dailynewsnblog
£15.74 (-30% off) £22.49
It looks like The Witness and it plays a bit like StreetPass Garden, but Botany Manor blooms into something that’s not only entirely its own, but also something quite special. Don’t let its cosy aesthetics fool you — Botany Manor is packed with nicely challenging, well-designed puzzles, and isn’t afraid to tackle heavy subjects, too.
£22.74 (-35% off) £34.99
Capcom Fighting Collection 2 brings an incredibly strong roster of classic arcade fighters to Nintendo Switch in one of the best compendiums of its work to date.
This is top-notch fare, a slew of incredible games, some appearing for the first time since their original releases, replete with rollback netcode for online play, tons of unlockables, Japanese versions of all eight titles, and modern training modes to catch you up to speed.
With both Power Stones, an unbeatable Capcom vs SNK double bill and Project Justice leading the charge, there’s really very little to complain about here. Excellent stuff.
Capcom has loads on sale, so check out the Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle, Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, and Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection if you like brawling.
£3.59 (-80% off) £17.99
Card Shark is the kind of game that at first blush seems like it just won’t work. Lots of dialogue bookended by brief, simplistic minigame sequences seems like it would make for an experience that would lose its lustre quickly, yet we couldn’t put it down.
Witty writing, high-stakes gameplay, and a gorgeous art style all come together here to make for a game that’s well-executed and unique in its appeal. If you’re looking to try something awesome that notably bucks most modern gaming trends, Card Shark is absolutely something we’d recommend, well worth your time and money.
£8.99 (-80% off) £44.99
Catherine: Full Body is a fantastic revamp of a bona fide cult classic. With an excellent new character and several new endings slickly inserted into an already highly entertaining narrative – not to mention a slew of fun new modes – this is the definitive version of an outstanding game.
If you’ve never played Catherine before, then you’re in for an absolute treat, and if you have, we’d say there’s enough new content here to make it worth diving in all over again.
£8.54 (-50% off) £17.09
As an adventure game, Chicory: A Colorful Tale is quite sincerely up there with the very best of the genre.
There’s plenty to see and do and a full completion run will probably take you 25-30 hours. The characters and their travails are rich and likeable, the game’s sense of humour is generally inspired, and it’s all very sweet without being sugary-twee and talking down to the player. It’s also an affecting little tearjerker that will definitely strike a chord if you make art, and almost certainly will even if you don’t – so long as you’re capable of pretty basic empathy.
Chicory is simple to play but impressively long and complex, with perfect controls, performance and visuals. Throw yourself into painting the world and you’ll be left with a game that’s very much your own and speaks to you directly – a beautiful marriage of mechanics, themes and visuals.
£2.69 (-70% off) £8.99
Clockwork Aquario was a long time coming, but it was definitely worth the wait. An obvious labour of love, this ill-fated arcade gem has been improbably recovered, restored, and reassembled, and it never feels like anything less than a carefully unearthed treasure that’s been polished until it shines.
It won’t take long to beat — and it shouldn’t, because a good 30-year-old arcade platformer is supposed to be short and sweet — but what the game lacks in length it more than makes up for in entertainment and raw creativity, with stages pitting you against everything from mechanical flying fish to a gigantic egg-dropping robo-penguin.
It’s the sort of game you come back to again and again because you want to rather than have to, and we feel lucky to have it.
£34.49 (-43% off) £59.99
Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition was a remarkable launch-day port for Switch 2. CD Projekt Red’s deep, diverse, and tangible world is fully realised with impressive performance for such a low-powered device.
If you’ve not taken your first steps into Night City already, or you’re a long-time player with a portable-play itch that needs scratching, you’re in for a serious treat, choom.
£10.19 (-40% off) £16.99
In 2023, a year dominated by titanic, big-budget releases like Tears of the Kingdom and Mario Wonder, off-the-wall roguelike Dave The Diver stepped up to the plate and knocked the ball clear of the park with a heaving swing.
Its charming animations and writing supplement a mechanically dense experience that never stops dangling a new carrot to chase. You owe it to yourself to pick up this outstandingly funny, enthralling, and weird gem.
£4.49 (-75% off) £17.99
Death’s Door is a modern classic, utilising old gameplay ideas in a new setting to make for a short and sweet experience you won’t want to miss. The snappy combat, rewarding exploration, and relaxing music will stick with you once you’ve finished, and while it may not have anything ‘new’ to offer, Death’s Door is so high quality that you’ll hardly have time to think about its lack of innovation.
Any fans of Zelda or Soulslike games will adore this – Acid Nerve has crafted an experience that’s absolutely worth your time and money.
£2.99 (-40% off) £4.99
Demon Turf: Neon Splash is a much better game than its predecessor thanks to the complete removal of the underwhelming combat. Not only that, but the experience feels more focused and streamlined without the requirement of a hub world or mandatory collectibles. This is Demon Turf at its best, and we sincerely hope to see more of the same in a true sequel later down the line.
£6.74 (-50% off) £13.49
An attractive art style, strong combat system, and meaningful player choices make Dicefolk a brilliant addition to the library, as it manages to feel fresh without getting too far away from the core ideas that make these sorts of games so addictive and popular.
Dicefolk is a good entry point to the genre, in fact; approachable without being patronising and it’s tons of fun once you get a grasp of its various quirks.
£19.99 (-20% off) £24.99
Thanks to the sublime writing, fantastic voiceovers, and a level of animation you’d usually expect from a big-budget streaming series, Dispatch is the kind of superhero drama that draws you in with the sexy characters and funny one-liners, and hooks you until the bitter end with the potential of its ever-changing arcs.
The lack of visual censorship removal options on Switch is a strange one, and some will undoubtedly find things lacking in the gameplay department, but we’re already gearing up for a potential ‘season 2’. It won’t be for everyone, but if it clicks, it really clicks. Is it too soon for a ‘rewatch’?
£1.99 (-75% off) £7.99
Evergate is a wonderfully designed puzzle/platformer that starts off strong and goes from strength to strength over the course of its campaign. Every new world you encounter here adds a new twist to proceedings, gradually becoming more complex as it layers mechanics on top of one each other, enabling you to experiment and come up with your own unique ways to bound across its intricate levels.
Speed-running here, for us, feels like it was tacked on for no real reason but, besides this one little misstep, this really is an essential purchase for puzzle/platforming fans and a standout example of its genre on Switch.
£9.44 (-30% off) £13.49
Fast Fusion may not have the most comprehensive collection of tracks, but it’s easily the most accomplished entry in Shin’en Multimedia’s series so far. The new jump ability adds a new layer of strategy to the gameplay, while experimenting with the fusion mechanic to find the perfect vehicle is a joy.
The occasional grinding to save up money can be a momentary drag, but if you’re after something a bit more ‘hardcore’ than Mario Kart World, Fast Fusion is a no-brainer, and an absolute must-buy.
Fast RMX is also on sale, and looks particularly fetching on Switch 2 using the new Handheld Boost Mode.
