New Releases: September 3rd-9th, 2020

From Tony Hawk to Tony Stark, as well as the entire NBA, this week’s new releases are trotting out the names held deeply in many gamers’ hearts. But if Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, Marvel’s Avengers, or NBA 2K21 don’t interest, changes are you might be interested in the appearances of Doraemon: Story of Seasons, Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning, RPG Maker MV or even Sakura Knight 3.

Header image: Sakura Knight 3, PC

PlayStation 4
Batu Ta Batu (digital, $3.99)
Doraemon: Story of Seasons (digital, $TBA)
Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning (physical & digital, $39.99)
Marvel’s Avengers (physical & digital, $59.99)
Minecraft Dungeons: Hero Edition (physical & digital, $29.99)
NBA 2K21 (physical & digital, $59.99)
Necromunda: Underhive Wars (digital, $39.99)
Party Hard 2 (digital, $19.99)
RPG Maker MV (physical & digital, $49.99)
Spellbreak (digital, free to play)
The Outer Worlds: Peril on Gorgon (DLC, $14.99)
The Sims 4 Plus Star Wars Journey to Batuu Bundle (physical & digital, $39.99)
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 (physical & digital, $39.99)
WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship (physical & digital, $49.99)

Switch
AVICII Invector (digital, $19.99)
Atom RPG (digital, $15.99)
Batu Ta Batu (digital, $3.99)
Circuit Dude (digital, $4.99)
Connection Haunted (digital, $3.99)
Dirt Trackin 2 (digital, $5.99)
Fantasy Tower Defense (digital, $3.74)
Good Pizza, Great Pizza (digital, $7.99)
Here Be Dragons (digital, $17.99)
Jelly Champs! (digital, $9.59)
Lair of the Clockwork God (digital, $16.99)
Meganoid (digital, $8.99)
Minecraft Dungeons: Hero Edition (physical & digital, $29.99)
NBA 2K21 (physical & digital, $59.99)
Niche – A Genetics Survival Game (digital, $17.99)
OkunoKA Madness (digital, $14.99)
Paradise Killer (digital, $15.99)
Party Hard 2 (digital, $19.99)
Perfect Traffic Simulator (digital, $6.99)
Roommates (digital, $19.99)
RPG Maker MV (physical & digital, $49.99)
Secret Files 3 (digital, $14.99)
Shaolin vs Wutang (digital, $9.99)
Solitaire Spider Minimal (digital, $0.69)
Spinch (digital, $13.49)
Under the Jolly Roger (digital, $15.99)

Xbox One
CarX Drift Racing Online (digital, $29.99)
Marvel’s Avengers (physical & digital, $59.99)
Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning (physical & digital, $39.99)
Lair of the Clockwork God (digital, $16.99)
Lou’s Revenge (digital, $19.99)
Marvel’s Avengers (physical & digital, $59.99)
Minecraft Dungeons: Hero Edition (physical & digital, $29.99)
NBA 2K21 (physical & digital, $59.99)
Necromunda: Underhive Wars (digital, $39.99)
OkunoKA Madness (digital, $14.99)
Party Hard 2 (digital, $19.99)
Spellbreak (digital, free to play)
The Outer Worlds: Peril on Gorgon (DLC, $14.99)
The Sims 4 Plus Star Wars Journey to Batuu Bundle (physical & digital, $39.99)
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 (physical & digital, $39.99)
Touhou Luna Nights (digital, $17.99)
WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship (physical & digital, $49.99)

3DS
Maze Breaker 3 (digital, $TBA)

PC
Batu Ta Batu ($3.99)
Bleeding Moons ($TBA)
California Games ($TBA)
Cartridge Defense ($TBA)
Craft In Abyss ($TBA)
Hotshot Racing ($15.99)
Isles of Limbo (free to play)
Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning ($39.99)
Marvel’s Avengers ($59.99)
NBA 2K21 ($59.99)
Necromunda: Underhive Wars ($31.99)
Paradise Killer (digital, $15.99)
Rocket Panda Panic ($TBA)
Sakura Knight 3 ($TBA)
Spellbreak (digital, free to play)
Spinch ($13.49)
Tamarin ($TBA)
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 ($39.99)
Total War: Three Kingdoms – The Furious Wild (DLC, $17.09)
WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship (Epic Game Store, $49.99)

Robert’s Pick: Typically, there’s a single game or maybe two that stands out but this week has a few choice picks. First, Hotshot Racing shouldn’t be overlooked for anyone that misses old-school arcade-style drifting with a silky sixty frames per second output. London-based Lucky Mountain Games seems to be listening to what fans want from a racer. From aggressive AI, four-player splitscreen, and eight-player online, and entertaining modes like ‘Cops and Robbers’ and ‘Drive or Explode’, Hotshot provides a lot of play for a reasonable price. And yes, I agree with you, this belongs on console.

Next up is Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning, a remaster of the 2012 action role-playing game. Eight years on, the game’s take on Euro-fantasy might feel a bit stale, but the persistent providence of side-quests, gratifying combat, and a rewarding loot pursuit remain robust. Certainty, Re-Reckoning holds its own against contemporary ARPGs.

Next, I need to mention the Xbox One port of Touhou Luna Nights. It’s great to see a Touhou offshoot make its way onto Microsoft’s system and it’s even better when the game’s a gorgeous time-twisting metroidvania (or as the developers call it, a “search action Game”). Whether you’re a frequent visitor to the Scarlet Devil Mansion or a total Touhou noob, Team Ladybug’s title is one of the best fan-made games around.

Finally, as Matt stated recently, RPG Maker MV has a lot of potential. Even if you don’t have weeks of free time crafting an exhilarating quest filled with intriguing characters and dialog that would make veteran writers envious, you can download the free player and enjoy the handiwork of others. While the ability to import additional assets make the PC iteration preferable, the portability of the Switch is a tempting proposition indeed.

Matt C’s Pick (editor, Shindig): What a busy week it is for new releases! I’m also going to go with a handful of picks because I can’t find a way to settle on just one or two. Firstly, Paradise Killer: an extremely stylish open-world whodunnit, set in a world built from the psychic energy of alien worshippers that’s home to all manner of demons and gods, where everyone is a possible suspect and the very notion of objective truth is challenged. If that’s not enough to get your attention, the character designs almost certainly will.

Next up, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2. Nostalgia is a powerful beast, and we’ve had a lack of good arcade-style skating games for years. Tony Hawk games have spent a long time falling from grace, but this latest remake looks like it might finally be the one to capture what everyone loved about those first couple of games way back in the PlayStation 1 days.

I’ll join Robert talking up Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning, and not just because I love the goofiness of actually calling it “Re-Reckoning”. The original Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was a game that managed to capture a lot of what I like about MMOs, but without the pesky aspect of other players. It’s easy to get lost in its big, beautiful world, slick combat, and seemingly endless string of side quests, and I’m looking forward to doing that all again in Re-Reckoning.

And finally, Lair of the Clockwork God on Switch is a game that caught my attention entirely because I misread it as “Lair of the Clockwork Orange” and was very curious and intrigued. After looking into what Lair of the Clockwork God actually is, I’m still curious and intrigued, but in a very different way. It’s a mash-up of point-and-click adventure game and platformer, where switching between the two different playable characters changes the genre of the game. Solving point-and-click puzzles Ben unlocks platforming upgrades for Dan, in turn allowing Dan to fight and jump his way to new areas with new puzzles for Ben to solve. Coming from the people behind Behold the Kickmen, it should be good for a few laughs, too.

Matt S’ Pick (Editor, DigitallyDownloaded): Not a single pretty girl to recommend this week. What is happening with gaming :-(.

Okay, okay, there’s more to video games than pretty girls (or is there?). Kingdoms of Amalur was a game I never thought we’d see again, given the financial strain it managed to put on an entire state in America and just how catastrophically bankrupt it sent the developer. Despite this back door-mishandling of the business behind the game’s development, however, it’s actually very good and I am glad to see THQ Nordic release Re-Reckoning as a way of seeing if there’s a future in the property. As Matt C above notes, it’s very much the single player MMO experience and I have fond memories of being lost in its rich world for many, many hours.

I’ll also throw a mention out to RPG Maker MV on Nintendo Switch. You won’t be able to make commercial games with it like you can on PC, but it does have the full toolset and robust sharing functions, so it will behave a bit like Super Mario Maker… only for JRPG adventures. It’s a lot of fun to play around with, gets you creative and, as the community submissions grow, you’ll actually end up with a lot of interesting stuff to play. For aspiring game developers or people that just don’t want to mess around with code, this is an excellent choice.

Look forward to my game on there soon after launch. You’ll recognise it because every character seems weirdly obsessed with recommending that you visit some site called DigitallyDownloaded.net. That, my friends, is what they call “native advertising.”

Ryan’s Pick: California Games was the pack-in title for my Atari Lynx that I got when I was a kid. It wasn’t the most visually impressive game, but it was engaging enough at that time and it was the only game I had in the honeymoon phase of my relationship with the Lynx besides S.T.U.N. Runner. All those AA batteries…I’ll never get them back. If you jumped your BMX bike in just the right spot so your back wheel would hit the dirt mound, your bike would wildy flip which would give you an amazing score. It’s strange to see this one re-releasing on Steam, but it’s super nostalgic and takes me back to a very fun time playing Lynx games. I also need to mention Scrapyard Dog while we’re talking about Lynx. Has anyone else ever played that one? This isn’t my pick, but it’s definitely a very classic game that’s worth checking out if you are into nostalgic older Atari/Epyx games, or looking for a game where you can throw a frisbee.

Let’s talk about Sakura Knight 3. With the tagline, “It’s hard to fight evil and fall in love!” I can’t say no this week. Sakura gal-games have a way of really making me laugh. Maybe it’s because I like to think about the people making the music and specifically some of the choices they make for instruments/VSTs. When you are creating so many different dating simulators I’m sure it’s tough to continuously create new unique assets that are special enough to feel different each time, so hats off to them! The visual novel engine makes it fairly easy to progress through the game and for subsequent playthroughs to make sure you flag the right paths and CGs, so in general if you enjoy gal-games, or yuri, give this one a try. Do keep in mind that the game is marked as NSFW, so I highly suggest playing with discretion at work, or on trains.