General Nintendo

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 5 Comments

Game Freak, developer of the Pokemon RPGs, has acquired Koa Games. The mobile studio created titles such as Labyrinth RPG, Erunea Kingdom, Legendary Legion and Road Roller.

Koa Games had been suffering from financial losses, which prompted the takeover from Game Freak. As for the actual studio, Koa will be disbanded and absorbed into Game Freak. The acquisition itself took place in August.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos, Wii | 2 Comments

Liam Robertson dug deep into the development and troubles surrounding Project H.A.M.M.E.R. earlier this year.Today, Robertson published a new report that sheds even more light on the cancelled Wii game.

Here are a few highlights:

– Shigeru Miyamoto wasn’t happy that NST spent over $1 million on lavish CGI sequences which were ordered the game design was concrete and before the game’s reveal in 2006
– Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis also featured cut-scenes from Silver Ant for a high sum of money
– This all caused the person in charge of budgetary concerns on both H.A.M.M.E.R. and Mario vs Donkey Kong 2 getting a slapped wrist from Miyamoto
– Miyamoto branded the investment in CGI “superfluous”
– This ended NST’s relationship with Silver Ant
– Katsuhiko Kanno was the person in charge at the game’s inception
– Kanno was apparently “difficult to work with”, “rude” and “uncooperative”
– Around this time, is is thought that a large number of NST staff left the company under their own volition
– Staff count at NST dropped from 50 to about half of that
– To steady the ship staff were moved onto the project from elsewhere in Nintendo’s North American network
– Metroid Prime level designer Jason Behr was brought on to bring things back on course
– Behr found himself singled out as a scapegoat for the game’s shortcomings
– Behr stayed on until around 2008, and would leave NST to join Monolith Productions
– Senior staff at NST finally spotted the friction between Kanno and his team
– He was removed from the project in 2007 and replaced by Masamichi Abe (Pikmin 1 and 2 director)
– Metroid Prime producer Kensuke Tanabe joined in a supervisory role towards the end of the project
– He didn’t have much of an impact, and only visited NST’s offices a handful of times
– Project H.A.M.M.E.R. would be re-tooled as Wii Crush, a casual title aimed at the Wii Sports audience
– Would have supported MotionPlus
– Project cancelled entirely in 2009

You can see the latest report on Project H.A.M.M.E.R. in its entirety below.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Yesterday, Nintendo announced that the Green Yarn Yoshi amiibo would be leaving the Yoshi’s Woolly World bundle next month. Walmart has followed up on the news by opening pre-orders for the plushie. You can reserve the amiibo right here.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 80 Comments

SEGA has taken some heat with the Sonic series as of late. In particular, Sonic Boom admittedly led the gaming franchise astray and resulted in a large amount of criticism.

Speaking with Marketing Week, SEGA Europe marketing director Jon Rooke promised that new games in the series “will be more inspired by how it played in its heyday.” He also acknowledged the difficulty in bringing Sonic into 3D.

Rooke said:

“Sega has publicly apologised to the fans as the quality of console games in the Sonic franchise hasn’t been acceptable over recent years. It’s been tough translating that iconic side scrolling 2D experience from the 90s into 3D but Sonic is still huge for us so the new games will be more inspired by how it played in its heyday.”

Sonic Generations actually felt like a step in the right direction to me. And Sonic Colors, while not perfect, definitely had some redeeming qualities. It kind of makes you wish SEGA could be more consistent with the franchise!

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments

GameSpot has posted an interview with Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma and Tri Force Heroes director Hiromasa Shikata. Between the two, they commented on the inspiration behind the game’s communication features, item ideas that were scrapped, consideration for two-player support, interest in using amiibo in future Zelda games, and more.

We’ve rounded up the various comments below. You can also read up on a few extra comments from GameSpot here.

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More: Amiibo, Eiji Aonuma, Hiromasa Shikata, interview, The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes, top

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments

Earlier this year, Runnerguy2489 completed the first three dungeons in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time blindfolded. He’s since stepped his game up by finishing the entire game using the same method.

You can take a look at Runnerguy2489’s playthough of the ending below. To complete Ocarina of Time, he spent roughly 103 hours.

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More: fan video, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Next month, the green Yarn Yoshi amiibo will be leaving the Yoshi’s Woolly World bundle in North America. Nintendo announced on its Twitter account today that the plushie will be sold as a standalone item starting on November 13.

Here’s the relevant tweet:

Pricing for the amiibo will be set at $16.99.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 89 Comments

While speaking at the GameCity festival in Nottingham, co-designer Martin Hollis opened up about the development of GoldenEye 007. A number of interesting tidbits were shared, including Shigeru Miyamoto’s interest in turning down the killing – including close-up killing.

If you’re interested in reading up on the full report from Hollis’s talk, head past the break. You can also check out The Guardian’s article here.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 21 Comments

The Toys “R” Us catalog reveals stock numbers for three amiibo due out next month. The Mii Fighters 3-pack, Villager (restock), and Mega Yarn Yoshi should be in good supply for the most part.

Stores will be receiving a minimum of 64 units for the Mii Fighters and Villager. There will also be 18 Mega Yarn Yoshis at each Toys “R” Us location, which isn’t quite as high as the other two, but certainly nothing to snuff at. These numbers should make up for their exclusivity somewhat!

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments

Europe just recently received the Animal Crossing amiibo cards Collectors Album. There are also plans to bring out a second edition next month. Unfortunately, Nintendo hasn’t made something similar widely available in North America.

That’s where HORI comes in. On December 7, the company will be putting out its own album which has been officially licensed by Nintendo. It allows amiibo fans to store up to 112 cards, with four pockets for the front and back on each page. Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer artwork is also featured.

If you’re interested, pre-order the album on Amazon here. Pricing is set at $9.99.

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