March 20 - 26

Section: 

IMAGE(https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/files/pictures/pictures/picture-13445.jpg)   Felix “Any Any Animal” Threepaper

Welcome folks, and happy “93rd Anniversary of the founding of KFC” week!

On 20 March 1930, Harland Sanders began selling food (not just chicken) from a Kentucky service station. He wasn’t a colonel yet, and up to this point he was a failed entrepreneur, having already failed as a lawyer after he had a courtroom brawl with his own client. It took 10 years, and a shootout with a rival restaurant owner, before Sanders reinvented his restaurant to focus on chicken, cooked fast in a pressure fryer and using his “Secret Recipe”. It was another 10 years until 1952 when Sanders saw the potential of franchising, but after that his success was exponential. By the time he sold his founding stake in 1964, there were 600 KFC restaurants. In 1975, he reopened his original restaurant under his wife’s name, offering his Secret Recipe Chicken, and KFC sued him for it. You may all celebrate by playing a game where you kill an NPC after they have given you all their quests.

The biggest AAA game this week is the Resident Evil remake. Besides that, it’s a grab-bag of indies and anime RPGs.

Resident Evil 4 was a needle-shifter for Capcom back in 2005—it introduced the “over-the-shoulder” camera view that became standard for Capcom games and the third-person action genre. Capcom’s remakes of previous Resident Evil games focused heavily on making them play more like RE4. However, RE4 still had the old “you can’t move and shoot” thing, so needs more than a graphical upgrade to be more than a “greatest hits” cash-in.

Judging from the demo, Capcom hasn’t disappointed. Overall, it seems like they updated the gameplay but preserved the tension of RE4. Yes, you can move and shoot now. There’s a knife parry, and stealth, making the knife more viable. There’s also new weapons. To balance this, enemies and bosses have been redone. Some boss encounters that were QTEs are now full boss fights. It’s another remake that looks set to please old fans and attract new ones.

Deceive Inc. is a multiplayer shooter inspired by the goofier, Roger Moore-era Bond films from the 1970s. It’s spy-vs-spy action, where the characters don’t just have different weapons, but also abilities and gadgets to trick enemies. You can disguise yourself as an NPC (or a toilet), deploy bouncy inflatable cube-traps, drop super-sticky glue, release a spy drone, and more. Matches are split into 3 phases: insertion, infiltration, and extraction, to manage a balance between stealthing and all-out shooting. With teams of 3, and up to 12 players max, it’s a new take on small-squad battles, but will it be too chaotic?

Tchia is an open-world sandbox where you’re a girl exploring a tropical archipelago with her raft, looking for her father. It’s drawing comparisons to Breath of the Wild, helped along by a sequence in the trailer where the character jumps off a big hill and glides down with a paraglider. Also like Breath of the Wild, the world looks beautiful and idyllic while also looking like it could run on the Switch (it is not out on the Switch).

Unlike Breath of the Wild, there isn’t any combat in Tchia. The focus is on exploration, but there’s still a lot to do. You can possess animals for a while to unlock their special moves and get to different places. You can also possess objects. As you move across the landscape, any animal or object you see makes you think “Can I possess that? What would that do?” Then there’s the rhythm minigame provided by your ukulele, where some songs act as spells that cause different effects if you pull them off. There’s a lot going on, considering this was made by a 12-person team.

Rakuen on the Switch is a port of a 2017 adventure game made on RPG Maker XP, with a story that involves a boy in hospital who visits a fantasy world to quest and collect pieces of music. It’s a heartfelt game with music as a central theme. Mr Saitou is a spin-off that’s also out this week, about an office schlub who’s also in hospital and ends up visiting the same fantasy world.

Storyteller is a game from Annapurna Interactive that’s about building a story. I’ve never actually been in a writers’ room, but I know how they work from the near-endless supply of TV shows about comedians and comedy writers. One of the key things I noticed is that there’s always a whiteboard, and they put cards up on it to work out the sequence of scenes and plotting and stuff. Storyteller is like that. You get a story title and the game is to create and assemble story panels that match the title. Then the game will animate it and tell you whether you passed or failed. Just like real writing. The lasting appeal will depend on how kooky you can get with wacky twists on a title that still earn a pass.

Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key is another entry in this popular, alchemy-focused RPG series. The success of each game means a bigger budget for the next one, and this one has the biggest yet. As a direct sequel, it’s set in the same world as the previous games, Kurken Island. What was previously a bunch of discrete zones, separated by multiple loading screens, has now been joined up to make an almost open world. Add in quality-of-life UI improvements and tweaks to the battle system, and you got a stew goin’.

Overall, Tchia looks best for me this week. The possession mechanic is the hook, as it encourages you to stop and smell (or even be) the roses. That mindset is the antidote to open-world map fatigue and makes the difference between whether you bounce off an open-world game or lose yourself in it for hours.

Here's the list, in release-date AND alphabetical order!

PC

  • 03-20

  • Ancient Legend
  • Bainok: City of Fighters
  • Battle Tanks: Arena
  • GHOST HUNTER
  • Ghosts of Tabor
  • King Of Swords
  • Longqi
  • Mr. Mower
  • Project Dew
  • Shadow BoXR
  • Those Left Behind
  • Twell
  • WAR ON THE STREET
  • 03-21

  • Deceive Inc.
  • Escape Chronicles
  • Evil Superhero VR
  • Farm Day 2023
  • Final Gun
  • Goblin Keep
  • Hidden Harbor 3 Top-Down 3D
  • Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom - Prince's Edition
  • Otokiyome
  • Porndle
  • Psychic Investigation of Sakuragi Haru
  • pWordle
  • Slingshot Battle
  • Tchia
  • Ten Seconds Trillion
  • The Secret of Darkwoods
  • The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution
  • Tipu
  • Xianxia Shrine
  • Zoe the Exhibitionist
  • 03-22

  • Arcade Fishing City-Classic Ten Thousand Cannon Fishing
  • Bang Bang Land
  • Beyond the Wall
  • Burning Vengeance
  • Have a Nice Death
  • Hidden World 4 Top-Down 3D
  • House of Jigsaw: Masters of Art
  • Levis Umbra
  • Samurai Revenge 2
  • Shushan: The First Chapter Online
  • That Racecar Game
  • The Die Is Cast
  • The Dormant Knight
  • The Safe Place
  • Volar
  • 03-23

  • Amazo
  • Blue Blood Sunshine
  • Cadleiu
  • Cloak & Dagger: Shadow Operations
  • Elysium Heights
  • Farm Empire
  • Ghost Signal: A Stellaris Game
  • I'll Wait For You At The Finish Line
  • Jurassic Pinball
  • Life After Magic
  • Magic or Machinations?
  • Monster Racing League
  • Mr. Saitou
  • Neon Cyber Samurai
  • Not For Broadcast VR
  • Ogu and the Secret Forest
  • PlanetSprite
  • Prison Life 2
  • Resoraki: The racing
  • Retro Golden Age - Goody
  • Storyteller
  • The Dragon Queen
  • The Rondeau of Astra
  • Vom Drachentoten
  • Yukiiro Sign
  • Zombie Watch Part II
  • 03-24

  • A TAVERN FOR TEA
  • Aery VR - A Journey Beyond Time
  • Ainmora: O Desastre Iminente
  • Alien Planet Survival
  • Apewar
  • Aqua Marbles - Ocean
  • Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key
  • Avoid It!
  • Bloodshell: Conviction
  • Buildest
  • Bullet Runner: The First Slaughter
  • Can of Wormholes
  • Cyber Lust
  • DarkBlood -Gaiden-
  • Death's Dungeon
  • Deep Space Scoundrel
  • Defi Gravity
  • Dirty Room
  • Draw Rider Remake
  • Elle
  • Fairy Biography3 : Obsession
  • Folletti
  • Gladiator's Glory: Salvation
  • Goose Ronnie
  • GRAPPIN
  • Heartbite: Dating by Daylight
  • Hearth's Light Potion Shop
  • Industrial War
  • Jigsaw Puzzles Infinite
  • Misericorde: Volume One
  • My Furry Dragon
  • NOT the Hero
  • Out of the Park Baseball 24
  • Planet Fights
  • PunchMan Online
  • Rabat Protocol
  • Resident Evil 4
  • Retro Short Game
  • Schildmaid MX
  • SHADE The Border Collie Flycatcher
  • Story of the Olivia
  • sunny-place-3: microgods
  • The Crown of Wu
  • The Last Of The Core
  • The Most Lecherous
  • Tide Girl: Phenomena
  • Vampire Story
  • Wars of Cards: ROMA
  • WITCH RACE Prologue
  • 03-25

  • Alive Paint
  • Damn Ropes
  • Demon's Wrath
  • Metal War
  • Within
  • 03-26

  • Naive Riri
  • Redumption
  • Revenant

Xbox Series X

  • 03-21

  • Deceive Inc.
  • EA Sports PGA Tour
  • 03-22

  • Superfidos
  • 03-23

  • The Settlers: New Allies
  • 03-24

  • Dragon Pinball
  • MLB The Show 23
  • Resident Evil 4
  • The Crown of Wu
  • Witchcrafty

Xbox One

  • 03-21

  • Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom - Prince's Edition
  • 03-22

  • Superfidos
  • 03-23

  • Not For Broadcast
  • The Settlers: New Allies
  • 03-24

  • Dragon Pinball
  • I dream of you and ice cream
  • Lila's Tale and the Hidden Forest
  • Witchcrafty

PlayStation 5

  • 03-21

  • Deceive Inc.
  • EA Sports PGA Tour
  • POSTAL 4: No Regerts
  • Tchia
  • The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution
  • 03-22

  • Last Labyrinth
  • 03-23

  • Omen of Sorrow
  • 03-24

  • Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key
  • MLB The Show 23
  • Resident Evil 4

PlayStation 4

  • 03-21

  • POSTAL 4: No Regerts
  • Tchia
  • 03-23

  • The Settlers: New Allies
  • 03-24

  • Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key
  • MLB The Show 23
  • Resident Evil 4

Switch

  • 03-20

  • Animals Names
  • FurryFury: Smash & Roll
  • Kung Fury: Street Rage - Ultimate Edition
  • 03-21

  • Remnant: From the Ashes
  • Unheard: Voices of Crime
  • 03-22

  • Have a Nice Death
  • Saint Maker
  • 03-23

  • Birds and Blocks 2
  • Fishing: North Atlantic
  • Mighty Mage
  • Monorail Stories
  • Numolition
  • Omen of Sorrow
  • Rakuen
  • Sakura Neko Calculator
  • Scramballed!
  • Storyteller
  • Sushi Bar Express
  • The Settlers: New Allies
  • 03-24

  • Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key
  • FLASHOUT 3
  • Isle of Jura Fishing Trip
  • Lila's Tale and the Hidden Forest
  • MLB The Show 23
  • Nefasto's Misadventure: Meeting Noeroze
  • Steel Defier
  • Uzzuzzu My Pet

Comments

I’m looking forward to trying Tchia. I’m definitely going to play Resident Evil 4, it’s just a question of when. I have so many other games to play that I might as well wait for it to reduce considerably in price.

Edit: Tchia is now available to download, at least it is in the UK. My assumption would be it goes live everywhere at the same time but I can’t say for certain.

Edit 2: It’s lovely.