This week’s Nintendo Download includes the following featured content:
Nintendo eShop on Nintendo 3DS™
Unchained Blades – Fang must traverse dangerous living temples known as Titans in order to meet his maker once again and exact his revenge on the great Goddess Clunea. But he cannot do it alone. Journey through grid-based dungeons in first-person view with your seven allies in classic turn-based combat, all while fighting more than 180 varieties of monsters that you can convince to fight alongside you in battle.Code of Princess™ – Blending fighting game play with components from classic arcade side-scrolling beat ’em ups and the character development of an RPG, Code of Princess provides hard-core gamers with a new twist on some of their favorite game types. Up to four players can take on challenges cooperatively or battle against one another in competitive play either locally or online. Code of Princess is also available at retail stores. (Additional systems and software required for multiplayer games; sold separately. Wireless broadband Internet access required for online features. For more info, go to support.nintendo.com)
Paper Mario: Sticker Star could have offered a series of mini-games in Bowser’s Castle. However, the team didn’t have enough time to implement the content.
Producer Kensuke Tanabe told ONM:
“In Bowser’s Castle, we were planning on having the player complete a number of different mini-games as they went along, but unfortunately we had to cut this because we didn’t have time. I’m sure these mini-games would have been very silly and fun, so that was a bit of a shame.”
Co-director Naohiko Aoyama added that the mini-games would have required “a lot of effort into making events to really show off their uniqueness.”
“If we had, then we would certainly have had to put a lot of effort into making events to really show off their uniqueness.”
The quality of this video is unfortunately very poor. It’s the only one that seems to be available on YouTube. If a higher-quality video is uploaded, we’ll add it in above.
Well before Epic Mickey splashed onto the scene, Buena Vista Games was throwing around some concepts for Mickey action games of its own. A former artist at the studio has outed art for one such project, Spy Mickey. BVG was also working on a figure fighter kind of like Smash Bros., and a Rocketeer revival. There’s a few pieces of concept art to check out in the gallery above.
Renegade Kid co-founder Jools Watsham has opened up on 3DS piracy concerns amid reports that hackers are starting to have their way with the portable.
As many people know, piracy became an issue on the DS. Dementium: The Ward sold 100,000 copies around the world, but Watsham feels that piracy may have affected the sequel’s performance. Only 50,000 units of Dementium II were sold.
With the 3DS, Watsham noted that Renegade Kid “will have no choice but to stop supporting the platform with new games” if similar issues occur.
Watsham said:
Japanese publication 4Gamer asked a whopping 112 industry figures about their favorite games of 2012. Not all of the responses have been translated, but a healthy selection can be found below.
Comcept CEO Keiji Inafune – Halo 4
Tokyo Jungle director Yohei Kataoka – Journey
Square Enix game design director Yuji Abe – Journey
Final Fantasy XIV director Naoki Yoshida – Guild Wars 2
Arc System Works director Takumi Iguchiya – Bravely Default: Flying Fairy
Index director and chief composer Shoji Meguro – Gravity Rush
Valhalla Game Studios CTO Tomonobu Itagaki – Earth Defense Force 3
Tri-Ace director Takayuki Katsuro – XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Yakuza series director Toshihiro Nagoshi – Phantasy Star Online 2
Square Enix producer Tomoya Asano – Fire Emblem: Awakening
Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida – Persona 4 Golden
GungHo Online Entertainment consultant Hiromichi Tanaka – Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals is on sale on Best Buy’s site for a measly $2.99. Surely the game has to be worth at least that much, right?
You can’t select in-store pickup, but shipping is free. View the product listing here.
For whatever reason, SimCity has been pulled from the Wii Shop Channel. The game has simply disappeared. Nintendo didn’t include a message on the store about its removal, and right now it’s completely unknown as to why this has occurred.
There’s a few new Dragon Quest VII 3DS details below. They give some clarification to the new StreetPass features, and there’s also information about the Monster Park.
– Monster Park is back
– Sometimes when you beat up a monster it’ll get back up and you can recruit it to the Monster Park, and you can find design docs across the world to help expand your Park with new biomes
– Can talk to newly recruited monsters
– New mysterious cave in the park
– Have to create a party of up to three monsters you’ve recruited and send them in
– Can obtain StreetPass shards in the caves
– Use StreetPass Shards in the Immigrant Town
– This allows you to access new dungeons, areas, and storylines
– Can start sharing content through the Internet once a Tavern opens up in the Immigrant Town
Characters often change appearances throughout a game development cycle. That was no different with Kingdom Hearts.
Knight Goofy as well as Wizard Donald originally featured some different costumes. Art of the early designs are included above. There’s also a sketch showing the Monstro level, followed by its final design.
