By Nelson Schneider - 07/02/23 at 12:31 AM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! As July rolls is, there’s still a lot of games being released. Has the start of the Summer Games Drought been pushed back yet again? Let’s dive into the dumpster and see what we can find!
There’s not much shovelware to speak of for July. I kinda stretched it a bit to get to three. There is, of course, a Licensed game by *dry-heave* Disney, called “Disney Illusion Island” (perhaps ‘Delusion Island’ would have been more appropriate). There’s also a Licensed game based on… whatever this is, “Ninja Kidz: Time Masters.” Then there are two episodes in the super-casual non-game, “Coffee Talk.”
Unfortunately, there are three times as many ports, remasters, remakes, and other rehashes than shovelware. Does that make ports the new shovelware? Well, rhetorically, since the trend of more ports than new releases has been going on for the better part of a decade already. Anyway, you know the routine by now: The Nintendo Switch is the biggest dumping ground for old things, followed by PlayStation, with Xbox only getting one of these not-so-new titles: “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach,” “EarthNight,” “Mail Mole,” “No Place Like Home,” “Button Button Up!” (not a typo), “Fight’N Rage,” “Return to Monkey Island,” “BPM,” “Greyhill Incident,” “The Valiant,” and “Raiden 3 x Mikado Manaix.”
Even with all the crap on the docket, there are still 7 new multi-platform releases for our consideration… and I consider them all to be pretty dubious. There are sequels in “Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons,” bringing an ancient Beat ‘em Up back for some nostalgia flogging; “Remnant 2,” a completely unnecessary, undesirable sequel to the world’s first Soulslike with Guns; and the latest entry in the long-winded and mindnumbing RPG seris, “The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie.” New multi-platform games aren’t looking too much better. There’s a new crummy-looking Metroidvania in “Ghost Song.” There’s yet another Soulslike-looking dumpster fire in “Immortals of Aveum.” Capcom’s stupid-looking dinosaur-hoard-shooter, “Exoprimal” is finally coming out, to a cacophony of yawns. Lastly, there’s “Mercenaries Rebirth: Call of the Wild Lynx,” a new Indie Tactical RPG that could go either way.
In the realm of exclusives, there’s… not much. But ‘not much’ is better than ‘nothing,’ which is what we’ve grown used to in this multi-platform era. Sony is getting an exclusive entry in the traditionally-PC-centric ‘Sword and Fairy’ RPG series by Taiwanese developer, Softstar… and if it’s anything like the other Taiwanese RPG I played, Sony can keep it. They are also getting the console exclusive release of an Indie Sandbox game called “Tchia,” which looks to take the possession mechanic from “Super Mario Odyssey” to its logically stupid extremes. Nintendo, on the other hand is getting one console-exclusive Visual Novel in “Crime O’clock” (and since I always give Microsoft and Sony the benefit when they have ‘exclusives’ that are also on PC, I’m extending Nintendo the same courtesy, even though they are a completely inactive participant in the practice, as this is a third-party game), one absolutely-exclusive Visual Novel in “Radiant Tale,” and one first-party game that might actually matter in “Pikmin 4.” While I didn’t enjoy “Pikmin 3” all that much, I loved “Pikmin 2” and enjoyed the original game in a somewhat limited way, so I’m willing to overlook one stinker and give this latest one a shot, though I’m not setting my expectations particularly high.
Ech… that’s it. Out of all the stuff coming in July, the only one I’m even thinking about is “Pikmin 4”. Other than that… it really doesn’t even look like the Industry is trying. Maybe the Summer Games Drought is upon us!
Backlog Embiggened: +1
