Shatterhand hits the Switch on September 24

City Connection has set a September 24 release date for the Nintendo Switch port of Shatterhand. The 1991 NES action game joins the Jaleco Colle Famicom Edition lineup for 1,300 yen. It includes both English and Japanese text support and new quality-of-life additions. The publisher originally announced the port in early August, but a recent broadcast confirmed the final launch details and pricing.

Solbrain goes West

Shatterhand has an unusual origin story. Natsume originally developed the game for Western markets as a heavy modification of their 1991 Japanese Famicom release Tokkyuu Shirei Solbrain, swapping out the licensed superhero elements for a new protagonist named Steve Hermann. The plot involves a police officer who loses both arms, gets cybernetic replacements, and punches a robot army to death. This is either genius or madness. Possibly both.

City Connection is bringing that specific Western release to the Switch. The Jaleco Colle team added tailored UI enhancements for this version. They replaced the original marker graphics with modernized HUD icons, swapping vague red stones for recognizable heart symbols to make health tracking easier.

The core gameplay revolves around a robotic satellite system. Players collect alpha and beta letter icons dropped by enemies to summon different helper drones. Mixing the letters creates different combinations, resulting in robots that wield swords, shoot lasers, or bounce projectiles around the screen. You can't just walk through the later levels, so you'll need to grab onto fences and punch enemies while hanging, a mechanic that requires more precision than the standard walking attacks.

The modern wrapper

The Switch port includes the standard Jaleco Colle emulation wrapper. Players can use save states, rewind gameplay to fix mistakes, and remap the controls. You'll practically need the rewind feature for the later stages, since they rely heavily on memorizing enemy placements and blind jumps.

The Jaleco Colle project focuses on archiving and porting older action games that never received modern console releases. Shatterhand fits that exact profile. It didn't make it to the Wii or Wii U Virtual Console. Physical cartridges for the NES original have become increasingly expensive, making a $9 digital port a practical alternative for anyone who just wants to play the game.

A 20 percent discount for TGS

The release coincides with the upcoming Tokyo Game Show. City Connection kicked off a publisher sale on the Switch eShop to mark the event. Every previous Jaleco Colle release is currently 20 percent off, with the sole exception of the recently launched Rod Land. The company has 70 titles available on the Switch storefront.

That isn't the only Jaleco news. Beyond the digital releases, City Connection outlined a new merchandising partnership with Cospa. A line of classic Jaleco apparel will go on sale in late November. The collection includes a standard Jaleco logo shirt alongside designs for Ninja JaJaMaru-kun, Formation Z, and R-Type. Attendees at the Tokyo Game Show can buy the shirts early at the company's booth.