In April this year, Japanese game company G-Mode launched the G-Mode Archives project, with the aim of bringing some of its old flip-phone games to Nintendo Switch. The first four such games are already out on the Japanese eShop, and and G-Mode announced the next two—Sukebooo Man and Shijō Saikyō Miyamoto Julia—earlier this month. We’ve now got confirmation on what games seven, eight, and nine will be: Love Love Knuckle, Pucchin Puzzle, and Flyhight Cloudia 2.
Sukebooo Man: a side-scrolling skateboarding game with a goal of earning points by collecting items, dodging obstacles, and performing tricks. There are four different skateboards, with different properties that allow them to take unique routes through each level.
Shijō Saikyō Miyamoto Julia: a sci-fi action RPG about a mercenary working for the “Galaxy Crisis Management Organisation”, with action built around a time-limit system.
Love Love Knuckle: a “fancy violence” brawler involving muscular, shirtless men with animal plush toys for heads… which you collect from defeated enemies in order to get stronger.
Pucchin Puzzle: a puzzle game where you control a rubber dog to pop bubble wrap to unveil a hidden picture below, with numerical clues to help you determine which bubbles to pop.
Flyhight Cloudia 2: is a story-focused JRPG that continues the story of Cloudia, a world made up of floating islands, and Eldia, the world below the clouds. It’s a direct sequel to Flyhight Cloudia, which was the first game released under the G-Mode Archives label.
Of these, Sukebooo Man is the only one to have a confirmed release date: 4 June. Presumably, the others won’t be far behind; so far, G-Mode has been releasing these G-Mode Archives games on a pretty regular basis. Each one costs 500 yen (though they tend to be a little bit cheaper during the launch window).
G-Mode Archives games are all ports of games from the early 2000s, which were made for phones only available in Japan (and thus never released in English). That being the case, it’s unlikely that we’ll see these ports get translated anytime soon, though most of the games are simple enough that, aside from the RPGs, the language barrier shouldn’t too much of a problem.
If you want to see the first four games in action, Matt from DigitallyDownloaded.net has put together a great video showing them off, and talking a little bit about the important piece of history that this project captures. It’s well worth a watch, and if you have access to the Japanese eShop, G-Mode Archives is a nice way to get a taste of the precursors to today’s mobile games.
