New Releases: November 10th-16th, 2022

This week, a remaster gets remastered with Tactics Ogre: Reborn (pictured), a half-century of history is documented in Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, and Cardfight!! Vanguard Dear Days brings the seventy-dollar base game price to Switch.

PlayStation 4
Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration (physical & digital, $39.99)
Autonauts (physical, 29.99)
Bravery and Greed (digital, $TBA)
Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 (digital, free)
Farming Simulator 22: Platinum Edition (digital, $59.99)
Finding the Soul Orb (digital, $5.99)
Garfield Lasagna Party (physical & digital, $39.99)
Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch (physical & digital, $39.99)
RWBY: Arrowfell (digital, $29.99)
Super Chicken Jumper (digital, $4.99)
Tactics Ogre: Reborn (physical & digital, $49.99)

PlayStation 5
Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration (physical & digital, $39.99)
Farming Simulator 22: Platinum Edition (digital, $59.99)
Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch (physical & digital, $39.99)
Recompile: Limited Edition (physical, $29.99)
Syberia: The World Before – 20 Years Edition (physical, $49.99)
Tactics Ogre: Reborn (physical & digital, $49.99)

Switch
Advent Calendar (digital, $22.49)
Aragami 2 (digital, $34.99)
Arcade Machine: Gopher’s Revenge (digital, $2.49)
Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration (physical & digital, $39.99)
Autonauts (physical, 29.99)
Becoming a She (digital, $19.90)
Brain Memory (digital, $4.99)
Cardfight!! Vanguard Dear Days (digital, $69.99)
Chalk Gardens (digital, $5.99)
Cyber Velocity Run (digital, $7.99)
Fluffy Horde (digital, $9.99)
Foretales (physical & digital, $24.99)
Garfield Lasagna Party (physical & digital, $39.99)
Geometric Feel the Beats (digital, $4.99)
Geometric Sniper (digital, $2.99)
Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch (physical & digital, $39.99)
Hot Tentacles Shooter (digital, $4.99)
It’s Kooky (digital, $9.99)
Jurassic World Aftermath Collection (digital, $29.99)
Kamikaze Veggies (digital, $12.99)
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Obi-Wan Kenobi Character Pack (DLC, $2.99)
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Rebels Character Pack (DLC, $2.99)
Lord of the Click III (digital, $4.99)
Lost Chiko (digital, $5.99)
Lunistice (digital, $4.99)
Machinika Museum
McPixel 3 (digital, $9.99)
Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk and Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk (digital, $7.19)
Multiversepool (digital, $3.49)
Orbital Bullet (digital, $14.99)
Pet Shop Snacks Premium Edition (digital, $5.99)
Pixel Game Maker Series ANGEL’S BLOOD (digital, $9.99)
Pocket Mini Golf 2 (digital, $4.99)
Run Sausage Run! (digital, $4.99)
RWBY: Arrowfell (digital, $29.99)
Sausage Wars (digital, $4.99)
Save Room (digital, $4.99)
Smurfs Kart (physical & digital, $39.99)
Space Ducks: The Great Escape (digital, $4.99)
Super Chicken Jumper (digital, $4.99)
Tactics Ogre: Reborn (physical & digital, $49.99)
Tempoknight (digital, $7.99)
The Bounty Huntress (digital, $4.99)
The Kingdom of Gardenia (digital, $7.19)
Windosill (digital, $9.99)

Xbox One
Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration (physical & digital, $39.99)
Bravery and Greed (digital, $TBA)
Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 (digital, free)
Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality + The Lonely Assassins
Farming Simulator 22: Platinum Edition (digital, $59.99)
Garfield Lasagna Party (physical & digital, $39.99)
Paper Flight – Speed Rush (digital, $9.99)
Pentiment (digital, $19.99)
RWBY: Arrowfell (digital, $29.99)
Somerville (digital, $TBA)
Super Chicken Jumper (digital, $4.99)
Syberia: The World Before – 20 Years Edition (physical, $49.99)
Yum Yum Cookstar (digital, $39.99)

PC
Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration ($39.99)
Ballads of Hongye ($TBA)
Beat Hazard 3 ($TBA)
Bendy and the Dark Revival ($TBA)
Cardfight!! Vanguard Dear Days ($TBA)
Haitenai RPG ($TBA)
Lapin ($TBA)
McPixel 3 ($9.99)
Monuments Flipper ($TBA)
Pentiment ($19.99)
Police Simulator: Patrol Officers (digital, $26.99)
Somerville ($TBA)
Tactics Ogre: Reborn ($49.99)
The Oregon Trail ($TBA)
Valkyrie Elysium ($59.99)
We Who Are About to Die ($TBA)

Rob’s Pick: For years, I’ve had a reoccurring complaint about most retro compilations. They are often little more than an emulator and rom files. At best, there are a few supplemental materials tossed in that help establish context.

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is the first package to really get it right, establishing a new benchmark for anthologies. So, while there’s a nice selection of games on The Anniversary Celebration, the real delight is an interactive timeline that thoroughly details the history of Atari. Filled with documentary-style interviews with many of the key pioneers, this offers one of the most insightful overviews of the pioneering publisher outside of print. If you’re old enough to remember Atari, it’s a great commemorative work. Now, if someone could document the NES era, I’d be eternally thankful.

The other pick this week is the Switch version of Orbital Bullet. Imagine if Resogun’s bidirectionally scrolling, spherical environments had gravity, you’d get a basic idea of the action. So beyond shooting foes, you can also leap on them. Just don’t expect them to accept your antagonism like a Goomba; each different foe behaves in distinct but predictable ways. Another distinction is the inclusion of roguelike elements. You’ll uncover randomized weapons and perks on each run as well as earn meta-game unlocks. And while subsequent worlds will kick your ass, the first few planets offer a lot of fun. It’s probably a great companion title between Tactics Ogre: Reborn’s cerebral battles.

Matt S’ pick (editor, DigitallyDownloaded): Tactics Ogre: Reborn is the one that you want to get stuck into this week. Yes, it’s a remake of a remake, but it is quite possibly the mightiest example of the genre of all (yes, I prefer it to Final Fantasy Tactics), and it’s always good for a replay. From the detailed control you have over your units, to the impressively large maps and rich storyline, this one is a true epic in every way you can count.

I’ll also be honest here and say that I’m looking forward to giving Smurfs Kart a spin. Do I think it’ll be a Mario Kart beater? No, of course not. But it looks like it’s being pitched at about the same level as the Garfield Kart game from a few years ago, and that was a decent enough time! I do enjoy a competent kart racer as a fun time waster, and like most millennials I did grow up with the Smurfs, so this game is pretty tailored to my interests and nostalgia for youth.

Finally, I’m going to give Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk and Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk a spin. Did it catch my attention just because of the stupid (but deliberately so) eye-catching title? Yes. But go and check this thing out on Steam. 6,000 “Overwhelmingly Positive” reviews. Now I’m intrigued.

Ryan’s pick: The Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration has definitely surprised me with a lot of the game selections that have made it into the compilation, and if you are a retro enthusiast this is a pretty comprehensive collection that you should own. I mean, it even has Scrapyard Dog which was one of my favorite Lynx games. You can use trash cans to warp around like in Super Mario Bros. 3 and in general was a lot of fun to play on that console. Some childhood favorites didn’t seem to make the cut, but I was really happy to see Solaris which was a game that I had for the 2600 that was always a lot of fun. There are some others that I really enjoyed but don’t seem to have made the list like Berzerk, E.T., or The Empire Strikes Back. Maybe I just didn’t know any better back then, but I played E.T. a whole lot when I was a kid on Atari. Speaking of other games that didn’t make the list, I don’t see Journey Run here either. If you want to hear Don’t Stop Believin’ on Atari, definitely look this one up.

One other game that caught my eye is Bendy and the Dark Revival. This is the sequel to Bendy and the Ink Machine which is a first-person horror game that has an old cartoon aesthetic. There’s a lot of creepy themes in the game, and the color scheme and use of ink to contrast against it really makes the aesthetic memorable. This sequel also gives me a bit of a Bioshock feel to the level design and enemies, so if you need a break from Food Fight I think this is a pretty good alternative.

Matt R’s pick (editor, Shindig): I’ve been on a big tactical RPG kick lately, so Tactics Ogre Reborn comes in at just the right time for me. Like the other Matt said, Tactics Ogre is truly one of the pinnacles of the genre—it laid the foundations for so much of what is now just genre standard, but it’s also a game that’s still never really been eclipsed, almost thirty years since it first hit Super Famicom.

Though it uses the PSP remake as a base, Reborn is more than a simple remaster. The changes it makes to the game’s design and balance are sweeping, from simple quality-of-life improvements (trajectory predictions for missile attacks!), to a complete revamp of how leveling, skills, and equipment work, to fun new features like buff cards that appear randomly on the battlefield and can dramatically affect the outcome. While such major changes may often raise an eyebrow from purists, here, they’re largely successful at reining in some of Tactics Ogre‘s more arcane aspects without compromising its depth—indeed, while adding new threads to an already rich tapestry. Look past the slightly odd overhaul of the pixel-art sprites, and you’ll find the most definitive version of a timeless classic.