Daily news (February 16): Nintendo Direct / RICO London

16 February 202116 February 2021 Lite_Agent 2Awesome Studio, 505 Games, Artplay, Blasphemous, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Dry Drowning, Ground Shatter Games, Horned Knight, Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire, RICO London, Studio V, Super Mario World, Team17, The Game Kitchen, Thunderful, Tool Assisted Speedrun, VLG Publishing

Today’s Daily news: next Nintendo Direct presentation announced for this week, but also…

RICO London
Blasphemous: Strife & Ruin
Dry Drowning
Horned Knight
Tool Assisted Speedruns

Nintendo Direct

Nintendo have announced that the next Nintendo Direct presentation will take place this week, on February 17th/18th. It will feature no less than 50 minutes of details about games already released (such as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and most likely Animal Crossing: New Horizons), but also titles releasing during the first half of the year.

It will be livestreamed on the following days and at the following times:

Europe: February 17th at 11PM
UK: February 17th at 10PM
North America (ET): February 17th at 5PM
North America (PT): February 17th 2PM
Japan: February 18th at 7AM

Source: Nintendo (Twitter)

RICO London

Aksys Games have announced that they will release RICO London in North America.

Here’s some details about the game:

London, New Year’s Eve 1999. You are a cop tasked with neutralizing the notorious and violent gangs of the city. Play solo or with a friend in co-op mode and move through a variety of procedurally generated levels to wipe out the gang threat that is increasing all over the capital in this ode to retro arcade shooters. Many of the levels are set in abandoned buildings such as derelict hospitals and office spaces in East London, most of which have been taken over by gangs.
At the end of each level, players can upgrade their characters with a selection of random items and further enhance your upgrades with effects to make them more effective.A global leader board and rewards will support the co-op features in game. For this iteration, the developers focused on the aspects of gameplay that were most popular in the original, resulting in more enemy variants and environmental scenes compared to the first game, and hostage situations and new weapons have been added to ramp up the intensity.

RICO London (Switch) does not have a release date yet.

Source: Aksys Games PR

Blasphemous: Strife & Ruin

Team17 have announced another major Software update for Blasphemous, called Strife & Ruin. It features a collaboration with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (yes, another one!), but also some more additional content and neat features. It will be released on February 18th worldwide.

Here’s a trailer and some details:

Tasked with helping Miriam return to her world, players must complete a series of platforming challenges and collect shards to repair her portal home. Filled with traps that force the player to hone their precision platforming abilities, those who pass the test and help Miriam return to her world will have a special reward bestowed upon them.
‘Strife and Ruin’ also introduces Boss Rush Mode, which becomes available after completing the main storyline. Ramping up the challenge to new heights, the mode features courses containing a selection of bosses that players take on using any of their save files. Each run is assigned a score based on various factors, with medals available for the toughest of Penitents.
A Demake area has also been added that pays homage to classic 8-bit platformers, providing a linear experience, played inside an arcade cabinet that is hidden in a secret location on Cvstodia, with reimagined visuals to match the retro style. Core mechanics will change to suit the classic style as well, as The Penitent One strives to gather five golden skulls and defeat a new boss to reap the rewards. Continuing the retro theme, The Game Kitchen has also included several new render modes, emulating older TV effects that can be applied throughout the entire standard game.

Source: Team17 PR

Dry Drowning

VLG Publishing have announced that Dry Drowning will be released on February 22nd in Europe and North America.

Source: VLG Publishing PR

Horned Knight

2Awesome Studio have announced that Horned Knight will be released on February 26th in Europe and North America. It will be available for digital pre-purchase from February 19th, with a 20% discount (regular price: 5.99€).

Source: 2Awesome Studio PR

Tool Assisted Speedruns

Here’s the latest Tool Assisted Speedrun videos for Nintendo platforms:

Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire (GameBoy Advance) “Sapphire Field” by eliilek in 08:41.69
Super Mario World “arbitrary code execution” by Masterjun in 02:25.19

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