Hello! Welcome to the latest Geeky Brummie Games Release Roundup!

This week, ghost vacuums, monkey balls and the possible end of the world.

After the bumper edition of last week, this week is a quiet one. Not a lot of new releases, most likely because the Elden Ring DLC released. Obviously, I don’t include DLC in these roundups (and it’s fair, I also didn’t cover the Alan Wake 2 Night Springs expansion in the last edition despite being hyped for it) so we’re covering what’s left. Which isn’t much. But there are a few games we can look at this week.

Re-Releases and Ports

Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD brings Luigi’s 3DS ghost-hunting adventure onto the Switch. Armed with only a vacuum cleaner modified for ghost capture, Luigi must traverse multiple mansions to retrieve pieces of the Dark Moon in order to stop King Boo. I enjoyed the original on the 3DS, and from all accounts this is a faithful remaster, so I’d recommend this if you’ve never played it before.

Originally developed by Next Level Games, remaster developed by Tantalus Media, published by Nintendo.

New Releases

Frogun Encore (PC, PlayStation, Switch, Xbox) is the sequel to 2022’s “use a frog as a hookshot” 3D platformer Frogun, where young explorer Renata went on a search for her parents in a 5th gen inspired adventure. This sequel is more of the same, with diorama-like levels full of secrets and things to collect. Only now there’s co-op, both online and local.

Developed by solo Spanish developer Molegato and published by Top Hat Studios.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble (Switch) is the latest in Sega’s beloved trapped monkey franchise, developed by the Yakuza team. Yes really. Also there’s a spin dash now, and a 16-player online minigame mode.

Developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio (Like a Dragon/Yakuza) and published by Sega.

Game of the Week

Game of the Week is Until Then (PC, PS5), a mysterious visual novel about relationships.

Until Then stars Mark, a high school student navigating the typical relationships that teens deal with. However, the world he lives in is wracked by endless natural disasters, while occasionally reality bends and breaks around him.

I played the demo of Until Then, and it excelled at two things – the relationship writing was superb, with a ton of genuine dialogue and cute funny moments, and the level of intrigue was high. While the small segment of the game I played didn’t say much, the presence of “The Ruling” event and occasional moments of weird made me curious about where this story plans on going. It engaged me to such a degree that I simply had to make it Game of the Week.

Developed by Filipino developer Polychroma Games and published by Maximum Entertainment (Cris Tales, Them’s Fightin’ Herds, Lost Words: Beyond the Page).