New Releases: July 14th-20th, 2022

This week, the release of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II allows players to visit Black Isle Studio’s swan song, while Long Live the Queen (pictured) tasks Nintendo owners with raising a royal. If dungeons or debutantes aren’t your thing, Stray is coming to PlayStation and PC, offering the ability for a virtual kitty to explore an environment modeled after the Kowloon Walled City.

PlayStation 4
Arcade Archives: Dragon Saber (digital, $7.99)
Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II (digital, $29.99)
Century: Age of Ashes (digital, free-to-play)
DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace (digital, $39.99)
DreadOut 2 (digital, $19.99)
Endling – Extinction is Forever (digital, $29.99)
Hazel Sky (digital, $22.49)
Hot Wheels – Looney Tunes Expansion (DLC, $14.99)
Mothmen 1966 (digital, $8.99)
Seduction: A Monk’s Fate (digital, $6.99)
Severed Steel (digital, $24.99)
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin – Trials of the Dragon King (DLC, $TBA)
Stray (digital, $29.99)
Superola Champion Edition (digital, $4.99)
Time on Frog Island (physical, $29.99)
Two Hundred Ways (digital, $14.99)

PlayStation 5
Time on Frog Island (physical, $29.99)

Switch
Ambition: A Minuet in Power (digital, $14.99)
Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils (digital, $10.49)
Darker Skies (digital, $17.99)
DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace (digital, $39.99)
Endling – Extinction is Forever (digital, $29.99)
Fallen Angel (digital, $14.99)
Gloom and Doom (digital, $39.99)
Growbot (digital, $19.99)
Hazel Sky (digital, $24.99)
Hell Pages (digital, $8.99)
Hexceed: Casus (DLC, $1.00)
Hexceed: Rimor (DLC, $1.00)
Hot Wheels – Looney Tunes Expansion (DLC, $14.99)
HunterX (digital, $11.24)
Kursk (digital, $9.99)
Long Live The Queen (digital, $9.99)
Loud (digital, $11.99)
Marimo -VS- I.A.S. (digital, $9.99)
Mothmen 1966 (digital, $8.99)
Pascal’s Wager: Definitive Edition (digital, $17.99)
Pixel Game Maker Series Jetman (digital, $9.99)
Running on Magic (digital, $4.99)
Seduction: A Monk’s Fate (digital, $6.99)
Shred! Remastered (digital, $6.99)
Silver Falls – Ghoul Busters (digital, $9.99)
Spidersaurs (digital, $19.99)
Super Toy Cars 1 & 2 Bundle (digital, $19.99)
Super UFO Fighter (digital, $9.59)
Superola Champion Edition (digital, $4.99)
Table of Tales: The Crooked Crown (digital, $17.99)
Universal Flight Simulator (digital, $9.99)
Vzerthos: The Heir of Thunder (digital, $4.99)
Worth Life (digital, $19.99)
XEL (digital, $18.99)

Xbox One
As Dusk Falls (digital, $19.99)
Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 (digital, $17.99)
Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II (digital, $29.99)
DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace (digital, $39.99)
DreadOut 2 (digital, $19.99)
Endling – Extinction is Forever (digital, $29.99)
Escape Academy (digital, $19.99)
Gloom and Doom (digital, $39.99)
Hazel Sky (digital, $22.49)
Hot Wheels – Looney Tunes Expansion (DLC, $14.99)
Mothmen 1966 (digital, $8.99)
Musynx (digital, $3.99-$15.99)
PowerWash Simulator (digital, $24.99)
Running on Magic (digital, $4.99)
Seduction: A Monk’s Fate (digital, $6.99)
Shred! Remastered (digital, $6.99)
Spidersaurs (digital, $19.99)
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin – Trials of the Dragon King (DLC, $TBA)
Superola Champion Edition (digital, $4.99)
Time on Frog Island (physical, $29.99)

PC
As Dusk Falls ($29.99)
Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II ($29.99)
Chimeraland ($TBA)
Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp ($19.99)
Dinkum ($17.99)
Endling – Extinction is Forever ($26.99)
Escape Academy ($19.99)
Hazel Sky ($22.49)
Immortal Tactics: War of the Eternals ($TBA)
Legends of Kingdom Rush ($14.99)
Mothmen 1966 ($8.99)
PowerWash Simulator ($24.99)
Stray ($26.99)
Superola Champion Edition ($4.99)
The Future You’ve Been Dreaming Of ($17.99)
TombStar ($14.99)

Rob’s Pick: So, if you’re a fan of action roguelikes, I’d recommend taking a look at TombStar. It’s a truly challenging effort but a rewarding one that provides a gratifying drip feed of new guns, perks, and meta-game upgrades. Plus, it exhibits a sense of polish that is often missing from many contemporary titles. This should never be a bragging point, but I didn’t encounter a single bug (although there are some provoking bosses). For those who appreciate the tower defense games, Ironhide Game Studio has engineered a triumphant formula. I’d argue that you don’t need every Kingdom Rush in your collection. But having at least one supplies that satisfying sense of progression as you prevent ye olde procession from storming thy stronghold. The games don’t really advance the TD genre but offer an exemplary implementation of conventions, and that’s OK with me.

Last December’s release of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance offered a no-frills port of the action RPG. This week, the sequel gets the same treatment. Neither demonstrated Snowblind Studios at their best (that would be the Champions of Norrath duology). But they are solid action-driven dungeon crawls that offer a welcome reprieve from life’s tribulations. If they ever bundle both, perhaps I can retreat from the world for a week or two. Digital vacations are best spent in dreary dungeons, of course.

Matt S’ pick (Editor, DigitallyDownloaded): What an intensely difficult week to choose just a couple of games. Wow. I’ll start with Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2. As a kid I was always a little disappointed that the Dark Alliance games were not, well, the “proper” Baldur’s Gate, but being a bit older and wiser now I realise that the Diablo-like spin on the Dungeons & Dragons setting was most excellent, so I’m looking forward to this remaster a great deal.

Then there’s the DLC for Stranger of Paradise. I really think the base game is going to be remembered as one of the sharpest, smartest Final Fantasy titles of all, because it’s so cleverly subversive to player expectations of that series. That it’s wrapped up in a really entertaining loot grind soulslike is the cherry on top.

Then there’s Table of Tales: The Crooked Crown. This is an Aussie-developed tactics “board game,” and it was excellent on PlayStation VR, its original platform. The game was designed to look just like you were sitting around a table moving miniatures around the board and rolling dice, and while I think a little of that experiential quality will be lost on Switch, the underlying game is also excellent, and having that on the go is a win.

Finally, I am intrigued by Seduction: A Monk’s Fate. The reason has to do with a book I love. Matthew Lewis’ The Monk is one of my all-time favourite novels, and it features a lot of sex and a rather corrupt monk that starts screwing around with the devil (yea I like my books the way I like my games). I doubt Seduction will go that far, but if it can touch on such dark themes and do religious horror in the vein that Lewis did, I’ll be over the moon.

Matt R’s pick (editor, Shindig): As fantastic as Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin was, there was one odd, very notable absence: Bahamut, that iconic dragon who, in the original Final Fantasy, helped upgrade your characters in exchange for a rat’s tail. I guess it stands to reason that Square would save such a noteworthy sidequest for its own DLC, fittingly called Trials of the Dragon King. After how subversively the base game approached the legacy of Final Fantasy, I’m extremely curious to see what they do with Bahamut and the journey through the castle of ordeals.

If you like rhythm games and/or pop-punk music, you may want to check out Loud. It’s a relatively simple game in the scheme of things, which doesn’t quite hit the Life is Strange-ish indie kid vibe it aims for in its coming-of-age narrative, but it’s nonetheless a sweet story about a girl discovering a passion for chunky riffs. The guitar-fueled instrumental soundtrack hits a spot that not a lot of rhythm games do (as well as just dishing up some great tunes), and the familiar Persona Dancing-style interface makes it easy to get into the right groove.

And finally, as a fan of “boring job sims” and someone who finds a lot of comfort in their mundanity and atmosphere, I’m going to have to jump on Powerwash Simulator. It’s been in early access for a while, but finally hits full release this week (alongside an Xbox release), making it a good time to get into some chill cleaning action. The satisfaction of a good power wash, with none of the messy cleanup? Sign me up.