SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring ‘Piofiore: 1926’ and ‘Ace Angler’, Plus the Latest Releases and Sales

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for November 1st, 2022. Not a lot left in the year now. They really do go fast generally. We’ve got a few extra reviews so that you just can take pleasure in right now. Our pal Mikhail seems at one other visual novel in the kind of Piofiore: Episodio 1926, and I’ve obtained reviews of Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits and Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike & the Quest for the Stale Gum. After that, there are a quantity of new releases to take a look at. Nothing too great, nothing too unhealthy. We finish up with the similar old lists of recent and outgoing gross sales. Let’s get to work!

Reviews & Mini-Views

Piofiore: Episodio 1926 ($49.99)

About two years ago, I reviewed Piofiore: Fated Memories and called it a vital for followers of the style. The style has come a long way since having to depend on ports of older video games on Switch to construct up an viewers. We now get common localizations of otome video games from Aksys Games and Idea Factory that surprisingly even see limited version releases. Piofiore: Episodio 1926 is another new otome localization that hit the West last month on Nintendo Switch, and I’ve been slowly making my means through it.

Piofiore: Episodio 1926 is a fan disc for Piofiore: Fated Memories. While most fan disc releases serve to just be good extensions of the unique for followers, Piofiore: Episodio 1926 goes above and past that by feeling like a sequel. When I beneficial the unique sport, I mentioned it positively earned the ESRB M ranking. I feel like Piofiore: Episodio 1926 pushes that fairly a bit so keep that in mind.

As an otome sport, Piofiore: Episodio 1926 does a incredible job of building its world and the characters inside as you basically make your way throughout the totally different routes the game has to offer in the begin on the path to unlocking every little thing. Given it is a fan disc, it nonetheless entails the mafia within the city of Burlone in Italy the place you play as Liliana, but the development for every love interest actually make this shine. The alternate routes undoubtedly stunned me, however once more, be aware that the mature ranking is definitely warranted right here and there are elements that aren’t for the faint-hearted.

I adored the interface and aesthetics of Piofiore: Fated Memories, and Piofiore: Episodio 1926 is beautiful in each way. I also need to make sure I highlight that you can play it with the touchscreen all the finest way which is great to see in a visible novel. The music and voice performing are brilliant as well. If you’re considering shopping for this as a fan of the original, I’d undoubtedly advocate the limited edition release they did for it.

As a fandisc, Piofiore: Episodio 1926 is superlative. It goes above that and is more like a full sequel to the original game. While I can’t suggest this should you haven’t performed the unique, it’s a simple suggestion should you did enjoy your time with Piofiore. I hope the few text points can be addressed in potential future updates though. -Mikhail Madnani

SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5

Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits ($39.99)

Ace Angler just isn’t the sport that it could seem to be at first blush. You could be forgiven for assuming it is a fishing sport, given the title. It is a sport about fishing, but I don’t think I would call it a fishing sport. No, this is extra of a glorified medal recreation, an idea which can or may not need additional rationalization depending on how much experience you have with modern sport centers and arcades. And that is sensible, as this may be a follow-up to a house port of just such a recreation. Fishing is the principle exercise on this game, but there’s no talent in it in any respect. It comes right down to lots of luck, what type of gear you have, and what number of medals you feed in.

The arcade game is amusing enough as an attraction. It’s a tabletop monitor set-up with multiple fishing rod controllers, making it really feel like you’re peering into a pond. You put in your real cash, you get some virtual medals, and you use those to buy casts on varied rods, use special assaults to put on down the fish, or get a power-up or two. Catching fish earns you medals, and whereas you’ll sometimes end up forward the final arc of gameplay will see you run out eventually. A perfectly affordable way to spend a couple of minutes while you’re ready for a film or one thing.

Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits contains a juiced-up model of that arcade sport among its modes. You don’t have to purchase medals right here with real cash. The game provides you a gentle trickle of them in varied ways, so even when you run out you’ll have the ability to scrounge some up. You have extra methods to use these medals, of course. There are other modes to play, most of which also use the medals. Then there’s the overall aim of the sport, which sees you attempting to refill the aquarium with every type of fish. You’ll get those by playing a gacha, with each pull requiring medals or particular tickets you’ll have the ability to earn by way of numerous strategies. Yes, you’ll have the ability to pull doubles. You’ll get a paltry variety of medals again when that occurs. It feels slightly impolite.

The fish you pull shall be displayed in the aquarium where you can verify them out as you want. This is a half of the the hub that connects the assorted modes of the game, a small house the place you wander about with your personal customized character that appears suspiciously just like the villagers from Animal Crossing. Beyond the arcade game, you can even play a straight-up medal pusher, a narrative mode, and a party mode with numerous brief minigames to play alone or with other players. You can also log on and play towards others.

The greatest downside with Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits is that all of it feels too skinny. For all of the completely different modes, all of it principally comes all the way down to luck. You can inform this was derived from a sport that is just one step faraway from playing. It places on an honest efficiency of creating you assume you’ve a say within the consequence, but you actually don’t. Perhaps as a lower-priced affair I could see this working higher, however on the price point it’s concentrating on there just isn’t enough meat on the bones right here in any sense. If you’re a big fan of the arcade version, you’ll doubtless be happy to have the game at house with all types of extras. I can’t imagine many others discovering lots to love right here, nonetheless.

SwitchArcade Score: 3/5

Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike & the Quest for Stale Gum ($9.99)

One college of considered game critiques is that a sport must be evaluated primarily based on what it got down to do. In that sense, I ought to congratulate Garbage Pail Kids. This very much looks like a lost licensed NES recreation, the type of factor LJN or Acclaim would have had slapped on the again cover of every concern of Darkhawk back within the day. It is very true to its brand, and despite its flaws I suppose just about any fan of the Garbage Pail Kids will recognize it even when they don’t love it. For anyone else, though? Hm.

For those under the age of 35 or so, Garbage Pail Kids was a series of gross-out buying and selling playing cards from Topps that primarily parodied Coleco’s Cabbage Patch Kids dolls but also roasted a few other things alongside the way. Snot and barf had been absolutely big with my era. I have no defense. Some youngsters collected these playing cards and you would see the stickers slapped round here and there. Then they went away, changed by a brand new era of kids’ content material about bodily fluids. The peak of the model was probably just a whisker too early to get an NES recreation on the time, however I wouldn’t have been shocked to see such a factor occur.

Mad Mike & the Quest for Stale Gum aims to be that sport that never existed. It’s a side-scrolling platformer with four playable Garbage Pail Kids, each with their very own talents. You can switch between them freely so long as they’re still alive. Your objective is to journey to various deadlines to gather supplies to make some stale gum, the one treat that’s to Mad Mike’s liking. You make your means via each fairly massive stage, battling enemies, avoiding hazards, and accumulating playing cards from trash cans.

Sometimes you can find different characters who want to trade cards with you. The cards serve as special power-ups or talents, in order that they have value past merely checking them off an inventory. At the end of every degree you’ll face off against a boss, most of which are huge. Collect all the ingredients and you’ll see the ending. It’s all quite anti-climactic. Not a foul game from moment to second, with respectable controls and some effort put into the extent designs. But it’s not a fantastic one, either.

This is an NES recreation and the wrapper it makes use of on the Switch was provided by the folks at Digital Eclipse. It shows. There are some additional bits to assist contextualize all of it, plus a few choices that shall be familiar to anybody who has loved any latest Digital Eclipse collection. It seems like a little bit of overkill for a single game, but let’s not look reward horses in the mouths. Playing it this manner is significantly cheaper than shopping for the actual NES cartridge that has been produced, so that’s one other point in its favor. Certainly simpler to swallow the relative brevity of the sport that way.

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the Garbage Pail Kids and never really received into gross-out humor normally. That means this recreation is really not aimed toward me, and I totally acknowledge that. I assume people who get pleasure from side-scrollers and the Garbage Pail Kids (or related gross-out comedy) will have an honest time with this. Others will probably discover this game to be quite mediocre, significantly with how abruptly it ends. It’s actually worthy of the Garbage Pail, and assuredly doesn’t belong in a garbage pail, however I suppose it’s primarily one for the fans.

SwitchArcade Score: 3/5

New Releases

Lonesome Village ($19.99)

Here’s a cute little journey game that looks like another Zelda-inspired thing, however drops the combat in favor of an emphasis on puzzles and simulation parts. You play as a coyote named Wes who has to explore a tower to rescue the villagers that have disappeared. As you discover them, they’ll return to the town, slowly rebuilding it. Not the longest recreation of its sort however there’s a nice chill vibe to it that makes for a pleasing weekend of casual play.

Missile Command: Recharged ($9.99)

But wait, wasn’t there already a Missile Command: Recharged? Indeed there was. It was the primary of the Recharged line and debuted as a free-to-play mobile release. The recreation was obviously successful of some sort because the Recharged line continued, nevertheless it has always stood out in contrast its successors. Given the name value of Missile Command, I imagine its off-brand feel appeared less than ideal because the Recharged collection grew. So here is a new Missile Command: Recharged. …