A number of new Nintendo deals are live across Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop. We’ve rounded up everything below. If Amazon price-matches anything else, we’ll add them to this post.
Amazon
Paper Mario: Color Splash for $40 (Prime) (was $59.99)
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse for $29.99 (was $49.99)
Monster Hunter Generations for $24.99 (temporarily out of stock) (was $39.99)
Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson – Double D Edition for $19.99 (was $29.99)
Best Buy
Buy 1, get 1 40% off Nintendo-published Wii U / 3DS games
15% off eShop cards
Skylanders Imaginators Starter Pack for $39.99 (was $74.99)
LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack for $34.99 (was $89.99)
Monster Hunter Generations for $24.99 (was $39.99)
Runbow Deluxe Edition for $19.99 (was $29.99)
GameStop
New 3DS XL systems for $175, including Galaxy Style
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse for $29.99 (was $49.99)
LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Wii U) for $19.99 (was $39.99)
Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson for $19.99 (was $29.99)
SteamWorld Collection for $19.99 (was $29.99)
Captain Toad and Mario Party amiibo bundles for $19.99 (was $39.99)
Since the initial announcement of Switch, some indie developers have cancelled previously-confirmed plans for Wii U outright while others decided to move their projects to the new console. Hive Jump appears to be one of the exceptions. In a recent Kickstarter update, the team spoke about its commitment to an early 2017 release.
Another engine was actually brought on “to help accelerate production and finish this version.” The Hive Jump “programmers, testers and artists are working on lots of optimization tasks to get the best possible performance.”
Graphite Lab said of the Wii U version’s progress on Kickstarter:
Localization is underway on Brave Dungeon, the newest 3DS eShop game from Inside System. A video has been prepared (see below) showing a work-in-progress translation. Circle Entertainment will likely be publishing the game in North America and Europe sometime in 2017.
Back in October, Rayman creator Michel Ancel managed to uncover the original ROM for the first game on SNES after 20 years. Ubisoft planned to bring it to Nintendo’s old console at one point, but it wasn’t meant to be.
Since Ancel discovered the news about his discovery, a video actually surfaced. It may not be long and sound is absent, but it does show the SNES version in motion.
Video of the cancelled SNES version of Rayman:https://t.co/AJCIES9emE pic.twitter.com/8KNlRZXFiI
— VGDensetsu (@VGDensetsu) October 25, 2016
Ancel was also at IndieCade Europe late last month where he spoke about Rayman on SNES. Thanks to that, we have the off-screen image above.
In its issue last month, Retro Gamer published a large feature on Pokemon which takes a look back at the series’ earliest days up to the present. It included a number of comments from people with big connections to the franchise, including Game Freak’s Junichi Masuda and Ken Sugimori. Masuda is well-known as the producer at Game Freak while Sugimori drew the original 151 Pokemon.
Masuda in particular shared some interesting comments about the process in which Game Freak went to work on the original games, how the team was limited by the Game Boy hardware, and localization overseas. Sugimori talked about why each new Pokemon generation tends to see no more than 100 creatures.
We’ve included these statements from both Masuda and Sugimori below.
While playing Super Mario 64, have you ever wondered what the text says on the statue pictured above? You can find it in the courtyard inside the castle.
Fans had long debated about what the text on that statue had said. “Eternal Star” was one possibility. “L is Real” – or “L(uigi) is real February 4, 2001 in Paper M(ario)” – was another.
Reddit user b0nd18t shared a photo of a response letter received from Nintendo Game Counselor Michael D. Chandler way back in 1998. The staffer who wrote back apparently revealed the “meaning” of the mystery. You can read it in full below.
With just a month to go before the Nintendo Switch presentation, the rumor mill has been in full force. One topic of speculation this week concerns the Virtual Console.
A report emerged that Nintendo is planning on bringing GameCube into the fold on Switch’s Virtual Console. Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Mario Sunshine, and Luigi’s Mansion are apparently the titles Nintendo is looking at first. The original Animal Crossing is also being looked into.
GameCube is the only one of Nintendo’s consoles that never saw digital re-releases. So assuming the new rumors are true, which titles from the system would you like to see on Switch? I’d personally go with Baten Kaitos and Baten Kaitos Origins. Those two games were made by Xenoblade developer Monolith Soft, and are criminally overlooked. Let us know which games you’d be interested in downloading in the comments below!
Highlights from last week’s topic: What are you playing? – December 2016
HullBreach Studios announced at the start of this month that SDK Spriter would be available beginning December 8 on the North American Wii U eShop. Strangely though, it was absent from this week’s Nintendo Download report.
There was some sort of mixup, but we can confirm that SDK Spriter is live in North America. It will set you back $12.50.
It’s been well over a year since the last Picross e game graced the western eShop. Next week, Jupiter is fixing that with Picross e7. It’s set for launch on December 15 in North America, an eShop listing reveals.
Picross e7 contains a number of features, such as the new Mark function that allows players to leave indicators on squares they are unsure about without risking a penalty. It’s also possible to switch input modes by simply pressing the Circle Pad or d-pad once. Finally, it’s the first game with 20×15-size Mega Picross puzzles.
Picross will cost $5.99 upon release. While we don’t have any news for Europe yet, it wouldn’t be surprising if Jupiter had something to share soon.
