NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. today revealed their plans for New York Comic-Con 2012. The leading Japanese developer and publisher will provide playable demos of its upcoming lineup of titles to fans including: NARUTO SHIPPUDEN™: Ultimate Ninja® STORM 3, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT™ 2 Wii U EDITION as well as other titles at their booth (#1502). New York Comic-Con runs from October 11-14 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.
Show attendees will also have a special opportunity to meet Tales of Xillia director Hideo Baba as well as CyberConnect2 President and CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama in an hour-long panel as they discuss their thoughts on the Japanese video game industry, answer fan questions, and offer a few exclusive sneak peeks at next year’s highly anticipated Tales of Xillia and NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 3. The panel will be held on Sunday, October 14 in room 1A14 from 12:00pm-1:00pm. A special autograph signing session with both Hideo Baba and Hiroshi Matsuyama will begin in the NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. booth (#1502) at 1:30pm following the panel.
New Fire Emblem: Awakening downloadable content went live in Japan today that kicked off the “Another Story: Future of Despair” arc. The second piece is scheduled for release next Thursday.
Another Story: Future of Despair 2 throws players into a map in which they must rescue four children. Two will be fighting as decoys while another pair will be hurrying for an escape route. You’ll need to take down enemies that are in the way of the children in time to complete the DLC. It’s possible to view special conversations if the children’s mothers/fathers move next to them.
Another Story: Future of Despair 2 will be available for 250 yen. The first episode isn’t required in order to download this DLC.
The 3DS XL Circle Pad Pro is scheduled for November 15 in Japan. It costs 1,500 yen.
Nintendo has been keeping quiet about its overseas plans for the Circle Pad Pro, but I don’t think it’ll be too long before we see it in North America and Europe as well.
Today’s a big day for Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Nintendo released a new trailer and screenshots, and a wave of new previews came flooding in.
We actually covered most of the preview content in our Nintendo Power article summary. Still, there are lots of additional details to check out below.
– No partner characters
– Don’t earn experience
– Bowser knocks out Mario, who, once awakened, meets Kersti
– Bowser literally leveled the town and it has been rolled up into a giant tube
– Mario has to recruit a couple of dozen Toads to help unravel the city before progressing
– Emphasis on backtracking/exploration
– You may not be able to access one path right away until you find whatever you need in a later level
– There will be another path in the level that you can take to exit
– Levels that haven’t been fully explored will be marked
– Stickers include: jump, hammer, Koopa shell, POW block, spiked defense helmet, fire flower, ice flower
– Will come across higher tier stickers throughout the game
– Basic jump may cause five damage, but its next level will cause ten, etc.
– Level of a sticker indicates how many times you can execute hits
– One sticker attack per turn, unless you use the Battle Spinner
– With the Battle Spinner, you can bribe the machine with 15 coins to merge the first two rollers so that you get at least two attack slots automatically, and for another 30 coins you can make the slot machine slow down the spinning
– Can use the Battle Spinner with each turn
– Price goes up with each use in each specific battle
– You will gain HP by finding HP+ hearts in the world or by helping Toads in need of assistance
– “Things” take up four slots on your album page
– Can revisit a level and reacquire a Thing (or buy them in shops)
– If you don’t have enough stickers, you can run away or die
– Bosses usually need a specific set of stickers to be defeated without causing a huge amount of trouble
– Normal, gold, silver, and shiny crystalline stickers
– Metallic stickers reflect light differently as you move the 3DS around physically as a real shiny sticker would
– Some enemies will fold themselves into sharp points to better attack Mario
– Lots of hidden items
– Stickers and characters will be stuck on various surfaces
– Flip over cardboard puddles to find stuff inside
– Faint outlines of doors mark where you can add stickers later that will open secret areas
– Sometimes flowers indicate the presence of a hidden block or a place to affix a sticker
– Levels include 1-1 Warm Fuzzy Plains, 2-1 Drybake Desert, and 3-1 Leaflitter Path
– You think that these levels are open to you, but you’re quickly turned back in Worlds 2 and 3 by RPG-trope barricades, such as a giant and impassible sleeping Wiggler that won’t wake up
– World 1 features recurring battles with Goomba soldiers across Boquet Gardens, Hither Thither Hill, and ends at the Bob-omb fortified Goomba Fortress
