camping trips to Lake Motosu and Fumoto Campsite.
And, if it’s anything like the show, what you can expect to happen at those campsites is, blissfully, not much. Enjoying views, cooking appetizing hot meals on very cute camp cookware, and maybe obsessing over specific items of outdoor gear.
Speaking of gear, this PS4/PC/Switch/iOS/Android game supports VR headsets including the cardboard one from Nintendo Labo! I am going to live in these animated outdoor vistas.
Via Gematsu.
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I can’t overstate the importance of the Bit.Trip games in my, like, whole deal. Back in 2009 when they started coming out as WiiWare, they blew my mind with abstract visuals and hypnotic gameplay, and I wrote about them here and in my old job a lot. It became sort of a mission to tell everyone every update about these games. I even had the chance to visit developer Choice Provisions’ studio and play an early version of Runner2. And now I kind of can’t believe that happened.
Anyway, all this to say the first six games, which are extreme personal favorites of mine, are being rereleased on Switch this year, by publisher QubicGames (who you may know as the company that frequently puts its games on sale for free). I will buy them, again, and play them, again, now with a layer of nostalgia for a very improbable bygone time added to the layer of “hey fun.”
And speaking of nostalgia, the image above is the Paper Foldables papercraft model, which you can get from the Archive.org cache of the old Bit.Trip website.
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So much about our routines has changed this year, but one tradition remains firmly in place: dusting off the word “Cyber” in mid-November. Nintendo’s “Cyber Deals” sale is up for downloadable games – the most cyber type of game. It includes savings on big games like Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, Daemon X Machina and The Outer Worlds.
A quick browse hack through the sale page shows other Cyber Deals from Sega, Capcom, Devolver, 2K, and Supergiant Games. There’s probably something in here for everybody. For me, I’m looking at a sub-$20 Hatsune Miku Project Diva Mega Mix and a bunch of Sega Ages games. Nothing more cyber than a virtual pop star!
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