New Releases: July 21st-27th, 2022

This week, Live A Live resurrects Takashi Tokita’s (Chrono Trigger, Parasite Eve) directorial debut, sending players through eight different eras, have been given the 2D-HD treatment. For fans of arcade action, Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium continues bringing the publisher’s coin-operated titles onto modern consoles. This time out, players can expect 32 inclusions than range from 1984’s SonSon to 1998’s Street Fighter Alpha 3. Meanwhile, Muv-Luv Alternative Total Eclipse Remastered (pictured) arrives on PC, providing another chapter for the prolific property.

PlayStation 4
Arcade Archives: Chack’n Pop (digital, $7.99)
Arsonist Heaven (digital, $4.99)
Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Bundle (digital, $39.99)
Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium (various titles, $3.99 each)
Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp (digital, $19.99)
Hell Pie (digital, $24.99)
MultiVersus (digital, free to play)
Post Void (digital, $TBA)
River City Saga: Three Kingdoms (digital, $29.99)
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town (physical & digital, $39.99)

Switch
Animal Rivals: Up in The Air (digital, $11.99)
Am I Kind Hearted? (digital, $19.99)
Aery – Vikings (digital, $9.99)
Arsonist Heaven (digital, $4.99)
Best Sniper: Shooting Hunter (digital, $9.99)
Bricky to Me (digital, $3.99)
Bright Memory: Infinite Gold Edition (digital, $19.99)
Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Bundle (digital, $39.99)
Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium (various titles, $3.99 each)
Coromon (digital, $19.99)
Cow Rush: Water Adventure (digital, $4.99)
Doodle God: Evolution: Doodle Devil Pack (digital, $9.99)
Dungeon Slime Collection (digital, $4.99)
Farm Manager 2022 (digital, $15.99)
GemaBoy Zero Origins (digital, $12.34)
Hover Racer (digital, $4.99)
Inertia: Redux (digital, $4.39)
Japanese Escape Games: The Hotel of Tricks (digital, $4.99)
Live A Live (physical & digital, $49.99)
River City Saga: Three Kingdoms (digital, $29.99)
Sakura Fantasy (digital, $9.99)
Secrets of Light and Shadow (digital, $15.00)
Severed Steel (digital, $29.99)
Solitaire Collection (digital, $7.43)
Train Valley: Console Edition (digital, $11.99)
Under the Jolly Roger Complete Edition (digital, 29.99)
Wally and the Fantastic Predators (digital, $14.99)
Wayward Strand (digital, $TBA)

Xbox One
80’s Overdrive (digital, $9.99)
Aery – Vikings (digital, $9.99)
Arsonist Heaven (digital, $4.99)
Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Bundle (digital, $39.99)
Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium (various titles, $3.99 each)
Hell Pie (digital, $24.99)
MultiVersus (digital, free to play)
Noel the Mortal Fate (digital, $24.99)
Princess.Loot.Pixel.Again x2 (digital, $TBA)
Severed Steel (digital, $29.99)

PC
Blastronaut ($TBA)
Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Bundle (digital, $39.99)
Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium (various titles, $3.99 each)
Chaos Galaxy 2 ($TBA)
Ex-Zodiac ($8.99)
Fire Commander ($TBA)
Hell Pie ($24.99)
Just King ($2.99)
Muv-Luv Alternative Total Eclipse Remastered ($35.99)
Neko Cosmo Police
Resist the Succubus—The End of the Female Knight ($TBA)
Sapiens ($TBA)
The Tarnishing of Juxtia ($TBA)
TombStar ($13.49)

Rob’s Pick: Several indie titles deserve attention. Ex-Zodiac channels the 3D, low-poly enjoyment of retro shooters like Star Fox and Space Harrier. With barrel rolls and anthropomorphic NPCs, the game doesn’t veer far from the source material, so there’s the feeling of unearthing a lost 90’s gem. While there are plenty of twin-stick shooters with roguelike mechanics, TombStar is definitely one of the better ones. With layers of upgrades and systems that constantly reward your efforts, the game deserves a place alongside genre heavyweights like Enter the Gungeon and Neon Chrome.

I was a big fan of Octopath Traveler. The 2D-HD visuals balanced the appeal for stunning spritework while providing a more modern sense of detail and gloss. But I truly appreciated a storyline that let me see things from different perspectives and that occasionally intermingled, echoing the approach of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film, Amores Perros. This week, Live A Live revisits the 1994’s Super Famicom classic that mixed different genres and gameplay styles. There’s something inherently satisfying about the juxtaposing of culture, socioeconomics, or different eras. I wish more games had multi-linear narrative structures. Maybe we’ll even get a 2D-HD Chrono Trigger one day.

Matt S’ pick (Editor, DigitallyDownloaded): LIVE A LIVE is certainly a thing. It’s a game I had never played before (and, frankly, while I had probably heard of it, was only vaguely aware of). Japan-only SNES releases back when Australia wasn’t exactly receptive to JRPGs meant that our magazines and what-not didn’t exactly cover it. Thankfully it has finally been localised and released (and updated to be gorgeous with the HD pixels), because this thing is amazing. The way it so carefully positions each narrative to be distinct and separate, only to cleverly link them in the end, makes for some spectacular storytelling that feels experimental to this day.

Secondly, River City Ransom: Three Kingdoms. I love the concept of this. Take that delightfully distinctive River City aesthetic, and throw in Lu Bu, and you’ve got a recipe for mayhem. I’m loving the resurgence of brawlers that we’ve seen in recent years. Between this and that Turtles one just a few weeks ago, it’s like I’m back in those dirty, dingy arcades as a kid, mashing buttons like there’s no worries in the world.

Finally, Bright Memory: Infinite Gold Edition. It does seem like the way to get me invested in a shooter is to make the protagonist a cute girl and give her a bikini costume. Other than needing a 3rd-person mode so I could admire the art of that bikini far more, Bright Memory is a legitimately good time as a B-grade sci-fi pew pew thing with a quality sexy edge. Play this one on the train to make friends.

Ryan’s Pick: Kunio-kun games always take me way back, so I’m going to have to say that River City Ransom: Three Kingdoms will be my pick this week. The Three Kingdoms spin is a welcome addition and I think that it should add some interesting variations to the gameplay as well as provide some flashy attacks. Like Matt S, I too am still enjoying the latest Ninja Turtle brawler with its many mini- challenges in each level, so count me in as well for some furyo beat downs.

I must say that the VN Muv-Luv Alternative Total Eclipse Remastered does also look pretty enticing. The art style and characters seem pretty high quality and most importantly, it has mechs. I may fare better by playing some of the previously released VNs in this series before diving into this one, but in general it looks like a pretty good choice if you like visual novels and science fiction.

Matt R’s pick (editor, Shindig): I am loving the fact that Square Enix has finally realised it has a whole swathe of excellent games from ye olden days of the ‘90s that never got Western releases and decided to finally give them some love. We’ve had all three Romancing SaGas, we’ve had Seiken Densetsu III, and now we’re getting Live A Live: a rather experimental, and delightful, JRPG that can rightfully be described as a sort of proto-Chrono Trigger.

Live A Live is an anthology of sorts. Seven different games, each a standalone story set in a different time period, each putting its own spin on the core mechanics, before a final chapter brings all the pieces together. Even today, it’s a fresh, intriguing concept—especially when you have Takashi Tokita, who’d later go on to co-direct and co-write Chrono Trigger, directing. A vital piece of Square’s history is finally officially available in the West, and the HD2D finish doesn’t hurt, either. (Bahamut Lagoon next, please?)

Coromon makes its way to Switch this week, too, and anyone who enjoys the growing assortment of Pokemon-inspired monster collecting games will want to give it a look. It wears its inspirations on its sleeve, and rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, it stands out with a wealth of options for convenience and customising your style of play (there’s even a built-in Nuzlocke mode, for those who want it). It’s also got a decent story to follow along, and, most importantly, a roster of cute monsters to collect.