New Releases: July 7th-13th, 2022

This week, Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series brings back Bandai Namco’s cherished character, while F.I.S.T.: Forged In Shadow Torch makes gets ported to Switch. Visual novel fans might appreciate the appearance of Doki Doki Family (pictured), a bishojo that’s headed onto Nintendo’s platform this week.

PlayStation 4
Eternal Hope (digital, $8.99)
Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series (digital, $39.99)
MADiSON (physical & digital, $39.99)
Matchpoint: Tennis Championships (physical, $49.99, digital, $44.99)
QUByte Classics: Zero Tolerance Collection by PIKO (digital, $9.99)
Rayland (digital, $4.99)
The Quest for Excalibur – Puy du Fou (digital, $29.99)
Time on Frog Island (physical $39.99, digital, $19.99)

PlayStation 5
Matchpoint: Tennis Championships (physical, $49.99, digital, $44.99)

Switch
Accident (digital, $14.99)
Color Breakers (digital, $11.99)
Doki Doki Family (digital, $19.90)
Elves Fantasy Hentai Puzzle (digital, $2.99)
F.I.S.T.: Forged In Shadow Torch (digital, $26.99)
Formula Bit Racing DX (digital, $3.99)
Galactic Pioneer (digital, $4.49)
Gangsta Magic (digital, $8.99)
Japanese NEKOSAMA Escape The Local Train (digital, $4.99)
Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series (digital, $39.99)
Krut: The Mythic Wings (digital, $9.99)
Moonrise Fall (digital, $9.99)
Overrogue (digital, $13.49)
QUByte Classics: Zero Tolerance Collection by PIKO (digital, $9.99)
Railways (digital, $3.99)
Road of Death (digital, $4.99)
Secrets of Magic 4: Potion Master (digital, $19.99)
Sticks Collection (digital, $2.99)
SuperDuck! (digital, $3.99)
Super Rebellion (digital, $4.90)
The Quest for Excalibur – Puy du Fou (digital, $29.99)
Time on Frog Island (digital, $19.99)
Understand (digital, $9.99)

Xbox One
DJMax Respect V (digital, $49.99, also on Game Pass)
Eternal Hope (digital, $8.99)
Formula Bit Racing DX (digital, $3.99)
Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series (digital, $39.99)
MADiSON (digital, $39.99)
Matchpoint: Tennis Championships (digital, $44.99)
Overrogue (digital, $13.49)
Rayland (digital, $4.99)
Time on Frog Island (physical $39.99, digital, $19.99)

PC
A Building Full of Cats ($1.79)
Dragon Forge ($TBA)
Garage: Bad Dream Adventure ($19.90)
Kamikaze Veggies ($8.99)
Kingdom Gun ($TBA)
Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series ($39.99)
Lodestar ($TBA)
Loopmancer ($TBA)
MADiSON ($TBA)
Matchpoint: Tennis Championships ($35.99)
Necrosmith ($TBA)
Rune Factory 5 ($50.99)
Super UFO Fighter ($TBA)
Sword and Fairy Inn 2 ($TBA)
The Redress of Mira ($8.99)
Time on Frog Island ($19.99)
Urbek City Builder ($TBA)
XEL ($TBA)

Rob’s Pick: I miss the second-tier mascot era. Sure, we are all familiar with luminaries like Mario, Sonic, and Crash. But it’s the less remembered ambassadors that evoke memories of an industry that was willing to take the occasional risk. Polygon Man, Kameo, and even Blinx were all noble attempts at encapsulating the thrills of electronic games into anthropomorphic forms. But sadly, most of them are overlooked today, as the conversation has shifted to hardware capabilities, system exclusives, and the overpriced figurines that often arrive in collector’s editions.

1997’s Klonoa: Door to Phantomile introduced the world to Yoshihiko Arai’s cat-like character. Like many mascots of the era, the long-eared character was little more than an embodiment of dogged determination and a willingness to help others. But Klonoa was a gamer just like us, as evidenced by the Pac-Man pin proudly worn on his cap. Door to Phantomile’s play mechanics were solid enough to spawn four mainline games and even a beach volleyball spin-off.

This week, Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series bundles the original game and the PS2 sequel, offering a remaster with the requisite improvements to framerate and visual fidelity. I do wish the WonderSwan and two GBA titles were included as bonus, but comprehensive collections are another trait that’s long lapsed.

Ryan’s Pick: Perhaps it’s a light case of Hinamizawa Syndrome, but now that it has been about four months since I finished Elden Ring I am starting to feel the itch for a new roguelike. Luckily, eBrain Studio’s new 3D sidescroller Loopmancer is releasing this week, so I am hoping that it will provide the much needed reward and despair that I need. After a brief look, I’m thinking story-wise the premise reminds me a bit of the Netflix series Boss Level, so I am curious to see exactly how the roguelite mechanics fit into the story. The game utilizes the Unreal engine, so visually the action looks quite good, with a lot of detail placed on the environments and animations. While cyberpunk themed games are quite commonplace lately, the attention to detail and polish the game has really helps sell the theme.

At first glance, the game visually reminded me slightly of Shadow Complex, but with some really interesting camera manipulation which pulls you in and out of a side-scrolling view and into a 3D camera view. While a roguelite genre description can technically mean a lot of different things as of late, my hope is that the learning curve and enemy encounters will be difficult, but also fair once you learn the telegraphing of the moves. That’s all you can really ask from a roguelite, but sometimes it’s just not possible. One final note is I noticed that you also can utilize firearms on top of hand-to-hand and swords. There were some instances where enemies were just swinging away at the character with swords and he just shot them instead. Perhaps they’ll take the Rush’N Attack methodology with the amount of bullets you can use, which was essentially just a handful and then the weapon was useless. I actually think I only got the machine gun maybe twice in that game. That game was rough.