System: Wii U
Release date: December 20, 2016
Developer: WayForward
Publisher WayForward
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Shantae games. In terms of presentation, they’ve always been top notch. With level design, I’ve always found them to be a little bit basic at best and a trudge of back-and-forth at worst. With Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, WayForward has done an impressive job remedying my faults with past entries. It definitely has its share of fetch-quest trade-sequence padding, but thanks to a revised game structure, this didn’t bother me as much as it might have on paper.
Update (12/21): This is now up for pre-order on Amazon US.
Update (12/17): The Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World amiibo bundle is now up for pre-order on Amazon Canada.
Original (12/13): Best Buy is now taking pre-orders for the Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World amiibo bundle. That can be reserved right here. If you’d prefer to pre-order the standalone Poochy plush, you can do so here.
Minecraft: Wii U Edition players should have access to the game’s new holiday update following scheduled maintenance taking place later today. Find a trailer for the patch below.
Nintendo is continuing its promise of delivering regular Zelda: Breath of the Wild screenshots leading up to launch. Get a look at the newest image just shared on the series’ Facebook page above.
We’ve been covering forma.8, the newest game from Futuridium EP Deluxe developer MixedBag Games, for almost three years. While it’s still without a release date, we do have good news to report. Work on the project is now complete and has moved on to the QA phase.
forma.8 also remains on track for Wii U. MixedBag hopes to have the game out sometime in February.
The studio wrote on Twitter earlier today:
We have great news: forma.8 is finished and is now in QA on #WiiU, #PS4, #PSVita and #XboxOne! Targeting a February release! pic.twitter.com/NS4WhJWzYE
— MixedBag Games (@MixedBagGames) December 20, 2016
Nintendo has prepared another character trailer for Tank Troopers, this time focusing on Iceman. We’ve attached it below.
Unsurprisingly, Monster Hunter XX was featured on the latest episode of Capcom TV earlier today. The latest gameplay was shown, along with new 3DS themes. We’ve embedded the video where the Monster Hunter XX segment starts below.
This week’s North American Wii U Virtual Console title is Mario Party 2. That’s according to Nintendo’s website, which has it listed for release tomorrow.
We have the following overview from the site:
“Get ready to party like it’s the year 2000 all over again, complete with fancy costumes, bags of surprises, and games galore! Mario and his Mushroom Kingdom friends return for a brand-new round of Bowser-bashing board game action. Each of your favorite characters don different themed outfits to take part in five fun-packed Adventure Boards: Pirate Land, Western Land, Space Land, Mystery Land, and Horror Land. Then battle Bowser on his own specific board…if you’re brave enough.”
Mario Party 2 will set you back $9.99.
Last night, Super Mario Run added in Friendly Run as a new mode. GameXplain shares some footage of it in the video below.
One of the bigger questions surrounding Switch is how much support the platform will garner from third-parties. Nintendo will no doubt be supporting it with its full force, but being able to fill in the release schedule from outside companies certainly helps.
We’ll get a better idea about third-party support for Switch in January, but a new off-hand comment from Michael Pachter is at least encouraging. In the latest episode of Pachter Factor, the industry analyst said he’s “heard from developers that Nintendo is the easiest of the big three to develop for.” He’s of course referring to Switch in relation to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
You can watch the full episode here. Pachter ultimately concludes that third-party support will come down to whether games can be ported for a reasonable cost.
