New Releases: July 6th-12th, 2023

This week, The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie (pictured) arrives for PlayStation, PC, and Switch while the beloved action-platformer Gimmick! receives a special edition 31 years after the original NES release. Elsewhere, Tequila Works’ GYLT brings some chills to these balmy summer days.

PlayStation 4
Feeble Light (digital, $4.99)
Gimmick! Special Edition (digital, $13.49)
GYLT (digital, $19.99)
Mordhau (digital, $39.99 & $59.99)
Oxenfree II: Lost Signals (digital, $19.99)
Rain World: Downpour (digital, $13.49)
Sea Horizon (digital, $14.99)
Scarf (digital, $7.99)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie (physical & digital, $59.99)

PlayStation 5
Necrosmith (digital, $7.99)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie (physical & digital, $59.99)

Switch
Amaze! Relax Edition (digital, $4.99)
Bunker 21 Extended Edition (digital, $6.79)
Calculator Maker: My Calculator (digital, $1.00)
City Limits (digital, $4.99)
Colormitation (digital, $3.99)
Death or Treat (digital, $24.99)
Dig Deep: Chunky Edition (digital, $5.99)
Family Jigsaw Puzzle: Classic Mosaic Puzzles
Feeble Light (digital, $4.99)
Full Quiet (digital, $9.99)
Garlic (digital, $14.99)
Gimmick! Special Edition (digital, $13.49)
Illusion (digital, $7.17)
Medal of Guardians (digital, $3.99)
Mountain Climb Driver: Real Physics Arcade Racing (digital, $9.99)
Mystical Mixing: Complete Edition (digital, $6.99)
Necrosmith (digital, $7.99)
Paint Ball (digital, $4.99)
Pinball FX (digital, free)
Rainbow Snake (digital, $0.99)
Rain World: Downpour (digital, $13.49)
RichMan 4 Fun (digital, $11.99)
Sandream (digital, $19.99)
Sentimental Death Loop (digital, $19.99)
Stuck with Naughty Housewives (digital, $19.90)
Super Box Delivery: Beyond the Horizon (digital, $2.49)
Swords & Bones 2 (digital, $9.99)
Tad the Lost Explorer. Craziest and Madness Edition (digital, $39.99)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie (physical & digital, $59.99)
The Past Within (digital, $3.59)
Time of War, Arkano’90 (digital, $14.99)
Toadomination (digital, $4.99)
Urban Flow Summer Edition (digital, $18.99)
Zombie Town (digital, $7.99)

Xbox One
City Limits (digital, $4.99)
Dead Man’s Diary (digital, $29.99)
Full Quiet (digital, $9.99)
GYLT (digital, $19.99)
Mordhau (digital, $39.99 & $59.99)
Rain World (digital, $24.99)
Safari Pinball (digital, $2.99)
Scarf (digital, $7.99)
Sea Horizon (digital, $14.99)

PC
Devil’s Dive ($TBA)
Gimmick! Special Edition ($13.49)
GYLT ($19.99)
MUA ($TBA)
Murder Generation: Cream City Chaos ($9.74)
Oxenfree II: Lost Signals (digital, $19.99)
Ravva and the Phantom Library ($TBA)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie ($59.99)

Rob’s pick: Not many franchises can boast that their last lackluster entry occurred before the start of the century. But you’d have to revisit 1999’s The Legend of Heroes III: Song of the Ocean to witness Nihon Falcom’s property offer a generic role-playing experience. Since the Trails/Kiseki sub-series began in 2004, the developer has been consistently providing remarkable contexts, compelling characters, and intensifying the depth of NPCs.

This week, The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie serves as the connective tissue that ties up the Crossbell and Erebonia arcs, while also functioning as a prologue to Kuro no Kiseki. Fiction that’s created to stitch together other plotlines isn’t always compelling, as anyone who’s escaped the MCU cult will tell you. But Falcom’s beat the odds before, with Trails from Zero/Trails to Azure offering a pair of fascinating data points in the complex history of Zemuria. Maybe I’m just a sucker for intricate detail, but I’m truly looking forward to Reverie.

I’m with Matt on Pinball FX. I’ve been a longtime fan of the franchise and appreciated how Zen Studios’ consistently offered free upgrades across hardware generations. But when the publisher moved to a subscription model, they managed to alienate their audience – especially those who favor ownership over monthly fees. Luckily, Zen heard us and has some decent deals on Steam when rebuying tables for Pinball FX 3. Just be aware that the shift from Pinball FX3 to FX is a rather marginal update.

Matt S’ pick (editor, DigitallyDownloaded): It’s hard to look past a Legend of Heroes game. It’s also incredibly difficult to get into each new one if you haven’t played a good chunk of the previous ones. But on the other hand, you do have to admire a series that is so epic that it effectively spans a thousand (if not more) hours of questing, politics, drama, and world-shattering events. I’ve got high hopes for The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie, as someone that has kept up with the series enough to confidently step into this one. Who knows if it’ll be a good entry point for complete newcomers, but then I suspect most people who have a genuine interest in JRPGs have plugged their way through at least a few of these.

I’m also looking forward to Pinball FX on Switch. I’m still not sure if we needed a “new” Pinball FX. The previous title’s platform was more than adequate, but good pinball is good pinball and I prefer to play pinball on Switch, so I won’t be able to help myself with this. I refuse to buy into the subscription, though. I’ll pay their stupidly over-inflated prices to own the table. It’ll be through gritted teeth, but I will ultimately get my money’s worth back out of them, and anything’s better than supporting subscription services at this point.

Ryan’s pick: After taking an introspective look at myself and my game tastes lately, it’s clear that I’ve gravitated towards games that offer quicker fixes, and or even play themselves. Don’t get me wrong, gacha games are amazing and a whole lot of fun, but I think this week my time is best spent devoting effort into the solid turn-based JRPG The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie. Nihon Falcom has a long history of producing both memorable experiences and characters in this series, so if you are looking for a lengthy worthwhile RPG, then this is a great choice. There’s always a plethora of different characters with different personality archetypes, so it’s a pretty safe bet as well if you are the type of player that prioritizes characters..

On the other hand, if an RPG isn’t for you, and you are looking for a swashbuckling fantasy melee experience while you swing a first-person sword at other players, then I think you may want to try Mordhau on PS5. Granted, the game has been out for quite some time on Steam, but if you enjoy FPS games this could be a really fun one to try while on the couch. It’s a multiplayer game set in medieval times, where you enter into first-person melee battles with other players. Swordplay has some surprisingly deep mechanics, and it just looks like a whole bunch of fun to join large battles and swing swords around all fancy-crazy. There’s going to be a bit of a learning curve with the way the melee works, but it looks pretty rewarding once you get used to the system.