Looks like Phoenix Wright has taken a case for a different platform. Capcom has just revealed that their latest downloadable 3DS game, Phoenix Wright: Duel Destinies, will be making its way to iOS.
Although an official release date was not specified, the 3DS version is already out in Japan and will release everywhere else on October 24th. The game will be re-rendered in full HD and include the exact content that is present in the 3DS version.
Hyrule Warriors is set to be released next month, and leading up to that we are set to get a bunch gameplay videos displaying all of the nuances in the game’s combat.
In this latest video we get to see Lana showing off all of her flower power as she bulldozes through dozens of poor and defenseless bad guys. Check out the video below. [youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ksMGhewlPk’%5D
Hyrule Warriors is set to be released for the Wii U on September 26th.
Two Zelda fans, named Paco Martinez and Pablo Belmonte, have been working on an HD version of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask for the past couple years, and they have just released a new video documenting the progress.
In the video we get to see a slew of character models like Link, the Happy Mask salesmen and several masks, as well as several locations. The footage looks absolutely fantastic, so I highly recommend you check it out below. [youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zhSCoGePvk’%5D
It’s worth noting that this game is not meant to be playable, but is instead being used to show Nintendo once it is completed. They are hoping that the footage will convince the company to go ahead and remake their own version of the game.
Everyone knows that Super Mario is an Italian plumber made by the Japanese, but we also know that he is most loyal to the country that made him an icon. In the latest Super Smash Bros. games, Mario’s alternate costume prominently displays the American flag in all of its glory.
The news was revealed via the official Super Smash Bros. twitter account. It has also been noted that the costume was inspired by the NES Open Tournament Golf costume (which you can view here).
Check out Mario’s alternate costume below!
Super Smash Bros. releases for the 3DS on October 3rd and on Wii U at the end of this year.
The Legend of Zelda series creator Shigeru Miyamoto has gone on record saying that there are ideas for a new Zelda game on the 3DS at a shareholders meeting last month.
Miyamoto said the following:
“We are gradually changing the structure of The Legend of Zelda series, and we are preparing to newly evolve the series for Wii U. In addition to that, we have ideas for Nintendo 3DS which we have not announced yet, so I hope you will look forward to them.”
The last Zelda game to come out on the 3DS was last years acclaimed A Link Between Worlds. Ocarina of Time was also remade for the system and there have been rumors that Majora’s Mask may be getting a similar treatment, as well.
What if I told you that Nintendo had created another game that was ridiculously addicting like Animal Crossing, but in completely different ways? When I first popped in Tomodachi Life, at first I was pretty unimpressed with what it had to offer. Instead of having a world that I could create and fully interact with like in Animal Crossing, i’m more or less a God-like spectator who watches over all of the town’s citizens. However, what at first seemed boring quickly transformed into a world with a bizarre sense of humor and zany scenarios that I couldn’t get enough of.
When Tomodachi Life begins you are asked to create a Mii that is your look-alike. This Mii will be the first resident of the town and thus will begin the life on this little island. What’s fantastic about the creator mechanics in this game is that you can pick what your Mii sounds like, which is fantastic considering the game has full voice-support for all dialogue. When I heard my Mii say back to me my name, birthday and favorite color I was beaming. I’ve always been a fan of Nintendo’s simple-yet-expressive Mii’s, but actually hearing mine talk was another experience entirely.
It isn’t until you start creating other residents of the island when the true fun begins. You have the option to create other Mii’s manually or scan them in through QR codes that you can find online. This is what I ultimately ended up doing, as I was able to find QR codes for Batman, Master Chief, Harry Potter and a bunch of other awesome characters. Soon enough, I had an island overflowing with characters that you would never expect to see in the same game and watching them interact and become friends is awesome. In my particular game, Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite and Woody from Toy Story are best friends, which never fails to make me laugh whenever I see them hanging out together.
As life on the island progresses and you add more and more Mii’s you will find that new places will appear for your Mii’s to hangout in. Places like coffee shops and amusement parks all provide unique ways for the Mii’s to interact with one another, potentially providing you with another zany scenario for you to witness. One of my personal favorite places is the Mii News station, where one of the island’s Mii’s will report the latest major happening on the island, which is always something completely insane. One particular news story talked about how Thor bought a Power Disco Ball, and suddenly he had a string of good luck that he credited entirely to the purchase of said Power Disco Ball. He reported that he found a tooth brush in the street, his laryngitis went away in 5 days and his acne cleared up by 10%. Who thinks of this stuff?
The true depth of Tomodachi Life comes in the form of you interacting and assisting the island’s Mii’s when they need your help. When you do something good for the Mii, their happiness level will increase and you will get some money. This money is used to purchase all matter of food, clothes, furniture and a bunch of strange items that your Mii’s will be begging for. Sometimes a Mii will be hungry and you will have to go and buy their favorite food, and other times they will be bored and ask you to play with them.When playing with a Mii you are usually given one of several very simple mini-games, such as trivia, card games and reflex-based games. While there is really nothing to these games, they are less about providing actual gameplay then they are providing brief bursts of humor. Sometimes you will come across one of your Mii’s sleeping with a dream bubble above their head, and you can tap on the bubble to see what it is they are dreaming about. The last time I played Master Chief was having a dream about him and a bunch of the islanders dancing around a dish containing a fried spring roll, and all of them were chanting, “All hail the fried spring roll!” I wanted to laugh so hard, but I feared I might wake the Master Chief from his slumber.
The only true fault of the game is that it’s one that really has no purpose or goal. Unlike in Animal Crossing where you are constantly improving your home and paying off your debt, Tomodachi Life‘s only true purpose is to check in and see what’s going on. This will be a bummer for some, as if you’re not in tune with the game’s style of humor then you will probably get bored with the game rather quickly. However, taken in small to medium bouts of gameplay I found that the game always held my attention and made me laugh more often then not.
Tomodachi Life is yet another kind life simulator game that is able to stand on its own feet thanks to its charming style and bizarre humor. It’s a game where you feel like you have little to no control of what is going on, and depending on where you’re sitting that could be very good or very bad. In my opinion, though, this game never fails to provide consistent displays of greatly charming and humorous scenarios when ever I pop it in to play. It may not be an Animal Crossing replacement, but it’s a game that I can confidently say is its own unique experience that should be checked out by anyone looking for some light-hearted and goofy life-simulation.
Respectable
It’s no secret that the Wii U has been struggling pretty severely ever since it launched a couple years ago, which is largely due to the fact that the system simply had no great games to push the system. Nintendo desperately needed a game like Mario Kart 8 to come along and help get the system off of the shelves and into gamers homes, and now that game is finally here. So, is Mario Kart 8 the game that will turn everything around for the Wii U? It will definitely be a game that a lot of people will flock to, but there are a few simple issues that keep this game back from being the home run it could have been.
First up, the gameplay is fantastic. The racing has never been tighter or more fun, and all of the gameplay elements that have been gradually added to the series over the years all feel great. However, the big addition to the gameplay is the anti-gravity sections, which have you driving sideways, upside-down and all over the place. These sections are always incredibly fun, because there is always a sense of awe when you see a huge vertical wall coming up and knowing that you will soon be racing across it. As an added twist, when you bump into people while in anti-gravity it gives you a speed boost, giving you more incentive to race a little more aggressively.
Like with any Mario Kart game the tracks are what determine how much or little fun the game can be, and Mario Kart 8 brings a fresh set of great tracks while also bringing back some classic ones. You have the option to pick from 16 new tracks or 16 classic tracks like in previous installments in the series, but they are all mostly very well designed and look gorgeous. I was particularly impressed with how phenomenal the classic tracks look, as Nintendo really went all out to make them look brand new while also retaining the charm they had on their respective systems.
Of course, as you’re zooming down the game’s 32 tracks you will come across a bunch of items that you will be able to use against your enemies, and this time you’ll have four new items to use. These new items are the Boomerang Flower that can be tossed up to 3 times and hit your enemy coming and going, the Piranha Plant that chomps nearby enemies while also giving you speed boosts, the Super Horn that sends out a shockwave that knocks over nearby enemies and destroys all incoming items (even the Blue Shell!) and the Crazy Eight that generates eight items for the player to use. These are all great items, and I especially love the fact that you can finally do something against that damn Blue Shell!
Like in recent Mario Kart games you have the option to drive a Kart and a Motorcycle, but the new addition to this game is the option to drive ATVs. ATVs have a similar feel to Karts, with the main difference being that you pack more weight that lets you knock around other drivers more easily. Each vehicle has their strengths and weaknesses, so it all comes down to player preference on what type of vehicle will be best for you. They all control quite easily, as well, which is mostly due to the fact that you can utilize the Wii U’s gamepad, which is a huge step-up from the lackluster Wii remote.
You also unlock new vehicles, tires and gliders as you complete more races and collect coins contained on each track, which adds a lot of customization to the game. You can play around with things like overall speed and control, but I mostly ended up just picking the combinations that looked the coolest and still found success. No matter what combination you pick you will have a solid shot at winning the race, so you don’t have to stress out too much on which combinations go best together.
There are 30 playable characters in Mario Kart 8, with the game starting you off with 16 of them and having you unlock the other 14 through successful tournament completions. All of the usual cast of characters are here, though the biggest addition this time is the 7 members of the Koopaling Clan. The addition of these characters is a little disappointing, honestly, as they are all basically the same and aren’t characters that are all that memorable. I would have much rather Nintendo gone into the archives and dug out some classic characters that we don’t see as much, but what can you do. My favorite unlockable character is Metal Mario, simply because… well… he’s Metal Mario! Mario in metal form!
Another cool little addition to Mario Kart 8 is MKTV, which allows the player to go back to the previous race and view it in a variety of different ways and upload the footage directly to YouTube. This is kind of cool, as watching some of the biggest moments of the previous race in a montage of sorts is always funny, but I do wish that they had let you go a little deeper with the actual editing. It would have been sweet if you had the option to edit together several clips of footage to show off a string of specific moments in a row (say, a montage of just Piranha Plant chomping?), but this new feature is still fun to play around with, regardless.
Other game modes outside of the Grand Prix in Mario Kart 8 are Time Trial, VS Race, Battle and Online. Unfortunately, this is where Mario Kart 8 really drops the ball, as there is a shocking lack of depth and polish to them. Time Trial and VS are pretty standard modes that have been in the series for a while and are decent diversions, but the biggest bust is the game’s Battle Mode. In previous installments in the series you battled against other players in unique arena-style courses that were separate from the game’s main race tracks. In this game, however, Nintendo took the lazy route and just throw you into a handful of regular race tracks found in the main game. Not only is this incredibly lazy on Nintendo’s part, but it makes the Battle Mode very dull and frustrating. The point is to be able to drive around and attack other people, but when you are on a narrow and linear track that is much bigger it becomes much more of a hassle to keep a fluid battle going.
Fortunately, the online mode of Mario Kart 8 is very solid, as the connection remains solid and playing with others around the world is as fun as ever. The Mario Kart experience is meant to be played with others, so obviously the online portion of the game is the one that will get the most use, and rightly so. You have the option to do regular races or start a tournament, which is a cool way to compete in something a little more intense than a one-off race. You can do battle mode online, as well, but who the hell wants to do that?
Mario Kart 8 is another very solid entry in the series, bringing back all of the great features the series is known for while also throwing in a few twists to spice up the formula. The HD graphics are absolutely beautiful and the new anti-gravity mechanics are a lot of fun on any course. If Nintendo had just delivered the Battle Mode that everyone loves and brought more depth to other modes then this would have easily been the Mario Kart game to beat. Still, this is another game in the series that will, regardless of shortcomings, provide many hours of entertainment for anyone who owns a Wii U.
Respectable
Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma revealed the first footage of the upcoming Legend of Zelda game for Wii U at today’s Nintendo Direct event. He briefly discussed that the game will feature an open world that will be more vast than ever before, which is more connected and accessible than in previous games.
The actual action footage was very short, as we simply saw Link riding Epona as a monster shooting lasers followed after them. We get a brief look at Link at the very end, and it’s safe to say they are going with the cel-shaded look once again. It’s certainly similar to Skyward Sword, but thanks to the HD graphics it truly makes everything much more lush.
The footage shown for the game was disappointingly short, and it looks like the game won’t be coming until sometime in late 2015. Check out the footage below. [youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM9MGY2OL8o’%5D
It was formerly simply known as Yarn Yoshi, but now Nintendo has confirmed that the upcoming Yoshi game whose world is created entirely of wool is called Yoshi’s Woolly World.
Apart from having a great art style, the developers are fully utilizing all of the new gameplay mechanics that are a result of the woolly world. This includes tying up enemies, revealing hidden areas and traversing the levels in unique ways.
Yoshi’s Woolly World is coming out for the Wii U in 2015. Check out the Nintendo Direct video for it below. [youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llKpsnClUl0′%5D
The Kirby series is one of Nintendo’s most enduring yet often-overlooked franchises that they have going. It all began in 1992 when Masahiro Sakurai (who is more known for creating the Super Smash Bros. series) directed Kirby’s Dream Land, which spawned countless critically-acclaimed sequels. This is the first game in the series to pop-up on the 3DS and Kirby’s first game since 2011’s 1-2 punch of the DS’ Kirby Mass Attack and the Wii’s Kirby’s Return To Dreamland. So, how does it shape up? In a nutshell, it offers just about everything a Kirby or platforming fan could want.
The story starts with a giant beanstalk called the Dreamstalk showing up while Kirby is sleeping and taking both his house and King Dedede’s castle into the sky. When Kirby wakes up the next morning he is suddenly in a new land called Floralia, which means that he must fight his way through several worlds that all contain many levels in order to make it to King Dedede’s castle and right the wrong’s of everything that has transpired.
Kirby Triple Deluxe controls like many of the other 2d Kirby games, as you traverse from left to right as you suck up your enemies and adopt all of their different powers; such as bombs, swords, boomerangs and a hell of a lot more. You’ll also be tasked with collecting Sun Stones and Key Chains throughout each level, which help you unlock more levels and drive up the completion rating, respectively. The one major addition to the gameplay is an item that transforms Kirby into Hypernova Kirby, which allows Kirby to suck up humongous monstrosities and lay absolute waste to everything in the level.
Of course, this being a Nintendo 3DS game, the 3D element comes in with full force and actually makes great use of the system’s capabilities. Sometimes you will come across instances where you will move form the foreground to the background of the screen, which allows you to discover hidden goodies or keys that must then be brought back to the foreground. These sections truly shine when you come across a giant beam that extends to both the foreground *and* background, allowing you to reign destruction on two different areas at once. Elsewhere the 3D is simply used to make things appear as if they are coming out of the screen; such as enemy attacks, items or text.
The enemies in Triple Deluxe all vary greatly and force you to utilize different strategies to come out in one piece. Some enemies will be extremely fast and require precise timing to take them down, while others will be flinging bombs or shooting arrows at you. How you decide to take down these enemies is entirely up to you, as Kirby has a plethora of different skill sets that he can absorb that give him a huge variety of abilities. The game always gives you many different options in each level, making each new level feel fresh and exciting.
A platformer of this ilk would be nothing without great boss fights, and that is definitely one area where Triple Deluxe knocks it out of the park. Throughout the course of the game you will come across both mini and regular bosses and many of them put up quite a fight. They have large amounts of health which requires you to be patient and time your attacks, otherwise you’ll find yourself taking big amounts of damage very quickly. I won’t spoil the finale, but the final boss sequence is one of the most intense and rewarding finales that I have played in a long time.
All of this and we haven’t even delved into the other modes that this game offers! Outside of the story mode you also have access to the Kirby Fighters and Dedede’s Drum Dash modes, and once you complete the game you unlock The Arena and Dedede tour modes. Kirby Fighters is a Super Smash Bros.-esque mode that pits you against a variety of different Kirby’s all contained in a handful of Super Smash Bros.-esque stages. This mode is an absolute blast, as all of the chaotic mayhem of the smash series shines through brilliantly as all matter of items, environmental events and more all add up into a consistently exciting experience. The fact that this game packs its own Super Smash Bros. mode is worth the price of admissions, alone. It also has a multiplayer feature, making this a mode with infinite replay value.
Dedede’s Drum Dash is a rhythm-based game in which you must jump from drum to drum to the beat of the song. The better you time your beat the higher that Dedede will jump, which allows you to collect more coins and improve your score. You can also clap to the beat of the music to get bonus points, but mastering this while also timing jumps and avoiding obstacles is truly challenging. It’s not the most in-depth of modes, but the core mechanics are so addicting that I find myself coming back to it a lot.
The two unlockable modes are more standard affairs that you come across occasionally in other platformers of this type. The Arena is essentially a boss rush mode, pitting you against both mini and regular bosses in a row with a hub world in-between that gives you a breather and limited health regeneration. Dedede tour lets you play through the story mode as none other than King Dedede, who controls a bit differently and has to take down more difficult enemies and bosses. Make it through this mode and you will even face off against a new boss at the end and witness new scenes.
Kirby Triple Deluxe offers so much content that is all insanely fun to playthrough. The main story mode is a solid length that has great level design, enemy variety and challenge that would be more than a solid package all on its own. However, the fact that the game also packs in Kirby Fighters, Dedede’s Drum Dash, The Arena and Dedede tour make this a game that is impossible for me to not completely recommend. The Kirby series has always offered consistently high quality games, but Kirby Triple Deluxe mixes that high quality with high quantity to results in yet another must-have game on the 3DS.
Condone
When it comes to the sports genre in gaming, I tend to avoid it all together. I’ve owned many of them in the past, but there’s only so much that can be done before the whole genre gets very stale. Sure, you get your prettier graphics and your annual roster update, but if you’ve played one game in a particular sports genre then you’ve basically played them all.
There is one exception to that rule, however, and that is the Mario sports series. When I hear that I will be able to do all kinds of crazy stuff in a typical sports genre, that’s where I get interested. My first foray into the Mario sports series was with none other than Mario Golf 64. It was a pretty simple game, as you just picked a player and you were off to face other golfing rivals on a variety of different courses, enter a tournament and what not. It was a golf game that was ridiculously fun, and as such kicked off my love for the Mario sports series.
Which brings us to Mario Golf: World Tour. This 3DS game is the first in the Mario Golf series in about 10 years, so I was obviously excited as heck to hear that Mario would be hitting the green again. The major thing that World Tour adds to the series is the online function, which allows you to play with others all around the world in vs matches or tournaments. This gives the game a lot of replay value, as the gameplay is so sound that it’s always a blast to face off against others.
Pretty much everything else that is on offer by Mario Golf: World Tour is essentially a new version of what we usually see in the series. Like the portable titles, you are given a hub world that is full of many of the characters from the Mario world all standing around just waiting for you to talk to them so they can tell you relevant or completely irrelevant information. The hub world is a feature that I’m glad to see back, as it adds some meat to the typical sports formula and the Mario world is always full of charm.
At the start of the game it is your mission to begin a practice round so that your handicap can be calculated. Once your skill has been tested you are then eligible to enter the first of the 3 major tournaments that the game has to offer. The first one is pretty straight-forward and contains courses that lack any major wind, obstacles or uneven terrain. It’s essential that you master all of the intricacies of the gameplay here, though, because it won’t be long before the game throws everything and the kitchen sink at you.
World Tour offers noobs of the series a pretty forgiving swing mechanic that only requires you to press the button once when you’re swinging the club. This means that you won’t have to worry about missing the marker when the meter comes back and your ball goes flying off target. Though you can use this feature and do relatively well, I find that the traditional style is the most rewarding, as it also allows you to add some spin to the ball and control what it does when it lands on the green.
Outside of the traditional 9 or 18 hole scenarios there are challenges that ask you to collect as many coins as you can, hit the ball through all of the rings in a course or complete each course in just 2 shots. They add a nice amount of variety, but none of them are as fun as the traditional mode. They do allow you to unlock new equipment for your characters, though, so it is important to give them a shot at some point.
Speaking of equipment, World Tour allows you to unlock and purchase new clubs, balls and gear by completing challenges or spending coins at the shops. This equipment will improve various stats like power, control and trajectory, which is definitely important if you want an edge once you hit the online world.
Mario Golf: World Tour doesn’t do much to really re-invigorate the franchise and the online function is pretty bare-bones. However, the gameplay continues to be very addicting and rewarding as you improve your game and master the effects of wind, obstacles and angles, making it an extremely satisfying experience. It may be a little light on features, but Mario Golf: World Tour is definitely the place to go if you’re looking for a non-traditional golf experience.
Respectable
Nintendo has supported the Wii and DS’ wi-fi connection for 10 years, but today at 10 AM the service for both consoles has officially come to an end.
For a full list of all the games that are affected click right here.
I personally put in a lot of hours into the service, especially with the case of Mario Kart Wii. It’s always sad to see something end, but hopefully things pick up where they left off at the end of this month with Mario Kart 8 on Wii U.
There’s more Pokémon madness coming for all you Pokémon fans, as the Pokémon Company has revealed that seven more competitions are on the way for Pokémon X & Y. These are in addition to the Pokémon World Championships and the Pokémon International May Challenge.
These online competitions are all essentially battlegrounds for Pokémon trainers to duke it out with one another and improve their skills. Trainers who do well may even get the chance to compete in the World Championships.
Below is the complete schedule for the competitions for Pokémon X & Y:
May 16–18: 2014 International Challenge May. Registration is closed.
June 6–8: Think Fast Competition: Single Battle.
Late June: 2014 International Challenge June.
July: Eevee Friendly Match [Name TBD].
July: All Star Battle [Name TBD].
August: Think Fast Competition: Double Battle.
Autumn: Fairy-type Cup [Name TBD].
Autumn: Halloween Party [Name TBD].
The Wii U is currently the one system on the market that isn’t getting the love that some hoped it would, garnering sales that are well below what Nintendo is known for.
However, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata is very optimistic about the system’s future, claiming that one game can change it all and has before. He said the following:
“The fate of a video game system is often influenced greatly by the introduction of a single title. As many of you probably remember, before the release of the Pokémon game, Game Boy had been showing slow growth, and many people wondered whether it was the end of Game Boy.”
He goes on to say:
“But the Pokémon game single-handedly changed the landscape of the system, which then started to show the strongest sales in the lifecycle of the system.
Mario Kart 8 will dropping on gamers’ heads at the end of this month, and if you’re not hyped enough already then Nintendo is doing everything they can to change that. They have just released a new video that shows off one of the new items in the game: the Boomerang Flower.
In the live-action video we have a person sitting in a kart while two scientists are standing by to document the results of the boomerang toss. In typical Nintendo comedic fashion, the boomerang gets thrown and comes back around to take out one of the scientists. Check out that video below. [youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibzbuXsAM-c’%5D
Mario Kart 8 is developed by Nintendo EAD Group No. 1 for the Wii U and will be released on May 30th, 2014.
Condemn O.R. Condone 
