Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 17th, 2020. We’re kicking off the week with a pair of Mini-Views covering recent new releases, and we’ve also got summaries of two brand-new games. We finish things up with the usual incoming and outgoing sales lists, both of which have a few things of interest on them. No real big news right now, though there are murmurs of a possible Switch release of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. That would be neat. Anyway, let’s get to today’s games.
Mini-Views
Samurai Shodown! 2 ($7.99)
So far, the NEOGEO Pocket Color releases on the Switch have all been fighting games. It makes sense, as many of the most popular games on the platform were fighters. King of Fighters R-2 has already made the scene, along with the female fighter-focused Gals’ Fighters. SNK’s other big fighting brand rounds out the trio with Samurai Shodown! 2. It’s good to see it here, but I always found this one a bit less enjoyable than the other NGPC fighters I owned. A lot of the appeal of Samurai Shodown comes from its presentation and highly technical gameplay mechanics, and both of those aspects are weakened significantly here. The essence of Samurai Shodown is here, and it’s fun to play with some of the Samurai Shodown 64 cast, but it’s just not quite as fun as King of Fighters R-2 or Gals’ Fighters.
SwitchArcade Score: 3/5
Bite the Bullet ($14.99)
Sometimes I love this game, and sometimes I kind of hate it. It’s certainly a creative take on the run-and-gun shooter with its feasting mechanic and the complexity it brings with it. On the other hand, the level designs feel a bit too big and aimless in general, and the game struggles in terms of technical performance. The latter is particularly a problem in a sub-genre that depends on speedy, tight gameplay. It’s forgiving enough that taking the odd unfair hit here and there isn’t a gamebreaker, but it sure doesn’t feel good. If you can forgive a few flaws and are willing to engage with the game’s sometimes overly-complicated systems, you’ll find a fairly rewarding action romp here.
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
New Releases
Cecconoid ($10.00)
Well, that’s not even trying to be subtle. This is a pretty open tribute to Raffaele Cecco’s 1987 home computer classic Cybernoid, a rather slow-paced shooter/adventure hybrid that I mostly remember for its utterly cruel level of difficulty. But we’re in 2020 now, so Cecconoid makes a few changes to the formula. The biggest is that it’s a twin-stick shooter, which certainly makes the shooty bits a bit more exciting. In fact, if you’d rather just do the twin-stick shooting, there’s a whole extra mode in here called Eugatron, a tribute to Eugene Jarvis’s 1984 trailblazer Robotron 2084. This mode dispenses with the exploratory bits and just lets you focus on blasting enemies. I’ll be frank with you here: I didn’t like Cybernoid all that much back in the day, and I don’t care much for Cecconoid now. If you loved Cybernoid? Your moment is here.
Regina & Mac ($9.99)
Regina & Mac touts itself as a flashback to 3D platformers from the late 1990s, and I can kind of get on board with that. But the experience of playing it is less like the highs of Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, and Spyro the Dragon and more in the vein of stuff like Croc. Sure, the graphics back then were extremely rudimentary, but there was an artistry to them that is absent here. And the gameplay… well, I’ve played worse, I guess. It wouldn’t be right to expect a ten-dollar indie game to live up to some of the all-time classics. Perhaps the better ask is if this feels worth the money and time as a modern game? Even in that context, however, I’m not sure it passes.
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
A number of sales rolled in after our Friday edition was posted, with the highlights being the fairly rough port of Mutant Year Zero and the rather enjoyable first-person roguelite City of Brass. The outbox isn’t all that large today, but Megadimension Neptunia VII‘s launch discount is expiring soon. Idea Factory doesn’t do a lot of post-release sales, so if you’ve got your eye on Nep-Nep’s proper Switch debut, this is probably the time to get it. There are a few other uncommon sales in there, so have a look and see if anything grabs you.
Select New Games on Sale
Mutant Year Zero Deluxe ($26.99 from $44.99 until 8/21)
Clue ($14.99 from $29.99 until 8/21)
Battleship ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/21)
The House of Da Vinci ($7.49 from $9.99 until 8/22)
Hyper Jam ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/5)
Robonauts ($0.99 from $3.99 until 9/5)
Jumping Joe & Friends ($0.99 from $1.99 until 9/5)
Madorica Real Estate ($9.50 from $14.99 until 8/25)
Not Not – Brain Buster ($0.99 from $1.99 until 9/5)
Laser Kitty Pow Pow ($0.99 from $2.99 until 9/5)
Mini Trains ($0.99 from $5.99 until 9/5)
Puzzle Book ($0.99 from $3.99 until 9/5)
Party Treats ($0.99 from $1.99 until 9/5)
Monster Bugs Eat People ($0.99 from $1.99 until 9/5)
Sheep Patrol ($0.99 from $1.99 until 9/5)
Pocket Mini Golf ($0.99 from $1.99 until 9/5)
City of Brass ($4.99 from $19.99 until 8/24)
Crypt of the Serpent King ($0.99 from $2.99 until 8/31)
Submerged ($0.99 from $9.99 until 8/24)
The Park ($5.99 from $9.99 until 8/21)
Lots of Slots ($3.99 from $7.99 until 8/30)
Blacksad: Under the Skin ($19.99 from $49.99 until 8/26)
Curious Cases ($3.99 from $7.99 until 8/31)
Wide Ocean Big Jacket ($3.19 from $7.99 until 8/29)
Escape First ($3.99 from $4.99 until 8/31)
WordHerd ($1.20 from $6.00 until 9/1)
The Experiment: Escape Room ($3.19 from $3.99 until 8/31)
Liberated ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/19)
Zombies Ruined My Day ($2.99 from $3.99 until 8/31)
Feudal Alloy ($3.39 from $16.99 until 9/5)
Pizza Parking ($1.19 from $5.99 until 9/4)
SpaceColorsRunner ($1.19 from $5.99 until 9/4)
Jacks or Better – Video Poker ($5.61 from $7.49 until 8/29)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 18th
Blood Breed ($1.19 from $5.99 until 8/18)
Boot Hill Bounties ($11.24 from $14.99 until 8/18)
Cannibal Cuisine ($6.49 from $12.99 until 8/18)
Drawngeon ($2.99 from $4.99 until 8/18)
Event Horizon: Space Defense ($1.98 from $6.99 until 8/18)
Gem Crash ($1.99 from $5.99 until 8/18)
Hyperdrive Massacre ($3.99 from $7.99 until 8/18)
Invasion of Alien X – Earth in Crisis ($1.99 from $9.99 until 8/18)
Mars or Die! ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/18)
Mech Rage ($0.49 from $9.99 until 8/18)
Megadimension Neptunia VII ($23.99 from $29.99 until 8/18)
Morphite ($2.49 from $14.99 until 8/18)
Old Man’s Journey ($7.99 from $9.99 until 8/18)
Otto ($2.49 from $4.99 until 8/18)
Parallel ($2.99 from $9.99 until 8/18)
Perseverance ($0.99 from $4.99 until 8/18)
Pianista ($19.99 from $24.99 until 8/18)
Storm Boy ($0.99 from $5.99 until 8/18)
Super Inefficient Golf ($3.99 from $7.99 until 8/18)
Sweet Witches ($1.49 from $9.99 until 8/18)
Tardy ($1.99 from $9.99 until 8/18)
Trancelation ($1.99 from $4.99 until 8/18)
Undead’s Building ($1.99 from $5.99 until 8/18)
Whipseey & the Lost Atlas ($0.99 from $5.99 until 8/18)
That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with summaries of a couple of new releases, a list of all the new incoming and outgoing sales, and whatever pressing news comes along. There may also be a review or perhaps some Mini-Views, but we’ll have to see what time allows for. I hope you all have a manageable Monday, and as always, thanks for reading!