New Releases: September 5th-11th, 2024

This week, Sunsoft is Back! Retro Game Selection localizes a trio of Famicom titles for the first time, while Yars Rising revisits and revises Howard Scott Warshaw’s Atari 2600 classic. But for some, this week highlight are the visual novels. Between Ace Attorney Investigations Collection’s legal record of Miles Edgeworth’s finest cases and the appearance of Date A Live: Ren Dystopia (pictured), wishes are undoubtedly coming true this week. Here’s the full list of what’s arriving on console and PC, without any inside jokes.

PlayStation 4

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection (digital, $39.99)
Aero the Acro-Bat 2 (digital, $5.99)
Antstream Arcade (digital, $79.99)
Flashback 2 (digital, $39.99)
Kiki – A Vibrant 3D Platformer (digital, $4.99)
Girl Genius: Adventures in Castle Heterodyne (digital, $29.99)
NBA 2K25 (physical & digital, $69.99)
Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland (digital, $24.99)
Shogun Showdown (digital, $14.99)
Yars Rising (digital, $29.99)

PlayStation 5

Astro Bot (physical & digital, $59.99)

Switch

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection (digital, $39.99)
Adrenaline Collection Pack (digital, $16.99)
Aero the Acro-Bat 2 (digital, $5.99)
Animal Water Pang! (digital, $2.99)
Badminton Time (digital, $16.99)
Buffet Boss (digital, $4.99)
Crossy Road Castle (digital, $19.99)
Customers from Hell (digital, $7.99)
DeliSpace (digital, $14.99)
EGGCONSOLE Hydlide MSX (digital, $6.49)
Elsie (digital, $24.99)
Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU (digital, $49.99)
Flick Erasers Battle Royale (digital, $7.00)
Gimmick! 2 (digital, $24.99)
Gold Digger: The Simulator (digital, $7.99)
Hard Time III (digital, $14.99)
Kiki – A Vibrant 3D Platformer (digital, $4.99)
Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland (digital, $24.99)
Scotland Yard – Hunting Mister X (digital, $13.99)
Shield King (digital, $4.99)
Shogun Showdown (digital, $14.99)
Sunsoft is Back! Retro Game Selection (digital, $7.99)
Super Shaking Girl!!! (digital, $4.99)
The 257th Element (digital, $13.00)
Think or Die Collection Pack (digital, $16.99)
Ultimate Holidays (digital, $11.99)
V-Hunter Puzzler DX (digital, $2.99)
What Happened – Through Worlds (digital, $5.99)
Yars Rising (digital, $29.99)
Zerouno Games Collection Pack 1 (digital, $29.99)

Xbox One

Aero the Acro-Bat 2 (digital, $5.99)
Ace Attorney Investigations Collection (digital, $39.99)
Crossy Road Castle (digital, $19.99)
Paper Ghost Stories: Third Eye Open (digital, $16.99)
NBA 2K25 (physical & digital, $69.99)
Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland (digital, $24.99)
Shogun Showdown (digital, $14.99)
Yars Rising (digital, $29.99)

PC

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection ($39.99)
Ale & Tale Tavern ($13.49)
Arcane Blast ($TBA)
Boyhood’s End ($9.89)
Cato: Buttered Cat ($TBA)
Corpus Edax ($17.59)
Date A Live: Ren Dystopia ($33.99)
Demon’s Mirror ($19.99)
Elsie ($TBA)
I Am Your Beast ($TBA)
Immortal Hunters ($TBA)
Mansion Restorer ($3.99)
Mirage Feathers ($TBA)
Obscura ($TBA)
Railroad Corporation 2 ($TBA)
Selfloss ($21.24)
Shogun Showdown ($13.49)
Towerborne ($24.99)
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 ($59.99)
What the Car? ($TBA)
Yars Rising ($29.99)

Rob’s Pick: While I’d love to see a new Project Diva game, I’ll take my teal, twin-tailed temptress wherever I can. Which means I’ve been punching my way through Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU. Expectedly, developer Imagineer follows the format of their previous efforts, so it can feel like a re-skinned version of Shape Boxing, Fit Boxing, and the Fist of the North Star fitness game. But ever since the emergence of Wii Fit, I’ve appreciated games that make you get up and break a sweat. I just worked the team worked a bit harder and provided Miku with more than four costumes. Is she no longer a digital diva?

As a fan of retro on-rails shooters, I’ll definitely be picking up Mirage Feathers, which might have the best 11-word description on Steam (“Maybe one day, I won’t have to fight when I fly.”) That also sums up my experience of domestic air travel in the US. Lastly, I Am Your Beast will get a play, as El Paso, Elsewhere developer Strange Scaffold is one of the most creative minds in this business.

Ryan’s pick: To be honest I never really thought I would get into the free-to-play genre when apps started to introduce that model, but after spending a considerable amount of time on a lot of different app and console f2p games I really have come to enjoy them. Towerborne caught my eye because I really have always liked side-scrolling beat-em-ups and I think that the free-to-play model could work pretty well with this type of game. The enemy and player animations are pretty fluid, and in general I can see myself playing this one as long as the character progression systems are balanced fair enough, daily quests are fun and fast, and the stream of new content is fairly consistent.

I have to give a quick nod to Date A Live: Ren Dystopia visual novel coming out on Steam this week. I have followed the series from way back when Tsunako first started illustrating it, and really started to like some of the characters including Kurumi and Yuzuru (for the way she talks). You may need a bit of catching up on the series to fully understand some of its nuances and character arcs, but I think that there will be plenty of exposition to catch you up if you are new to the series.

Matt S’ pick (editor, DigitallyDownloaded): I’ve already had Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU for several months, of course. I picked it up on release in Japan, and enjoy it a great deal. Played with the proper spirit and intent, it does genuinely give you a light workout, and Hatsune Miku makes anything a joy. Even exercise. So definitely give that one a whirl for a bit of fun on your feet.

My other recommendation is Date A Live: Ren Dystopia. I do love the Date A Live property, what with all that fan service and cute girls and yet also weird, wild, and entertaining sci-fi plot. This new one does come with the disclaimer that you should probably have played the previous Date A Live games first, but then… you have played them by now, right?

And while we’re on the visual novel train of thought, you can’t not play Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, right? It’s Ace Attorney! Including one of the games that had never got an English release previously!