New Releases: July 4th-10th, 2024

This week, the latest installment in Nihon Falcom’s The Legend of Heroes series arrives, with Trails through Daybreak arriving on physical media and digital marketplaces. For fans of child rearing sims, Princess Maker 2: Regeneration is the second revision for the 1993 Gainax title, following 2016’s Refine.

PlayStation 4
Bouncy Chicken (digital, $4.99)
Cyber Citizen Shockman Zero (digital, $6.99)
Spin Rhythm XD (digital, $19.99)
SunnySide (digital, $29.99)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak (physical & digital, $59.99)

PlayStation 5
Bleak Faith: Forsaken (digital, $29.99)
Lifeless Moon (digital, $12.99)
Naheulbeuk’s Dungeon Master (digital, $29.99)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak (physical & digital, $59.99)
Zenless Zone Zero (free)

Switch
Air Hockey: Casual Table Arcade (digital, $4.99)
Art of Glide 2 (digital, $4.79)
Bouncy Chicken (digital, $4.99)
Brain Training!! Number Search (digital, $2.99)
Cats Hidden in Cozy Places (digital, $3.99)
Choose and Easy Number IQ Quiz (digital, $6.99)
Clock Maker : My Pendulum Clock (digital, $1.20)
Cthulhu Tower (digital, $19.99)
Cyber Citizen Shockman Zero (digital, $6.99)
Cyberpank Parkour Uprising (digital, $12.99)
Editor’s Hell – Newspaper Story (digital, $9.99)
Jetpack Race (digital, $0.99)
Kubits Gallery (digital, $9.99)
Highway Zombie Survival – Car Apocalypse (digital, $9.99)
Machi Koro With Everyone (digital, $24.99)
Mini Golf League: Sports Simulator (digital, $4.99)
Naheulbeuk’s Dungeon Master (digital, $29.99)
Replik Survivors (digital, $4.24)
Retro Battle (digital, $2.19)
Scoop it! Goldfish (digital, $5.00)
Sea Under the Sea Under the Sea (digital, $18.99)
Sir Happenlance (digital, $15/00)
Summer Games Beach Volley (digital, $7.99)
Taboo Trial (digital, $15.99)
The Five Covens (digital, $12.99)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak (physical & digital, $59.99)
True Colours – A Date With Deception (digital, $13.99)
Uphill Stunt Driver: Extreme Racing Simulator (digital, $4.99)
Whispering Paws (digital, $4.99)

Xbox One
Bouncy Chicken (digital, $4.99)
Cyber Citizen Shockman Zero (digital, $6.99)
Lifeless Moon (digital, $12.99)
Paper io 2 (digital, $3.99)
SunnySide (digital, $29.99)

PC
Ark of Charon ($TBA)
Danger and Deadlier ($TBA)
Happy Sheepies ($TBA)
Hookah Haze ($TBA)
MACHI KORO With Everyone ($22.49)
Once Human (free)
Princess Maker 2 Regeneration ($TBA)
Royal Card Clash ($TBA)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak ($59.99)
Time Treker ($TBA)
Villienville. Echoes of Deception ($TBA)
Void Reaper ($TBA)
Zenless Zone Zero (free)
Zombie War: New World ($3.99)

Rob’s Pick: Nihon Falcom’s Trails games might be one of the most dependably entertaining series around. And I say that as someone who almost always loses interest in a media franchise. Far too often, I witness a storyline coasting along rather aimlessly.  Largely, that’s not the case with Trails, with nearly every entry delivering a health payoff.

This week’s release of Trails through Daybreak offers an appreciated inroad for newcomers, shifting the setting to the Calvard Republic. Here, a multitude of predicaments simmer in the background- from immigration to governmental authority. For returning players, Daybreak’s episodic format arrives with a moral alignment system and well as the possibly for real-time combat for most encounters. Given Falcom’s experience with the Ys games, I’m eager to see how this meshes with the storytelling.

Matt S’ pick (editor, DigitallyDownloaded): While I’m not as fanatical as the most hardcore fans can become, I am an enduring fan of the Legend of Heroes series. I greatly admire the commitment to creating a true epic, with interweaving storylines and arcs across a cohesive and constant world and history. Nihon Falcom doesn’t handle it superficially, either. It’s not random cameos or end-credit name drops, like it often is with the Marvel films. Here it’s more like trying to build something akin to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and instill a sense that every 100 hour adventure is just one tiny cog in an ever more complex machine.

Trails Through Daybreak kicks off a new arc and does so with style. While it lacks Alissa (who, let’s face it, got me into the series in a big way when I played Trails of Cold Steel as my first Legend of Heroes game), it gets everything right, and all the new characters are great anyway.

Elsewhere I’m looking forward to the first digital edition of Machi Koro, the excellent Japanese board game. I have a digital board game group, and we meet almost every week to play Wingspan, Armello, or Oink Games (for the most part). I’m looking forward to inserting Machi Koro into the mix because it is one of the more enjoyable board games in recent years.

Ryan’s pick: I’m at a bit of an impasse, as this tarnished is still very much engaged in the new Elden Ring DLC. Granted it’s been out for a few weeks, but it still continues to surprise me. Time is always a limited commodity, but if I was not so vested in Elden Ring, then I think that my official pick would be given to the new Trails Through Daybreak game. The series has quite a pedigree and overall should have a little bit of everything for RPG enthusiasts. I personally am not versed in the series at all, but it sounds like if there was an entry point to the universe, this would be the right timing for me.

Machi Koro With Everyone has caught my eye as I’m always looking for a game night title to try out. I’m still pretty green when it comes to the rules, but I do like the fact that the game pacing seems to be pretty fast, with most games ending at around 30 minutes. That fits the recent average attention span for family game nights at my house, so it seems like a perfect match. This, and being able to play while lounging on the couch is an added plus. The game also allows for single player and random matchmaking, so it is possible to still enjoy it by yourself or against other players on the internet.