Game Topz (gamtopz@gmail.com)

Back in November we told you about a grassroots campaign from Angry Birds fans to convince Rovio to bring back some of their earliest mobile games including the original Angry Birds . You see, those early Rovio games were built using outdated technology, and eventually some of them became incompatible with the latest smartphone hardware and operating systems, thus leading to them being pulled from the various app stores. Over the past few years, Angry Birds fans have started up a campaign called #BringBack2012 to signal to Rovio that they’d like the original Angry Birds game back, preferably the 2012 version when many consider the game was at its peak of perfection. The campaign was successful at getting the attention of Rovio, who promised to seriously look into bringing back the original Angry Birds . Today they’ve come through on that promise with the release of Rovio Classics: Angry Birds on iOS and Android . Now, if you owned the original Angry Birds way back in the day,

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for March 31st, 2022. I’ll level with you, dearest of chums: I got my vaccine booster yesterday and today I am as sick as a dog. For a couple of hours there I couldn’t even move, I felt so heavy. But I pounded back some medicine and made my way to TouchArcade Towers so that I could make sure you’ve got the latest Switch goodies to read. News! New Releases! Sales! It’s a bumper crop today, everyone. Let’s go to it while I can still hold my head up! News Surprise! More Retro Games Have Come to Nintendo Switch Online Wow, March has been quite the month for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers, especially those with the Expansion Pass. New Mario Kart 8 tracks, F-Zero GX , a few new Genesis games… but what about our pals that just have the basic subscription? They’re probably almost finished Earthbound Beginnings and Earthbound by now. Well, three games for the NES and Super NES apps more or less dropped out of the sky to

Innersloth just released the first major Among Us (Free) update for 2022 bringing in the long awaited friends list functionality. Among Us now lets you use a unique friend code, send and receive friend requests, block players, check who you recently played with, and more. The current build doesn’t allow linking and unlinking of existing accounts as the team works on ironing out any issues. New free cosmetics have been added including Ghostface cosmetics free for all platforms, Halo Infinite ones on Xbox, Ratchet and Clank ones on PlayStation platforms. The friends list will be improved in the future with the ability to view online and offline status as well. Watch the Among Us Friends List update trailer below: You just need to login to the game before April 30th to claim the free cosmetics. Innersloth says the next update will focus on fixing bugs and to not expect major content following this one for the next update. If you’ve not gotten it yet, Among Us is available for

Capcom’s new free to play mobile Monster Hunter game Monster Hunter Riders for iOS and Android released back in February 2020 . If you’ve not kept up with it, Monster Hunter Riders followed Monster Hunter Stories in terms of aesthetics with characters that look older and it is set in a world where monsters and riders live together featuring many series favorites like Rathalos, Zinogre, and more. Today, Capcom announced that Monster Hunter Riders is shutting down this June with in app purchases being disabled from today. This shut down is because Capcom cannot provide the same experience going forward due to some external factors. Monster Hunter Riders never made it out of Japan and it is an online-only game so this announcement stings even more for those including myself, who were hoping to play it in English in the future. Monster Hunter Riders service will shut down on June 16th, 2022 after which it will no longer be playable. If you bought any in app purchases and have lef

Each and every day new mobile games are hitting the App Store, and so each week we put together a big old list of all the best new releases of the past seven days. Back in the day the App Store would showcase the same games for a week, and then refresh those features each Thursday. Because of that developers got into the habit of releasing their games throughout Wednesday or very early Thursday in order to hopefully get one of those coveted features spots. Nowadays the App Store refreshes constantly, so the need for everyone to release all on the same day has diminished. Still, we’ve kept our weekly Wednesday night format as for years that’s the time people knew to check TouchArcade for the list of new games. And so without further ado please check out the full list of this week’s new games below, and let us know in the comments section which games you’ll be picking up!   Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield ($2.99) iTunes Description Survive A futuristic Tokyo style Detroit in this 3D r

Genshin Impact (Free) from developer HoYoverse (formerly miHoYo) has just gotten its big version 2.6 update . Genshin Impact 2.6 – Zephyr of the Violet Garden pre-installation began a few days ago, and it has gone live bringing in a new Chasm area with massive aboveground and underground space, five star Hydro swordsman Kamisato Ayato, a seasonal celebration event in Inazuma, support for the upcoming Venti and Ayaka reruns, and a lot more. As revealed before, Kamisato Ayato is the head of the Yashiro Commission’s Kamisato Clan and his story quest will have Ayato dealing with various challenges as Inazuma shifts gears into a new era of progress. Yesterday, the developers showcased him in action as usual before a major update with new characters and content. Watch the trailer for Kamisato Ayato in Genshin Impact 2.6 update below: Alongside today’s update on all platforms, if you play Genshin Impact on PlayStation, you can claim a special promotional set of items if you have a P

Following Feral Interactive’s announcement that Total War: Medieval II () is coming to iOS and Android, pre-registrations and pre-orders went live alongside a new trailer for the upcoming conversion. Today, Feral Interactive showcased an extended gameplay video of Total War: Medieval II running on three devices ahead of its release next week. This gameplay video gives us a look at the interface, gameplay, how players of prior games will be able to adapt to this, and more. Watch the Total War: Medieval II iOS and Android extended gameplay video with footage captured from iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPad Pro, and Google Pixel 6 devices below: So far, it looks excellent and I can’t wait to see how it feels on both the smaller screen and my iPad Pro. Total War: Medieval II releases on April 7th for both iOS and Android. It will be priced at $14.99 or regional equivalent on both stores. If you’d like to play it at launch, you can pre-order Total War: Medieval II on the App Store for iOS

Hands down one of my favorite video games of the past couple years is Streets of Rage 4 , which was a collaborative effort between Dotemu, Lizardcube, and Guard Crush Games. Growing up I was huge fan of the original Streets of Rage games on the SEGA Genesis, and seeing a brand new sequel coming more than 2 decades later by the same group of folks who lovingly remastered another childhood favorite of mine, Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap , meant that I couldn’t have been more excited for its release. I nabbed it on Switch the moment it came out and it was everything I hoped it would be and more. The developers remained extremely respectful of the original trilogy of games while also improving on the beat ’em up gameplay to offer something more strategic than your average button masher. Throw in a truly excellent hand-drawn art style, a killer soundtrack, and more content and secrets than you can shake your fist at and we had ourselves one truly glorious modern take on a beloved classic.

It looks like the very long wait for Diablo Immortal is finally going to come to an end. Blizzard just began iOS pre-orders for Diablo Immortal alongside Android pre-registrations that have been live for a while now. If you’ve somehow not kept up with it, Diablo Immortal was originally announced back in late 2018 for mobile. It was then delayed to make improvements in a number of areas based on the feedback from the closed tests. Diablo Immortal was then confirmed for 2022 and the App Store even has an expected release date listed. Today, Blizzard showcased the 30 million pre-registration Horadrim Cosmetic set reward in a new trailer. Check it out in the Tweet below: Face Hell in style. Pre-register today to unlock exclusive cosmetics at launch. https://t.co/7mbrgXguyW pic.twitter.com/dhuxTwTGL9 — Diablo Immortal (@DiabloImmortal) March 28, 2022 It is good to see Blizzard finally begin iOS pre-orders. So far, all the tests and betas were on Android only in addition to

Originally announced in August last year , Shining Force: Heroes of Light and Darkness from Hive (under the Korean company Vespa) is no longer in development (via gamecast and GameMeca ). Shining Force: Heroes of Light and Darkness was an officially licensed new entry in SEGA’s Shining Force series aiming to bring the fun of tactical RPGs to mobile. Shining Force: Heroes of Light and Darkness has new protagonists and features some returning characters from the series. Development has stopped due to the development cost and time needed going by the recent reports. Watch the first trailer for Shining Force: Heroes of Light and Darkness below: Despite many being disappointed that SEGA’s Shining Force was coming back as a free to play mobile game, Shining Force: Heroes of Light and Darkness looked very good in trailers and screenshots. It was even aiming to be released worldwide in the first half of this year with the licensing rights including North America, Japan, South Korea

Capcom just announced that it is delisting the original Ace Attorney Trilogy HD (Free) on iOS this June. Capcom’s history on iOS over the last decade has been very rocky with the publisher releasing some superb games on mobile, but also letting some either get delisted or remain broken for a long time. The Ace Attorney Trilogy HD was the only modern way to play this excellent trio of games until the Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox, and PC version released a few years ago with proper widescreen support, improved audio, and more. Capcom’s announcement comes with some good news as well, but mostly bad news. A new version of the Ace Attorney Trilogy will be coming to both iOS and Android this summer but old saves and purchase history will not carry over. I imagine this new version will be a port of the current version on consoles with some tweaks for playing on mobile. Watch the trailer for the Nintendo Switch version below: One thing to note is that the Nintendo Switch version of th

Bandai Namco Entertainment just announced a brand new action game to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Sword Art Online in the form of Sword Art Online Variant Showdown (via Gematsu ). Sword Art Online Variant Showdown is in development for iOS and Android and it will be a free to play game. Sword Art Online Variant Showdown is the newest of the many Sword Art Online games in recent years. Prior games have been on mobile, PC, and console platforms with a new game release almost each year. Bandai Namco Entertainment hasn’t revealed many details about Sword Art Online Variant Showdown yet, but the publisher released a trailer for the game to go alongside pre-registration beginning. Watch the trailer for Sword Art Online Variant Showdown below: Sword Art Online Variant Showdown will release worldwide this year. If you’d like to check it out, pre-registrations are now live on the official website and the official Facebook page for the game. App Store pre-orders are not live as

Genshin Impact (Free) from developer HoYoverse (formerly miHoYo) is getting its big version 2.6 update this week following the release of 2.5 across iOS, Android, PC, PS5, and PS4. Today, Genshin Impact 2.6 Zephyr of the Violet Garden pre-installation has gone live on mobile and PC platforms. If you’re on iOS, the download size for this is 1.41GB. This update will bring in a new Chasm area with massive aboveground and underground space, five star Hydro swordsman Kamisato Ayato, a seasonal celebration event in Inazuma, Venti and Ayaka reruns, and a lot more. Kamisato Ayato is the head of the Yashiro Commission’s Kamisato Clan and his story quest will have Ayato dealing with various challenges as Inazuma shifts gears into a new era of progress. Ayato uses a sword and Hydro Vision. Watch the trailer for Genshin Impact 2.6 update below: Genshin Impact version 2.6 pre-installation can be done on iOS, Android, and PC so that you will not have to download the big patch completely

In the middle of last month we brought you the news that Soul Tide , an anime dungeon crawler RPG from developer IQI Games and publisher LemcnSun Entertainment, was up for pre-registration following a successful beta testing period. After a tremendous response to the pre-registration campaign, it’s finally time for Soul Tide to officially launch out into the world. And when might this be happening, you ask? How about… tomorrow! That’s right, the game’s official launch date is March 29th at 9am (UTC-7) which, if my feeble time zone skills are correct, should mean 9am Pacific and 12pm Eastern for those of us here in the US. Not long to go now! As you can see in the trailer below, Soul Tide is a blend of several different genres. At its heart it’s a hero collector RPG with a huge roster of fierce female combatants to acquire, called Dolls, as you fight back against an evil witch who has plunged your world into darkness. The game’s story has a dramatic anime-inspired flare and utilizes

Hey we’re back! After missing last week’s show due to various circumstances, we make up for it in a BIG way with, well, basically a pretty typical show, actually. We discuss our favorite Wordle variations, my latest home renovation criminal incident, Eli’s harsh interaction with his neighborhood state trooper, and then we spend the entire back half of the show talking about the big mobile gaming stories of the past two weeks. As always, all those stories can be found in the Show Notes below. Don’t forget to shoot us emails with any questions, feedback, or anything else relevant or irrelevant to podcast@toucharcade.com . We read ’em all, and love decoding messages written entirely in emoji. As always, you can listen to us with the links below… And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and/or drop us a review in iTunes. Much appreciated! As a companion to this audio podcast, we also do a video version of the same show that is exclusive to Patreon which allows you to see us pla

I was super excited when we first learned last month that Awesome Games Studio would be bringing their acclaimed run ‘n gun shooter Fury Unleashed to mobile devices. The game was described as blending roguelike elements and loot similar to something like Dead Cells , but in a run ‘n gun shooter format similar to something like Contra or Metal Slug . That description alone pushed all the right buttons for me, and I was psyched that this would be a full-featured port of the game with a premium price tag and would even include the online cooperative mode from other platforms. I was right to be psyched, Fury Unleashed is awesome! But awesome… with caveats. The more I’ve been playing, the more the positives have been outweighing any of the negatives I’ve noticed, but it’s still worth noting that some issues have cropped up in Fury Unleashed’s journey to mobile. First is just a general lack of polish. Text is on the tiny side, the occasional pop-ups that seem like they should have text

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for March 25th, 2022. Today sees the release of the latest big release from Nintendo, Kirby and the Forgotten Land . But there are several other games besides that worth taking a look at, and a few more besides. We’ve got summaries of everything, as usual. Plus a whole bunch of new sales, and a list of discounts expiring over the weekend. Let’s get to work! New Releases Kirby and the Forgotten Land ($59.99) SwitchArcade Highlight! Kirby heads to full 3D for the first time in this wild adventure. Play as Kirby, the best little guy in the world of Nintendo, as he tries to rescue his friends in a mysterious new world. All the usual Kirby gameplay is here, with the added ability to partially swallow larger objects and use them for nefarious purposes. Rebuild the Waddle-Dee village and enjoy some minigames between stages. I might be reviewing this one, but there’s a demo if you don’t want to wait for my silly opinions. Dev