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Emulation Fail...

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Review written by @Jnes5 and edited by @Ichigofan.



It is the year 511 of the Unified Era in the continent of Imperia, which began after the War of Unification, which was meant for the realms of Athos, Elyria, Thena, Certes and the Vestra to unite and form the land of Imperia, has ended in success. A new war, the War of Independence, is occurring between Athos, Certes and Thena joining to face against Elyria in order to gain more territory from them. But as years have passed, the war was calmed down a little and since then, the Elyrian kingdom were having their traditional Harvest festival event until an incident occurs as the chosen one to sing in the main festival, Elena, becomes cursed and transform into a hideous beast and wreaks havoc upon the city. Aeron, a friend of hers, later finds her unconscious and returned to her human form next to a Vestra merchant named Mavda, who helps them escape from the city and from the Elyrian army and eventually reach the wastelands of Okanos, where a fortress known as the Thirteen Towers is located, over a massive chasm called The Scar, which was caused by a violent event called The Cataclysm and is only stopped from growing bigger and engulfing the world by the Thirteen Towers, where it is suspended in the middle of the chasm by twelve chains connected to the surrounding cliffs. Mavda reveals that she has seen Elena's curse before and that in order to lift it, Aeron must use the Oraclos Chain, a special weapon given by her, to obtain the flesh of the monsters that live in the Thirteen Towers. Although Elena will be returned to human form after eating the flesh of any monster in the tower, Mavda tells them that the only way to truly remove the curse is to retrieve the flesh of the 12 Masters of the Towers.

Story:

I do think that the story in this game is pretty good, although it lacks on certain areas, the whole setting to the whole world is not covered enough to know more about them, such as the empires in war towards Elyria and even how they even are or look like, it lacks a lot more background behind the whole setting and you even need to pay close attention to some details that the game might give you regarding the whole background of its setting to try to understand what is going on in the world... however, the game is still fine aside from the lack of background since the main story, which focuses on Aeron saving Elena from her curse from spreading any further, is presented very well, as you continue towards the game, there will be notes laying around that can give you much more on the background on the towers and even the war that happened years ago in the game's current time, as well as the character Mavda giving you a bit more of background from her casual talks to giving you notes detailing what's going on in the world, the game also gives you hints and mysteries throughout the game that of a side plot that  will affect the main story at the final climax of the game, one of the hints that lead up to more of the background related to the main story is very well told while the other hints that is also in the same main story is kind of predictable, although still well done, the main story is very interesting and with the hints and mysteries that the game will give you later on, but it would've been more appealing as to where you want to know what will happen in the end of the story if the character development was better (more on that later on...).

The game contains six endings which are S, A, B, C, D and the bad ending and each from them range from high to low respectively, and the lower the rank is, the more depressing the ending is, but one important thing to mention is that each ending can give you more background into the story the higher the rank is, including fixing a few plotholes as well, but the thing is the S ending is much more better in that regard since the other endings, while each of them quite different from each other and well told on their own, don't bring the benefits of the story that the S ending brings, that and because to be completely honest, the A ending, being the 2nd one from the top rank, was really sad despite the fact that it's supposed to be one of the "less" depressing endings from the rank...



Gameplay:

Pandora's Tower (also known as "Pandora's Tower: Until I Return to Your Side" in Japan) is an Action game with Role Playing elements that can be played with the Wii Remote + Nunchuck and the Classic Controller/Pro, The main objective of this game is to explore all 13 towers filled with many monsters and defeat the bosses in each tower and collect their flesh, but you also must return to the observatory every once in a while to keep Elena from turning into a beast by giving her any type of monster flesh while also strengthen your relationship between you, as Aeron, and Elena. The controls might be a little complex at the beginning, but it will be much more simpler later in the game, you attack with the A button and with the Z button in the Nunchuck you can defend yourself if stationary and you can roll out if moving and pick up items with the C button, there's also a helpful menu that you can open up with the + Button where you can manage and see the inventory, equip some armor, weapons or such, look at the map, etc., two interesting things to mention is that you can use any usable items by scrolling with left and right on the D-pad on a small menu and use that select item with either up or down on the D-pad, and the other one is what makes this game unique which is the Oraclos Chain, this chain can be helpful in ranged distances by aiming with the cursor with the Wii remote and when highlighted on an object or monster you can tap the B button to quickly grab it, hold it or attack it, but you can also hold down the B button to make the cursor have a little zoomed-in view of where you are pointing to where you can aim in great detail what you want to grab, this might sound troublesome when in battle, but the big advantage is that the game slows down when doing so, meaning there's no regrets of ever using this feature, but when the chain grabs something, you either pull it by holding down the C button or by violently pull it down by shaking the Wii remote downwards, you can also attach two objects with the same chain by pointing it to another object and pressing the B button while the chain is currently grabbing something else, you can even reach some items from a far distance with it. The controls feel well, there are also some other mechanics included in the controls that are also helpful that I will mention later like jumping where it's automatic in which once you run towards a gap, and there's another platform towards you, you will jump to it, however I did have a problem with shaking the Wii remote down in order to pull out something violently, as in sometimes it might work but sometimes you might need to shake a little more harder in certain times, and this can get bothersome if you are fighting with a lot of enemies, but other than that, the controls are good despite some little issues, but you can also use the Classic Controller/Pro in this game, replacing the whole aiming with the Wii Remote to aiming with the right stick as well as replacing the Oraclos Chain's controls with the R button, one issue I have is that the controls in the Classic Controller/Pro might be awkward to get used to and might take some time to be comfortable with it when using the chain, especially if you get used to the Wii Remote + Nunchuck, but it is great for those who don't want to aim and shake on the Wii remote and Nunchuck, making this game feel much more accessible to anyone in terms of controls.

This being an action game, the combat feels amazingly fluid and comfortable since dodging in this game actually feels like you are dodging attacks unlike other action games where dodging was useless since they can't even help you evade an attack, especially if it didn't hit you (sadly you can't constantly spam the dodging move since the game will punish you by making you vulnerable if you do it two times quickly, but to me it's a fair mechanic), there are also other mechanics that you can do in which there's a charge attack you can do by holding down the A button and then let go, you will also see a visual cue when doing a charge attack where you see a circle closing towards Aeron and when pressing the A button when the circle is almost gone, it will help Aeron to pull of more combos from the charge attack, the Oraclos Chain is even useful for battle in some cases, since you can use it by specifically point the enemy towards a certain limb to grab it and then violently pull it off, slightly damaging it, and you can get certain items from them by defeating them and when they're lying on the ground (with some red mist coming from them indicating they are defeated) and then aim which limb to take from, and then once the chain grabs it, you violently pull it off, you can get certain items from them but if it's in the stomach (in most enemies) you will always get the monster's flesh in which it will be useful for a certain situation (more on that later...), the chain also even has its own meter that that determines how much damage it can do when violently pull off someone and you can raise it if you use the chain in different ways but in a quick consistent way as it can slowly reset to zero if it doesn't do anything, it's meter can also be upgraded by defeating a boss, it's a pretty nice action game but it also has a great amount of RPG elements on it, for example you can level up your character by earning enough experience points by defeating enemies, you can level up your health meter, your attack power, etc. one RPG mechanic to mention is the inventory and equipment menu, in the inventory menu you are limited to carry a certain amount of items depending on how much your bag can hold, at the beginning it is very frustrating due to how low it is, but you can thankfully make Elena help you expand it with a certain item, and the equipment menu is sort of the same in terms of its functionality, there's a grid menu where you can set the equipment on them and take some space and the bigger the item is, the more space it will take, so you have to arrange them in order to make the equipment to have a little bit of more space by turning them or such, think of the item menu in Resident Evil 4, only much more smaller and you can't combine items and such, but you can upgrade its space by leveling up which is a good thing, speaking of equipment you can also acquire two new weapons eventually in the game aside from the sword, one which is more quicker to swing but very weak to use and one that has a great attack range but it is slow to swing, and all of your weapons can be upgraded to become more stronger with the help of Mavda by bringing her certain types of material items. And speaking of items, it has a great emphasis on the game as there's many types of items located inside the towers that you can use in a different way, you can find them by destroying some crates, find them in a certain spot or by finding the in chests, which said items are usable items, the equipment items, etc. but the most that gets more attention is the material items, since in this game you can also find items that you can use to create items of any kind with the help of Mavda, you can create usable items, gift items, more material items and also be used to make your weapon stronger as I've mentioned before, the game can get difficult if you don't use this mechanic often in order to help you out in the game, as I had trouble in a few dungeons due to not using this mechanic well and not often, but thankfully I did use it well and often later on and I had the choices of how I am going to play the game (better attack power, better defense, better range, etc.), some material items can each be found in a certain tower, meaning that you might go to a certain tower in order to get a certain item, but I think that is for completionists since I did fine and I didn't needed strong weaponry (but I did needed strong armory which can be obtained easily) to beat the game, but other people might struggle in order to get their equipment they want.

The towers are the ones you must explore and reach to the top, the exploration in this game can differ in each dungeon, but mainly it composed with rooms where it can be full with few or more enemies, which there's is a nice variety of them (both common and special) and each special enemy is unique to represent the tower they're on, and some rooms might have a certain mechanic that might help you progress through the tower with the help of the Oraclos Chain, for example there are elevators that can be operated to go up and down by operating a lever by using the chain from a distance if the lever is a little far away and there are some helpful structures that you can grab and help you in some way like the ladders that you can grab a part of it to get on to it and some hooks on the ceilings that you can grab to either hang onto it or swing back and forth in order to later jump towards another unreachable platform, and each tower has a different mechanic between each other that can be operated differently in order to progress, for instance there's one where you must operate a giant waterwheel in order to grab its handles sticking out of its sides in order to reach the next unreachable floor and there's one where you have to grab some stones that are sticking out of the walls in order to get higher to the tower, but the towers each have uniquely designed obstacles in some rooms that differentiate from others as well, for example there's one where you have to jump quickly over some stones they fall down the lava in a fire based tower. All of the towers though have a giant door at the top of the floor where the boss is inside, and the only way to defeat them is by pulling their master flesh out of them, however all of them have a massive health bar and the only way to hurt them is by making them expose their master flesh (since each boss have a unique way to fight them as they have different patterns and behaviors that you must attack them in a certain way to make them expose their flesh) and once exposed you must remove it with the help of your chain by making it stronger (which you can do that by pulling them for a while and then, at the right time, violently pull it down) and the more stronger it is, the more health you can get rid of, it is a great and fun game design but the thing is though the giant doors that lead to each of these bosses is locked up with chains, and these chains can be found in special rooms located throughout the tower by pulling the door's lock with the chain and then when inside, you destroy the chain with your weapon, so it encourages you more in exploring rather than reaching the top of the tower, but thankfully the whole towers do not have a very complex design that can take you very long to beat (the later ones might be but you might get used to the whole game to not take too long), and I say this because you have a time limit in these towers.

The game is not just about exploring the towers, it's about keeping Elena from turning into a beast, there is a gauge that acts like a time limit in the bottom-left corner of the screen that represents the amount of time left for her to turn into one, shaped in a circular form with three colors filling the gauge (white which means she's alright, purple which means half her body is going to change, and red which means almost all of her body will be transformed) and when time decreases, the gauge will decrease while staying in one of the colors where Elena's progress will be in, sadly you can't stop the gauge, you have a rest area which is the observatory, and inside there are a lot of helpful things (it even stops the timer until you go to a tower) such as a save point, a big chest that you can keep your items in and Mavda where you can talk to her and help you by offering her shop, strengthen your weapon, craft some new items, etc., and she can reward you some gold (in here they're called leots) if you bring her some notes or some spare flesh that you want to get rid of, and there are also some rooms in the observatory that can be visited and maybe find some items every once in a while, but the most important one in the observatory is Elena, and what you need to do to keep the gauge from decreasing is to feed her with the enemies’ flesh as I've mentioned before, and the monster's flesh comes from four varieties, one which is the master one that can recover Elena completely, but they can only be pulled from the bosses and are required to continue the game, but the other three are more common since they come from the enemies in which are the normal flesh that can only gain you a little bit of time, the dripping one that can give you a decent amount of time, and the pulsating one that can give you a great amount of time. But there's more, you not only keep her from turning into a beast, but you must also strengthen your relationship with her by giving her gifts (that can only be obtained by either buying them from Mavda's shop or by crafting one in Mavda's workshop) or by selecting the correct option when she asks you a question by talking to her,  but you can weaken her relationship by giving her the wrong items or if you answer the wrong question, and you relationship is indicated on a meter above the time limit that that is only seen when you're in the observatory and the higher the meter is, the more better the ending is going to be as I've mentioned before. Responsibility plays a great role in the part of the gameplay, as you not only must explore the dungeons, but you must also keep Elena from turning into a beast, otherwise it's game over and you will get the bad ending, but you must also keep your relationship with her as well, in order to affect the ending in the end, and for some reason the whole responsibility did not affect my enjoyment of the game, I did get used to it in order to get through the game, however I do think that some people might find this very tedious and a chore to do to play this, while the game is designed well in order to not be too long, the game does get harder in the later dungeons and some people might not have the patience for their responsibility to be much more difficult.

I thought that the game was good, despite the fact that the game has a time limit and some other issues, I do think that the responsibility is a strong focus in this game and the controls feel really good despite some issues and not to mention that the game is designed well in other to balance some of the issues like the time limit and the responsibility to be much more acceptable as you are playing, and it was enjoyable to me due to how strategic it can be despite not having any strategic mechanics in the gameplay, however I do think that some people might get frustrated with this game due to the responsibility and the other tedious issues like the item collecting and such.

Graphics:

I will admit that the game looks pretty dated, in fact it kind of looks like a game from the Gamecube Era, it goes with a medieval-fantasy style, but some textures, mostly the walls and the floors, look somewhat muddy and some of the environments lack some detail, but other than that, there are some settings that can look really great, some of the lightning and the water effects look nice, but the character models were great, they have great detail and they look like they were finely modeled, specially the bosses, although I have some issues with it since I feel the Aeron looks a bit... odd, and also the fact that there was a suggestive detail that was altered to not look like so, but it just looks strange and unnatural...



Music and Sound:

The soundtrack is very good, it has an orchestral score for all of its songs and in some of them they have choirs as well to accompany the music, although it needed a little bit of attention to be somewhat memorable since some of the songs are pretty quiet and the gameplay pretty much distracts from it, there is some songs that really accommodate some moments such as the boss battles, the important events, etc. and they all sound amazing and do a great job at setting the mood of the scene.

The sounds are somewhat very simple, most of them sound a little low-budget but for some reason they really fit well with the game, like the sword slashing, the ground being pounded, etc. but there are some sounds that are very nice that fit appropriately like the tensely-heard heart beat and others. The voice acting in this game is really great, although Aeron doesn't speak much, the voice actor Ryan Philpott does his best for the role and he is good at it in the end, Charlotte Sanderson as Elena is pretty good although I wanted to be it a bit more better since there are moments where she sounds a little quiet due to the music being loud at times or due to some other issues, but she does a great amount of effort into her role since the game has Elena so much to talk about when talking to her or giving her gifts and such, but the best one by far is Ann Beach as Mavda, she sounds perfect in this game, Mavda being an old woman and very mysterious for the other characters, the voice actress does the greatest job at portraying her at who she is, the other voices are fine but these three in which are the most important do a great job at this game. And also this game actually supports all common languages like Spanish, French, etc. but they are only subtitled as the voices are only in English.

Presentation:

Despite only the game being set in one place, the game does a great job at giving the towers that you visit an interesting and different design that doesn't make itself look repetitive, for example there is a tower with a green and forest nature-like environment, a blue and water based environment such as waterways and a giant waterwheel, etc. and each tower represent their uniqueness with said environments and a game design that takes the environment and integrates it into the gameplay, meaning that the towers feel very "alive" and they are interesting to explore it, and even when not in the towers the observatory can have its moments too, while it doesn't have any secret rooms to explore, it does have some rooms that look really great, for example at the next room of the main observatory you can go a spring-like tower area and it look very pretty to look at, everything in this game along with its setting feels great and I do feel that in this section it is very well polished.

What it isn't very well polished though... is the character development, I do feel that Aeron lacks more depth and while Elena is fine as she is, I do feel that some people might find them boring or uninteresting, therefore not caring if they want to struggle with the whole responsibility and the time limit of the gameplay since they don't want to play more enough of it due to doing it for some characters that they don't even care about, the director of this game actually said that Aeron was developed like this so that he can become not too outspoken or assertive so in that way we can feel related to him... although it didn't work for me and I'm sure some people (not all mind you) won't either... and also speaking of which, some people have found that his face detail in the game's box art cover seems to be copied from Noctis from the upcoming Final Fantasy XV...

As for the replayability, there is a lot of stuff to do in this game, there is the great amount of items of many types you can collect, the hidden notes that you can collect, etc. but one great thing to mention is that the game does give you a New Game + when beating the game, in which all of your stuff in your first playthrough will be in the next new game such as your level and the items you had in your inventory and in the chest, the weapon enhancements, the items created by Mavda in the workshop and even Elena's affinity and the given gifts, but not only does this new playthrough will give you new texts in the Observatory, a new weapon and some new scenes with Elena, in the first playthrough you will find red doors that, no matter what you do, they will not open, but in the New Game +, Mavda will sell you keys that will get those doors open, in which some include new items in the open and some require you defeating monsters but you can also acquire the new items, in other words, while you will be quite busy with this game, some people might be put off when wanting to 100% complete the game due to the time limit...

Be warned however that for those of you who want to complete this, there is a bug in the game that will make this game freeze in a certain moment, it won't happen to those who want to simply beat this game though, but in this link there are more details about the bug and how to fix it (without the need of a hack or a patch).



The Wii U Difference:

There's a potential flaw in the Wii U version of the game that can cause the game to freeze 100% of the time if you leave the fourth tower before completing it, this flaw seriously hurts the game's overall score, the Off-TV-Play on the other hand is definitely a nice addition to the game!

Bottom-Line:

I did find this game to be fun and interesting to play with, it has one of the best combat mechanics that is very appropriate for it, the story is very interesting coupled with a very unique and sometimes great looking setting, and while the graphics leave much more to be desired, it isn't really doesn't look that bad, however the game does give you great responsibility, as it has a time limit and a reputation meter that you must both each work hard in order to not get a bad or worse ending, and while I find that the game has a great balance in its game design in order to not be much of a chore to do but not be that easy when get used to the gameplay, I do find some people being frustrated with this game, coupled with the fact that the characters might not be deep enough for other people to care, which is the game's main reason for its gameplay design, so if you don't like a lot of responsibility in your games specially if you don't want to do it with characters that don't have a lot of depth on them, I might suggest that you skip this game, but if you're interested in this game but are worried about the flaws I've mentioned, give this a rent if you can to see how well it will do for you, but if you're very interested in this game and don't mind the game mechanics I've mentioned before, then I say give this game a go, however due to the Wii U version's flaws we give this game a decent level of recommendation...

Price: $19.99

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Score: ★★★★★★½☆☆☆ 6.5/10

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#Review #WiiU #VC #eShop #Wii #PandorasTower

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In Celebration of A Huge Wii U Virtual Console Title Hitting The North American eShop Tomorrow!

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It's been awhile since we last updated our website in any way, but we have decided to change our website's theme to celebrate The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass' release on the North American Wii U eShop tomorrow! What do you think of our new theme? As always be sure to let us know your thoughts in our comment section below!

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#WiiWareWave #SiteUpdate #Theme #WiiU #eShop #VC

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Mamamia! What A Spicy "And Sweet" Adventure!

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Review by @Ichigofan and @Jnes5.



Bowser has invaded the Star Haven, stole the Star Rod and has imprisoned the seven Star Spirits who guarded the Star rod! Now Bowser's fortress becomes attached to Princess Peach's castle and lifts it up to the sky, sadly the Star Rod makes Bowser invincible, so it's up to mario to save the seven Star Spirits in order to lend them their power to thwart Bowser once and for all!

Story:

Even though the story isn't anything original, the whole story has quite a cheery and charming tone behind it! The story also has some humor as well, while it's not going to make you die-laughing, it does serve it's purpose of it being very charming and cheery, the game can also change it's tone a little, but not by much, so overall, the story is so good that you can't help, but feel the charming and cheery tone it has us following!



Gameplay:

The game plays like an RPG, but it has it's own unique twist that's makes the mario RPG's a one of a kind! First thing's first, the game takes place in a lot of overworlds, some of which are long and some of which are small, and sometimes it can include physical obstacles in your way and you, as mario, can jump and use his hammer to overcome most of them, however some might require you to think and explore in order to solve them! Not only that, the game also includes "partners", which are your allies who can not only help you fight enemies, but they can help you with the game's puzzles that they can only solve, since many of the game's puzzles and boundaries are based upon the abilities of Mario's partners, you can accumulate partners as they advance into different locations.

You can only have one partner that can accompany Mario in the overworld, but you can interchange between them at any time, and the best part of all, your partners have no HP so that's means that when they take damage, this results in temporary paralysis on them where they cannot attack, but they will never get KO'd, the gameplay on all the overworlds feel like an adventure-oriented puzzle game, and they keep the game from not being just an RPG.

And this is where the uniqueness comes from! One of the things that makes this game unique from some other RPGs is that you can control the actions when mario and a partner or an enemy is going to attack! Fairly early in the game, you will obtain an item called a "Lucky Star" which will give you the ability to use the "Action Command", with this you can influence the power of a move when attacking or defending by timing a button-press accurately or performing some other action command as required, like pressing a button repeatedly, tilting the control stick and letting it go in a certain moment, with this you can double up your attacks and reduce half the damage when you're defending!



This is pretty great and it's definitely worth it because it feels like you're helping mario in this game! Another thing that is unique in the battle system is that Mario and his partners have a capacity called "Flower Points" (FP), which is the equivalent of magic in RPGs, which these can allow you and your partners to perform special moves, but each of these moves can consume a particular number of flower points when performed, so you must choose to use them wisely.

Other things included are the "Star Points", which are the equivalent of experience points, in which unlike other RPGs, you only need to collect 100 of them to level up, and the capacity does not increase in any way, while this might sound easy to level up, here's the thing, when you level up in a certain area full of enemies, those enemies might decrease the number of Star Points they drop but even that, and this is one of the best parts of the game, is that you don't really need to level up in order to proceed! the only thing that you need to rely on, are your skills...and your use of badges!

The badges are items you can collect and each of them have and advantage of helping you in a certain manner, like for example, one badge can increase your attack power, one can increase your health, one can give Mario another special move, some can make you invulnerable to some things, and much much more! Each badge consumes a set number of" Badge Points" (BP), meaning that you can only equip a limited number of badges at a time, so choose which are the ones that you think will help you the most at the moment! Different situations may warrant changing badges to make certain boss battles easier! There is also an on-screen gauge to display Star Energy, which is required to perform another type of move if you saved a star spirit, and each of them have a unique move that can help you in battle, and they can raise your gauge as you advance throughout the game, you can also locate hidden battle upgrades in the game's overworld, which promotes one partner character to a new rank once at a time and they can become stronger as well!

All of this and more, is why the game is really fun and very unique as well! However, even though some overworlds might not be fun, the game is still very great with it's gameplay and uniqueness!



Graphics & Soundtrack:

Since the game is called "Paper Mario", the game's visuals feature two-dimensional character cut-out designs contained within three-dimensional backgrounds, and the 2D characters look really good! They look just like a cartoon, and because of that, they haven't aged at all so they look just as good now as they did when the game first released on the N64! As for the 3D backgrounds...yeah, those are the ones that haven't aged well at all, but the thing is, some of those are so bland, that they weren't all that impressive even when this game was first released. Regardless the game's graphics are nice overall.

The soundtrack of this game is ok, some of the music tracks are very catchy, some of them set a great mood, some of them are decent, some of them are very awesome... as you can see, the soundtrack has a lot of variety when it comes with its quality.

The sounds are cutesy and some of them sound a little bit low quality, but as they are, they sound ok, and as for the voice acting... there isn't any, at all, well except a few mumbles and roars among other simple sound effects, but overall there really isn't any, which is perfectly fine in our opinions!



Presentation:

The game is kind of represented as a storybook, the game is divided in chapters, the game's progression depends upon interaction non-player characters (NPCs), who will often offer clues or details for the next chapter, and as I've said, the game does a good job on having a charming and cutesy tone throughout the entire story.

As for the replayability, this game has a lot of it! You can collect the badges, you can maximise your level, you can collect the star peices, you can play the minigames included in this game, you can do some hidden sidequests, all of this and more are awaiting those of you who are willing to fully explore this game's world, so there is no worries there if you're looking to be busy with a game for awhile!

The Wii U Difference:

The Wii U's emulation of the game is spot-on and looks and sounds a little better than the Wii Virtual Console release of the game. The Off-TV-Play feature and rumble-pak compatibility of the game give the Wii U version of the game a definite edge over the Wii version!



Bottom-Line:

Paper Mario 64 is a great mario RPG! The game has some great gameplay and a charming storyline, and even if there are some things that needed a few tweaks, this game is still a must-but for any Wii U owner! You might be skeptical if you REALLY love Super Mario RPG for the SNES or Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for the GCN, but regardless, don't hesitate and buy this if you like RPGs! and as for us, this game gets a great level of recommendation!

Price: $9.99

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Score: ★★★★★★★★★☆ 9.5/10

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#Review #WiiU #VC #N64 #PaperMario #eShop #Nintendo

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Another Excellent Week For Wii U Owners!

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It's Wednesday evening once again, which means that we have a fairly good idea as to what will be releasing tomorrow on the Wii U and 3DS eShops in North America! This week looks to be interesting with a AAA first party Wii U Virtual Console title, and a bunch of excellent looking eShop releases on the Wii U side of things, while the 3DS update looks to be rather sparse with only a single edutainment game releasing tomorrow...

These are the confirmed releases for the eShop in the region tomorrow "so far":

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Wii U eShop Releases:

★ Super Meat Boy ~ Platformer ~ $11.20

★ 8-Bit Hero ~ Action-Adventure ~ $4.99

★ Color Symphony 2 ~ Platformer ~ $9.99

★ Queen's Garden ~ Puzzle / Match-Three ~ $6.99

★ Tachyon Project ~ Shooter / Twin-Stick ~ $9.99

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Wii U Virtual Console Releases:

★ The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass (DS) ~ Action-Adventure ~ $9.99

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3DS eShop Releases:

★ WordsUp! Academy ~ Edutainment / Word-Game ~ $2.99

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What do you think of this week's confirmed update so far? Are there any games you plan on downloading? Also what do you think of the pricing of the games? As always be sure to let us know your thoughts in our comment section below!

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#WiiU #3DS #eShop #VC #NA #WeeklyUpdate #Downloads

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Big Week For U, Plus A Bizarre VC Release, But Not Much For 3DS...

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Update! Super Punch Out! (SNES) appears to be hitting the New 3DS Virtual Console Service tomorrow in North America! We'll keep you updated if any additional games get confirmed for release before tomorrow's weekly eShop update!

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It's Wednesday evening once again, which means that we have a fairly good idea as to what will be releasing tomorrow on the Wii U and 3DS eShops in North America! This week looks to be interesting with a rather unexpected Wii U Virtual Console title, and a bunch of decent looking eShop releases on the Wii U side of things, while the 3DS update looks to be rather sparse with only a single game releasing tomorrow...

These are the confirmed releases for the eShop in the region tomorrow "so far":

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Wii U eShop Releases:

★ The Beggar’s Ride ~ $5.99

★ Escape From Flare Industries ~ $3.99

★ Midnight 2 ~ $1.99

★ PixelMaker ~ $2.99

★ SpaceRoads ~ $9.99

★ Sudoku and Permudoku ~ $0.99

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Wii U Virtual Console Releases:

★ Style Savvy (DS) ~ $9.99

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3DS eShop Releases:

★ Pocket Card Jockey ~ $14.99

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New 3DS Virtual Console Releases:

★ Super Punch Out! (SNES) ~ $7.99

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What do you think of this week's confirmed update so far? Are there any games you plan on downloading? Also what do you think of the pricing of the games? As always be sure to let us know your thoughts in our comment section below!

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#WiiU #3DS #eShop #VC #NA #WeeklyUpdate #Downloads

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Epic Dumpster Diving!

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Developed and published by Log Games, Epic Dumpster Bear is a platformer that would be easy to write-off given its bizarre name, premise, and lackluster visuals, however the game itself is really quite solid and here's why:

Epic Dumpster Bear possesses a ton of content and secret levels which can be unlocked either by collecting enough collectables or by getting a bull's-eye at the end of specific stages! The gameplay is simplistic and typical platforming fare, however the controls can be a bit awkward at first. The game can be played with the Gamepad or Wii U Pro controller and the Off-TV-Play works flawlessly! The difficulty of the game starts off easy, but becomes exceptionally challenging later in the game which is good for those who're looking for a challenge!

Visually the game looks dreadful, the character and enemy models are ugly and look like they belong on a early N64 title and not a particularly good looking one. The backgrounds are no better and just scream early N64! The music isn't all that memorable, but it's okay enough and the voice acting just feels out of place.



Bottom-Line:

With solid, yet typical platforming gameplay with a challenging level of difficulty, great Gamepad exclusive features, and multiple controller options, Epic Dumpster Bear is a very decent game as far as its core mechanics are concerned, however its soundtrack is somewhat flat and its visuals are really, really bad! The controls can be awkward at first, but it isn't much of an issue. Overall however, Epic Dumpster Bear had potential to be a solid title overall, but instead is only average thanks to its many issues, regardless an average score isn't a negative score so we still recommend the game to fans of the platforming genre.

Price: £7.49/$9.99

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Score: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ 5/10

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#Review #EpicDumpsterBear #WiiU #eShop #LogGames

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All For U And Nothing For 3DS...

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This week's North American eShop releases have been confirmed and though the Wii U will be getting an average number of eShop games, a retail title and one Virtual Console game, the 3DS will be getting zilch this week, perhaps save for a single demo of the upcoming Pocket Jockey title which still hasn't been listed on Nintendo of America's official website, but was scheduled to release tomorrow. This is definitely the first time in a longtime "if ever" that the 3DS eShop won't be receiving a single new title...

Here's the entire list of eShop releases for this week:

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Wii U Retail Releases:

★ Star Fox Zero ~ Platinum Games / Nintendo ~ On-The-Rails Shooter ~ $49.99

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Wii U eShop Releases:

★ Star Fox Guard ~ Platinum Games / Nintendo ~ Tower Defense / Strategy ~ $14.99

★ Blockara ~ Haunted Bees Productions ~ Puzzle ~ $6.99

★ Dreamals ~ XINESS Co. Ltd ~ Puzzle / Strategy ~ $4.99

★ The Pinball Arcade ~ FarSight Studios ~ Pinball / Arcade ~ Free-To-Start

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Wii U Virtual Console Releases:

★ Mario Party DS (DS) ~ Nintendo ~ Party ~ $9.99

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What do you think of this week's confirmed eShop releases for North America? Also what do you make of the total lack of new content for the 3DS eShop this week in the region? As always be sure to let us know your thoughts in our comment section below!

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#NintendoWeeklyDownloads #WiiU #eShop #VC #Downloads #WeeklyUpdate

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A Grand Hack 'N Slash Adventure!

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Developed by Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja and published by Nintendo, Hyrule Warriors is a Zelda Themed game within Koei-Tecmo's long-running Warriors franchise that beautifully incorporates elements of both franchises into one incredibly enjoyable and not to mention extremely lengthy package! We think that Hyrule Warriors and its DLC are well worth their price and here's why:

The gameplay in Hyrule Warriors is surprisingly complex with a ton of strategy required to beat most of the game's levels. You must protect allies and capture keeps and much more depending on the current battle and mode that you're playing! The game's main mode is story mode where the story of the game takes place "duh". This is where you'll unlock most of the non-DLC characters in the game. The story scenes feel like they are straight from an actual Zelda game as Koei-Tecmo did an excellent job researching the series mythos!

Other modes include the strategic Adventure Mode where you'll tackle battles on a board of the original NES Zelda title or the worlds of other Zelda titles if you downloaded the Majora's Mask or Twilight Princess DLC Packs. Each battle has unique rules and objectives and there's several weapons and characters to unlock! You can also purchase more boards complete with characters, weapons, and new costumes to unlock as relatively cheap DLC.



Then you have Challenge Mode, where you can aim for a high score with challenging missions, most of this mode is locked unless you purchase the Boss Pack DLC, including the Boss Rush, and Ganon's Fury Mode's which are a blast to play! The difficulty of the game starts off very easy, but eventually becomes insanely difficult especially in the DLC packs.

The Gamepad features allow for single-screen multiplayer where one user uses the TV screen and the other uses the Wii U Gamepad which is an amazing feature! Other uses of the Gamepad include Off-TV-Play in single player and can be used to show current ongoing missions and the health of your allied generals which is a very useful tool to have in the game! The controls in Hyrule Warriors are pretty good and shouldn't take players long to learn and they're very intuitive which is very important in such a hectic title!

Visually Hyrule Warriors looks great! It's not the best looking Wii U title, but the stages and character models are very detailed, though they do take a substantial hit when playing multiplayer. Overall the graphics are still above average by a decent margin as far as Wii U titles go! The soundtrack on the other hand is absolutely breathtaking and is among the best that you'll hear from a Wii U title! The music tracks are all remixes from various games in the Zelda series which have been fully orchestrated and sound amazing!



Bottom-Line:

With excellent gameplay, great controls, fantastic use of the Wii U Gamepad, incredibly enjoyable multiplayer, a ton of content, above average visuals, and one of the best soundtracks available for the Wii U, Hyrule Warriors is among the best titles currently available on the Wii U so we can't recommend this game enough! If you haven't purchased Hyrule Warriors yet, you should! Anyways we give Hyrule Warriors for the Wii U a perfect level of recommendation!

Price: $59.99

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Score: ★★★★★★★★★★ 10/10

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#Review #WiiU #Retail #KoieTecmo #Nintendo #HyruleWarriors

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One Word Sums Up This Week! Big!

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Once again some of this week's North American eShop releases have been confirmed a bit early. This time our source is the North American eShop itself! Since it's still early in the week, it's likely that more games will be confirmed by tomorrow evening "especially Wii U VC titles"! Anyways these are the games currently confirmed for release on the North American eShop this week:

Update: All of this week's downloads have now been confirmed! Recheck the list below to see the complete list of Wii U and 3DS eShop downloads for this week in North America!

Updated Again: As luck would have it two additional titles have been confirmed for release tomorrow on the North American eShops moving the total number of new releases for the week up to a whopping 15 titles!

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Wii U eShop Releases

Asdivine Hearts ~ Kemco ~ JRPG ~ $9.99

Draw 2 Survive ~ Unit DTH Studio / Christian Sanders ~ Physics-based drawing platformer ~ $1.99

Lost Reavers: Beta ~ Namco-Bandai ~ Multiplayer / Action-Adventure ~ Free

Dodge Club Party ~ James Montagna Games ~ Party ~ $1.99

Paranautical Activity ~ Code Avarice / Saturnine Games ~ FPS / Roguelike ~ $9.99

Slots - Pharaoh's Riches ~ Skunk Software ~ Simulated Gambling ~ $4.99 for a limited time then $9.99

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Wii U Virtual Console Releases

Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! (DS) $6.99

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3DS Digital Retail Releases

Bravely Default 2: End Layer ~ Square Enix ~ JRPG ~ $39.99

Langrisser Re: Incarnation ~ Aksys Games ~ JRPG ~ $39.99

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3DS eShop Releases

Excave III: Tower of Destiny ~ Bergsala Lightweight ~ Action / RPG ~ $9.99

Super Strike Beach Volleyball ~ Natsume ~ Sports / Volleyball ~ $4.99

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3DS Virtual Console Releases

Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES) ~ RARE ~ Platformer ~ $7.99

The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past (SNES) ~ Nintendo ~ Adventure ~ $7.99

Super Metroid (SNES) ~ Nintendo ~ Platformer / Adventure ~ $7.99

Star Tropics (NES) ~ Nintendo ~ Adventure ~ $4.99

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What do you think of this week's upcoming eShop downloads that have been confirmed so far? We'll be sure to update this list as new games are confirmed, in the meantime be sure to tell us what you think in our comment section below!

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#NAWeeklyDownloads #WiiU #3DS #eShop #WeeklyDownloads #Downloads

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Everybody Phone Home...

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Here it is! Our 500th review and Steel Rivals is a truly epic title in our books, but for none of the right reasons! Continue reading the rest of our review to find out why we aren't very fond of Steel Rivals!

Developed and published by nuGAME the gameplay in Steel Rivals is straightforward and relatively simple, there are several modes including tournament and free battle. The tournament mode is actually decent in its mechanics, however this is the only good aspect of the game. The game lacks any sort of story mode which is a shame. There are some unlockable skins for the characters in the game, but overall there's not much of an incentive to master Steel Rivals.

The characters are so broken in-terms of balance with two character types, ones with weapons and ones without. Weapon wielding characters have a huge advantage in-terms of speed which completely ruins any balance between the various characters in the game.



The controls are an absolute disaster in Steel Rivals as there were many occasions where the blocking and attack buttons were unresponsive while at the same time the enemy A.I. made no mistakes whatsoever which meant that a dreaded game over was almost a guarantee.

The visuals are also atrociously bad, as the 3D character models look like bizarre mannequins with pseudo realistic faces and plastic skin. The backgrounds are better, but are quite drab and uninspiring. The sound effects are also lackluster with an equally boring soundtrack.



Bottom-Line:

With mediocre gameplay, broken controls and A.I., a total lack of a story mode, and an atrocious audio-visual presentation, Steel Rivals is quite possibly the worst game that we've ever reviewed and should be avoided at all costs. If you do download the game you should expect an E.T. level experience...

Price: £5.99/€6.99/$6.99

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Score: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ 0.5/10

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#Review #NuGames #WiiU #eShop #Bad #Fighter

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A Week of Highly Rated Games!

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eShop 72 focuses on the latest download releases, both new and classics, appearing on the Nintendo eShop in North America. Showing you how well they’re doing during the first 72 hours on the service from Thursday, April 7th to April 10th at 9:00am PST.

This week has a few good releases, however in our honest opinions the votes seem rather suspect as all six games have received at least 4 stars which many of the top-tier games haven't even reached within the first 72 hours on the service. Nonetheless here's the list of games that were released this week!

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Wii U eShop Releases

Lovely Planet:

Tiny Build Games' FPS, Lovely Planet is off to a great start as it has managed to receive a rating of ★★★★½ stars with a total of three votes in its first 72 hours on the Wii U eShop service!

Epic Dumpster Bear:

Log Games' surprisingly enjoyable platformer Epic Dumpster Bear has had a fantastic first 72 hours on the Wii U eShop with a whopping ★★★★★ rating with three total votes!

Emojikara ~ A Clever Emoji Match Game:

Intropy Games' bizarre emoji puzzler is also off to a puzzling start with a ★★★★★ rating with one vote in its first 72 hours on the Wii U eShop service...

Super Robo Mouse:

RCMADIAX's Action title Super Robo Mouse has squeaked in with a rating of ★★★★☆ with a total of three votes in its first 72 hours on the Wii U eShop service.

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Wii U Virtual Console Releases

Game & Watch™ Gallery 4 (GBA)

Nintendo's fourth Game & Watch Gallery title has stormed onto the Wii U eShop with a rating of ★★★★★ with a whopping eight votes during its first 72 hours on the service which is quite impressive!

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3DS eShop Releases

Doll Fashion Atelier:

Teyon's bizarre doll dress-up title, Doll Fashion Atelier has done surprisingly well on the 3DS eShop during its first 72 hours on the service with a rating of ★★★★½ stars with three total votes...

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Be sure to check back next Sunday for next week's eShop 72 feature and as always let us know what you thought of the feature in our comment section below!

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#Feature #eShop72 #Exclusive #WiiU #3DS #eShop

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Decent Match-Three Action.

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Developed by PlayEveryWare and published by iWin games, Jewel Quest is a simple yet highly challenging match-three style puzzler that will test your skills and can be a decent amount of fun for short-bursts, however how does it hold-up against its competition? Continue reading to find out!

The gameplay in Jewel Quest is simple, you must match three or more jewels to make matches to light up the puzzle board. The objective is to light up every space on the board within a set amount of time. The puzzle boards get progressively more difficult with each stage that's cleared and gets extremely challenging near the end of the 72 stages. You can also match three or more coins to earn a wildcard to light up a single puzzle square to help complete the stages!



The touch-screen controls are perfect for this kind of game and are also very easy to master which is good, since precision and speed are necessary for completing the more challenging stages in the game! The Off-TV-Play is also implemented well in this game so expect some quality audio and visuals even if you don't always have access to a television set!

Visually the game is a mixed bag, the background images in the stages are quite detailed and look nice, however the jewels and puzzle boards look very dated and are missing that HD shine which is very unfortunate, the audio on the other hand is nice with simple sound effects and an excellent soundtrack that definitely sets the mood for the game! Overall the audio-visual presentation is above average if you take everything into account!



Bottom-Line:

With solid gameplay that's both simple yet extremely challenging, flawless controls that work well with the game, and a superb soundtrack, Jewel Quest is a game that most fans of the puzzle genre will likely find quite enjoyable, however the visuals aren't on par with most modern games in the genre and as such it does slightly hurt the game's overall score. Regardless we still give Jewel Quest a solid level of recommendation to our fans!

Price: $4.99

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Score: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

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#Review #WiiU #eShop #Puzzler #iWin #PlayEveryWare #JewelQuest

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Fantastically Frantic Digging!

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Developed and published by Namco Games and originally released on the NES back in the early 1990's in North America and Europe, Dig Dug II is an excellent sequel to the widely popular Dig Dug arcade game that was released in the 1980's, though it was and still is very underrated by gamers despite possessing far more content than its predecessor. Dig Dug II has withstood the test of time and it is still a very good game in our opinions and here's why:

The gameplay in Dig Dug II is fairly simple, but extremely challenging. You are armed with a harpoon that can inflate enemies and pop them for a small number of points and a jackhammer that can make cracks in the island and sink sections of the island. Drowning enemies award players with a very large amount of points, especially if you drown a large number of them in one go! Sinking three sections of the islands causes a fruit, vegetable, beverage, or mushroom to show up which is worth anywhere from a small number of points to a rather sizeable number depending on the item.



The game possesses seventy-two stages which can take two to four hours to complete as well as an additional hard-mode that can be played after beating the first seventy-two stages and possesses smarter and slightly faster enemies! The game is rather strange in-terms of difficulty as the level of difficulty ramps-up until the sixty-fourth stage and then suddenly becomes easy during the final eight stages.

The controls are very simplistic, being an NES title, that's not surprising, however you'll need quick reflexes in order to save yourself in some of the more challenging stages. The Gamepad's Off-TV-Play feature is great for this kind of game and you never have to worry about losing your high-score or progress in the game thanks to the save-state feature so overall this game might actually be superior to its original NES release!



Visually the game has aged well, by NES standards anyways, with colorful characters and stages. One thing that really impressed us was the quality of the emulation in this title, there's no frame-rate dips or visual bugs such as "ghosting" or darker and muddier visuals that are prevalent in many other titles on the Virtual Console Service, which is an absolutely incredible feat on Bandai Namco's part!

The audio has a few issues such as very rarely skipping music notes and such, but isn't a major issue. The sound effects are standard arcade fare which isn't necessarily a bad thing and the music is very catchy and enjoyable. Perhaps not as memorable as Bubble Bobble's theme song, but both of Dig Dug II's songs are pretty catchy. The game over jingle is also very iconic in our opinions! Overall the audio-visual presentation in the game is superb with only a few minor issues!



Bottom-Line:

With solid gameplay, excellent controls, great new features courtesy of the Wii U Virtual Console service, and a superb audio-visual presentation that has very few emulation issues, Dig Dug II is a quality title that we highly recommend downloading especially for its price! So if you haven't downloaded the game yet, do yourself a favor and download it ASAP!

Price: $4.99

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Score: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

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#Review #WiiU #VC #eShop #DigDugII #Namco #NES #Arcade

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Counting Coins!

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My Nintendo has launched today and there already seems to be disparity between the various regions that the rewards program has launched in. Europe seems to earn more gold coins for digital purchases than any other region and also has the best discount coupons rewards worth 20-50% off of specific Wii U and 3DS titles. You can also obtain platinum coins through various secret missions which helps boost your platinum coins rather fast!

North America on the other hand earns the smallest amount of gold coins for purchases with the two highest coin values being unobtainable because they can only be earned if you purchase games that are more expensive than anything currently available on the eShop in the region...

North America also appears to be getting shafted as far as the discount coupons are concerned as the discounts are only worth 15-30% off of specific Wii U and 3DS titles which is substantially less than what Europe's discount awards offer and they are in some cases actually more expensive than the superior European discounts...



Another serious issue is that certain games that Nintendo of America has withheld from releasing on the North American Wii U Virtual Console service are now being added as My Nintendo exclusive rewards e.g. Donkey Kong Country: Returns which feels very underhanded and clearly is a push to "force" people to purchase their games digitally in the region.

And the final disparity between regions is that the North American My Nintendo service does not have any of the bonus secret missions to earn extra platinum coins which means that it'll take longer for Americans to earn those coveted platinum coins...

What do you think of these differences that My Nintendo possesses between the various regions? As always be sure to let us know in our comment section below...

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#MyNintendo #Rewards #AVGD #Exclusive #Feature #WiiU #3DS #NintendoAmerica #NintendoEurope

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A Big Week For RPG's!

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This week's weekly eShop downloads have been added to Nintendo of America's website a bit early so we're publishing our article today instead of on Wednesday, however we will update the article once more games "assumedly Wii U Virtual Console titles" are confirmed for release on the North American eShop this Thursday. This week's theme seems to be RPG's with high profile games in the genre releasing on both of Nintendo's consoles this week!

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Wii U eShop Releases:

★ Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus ~ Aksys Games ~ Platforming/RPG ~ $14.99

★ 6-Hand Video Poker ~ Skunk Software ~ Virtual Gambling ~ $6.00

★ Now I know my ABCs ~ Skunk Software ~ Educational ~ $2.49

★ PixlCross ~ PixlBit Studios LLC ~ Puzzle/Strategy ~ $5.99

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Wii U Virtual Console Releases:

★ Super Mario Sluggers (Wii) ~ Nintendo ~ Sports/Baseball ~ $19.99

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3DS eShop Releases:

★ Justice Chronicles ~ Kemco ~ JRPG ~ $9.99

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Both games have since been removed from Nintendo of America's website, but are confirmed to be releasing in the region this week! Anyways what do you guys think of the confirmed eShop releases for this week? As always be sure to let us know in our comment section below!

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#eShop #WeeklyUpdate #Downloads #3DS #WiiU

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Gorgeously Awful...

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Developed and published by 2020 Venture, Chasing Dead is an action-horror FPS game with survival elements and actually has a very frightening story, however is the gameplay as good as other games in the genre? We don't think so and here's why:

The story is dark and your character must travel to a second Earth that has appeared in the sky and investigate it. Not all is as it seems as the world is filled with mutants, zombies, and even behemoths that look strikingly similar to the titans in the anime series Attack On Titan. This does give the game a very frightening sense of urgency just to survive.



The gameplay is quite lackluster, however with confusing gameplay and navigation issues that will leave players scratching their heads. Overall the layout of the world is very poor and to make matters worse the game suffers from frame-rate issues with the frame-rate dropping below 15 frames per second at times which is just unbearable.

The controls are also very awkward and take quite awhile to get used to. In fact the control scheme in Chasing Dead for the Wii U is among the most awkward controls that we've ever experienced in a game and that says alot given some of the terrible controls that some third party Wii titles possessed. The Gamepad features are okay with Off-TV-Play taking center stage, but that's certainly not enough to save the game from extreme criticism.



The graphics in Chasing Dead for Wii U are actually superb for an indie title and actually looks like an early PS3 title visually with a vibrant and incredibly detailed world in glorious HD and very detailed character and enemy models as well, however as we already mentioned the game suffers from absolutely atrocious frame-rate issues which seriously hurts the game's overall score.

In-terms of audio, Chasing Dead does have a good deal of voice acting and atmospheric music/sound effects, however the audio cuts out frequently and makes loud buzzing sounds when the frame-rate dips so again that's a serious strike against the game.



Bottom-Line:

With superb HD visuals and excellent soundtrack/ambiance Chasing Dead could have been a great adult-oriented title for the Wii U eShop, however lackluster gameplay, absolutely awful controls, and audio issues alongside the game's unforgivable frame-rate issues make Chasing Dead a title that you should avoid at all costs, especially given its price.

Price: £24.99/€29.99/$29.99

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Score: ★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ 2/10

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#Review #ChasingDead #WiiU #eShop #2020Venture #FPS #Horror #Nindie

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Great Game, With Emulation Issues...

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Review by Jnes5 and Ichigofan.

(Wii U Virtual Console)

(C) 2000, HAL Laboratory inc., Nintendo

Developer: HAL Laboratory
Publisher: Nintendo

June 25th 2015, (Europe)
July 30th 2015, (North America)

Players: 1 player (single player), 1-4 players (Multiplayer)
Price: $9.99/€9.99/£8.99
Genre: 2D Platformer



Ripple Star, a planet that's populated by fairies, is being invaded and conquered by a threat called a Dark Matter. Ribbon, one of the fairies living in the planet, flees from home with their sacred treasure, a giant crystal, but then in their pursuit, the Dark Matter shatters the crystal into pieces throughout the galaxy and Ribbon falls onto Pop Star... Heartbroken to find that she is left with only one of the shards from the giant crystal, Ribbon also meets Kirby, and as she explains her situation to it, Kirby agrees to retrieve all of the crystal shards and save Ripple Star from the Dark Matter's control.

Story:

The story is good for a kirby title, it’s just a simple and straightforward plot that kirby games are known for, so I'm not expecting deep and complex stories from them, but its appropriate for this certain title since it's cutesy and charming, I did however find it interesting that this certain story does contain two endings ! one bad (in which it left me pretty tasteless) and one good (in which it was pretty good !) and they can be unlocked it depending on how many crystal shards have you collected (more on that later on).



Gameplay:

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (also known as "Kirby of the Stars 64" in Japan) is a 2D platformer game. You can start out with a video explaining the controls or not, but as any other kirby game, you play as him obviously, while you can jump with it, you can also flutter for a short amount of time by repeatedly pressing the A button, you can inhale some enemies by holding down the B button, and once you've inhaled someone or something, you can either press B again to spit them out, and making it hit something in front of you, or you can press down to swallow them up, but some certain enemies might have a certain power where if you swallow them up, you can gain its powers in which are called copy abilities!

in which they are fire, stone, ice, bomb, etc. but if you get hit many times, the copy ability that you are having right now will bounce out of you, that will be in a shape of a four-spiked star, and you can get it back again by swallowing it up again, you also have a health meter where you can recover by collecting the food that are spread in the game and below the health meter is a star meter where if you collect 100 stars that are also spread in the game (in which a yellow one cost 1 unit and a blue one costs 10 units) you will receive an extra life. The gameplay has the same good and enjoyable formula that many kirby games are known for, however, it also included a new mechanic in the copy abilities!

In this game, you can now combine copy abilities to turn them into one ! and you do this by pressing either the R button or any direction in the C buttons to pull out a power that you have right now and then throw it with the B button to launch it in front of you (you can also throw it upwards and get rid of it by pressing the indicated button again), and if you hit an enemy with a power, you can combine a new power in which it looks like an eight-spiked star, and then swallow it! You can combine two different powers or power of the same kind and these combined powers can make the game easy and some of them are either just pretty useless or boring or both, they all make the game more enjoyable due to how powerful and fun they can be!



The game also includes certain moments where kirby's friends will help along the way in certain areas in certain levels, Waddle Dee can help kirby go to a next area with the help of a vehicle that he found where the game turns into an on-rails platformer where you can jump and collect items in the air and avoid obstacles, Adeleine can draw an item that can help kirby recover health, receive a powerup, etc. and finally there's King Dedede, where he can ride you and basically control him, you can attack with his hammer with the B button and you can also make it charge up by holding it, but it doesn't do anything once you let go... but you can destroy wall and attack enemies with it, but you can't flutter in the air, you just only climb any escalators in the area in order to go up, I thought that these additional gameplay elements were slow paced (with the exception of adeleine) due to how they kind of interrupt the flow of the game, but there isn't that many moments to begin with and there are also not that bad.

The objective of the game is to select a planet from the galaxy screen and then selecting the level of the planet, and you must reach the end of all the levels included in said planet by reaching the picnic of kirby's friends where you must set an angle and the distance as to where do you want to land on the item in the picnic, so that way you can unlock the boss of the planet, so that way when you defeat him, you will collect a shard and then go to the other planet, but there is another objective in the game as well, and that is to collect the crystal shards that are in each level in each planet, they are spread throughout the game and you must collect them by touching it, all of these are either in the open, hidden, require a certain copy ability to reach it, by defeating a mini boss, etc.



Most of these are pretty difficult and a pain to collect, since most of them won't be possibly collected during your first playthrough so you must either require a good knowledge of this game and replay a certain level over again in order to obtain certain crystal shards or you can just consulting a strategy guide, while these might not seem necessary to beat the game, you do need them since the game can't continue to the last level if you don't have them all... that's right, ALL of them! I do think that this is pretty much a killjoy for me since it doesn't feel right that you must collect all of the crystal shards in order to get more of this game since most of them, as I've said before, can become tedious and a pain to do...

The game also includes multiplayer, but it only supports in the minigames that this game includes additionally and it doesn't have any multiplayer in the main game. These 3 minigames are 100-Yard Hop where you race to the finish line by hopping to the stones that are in the water by pressing the A button to jump 1 space and the B button to jump 2, fall in the water or slip on an object and it will delay your race, Bumper Crop Bump where you catch many fallen fruit from the as possible and you can even make a character move out of the way by holding a direction the character's in and then pressing A, and finally there's the Checker Board Chase, where you and three opponents are on an 8 X 8 squared chess board and you must make all the blocks in front of you fall by pressing A so that an opponent in front of it must fall, each character has five lives and they lose one life if they fall, and when one opponent has lost all of its lives, the checker board becomes more tiny!

The game is fine itself, I did really enjoy the whole idea of the combining copy abilities and other things as well, but the whole thing about the crystal shard collecting could've become much better since it this game make it seem forceful and tedious to do, but for what it is, I did had some enjoyment from it.



Graphics:

The game is designed in a 2.5D environment with a good amount of details in the backgrounds in some levels, but in a true kirby fashion, it's colorful, charming and it has it's very cool (and some even disturbing!) moments in certain areas! It looks great for its time and it does look good now, but there is an issue where I found some graphic details outdated and make it feel out of place, but there are some moments where it takes the whole environments feel more noticeable and necessary to progress on the game! And I do appreciate how this game takes advantage of that!

Music and Audio:

The soundtrack in this game is pretty good, it can have a variety of classical scores, cool tunes and obviously kid friendly music but in a medium but still great sounding quality, there are some really good songs in there since some are catchy, some are smooth and calming, and some even are just amazing to hear, it might be even memorable to some people!

The sounds are ok, while the sounds like the kirby inhaling and fluttering have gotten a much more updated and more modern sound (during its time), there are some that lack impact and there are some that just sound more appropriate for them, thankfully the latter is much more frequent. And believe it or not, this game does have some voice acting in it!

They are just bits and pieces of them since they consist of kirby getting hit or completing a boss level (and even dedede has one where he takes a hit!) and what they are, they do sound great and much more appropriate for the characters!



Presentation:

What can you expect from a kirby game? Its charm? Its cutesy nature? This Nintendo 64 game presents at what a kirby game would be like with a game console like this by also including cutscenes that represent the story and it doesn't break the whole nature of the game's charming nature at all, in fact, it makes it better by having a really smooth and good quality that doesn't make it look cheap and not charming.

The levels are also greatly made as well, since they feel more alive due to how much interaction is going on in the background and sometimes even pretty great with its pretty cool moments like in a moment where a pyramid rose up from a dessert (and all while you're playing mind you!) and imaginative and inspiring worlds, sure they might be just there for show to some people, but I do think that this game did a great job at making something different but still be charming and great that a lot of kirby games are known for.

As for the replayability, there is so much to do in this game! You can collect all of the crystal shards that are in the main game, you can also collect all of the Enemy Info Card that can be only obtained in each and single level in the game that has the picnic mode in the end (but sadly nothing happens when you collect them all...), you can unlock and replay a certain cutscene in the game in the movie theater by reaching said cutscene in the main game, you can unlock a boss rush mode by beating the game with the good ending and a sound test mode by beating the game with the bad ending, but as I've mentioned before, there are the minigames that you can unlock its higher difficulty by beating its previous difficulty.

The Wii U Difference:

The Off-TV-Play and Miiverse functionality are certainly great additions that weren't present in the Wii Virtual Console version of the game, however the visuals are much muddier and darker than they were on previous releases of the game and the audio is slightly lower quality as well, which is to be expected with re-releases on the Virtual Console service, however it does still slightly hamper the game's overall score.



Overall:

This game is pretty fun and a pretty good kirby game handled well for this console, it has that great charming feel, look and fun kirby games are known for, but it makes it more great thanks to its great quality on its elements such as the combination of copy abilities, the 2.5D desing, and more! While the flaws such as the tedious way of collecting certain crystal shards and other flaws did affected the enjoyment of this title, I still think that this is a good kirby game that might have been a little more better, so if you love kirby games or want a great platformer with collectathons included in it, then go ahead and get this one! If you are easily frustrated with backtracking or if you were put off with some of the flaws that I've mentioned in this game, then skip it, as for me this game gets a solid level of recommendation!

Price: $9.99

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Score: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

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#Review #Kirby64 #VirtualConsole #VC #WiiU #eShop #HalLaboratory

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Huge Week For The Wii U!

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This week is set to be a big week for the North American eShop, at least for the Wii U! The selection and variety of games looks to be rather impressive as well. If you only own a 3DS, this week's downloads in North American might be a bit disappointing with only a single title releasing on the service this week. Anyways here's the full list of games confirmed to be releasing this week in North America:

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Wii U Retail:

★ Pokken Tournament - Fighter - $59.99 (March 18th)

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Wii U eShop:

★ U Host - Game Show/Trivia - $12.99

★ Infinity Runner - Runner/Horror/Action - $6.99

★ Mutant Mudds: Super Challenge - Platformer - $9.99

★ Bird Mania Party - Action - $1.99

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Wii U Virtual Console:

★ City Connection (NES) - Action/Puzzle - $4.99

★ Dig Dug II: Paradise Islands (NES) - Action/Arcade - $4.99

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3DS eShop:

★ Mutant Mudds: Super Challenge - Platformer - $9.99

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What do you think of this week's downloads in North America? Has anything caught your eye? Will you be downloading any of the new titles this week? As always be sure to let us know in our comment section below!

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#WeeklyDownloads #WiiU #3DS #eShop #Retail #Downloads #Nindies

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A Hauntingly Difficult And Fantastic Shmup For U!

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Developed and published by Squarehead Studios Star Ghost is an extremely challenging yet enjoyable procedurally generated shoot 'em up title released exclusively on the Wii U! Does the game live up to its Studios' Rare pedigree? Continue reading our review to find out!

The gameplay is fairly simple with the A button being used to move the ship up "release it to drop altitude" and the left analog stick is used to shoot and aim your shots. The controls definitely take some getting used to, but it shouldn't take too long to learn them. Still it would be nice if the controls were a little less awkward. Star Ghost is divided into several sectors with multiple procedurally generated stages. The stages and enemy patterns are well balanced so the game never feels cheap or unfair.



There are several types of enemies and obstacles that are introduced as you progress through the sectors and from the second sector on you'll face-off against boss battles! The boss battles play-out like a game of cat-and-mouse, but after awhile the roles are reversed and you'll take the offensive to defeat the worn-down bosses. This is a refreshing new take on boss battles that we thoroughly enjoyed in the game!

You can also earn blue orbs to spend on power-ups, health, and even a continue if you earn enough orbs. Purchasing continues is very important early on in the game when orbs are easier to come across and you're less likely to die. You only get one life per continue and start off with absolutely no continues and everything past the second sector is quite challenging so expect to replay the game many times before reaching the end!



Star Ghost also features flawless Off-TV-Play which is an excellent feature to say the least. In-terms of the audio-visual presentation the game is superb! Visually the stage backgrounds are vibrant and detailed with excellent lighting effects. The ship looks decidedly retro and so do the aquatic and insectoid enemies! The look of the stages will instantly remind gamers from the 80's and 90's of titles such as Gradius and Salamander!

The music is by far the game's strongest point, as the entire sound-track has been composed by the video gaming legend David Wise himself! With music this good you'll feel like you've been sent to the past and it's a wonderful feeling! The rest of the audio in Star Ghost sounds like something you would have heard in a 90's arcade room! You just won't find many modern games with such an authentic turn of the millennium sound-track and sound effects which is something we feel must be stressed as the developer deserves praise for this accomplishment!



Bottom-Line:

With excellent gameplay that is extremely challenging, but never feels cheap, fantastic visuals, Off-TV-Play, and one of the best sound-tracks we've heard from an eShop title Star Ghost is near perfection, however the rather awkward controls do take some getting used to so we felt that was an issue. Regardless Star Ghost is a wonderful title and because of that we give the game a great level of recommendation!

Price: £7.99/€8.99/$8.99

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Score: ★★★★★★★★★☆ 9/10

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#Review #Shmup #Shooter #WiiU #eShop #Nindie #SquareheadStudios

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An Independent Debut!

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Graphite Lab's upcoming sci-fi action-shooter Hive Jump will not include online multiplayer in the Wii U version of the game according to an interview with the developer at the Fragments of Silicon podcast. Here's a small fragment of the interview:

Interview Overview wrote:“That’s something where we felt like the platform certainly is kind of a party platform. We love playing games on Wii U in kind of party mode. So we don’t have online in the plans for Wii U, but it will be for PC.”

The Wii U version of the game will still possess local four player co-op as well as Wii U exclusive features such as using the Gamepad as a map, Off-TV-Play and eventual Amiibo support! We'll let you know even more about the game as new details become available!

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Mobot Studios has just released their official Wii U release trailer for The Deer God meaning that the game shouldn't be too far away from releasing on the eShop! Be sure to checkout the trailer above!

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Thomas Happ Games has announced that their critically acclaimed Metroidvania title Axiom Verge will be hitting the Wii U eShop later this year, with a N3DS version following at a later date! Here's a brief overview of the game:

Game Overview wrote:Axiom Verge is a retro-style action-platform-exploration game done in a 16-bit style and was heavily influenced by games like Metroid, Contra, Blaster Master, and other classics, but with very modern design sensibilities.

It also gives you power over glitches like those found in classic games, allowing you to scramble enemies, corrupt environments, and enter hidden areas as you explore this hostile alien world and uncover your role within it.

The game will feature over eighty enemies, forty weapons, nearly a hundred upgrades, and over one thousand rooms! We'll let you know more about this title at a later date!

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Crystalline Green and Drop Dead Interactive have teamed up to bring the rage-inducing arcade-style indie title Gear Gauntlet to Wii U! The game is a maze-like arcade game where players must avoid obstacles and other hazards and did we mention just how rage-inducing the game can be? It looks like the game will be hitting the Wii U eShop later this year!

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Renegade Kid's Jools Watsham released a rather brilliant commercial for his upcoming Wii U and 3DS eShop title Mutant Mudds: Super Challenge! The game releases this Thursday in North America and PAL regions! Be sure to checkout the commercial above!

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About Futuridium #WiiU: we should be able to enter QA early next week. So an April release is possible (finger crossed!). #nindies

— MixedBag NOT @ GDC (@MixedBagGames) March 12, 2016

Mixed Bag Games has announced that their upcoming Starfox inspired Wii U eShop pseudo 3D on-the-rails shooter Futuridium is being sent to Nintendo's QA as early as next week and might be released as soon as April of this year!

The #N3DS version will take a bit more. Game runs great and is fully playable from start to end, but some Unity bugs need to be ironed out

— MixedBag NOT @ GDC (@MixedBagGames) March 12, 2016

The New 3DS version of the game will take awhile longer due to some bugs that need to be ironed out!



Be sure to checkout the trailer of the game above!

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And that's a wrap! Be sure to come back on friday for our main WiiWareWave Weekly Edition for additional Indie news stories as well as major Nintendo news stories for the week! As always be sure to leave us your thoughts in our comment section below!

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#WiiWareWaveWeeklyEdition #NindieMidweekIndies #Exclusive #Feature #ezine #News #Gaming #WiiU #eShop #3DS #Trailer #N3DS #Nindies #Indies

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High-Tempo Rhythm-Based Platforming!

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Developed and published by Seaven Studios, Inside My Radio is a fast-paced rhythm-based platformer that can be extremely challenging or easy depending on how you play the game! So is the game as good as it sounds? Yes, to an extent and here's why:

Inside my radio has all the makings of a top-notch rhythm-based platformer! The platforming is fast-paced and enjoyable and the sound-track is flawless. The game's handful of stages are varied and the level designs are brilliant! There are some issues however, as the controls are a bit uncomfortable to use and the game is too hard without using the built-in metronome, but is too easy if you use it and the game is extremely short so expect to finish the game within a couple of hours.



Visually speaking Inside My Radio looks excellent and will really whet your nostalgic appetite! The character models are surprisingly detailed and the level backgrounds are equally detailed and unique! The Gamepad exclusive features such as Off-TV-Play work perfectly in this game which is a fantastic thing to say the least!

Bottom-Line:

With an excellent sound-track, gorgeous retro-style visuals and great gameplay, Inside My Radio is an excellent game with a ton of potential, however somewhat awkward controls and difficulty balance issues hold the game back from reaching true greatness. Regardless Inside My Radio is an overall great game so we give it a solid recommendation!

Price: £12.99/€14.99/$14.99

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Score: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

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#Review #WiiU #eShop #SeavenStudios #Platforming #Rhythm #Music

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An Off Week...

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eShop 72 focuses on the latest download releases, both new and classics, appearing on the Nintendo eShop in North America. Showing you how well they’re doing during the first 72 hours on the service from Thursday, March 10th at 9:00am, to Sunday, March 13th at 9:00am PST.

This week is kind of a mixed bag with most games receiving few votes if any, however all but one of the games that were actually rated received a four or more stars rating! It has been a longtime since we've done these eShop 72 articles and our staff member who created this exclusive feature series has left our staff so out of respect we'll try to change the format as much as we can while making sure that the feature retains its original purpose!

So without further ado here's the eShop 72 feature that you've all been waiting for:

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Wii U eShop:

Grumpy Reaper:

EnjoyUp's latest arcade-style game for the Wii U isn't doing so hot, in-fact it's doing incredibly poor with a ★☆☆☆☆ rating from only a single user in North America. Our reviewer @SKTTR has cited serious game-freezing bugs as being prevalent in the game, which likely accounts for it's poor rating.



Star Ghost:

Developed by Squarehead Studios and featuring a rocking sound-track by David Wise it should come as no surprise that Star Ghost is doing quite well so far on the Wii U eShop with a ★★★★☆ rating from 5 users! We are currently reviewing the game and can confirm that it's a great title!



Jewel Quest:

Developed by iwin Games Jewel Quest is a highly praised match-three puzzler that has been released on many platforms already, but despite its positive history, the game has failed to receive a single rating on the eShop in its first 72 hours on the service...

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Wii U Virtual Console:

Mega Man Battle Network 6 - Falzar (GBA):

The sixth generation of Capcom's legendary Mega Man Battle Network series for the Gameboy Advance hit the service in North America this week and despite being a AAA third party Virtual Console title the Falzar version of the game has failed to receive a single rating from any users in its first 72 hours on the service...



Mega Man Battle Network 6 - Gregar (GBA):

The sixth generation of Capcom's legendary Mega Man Battle Network series for the Gameboy Advance hit the service in North America this week and despite being a AAA third party Virtual Console title the Gregar version of the game has only received a single rating in the first 72 hours on the service, but at least the game currently has a ★★★★★ rating!

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Wii U Apps:

Rhapsody:

Napster's hit online radio service Rhapsody has finally arrived on the Wii U eShop this week! The app requires a $9.99 a month subscription and gives you access to over 32 million songs and hundreds of thousands of online radio stations! In the first 72 hours on the service Rhapsody has received a ★★★★☆ rating from 7 users!

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3DS eShop:

Blast 'Em Bunnies:

Nnooo Studios arcade-shooter Blast 'Em Bunnies is yet another game that was released on the eShop this week that has failed to receive a single rating from any users. That's not to say it's a bad game, but it's definitely an off week on the eShop...



Bravely Second: End Layer Demo - The Ballad of the Three Cavaliers:

Square Enix's demo to the sequel of their critically acclaimed 3DS RPG Bravely Default is by far the highest rated game on the eShop this week as it has received a ★★★★★ rating from 51 users in its first 72 hours on the service!

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Be sure to check back next Sunday for next week's eShop 72 feature and as always let us know what you thought of the feature in our comment section below!

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#Feature #Exclusive #eShop72 #WiiU #3DS #eShop

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Guardians of The Galaxy "Pun Intended"!

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First Announced at E3 2005 under the title Starfox DS Starfox Command was well received on the show floor. Taking advantage of the then new Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection; Command has the distinction of being both the first handheld and Online playable Starfox Title. Starfox Command was developed by Q-games and published by Nintendo. Since it was one of Nintendo's popular 1st party titles it was released on the DS to boost the handhelds sales. Unfortunately the online servers were shutdown in 2015.



Starfox Command takes place a few years after Starfox Assault and features six different endings based on how you choose to progress through the game. The plot is everyone on the Starfox team has split up and gone their separate ways. Fox is wandering the galaxy doing basically nothing. Falco is a drifter going from job to job. Slippy is engaged to a female frog named Amanda, Peppy is now general of the Cornerian Army and Krystal has joined up with Starwolf after fox told her to leave the team feeling that the life was to dangerous for her. The game introduces a new enemy called the Anglers, giant fish beings that live in the venom sea. Like Andross they too want control of the Lylat system and launch an invasion to get it.



As always you take control of Fox and his arwing to do battle against the Anglers. The game takes you too many different planets and sectors and there are a number of different enemies to fight. As you might have guessed players use the touch screen to control the arwing. The controls are very similar to Metroid Prime Hunters, with a few changes. For right handed people L is to shoot and when you hold it down you do a charged attack. The game is mostly controlled using the touch screen, slide the stylus left to go left or slide the stylus right to go right, draw circles on the touch screen to do barrel rolls these can also be changed to inverted controls.

Unlike other Starfox titles "cough" Starfox 64 "cough" there are no landmaster missions or voice acting. Characters in the game talk in this annoying gibberish chatter. Thanks to the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connect service shutting down in 2015, all online features in this game have been rendered useless, which does hurt the game's overall score.



In the graphics department, Starfox Command look awesome, most likely because at this point in the consoles life people didn't know what the DS was capable of. Even now on the Wii U VC service the game has aged quite well visually and looks every bit as good as Starfox 64! In game play it was interesting what the developers did,the game is a mix of aerial combat and strategy. Let me explain, when you get your mission you don't just jump in and start shooting stuff, you get a map and on the map there are small red dots (in later levels there is fog so you have to clean it away with the stylus first but there is a certain amount you can clean away at one time) these are your enemies.

On the same screen there is the great fox and an arwing, basically you just draw a line to the enemy you want to engage. That line you drew is the arwings flight path, but you cant get carried away drawing too many lines because the longer the line means the more fuel you're using and you only have a certain amount per turn so draw your lines carefully. While your objective is to take out enemies and clear a stage your primary objective is to protect The Great Fox. If any enemies get through and destroy the ship the level is lost and will restart.

Throughout the game you will run into many characters some new most old, like Pigma Dengar, James Mcloud, Andross, Katt Monroe, Octoman from F-zero and many more



Bottom-Line:

Overall Starfox Command is a great game. The graphics are great, the control are great, the mix of strategy and classic Starfox combat is awesome and suits the game perfectly, the story and its many endings will make you want to play the game over and over again! Unfortunately for some people getting the controls down can be a pain they take some getting used to. Trying to unlock all the different characters and endings can also be a pain as you have to play through the same levels multiple times. And the removal of the online elements is a real issue as well. Besides all that Starfox Command is a great game and gets a great level of recommendation!

Price: $9.99

Source: You can read @KingreX32's original review of the game here!
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Score: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

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#Review #WiiU #VC #eShop #Nintendo #Starfox #DS #KingreX32

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Foxy Adventure!

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We recently had the honour to talk to the indie developer Arcane 4 Studios regarding their upcoming Wii U eShop platformer Rynn's Adventure and we learned quite a few new details regarding the game! Without further ado, here's our interview in its entirety:

Our Interview wrote:


Hello! Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us for this interview!

[Arcane4]: No problem at all, thanks for contacting us.

 

Could you tell us about your team who's hard at work developing Rynn's Adventure?

[Arcane4]: "Sure, the core game development team at Arcane Four Studios is made up of three long time friends who met in high school while working on text-based games using Qbasic. Our team is currently geographically dispersed across Canada, which means that most of our development work takes place online using Google Hangouts. We are passionate lifelong gamers and are immensely excited to be releasing our first game on the various systems that we play every day ourselves!

In terms of our primary jobs, Shawn is our game designer, Jon is our programmer, and Mike is our artist. All three of us love the role we have in making games, and have spent the majority of our lives honing the skills required for our jobs in one way or another."

 

How long has Rynn's Adventure been in development?

[Arcane4]: We have been working on Rynn's Adventure for about a year and a half (if you include time used for porting our game to various systems, and certification). The idea for Rynn's Adventure started in October of 2014, but major development work didn't start until 2015 and now we are already into 2016, boy does time fly when you are having fun!



Rynn, the protagonist seems rather familiar, wasn't there an old story or mythology about Rynn the fox?

[Arcane4]: We aren’t aware of any stories of a fox named Rynn aside from our own, however we wouldn't be surprised that someone else out there has had similar ideas, it is a big world with a lot of people dreaming up all kinds of wacky and great things. Please let us know if you find that mythological fox that seemed familiar to you, I am sure that we would enjoy that story as well. =)

 

What games inspired your team to develop Rynn's Adventure?

[Arcane4]: We were inspired by the classic games that we grew up playing such as Mario, Metroid, Sonic, Mega Man, and many others. We have been huge Nintendo fans since the original NES days, and that is why we wanted to make a game that reminded us of those fond memories we had as kids, but with some modern twists of course.



About how many levels will Rynn's Adventure possess?

[Arcane4]: Rynn's Adventure follows the classic stage format that Mega Man fans will already be familiar with. After completing a brief tutorial the player will be presented with a stage select screen. From there they can choose which order to complete any of the eight unique environments and defeat the bosses causing trouble in each region. Doing this will unlock the path to the Dark Wizard’s castle where Rynn's parents are being held captive!

 

Will the game feature any multiplayer elements?

[Arcane4]: "We thought about doing multi-player but decided early on that we would leave features like that for future games, such as possible Rynn's Adventure sequels.

We are fans of multi-player capability in video games, but felt that Rynn's Adventure, like many games of its type, was more than capable of delivering a fun experience as a single player game."



What kind of gameplay elements can we expect to encounter in the course of the game? We already know minecart stages and skiing stages are in based on the trailer!

[Arcane4]: "We made it a priority with Rynn's Adventure to offer players a wide variety of unique environments and interesting mechanics so that each stage felt very different from each other. For example, one stage, "Danger Underfoot", takes place in a large cavern below the Enchanted Forest and focuses on reversing gravity back and forth in order to make progress and complete the stage.

In addition, each stage has a big boss encounter at the end that requires the player to figure out the boss’s weak point in order to defeat them. Every boss’s weak point is different, and so the player will have to try more than simply jumping on the enemy’s head a few times."



What makes Rynn's Adventure unique compared to other platforming titles?

[Arcane4]: The platforming genre is such a deeply developed genre with so many big titles that it is difficult to be completely unique. However, we believe that the magic is not necessarily in being completely unique, but rather in how you piece things together in interesting and different ways. We hope that players will enjoy playing as Rynn the fox as she journeys through the Enchanted Forest, in a fairy tale styled adventure.

 

When can we expect Rynn's Adventure to hit the Wii U eShop in NA/EU?

[Arcane4]: Very soon hopefully! We have already submitted our game to Nintendo and we are waiting for it to make it through the process on their end. This, of course, makes it hard for us to know exactly when it will be available. We will be sure to let you all know when you can expect Rynn's Adventure the moment we know ourselves.



Thanks, for answering our questions! We really appreciate it, hopefully we'll have the opportunity to interview you again sometime!

[Arcane4]: Thank you for this opportunity, we would be glad to talk with you again any time.

 

Take care!

[Arcane4]: Likewise!

What did you think of the interview and what are your thoughts regarding the upcoming Wii U eShop title Rynn's Adventure? As always, be sure to let us know in our comment section below!

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#Interview #Exclusive #Feature #Arcane4 #WiiU #eShop #Nindie

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Farewell to an indie giant, permanent first party retail discounts, amazing upcoming eShop titles, plus more!

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Nintendo of America has just permanently discounted several of their first party retail titles on the eShop today as part of their Nintendo Selects line of games! These games will now cost $19.99 on the eShop in the US, $29.99 in Canada. Here's the full list of games permanently discounted because of the new Nintendo Selects lineup:

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Wii U:

★ Super Mario 3D World.

★ Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.

★ Pikmin 3.

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3DS:

★ The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time 3D.

★ Donkey Kong Country: Returns 3D.

★ Yoshi's New Island.

★ Mario Party: Island Tour.

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On top of the retail discounts, two first party Wii U eShop exclusive titles have also received a permanent price-cut to $9.99 in the US, $12.49 in Canada! Here's the full list of said games:

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Wii U eShop:

★ NES Remix.

★ NES Remix 2.

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And lastly there're three Wii retail titles that have been added to the Nintendo Selects lineup, one of which already had a second run! These games are now available at Amazon, Best Buy, and Gamestop/EB Games for $19.99 for a limited time! Here's the full list of retail Wii games in the new Nintendo Selects line of products:

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★ Super Mario Galaxy 2.

★ Animal Crossing: City Folk.

★ Super Mario All-Stars.

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Two Tribes has officially announced that they're departing the game development industry and that their upcoming multi-platform side-scrolling shooter Rive will be releasing in September as the studios' final title. The game will also be hitting the Wii U eShop in September. Here's the reason why the crew over at Two Tribes is calling it quits:

Two Tribes wrote:
Dinosaurs:

As said, we've been working in the games industry since early 2000, making us dinosaurs, old farts, grandfathers or whatever you want to call us. This is great, because we've got a lot experience, but it also means that we act like a typical grandfather: slow and totally unaware of what is hot and what is not.

Don't get us wrong: we absolutely love making games, and we strongly feel that we're good at making them. However, ask us anything about new industry developments, and often a big question mark will appear above our heads.

For example, we are used to working with our own proprietary engine. It's technology that works great for us, but is by no means competitive with tools like Unity or the Unreal Engine. And then there are monetization strategies like free-to-play. We only know, and feel comfortable working with, the traditional model of full-priced games.

The same goes for marketing: we know how to make a decent trailer and send out a press release… but have no clue how to get traction on YouTube and Twitch.

Wrapping up:

Long story short (grandfathers like to digress!): when running a company, you need to be on top of your game, not just in terms of the product you're making, but business-wise too. And we just aren't on top of the games business anymore.

Therefore, it makes sense to focus our attention elsewhere, perhaps even outside the games industry. We simply don't know yet; but we do know that RIVE is going to be our parting gift to you and we're making damn sure it's going to be an awesome one!

It's such a shame that such a longtime competitor in the indie scene is calling it quits, but such is life, we wholeheartedly wish their team the best in their future endeavors!

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Aksys Games has announced that the developer Look At My Games' platforming action-RPG, Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus will be hitting the Wii U eShop on March 31st of this year! Here's the official detailed overview of the game:

Detailed Overview wrote:Aksys Games and LookAtMyGame proudly announce that Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus will be available for digital download on the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system 3/29/16 and Wii U™ 3/31/16. Action adventure RPG elements fuse together with lavish visuals to create a nostalgic world unlike anything you've seen before.

Navigate your way through hordes of nefarious monsters and massive boss battles in retro pixelated 2D glory! Solve puzzles, converse with locals and gain skills to restore hope to the once peaceful Exidus. Hidden items, secret areas and bonus quests round out the 30+ hours of gameplay!

Chronicles of Teddy: Harmony of Exidus Features:

★ Four Magical Realms – Explore an enchanted nexus of worlds never before imagined! Collect magical tomes to gain access to new areas and further the narrative!

★ Bring on the Bad Guys! – Giant bosses and vicious monsters will test your might as you fight to save Exidus. - Develop your skills and adapt your tactics to gain the edge over evil!

★ Musicom – Communicate with monsters and villagers by collecting runes and mastering their arcane language!

★ A Trove of Treasures – Bonus unlockables, secret items and extra quests add extra depth to the gargantuan journey before you!

We'll let you know more about the game and will reach out to the developer for a potential developer's interview, in the weeks ahead!

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Renegade Kid's, Jools Watsham recently announced that his upcoming Wii U and 3DS eShop title Mutant Mudds: Super Challenge, which is a super challenging follow-up of his ever popular Mutant Mudds title that put his studio on the map, will be hitting the eShop next Thursday! Here's some of the official release details regarding the game:

★ Release Date: March 17th (North America, Europe, and Australia)

★ Price: $9.99 / €9.99 / £8.99

★ Cross-buy: Buy on Wii U and get 3DS free, and vice versa

★Promotion: Loyalty Discount - Save 15% if you own the original Mutant Mudds or downloaded the Nindies@Home Preview demo - offer available for first 30 days of launch.

The game will also boast over 40 new stages and 20 secret characters! The game will also be introducing boss fights to the already brilliant Mutant Mudds gameplay formula!

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Nintendo of Japan has announced that their mobile social media app Miitomo will be launching in the region on March 17th! We'll be sure to let you know more information regarding the app itself once it releases in Japan and we have a better understanding of how the app will work!

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What did you think of our first weekly e-zine? Be sure to let us know and of course discuss about the various news stories in our comment section below!

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#WiiWareWaveWeeklyEdition #ezine #Exclusive #Feature #News #WiiU #3DS #eShop #Wii #Miitomo #Nindie

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New Games, Themes, And Apps For All!

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This week is an interest week for the Wii U and 3DS eShops in North America as there is quite a wide variety of new content available this week, including VC, themes, demo's, DLC, eShop titles, and even a new app for the Wii U! Here's the full listing of new downloads on the North American eShops!

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Wii U eShop:

★ Grumpy Reaper – Lawn Defense - $4.99

★ Jewel Quest – Puzzle - $4.99

★ Star Ghost – Shoot 'Em Up - $8.99

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Wii U Virtual Console:

★ Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Gregar – JRPG - $6.99

★ Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Falzar – JRPG - $6.99

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Wii U Apps:

★ Rhapsody – Music & Radio - Free

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Wii U Demos:

★ Word Puzzles by POWGI - Word Search - Free

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3DS eShop:

★ Blast ‘Em Bunnies – Shooter/Arcade - $4.99

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3DS Demos:

★ Bravely Second: End Laye: The Ballad of the Three Cavaliers - JRPG - Free

★ Word Puzzles by POWGI - Word Search - Free

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3DS DLC:

★ Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation  - SRPG - $19.99

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3DS Themes:

★Fire Emblem Fates : Two Kingdoms

★Blast ’Em Bunnies : Zombies

★Blast ’Em Bunnies : Western

★Blast ’Em Bunnies : Ninjas

★Blast ’Em Bunnies : Luchadors

★Blast ’Em Bunnies Bundle

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What do you think of this week's eShop updates in North America? Will you be downloading any of the new content this week? As always, be sure to let us know in our comment section below!

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#NA #WeeklyUpdate #Downloads #WiiU #3DS #eShop #DLC #Themes #VC

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A Truly Rare & Retro Interview!

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We recently had the opportunity to interview Rhys Lewis, who worked with Retro Studios and even Rare "during the N64 era". He told us all about his upcoming Wii U eShop shoot 'em up title Star Ghost. We know you want to read the juicy details now, so without further ado here's our interview in its entirety:

The Interview wrote:


Hello! It's a pleasure to have an opportunity to interview you regarding your amazing looking Wii U eShop title Star Ghost!

[SHS]: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it.

Could you tell us a bit about your studio?

[SHS]: Certainly. Squarehead Studios is a small independent game developer, based in the UK. It's very small in fact, being just myself at the moment. My background prior to this was as a developer with Retro Studios and much earlier, in the N64 days, at Rare. I'm currently burning through my life savings in a desperate bid to see if any of the Nintendo magic has rubbed off on me over the years.

How long did it take to develop Star Ghost for the Wii U?

[SHS]: It's taken about 2 years to develop. As I mentioned, I've been working on it alone, so they have been 2 very, very long years!

What were your biggest inspirations for the game?

[SHS]: I was fortunate to grow up in the golden age of the arcades and Star Ghost draws a lot of its inspiration from those days, both in terms of its structure and in its focus on a relatively small set of mechanics that hopefully combine together in interesting ways.

I wanted to create a game with a strong hook in its moment to moment gameplay. For me at least, the draw to arcade games is that they are enjoyable to pick-up and play without the need to invest a huge amount of time grinding out the next narrative beat.

Specifically, I would call out games like Scramble, Asteroids, Jet-Pak, Thrust and perhaps less directly, Moon Patrol. The neon-styled look of the game draws a little from Tron and I admit that I might be stretching a bit here, but the Vectrex console was also in the back of my mind.



What sets Star Ghost apart from other arcade-style shoot 'em up's?

[SHS]: The controls for Star Ghost were heavily inspired by the work I did on the rocket barrel for DKCR. I think they move the game into its own space and add an extra degree of challenge compared to more traditional control schemes.

Secondly, each sector in the game is procedurally generated from a library of prefabs. This helps keep things feeling fresh. You can't rely on memorising patterns, so you have to stay very engaged with the game.

What can fans expect in-terms of the game's level of difficulty?

[SHS]: If you haven’t played a one-button, rocket-barrel style game before, there is a bit of a learning curve there. On top of that, there are extra controls on the left stick. You can direct your fire, or engage your traction field (but not both at the same time). This usually takes people several games to adapt to. At first it can seem a bit like trying to pat your head whilst rubbing your tummy, but once it clicks, it does feel like second nature.

I've tried to create a smooth difficulty curve that extends quite far into the game. It’s not a bullet-hell experience at all. This might sound odd for a shmup, but I think it feels a bit more zen-like when you begin to master it.

What is your favorite aspect of Star Ghost?

[SHS]: Well, it’s very hard to argue with a David Wise soundtrack but I think it’s a toss-up between the asteroid stages and the procedural generation for me. The asteroid sections feel really empowering when you've got suitably upgraded weapons and things are blowing up left, right and centre. The procedural generation makes a huge difference to replay-ability and keeps the game feeling fresh.



What's next, after Star Ghost releases next Thursday?

[SHS]: I'm investigating options for getting the sound-track out there and of course I'll be supporting the game, post-release as best I can. Hopefully at some point, I can get a long nap, followed by a beer and a curry.

Thanks! We think that was all of our questions, hopefully we'll have the opportunity to interview you again sometime!

[SHS]: My pleasure, anytime.

Take care!

[SHS]: Bye!

What did you think of our interview? Did you learn anything new about Star Ghost? And will you be downloading the game when it hits the Wii U eShop in North America and Europe this Thursday? As always be sure to let us know your answers to our questions in our comment section below!

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#Interview #Exclusive #WiiU #eShop #SquareHeadStudios #RhysLewis #Rare #RetroStudios

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Villains In A Strange, Foreign Land!

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Whether you love them, or hate them, or love to hate them, these are our top 5 picks for the most memorable antagonists from the entire Xeno franchise! Do be warned, however that several major spoilers are revealed in this article so use caution when reading our list if you haven't played all of the Xeno games yet.

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#5: Id

Id is an alternate personality of the main protagonist of Xenogears, Fei Fong Wong and is incredibly evil and violent, unlike his kind counterpart Fei. When Id takes over Fei his eyes, hair, and skin color completely change. This transformation occurs several times throughout the story and sometimes creates chain reactions so terrible that many innocents perish at his hands, because of his unpredictable appearances and horrificly atrocious bouts of violence we feel that Id deserves a spot on our list!

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#4: Myyah Hawwa

Basically an entity who has lived for many millenia by snatching other people's bodies and using them as her host vessel, she is a very evil and sadistic character in Xenogears who was responsible for the collapse of many civilizations throughout her existence. She is a very manipulative being who pulls many strings to get what she wants. She even took over Fei Fong Wong's mother, Karen Wong, however Karen Managed to overpower her in order to save her son, however in doing so she paid the ultimate price.

Myyah Hawwa's manipulative personality and the fact that she's literally responsible for the deaths of billions of people is why she was chosen as the fourth most memorable character in our list of the most memorable antagonists in the Xeno series!

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#3: Albedo Piazzolla

An artificially created life form and major antagonist in Xenosaga Albedo is the twin brother of Jr. and is an immortal. He enjoys the pain, suffering, and deaths of humans and blames them for his misery of being unable to die. He has destroyed human colonies and towns and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. He even despises his own kind for siding with the humans and envies their lack of immortality.

Albedo's frightening nature and the fact that he cannot die is why he was chosen as the third most memorable character in our list!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



#2: Dickson

Dickson is seen as a protagonist during the first two thirds of Xenoblade Chronicles' story, however after Shulk manages to strike a truce between his people and the leader of Mechonis, Dickson betrays him a shoots him in the back, allowing the god of the Bionis, Zanza who possessed Shulk during the group's first visit to Prison Island, unbeknownst to Shulk or anyone else besides Dickson, to emerge.

He later reveals himself as one of Zanza's deciples, and eventually faces off against Shulk, Fiora, and the rest of the group when they revisit Prison Island and when Shulk fatally wounds him he seems rather proud of the fact that Shulk overcame the challenge and surpassed him. His not-so-evil nature at the end of his life is one of the biggest reasons why we chose Dickson as number two in our list of most memorable antagonists in the Xeno series!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



#1: Zanza

Originally a scientist on a space colony orbiting Earth, Zanza started an experiment that destroyed the entire universe! He and his scientific colleague Mayneth were the sole survivors and were reborn as gods in this newly created reality. Originally kind-hearted, he eventually became twisted and began to fear the Homs, and his other creations and so he decided to create a cycle of destruction for those who lived on Bionis "himself".

He later possesses Shulk and even kills Mayneth and the entirety of the Mechonis. He tries to entice Shulk to become his deciple, but Shulk refuses and eventually kills him. The fact that he destoyed the entire universe and kept killing the entirety of the Bionis population time and again is why Zanza was the clear choice to be number one on our most memorable antagonists in the Xeno series list!

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There you have it! From Id, to Myyah Hawwa, and Dickson, to Zanza these are the antagonists that really stood out to us in the various Xeno series titles, as always be sure to let us know what you think of our choices in our comment section below!

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#Exclusive #Feature #Top5 #WiiWareWave #WiiU #PSX #PS2 #New3DS #XenobladeChronicles #XenoSaga #Xenogears

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Soulless And Uninspired...

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Developed and published by Farsight Studios, Brunswick Pro Bowling is a decent looking sports title in theory, but is marred by crippling issues that really hurt the game's overall score. Is the game still worth a download despite these issues, we don't think so and here's why:

When Brunswick shutdown their bowling allies back in May of 2015 we assumed that the Brunswick Pro Bowling video games would follow suit, however the company decided to allow the relatively small video game development studio, Farsight Studios release one final game with their licensed franchise. This game, however seems to be an unfortunate case of where the developer's just didn't have any passion for the game as it feels soulless and lifeless.

The visuals are really bad, we're talking low-poly N64 era graphics with stiff animations, and little to no lighting effects or textures. The sound effects and music are equally uninspiring and flat.



The gameplay is not that great either as the difficulty level is far too easy and the game seems to be far more "arcade-y" than one would expect it to be, however that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if the powered-up balls weren't so incredibly overpowered. It's actually quite easy to score a perfect score of 300 in this game which takes away from the thrill of the sport.

The controls are incredibly easy to learn and intuitive which is a good thing, but it'd definitely be better if players had the option of using another controller or at least the option of not using the Wii U Gamepad, but unfortunately that isn't the case.



Bottom-Line:

With gameplay that provides little to no challenge and a really poor audio-visual presentation, Brunswick Pro Bowling is a game that feels soulless and doesn't faithfully represent the sport of bowling in any positive way and is very disappointing overall, but at least the controls aren't bad...overall Brunswick Pro Bowling receives a bad recommendation from us...

Price: $29.99

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Score: ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ 3/10

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#Review #WiiU #eShop #Sports #Brunswick #Bowling #FarsightStudios

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Presented Live To U!

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We're going to be broadcasting today's Nintendo Direct for North America at our Live Broadcast page here: https://www.wiiwarewave.com/h4-live-broadcasts The stream is HTML5 so it should be compatible with the Wii U browser and most mobile browsers! To join the chat you must first subscribe to our Twitch Channel which can be done here: http://www.twitch.tv/rukiafan .

What are your expectations for the direct? Be sure to join our live discussion and let us know!

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#NintendoDirect #ND #Nintendo #WiiU #3DS #Live #Broadcast

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The Battle of The DLC Vs. Indie!

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Our Game of The Year contest round two is now live! We apologize for the delay, but we were incredibly busy with updating our website! The second round choices for Game of The Year 2015/2016 are the multi-platform DLC Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows Vs. the Kemco 3DS JRPG Alphadia! Voting for round 2 will be open until 10:00 PM PST on Friday!

Be sure to let us know which game you voted for in our comment section below for contest ranking purposes!

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#WiiWareWave #Contest #GoTY #3DS #WiiU #Giveaway

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A Solid Lineup!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



This week's weekly downloads update for the North American eShop looks fairly decent with a wide-array of titles from various genres there should be something for everyone this week! Here's the full list of games, so far:

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Wii U Retail:

★ The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess HD | Adventure | $49.99

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Wii U eShop:

★ Chasing Dead | First Person Shooter/ Horror | $29.99

★ Grumpy Reaper | Adventure/ Lawn Defense | $4.99

★ STEEL RIVALS | Fighter | $6.99

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Wii U Virtual Console:

★ Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (SNES) | Platformer/ Adventure | $7.99

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3DS Retail

★ Return to PopoloCrois: A STORY OF SEASONS Fairytale | JRPG/ Simulation | $39.99

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3DS eShop:

★ The Hand of Panda | Mini-game/ Action | $4.99

★ Parascientific Escape Cruise in the Distant Seas | Visual Novel/ Adventure/ Survival | $4.99

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That's the lineup for this week as of 3/02/16, however since there is a Nintendo Direct tomorrow, we wouldn't be surprised by a few new titles being released immediately following the Direct! Anyways what do you think of this week's North American eShop releases? As always be sure to let us know in our comment section below!

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#WiiU #3DS #eShop #NA #WeeklyUpdate

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Presented Directly To You!

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Watch a #NintendoDirectNA about games launching through this summer on 3/3 at 2 p.m. PT. https://t.co/M7Omi1z2OG pic.twitter.com/FMmswF82Ug

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 2, 2016

Nintendo of America has just announced that a new Nintendo Direct presentation will be broadcast tomorrow at 2pm PST/5pm EST and will focus on Wii U and 3DS titles that will be releasing from now until the end of Summer! Likewise Nintendo of Europe and Nintendo of Japan have announced their own region exclusive Directs for tomorrow!

Since it's a Thursday tomorrow we wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo releases something on the eShop immediately after the Direct! Anyways are you looking forward to the first Nintendo Direct of the year? As always be sure to let us know in our comment section below!

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#Nintendo #Direct #ND #MyNintendo #WiiU #3DS #eShop #Broadcast

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Mashing And Burning...

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Wicked Monsters Blast: HD Plus was developed and published by Corecell Technology and is a shooting gallery party game where you and up to three other players can take part in hectic mini-games to determine who's the best gunner in the neighborhood! This sounds fun in theory however poor execution and even worse balancing issues make this game one to avoid and here's why:

Wicked Monsters Blast: HD Plus has three different modes of play, Arcade, Family, and survival. You can play solo or against your friends in any of the three game modes which is nice for those who don't have anyone to play with. In Arcade Mode you must rack up as many points as you can in a series of mini-games before facing-off against a boss in the ultimate free-for-all experience. In Family Mode you get to choose the mini-games and there's no boss battle so it's perfect for quick bursts of play! And Survival Mode has you face-off against an endless onslaught of mini-games until you fall and is only recommended if you have plenty of free time.



Regardless of your mode of choice the game has really bad balancing issues as the person using the Gamepad will always win thanks to the easy touch screen controls. The Wii Remote players just can't compete with the precision of the Wii U Gamepad which is a serious oversight on the developer's part. The controls are simple and easy to learn, but again the balancing issue between the Wii Remotes and Wii U Gamepad are painfully apparent.

Visually the game looks every bit as good as the famous WarioWare titles with nice backgrounds and characters that are both colorful and detailed! The audio is decent enough as is the music, but overall the audio presentation is forgettable.



Bottom-Line:

With good gameplay, great controls in single-player mode, and excellent visuals, Wicked Monsters Blast: HD Plus had potential to be a solid party game, however horrendous balancing issues in multiplayer and a forgettable audio presentation really hurt the game's overall score and to be honest we just can't recommend this game to our viewers. Wicked Monsters Blast: HD Plus receives a poor recommendation from us.

Price: £7.19/€7.99/$7.99

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Score: ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ 3/10

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#WiiU #eShop #Review #CorecellTechnology #ShootingGallery #Shooter #Party

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Ghostly Shooter!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Squarehead Studios' Star Ghost, a promising looking Gradius-style shoot 'em up title will be hitting the Wii U eShop on March 10th! You can view some official footage of the game below:



What do you think of the game so far? As always be sure to leave us your thoughts in our comment section below!

Source: Nintendo Everything.

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#WiiU #eShop #SquareheadStudios #Nindie #Shmup

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The Battle of The Heavy-Hitters!

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Our Game of The Year contest is now live! The first round choices for Game of The Year 2015/2016 are among the biggest budget titles released on the Wii U and 3DS in the past year! The games are none-other than Xenoblade Chronicles X for the Wii U and Yokai Watch for the 3DS!

Be sure to let us know which game you voted for in our comment section below for contest ranking purposes!

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#WiiWareWave #Contest #GoTY #3DS #WiiU #Giveaway

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Gotta Collect 'Em All!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Today listings on the European ratings board appeared indicating that the latest Pokémon titles will likely be Pokémon Sun & Pokémon Moon. The game will likely be unveiled during tomorrow's Pokémon Direct that we will be airing live above our chatbox in our forum index!

Also the wesites http://www.Pokemon-Sun.com , http://www.Pokemon-Moon.com , and http:// www.Pokemon-SunMoon.com have been registered by Nintendo, but currently are redirected to the official Pokemon website!

What do you think of the name of the titles and which console do you believe Pokémon Sun & Moon will be announced for? Also do you think that the titles will be Generation IV remakes or entirely new entries in the series? Be sure to let us know in our comment section below!

Source: Nintendo Everything.

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#Pokemon #Sun #Moon #3DS? #NX? #WiiU? #JRPG #GottaCatchEmAll

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Ready Your Gamepad!

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@WiiWareWave gamepad because mini games us it quite a bit.

— Ackk!! YIIK 99% done (@AckkStudios) February 20, 2016

We recently had the opportunity to talk with Ackk Studios, the masterminds responsible for the upcoming Wii U RPG's Chromophore: Two Brothers Director's Cut and YIIK. Ackk Studios told us in the discussion that the Wii U Gamepad will be mandatory for the Wii U version of YIIK and that it'll be used heavily in the title's minigames! "See the tweet above"

Ackk Studios also told us that the studio is currently working on adding Off-TV-Play in the Wii U version of the game and hopes to make the feature available at launch! "See the tweet below"

@WiiWareWave it's a feature we're finishing up now, and hoping to have into the game before launch! a lot of battle happens on the 2nd scree

— Ackk!! YIIK 99% done (@AckkStudios) February 22, 2016

What do you think of the Wii U exclusive features via the Gamepad? As always be sure to let us know your thoughts in our comment section below!

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#WiiU #eShop #Exclusive #Gaming #YIIK #AckkStudios

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A Parade of Releases For U!

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According to listings on Nintendo of America's official website there are more eShop titles releasing this week than there are monkeys in a barrel 'o monkeys! This is easily the most massive weekly eShop update ever in the region! here's the list of upcoming titles confirmed to be releasing this week!

Wii U eShop:

★ Chasing Dead

★ 6180 The Moon

★ Inside My Radio

★ REPLAY : VHS is not dead

★ Smart Adventures - Mission Math

★ Volcanic Field 2

Wii U VC:

★ Medabots AX: Metabee Version

★ Medabots AX: Rokusho Version

3DS eShop:

★ Sadame

★ Toy Defense

3DS VC:

★ Pokémon Red Version

★ Pokémon Blue Version

★ Pokémon Yellow Special Pikachu Edition

That's a total of a whopping 13 titles in all! Visit Nintendo.com/games to find the sources as we can't put 13 source pages in our article as it would look dreadful. What do you think of this week's eShop update? Be sure to let us know which games you'll be downloading and why in our comment section below!

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#WiiU #3DS #eShop #VC #NA #WeeklyReleases #Nindies

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The Best of The Best of 2015-2016!

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Every year we allow you, our loyal fans choose which game you think is deserving of the GoTY award and the user who correctly chooses the most tournament bracket winners correctly will win a prize! Our first round begins on Friday and a new round will occur each day! You only have a 24 hour window to vote in each round so be sure to vote everyday for the best chance to win the prize!

You can view the tournament results in our forum index below the site statistics and above our chatbox! Good luck and have fun!

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#Contest #GoTY #WiiU #3DS #eShop #Giveaway

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Upfall studios recently announced to Nintendo Life that they will be bringing their procedural roguelike title Quest of Dungeons to the Wii U and 3DS eShops at some point in the future! The game will feature four classes and a complex loot system as well as randomly generated dungeons.

Here's the list of important features according to Nintendo Life:

Nintendo Life wrote:
Features:

★Procedural dungeons

★Procedural weapons

★Boss encounters

★Quests

★3 Difficulty levels

★Permadeath - Once you die, game over man, game over!

★Shop - buy and sell items/weapons

★Leaderboards - compare your Adventure points with the community

No concrete release window has been set, but we'll let you know when that changes! In the meantime be sure to tell us what you think of this upcoming Wii U and 3DS eShop title in our comment section below!

Source: Nintendo Life.

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#WiiU #3DS #eShop #UpfallStudios #QuestOfDungeons #Nindie

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Better Than A Bag O' Flesh-Pops!

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Developed by Just Add Water and published by Oddworld Inc, Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty is an HD remake of the original Oddworld title for the Sony PSX! The original version of the game was incredibly eerie and dark and was overall a fantastic game, so how does New 'n' Tasty stack up to the original? Continue reading our review to find out!

The story is very dark and sinister in Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty just as was in Oddworld: Abe's Odyssey on the PSX. Some elements of the story have been altered a bit both in a good way and bad way depending on the scene, but overall the story is still great for a platformer. The gameplay is still excellent with limited powers and emphasis on stealth, Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty is a challenging yet fun platformer that will certainly hook any fan of 2D platformers.

Besides the traditional platforming elements, the game possesses some clever puzzles including crates, levers, and intricate enemy patterns in some sections that require careful planning to get by as well as "endless runner" style areas where you ride a beast across hazardous areas filled with spikes and pitfalls among other dangers and it feels quite rewarding to get past these areas!



The controls are somewhat shoddy in our opinion, it's not broken, but the button mapping is pretty bad and there's no way to change it in the options which really brings the game down. There's also an issue where audio doesn't play from the Gamepad during cut-scenes which kills the mood during Off-TV sessions.

Visually the game is bright a colorful which is a stark contrast to the dark and eerie art-style the original Abe's Odyssey had on the PSX. Sure the environments look nicer for the most part, but this change completely ruins the game's atmosphere. Not only that, but the game's special effects and multiple layered hand-drawn claymation-style backgrounds were completely nerfed and replaced with more simplistic and in most cases inferior looking effects and backgrounds. These visual issues were problematic enough to force us to drop the overall score by one point.

In-terms of audio, however Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty shines. The sound effects are excellent and the music is superb and fits the game well! The voice acting during the cut-scenes is cheezy at times, but in a 90's Saturday morning cartoon sort of way, which is a good thing in our opinion!



Bottom-Line:

With fantastic gameplay that is both highly enjoyable and challenging, a great story with excellent cinematics, and a great audio presentation, Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty is a great game in its own right, however it fails to reach its true potential thanks to shoddy, poorly mapped controls, and a seriously downgraded visual presentation when compared to the original Abe's Odyssey on the PSX. There's also the issue with no sound coming from the gamepad during cut-scenes which will hopefully be addressed in a future patch, but overall the game is still solid to good and as such we award the game with an appropriate score!

Price: $14.99

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Score: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7.9/10

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#Review #WiiU #eShop #Oddworld #Oddworldinc #NewNtasty #Nindie

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NES Overload For U!

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Nintendo of America has been on a roll the past several weeks with multiple Virtual Console releases hitting the Wii U eShop in the region each week! This week another three titles are releasing on the service in the region! The trio of NES titles are Ninja Gaiden II, Ninja Gaiden III, and Double Dragon III! All three games have been listed for release tomorrow on Nintendo of America's official website.

Are you looking forward to these upcoming Wii U Virtual Console titles? Be sure to let us know in our comment section below!

Source: Nintendo Everything.

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#WiiU #VC #eShop #NinjaGaidenII #NinjaGaidenIII #DoubleDragonIII #NES

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Don't Make Mario Sad...

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We were asked whether or not you could delete your account with Nintendo Account by a few of our members and it turns out you can, however we wouldn't recommend doing so as you'll lose all data tied to the account including any linked NNID, downloaded titles, in-app purchases, save data, earned My Nintendo points, and more...

This is par for the course as this is how PSN and Xbox Live accounts work as well. There's still no word on whether or not Nintendo will ditch their free online services or if My Nintendo will be a paid rewards program, but we'll let you know when we find out the answers to those questions!

What do you think of this limitation of the Nintendo Account service? As always be sure to let us know in our comment section below!

Source: Nintendo Everything.

A special thanks goes to @Otaku for the news tip!

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#NintendoAccount #Nintendo #NNID #WiiU #3DS

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Nintendo's Account System Is Now Live!

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Nintendo's user account system has just launched in North America and Europe! There's not much to do at this point other than to register an account, but this is certainly exciting news! Be sure to checkout the source link and leave us a comment below!

Update: The website appears to be experiencing some technical difficulties at the moment so you might not be able to register right until the activity on Nintendo's servers let up a bit...

Source: Nintendo.

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#Nintendo #Account #BreakingNews #WiiU #3DS

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Game Show Host For U!

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U Host is a game show title that revolves around the Wii U Gamepad. The Gamepad user takes on the role of a game show host and can create the game show of his or her dreams. U Host was announced way back in 2014 and the game's developer Bear Box Media has released a new trailer for the game as well as a tentative release window of March of this year!

What do you think of the game based on the trailer? Be sure to checkout the trailer and leave us a comment below!



Source: Nintendo Everything.

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#Trailer #UHost #BearBoxMedia #WiiU #eShop #Nindie

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Double Interview Ahoy!

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We recently had the opportunity to interview MP2 Games and "Konjak" regarding their upcoming Wii U and 3DS eShop title NoituLove! We like getting to the point without unnecessary fluff so here's what they had to say regarding NoituLove:

Developer's Interview wrote:



Hello! Thanks for joining us to answer our questions regarding Noitu Love!

[MP2]: Thanks for having us! I'm Mathias from MP2 Games.

[Konjak]: Hello! I'm Joakim Sandberg, probably more known as "konjak".



Could you tell us about your team?

[MP2]: So it's really just me and Joakim. I do the porting/publishing, while Joakim does the rest, really.

[Konjak]: I sit in my chair and try to make games and eating things with all of my time.



How long has Noitu Love been in development?

[MP2]: The 3DS and Wii U versions have been in development since the end of 2015. The original game was released quite some time ago!

[Konjak]: Thanks to Mathias I think the game will reach a lot more people, but I actually released the game on PC in 2008. It later got on Steam in 2012, so this has been a journey. The game itself, prior to that, took me a record 9-10 months because it was a very fun and simple project for me.



Is the 3DS version of the game compatible with all 3DS' or is it a New
3DS exclusive?

[MP2]: It will be compatible with both the original 3DS and the New 3DS!



Could you tell us a bit about the game?

[Konjak]: Noitu Love Devolution is a quite classic action-arcade game, dominated by explosions and bosses. It stars Xoda Rap as she has to protect the city from the resurgence of the "Darn" army, a group of evil robots. But along with them comes problems where parts of the city is turning into other place and time eras, and the Peacekeepers have to find out why it happens, and how to fix it.



What are some of the most unique features of Noitu Love?

[Konjak]: The game is simply my desire to make my own Contra or Metal Slug-like game, as those were things of my childhood. To make it something more interesting, I wanted to see what I could do when such a game used mouse controls, and I found it could be pretty fun, and also very fluent in how you get around. So with motions and aiming you zip around all over the screen, beating on things.



Will the Wii U version of the game be different than the 3DS version?

[MP2]: The 3DS version will have gameplay and controls that are similar to those on the Wii U using the Gamepad. We are still finalizing the 3DS version, so the 3DS version may have a few extra additions when we release it.



How long would you say NoituLove is from beginning to end for
first-time players?

[Konjak]: It's akin to the length of those classic action games. It's compact and sweet, wanting you to replay it. It does come with unlockable characters who play completely different. I thought it would be fun to see what other controls based on pointing around I could think of, and they are the result.



Which controllers will be compatible with the Wii U version of your game?

[MP2]: The Gamepad is supported, using swipes and touch gestures for special moves. Also, Wiimote + Nunchuk is supported, where you press buttons to hit enemies while pointing at the screen. This also uses Wiimote swipes to do special moves!



What is your favorite aspect of Noitu Love?

[MP2]: The classic arcade gameplay, and the countless boss fights. It's action extravaganza, and learning how to deal with new enemies is a great experience.

[Konjak]: Explosions.



That's all of the questions we have for you today! Hopefully we'll
have the opportunity to interview you again sometime!

[MP2]: Thank you for the attention! The game will be out around April on Wii U and 3DS, so make sure to follow @konjak_news if you want to stay updated.

[Konjak]: Also check out the projects of Mathias and MP2 Games (http://mp2.dk/) as he's been a good source of getting hard-to-port games to more people. A true citizen.



Take care!

[MP2]: Bye!

[Konjak]: Bye.

What did you think of our interview? Will you be downloading NoituLove when it hits the Wii U and 3DS eShops? Which version of the game will you choose? Be sure to let us know in our comment section below!

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#Developer #Interview #MP2Games #NoituLove #WiiU #3DS #eShop #Exclusive #Feature

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Say It Isn't So...

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A full-3D successor to the WiiWare title Anima: Ark of Sinners, Anima: Gate of Memories was crowdfunded a long while ago and was promised to be released on the Wii U, but that promise looks like it might end up being broken as the developer has stated this on their Kickstarter updates:

Kickstarter Update wrote:Anima Gate of Memories will be released simultaneously in Windows, Xbox One and PS4 and we are working to be able to release a few months later a WiiU version (which, even if we are still not sure, we hope that will be possible).

Are you upset about this update? Will this news affect how you'll back future crowdfunding projects? Be sure to let us know in our comments section below!

Source: Nintendo Life.

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#Kickfail #WiiU #eShop #Anima #WTF #Bad

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An Enjoyable Bugfest...

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Developed and published by Moving Player, Level 22 is a unique and enjoyable stealth-platformer that has many strong points, however it's riddled with a ton of major bugs. Do these bugs completely ruin the experience? Not quite, and here's why:

The gameplay in Level 22 is straightforward you must hide from all guards and employees by either distracting them or hiding from them to reach your office on floor 22 undetected to keep your job! The difficulty can be quite challenging at times, but it can be a rewarding experience to say the least.

The controls are passable, however they certainly could be better and it'll take players awhile to get used to them. The gamepad features are fairly sparse for a game that requires the controller, with touch controls being used for some actions in the game for some unknown reason which feels out of place in the game, however the Off-TV-Play feature is fully functioning and is a nice feature to have!



The enemy patterns are usually easy to read, however there's some issues that occur from time-to-time where the enemies don't follow their predetermined paths and that's not the only major bug that we found in Level 22, for instance one time when we hid in a box, a mailman picked up the package a drug us off forcing us to reset the game in order to progress. These issues really hampered this otherwise solid title in our opinions.

Visually Level 22 has a nice artstyle, nothing too impressive mind you, but it still looks nice with detailed stages filled with often humorous characters and objects. The sound effects are somewhat simplistic and the music is pretty generic in our opinions, but overall the audio-visual presentation is decent enough.



Bottom-Line:

With good gameplay, and decent audio-visual presentation Level 22 had the potential to be a solid game, however many bugs and other issues seriously hold the game back, but despite these issues there's still fun to be had with the game. We give Level 22 a decent level of recommendation!

Price: $6.99

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Score: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

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#Review #WiiU #eShop #Level22 #MovingPlayer #Nindie

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A Big Week For The Virtual Console Service In North America!

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This week looks to be a fantastic week for Virtual Console releases on the Wii U eShop in North America as Big Brain Academy (DS) and Polarium Advance (GBA) are hitting the service tomorrow on top of the import release Kuru Kuru Kururin for the Gameboy Advance which we already reported just a short while ago! It seems that the Virtual Console service, at least on the Wii U is really picking up the pace in-terms of weekly releases in North America, let's hope that this trend will continue!



Are you looking forward to these two upcoming Wii U Virtual Console releases? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in our comments section below!

Source: Nintendo Everything.

Thanks to @Minato for yet another news tip!

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#WiiU #VC #eShop #BigBrainAcademy #PolariumAdvance #DS #GBA

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