Monday, 22 April 2013

Nintendo Showcase - 3DS & Wii U - April 2013

As I’m sure you are aware the Nintendo direct conference occurred this week focused on the 3DS. Unfortunately this has already happened buy my predictions - for those that care – were:

·         Showcase for Animal Crossing: New Leaf – because this is only two months from release

·         Showcase for Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins – again because it is scheduled to release in some areas this week

·         Update on Mario Golf: World Tour – perhaps with gameplay and likely to follow the community integration first shown in the 3DS Mario Kart

·         Zelda – in some form (although  read on to find out – as I was freaking right guys)

·         Update on Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate  - perhaps with some actually screen shots or so further details on enemies and locations

Obviously I was – in most cases – wide of the mark…. Below I have outlined the actually announcements.

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The two big stories from today's Nintendo Direct were definitely the announcements of a new 2D/3D hybrid Zelda game set in the same world as A Link to the Past and a new Yoshi's Island, but there were lots more to absorb. Here's everything that happened all in one place:

3DS NEWS

As expected the broadcast kicked off with Mario Golf: World Tour’s online features and community integrations.

We also got a new trailer and release date for Mario and Luigi: Dream Team – which is coming to Europe on July 12th and North America on August 11th. The new footage showed off some of the game's new features, including controlling a Luigi katamari in the game's dream world.

Another fresh announcement came forward in the form of Mario Party. This outing comes with 7 different game boards, all of which have different rules and features. Some are designed for quick play, others for epic contests. It's got 81 new minigames, including ones that make use of the 3DS AR cards.

The first new game of the broadcast was a new Yoshi's Island announcement - the first game in the series since 2006. It looked bloody lovely and is a fresh outlook on the formula that gathered critical acclaim around the globe. I love my downloaded GBA version from the Ambassador program and this will probably give me even more hours of playtime.

Interestingly Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D will have an optional Easy Mode for those who found the Wii iteration too difficult.

We also found out that Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy -- the final adventure for the professor -- will be headed West. The game is said to feature more than 500 new puzzles.

New footage showed off how Animal Crossing: New Leaf's Dream Suite works: it lets you visit other people's towns and wreck them up in a dream world without losing your friendships over ruined flowers and peach trees. Europeans are also getting the new Animal Crossing 3DS XL model.

A full set of Level-5 eShop games are also coming west - Starship Damrey, Bugs vs. Tanks and Attack of the Friday Monsters: A Tokyo Tale. Starship Damrey was a first person space horror game which always grabs my attention.

The best was saved for last, though with Nintendo confirming development of a new 3DS Zelda game set in the same world as Link to the Past. This isn't a 3D remake - we're talking a whole new game, a 2D-3D hybrid, and it looks massively exciting. I’ll write a full article on this later so don’t despair about the lack of details.

WII U NEWS

First up, Pikmin 3 will be with us in just a few months (August 4th, to be exact, in the US at least) – along with another new pink bug-eyed flying Pikmin type, which was hidden sneakily away in last year's E3 trailer.

Here's one for ultra-long-term Nintendo fans: Earthbound (otherwise known as Mother 2) will be coming to the Virtual Console later this year.

They also explained a new system update on USB transfer – Blah Blah Blah

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