SwitchArcade Round-Up: Today’s Nintendo Direct, Full Review of ‘EGGCONSOLE Star Trader’, Plus New Releases and Sales

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 27th, 2024. In today’s article, we kick things off with a bit of news. After that, we’ve got one review for you to snack on.

Just my look at the latest EGGCONSOLE release from last week, and the regulars probably know how that’s going to play out. After that, we have just one new release to take a gander at. Luckily, it’s a good one.

We finish things up with the usual lists of new and expiring sales, and they’re okay as well. I have no idea what’s in that Direct tonight, so maybe it will make for a more exciting Tuesday? That is a mystery I cannot solve as I write, but you already know the answer to as you read.

Let’s get into it! News Check Out Today’s Nintendo Direct/Indie World Showcase As recently prophesized by the once-in-a-while-correct insiders, Nintendo has scheduled a Nintendo Direct for August at nearly the last minute. We’re getting 40 minutes in total, split between a Partner Showcase and Indie World Showcase.

Don’t expect any first-party stuff, and definitely do not expect anything about the Switch’s successor console. As you read this, the presentation should be long since finished. You can watch it above, and I’ll summarize the most important points tomorrow.

49) It always comes down to two questions with these non-translated EGGCONSOLE releases. First, how is the game itself? Second, can it be enjoyed without understanding Japanese?

Star Trader is an interesting game, though not what I would call a great one. Falcom fused a Japanese-style adventure game format with some side-scrolling shoot ’em up stages, and it doesn’t do either of those things amazingly well. The adventure game side at least has some nice art, and it’s interesting to see a shoot ’em up try to tell a story in this way.

You’re mostly talking to people and picking up quests, the successful completion of which will earn you money you can use to upgrade your ship. This is important, because you’ll need to keep that cash coming in to stay on top of the action segments. As for the shoot ’em up parts… well, the PC-8801 wasn’t very good at scrolling the screen smoothly.

So what you get here is a very choppy experience, and one that I’m not sure would even be all that great if things were moving at a normal clip. I’m not sure which part of the game is meant to serve the other, but in the end Star Trader is more interesting than it is good. Which naturally brings us to the second question.