We've known for a while now, and as reported by our sister site Time Extension a week back, Taito's 1984 classic Field Day, is on its way to Nintendo Switch consoles as part of the Arcade Archives series.

Now, Hamster has announced that the game will officially release on 31st July. Which is today. Holy timely news piece, Batman.

Field Day was amongst a whole crop of a very particular style of button-mashy sports game that popped up in the mid-'80s, mostly off the back of the enormous success of Konami's Track and Field. This very writer whiled away copious hours playing most of them on his trusty Commodore 64, so can therefore confirm that the whole thing becomes very addictive if you let it get to you. These were as good as games looked back at the time, too, especially on home computers.

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Of course, where Track and Field had regular sports games in a regular stadium sort of scenario, in this one you are taking part in a raft of challenges at a girl's school - stuff like tug-of-war, hence the name Field Day, which is like a Sports Day, right? Right?

Despite the somewhat antiquated look of this one, you must understand — and especially if you've never tried any of these sorts of games — that adding a second human player can lead to a category-10-level time sink. We're talking extinction-level event here. Well, not really. It does get bloody competitive, mind.

Also, some experts (or boffins, if you want) reckon this effort is actually more challenging than Track and Field, given its slightly odder collection of events. Here's some further details from Hamster:

"FIELD DAY" is an action game released by TAITO in 1984.
Players compete in a variety of seven non-conventional sporting events from three-legged race to tug-of-war in an effort to become the sports day champion.
Each event features a qualifying score which must be met to progress.

Field Day releases today and costs £6.29/$7.99/€6.99

Looking forward to destroying all the buttons on your Joy-Con by smashing them furiously in an effort to win a race against some schoolchildren? Let us know!