Topics

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StarFox / Japanese Star Fox 64 3D Website Launched - With Clarifications!

« on: April 14, 2011, 02:55:18 PM »

Nintendo Co., Ltd. had launched the official Japanese website for Star Fox 64 3D on April 13. With it, the unveilling of the final logo design, and the Japanese release date!

The logo design is apparently similar (but not identical) to the original game's logo, and the game is expected to be out in Japan's gaming outlets on July 14, 2011! You probably must assume there is nothing exciting about a Japanese release date, but I personally beg to differ!

If The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D is expected to be released in the same week in all three main regions (June 16, 17, and 18 in Japan, Europe, and the United States respectively), who should say that Nintendo won't treat Star Fox 64 3D the same way?

Take a look at the website though. Not much is there at the moment, but you'll be treated to pretty familiar introduction.

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Nintendo Gaming / First It Was Wii Sports Resorts, Then Wii Fit Plus, Now...

« on: April 12, 2011, 07:34:25 PM »

The sequel to the best-selling stand-alone game - Wii Play - had been announced!

Please give a warm welcome to

Wii Play: Motion


Click to enlarge

In addition to an assortment of all-new, twelve minigames, this game will come bundled with its very own Wii Remote Plus, and this is convenient, considering all those minigames actually requiring the Wii MotionPlus technology! Minigames include Whack-a-Mole, an updated disc throwing game, and a strange umbrella spinning game too.

Additionally, we even have a release date for it already, in the U.S. at least - June 13, 2011! Mark your calendars now! It is also confirmed for a European release too, but no proper date was announced yet. However, it will be out in 2011 in Europe anyway.

- Nintendo's Press Release - April 12, 2011

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Nintendo Gaming / Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story are Going West?

« on: April 11, 2011, 06:23:55 AM »

These are slightly old news, but I wonder how many of you guys heard about them. I am gonna talk about more Wii-exclusive RPG goodness coming straight from Japan to our local vicinities!

In any case, Nintendo of Europe announces that Xenoblade, now known to us English speaking folk as Xenoblade Chronicles, is confirmed for a European release in an undisclosed date in 2011! Yes, and they even opened a new dedicated official website too! It has been reported that the game will include an all-new English voice-over set, in addition to the option of playing the game in the original Japanese voice-overs too! (Plus, the usual multi-lingual subs to be included as all modern PAL games.) What about the United States? Well, there is still a possibility the game will also be played by the general American audience, however we cannot be sure. The only great evidence that the game will see itself in the U.S. is the fact that the title is listed on Nintendo of America's release calendar, but that does not prove that the game is confirmed for the U.S..

There might be no confirmation that Xenoblade Chronicles is coming to the U.S., and the same can be said for another anticipated RPG title called The Last Story. HOWEVER, it was recently reported that Nintendo of America did register the domains TheLastStory.com and XenobladeChronicles.com (both which currently automatically re-direct to NOA's main website), which greatly hints that NOA will soon announce the titles for a U.S. release indeed! Keep your fingers crossed though.

Xenoblade and The Last Story were released in Japan since June 10, 2010 and January 27, 2011 respectively.

Expect any confirmations from now until E3 in June!

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Nintendo Gaming / Professor Layton: True Nintendo IP... or NOT!?

« on: December 09, 2010, 12:32:34 PM »

There currently seems to be some sort of confusion among a lot of people concerning the ownership of the Professor Layton series. Some people seem to agree that Professor Layton is an intellectual property (IP) of both Nintendo and the series' developer Level-5, whilst others claim despite Nintendo's significant contribution to the series, Nintendo does not own the Professor Layton IP at all!

I looked around, and checked which statement is more accurate. Turns out this confusion is mostly due the fact Professor Layton is exclusive to Nintendo consoles, and the series is entirely localised and published by Nintendo in both the United States and Europe. However, legally speaking, the Professor Layton is more or less a third-party series!

Nintendo never published the games in Japan; publishing in Japan was handled by Level-5 themselves, but since the company isn't that big enough they asked Nintendo to help them localise the games elsewhere. If any of you people check disclaimers and indices on any of the games' packagings and official media, you'd notice Professor Layton is copyrighted only to Level-5. No mention of copyright to Nintendo whatsoever, even outside of Japan (with exception of the Nintendo DS trademarks). Therefore, Nintendo does not legally own the Professor Layton IP anywhere in the world.

Keep in mind that Level-5 is an independent, private Japanese video game developing company, and is not a subsidiary of Nintendo at any extent. Level-5 had released dozens of games for different consoles, not just Nintendo ones, and many of these games still remain Japan-only releases. Although, I recently heard that the first game in the sports RPG series, Inazuma Eleven, will finally see release outside of Japan in 2011 (by Nintendo), but only in Europe so far.

So, what do you people think?

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StarFox / Star Fox Wii or Star Fox HD?

« on: December 05, 2010, 10:15:05 PM »

So, it seems the only "new" Star Fox game in the horizon right now is a remake. It's going to be a very cool remake on a very cool brand new console, but still a remake of an old plot nonetheless. Ever since Star Fox Command, people have been asking where does the storyline really flow from there? The game made it so confusing with its nine super different endings.

Even after Star Fox 64 3D was unveilled, people are still anticipating the possibility that the true next Star Fox game will soon be announced, and more specifically for the Wii. Apparently, there seems to be no signs from any of the major console makers that they are to release successors soon, so it seems we are going to be stuck with the Wii for a couple more years at most. Then again, certain game series tend to skip consoles all the time. I'm pretty sure we never got to play any Metroid games on the Nintendo 64, albeit Samus Aran was in Super Smash Bros., but it wasn't a Metroid game, was it?

Anyway, what is the point I'm trying to make? Well, just that perhaps to know what you people may prefer. Regardless how the canon may continue, where and when do you guys prefer your next Star Fox game be? Do you guys prefer there be another game sooner, for the Wii, or allow Nintendo to take their time and release it later, for the next Nintendo console? By the way, Nintendo promised that the next console will most definitely support HD graphics that time around! Imagine how cool it would look with space textures and stuff!

I would have also mentioned a Star Fox 3D, but it looks like we're already getting one. Unless, of course, Nintendo might surprise us with another Star Fox game for the Nintendo 3DS! However, what's the likelihood of that right now if the games they already announced are in the works for being released soon enough?

So, what do you guys suppose anyway?

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Donkey Kong Discussion Archive / Will Donkey Kong 64 ever be re-released?

« on: December 02, 2010, 01:40:29 PM »

Hey all you hairless apes out there!

Okay, enough monkey business, and let's start talking about a situation which I have been thinking about that had been driving me bananas lately!

Donkey Kong 64, which I personally consider one of the best Nintendo 64 platformers released in the system's later years. People who bought the original package would have gotten an Expansion Pak for free, which is convenient since the game actually required the Expansion Pak, much like The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, which was released a bit later. The U.S. version of the Game Pak was all banana-yellow in colour too. The game even introduced Diddy Kong's upgrades with the Barrel Jet Pack, and the Peanut Popguns. The game also made debut to three more Kongs: Tiny, Chunky, and Lanky. (Only Tiny was later redesigned and featured in further games though, along with Lanky. Whatever happened to Chunky, I wonder.)

Anyway, I really loved the game on the Nintendo 64, and I hoped Nintendo would later port it for the Virtual Console. Of course, then I started thinking about why wouldn't they release it there yet.

Well, for one, Nintendo 64 is getting the least treatment by Nintendo for Virtual Console apparently. I mean, there were so many great Nintendo 64 games, and by far only one third-party Nintendo 64 game (Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber) had been released on the Virtual Console, and it wasn't even that notable during its life-time. Not the mention in 2010, the Virtual Console on the Wii is now dying for some reason, and no official explanations were given for that either.

Nintendo should have released Diddy Kong Racing for the Virtual Console as well, and the availablity of the remake on the Nintendo DS is not an excuse against it, considering there is also a remake for Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo DS, and yet the original game is available on the Virtual Console. Of course, we're actually talking about Donkey Kong 64 right now, and it doesn't have a remake whatsoever, unlike its predecessors (SNES Donkey Kong Country trilogy), which incidentally are all available on the Virtual Console as well!

However, then I thought about an even more dead-end reason why the game Donkey Kong 64 wouldn't be released for the Virtual Console at all! It is quite unfortunate as well, really, and I'm not really sure it could be fixed in any way possible without altering the game so much. What is this reason, you may ask? Well, first of all, I just want to state that Rare had made it painfully clear that they won't be able to release any of their own IP game series for the Virtual Console, such as the original Banjo-Kazooie games, which are currently only available via the Xbox Live Arcade. Now, granted, Donkey Kong 64 should technically belong to Nintendo, but I fear it is doesn't belong to Nintendo by 100%. I'll explain.

If you played Donkey Kong 64 before, this should make sense. The game is just filled with a lot of great stuff, including a couple of bonus, classic games which can be played at any time once unlocked, which are the original Donkey Kong and Jetpac! As you may know, Jetpac is Rare's very first game, released waaaay back in 1983, when they were still called Ultimate Play the Game. Since that game belongs to Rare, it should automatically belong to Microsoft as well. You might think they could easily remove the game, but then again the game was integrated into Donkey Kong 64 in a way that it becomes part of the mandatory game-play! If you had finished the game, you may recall the only way to get the Rare Coin - one of the two notable coins which unlocks the room to the final boss - is by playing Cranky Kong's mini-game feature, which had us attempting to gain a certain high-score in Jetpac! Like, omigosh!

So yeah... there seems to be a great difficulty in actually getting Donkey Kong 64 into the world again. Do you suppose there could be any way the game will ever see the day of light again?

Post your own thoughts.