New Releases: December 8th-14th, 2022

It’s a rich time for role-playing fans with Crisis Core-Final Fantasy VII-Reunion, Dragon Quest Treasures, Chained Echoes, and Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent all arriving this week. For those seeking a bit of action, Samurai Maiden and Terror of Hemasaurus look to indulge with Sengoku-era silliness and kaiju-driven chaos. For Fate/Grand Order fans, Witch on the Holy Night offers an intriguing coming-of-age tale set in the 80s.

PlayStation 4
Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent (physical & digital, $39.99)
Chained Echoes (digital, $24.99)
Crisis Core-Final Fantasy VII-Reunion (physical & digital, 49.99)
Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality + The Lonely Assassins (physical & digital, $29.99)
Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Malta Expansion (DLC, $19.99)
Neon White (digital, $24.99)
Operation Wolf Returns: First Mission (digital, $39.99)
Samurai Maiden (digital, $59.99, $69.49)
The Forest Quartet (digital, $9.99)
The Rumble Fish 2 (digital, $29.99)
Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood & Teef (physical, $29.99)
Witch on the Holy Night (digital, $39.99)

PlayStation 5
Crisis Core-Final Fantasy VII-Reunion (physical & digital, 49.99)
Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood & Teef (physical, $29.99)

Switch
Action Games Bundle 5 in 1 (digital, $19.99)
Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent (physical & digital, $39.99)
Aka (digital, $12.99)
Chained Echoes (digital, $24.99)
Coloring Pixels: Collection 2 (digital, $7.95)
Crisis Core-Final Fantasy VII-Reunion (physical & digital, 49.99)
Dragon Quest Treasures (physical & digital, $59,99)
Food Truck Tycoons – 2 in 1 Bundle (digital, $8.99)
Football Kicks (digital, $3.99)
JellyCar Worlds (digital, $7.99)
Jitsu Squad (digital, $29.99)
Lil Gator Game (digital, $13.99)
Mech Armada (digital, $15.99)
My Coloring Books – 2 in 1 Bundle (digital, $7.99)
My Universe: My Baby Dragon (physical, $39.99)
New Joe and Mac: Caveman Ninja (physical, $39.99)
Petite Adventure (digital, $4.99)
Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance (digital, $13.99)
Samurai Maiden (digital, $53.99, $67.49)
Simona’s Requiem (digital, $7.99)
Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood & Teef (physical, $29.99)
Wavetale (digital, $29.99)

Xbox One
Afterglitch (digital, $14.99)
Chained Echoes (digital, $24.99)
Crisis Core-Final Fantasy VII-Reunion (physical & digital, 49.99)
Dad’s Monster House (digital, $5.39)
High on Life (digital, $59.99)
Potion Craft (digital, $14.99)
Terror of Hemasaurus (digital, $14.99)
The Rumble Fish 2 (digital, $29.99)

PC
Chained Echoes ($21.24)
Choo-Choo Charles ($TBA)
Crawl Tactics ($TBA)
Crisis Core-Final Fantasy VII-Reunion ($49.99)
Garden Galaxy ($TBA)
High on Life ($59.99)
Jurassic World Evolution 2: Dominion Malta Expansion (DLC, $19.99)
Lil Gator Game ($13.99)
Master of Magic ($TBA)
NecroBouncer ($TBA)
Samurai Maiden (digital, $53.99)
Solar Ash ($TBA)
Undead Horde 2: Necropolis ($TBA)
Wavetale ($29.99)

Rob’s Pick: Let’s start with Adventure Academia: The Fractured Continent, since I worry that it might get overlooked. Acquire’s latest offers a customary combination of visual novel, party management, and combat. The highlight here is undoubtedly the latter, with real-time strategy-style battles where a team of characters follow the lead character around, eliminating enemies and the pillars they spawn from. Sure, the AI isn’t perfect and you’ll have to pick up and move your party members, but it’s an agreeable departure from turn-based action.

Next up is Shade’s (Kandagawa Jet Girls, Gun Gun Pixies) Samurai Maiden, which imagines Nobunaga Oda spending his last moments at Honnō-ji temple fighting demons alongside a yuri entourage. In execution, that means Samurai Maiden is a bit of a budget musou-lite, as you fight as many enemies as the Unity engine can muster. Luckily, the game balances its shortcomings with opportunities to expand your arsenal as well as building bonds with a trio of tasty tropes, snapping adorable group selfies at the end of the stage. It’s hardly Shakespeare but it’s definitely amusing and some of the stirring koto-led battle themes are poised to get the juices flowing. I just hope they manage to get it working on Steam Deck before release.

Ryan’s pick: The hyper-stylized Steam game Solar Ash has my vote this week. The developer Heart Machine released the popular game in 2016 called Hyper Light Drifter which was created in Game Maker and featured spectacular visuals and some really vibrant colors, so I was immediately drawn to their new game. Solar Ash appears to be a brand-new IP for this developer, and I can definitely see some parallels in terms of color choice and art design between this new game and their last. Synthesizers also get my immediate attention, so the soundtrack as well is another reason why I’m looking forward to this release. The bosses I’ve seen are massive, so in general this one looks promising.

Samurai Maiden likewise looks like it could be a fun light-hearted slow-ride musou game. I can definitely see some of the inspiration that the game has taken from the Senran Kagura series in terms of how the battles occur in the game. On a side note, I like the enemy design – some of the ancient samurai skeletons remind me of the Neo Geo SNK game Sengoku. I think that in terms of enemies I will appreciate them more than some of the basic mobs from Senran Kagura as they did tend to get overused and were always the same in each level. The character design isn’t as striking or as unique as the SK series, but I like the characters enough to be willing to brush up on my ninpo skills and to give this one a try…

Matt S’ pick (editor, DigitallyDownloaded): I would like to think that I’ve been picking games for Robert’s weekly feature for long enough by now that all you readers out there know exactly what I’d choose this week. Of course, it’s Samurai Maiden. It’s a game about a schoolgirl slaying zombie monsters in Sengoku Japan. It’s like D3 Publisher sent someone to spy on me and report back on what my ultimate combination game would be. And thankfully it delivers, Samurai Maiden is silly, flirty, charming, funny stuff. It’s delightful.

Elsewhere, it might not have schoolgirls and zombie slaying, but Witch of the Holy Night is very much on my radar too. I love Type-Moon’s visual novels and what they do with everything from storytelling to art design, and this remake of a Type-Moon classic looks like it’ll be right on form for the company. I don’t know if it’ll be a Fate/Stay Night beater yet – that depends on whether there’s a character as perfect as Rin Tohsaka in it. But at the very least I’m expecting it to be vastly better than any other VN I’ve played this year.

Finally, Dragon Quest Treasures. This thing kind of came out of nowhere, but it’s a delight too. You get to explore a nice big world, collecting treasures and making friends with iconic monsters from Dragon Quest. Sure, the combat’s not exactly of the standard of “proper” Dragon Quest games, but the sense of whimsical adventure is there in spades.