Top 10 Hard Rockin’ Nintendo Songs

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Back when videogame music was still bleeps and bloops, it was hard to really make a song that sounded, well, like a familiar genre. Some managed to attempt certain genres (like what we’ll cover today), but overall many just focused on making memorable melodies with the tools they had available. Then as the generations progress and improved, so too did the sound capabilities. Familiar genres could be heard as early as the SNES (and some NES). With Nintendo themselves, they stuck with what they did best: memorable melodies and happy tunes. Of course, they would venture off into some Space Opera-like themes with Star Fox. But a majority of the music made by Nintendo consisted of Jazz arrangements (PilotWings), easy listening (Sim City), or pop-y (most Mario games). With this light-hearted reputation, it’s sometimes a surprise to hear Nintendo come out of nowhere with a rock song in a game, and it freakin’ awesome every time. So sit back and get ready to bang your head, it’s Top 10 Hard Rockin’ Nintendo Themes.

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Arc System Works Teasing A New Game

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Ain’t no rest for Arc System Works. After Persona 4 Arena, they’ve got a new game planned and they’re already teasing it. But what is this game. Judging by the kanji characters, it alludes to ghosts, houses, and one more thing I got. There appears to be no other hints to what this game is. Nothing in the URL, the page source… nothing. If anyone knows some Japanese out there, I’ve pulled the writing out for you to decipher.

Text 1, Text 2, Text 3, Text 4, Text 5

You can comment on what these characters allude to below or on our Tumblr page.

[Arc System Works Teaser Site]

Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 7/2/12

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This week on Night-Time Listening, we explored the days when the CD format was new for games and resulted in better quality music for those games. We started with the Interplay and Shiny classic Earthworm Jim. We were back with The Terminator. We roared across skies in Gate of Thunder. Went fast with Sonic CD. And finally we blew up some Mavericks with Mega Man X3.

If you want to see the music as it goes up (and not wait every Saturday for these wrap-ups), remember to go to our new Tumblr page and follow it. Music for Night-Time Listenings goes up every weekday at 10PM

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Rapid Composition Episode 1 : Spelunking

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The following is a transcript of a weekly event I plan on beginning for The Wired Fish.  Forgive the shitty formatting for now, we’ll find a better chat platform for next week.  Score and Music at the bottom!

Friday July 6, 2012

10:25 Suikoinfinity:
Hello readers at The Wired Fish, tonight is the first iteration of a weekly practice I want to start. Influenced by a tradition in the Doom community, I used to participate in speedmapping events where we would design levels for the game under a 60 – 100 minute time limit. A theme would be presented to all participants from which they would build a level from the ground up, and at the end of the session, all participants would have their creations merged into a single set of levels.

10:29 Suikoinfinity:
Of course, my levels always sucked dick, but the practice was fun. I don’t compose Doom levels anymore, but I am trained in the art of music composition. My training is on a classical level mostly, and there is rarely any excuse to compose music spontaneously, so I decided to begin this event. Right now I’m the only participant, but I hope in time some people might join in so that we might have a collection of short pieces of music every week.

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Tales of Xillia localization announced for North America and Europe

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Tales fans rejoice! Today Namco Bandai announced that Tales of Xillia will be released both in the US and in Europe. No release dates have been given as of yet, but the European version will be arriving sometime in 2013.

Namco Bandai really hasn’t been pulling any punches the last couple of weeks. First we learn that the company will be co-developing the next Super Smash Bros., then they set up a teaser site that revealed a new JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fighting game, and now this. We also can’t forget about Project X Zone either. I’m just happy that we’re getting another mothership Tales title in the west. It seems like sales from Tales f Graces F and Tales of the Abyss 3D were enough to remind Namco Bandai that there’s still a fanbase in regions other than Japan. We’ll keep you posted on any new information that surfaces. In the meantime, you can whet your appetite a bit by enjoying one of the game’s openings after the jump.

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This Week In Confirmed News 2

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Those look amazing! Go get them!

In this week of confirmed news we got ninjas, dudes with spiky hair, Italian plumbers and throw in some zombies and we got one giant spicy meatball of flavor.

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NiGHTS Into Dreams getting the HD treatment, heading to PSN, XBLA, and PC this fall

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Sixteen years ago, on this day, NiGHTS Into Dreams was released on the Sega Saturn in Japan. It’s only fitting then that Sega waited until today to announce their HD re-release of one of the Saturn’s most memorable games. NiGHTS will be coming to PSN, XBLA, and PC this fall and will feature several additions, including trophies/achievements, leaderboards, a 16:9 aspect ratio, and (obviously) improved HD graphics. There will also be a “Saturn Mode” that will allow you to play the game with the graphics completely unaltered from the original Saturn version.

I have to say, I’m really pumped for this as NiGHTS Into Dreams is hands down my favorite Saturn game. The music from the trailer alone made me extremely nostalgic. It may sound cheesy, but this is one of those games that has a certain magic to it. I can’t wait to revisit it’s world, even if only to play through that amazing final level again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go listen to Wiseman’s theme some more…

Source: Sega of America via Joystiq

Namco Countdown Reveals Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle

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Remember that countdown Namco teased earlier this week? Well after counting 0 Days, the curtains have finally lifted on a new Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure game, entitled Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle. I’m not very familiar with the series, but I do know of the mechanics of the fighting games. To those looking at Persona 4 Arena, that game’s Persona mechanics are very much inspired by the Jojo games. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure started as a manga, but gained exposure in the west from its fighting games on the Playstation and Dreamcast, which Capcom published. After that, not many Jojo games were made, not did they come to the West. Bandai managed to release a new game in 2006, but that too never made it stateside. And now Namco Bandai’s making a new game in the series.

From the looks of it, it’ll be taking some cues from the previous game, Phantom Blood, but sticking much closer to traditional fighting mechanics. If you’re looking at the trailer on the website and thinking, “Man, that looks like Street Fighter IV,” Well, that’s because CyberConnect2 is handling development. The characters have those visible brushstroke lines on them, similar to the characters in SFIV and STxT. I’m skeptical on this game’s Western release. But hey, the series’ got a cult following, and the gamplay looks pretty wacky and just up my alley for me.

So far the game is slated to release exclusively on the PS3. No release date is set.

[Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle Website]

Satoru Iwata Give Hints To The Wii U Power

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Something tells me he has a plan.

Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata released some insight on the Wii U’s capabilities. When asked about the comparison between the Wii U power and the other next gen consoles from a Q & A in Japan between him and the company’s investors, Iwata has had this to say:

” We cannot promise that the Wii U will never be excluded from multiplatform software for eternity, but we can at least assure you that the Wii U will not have such a big difference as the Wii had in comparison to how, on other platforms, developers could expect very different graphic capabilities of generating HD-applicable high-resolution graphics.

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XSEED May Not Localize Akiba’s Trip, But Might Senran Kagura

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In an interview with Siliconera, Executive VP of XSEED, Ken Berry, said that they were not going to consider localizing PSP vampire pantsing  game Akiba’s Trip. However when questioned about Senran Kagura on the 3DS, he stated that they’ll “have to see. It’s not a flat out no…” Japan has had the bouncy 3D-beat-’em-up for a year now with, and they’ll be getting the sequel, Senran Kagura: Crimson Girls, this year. The cart will also come with the first game as well. However Berry chimed in “…but it’s a title that would be hard to bring over as a packaged title.” Not sure if he meant the first game or the second game since the second one is already a package. He did mention that the company does get requests from fans to localize the game. I’m guessing those voices might be a little louder since the 3DS is region locked.

As we learned when they cancelled localization of Grand Knights History, XSEED does not any programmers in the team. So they depend on the original developer to input their translations (rather than do it all in-house). So feasibility of script translation and input must be considered. Since this is a beat-’em-up, I’m assuming the script isn’t too extensive. Even though I’ve yet to get a 3DS, I’d like to see this game come out. How ’bout you?

Xseed Won’t Localize Akiba’s Trip, “We’ll See” For Senran Kagura [Siliconera]

Atlus Teasing A Persona 3 Movie

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Persona 4 got a lot of love from Atlus. It got an anime, a Vita remaster, and even a fighting game. But Persona 3… well, there are four characters from it in that fighting game. Not much love… until now. Atlus launched a website teasing Persona 3: The Movie. It’s shows the protagonist of Persona 3 and a countdown timer with “Coming Soon” sandwiched between the time and title. The countdown timer is weird though as it seems to count upward. Maybe it’s not a countdown, but just a visual asset. In the original Persona 3, time was a crucial element as everyday at midnight, the Dark Hour would begin. Those with the ability to summon Personas experienced the Dark Hour, and everyone else were placed in coffins and remained safe. When it was over, those in coffins came out of it and resumed their lives (or kept sleeping since it was midnight). Think of it as time freezing for everyone except hose with the gift and the occasional regular person wandering into the Dark Hour.

I wonder what this movie will cover. Like its sequel, Persona 3 is a hefty game. Not sure if a movie would be enough to tell this story. Maybe it’s planned OVAs. Or might serve to bridge the gap between P3 and P4 (since P3 characters are in the canon P4A). Only thing we can say is that, according to the info at the bottom, it’ll be done by Aniplex. Lots of questions, little answers. Stay tuned.

Persona 3 The Movie Website [via Tumblr]

Slenderman Gets a Game

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You got your own game now

The famed internet monster Slenderman stars in his own indie game that goes by the appropriate name of Slender. The game has you collecting 8 notes while runing away from the famed internet monster. If Slenderman fans are not excited enough then know that this game is for free. You can watch the game trailer which in turn has the download links to the game for your horror enjoyment in the link bellow.

Slender

[Source]

I Stand On My Soapbox: What Nintendo Kept After Rare Left

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I Stand On My Soapbox is a series of editorials that cover more specific topics in the games industry and community. These articles are a little more extreme than normal editorials published here, and could just degenerate to outright ranting. Have fun and enjoy the show!

Time to stand on this box again, I got another rant coming up. If you’ve been living under rock for the past life time, don’t worry you still have another life time ahead of you. But many-a-gamer remembers the rather public exchange of hands between Nintendo, Microsoft, and the company Rare. Rare started off as third party, became a second party company under Nintendo during the 90s, and then in 2002 became a first party company for Microsoft. Today they make Avatars for the Xbox 360 and Kinect Games. Back on Nintendo’s side, the company recently had Retro Studios revive Donkey Kong Country, a game originally made by Rare. However the game, Donkey Kong Country Returns, would be done without the Kremlings. Despite Retro stating that the omission of the Kremlings was simply a matter of choice, gamers went ahead and assumed otherwise.

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Persona 4 Arena will feature a 30-40 hour story mode

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According to game director Kazuhisa Wada, in a post on the official Persona 4 Arena Blog, Persona 4 Arena’s story mode will be a huge part of the game and will last somewhere between 30 to 40 hours. On top of that, the story is being written by the Persona Team themselves and will feature full voice acting. You can check out the Japanese trailer after the jump.

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MercurySteam Wants To Do Contra Next

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Hoooooooly crap. Dave Cox of MercurySteam, the Developers of Caslevania Lords of Shadow and the upcoming sequels, stated in an interview with VG247 that he and his team want to do a Contra game. He stresses that even though his team have done very well with the Castlevania reboot, he doesn’t want to be known as Mr. Castlevania. “… I don’t want to be in charge of a series that perhaps over a certain time is going to decline,” he states, which probably rings true for some franchises that have seen some major drops over time.  As he feels his team has told the story of this Castlevania, he’d want his tem to “…go out with a bang and leave that as our legacy in the Castlevania universe.” Hey, no shame in that. Some of the best artists stepped out while the iron’s hot.

“I’d love to do Contra. At Mercury Steam we’ve got an original idea that I think is really awesome. We’d love to bring that idea to market and I’m hoping that the success of Lords of Shadow 2 will allow us to do that,” says Cox later on. The last Contra games to come out were Contra Rebirth on WiiWare and WayForward’s own Contra 4 on the DS. As long as it doesn’t become another FPS or TPS, I welcome this venture. Maybe something along the lines of Devil May Cry‘s and Metroid Other M‘s tight gameplay might suffice.

Moving on: Cox and Mercury Steam aim for Contra reboot [VG247, via Joystiq]