February isn’t a huge month for new games, but whether you’re interested in Dragon Quest or de Blob, you should take a glance through this month’s most notable Nintendo releases; there might be something that appeals to you. Heck, you might even find something to give as a Valentine’s Day present (NintendoEverything.com accepts no responsibility for failed relationships due to gifts of Mario Sports Mix).
Mario Sports Mix (Wii)
US: February 7
EU: January 28
AU: January 27
Why should you care? Mario Sports Mix didn’t exactly generate a whole lot of hype when it was first shown at E3 last year (as to be expected from something that premiered between Donkey Kong Country Returns and the 3DS), but there are a few reasons why this four-sport combo of volleyball, basketball, hockey, and dodgeball should be worthy of your attention. For starters, Mario Sports Mix emphasises co-op play more than a lot of other games on the Wii. Online multiplayer supports two-on-two matches, with the ability for two players to team up and use the same console to show off their skills to the rest of the world. There are no leaderboards or rankings though, so online play might not hold your interest for too long. That said, it should be just as fun to play with friends offline as Mario Strikers or Mario Tennis, and you really can’t complain about having four different sports on the same disc. In true Mario style, the sports are presented in an over-the-top way, with special moves, courts, and item boxes straight out of Mario Kart. I Just hope that these gimmicky additions don’t remove all the strategy from the original sports. Like Mario Hoops 3-on-3, Mario Sports Mix is being developed by Square-Enix, so expect to see cameos from characters like the Moogles from Final Fantasy and Slimes from Dragon Quest on top of the usual Mushroom Kingdom attendees.
Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation (DS)
US: February 14
EU: TBA
AU: TBA
Why should you care? Though it hit the Super Famicom way back in 1995, Dragon Quest VI has never seen an official English release — until now, that is.
Like the recent DS remakes of Dragon Quest IV and V, Realms of Revelation (or Realms of Reverie as the European version will apparently be called) has been updated with new sprites, 3D graphics and other additions that should make an otherwise clunky 16-bit game more accessible to both Dragon Quest veterans who have been waiting for this missing link in the series for years and DS owners who just got into the series with Dragon Quest IX. Dragon Quest VI’s big gameplay addition was the inclusion of a separate real world and a “dream world”, a parallel universe based on the characters in the real world’s hopes and wishes. It doesn’t come off as particular original nowadays when everything from Zelda to Metroid Prime contains interdimensional travel, but it’s innovative for 1995 and still adds an interesting dynamic to the story. The constant random encounters and the need to carefully manage your characters’ individual inventories won’t suit everyone, but, like the other games in the series, Dragon Quest VI still has an undeniable charm thanks to Akira Toryama’s artwork and Koichi Sugiyama’s soundtrack.
Radiant Historia (DS)
US: February 22
EU: TBA
AU: TBA
Oh hey, it’s the Atlus trailer voiceover guy! If Dragon Quest VI wasn’t enough for your handheld RPG fix, then Radiant Historia should more than satisfy you. It probably won’t win you over with its stock JRPG characters (literally — the main character’s name is “Stocke”), but Radiant Historia presents an interesting narrative hook in the form of the White Chronicle. This magical book gives Stocke the power to travel through time, opening up the possibility of replaying parts of the story and creating alternate timelines. There are hundreds of key events that can be revisited and potentially altered to change the way the plot progresses. That’s all well and good, but how’s the actual gameplay? Any RPG lives or dies based on its battle system, after all. Well, battles are turn-based affairs that rely largely on where enemies are positioned on the battlefield. Bunch them all together, and your tiny troops can launch into a devastating attack. On top of all this RPG goodness, launch copies of the game come bundled with a soundtrack CD containing a few piano-arranged tracks by the game’s composer, Yoko Shimomura, who you might recognise from the Kingdom Hearts or Mario and Luigi series. So with this excellent music, attractive sprites and an interesting time-travel theme, Radiant Historia sounds a lot like Chrono Trigger, and if that doesn’t sell you on the game then I don’t know what will.
de Blob 2 (Wii, DS)
US: February 22
AU: February 24
EU: February 25
Why should you care? The de Blob series (if you can call it that after two games) might be losing its Wii exclusivity with this sequel, but the game’s developers, Blue Tongue, are adding a heap of new features. Though the premise of the game is basically the same — a resistance group of multicoloured blobs of paint called The Colour Underground has to restore colour to a bland, monochromatic world — there a few new gameplay additions to make this second outing feel fresh. The titular Blob can now use power-ups to transform into different things, like a magnetic wrecking ball or a black hole — making Super Mario Galaxy’s bee and spring suits looking lame by comparison. Speaking of Super Mario Galaxy, de Blob 2 also sports a similar co-op mode where a second player can jump in and assist Blob by stunning enemies and picking up paint. While the Wii version of de Blob 2 bears more than a few similarities to Super Mario Galaxy with its switches between 2D and 3D and use of powerups, the DS version instead plays more like a traditional 2D platformer. A DS version of the first game was planned for the console, but that fell through so this’ll be Blob’s first outing on the DS. Lastly, de Blob 2 is a rare case of an Australian-developed console game, so you should support it so that all of our studios don’t get shut down and switch to making cheap iPhone games (even if I do have a crippling addiction to Fruit Ninja).
And for you poor, neglected PAL regions:
Kirby’s Epic Yarn
EU: February 25
AU: “February”
Why should you care? Because you’ve been waiting patiently for this adorable platformer since the US got it late last year. That or you’ve finished it already. I wrote a preview for Epic Yarn back in October (see this link), not that it counts for much since I still haven’t had the chance to play it.
