Update: The PR Nintendo sent out yesterday indicated that the demo would be coming to Europe on Thursday, but it’s out there now as well!
A demo for Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX is now available on the North American 3DS eShop. For those who plan on downloading it, keep in mind that it takes up 870 blocks of space, which is 108.8MB. The demo should be coming to Europe on Thursday.
SEGA has been up a translated interview about 3D Gunstar Heroes on its blog today. Producer Yosuke Okunari and M2 president Naoki Horii were interviewed.
During one part of the discussion, the two developers commented on why Gunstar Heroes was chosen to be one of the ports:
Yosuke Okunari: When we first began work on the SEGA 3D Remaster Project, we decided to go with a few arcade titles and a few Mega Drive titles. We believed that if we are able to perfectly emulate the console itself, similar to how we worked on the Virtual Console, we wouldn’t run into as many architectural problems and thus development would proceed according to schedule. Out of the eight titles during the first batch, five of the games were Mega Drive titles and the other three were from the arcade. The intention was to ensure we could actually develop (the much harder) three arcade titles. You see, we made the overall schedule easier to manage by buffering things with the Mega Drive games. Since arcade games tend to vary from game to game in the way they interact with the hardware, by adding these predictable Mega Drive games in, we could better handle delays caused by unforeseen issues on the arcade games. I mentioned this in a previous interview as well, but the reason why we picked the titles that have previously been ported to PS2 or Wii was also to mitigate any unexpected issues. But even taking that into consideration, just having these Mega Drive games in the lineup really helped lock in the schedule. That’s why we had those five titles originally. Since we successfully released the ports for the arcade titles during the first batch, we had a better idea of what the schedule would be for subsequent titles, and that gave us lee-way to work on titles we’d never touched before for the second batch, like Out Run. And now here we are releasing three new games for the second batch, games we decided to pass on the first time around for reasons other than hardware. These are titles that M2 actually refused to develop at the time.
Naoki Horii: We discussed in our previous article about 3D Streets of Rage 2 as to whether or not we would actually be able to get the backgrounds into 3D or now, and one might expect, there were those who said that Gunstar Heroes’ backgrounds wouldn’t be convertible anyway, so it was removed from the list of porting candidates. For example, the background on the 4th stage is not a true isometric projection, but rather it’s just a simple 45 degree angle line going into the screen, and thus is difficult to put into true stereoscopic 3D.
Okunari and Horii also spoke about Gunstar Heroes’ popularity, which is one reason why it was selected.
YO: Gunstar Heroes has been ported to a variety of game systems to date. The number of times this game has been ported is testament to its popularity, and as far as priorities go, this game was on the top of the list and would have been in the first batch.
NH: Oh yes, absolutely.
YO: It’s just the process of converting a game into stereoscopic 3D is a step above normal porting. Originally, this project stemmed from wanting to make a Mega Drive Virtual Console, but these days just a straight port doesn’t really capture the attention of the 3DS audience. I mean, it’s been a rough time for the Game Gear Virtual Console games [on 3DS], you know. And so Gunstar Heroes was regrettable not chosen for a 3D conversion in the first batch.
Be sure to give the full interview a look here.
A press member with a review copy of Super Mario Maker has once again given us a look at an alternative outfit in the game. In the latest image, posted above, we can see what the Inkling squid costume looks like.
A second video has come in comparing ZombiU to the game’s new version – simply known as Zombi. Check it out below.
Just like in Mario Paint for the SNES, Super Mario Maker features a fly swatter mini-game. Players are tasked with taking out a number of insects within a certain time limit. There are a few different types of insects and levels, and as you progress, it looks like things can become pretty difficult!
Just how small of a course can you create in Super Mario Maker? One person with early access to the game put that question to the test. For the results, check out the image above.
Chibi-Robo!: Zip Lash has plenty of amiibo support. The Chibi-Robo figure itself can be used to turn the in-game character into “Super Chibi Robo”, and to obtain the Toy Capsule Machine.
When it comes to all other amiibo, they can be tapped to earn in-game coins and buy items. Moreover, with the exception of a few characters (Pikachu, Lucario, Charizard, Greninja, Jigglypuff, Sonic, Pac-Man, and Mega Man), players can acquire a special figurine of Chibi Robo doing the pose of the amiibo in question.
Media outlets have started getting their hands on Super Mario Maker, and new details about the game are starting to trickle in. Further information about online level sharing has been found from the instruction manual.
Initially, players will only be able to upload ten courses. But this number can be increased if enough users “like” your courses. The manual also states that unpopular courses will be deleted after a certain period of time. Additionally, sound effects that have been recorded will be replaced with a generic parrot’s squawk.
The latest Super Mario Maker costume to have been revealed is none other than Ashley from the WarioWare series. Just like the Tingle outfit, this should be a standard unlock rather than something tied to amiibo. Take a look at it in the image above.
Image & Form has shared a few new screenshots from SteamWorld Heist on 3DS. All of the images are in the gallery below, and each one contains a QR code that can be used to access 3D screenshots on your system.
In the images, we get a look at a new enemy type: The Royalists. Royalists excel in military tactics and have plenty of tricks up their sleeves.
Also in the screenshots, we can see a Scrapper battle, a still from one of the game’s many narrated cut-scenes, and the bridge of the ship the player controls in the game.
