Cave and Live Wire released the arcade shooting game Espgaluda II on the Nintendo Switch. The game is available in English, Japanese, and Chinese. It is playable on both docked and undocked modes with two-player support.
Espgaluda II first appeared in arcades in November 2005. The game has been known for its challenging gameplay, where enemies can launch more bullets upon their defeat. However, it also provides an Awakening Mode to the player, who can spend green gems to slow enemies down and convert bullets to gold ingots for higher scores.
After bringing the game to Japanese feature phones in 2006, Cave ported the game to Xbox 360 in Japan, and Android and iOS devices worldwide in 2010. The Xbox 360 version added a Black Label mode that lets players use the enemy character Seseri. The latter feature is also available in this Switch port.
The story in this sequel takes place three years after events in the 2003 game Espgaluda. As of this writing, Cave has still yet to bring the first game to current platforms. Arika ported the first Espgaluda to PlayStation 2 in 2004, while Cave brought it to feature phones in 2005.
Cave and Live Wire had previously teased the Switch release of Espgaluda II when it shadowdropped Mushihimesama on the same platform at the Japanese E3 2021 Nintendo Direct. The companies will also release DoDonPachi Resurrection on the Switch in 2021.
Espgaluda II is immediately available worldwide on the Nintendo Switch.
