November 2023 New Games Thread

[Violentvixen]

Aaaaaahhhh it's 20 minutes until November 1st in Japan aaaaaaahhhh okay I made it

Thread concept:
The basic idea is to list new games that you are interested in, as well as games you are potentially curious about or want to give wider attention to. You can briefly describe them or ask other people to help fill you in. The hope is that regular threads like these can act as a collective filter/discovery mechanism to help people decide what is worth checking out.

"New games" means any new title that is being released or ported this month in any capacity (not "backlogs/what you are playing this month"). The angle here is sharing your anticipation and promoting game discovery (as opposed to sharing comments about a first playthrough in progress - that belongs elsewhere).

• If you want a handy list that covers most of the major upcoming games of the month, here's a few text lists of upcoming games:
  • Giant Bomb
  • Game Informer
  • Wikipedia

Here are the subscription service lists for this month:

Gamepass

• Thirsty Suitors (Cloud, Console, and PC) – November 2
• Football Manager 2024 (PC) – November 6
• Football Manager 2024 Console (Cloud, Console, and PC) – November 6
• Dungeons 4 (Cloud, Console, and PC) – November 9
• Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (Cloud, Console, and PC) – November 9
• Wild Hearts (Cloud, Console, and PC) EA Play – November 9
• Spirittea (Cloud, Console, and PC) – November 13
• Coral Island (Cloud and Xbox Series X|S) – November 14
• Persona 5 Tactica (Cloud, Console, and PC) – November 17
• Rollerdrome (Cloud, Console) – November 28
• Dune Spice Wars (Cloud, Console) – November 28
• Remnant II (Cloud, PC, Xbox Series X|S) Nov 30

PS+

• Mafia II Definitive Edition
• Dragon Ball: The Breakers
• Aliens Fireteam Elite

Feel free to post other lists or list videos that you find useful.
If there is already a thread on TT about a game, please add a link to it.

Final request: If you are the first person to mention a game please provide (at minimum) a short sentence description. (If it is a very big AAA release though, then don't worry about it.) This is a good convention that makes the thread more useful as a discovery mechanism, and especially helps out anyone who doesn't follow the news as closely as you.

 

[Violentvixen]

No pre-orders or must-buys for me this month as there have been too many games recently but I'm keeping an eye on Persona 5 Tactica. I haven't looked into the gameplay that much yet but it looks like the mechanics could be interesting.

Warioware Move It also comes out in November, and while I'm not super interested personally I could see that being a game a friend picks up. I like the Warioware games but never pick them up for myself.

 

[muteKi]

oooh, football manager 24!

...I picked up FM23 recently and still haven't spent any time in it. Probably ought to try that

 

[SabreCat]

I recently removed Wild Hearts from my Steam wishlist after seeing all the reviews talking about how bad the performance was even on strong gaming PCs. Trying it out on Game Pass might be a safer thing!

 

[Bongo]

My love for Super Mario RPG is ancient and enduring, and I'm greatly looking forward to what's both old and new in the remake. The original is one of the greats.

 

[Lokii]

Knuckle Sandwich is finally real on Thanksgiving Eve

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I am provisionally interested in WarioWare: Move It!, a series I always had fun with on the DS. Not sure how its tiny microgames will translate. Super Mario RPG is on my list for Christmas along with Wonder.

But I'm not sure I'll get anything new this month. I'm taking a break from buying new games that are more than a few bucks (currently playing a lot of Vampire Survivors). I have a huge backlog, and new Humble Choice and PS+ stuff to reckon with this month already.

 

[gogglebob]

November 14 or so seems to be the release of Konami's Super Crazy Rhythm Castle. From the trailer, it appears to be Dance Dance Revolution Gaiden. I am going to let this official press release speak for itself:

■ Adventure into Absurdity
An unforgettable journey with a light heart and a tapping foot. You’ll become one with the music and the madness. Unlikely heroes, approach Rhythm Castle! Inside, the unhinged King Ferdinand awaits, ready to defend his crown and ruin your day. Overcome his twisted challenges and beat him in his own game.
Throw beans into an ancient summoning ritual. Shut down a giant eggplant DJ. Cover tiny meat people in gravy for reasons that we promise will become clear. All while keeping the beat!

 

[Pajaro Pete]

Star Ocean Second Story R: November 2, a full remake of Star Ocean 2. Demo was good, lotta quality of life elements.

My Time At Sandrock: Sequel to hit* action rpg life sim My Time at Portia. Leaving early access on November 2 and launching on PS5, Xbox, and Switch (PS4 release to come later). It's not supposed to have parity with the steam version until December though, so it may be something to wait on. Prooooobably want to avoid this on Switch altogether though.

Coral Island: Stardew Valley-alike, releases November 14 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and leaving early access on PC.

 

[Felicia]

The Invincible, a game based on the 1964 science fiction novel of the same name by Polish author Stanisław Lem. Apparently it's not a direct adaptation of the plot of the book, but possibly a sequel, or maybe an alternate take on the same plot points. Having read the book, I'm really curious what the game will do with it. On the other hand, the studio making the game proudly proclaims having people from the development of Cyberpunk 2077 involved, which is making me a bit leery.

Bonus fun fact: This is actually not the first game based on this particular novel. In 1991 there was a Swedish educational game that used the book as the basis for most of its questions.

 

[q 3]

Fashion Dreamer is the latest dress'emup game by syn Sophia, developers of Style Savvy (and previously a variety of licensed pro wrestling games). Not sure how well it'll turn out but here's hoping it's a good 'un!

 

[Octopus Prime]

I’m a sucker for a good Metroidvania and 9 Years in Shadow looks like a good one; Demons Crest except with Magical Girls is how it was pitched to me and now it’s how I’m pitching it to you!

Super Mario RPG is non negotiable

 

[WildcatJF]

Super Mario RPG, Star Ocean The Second Story R, The King of Fighters XIII Global Match and Trip World DX (if it comes out, LRG) will be my lot, alongside import only 御伽活劇 豆狸のバケル ～オラクル祭太郎の祭難!!, or "Fairy Tales Bakel the Raccoon Dog ~Oracle Matsuri Taro's Sorrows" per a hasty Google Translate. Made by Good-Feel, the Kirby's Epic Yarn/Yoshi's Woolly World and Crafted World team, these former Konami Goemon 64 devs return to that formula without the license, and it looks like a phenomenal time.

 

[Becksworth]

I'll probably get Warioware and Mario RPG for Xmas gifts. I got enough between my backlog and upcoming digital only games in the meantime.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I don't think there's anything for me this month, which is good, because I'm drowning in great 2023 games that I haven't had time to play. And at least one of those is a 100-hour RPG...

 

[MetManMas]

The Invincible, a game based on the 1964 science fiction novel of the same name by Polish author Stanisław Lem. Apparently it's not a direct adaptation of the plot of the book, but possibly a sequel, or maybe an alternate take on the same plot points. Having read the book, I'm really curious what the game will do with it. On the other hand, the studio making the game proudly proclaims having people from the development of Cyberpunk 2077 involved, which is making me a bit leery.

Bonus fun fact: This is actually not the first game based on this particular novel. In 1991 there was a Swedish educational game that used the book as the basis for most of its questions.

It's not a good look, but there was bound to be some overlap between staffs in the Polish gaming industry (pretty sure Poland makes most of our modern cyberpunk games), and not everybody involved in Cyberpunk 2077 was behind the shitty parts of it. And as much as we might not like it, it was still a big game and advertising will use name dropping of big games to boost sales of their smaller games whenever they can.

So for now I'm willing to give The Invincible the benefit of the doubt and judge it on its own merits. But I will try and do an effort post on it once I've played it.

 

[John]

Talos Principle 2 comes out in an hour, which I haven't seen much hype for. If you haven't played the first one, it's a first or third person puzzle game, using a whole battery of tools like lasers/refractors/blocks/pressure plates to solve environmental puzzles, where if you fail you usually get blown up by bombs or shot by machine guns. Twist is you're a robot, possibly living out the Flight of the Conchords song "The Humans Are Dead". There's tons of Bungie's Marathon style terminals, and System Shock style audio logs to tell the story, plus some big omnipresent voice that says they're God, telling you not to look behind the curtain.

The second game appears to go much more with the storytelling aspects. I've only watched the trailer, but there is a demo out if people want to see if it's their jam. Reviews are still embargoed as of this post, which is a little concerning since the game will be out very soon. It's on the budget side, $30 new, so maybe they're just worried that it doesn't have dozens of hours of playtime like the first one? Will be revealed soon enough.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I played the first one a bit. Maybe I'll check it out more!

 

[Peklo]

UsoNatsu ~The Summer Romance Bloomed from a Lie~ is the new lesbian visual novel from Lycoris, the studio behind Fatal Twelve... a game which I was intrigued enough to buy, but which I haven't had the chance to read yet. Compared to that battle royale survival game premise, the nominal stakes seem of a more mundane kind here, but whether this ends up being fluff or something else beyond the surface, on to the list it goes.

Yohane the Parhelion -Blaze in the Deepblue- is the latest Castlevania riff from Inti Creates, who have beyond any reasonable doubt proven they can spin that set of inspirative texture as well as anyone. That is not to say this Love Live spinoff will turn out automatically great, but the demo showed promise in featuring none of the sexual exploitation of Inti's homegrown licenses, and a distinct aquatic visual aesthetic wrapped around DS-era CV mechanical stylings, which at this point are novel in the wider context of the genre that's codified from their former model.

Tevi is the newest game from the makers of Rabi-Ribi, a game that is complicated to address. For the people who've played it, it's often championed as one of the best examples of non-linear, sequence-breaking design in the search action milieu... but it might be difficult to reach those estimations because of the game's narrative and presentational content. It's not even that the bunny-girls-in-leotards and other skimpy clothing the cast are inflicted with are the lone issue in isolation, but that the writing voice, in a game that features copious dialogue intermissions, is of the most vapid, inconsequential prattle probably ever seen in the genre, a total flub of a "cute girls doing cute things" formula attempt. The developer clearly has their chops in other areas of game design, and Tevi seems to maintain them while having a relatively more restrained art style (though who knows about the writing), so I'm hopeful its best aspects are more readily interactable with.

 

[That Old Chestnut]

Knuckle Sandwich is finally real on Thanksgiving Eve

!!!

 

[4-So]

I have pre-ordered one (1) copy of Super Mario RPG. I was the first person in my town to rent the game from the local video place back in 1996, I shotgunned it to completion during that rental, and then never touched the game again. I always intended to play it again but I never got around to it. So I'm looking forward to essentially playing the game for the first time again.

 

[Violentvixen]

Updated the original post with some additional Gamepass and PS+ offerings. Also looks like Persona 5 Tactica will be on Gamepass so yay!

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Humble Choice has some good stuff this month btw. Hardspace: Shipbreaker and Unpacking, chiefly.

 

[Lokii]

Just learned this obscure 1997 RPG that's beloved in Korea but is otherwise unknown is seeing a localized remake on the Switch next week!

GENSEISUIKODEN PLUS for Nintendo Switch - Nintendo Official Site

Buy GENSEISUIKODEN PLUS and shop other great Nintendo products online at the official My Nintendo Store.

www.nintendo.com

Somehow, despite all that turmoil, Compile Korea did release a game that, via various means, became a sleeper hit: 1997's Gensei Suikoden, the sixth game in a series of breezy and very silly fantasy/steampunk-themed RPGs released under the Gensei name that were, save for one entry, exclusive to Disc Station, and had zero presence in Japan among anyone but Compile diehards. This game was localised and released via the second issue of the Korean Disc Station and, perhaps owing to its tiny file size and later inclusion on cover discs for other magazines, ended up spreading like wildfire at the turn of the century—every Korean millennial I've spoken to name-checks Gensei Suikoden as one of those ubiquitous computer lab games that everyone knows and loves, and it's said that most of the distributors' late-era mail order sales were dominated by sales of back-issues of whatever copies of that specific issue they still had on hand, and then a ton of burned CD-Rs with Gensei Suikoden on them. When Twitch Plays Pokemon blew up in 2015, Gensei Suikoden followed suit in Korean; Compile's former president Niitani streams on Twitch fairly regularly nowadays, and the vast majority of his regular audience are Koreans who know Compile for this game and not Puyo Puyo or anything else.

I did give the original game a shot last year, thinking I'd give it one session just to feel it out... and I ended up clearing the game that afternoon, with the feeling that I'd missed something—this particular game is martial arts-themed and it was clear that the ending one gets is dependent on their final dan, but it seemed to me like increasing the dan was as simple as leveling your characters, and that replaying the game with more grinding wouldn't be especially compelling. As it turns out, achieving many of the endings requires one to meet several other criteria, most of which is gated behind story branches and other side-content that's quite well-hidden, and said side-content apparently accounts for well over half the content in the entire game; just based on the conversations I've had with Korean folk about this game, it seems like that abundance of hidden content and mystery conditions, along with the quick and easy clear time, are what made the game so popular, as it fostered a ton of believable, push-the-truck-to-find-Mew-esque rumours that had people banging away at it for years, trying to uncover all its secrets. I wonder, then, just how much they might have remixed with this version in order to cultivate the same sort of intrigue, or how many schoolyard rumours have been made real...

- https://cohost.org/gosokkyu/post/3537990-genseisuikoden-plus​

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Just to be clear, this game has nothing at all to do with Konami's Suikoden series, right?

 

[Lokii]

It’s part of a series called Gensei Kitan, which is largely unknown outside Korea.

 

[WildcatJF]

Konami had nothing to do with it. One of Koei's early tactics games also used Suikoden as a title in the 80s lol. Popular name it seems!

 

[Peklo]

"Suikoden" is how Water Margin is translated into Japanese, which is why you'll see it all over. That was the pitch Murayama and co. made to Konami execs who weren't all that enthused about a brand new RPG, so invoking something as culturally ubiquitous as Water Margin (with a fantasy twist, which is the other half of the title) was the lingua franca needed to bridge that generational gap and get approval for the project. I assume this game also riffs on the novel as so many other things do, through funny talking animals and martial arts--not that Konami's Suikoden lacks for those, but clearly there's room for interpretation.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

What is the significance of "Water Margin" as a term?

 

[spines]

it's the title of a famous work of classical chinese literature, in the same vein as journey to the west or romance of the three kingdoms (which have also inspired well-known pieces of modern japanese culture)