Quick heads up: we won’t be having a Game Night tomorrow. Austin won’t be around since he’s attending a convention, so that leaves us without access to a live-stream and Wii U games.
And while we are talking about Game Night, I should mention that we’ll likely be changing the frequency of the events. We’ll have more on that in the near future.
Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune has just launched a new Kickstarter for “Mighty No. 9” after announcing the project at PAX Prime 2013 just moments ago.
Mighty No. 9 is described as “an all-new Japanese side-scrolling action game that takes the best aspects of the 8- and 16-bit era classics you know and love”. Players take on the role of Beck, “the 9th in a line of powerful robots, and the only one not infected by a mysterious computer virus that has caused mechanized creatures the world over to go berserk.”
Players will be running, jumping, blasting, and transforming in six different stages. More levels may be added depending on stretch goals. You’ll be able to tackle the stages in any order of your choosing. Similar to Mega Man, you can use weapons and abilities taken from enemies.
Mighty No. 9 is currently planned for PC. The Kickstarter page mentions that other platforms such as Wii U “are a high priority,” but will only be made a reality if a $2.5 million stretch goal is met.
Mighty No. 9 is tentatively scheduled for launch in spring 2015. Donations will need to reach $900,000 by October 1 in order to secure funding.
You can find the official Kickstarter page with a ton of additional details here.
Nintendo announced the 2DS a few days ago, but only for western territories such as North America and Europe. Did you notice that Japan was conspicuously absent from the recent news?
As it turns out, it sounds like Nintendo doesn’t intend to sell the 2DS in the country for the time being. J-CAST, after speaking with the company, reported the following (our translation is below):
Also in Japan, “What is Nintendo doing?” is what some critics are saying, still there are Nintendo fans who want [a 2DS] just because it’s a new model. So will this even launch in Japan? When we talked with Nintendo’s public relations: this new project is being executed in America and Europe where the populations are so large, so it’s only being executed in limited countries for now. There are no plans to sell the 2DS in Japan at this time.
This is somewhat of a unique situation for Japan. Other than the Wii Mini, I can’t think of any new hardware Nintendo has introduced over the past few years that hasn’t arrived in the territory.
New details about Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse have finally emerged from a demo being shown at PAX East 2013. Destructoid provided the information, which we’ve summarized below.
– Uses sprites from Shantae: Risky’s Revenge as a base
– Adds more colors and frames of animation
– More intricate environmental puzzles
– More enemies on screen
– More action in general
– Shantae has lost her former half-genie powers
– Because of this, she has to team up with Risky Boots in order to try to get them back
– Risky ends up rubbing off on Shantae in more ways than one
– Shantae learns pirate-styled attack and abilities
– Gradually begins behaving more like a pirate as well
– Shantae still attacks with her hair
– Still knows how to dance as well
– New move lets Shantae suck up items into a lamp
– This makes it easier to collect loot and other enemy drops
– 5 dungeons (most in the series thus far)
– WayForward will be shortening the length of the bits in-between dungeons
– More ideas in a smaller space than the original GBC game
We have additional confirmation that an Ambassador program won’t be coming to Wii U.
Although a Nintendo customer service representative recently said that there aren’t any plans, that was hardly an official confirmation. However, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime shared a few comments with Kotaku explaining why there isn’t anything in the works.
Here’s the full conversation between the two:
Reggie Fils-Aime: The focus on making sure that this holiday, [the Wii U’s] second holiday, is really strong is actually quite consistent with the way that we always thought about our hardware launches. Look at Nintendo 3DS. We lined up Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land to make sure that its second holiday was as strong as possible.
Kotaku: Right, but with that one, the precedent set there was that you guys dropped the price by a third, I think under the recognition that the machine wasn’t moving. And then, once that happened, that seemed to really propel it along. But, I mean, the Ambassador program and all that certainly sent a signal to me that Nintendo had miscalculated the appeal of the system at its initial price point. Lowering it seemed to solve it, right? Lowering it dramatically and doing those types of things [worked]. Are you guys doing any sort of Ambassador program for Wii U owners to thank them for coming in early and withstanding some of the [software] drought?
Reggie Fils-Aime: So, we have nothing to announce in terms of an Ambassador Program. And what I would do is reinforce what you just said. The situations are very different not only in terms of the timing, not only in terms of the level of the reduction… it’s a very different situation.
