The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes allows players to team up with others locally or online. In the latter case, some people were hoping that Nintendo would be supporting voice chat so that communication would be possible over the Internet.
Sadly, we now have confirmation that there are no plans for such functionality. This was confirmed during a Nintendo Treehouse Live @ E3 segment.
This information comes from assistant producer Risa Tabata…
“One of the first things Skip suggested was having Chibi-Robo throw or spin his cord instead of having it plugged into the wall. From that, we began thinking about different actions that Chibi-Robo could do to interact with a stage. Maybe he can destroy enemies with it, or throw it toward a panel to scale an insurmountable wall.”
“This wasn’t enough, though, so we decided to also have items that could change the length of Chibi-Robo’s cord. We also added the ability to perform Zip-Lashes, by which Chibi-Robo can charge up and throw his cord so that it bounces off of surfaces.”
Have you ever wondered how Nintendo came up with the concept of Poochy? For those unaware, this dog often appears in the Yoshi games.
During a Treehouse Live @ E3 2015 segment for Yoshi’s Woolly World, Nintendo’s Takahashi Tezuka stated that Poochy’s inspiration came from a dog that he owned. This dog had the same name, funnily enough.
Tezuka’s involvement is certainly heavy in Yoshi’s Woolly Word, especially from an audio standpoint. He actually learned how to play guitar specifically for the game. He then made sure to create new music for all of the levels.
This information comes from Metroid Prime series producer Kensuke Tanabe…
– Use the New 3DS’ second stick to look around
– Also runs on regular 3DS
– Tanabe feels Blast Ball could serve as a replacement for a traditional tutorial in terms of getting players accustomed to classic Metroid Prime controls
On the game’s premise…
Tanabe: I’m sure once you play the actual game you’ll be able to get a feel of it and a better understanding of what the game is. As you mentioned, when you experience Blast Ball, you can probably feel that the controls are exactly the same as the Metroid Prime series. And on top of the control scheme being the same as the Metroid Prime series, you can also tell that the whole environment is still in the Metroid Prime universe, including the background music as well.
On how it doesn’t seem like a Metroid game, and how it came to be…
Tanabe: Originally, since 10 years ago, I’ve been thinking about the concept for this game. Back then I was working on the three main Prime games…
So Metroid Prime Hunters [on DS] was one title that I wanted to shift the focus a little bit by introducing some new bounty hunters. One thing I wanted to do since back then was focusing on the galactic federation members, focusing on them and having a fight with the space pirates. It’s sort of like a different perspective that I’m taking with this game to create sort of an opportunity to expand, to broaden the universe.
– Music game
– Made by EA Montreal
– In development in late 2009
– Was targeted for release for the following year
– Would have been a Wii exclusive
– Development lasted 2 months
– Never advanced past the pre-production phase of development
– Was being prepared as EA’s response to Just Dance
– Motion dancing mechanics to Ubisoft’s game
– Would have added a singing component via a USB microphone
– Would have supported up to 4 players locally with any combination of the two gameplay types (karaoke and dancing) simultaneously
– Rock/pop music
– Plans for customizable avatars for players
– Cancelled in mid-November 2009
– After the success of EA’s Wii titles began to dwindle, EA Montreal was subject to a complete studio refocus
While North America and Europe just got EarthBound Beginnings on the Wii U Virtual Console this past week, Japan has had access to the title for 25 years. You might be interested to hear that a couple of changes were made from the original game.
Players have noticed two modifications. The crow, which was smoking a cigarette in the Famicom release, had ditched it in the Wii U version. A reference to Dragon Quest IV has also been removed, though this was not present in the GBA release either.
