New Game Releases: March 22-27th, 2018

With appearances by alchemists, doomsday cultists, cat people, and witches, this week’s list of new releases offers a delightful cross-section of gaming’s most interesting personalities- and that’s omitting Pikachu in a deerstalker cap. Pleasingly, for PlayStation 4 owners, there’s a wide variety of titles, and if you include the different iterations of Far Cry 5, MLB The Show 18 and Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, the number of SKUs surpass the Switch’s assortment of new titles.

Header image: Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings

PlayStation 4
A Way Out (physical and digital, $29.99)
Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings (physical and digital, $59.99)
Far Cry 5 (physical and digital, $59.99)
Far Cry 5 Deluxe Edition (physical and digital, $69.99)
Far Cry 5 Season Pass (DLC, digital $29.99)
Far Cry Steelbook Edition (physical, $99.99)
Injustice 2 – Legendary Edition (physical, $59.99)
MLB The Show 18 (physical and digital, $59.99)
MLB The Show 18 (All Rise Edition)
MLB The Show 18 (MVP Edition)
MX vs ATV All Out (physical and digital, $49.99)
Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (physical and digital, $59.99)
Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom – Collector’s Edition (physical, $199.99)
Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom – Deluxe Edition (digital, $79.99)
Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom – Premium Edition (physical , $79.99)
The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 (physical and digital, $49.99)

Switch
ACA NeoGeo: World Heroes 2 JET (digital, $7.99)
Arcade Archives: Moon Patrol (digital, $7.99)
Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings (physical and digital, $59.99)
Castle of Heart (digital, $14.99)
Eat Beat Dead Spike-san (digital, $6.99)
Gekido: Kintaro’s Revenge (digital, $14.99)
No Thing (digital, $1.99)
Opus: Rocket of Whispers (digital, $8.99)
Outlast 2 (digital, $29.99)
Slayaway Camp: Butcher’s Cut (digital, $14.99)
Sol Divide: Sword of Darkness (digital, $7.99)
Warp Shift (digital, $9.99)

Xbox One
A Way Out (physical and digital, $29.99)
Far Cry 5 (physical and digital, $59.99)
Far Cry 5 Deluxe Edition (physical and digital, $69.99)
Far Cry 5 Season Pass (DLC, digital $29.99)
Far Cry Steelbook Edition (physical, $99.99)
Injustice 2 – Legendary Edition (physical and digital, $59.99)
MX vs ATV All Out (physical and digital, $49.99)

3DS
Detective Pikachu (physical and physical, $39.99)
The Alliance Alive (physical and physical, $39.99)

PC
Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings ($59.99)
Chronicles of Magic: Divided Kingdoms ($TBA)
Episicava – Vol. 1 ($TBA)
Far Cry 5 ($59.99)
Moe Jigsaw ($TBA)
Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom ($59.99)
One Last Crane – Prologue (free)
Out of the Park Baseball 19 ($35.99)
Pizza Connection 3 ($29.99)
Poly World ($TBA)
Pushover ($TBA)
Spencer ($4.79)
Super Knockoff! VS ($10.79)
The Mage’s Tale ($39.99)
Tokoyo ($TBA)
Voxel Baller ($TBA)

Robert’s Pick: With so many compelling titles coming out this week, selecting a single selection is a quite a dilemma. While I’ll surely play Atelier Lydie & Suelle and Far Cry 5, I’m been especially eager to devote a week or two to Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom. Sure, the sequel might lack an official Studio Ghibli collaboration, but with contributions from character designer Yoshiyuki Momose (Porco Rosso, Spirited Away) and composer Yoshiyuki Momose (Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro), the look and sound channel that Miyazaki-esque vibe.

Beyond the inherent charming of taking control of a plucky young-cat boy escaping from a rodent rebellion, Ni no Kuni II delivers a number of other engaging elements. Beyond a movement toward Pikmin-style battles, there’s a robust kingdom building component, reminiscent of Civilization, there’s even an ingenious interface that drops hints. Despite a lot of games vying for my free time, I’ll probably spend most of it in Ding Dong Dell, Kuni 2’s whimsical kingdom.

Matt’s Pick (Editor, DigitallyDownloaded): Atelier. Atelier. ATELIERRRRR. I came a bit late to the Atelier party. The first I played was Atelier Rorona back on the PS3 (and that might have been the first Atelier even released in Australia). From the moment I first loaded that game up, though, I was sold on the entire franchise. It’s no exaggeration when I say Atelier is my favourite JRPG property, and I will fall over myself to find the time to thoroughly consume every Atelier game that comes my way.

Atelier Lydie & Suelle will be no different, and I’ll love it for the same reason I can’t get enough of the series; Atelier JRPGs are sweet, positive, pleasant, and downright happy JRPGs, and that is a welcome relief in an industry so utterly filled with dark fantasies, adult themes and gore as the games industry is, Also it helps that the characters are cute, and Lydie and Suelle are no different there, either.

Ryan’s Pick: My pick for the week is Far Cry 5.  I remember playing the first on my brother’s rig and really loved that the game allowed you to make more choices compared the standard pathed FPS games that I was used to in the early 2000s. Far Cry 5 continues to encourage players to explore and most importantly cause chaos while you’re doing it. Set in America against a large-scale doomsday cult, you and your dog Boomer must rally locals to take out the vicious organization.

One of the new mechanics in the game I really think adds an interesting new way of playing is you can utilize your dog Boomer to steal enemies’ weapons and cause distractions. I’ve always liked sneaking in these games, so I think that using him will be pretty handy to ease the tense moments when you first attack the enemies. While I enjoy sneaking, eventually it wears on me and I like to just play the game like a scoundrel by whipping explosives from long distance like a madman to see how the AI reacts, running things over, and seeing how far I can drive vehicles up mountains.  All of that and running vehicles into the ocean. Thank you Far Cry 5 for letting me do all these things.

Zack’s Pick (Senior Editor, RPG Site): Much like last week, this is an easy pick for me – Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom. I had the privilege of covering the game for my outlet and had an absolute blast. I fell in love with this intricate world filled to the brim with well-written characters whose personalities shone through thanks to the excellent localization.

There’s also a large amount of depth that keeps me coming back for more. The kingdom building feature is incredibly addictive. You basically run around the world recruiting citizens that you assign to each facility based on their traits. This, in turn, supplements Evan and his party’s adventure in numerous ways. Aside from a few qualms, there’s so much to enjoy in Ni no Kuni II, and RPG fans interested in a feel-good story should check this one out.

Jeremy’s Pick: Everyone enjoys a good escape caper, and video games have at least SOME relationship with the idea of getting-the-heck-out-of-Dodge, but it seems rare that the premise of an entire game revolves around the idea of escape in any meaningful way. (I’m thinking here of the original Wolfenstein, or more recently The Escapists.) That’s why I’m picking for this week A Way Out from EA, which is unique in a couple of ways! First, the game literally makes “jailbreak” the main idea, in all its Shawshank glory. Second, the game is meant to be played with a co-op friend, each player pursuing their own separate path to freedom. Third, because of this multiplayer focus, EA has opted to make the game essentially free to the second player to make it easy to bring along a fellow inmate for that oh-so-sweet breakout. And fourth, the game is $30 at launch, which is a pretty good bargain compared to the tax burden of your real-life incarceration, you degenerate.