New Releases: April 28th-May 4th, 2022

This week, OshiRabu: Waifus Over Husbandos + Love or Die (pictured) offers a two part tale of tenderness, while Nintendo Switch Sports can cultivate some friendly competition between rivals. Of course, if you’re looking for nothing more than water guns, sun-soaked environments, and bikini-clad rivals, Waifu Impact might meet your relaxed expectations.

PlayStation 4
A Street Cat’s Tale (digital, $7.99)
Dandy & Randy DX (digital, $6.99)
Layer Section & Galactic Attack S-Tribute (digital, $29.99)
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One (digital, $44.99-$59.99)
The House of the Dead: Remake (digital $24.99)
TASOMACHI: Behind the Twilight (digital, $19.99)
Waifu Impact (digital, $4.24)
Wildcat Gun Machine (digital, $11.99)

Switch
Abyss Memory: Fallen Angel and the Path of Magic (digital, $19.99)
Aria Chronicle – Amazon (DLC. $3.99)
Aria Chronicle – Necronight (DLC. $3.99)
Arise: A Simple Story – Definitive Edition (digital, $19.99)
As Far as the Eye (digital, $17.49)
Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream – Area “Atelier Plachta” (DLC, $7.99)
Bugsnax (digital, $24.99)
Bunny Reversi (digital, $1.99)
Cardful Planning (digital, $2.49)
Catie in MeowmeowLand (digital, $14.99)
Concordia: Digital Edition – Aegyptus & Creta (DLC, $8.99)
Concordia: Digital Edition – Britannia & Germania (DLC, $8.99)
Concordia: Digital Edition – Fish Market (DLC, 19.99)
Concordia: Digital Edition – Venus (DLC, $14.99)
Cricket 22: The Official Game of the Ashes (digital, $49.99)
Dandy & Randy DX (digital, $6.99)
Escape Game Room (digital, $1.00)
Feral Flowers (digital, $2.00)
Gems of Magic: Dwarf’s Destiny (digital, $7.99)
Get Packed: Couch Chaos (digital, $14.99)
Layer Section & Galactic Attack S-Tribute (digital, $29.99)
Let’s Get Changed!～Nyanzou&Kumakichi: Escape Game～ (digital, $14.90)
Light Fairytale Episode 1 (digital, $8.99)
Lost Grimoires: Stolen Kingdom (digital, $14.99)
Marble Maid (digital, $9.99)
Marco & The Galaxy Dragon (digital, $17.99)
Nonogram Minimal (digital, $2.49)
OshiRabu: Waifus Over Husbandos + Love or Die (digital, $39.99)
New Terra (digital, $24.99)
Nintendo Switch Sports (physical & digital, $39.99)
Panmorphia: Awakened (digital, $6.99)
Parkasaurus (digital, $22.49)
Party Bundle: Ludomania & Flowlines VS & 2048 Battles (digital, $9.99)
Ping Pong Arcade (digital, $14.99)
Ravenous Devils (digital, $4.99)
Raven’s Hike (digital, $3.99)
Slap the Rocks (digital, $4.99)
Soft Drift (digital, $3.85)
TASOMACHI: Behind the Twilight (digital, $19.99)
Turn Tack (digital, $13.49)
Transiruby (digital, $13.49)
Unsouled (digital, $19.99)
Waifu Impact (digital, $4.24)
Watcher Chronicles (digital, $19.99)
West Water (digital, $10.99)
Whisper Trip (digital, $3.99)
Wildcat Gun Machine (digital, $11.99)

Xbox One
Bugsnax (digital, $24.99)
Dandy & Randy DX (digital, $6.99)
Evasion From Hell (digital, $9.99)
Micro Pico Racers (digital, $4.24)
Ravenous Devils (digital, $4.99)
RICO London (digital, $TBA)
Rogue Legacy 2 ($19.99)
The House of the Dead: Remake (digital $24.99)
Unsouled (digital, $19.99)
Wildcat Gun Machine (digital, $11.99)

PC
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition – Dynasties of India (DLC, $9.99)
Bugsnax ($19.99)
Dorfromantik ($9.79)
Flatworld ($14.99)
Guilt: The Deathless ($16.19)
Haiku, The Robot ($16.99)
Kaiju Wars ($17.99)
Rogue Legacy 2 ($19.99)
Surviving Mars: Martian Express (DLC, $6.99)
The Gunk ($TBA)
The House of the Dead: Remake ($22.49)
Trigon: Space Story ($19.99)
Wildcat Gun Machine (digital, $12.74)

Rob’s Pick: I know a number of people who have struggled to enjoy visual novels. That’s understandable, especially if we are accustomed to interactive experiences offering fast, dopamine-releasing action. But Marco & The Galaxy Dragon is different. It’s so persistently energetic and is filled with animation, making it feel like watching an anime rather than reading a story with a handful of bust-ups overlaid on static images. Adding to the accessibility is a lighthearted tone, that toys with the trappings of a typical space opera.

I’m not sure how TASOMACHI: Behind the Twilight will fare on Switch, but I thoroughly loved it on PC. It’s a different experience for sure. The challenge is fairly light, there’s no combat, and the emphasis is on aesthetic beauty, with dreamlike environments and Ujico*’s almost low-fi beats. I love seeing efforts that begin to ebb at the expectations of what a “game” is supposed to be.

I’m totally up for a heaping serving of Ravenous Devils. The combination of shop simulation built around cannibalism sounds like the kind of perversion we don’t get often enough in gaming.

Matt S’ pick (Editor, DigitallyDownloaded): Ravenous Devils is grotesque. I love it. It’s basically Sweeny Todd: The Game, where you need to play as a couple running a shop in Victorian-era England. The husband is a tailor, who kills customers that are destitute enough not to be noticed, and then re-sells their clothing. The wife, meanwhile, turns the corpses into a variety of tasty dishes, starting with pies, but going places from there. This game doesn’t flinch from making the subject material explicit. It’s grotesque, like I said, but I do like my transgressive art, and a gross-out simulation is a new one for me.

Otherwise, while I haven’t played TASOMACHI like Robert has, I really do love the look of this game, and I’m keen to see more about it. It looks ambitious for a Switch title, but it also looks like one that I’ll be willing to forgive if the port isn’t perfect, as long as it’s playable and allows me to experience this game on a console.

Finally, I’ll also be playing Waifu Impact this week. I don’t expect it to be a good game, of course. It’s just that crap like that ticks the SEO boxes and I may as well go for the clicks.

Ryan’s Pick: There’s actually a lot that needs to go into a visual novel to make it memorable, and aside from the written content, it’s the visuals that really can hook the reader if they are done well. Marco & The Galaxy Dragon’s art is really done well. It apparently has over 1000 still images, which is a considerable amount in comparison to some of the other visual novels on Steam. Maybe it’s just me, but I really like visual novels on handhelds because they are in general pretty relaxing. I missed this one when it first released on PC, so I would like to give this a spin.

I think I’m too engulfed in leveling up my Kamisato Ayaka as of late to want to venture to play another Genshin Impact-esque game, even though the title Waifu Impact did get me to lift my chin and raise my eyebrows in interest for a brief moment. Instead, I saw one other release that looked interesting, which was Haiku, The Robot. Visually there is a lot of polish to this 2D Metrodivania, and it does give me a bit of a Hollow Knight vibe. The frame animations look meticulous, so I think it would be worth a look if you are into adventure games with a retro aesthetic.

Matt R’s pick (editor, Shindig): TASOMACHI: Behind the Twilight is a delight. On one level, it’s a collection-driven 3D platformer inspired by the likes of Spyro the Dragon and Banjo Kazooie, with combat-free exploration of intricate, extremely three-dimensional maps in search of treasures and that elusive 100% completion stat. But like Rob said, it’s a game that approaches that idea from a very different mood, with its dreamy Asian fantasy-inspired setting, focus on quiet aesthetic beauty over the genre’s usual assault of colour and energy, and a fantastic, extremely chill soundtrack (which doubles as excellent focus music when writing, I’ll add). It seems a natural fit for Switch, too, so let’s hope the port holds up.

After a couple of years in early access, Rogue Legacy 2 is finally getting its full release. The first game was one of the first “roguelites” I really clicked with, thanks to its heredity mechanics, decent action platformer antics, and light Metroidvania touch. The sequel looks mostly like more of the same, albeit with a few tweaks and some new classes to play with, but that’s really all it needs to be.