Game Topz (gamtopz@gmail.com)

The term “Souls-like" gets tossed around almost as much as Rogue-like nowadays, so it’s not always easy to understand what that actually means when a game says it’s a Souls-like or Souls-inspired. For myself, I take it to mean an action game that has an intricate combat system that rewards patience and skill over wild button mashing, and isn’t afraid to kill you in an instant if you do hack and slash away carelessly. In that context Watcher Chronicles from Third Sphere Game Studios does back up its Souls-like claim and it does so in a way that is surprisingly efficient and well-suited to mobile touchscreen play. You are a lost soul wandering Purgatory, and your job in Watcher Chronicles is to battle through dungeons laying waste to all sorts of enemies before squaring up against ginormous bosses, 20 of them in total across the whole game, in your effort to fend off a bunch of crumb bums who are trying to turn Purgatory into the next Hell. It’s a 2D side-scrolling game that take...

One of my all-time favorite platformers for mobile is 2016’s Super Cat Tales from developer Neutronized. And seeing how it was one of my favorites, when its bigger and better sequel rolled around in the fall of 2018 it automatically entered into my favorite platformers list by default. Super Cat Tales 2 truly was a huge step up over the original, with an ingenious touchscreen control scheme, well-designed levels, and a plethora of adorable cat characters. It was about this time of year back in 2020 that the game’s story was wrapped up with the release of the third and final story chapter, and we knew that Neutronized was hard at work on more games in the Super Cat Tales series. Well this week saw the debut of the newest Super Cat Tales game, and it’s titled Super Cat Tales: PAWS . Check out the fantastic trailer. Neutronized maintains an excellent presence on YouTube where he releases numerous videos on the development process and other aspects of being a solo indie developer, ...

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for April 29th, 2022. Even though we had a ton of releases yesterday, we somehow have a ton more today. The biggest of the bunch is Nintendo’s new Nintendo Switch Sports , but there are plenty of other games to fit a wide range of tastes. We’ve got summaries of all of them, of course. We also have the lists of new and expiring sales, and in the case of the former it is quite a large load. I had to heavily curate it or else I wouldn’t be going home tonight, friends. Let’s get to it! New Releases Nintendo Switch Sports ($39.99) SwitchArcade Highlight! It’s been a minute or two since Wii Sports rocked the gaming world with its simple, accessible motion control gameplay. Things have changed a lot since then, but I think we can all still have a bit of fun with motion controlled bowling. You get that here, along with five other sports. Soccer, volleyball, bowling, tennis, badminton, and chambara are the sports this time aro...

When developer Super Evil Mega Corp launched Vainglory nearly a decade ago, it became the first MOBA to break through and achieve any kind of success on the mobile platform. It enjoyed several years of that success before things started to wind down in the face of numerous other MOBA options arriving on mobile, and in 2020, faced with the potential of the Vainglory servers being shut down, Super Evil Mega Corp allowed the community to take things over and for the past couple of years Vainglory has effectively been a community-run game. It was really cool to see the developer step in and save Vainglory from doom, but at the same time they had been putting all of their efforts into a new game called Catalyst Black . It has been in various states of soft launch or testing in the two years since its original unveiling, but this week Catalyst Black finally received an official release date of May 25th as well as a brand new trailer. Catalyst Black is a team-based battleground shoote...

Back in May last year Rocketcat Games and Madgarden’s fantastic road trip zombie apocalypse simulator Death Road to Canada ($14.99) got the LIVER update bringing in new special characters, a few new locations, new random characters, custom character cosmetics, more unlockable hats, a new perk, a new trait and much more. Since then, the team has been hard at work at the new major update for the game. Death Road to Canada was just updated with the MANDIBLE update on Steam to bring in new locations, a new major feature letting you change your controlled character without pausing, special characters, the Duffle Bag, new zombie heads, and a lot more. Read the detailed update notes here on Steam. Rocketcat confirmed that the update will be hitting mobile following the PC version . Watch a short clip showcasing this update below: It has been amazing seeing how much support the game has gotten for so many years . I assume this update will be arriving in the next few months with the co...

Tom Young’s Dadish series on many platforms saw a second entry hit early last year, and we are getting a third game this June in the form of Dadish 3 . Dadish 3 will launch on iOS, Android, Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. Dadish 3 features the titular character trying to find his kids who have gotten on board a bus for a suspicious field trip. It features dolphin riding, deserts, sewers, lovely animations, and great music. Dadish 3 also features his estranged spouse, a tomato named Momato. At launch it will have more than 50 levels. These games are excellent for pickup and play so I will definitely play Dadish 3 on iOS when it arrives. Watch the Dadish 3 trailer below: Dadish 3 will be free on iOS and Android with a single in app purchase to to remove ads. The in app purchase is priced at $2.99 according to the App Store page. On consoles and PC, Dadish 3 will be priced at $9.99. If you’d like to check it out at launch on June 15th, you can pre-order Dadish 3 on the Ap...

Apple Arcade’s newest addition has started rolling out now worldwide in the form of the App Store Great Prune+ () . If you’ve played or heard of Prune yet, it is a love letter to trees with gorgeous visuals and lovely interactions. It also feels great to play on all touch devices. The original Prune has won many awards and we love it. Read our glowing review of it here . Prune+ is easily one of the best additions to Apple Arcade if you haven’t played it before so you should definitely check it out. It is available here on Apple Arcade. The original Prune launch trailer is below. Alongside Prune+ , a few notable games on the service have gotten interesting updates. Cozy Grove hits version 5.0.0 today with the New Neighbears DLC that adds four ghost bears with personal stories. This DLC also adds a new critter type: butterflies, a new song, closet expansions, the Spring Festival, and a lot more. The DLC arrives as a part of the update on Apple Arcade while it is paid DLC on ot...

Following the addition of Annie of the Stars to the Skullgirls roster back in October of 2020, the first new character to be added to the series in 5 years, developer Hidden Variable announced that they weren’t quite done with adding in new characters just yet. In May of last year they announced that Umbrella was on deck to be the next one added to the roster. Umbrella is the younger sister of existing Skullgirls character Parasoul, and like her big sis she also has a freaky sentient umbrella companion named Hungern who helps her fight her battles. Umbrella has been available in Skullgirls on other platforms for a while, but this week she has finally arrived in Skullgirls Mobile with the release of a major version 5.0 update. Check out one of the many different variants of Umbrella in Skullgirls Mobile below. As always, Hidden Variable has done a tremendous job of detailing all the nitty gritty of this latest update over on the official Skullgirls Mobile forums , so be sure...

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for April 28th, 2022. It’s Thursday, and like most Thursdays this month we’ve got a couple dozen new games to look at. More, actually. We’ve got summaries of all of them, plus the lists of new and expiring sales. That’s about it, but those new game summaries will definitely take you a while to get through. I know they took me a while to write. Let’s get going before my fingers fall off for real. New Releases Bugsnax ($24.99) SwitchArcade Highlight! If you’re looking for charm, Bugsnax has it in spades. Explore a colorful island populated by weird insect/snack hybrids known as Bugsnax. Try to catch them all, chill out, and have a nice time wandering about getting to know everyone. The attractive visuals have lost only a tiny bit of their shine in the transition from PlayStation 5 to Switch, and this is a game well-suited to portable play. I think the game’s personality is its strong point, while the gameplay mechanics ...