Tag Archives: wii

Xenoblade Confirmed For U.S. Release!

Well guys, it finally happened. Xenoblade will finally be hitting the U.S. next year under the title Xenoblade Chronicles. This comes to us via a report from IGN in which an image from an anonymous Gamestop employee was shown to have Xenoblade in the release schedule. Soon afterward, images of Xenoblade Chronicles popped up on on Nintendo’s Facebook page. At 10:10AM PST, Nintendo posted on their Facebook page:

“It’s confirmed! Next year, Wii players throughout North America can wield the Monado blade and join the epic battle between the Homs and the Mechons in Xenoblade Chronicles. Like this post if you’re ready for an adventure on the surface of two frozen Titans!”

There are some out there that may feel a little manipulated out there after begging, pleading, and potentially boycotting all Nintendo products, and they have a right to be a little disappointed that Nintendo would dangle the carrot in front of gamers like that. But I think it’s time to put the pride aside and just be happy that we’re getting the damned game. The critically acclaimed game is set for release in April 2012.

Xenoblade Confirmed for United States [IGN]

I Stand On My Soapbox: Wireless Controllers Need a Locator

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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!

“The next generation is a wireless one.” That was the slogan for the Xbox 360 controllers that were advertised during the launch of the 360. This was going to be the new standard, as opposed to previous gens where your wireless fix came from third party manufacturers, or you spent more money on the official one. But this generation, nah-ah, you got a wireless one right in the box. Before you knew it, that slogan proved very true, as the PS3 and Wii controllers were wireless too. Finally, no more lowering or raising the wire to let people pass, or them tripping and potentially dropping the consoles from whatever precarious ledge the console was perched on (like my Gamecube… 6-foot-drop, still lives). So far, the only thing that is wired on the consoles now is the TV cables and the power supply (and you know they’re not going wireless anytime soon), and they’re in no one’s way. So with this new found freedom to game anywhere in the house without worry of bodily harm to the console, I have one question: Where the hell did I put my controller!?

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Kirby’s Adventure + Japanese Commercial = Kirby’s Epic Yarn!?

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Looks like it. I encountered this commercial yesterday after looking up some more recent Wii game commercials. I click on this thinking it’s Japan’s Epic’s Yarn commercial. Besides it looking like it was recorded with a VCR, the video looked normal. Then the gameplay footage is shown. I’m like, “what…? Kirby’s Adventure?” I’m thinking “must be an extra in Epic Yarn.” Then the old Japanese “Nintendo” splash is shown to end the CM. I’m thinking “nah, this guy must’ve edited something.” I look up another video, and it’s true, this was the real deal: this really was the Japanese Kirby’s Adventure commercial! So that means someone at HAL looked back on this commercial and thought, “You know what, let’s make a game outta this!” I gotta admit, this is pretty cool. The only other time I’ve seen Nintendo take cues from their commercials was when they took the Chandelier Dragon from the Golden Sun US commercial and added him to the game in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.

[NYCC] Hands-On With Zelda: Skyward Sword (2 Parts)

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Several weeks ago at New York Comic-Con, The crew tried their hands at Nintendo’s latest entry in the Zelda series, Skyward Sword. Suikoinfinity and our buddy Osjua tried their hand at the Bird Race and Boss Battle demo, while Steven “DPX” tried the Dungeon demo the following day (with commentary help from Allison B., who we met at the Con). Hit the jump for the Dungeon demo video. Continue reading →

[NYCC] Kirby Returns to Dreamland Hands-On Preview

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Kirby returned to consoles after nearly a decade with Kirby’s Epic Yarn, and now he’s returning to Dreamland in his latest adventure. Watch as Prota (Kirby), Suikoinfiniy (King Dedede), Steven “DPX” (Meta Knight), and Hachi (Waddle Dee) wreck utter mayhem all over Dreamland. We’ll discuss our impressions of this game in a later article.

*sidenote: Our battery was low, so you won’t see the craziness that occurred once the footage was cut.

Sakaguchi: “It Will Come Out”

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This is in regards to his latest game The Last Story. IGN user “topsekret” posted a thread on the message boards talking about him having a backstage pass to the Distant Worlds concert in UCLA. Upon the shows conclusion, he met up with Nobuo Uematsu and Hironobu Sakaguchi, the composer and producer (respectively) of Final Fantasy and The Last Story. In his second paragraph, topsekret explains how he may have gotten the supposed answer we’ve been waiting to hear.

“During the signing I told Sakaguchi that I was really looking forward to The Last Story, but that unfortunately, it hasn’t yet been announced for a release in America. Sakaguchi hesitated for a second as if thinking to himself and turned to Uematsu and they said a few things in Japanese (I did hear him say “Last Story”). He then turned back to me and said ‘it will come out.'”

Normally, I would discredit something like this since this is coming from a message board. But then again, how do you think Operation Rainfall started? Still, take this news with a grain of salt. Even topsekret thought that Sakaguchi probably misunderstood him. But we shall see.

The Wired Fish Podcast Episode 7

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Ahoy fellow fishes. Another episode has arrived! Despite battery issues, we have a full episode for you today. First up, the 3DS: What happened and what will its future be. Next, Gamescom and the games we’re looking out for. And finally, we talk about the games we’re playing now.

P.S.: in the intro, I wanted to say Tuesday but had Thursday on the mind. There is no day called Tursday. I meant to say Tuesday.

Intro…………………………………………………………….Obvious

Title Sequence……………………………………………………..0:36

The Fallout and Future of 3DS………………………………….0:57

Gamescom: Skyward Sword…………………………………18:51

Gamescom: Redesigned Wii………………………………….20:30

Gamescom: Non-Wi-Fi PSP…………………………………..22:05

Gamescom: The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower……….23:06

Gamescom: BlazBlue CSII update………………………….26:16

Gamescom: Ultimate MvC3………………………………….30:40

Gamescom: Street Fighter X Tekken……………………….43:20

Gamescom: Kombatant Freddy Krueger………………….44:45

Games that we’re playing now…………………………….53:06

Outro…………………………………………………………1:02:23

Credits……………………………………………………….1:03:22

Quick Tribute to Sisqo……………………………………………………1:04:10

Operation Rainfall: “Go Buy Final Fantasy”

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This is part of the second campaign they have prepared in trying to convince Nintendo to bring over Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora’s Tower. As mentioned almost two weeks ago, Operation Rainfall was going to ready another mailing campaign in which they’ll send letters to Nintendo again the day Xenoblade is released in Europe. Since then, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said that they’ll “be watching very closely what happens in Europe… Certainly if there are business opportunities and positive consumer uptake from some of those titles, that will be great data for us to consider as we look at what to do with these titles.” It somewhat falls in line with what Operation Rainfall wanted to do in their second phase in regards to increasing awareness of Xenoblade in Europe to make it a success.

So what of Final Fantasy? Well, Operation Rainfall is telling its supporters to go and buy the original Final Fantasy on the Wii Virtual Console, which costs 500 Wii Points. This is to show Nintendo that there is still a market for JRPGs. I can see their logic in telling its supporters to buy Final Fantasy as it’s one of the most well known J-RPGs out there. However, the one main flaw I see in that is that Final Fantasy, as a franchise, is pretty popular based on brand recognition alone and is not very niche like the Rainfall titles. Plus, the first Final Fantasy has been on so many platforms already, people are bound to already have it on one of them (I have it on PS1). In a sense, Final Fantasy has that somewhat Mario-like transcendence of genre to the point that those who don’t normally play JRPGs still play Final Fantasy (either that or they have no idea that Final Fantasy is a JRPG). A better idea would’ve been to tell supporters to buy a JRPG from the Virtual console rather than a specific one. Maybe compile a list of what is considered a JRPG, like Breath of Fire II or Ys Book 1 & 2 for example, and let supporters choose. Now it may be problematic as numbers would be sporadic amongst many titles rather than it being condensed into one title, thus having those sales be attributed to regular run-of-the-mill sales. If they really needed to choose one title, Final Fantasy wasn’t the answer.

Operation Rainfall Readies a New Mailing Campaign

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Fan movement Operation Rainfall has completed their initial three mailing campaign, which targeted Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora’s Tower for NTSC localization. The last expected day that Nintendo would have received their letter was on July 27 (the campaign for Pandora’s Tower). Since then, Nintendo has released their release calendar(,pdf, pg 6) for the rest of the year, and still none of the above mentioned games were found on that list. To make matters worse, Nintendo has reported a massive financial loss in the last fiscal year due in part to poor sales of the 3DS and Wii (plus the massive drought occurring on the Wii). This might make the localizing of the Rainfall titles even more of a risk as now Nintendo is going to play in the safest of ways possible. Maybe that huge price cut on the 3DS might turn the tables, but for now, things are looking very gloomy.

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Xenoblade Confirmed… For Australia

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Usually at the butt of every joke in the videogame community and sometimes more screwed over than gamers in Germany, Australia can celebrate as its getting Xenoblade (under the EU name of Xenoblade Chronicles). At first, the game getting classified by the OFLC sparked rumors that Xenoblade would come out in Australia, But now it has been confirmed. No release date yet, but it pains us NA gamers to see other Nintendo branches become cooler than ours. Ours is run by a Suit in gamer’s clothing.

Xenoblade Chronicles Confirmed for Australia [Nintendo World Report]

Operation Rainfall

Nintendo of America Trademarks The Last Story, Cease Holding of Breath

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This… is not news. At least to me it’s not. Last Tuesday, on July 12th, Nintendo of America was issued a notice of allowance for The Last Story, one of the three games targeted in fan group/movement Operation Rainfall. What does this mean? Well, it means that no other property in the U.S. has a trademark on the name “The Last Story,” and thus it is safe to release here. Think Star Fox for the SNES, and Star Fox for the Atari 2600. Same name, two completely different games. Why is it not news? The deal here, as many have pointed out, is that companies tend to trademark their properties in many different territories as a safety net to ensure that no backwater little company takes the name and sits on it (or exploits it). Plus, trademark filings never really guarantee that anything will come out to begin with. Remember Chrono Break? Yeah, that was a ride.

Now if something does come out of this trademark, then this article means nothing and you can commence throwing eggs at my face.

Trademarkia [via Joystiq]

RUMOR: Xenoblade NA Localization Done, Last Story Up Next

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Oh god you have no idea how much I want to believe this. But alas, it is only a rumor. According to Operation Rainfall, an anonymous source within Nintendo is stating that the localization of Xenoblade is complete and that The Last Story is up next for localization. No word yet on Pandora’s Tower. However, it seems even Operation Rainfall is suspicious about the news. It does beg the question though. Say it really did get localized. Are they using the British accent localization, or a more American English sounding localizing? You can read more about this on Operation Rainfall’s blog.

Source: NTSC Xenoblade Done, The Last Story In Progress [Operation Rainfall]

Xenoblade may actually be getting released in North America

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Recently, “the man with the master plan” DeadPhoenX shared his retrospective thoughts on the Wii’s life cycle so far. He talks about everything from the good to the bad to the stupid, not necessarily in that order mind you. One of the things that greatly disappointed him, and quite a few of us, is that there are a number of promising games in Japan that fans have been clamoring for in the west, but show no signs of ever reaching NA. However, it seems like there still may be a ray of hope since apparently Xenoblade may be coming to the US after all. This could show that the Wii still has a chance to go out like a champ.

Seems like he's just as shocked as we are.

According to a response to a Destructoid reader from Nintendo’s customer support, it has been confirmed that Monolith Soft’s RPG Xenoblade will be coming out in North America. The only sad news that comes with this is that it was also stated to still be arriving under the name of Monado: Beginning of the World. I’m not a fan of the name change, but I’d be happy as long as we get the game. Though I’d still like to see an official announcement before I get my hopes up. And who knows, maybe it won’t be too long before we here announcements for some of the other highly anticipated games eager fans have been waiting for, like The Last Story for instance. This is an opportunity for the Wii and Nintendo of America to really start delivering the games that more avid gamers have been waiting to dust their Wiis off for.

I can dream right?

Via: Destructoid

5-Year-Old Boy Dead After Breaking TV with Wiimote

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In another case of “What the hell man!?”, On June 17, a Bronx mother’s son was found dead. Reports say that the mother hit her boy after he broke the TV while playing the Wii (assuming, with the Wiimote). When police came over, they found the boy unresponsive and declared dead due to internal bleeding.

Now, in all honesty, I really didn’t want to post an article like this since these articles tend to pop up quite often on other gaming sites and the responses are always the same. But why then? What drives someone apeshit to the point of abuse when it comes to gaming stuff? Seeing as how it may have been the TV that broke (others are sying that the Wii itself broke), there’s a good change the kid wasn’t wearing the wrist strap. Assuming this was the case, and being that the kid was 5 years old, he probably didn’t know any better to wear the wrist-strap. In this case, the mom was supposed to be there to put the thing on her kid and tell him how important it is to put the damn thing on. If he disobeys, don’t let him play the game. Parenting 1-0-fucking-1 people.

And another thing. The other reason why I don’t really post articles like these is because merely posting this fans the flames of the “Gamers are bad” idea that most religious pundits and politicians love to use when they get bored and want an easy target to use as Moral Panic punching bags. It becomes unfair to us level-minded gamers when the action of one is assumed to be done by many. Not all of us are like this. When something breaks, either by us or someone else, we fix it, send it in for repairs, or just get a new one. Nothing to kill someone over. From the looks of it, she is not a gamer (or at least, not by our definition). While we can hope this won’t be used as another bullet-point for anti-game lobbyists, you know someone *coughFOXcough* is gonna spin this into something against the gaming community.

Source: Gothamist

1 Wii U + 1 Wii U Controller = Not Much of a Problem

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Well, to me anyway. In case you’ve been living under a rock (or looking at the Sorceress’ boobs all day), Nintendo just unveiled a new console called the Wii U. Now, I’m holding off on giving a full thought on the console since I want to get one of the other guys in on this. But one question that’s been popping quite a bit is how many of those tablet controllers the Wii U will recognize. An article from ZDNet confirms that there will only be one tablet controller per console. Meaning no local multiplayer with multiple tablet controllers. Now at first this may seem like a problem for local multiplayer enthusiasts. But for online gaming, it’s actually no problem at all. Looking at the games most “hardcore” tend to play, they’ll be going online and there’s really only one controller needed. It’s a bummer if you want to bring a local guest in as they won’t have the controller you have, but they can still use a multitude of controller options (among them being classic, Wiimote, Wiimote & Nunchuck, and Wiimote +). But you can still do local multiplayer with the other controllers.

Also, this confirmation also answers another question many gamers were asking in terms of how much the controller would cost. Nintendo says that the controllers will not be sold separately and that the controller you get with the console is the one you get. Thus, no need to worry about howm much the controller costs, for now. So when you get the console, you better treat your controller good and be nice to it! Otherwise, it’s gonna power down and not deal with yo’ shit anymore!