Category Archives: Gaming News

Earthbound Out Now On Wii U Virtual Console

In their latest Nintendo Direct (Mini) presentation, Nintendo announced that the release of Earthbound had narrowed down to a specific date. That date: NOW! Yep, Nintendo has gone and released Earthbound to an unsuspecting public on the Wii U Virtual Console. On top of this, Nintendo has also made the original, larger than normal Player’s Guide available for viewing online. And yes, you can see the whole guide. You can view the guide right here. While it might look strange viewing it on a computer now, it’ll look just fine on a Wii U gamepad.

Earthbound was originally released on the SNES in 1995. Sadly, the game did poorly sales -wise despite a somewhat massive advertising campaign and positive critical reception. This lead to Nintendo not releasing anymore Earthbound material outside Japan, including the much requested Earthbound 2 (Mother 3) on the GBA. Interest grew for the game after Ness’ (and Lucas’) appearance in the Smash Bros. series, alongside the established cult following the game garnered. Due to its rarity and its absence on other platforms outside of the SNES, prices for the original game, both boxed and cart-only, would range from as low as $200 to as high as $1000. There’s even a website dedicated to getting Earthbound at a price you can afford.

Earthbound is now available on the Wii U Virtual Console for $9.99

Nintendo Direct Mini 7.18.13 [Youtube]

Project Aces Launch Teaser Site, Earlier Teaser Now Fully Viewable

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What was once “sky fell, the,” is now a full sentence. “That day our sky fell, the heavens split to create new skies.” In the back of my mind, I’m still thinking, “nah, it’s… probably another game from Project Aces, like Sky Crawlers or something.” But with talk of skies falling and the heavens and it splitting, I can’t help but think that this is definitely a new Ace Combat game.

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Pikmin & Olimar Are Back For Smash Bros. 4

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Today’s Smash Bros. 4 update welcomes a returning fighter who made his first appearance in Brawl. Captain Olimar from the Pikmin series has returned to wallop his opponents with the Pikmin he plucks from the ground.

Some wondered if he would be replaced since Pikmin 3 features three new characters, none of which were Olimar. It looks like that question’s been answered. However Pikmin 3 does feature some new Pikmin, like the Rock one. While it’s not shown in the screenshots on the Smash Bros. 4 site, one wonders if these new ones will be pluckable.

Super Smash Bros. 4. Wii U/3DS is scheduled to release sometime in 2014.

[via SSB4 Official Site]

Namco Bandai Tease Yet Another Image, Looks More Ace Combat Related

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Here we go again! Two weeks ago, Namco Bandai teased the Ace Combat crowd with an imaged emblazoned with the Project Aces logo. Now, we have a very up-close shot of what appears to be dialogue from this new game, posted on Namco’s own Ace Combat fanpage. While it’s partially shown, we can assume that the first word is “sky.” So, “sky fell, the”. What could this be alluding to?

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Club Nintendo Offering $30 eShop Credit If You Register Fire Emblem Awakening And Shin Megami Tensei IV

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Nintendo has launched a promotion on its Club Nintendo program that if you register both Fire Emblem Awakening and Shin Megami Tensei IV, you’ll get an extra $30 added to your eShop account. The promotion will last from the release of SMT IV (which is next Tuesday) all the way to August 31st. According to the press release, both games must be registered to the same Club Nintendo account ~~and within the time frame of the promotion~~. [UPDATE] Both games have to be registered by August 31st to qualify for the promotion. Also, it’s confirmed via Tiny Cartridge that if you registered your game beforehand, like around the FE: Awakening launch, it counts. It also says it at the bottom of the promo page. More details about how to redeem your $30 credit can be viewed on the Club Nintendo website.

While some might think this to be some random pairing of games for a promotion, this actually ties back to the fact that Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem actually still exists and that it’s in development. Sad we didn’t hear anything about the game at E3. But if this promotion is anything, that means this project is still alive and well.

[Club Nintendo SMT X FE Promo Page]

Persona 5 Domain Registered by Index Corp.

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Fresh off of the Japanese release of Shin Megami Tensei IV, it’s been confirmed via NeoGAF that Index Corp., the parent company of Atlus, had registered persona5.jp. Currently the domain leads to the domain registrar’s site, Onamae (think Japanese GoDaddy in terms of function). However when you pass the domain through a whois, The registrant is Index Corp. The last game in this Megaten sub-series, Persona 4, released in 2008. The Vita version, Persona 4 Golden, was released in late 2012.

The Persona team tested the waters of making games on HD consoles with Catherine, a puzzler that followed the exploits of Vincent and his fear of being unfaithful to his fiance. Following the successful release of Catherine, it was said that the team began work on the next Persona game, but not much was heard since.

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Dragon’s Crown Adding PvP Into The Mix

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Remember that mode in Double Dragon on the NES that allowed to to fight against your pals as either Billy or Jimmy? If you do, then this should be a pleasant surprise for you. It’s been confirmed via Famitsu (translated by Siliconera) that Dragon’s Crown will have a Player vs. Player mode in it where you can duke it our with others either locally or online. The article doesn’t state what kinds of matches are possible beyond a 4-player battle royale, but I’d imagine that other kinds would still be possible, like 2 vs. 2, handicap matches, etc. Since it’s possible to play as the same characters in the regular mode, I’m assuming the same can be done here.

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[Rumor] DLC Characters For PlayStation All-Stars Cancelled, Dart Left In Limbo

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For once can we get some kind of good news regarding Legend of Dragoon? PlayStation All-Stars, Sony’s answer to Super Smash Bros., had the advantage of having more characters added to the roster post-release, something that was never done for Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros Brawl. Unfortunately, that advantage seems to have been cut short as rumors began circulating that all future DLC plans have been cancelled. Shuhei Yoshida stated this, citing poor sales of the previous DLC characters Zeus and Isaac Clark (Not sure about Kat and Emmett since they were free at first).

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Today Marks The End Of Several Long-Time Wii Services

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Forecast Channel. News Channel. Everybody Votes. Check Mii Out. Nintendo Channel. These were several of the channels the original Wii offered to owners, some since launch. Forecast Channel reported on the weather. The News Channel fed you news straight from the AP. Everybody Votes presented questions for owners to answer and tallied them up. Check Mii Out gave you a chance to showcase the Miis you created to others worldwide. And finally Nintendo Channel was, in a way, the precursor to one-half of the current Nintendo eShop experience with videos, trailers, and the ability to rate the games you’ve played. From this day forward, these channels will cease to function.

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Is Namco Bandai Teasing A New Ace Combat?

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Over the weekend, the official Ace Combat fan page (which is run by Namco) updated its facebook page with images of what looks to be a new Ace Combat game. Project Aces is the dev team at Namco responsible for the Ace Combat games. The Facebook page’s primary promotion was for Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, with the last update related to that game posted on January 31 of this year.

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Nintendo: No Plans In Sight For A New F-ZERO Game

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As time goes on in the videogame industry, the Futuristic Racer genre continues to struggle. One of the granddaddies of the genre, F-ZERO, missed an entire generation since its inception on the SNES. Maybe with the Wii’s hardware, all we would’ve gotten was just another F-ZERO GX on our hands, i.e. not that much different (except for maybe an online component). But hey, looking towards the Wii U and its increased horsepower, maybe we might be zipping through the tracks in HD and with online multiplayer, right? Well not quite.

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New Dragon Ball Z Game “Battle of Z” Trailer Released, Hachi Caresses His Balls Gently…Slowly…

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Well, time to get my golden wig out…

Source: Kanzenshuu

A new Dragon Ball Z brawler has finally been announced, sans release date, but what’s been seen is quite exciting.

Let me preface this by saying that I am a huge DBZ fan. Huge. Absolutely massive. I’ve been watching the show since I was five, and even as an older male, when it should be a ripe target for my practiced snark and cynicism, I can’t help but love it.

And I love video games. And video games about Dragon Ball Z are a particular delicacy, especially since they tend to be halfway-decent. A fan boy will endure a lot to play his favorite show, but Dragon Ball Z: Budokai, waaaaay back on the early PS2, is considered one of the first reasonably fun anime games to come here. And its “threequel”, Budokai 3, is actually considered to be a really good game. So was its successor trilogy, the Tenkaichi series, with Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 being my favorite DBZ game of all time, and a personal fave for its great music, fun combat and ungodly amounts of content. Continue reading →

The Xbox One Decides To Pull A “One Eighty”

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Happy now? We finally listened.

In a recent post from Don Mattrick, President of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, on the Xbox’s official website, posts that all the Xbox One’s DRM of always being online and the restriction of not being able to freely trade the games that are released for the system to any one the consumer wants, has been scrapped!!!!! He states, “After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.” and, “There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360.” Continue reading →

Yoko Shimomura To Compose Her First Mainline Final Fantasy Game

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Known for her work on Street Fighter II, the Super Mario RPG/Mario & Luigi series, and Kingdom Hearts, Yoko Shimomura will be at the helm composing music for the newly named Final Fantasy XV. Listening from early trailers of the game, if you have a keen ear for videogame music, you can probably tell that she was composing music for this game from the get go when it was still Final Fantasy Versus XIII. After the reveal of Versus XIII becoming FFXV, Yoko’s gotten a rather noteworthy promotion as far as Final Fantasy games go.

The main Final Fantasy games have been composed by the likes of Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy XII, Odin Sphere), Masashi Hamauzu (Final Fantasy XIII, SaGa Frontier 2), and the legendary Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy I-XI and XIV, The Last Story). Yoko Shimomura’s music, at least for the battle themes, is known for its marching drum beats and melodic violins. Other times, she’ll throw in that old-school flair for kicks. I covered her music her week of Composer’s Month, so go over there to get a feel for what her music sounds like.

Tourchlight Goes Free…For Two Days!

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Catch us while you can!

The well received game by Runic Games, Tourchlight, has gone on sale for the very low price of… free!! As a part of their “No DRM” promotion, the game will be available, with ALL its juicy stats, till Thursday, June 20th at 12:59 p.m GMT.

So get your butts into the nearest computer chair and start downloading.

The link to gold provided here

[Source]