New Releases: May 4th-10th, 2023

This week, RPG/boardgame hybrid Dokapon Kingdom Connect lands on Switch, while Ys IX: Monstrum Nox arrives on PlayStation 5, with 4K output and all the cosmetic DLC included. Meanwhile, Meanwhile, Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 (pictured) arrives on Steam, delivering more heart-breaking ethical decisions.

PlayStation 4
Hogwarts Legacy (physical & digital, $59.99)
Trek to Yomi (physical, $29.99 & 49.99)
TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 (physical & digital, $49.99)

PlayStation 5
Death or Treat (digital, $TBA)
Song in the Smoke: Rekindled (physical, $34.99)
Synth Riders Remastered Edition (physical, $29.99)
Trek to Yomi (physical, $29.99, $49.99)
TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 (physical & digital, $49.99)
Weird West: Definitive Edition (digital, $TBA)
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox Deluxe Edition (physical & digital, $49.99)

Switch
Demon Skin (digital, $9.99)
Dessert DIY (digital, $4.99)
Dokapon Kingdom Connect (physical & digital, $42.49)
Japanese Escape Games The Prison Underground (digital, $4.99)
JanduSoft Games Bundle Vol. 1 (digital, $39.99)
Jigsaw Puzzle Fever (digital, $7.99)
Garden Simulator (digital, $26.99)
Gruta (digital, $4.99)
Horror Bundle – 3 in 1 (digital, $12.99)
Mia and the Dragon Princess (digital, $12.99)
No Place Like Home (digital, $24.99)
Pathfinders: Memories (digital, $2.99)
Pizza Bar Tycoon Multiplayer Edition (digital, $5.99)
Poosh XL (digital, $4.99)
Sakura Gamer (digital, $9.99)
Scrap Bolts (digital, $9.99)
SkateBird (physical, $34.99)
Space Gladiators (digital, $14.99)
Swordbreaker: Origins (digital, $7.99)
The Shooting Range 3D: Shooting Gallery Simulator (digital, $9.99)
Tiny Dragon Story (digital, $12.99)
Trek to Yomi (physical, $34.99, $49.99)
Urbek City Builder (digital, $18.99)

Xbox One
90” Soccer (digital, $4.99)
Boss Rush: Mythology (digital, $7.99)
Garden Simulator (digital, $26.99)
Hogwarts Legacy (physical & digital, $59.99)
Ravenlok (digital, $24.99)
Size Matters (digital, $9.99)
Space Gladiators (digital, $14.99)
Swordbreaker: Origins (digital, $7.99)
Titans Pinball (digital, $2.54)

Xbox Series S/X
Weird West: Definitive Edition (digital, $TBA, Game Pass)

PC
AFL 23 ($59.99)
Bare Butt Boxing ($14.99)
Darkest Dungeon II ($TBA)
Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 ($TBA)
Knight Crawlers ($17.99)
Mia and the Dragon Princess ($11.69)
Midautumn ($TBA)
No Man’s Island ($7.99)
Otoko Cross: Pretty Boys Breakup! ($5.59)
Pan’orama ($TBA)
Propagation: Paradise Hotel ($19.99)

Rob’s pick: As Billion Road demonstrated, board games on consoles can be a lot of fun, especially when you don’t have to worry about setting and cleaning everything up. This week, Dokapon Kingdom Connect builds on the concept, offering an imaginative blend of Monopoly and RPG-style combat and character building. While moving across a massive map, you’ll encounter monsters in blank spots, leading to traditional turn-based combat. Some of these creatures have taken over towns, and liberating them bestows a nice weekly income.  What’s especially remarkable about Dokapon is the balance between simplicity and strategy, as well as an injection of creativity. Here, you can sell your soul to earn dark powers, effectively providing you with a way to cheat.

Fuga: Melodies of Steel’s context was brimming with futility, while its cast demonstrated resolute determination. That’s a mix that effortlessly plucks my heart strings. But I’ll remember the experience for some of the gut-wrenching decisions that I was forced to make. This week, the sequel arrives on Steam, with CyberConnect2 refining the turn-based combat and adding supplementary events to test your managerial mettle. In an era where cold-hearted verdicts seem to happen daily, I’m up for some escapism where I have some agency. Obviously, it won’t change anything, except potentially ebb away at our complacency.

Matt R’s pick (editor, Shindig): The announcement of a sequel to Fuga: Melodies of Steel took me by surprise— CyberConnect2 has been quite open about the game’s commercial struggles—but it’s a welcome surprise, indeed. Few games approach war themes with the nuance and humanity that Fuga did, and the way it tied its game design to the impossible choices thrust upon a group of survivors in the midst of a warzone was a stroke of genius. I’m very curious—and a little wary, if I’m honest—to see what direction Melodies of Steel 2 takes, in terms of both refinements to game systems that were already so carefully crafted, and a story that directly continues something so potent and conclusive.

And for something a bit lighter, there’s Garden Simulator. A lifelike “job simulator” that combines landscaping, garden design, mowing, and growing veggies and flowers has all the right pieces to hit that simulation sweet spot where depth and realistic detail combine with a laid-back atmosphere to make an especially satisfying experience. I’m the kind of weirdo who finds pulling weeds oddly meditative, so I’m looking forward to being able to do that from the comfort of my couch, too.

Matt S’ pick (editor, DigitallyDownloaded): I know that this one is going to be only relevant to me as an Australian, but AFL 23 is out this week, and I enjoy AFL. It’s a tough sport for a developer to crack, since AFL only matters to Australians, compared with, say, football or golf or tennis and their global audiences. It’s also an enormously complex sport. That in turn means that you’ve got to do a lot with a small budget. Consequently, I know going in that it won’t be of the standard of the games that EA and 2K and Sony push out, but as long as it’s decent, it’ll be worth spending a bit of time getting that trophy for the Sydney Swans.

I’m also very curious about Dokapon Kingdom. It looks like a board game, but Idea Factory keeps talking up the JRPG elements. Since I’m always up for either genre, that certainly sounds good to me, and since we still don’t have a Culdcept game on Switch, perhaps this one will do something to fill the void.