Switch players, prepare to get your retro RPG action on with Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown.

Before there were RPGs like Final Fantasy VII and Baldur’s Gate there were classic titles like Dungeon Master, Eye of The Beholder, and Might & Magic. These early RPGs were the first to think of what a tabletop RPG might look like in video game form.

And what it looked like was kind of a weird mess. Nothing against Might & Magic, but these early titles required you to have a pretty vivid imagination. Everything was either text or a super basic pixel image of what your adventuring party was looking at, and you could only move using the arrow keys on your keyboard, which meant you were limited to either going forward or turning 90-degrees.

While modern RPGs like Final Fantasy VII Remake are far superior in every way, they’re also a lot more involved. Some people grew up on these older turn-based RPGs and remember them with a certain measure of fond nostalgia. And now those people can play a modern retro turn-based RPG just like Might & Magic on the Nintendo Switch.

It’s called Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown from Silver Lemur Games, which is basically just one guy (Chris Koźmik). Legends of Amberland is actually Silver Lemur’s third title after Stellar Monarch and Automobile Tycoon–both of which take on retro gameplay that hasn’t been around in decades.

Legends of Amberland is a light-hearted jaunt into an epic pixelated fantasy. You play as a party of seven adventurers out to rid the land of evil. You can create your party manually or use a predefined party thanks to a quick-start option. The game world is displayed in a window, the overworld map is displayed in the upper right-hand corner, and your party’s status is displayed at the bottom. Everything is turn-based, so there’s no need to worry about walking away to take a leak or something–the game will basically stay completely still until you get back.

Originally released in August of 2019 on PC, Silver Lemur has partnered with Pineapple Works to port Legends of Amberland to the Nintendo Switch. The game releases on the Nintendo eShop on April 20 for the price of $19.99. Pre-orders are available now.

Source: Silver Lemur Games