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Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for April 16th, 2024. In todayâs article, weâve got a handful of reviews for you to dig into. I have my thoughts ready on Freedom Planet 2, Terra Memoria, Moonglow Bay, and Tengoku Struggle, and itâs a real assortment to be sure. After that, we have some new releases to look at including a new game featuring Inugami Korone, my very favorite Vtuber. After that, itâs sales time! Lists of new and expiring sales, as you like it. Letâs get this week going!
I liked the first Freedom Planet more than I like most Sonic games. Just mentioning that now so that you know where I am coming from. I felt like the story bits were a little too much, but the actual gameplay mechanics and level designs were outstanding. I also really enjoyed the boss battles, though some of them were a little long for my liking. It wasnât hard to spot its origins as a Sonic fan game, but it was an incredibly well-made one. My hopes for the sequel were that it could find a better story-to-gameplay balance, and that it could properly break free from its source of inspiration and fully become its own thing.
Well, I didnât get everything I wanted, but Freedom Planet 2 is a solid improvement on the original. The cutscenes are a lot easier to tolerate, as theyâre shorter and better paced. The game still feels like Sonic at times, but I think itâs moving in a good direction in that regard. Perhaps the most important thing is that the game itself shows a lot of enhancements across the board. The presentation is better, the level designs are more interesting, the various characters feel more natural within those stages, and the mechanics have been tightened up. Itâs a terrific 2D action game, and fans of 2D Sonic should have a great time with it.
I wonât belabor the point here. Freedom Planet 2 takes everything Freedom Planet did right and does it better, while also making sure to improve on the things it didnât do well. Itâs still not a perfect game by any means, and it canât quite escape the orbit of Sonic the Hedgehog. But maybe it doesnât have to? Maybe it isnât meant to? Perhaps itâs just fine if itâs a really great riff on Sonicâs gameplay. It knows what it wants to be and executes on that amazingly well. If you like 2D platformers, youâll want to put this game on your shopping list.
SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5
One thing Iâll give Terra Memoria: it has a lot of charm. I can really feel the passion that went into its creation, and early on it had me enchanted. The world design is intriguing, the characters who make up your party are distinctive, and the combat system takes a lot of cues from Grandia. Thatâs a good place to draw inspiration from. But the more the game went on, the more it lost me. The characters donât get much development or fleshing out, the sub-systems often feel like an afterthought, and the battle system quickly becomes repetitive. By the end, I felt like I had played through a KEMCO RPG. A KEMCO RPG with an outstanding presentation, mind you.
The game is set in Terra, a fantasy world where magic makes everything go âround. All is fine until some ancient robots awaken and start attacking. Six characters come together in these circumstances and must explore both the past and present to figure out whatâs gone wrong and why. The turn-based battle system sees you exploiting weaknesses to try to delay the enemiesâ turns, and itâs fun but never really challenges you to try new tactics. Nothing in the game demands more than simply picking at the enemiesâ weaknesses with the best magic youâve got.
Thereâs also a crafting system in here that youâll mainly be using to build up your town/base, which is an enjoyable mechanic even if it isnât very essential. There are other side quests beyond the town-building to complete, so the game certainly checks off the necessary boxes. But despite the game running a respectable twenty-ish hours, it never quite takes off the way you would hope. It feels like thereâs half a game missing here. Not so much a missing second half, but rather bits and pieces cut from the game as it stands.
Thereâs a lot to like in Terra Memoria, especially in the gameâs outstanding presentation. Itâs clear its creators are fans of the RPG genre, and the foundation is here for something really great. Unfortunately, after a solid start the game doesnât really build on things very well. Characters are paper-thin, the combat system quickly stagnates, and it all starts to feel like youâre just going through the motions. Thereâs enough gas in the tank here for me to recommend it to fans of the genre, though.
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
The latest visual novel release from Idea Factory and Aksys comes from many of the same people that worked on Olympia Soiree, a game that our pal Mikhail reviewed and really enjoyed. Iâll say this for Tengoku Struggle: you can tell itâs from the same writer as that game. There are a lot of heavy adult themes in this game, including sexual assault and necrophilia. Most of the guys in this game donât hesitate to threaten the heroine in very forceful ways. Maybe thatâs your thing, maybe itâs not. But consider yourself advised, if nothing else.
Rin Enma is the adopted daughter of the King of Hell, and sheâs just passed her final tests and taken a position as a Hell Guardian. She has no memories of her life before she died, and is simply dedicated to helping her father as best as she can. When some sinners use a loophole to escape Hell, Rinâs father tasks her with going to the human realm to track them down. To help her out, Papa sends four of his best âdogs" â some of Hellâs worst sinners. Theyâll all have to live together in a house in Asakusa, a task made all the more arduous by the fact that Rin has a strong dislike of men. Their investigation will reveal a lot of secrets, and Rin might just find love along the way.
Youâve got five routes to play here, each with a good and bad ending. Some are a lot better than others, and this is one of those games where it feels like itâs strongly pushing you towards one particular pairing. Everything is written well enough, dialogue-wise, and some of the routes have interesting stories to tell. The truth behind Rinâs existence isnât too hard to figure out before itâs properly revealed, but there are a few shocking twists up the writerâs sleeve. I only ended up really enjoying two of the routes, and one of them did absolutely nothing for me at all. It sometimes felt like the writer was going a little too over the top without good reason to. I will say that I absolutely loved Papa Enma, whose voice actor completely sells the bizarre character heâs portrayed as here.
While Tengoku Struggle shows the usual high production values and polish seen in Idea Factoryâs other visual novels, I found the story here just wasnât quite up to the usual output we see from the developer. Thereâs some good in it, and the best route is certainly worth experiencing if the premise has intrigued you. The writerâs tendency to try to shock the reader in cheap ways gets a little out of hand here, and some of the romances really arenât sold well. A decent effort, but given the generally high-quality output of Idea Factory in this genre, Tengoku Struggle has some difficulty making its mark.
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
A tale as old as time, by this point. A decent game that is heavily dragged down by its terrible technical performance. To be clear, even if the game ran well, Moonglow Bay has its fair share of design issues. Itâs a life sim of sorts where youâre fishing, cooking, interacting with townspeople, and running a business. These aspects arenât balanced as well as they could be, with the basic tasks becoming incredibly tiresome very quickly and the business aspect undercooked and easily exploitable. The story has trouble finding a consistent tone, and the interface can often feel unintuitive.
None of this is as big of a problem as the technical side of the game, though. The game absolutely chugs as you walk around through the voxel-style world, to the point that I was almost feeling nauseous at times. A game that looks like this really shouldnât run this poorly, so Iâm hoping itâs an optimization issue that the developer can fix with some patches. Moonglow Bay is also extremely buggy. I ran into full-stop crashes back to the Switchâs home menu more often than Iâd like, and sometimes cut-scenes would play multiple times in a row. I managed to get stuck in objects a few times, too.
Itâs frustrating because despite the flaws in the gameâs design, I found myself enjoying the basic loop well enough. Itâs no Stardew Valley or anything, but itâs fine. I was really cheering for the protagonist as they tried to bring themselves and their town back to life. This is a game I want to enjoy, but itâs very difficult to do so in its current state. Had I not been playing the game for review, I would have bailed out very early due to how queasy it made me feel.
Moonglow Bay has a lot of good aspects to it that unfortunately are balanced against some balancing and pacing issues. All of this is overshadowed by the gameâs buggy, unpolished state here on the Switch. Between framerate issues, crashes, collision mess-ups, and other bizarre bugs, itâs hard to properly get into the world the game is trying to build. Iâm hoping the game can improve with some updates, because there is something here that compelled me when the problems werenât pushing me away.
SwitchArcade Score: 3/5
Yubi-yubi! The best Vtuber doggo comes to the Switch in this Korone-themed twist on Tsugunohi. Just like in the regular game, youâre walking to the left continuously as scary things happen. Korone is known for her occasional yandere tendencies, and she leans into it here as she goes full-blown evil god on us. Water in the fire, why?! Okay, this has a very particular audience. They know who they are, and they will probably pick it up even if they are base cowards who hate horror. No confidence.
A promising looking strategy RPG that blends deck-building elements with a fairly traditional take on the genre. The Dream World is in trouble, and youâre the only one that can save it. Youâll have to assemble a team and gather an assortment of cards as you battle your way through the evil Pillow Legions. The developers cite the Game Boy Advance era as their source of inspiration, and at least from what Iâve seen that tracks well enough. Iâll have to spend some time with this one to see if itâs as good as it seems.
ZooKeeper ($10.99)
Overdelivery â Delivery Simulator ($7.99)
Perfect Knife ($0.99)
(North American eShop, US Prices)
A tiny list of new sales, but I sure canât argue with Gimmick or Joe Deverâs Lone Wolf at those prices. Over in the outbox⌠not much at all. Not much at all. Well, Iâll leave it to you. It wonât take too long for you to scan both lists; I suspect you already have as youâve read this.
Select New Sales
Gimmick! Special Edition ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/22)
Joe Deverâs Lone Wolf ($2.49 from $9.99 until 4/24)
Bendy & the Ink Machine ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/25)
Hexapoda ($4.99 from $12.99 until 4/29)
Kittengumi: The Sakabatoâs Thief ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/29)
Outer Terror ($7.99 from $9.99 until 5/3)
Virus Rush ($1.99 from $7.99 until 5/3)
Evil Nun: The Broken Mask ($13.99 from $19.99 until 5/3)
She Sees Red: Interactive Movie ($2.49 from $9.99 until 5/4)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, April 16th
Blazblue Centralfiction SE ($12.49 from $49.99 until 4/16)
Blazblue Cross Tag Battle ($4.99 from $19.99 until 4/16)
Instant Tennis ($1.99 from $9.95 until 4/16)
Pinball M: The Thing Pinball DLC ($4.66 from $5.49 until 4/16)
Railgrade ($19.49 from $29.99 until 4/16)
Sheepo ($3.84 from $10.99 until 4/16)
Stay Cool, Kobayashi-San! ($1.99 from $13.99 until 4/16)
Torn Away ($12.75 from $15.00 until 4/16)
Xiaomei & the Flame Dragonâs Fist ($8.99 from $14.99 until 4/16)
Thatâs all for today, friends. Weâll be back tomorrow with more reviews, more sales, more new releases, and perhaps some news. I had a nice weekend despite a lot of issues bearing down on me. I credit the fine weather and a rare chance to sleep in on a Sunday. I recommend both things. I hope you all have a magnificent Monday, and as always, thanks for reading!
Reviews & Mini-Views
Freedom Planet 2 ($24.99)
I liked the first Freedom Planet more than I like most Sonic games. Just mentioning that now so that you know where I am coming from. I felt like the story bits were a little too much, but the actual gameplay mechanics and level designs were outstanding. I also really enjoyed the boss battles, though some of them were a little long for my liking. It wasnât hard to spot its origins as a Sonic fan game, but it was an incredibly well-made one. My hopes for the sequel were that it could find a better story-to-gameplay balance, and that it could properly break free from its source of inspiration and fully become its own thing.
Well, I didnât get everything I wanted, but Freedom Planet 2 is a solid improvement on the original. The cutscenes are a lot easier to tolerate, as theyâre shorter and better paced. The game still feels like Sonic at times, but I think itâs moving in a good direction in that regard. Perhaps the most important thing is that the game itself shows a lot of enhancements across the board. The presentation is better, the level designs are more interesting, the various characters feel more natural within those stages, and the mechanics have been tightened up. Itâs a terrific 2D action game, and fans of 2D Sonic should have a great time with it.
I wonât belabor the point here. Freedom Planet 2 takes everything Freedom Planet did right and does it better, while also making sure to improve on the things it didnât do well. Itâs still not a perfect game by any means, and it canât quite escape the orbit of Sonic the Hedgehog. But maybe it doesnât have to? Maybe it isnât meant to? Perhaps itâs just fine if itâs a really great riff on Sonicâs gameplay. It knows what it wants to be and executes on that amazingly well. If you like 2D platformers, youâll want to put this game on your shopping list.
SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5
Terra Memoria ($19.99)
One thing Iâll give Terra Memoria: it has a lot of charm. I can really feel the passion that went into its creation, and early on it had me enchanted. The world design is intriguing, the characters who make up your party are distinctive, and the combat system takes a lot of cues from Grandia. Thatâs a good place to draw inspiration from. But the more the game went on, the more it lost me. The characters donât get much development or fleshing out, the sub-systems often feel like an afterthought, and the battle system quickly becomes repetitive. By the end, I felt like I had played through a KEMCO RPG. A KEMCO RPG with an outstanding presentation, mind you.
The game is set in Terra, a fantasy world where magic makes everything go âround. All is fine until some ancient robots awaken and start attacking. Six characters come together in these circumstances and must explore both the past and present to figure out whatâs gone wrong and why. The turn-based battle system sees you exploiting weaknesses to try to delay the enemiesâ turns, and itâs fun but never really challenges you to try new tactics. Nothing in the game demands more than simply picking at the enemiesâ weaknesses with the best magic youâve got.
Thereâs also a crafting system in here that youâll mainly be using to build up your town/base, which is an enjoyable mechanic even if it isnât very essential. There are other side quests beyond the town-building to complete, so the game certainly checks off the necessary boxes. But despite the game running a respectable twenty-ish hours, it never quite takes off the way you would hope. It feels like thereâs half a game missing here. Not so much a missing second half, but rather bits and pieces cut from the game as it stands.
Thereâs a lot to like in Terra Memoria, especially in the gameâs outstanding presentation. Itâs clear its creators are fans of the RPG genre, and the foundation is here for something really great. Unfortunately, after a solid start the game doesnât really build on things very well. Characters are paper-thin, the combat system quickly stagnates, and it all starts to feel like youâre just going through the motions. Thereâs enough gas in the tank here for me to recommend it to fans of the genre, though.
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
Tengoku Struggle -Strayside- ($49.99)
The latest visual novel release from Idea Factory and Aksys comes from many of the same people that worked on Olympia Soiree, a game that our pal Mikhail reviewed and really enjoyed. Iâll say this for Tengoku Struggle: you can tell itâs from the same writer as that game. There are a lot of heavy adult themes in this game, including sexual assault and necrophilia. Most of the guys in this game donât hesitate to threaten the heroine in very forceful ways. Maybe thatâs your thing, maybe itâs not. But consider yourself advised, if nothing else.
Rin Enma is the adopted daughter of the King of Hell, and sheâs just passed her final tests and taken a position as a Hell Guardian. She has no memories of her life before she died, and is simply dedicated to helping her father as best as she can. When some sinners use a loophole to escape Hell, Rinâs father tasks her with going to the human realm to track them down. To help her out, Papa sends four of his best âdogs" â some of Hellâs worst sinners. Theyâll all have to live together in a house in Asakusa, a task made all the more arduous by the fact that Rin has a strong dislike of men. Their investigation will reveal a lot of secrets, and Rin might just find love along the way.
Youâve got five routes to play here, each with a good and bad ending. Some are a lot better than others, and this is one of those games where it feels like itâs strongly pushing you towards one particular pairing. Everything is written well enough, dialogue-wise, and some of the routes have interesting stories to tell. The truth behind Rinâs existence isnât too hard to figure out before itâs properly revealed, but there are a few shocking twists up the writerâs sleeve. I only ended up really enjoying two of the routes, and one of them did absolutely nothing for me at all. It sometimes felt like the writer was going a little too over the top without good reason to. I will say that I absolutely loved Papa Enma, whose voice actor completely sells the bizarre character heâs portrayed as here.
While Tengoku Struggle shows the usual high production values and polish seen in Idea Factoryâs other visual novels, I found the story here just wasnât quite up to the usual output we see from the developer. Thereâs some good in it, and the best route is certainly worth experiencing if the premise has intrigued you. The writerâs tendency to try to shock the reader in cheap ways gets a little out of hand here, and some of the romances really arenât sold well. A decent effort, but given the generally high-quality output of Idea Factory in this genre, Tengoku Struggle has some difficulty making its mark.
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
Moonglow Bay ($24.99)
A tale as old as time, by this point. A decent game that is heavily dragged down by its terrible technical performance. To be clear, even if the game ran well, Moonglow Bay has its fair share of design issues. Itâs a life sim of sorts where youâre fishing, cooking, interacting with townspeople, and running a business. These aspects arenât balanced as well as they could be, with the basic tasks becoming incredibly tiresome very quickly and the business aspect undercooked and easily exploitable. The story has trouble finding a consistent tone, and the interface can often feel unintuitive.
None of this is as big of a problem as the technical side of the game, though. The game absolutely chugs as you walk around through the voxel-style world, to the point that I was almost feeling nauseous at times. A game that looks like this really shouldnât run this poorly, so Iâm hoping itâs an optimization issue that the developer can fix with some patches. Moonglow Bay is also extremely buggy. I ran into full-stop crashes back to the Switchâs home menu more often than Iâd like, and sometimes cut-scenes would play multiple times in a row. I managed to get stuck in objects a few times, too.
Itâs frustrating because despite the flaws in the gameâs design, I found myself enjoying the basic loop well enough. Itâs no Stardew Valley or anything, but itâs fine. I was really cheering for the protagonist as they tried to bring themselves and their town back to life. This is a game I want to enjoy, but itâs very difficult to do so in its current state. Had I not been playing the game for review, I would have bailed out very early due to how queasy it made me feel.
Moonglow Bay has a lot of good aspects to it that unfortunately are balanced against some balancing and pacing issues. All of this is overshadowed by the gameâs buggy, unpolished state here on the Switch. Between framerate issues, crashes, collision mess-ups, and other bizarre bugs, itâs hard to properly get into the world the game is trying to build. Iâm hoping the game can improve with some updates, because there is something here that compelled me when the problems werenât pushing me away.
SwitchArcade Score: 3/5
New Releases
Evil God Korone ($3.95)
Yubi-yubi! The best Vtuber doggo comes to the Switch in this Korone-themed twist on Tsugunohi. Just like in the regular game, youâre walking to the left continuously as scary things happen. Korone is known for her occasional yandere tendencies, and she leans into it here as she goes full-blown evil god on us. Water in the fire, why?! Okay, this has a very particular audience. They know who they are, and they will probably pick it up even if they are base cowards who hate horror. No confidence.
Dream Tactics ($17.99)
A promising looking strategy RPG that blends deck-building elements with a fairly traditional take on the genre. The Dream World is in trouble, and youâre the only one that can save it. Youâll have to assemble a team and gather an assortment of cards as you battle your way through the evil Pillow Legions. The developers cite the Game Boy Advance era as their source of inspiration, and at least from what Iâve seen that tracks well enough. Iâll have to spend some time with this one to see if itâs as good as it seems.
The Bin Bunch
ZooKeeper ($10.99)
Overdelivery â Delivery Simulator ($7.99)
Perfect Knife ($0.99)
Sales
(North American eShop, US Prices)
A tiny list of new sales, but I sure canât argue with Gimmick or Joe Deverâs Lone Wolf at those prices. Over in the outbox⌠not much at all. Not much at all. Well, Iâll leave it to you. It wonât take too long for you to scan both lists; I suspect you already have as youâve read this.
Select New Sales
Gimmick! Special Edition ($7.49 from $14.99 until 4/22)
Joe Deverâs Lone Wolf ($2.49 from $9.99 until 4/24)
Bendy & the Ink Machine ($3.99 from $19.99 until 4/25)
Hexapoda ($4.99 from $12.99 until 4/29)
Kittengumi: The Sakabatoâs Thief ($4.99 from $9.99 until 4/29)
Outer Terror ($7.99 from $9.99 until 5/3)
Virus Rush ($1.99 from $7.99 until 5/3)
Evil Nun: The Broken Mask ($13.99 from $19.99 until 5/3)
She Sees Red: Interactive Movie ($2.49 from $9.99 until 5/4)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, April 16th
Blazblue Centralfiction SE ($12.49 from $49.99 until 4/16)
Blazblue Cross Tag Battle ($4.99 from $19.99 until 4/16)
Instant Tennis ($1.99 from $9.95 until 4/16)
Pinball M: The Thing Pinball DLC ($4.66 from $5.49 until 4/16)
Railgrade ($19.49 from $29.99 until 4/16)
Sheepo ($3.84 from $10.99 until 4/16)
Stay Cool, Kobayashi-San! ($1.99 from $13.99 until 4/16)
Torn Away ($12.75 from $15.00 until 4/16)
Xiaomei & the Flame Dragonâs Fist ($8.99 from $14.99 until 4/16)
Thatâs all for today, friends. Weâll be back tomorrow with more reviews, more sales, more new releases, and perhaps some news. I had a nice weekend despite a lot of issues bearing down on me. I credit the fine weather and a rare chance to sleep in on a Sunday. I recommend both things. I hope you all have a magnificent Monday, and as always, thanks for reading!
![[DK]](/data/avatars/s/57/57999.jpg?1720990206){kind=avatar}
