This week’s North American Nintendo Downloads are as follows:

Wii U Retail

Kirby and the Rainbow Curse (available Friday)

Wii U Virtual Console

Axelay

Wii U Demo

Citizens of Earth

3DS Download

Pokemon Shuffle
Adventure Bar Story
Excave
Flap Flap

3DS DLC

THEATRHYTHM FINAL FANTASY CURTAIN CALL – New DLC – New add-on tracks are now available for North American fans of THEATRHYTHM FINAL FANTASY CURTAIN CALL. The update includes music from a variety of Square Enix games, including tracks from CHRONO TRIGGER and NIER. Click here to view a trailer for the game.

3DS Demo

Citizens of Earth

3DS Themes

NES: Ice Climbers

DSiWare

Fishdom
4Elements

eShop Sales

Ice Cream Surfer is 70 percent off (reduced from $5 to $1.49) until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 5.
99Moves, Abyss and more titles from EnjoyUp are on sale until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 12.
Snow Moto Racing 3D is 50 percent off (reduced from $7.99 to $3.99) until 8:59 a.m. PT on Feb. 26.
Chat-A-Lot is 50 percent off (reduced from $7.99 to 3.99) until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 5.
TOYS VS MONSTERS is 25 percent off (reduced from $3.99 to $2.99) until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 12.
2 Fast 4 Gnomz is 40 percent off (reduced from $4.99 to $2.99) until 8:59 a.m. PT on March 12.

Activities

Pokémon Art Academy Competition – Put your Pokémon creativity on display in an online competition featuring art made in Pokémon Art Academy! Create your masterpiece using the Pokémon Art Academy game for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, and then post your work to the Pokémon Art Academy Miiverse community. The winning artists will receive a 100-card pack of custom-designed Pokémon Trading Card Game cards displaying their artwork.

Source: Nintendo PR

More: Nintendo Download, top, Virtual Console

More: Eiji Aonuma, interview, Koji Kondo, The Legend of Zelda, top

Speaking of unused Nintendo ads, here’s another one for you. The shot above is a rejected ad for Disaster: Day of Crisis, with a CGI-looking Raymond Bryce.

Source

More: Disaster: Day of Crisis, Monolith Soft

What you see above is an unused ad for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. A live action Samus model is featured in the shot. We don’t know why this one wasn’t used, sadly!

Source

More: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Retro Studios

This week’s issue of Jump provides another update on Bravely Second. In the magazine, it’s confirmed that weapons now have special moves.

According to Jump, each weapon you equip will have up to four special moves. Users are given certain buffs when special moves are used. In one case, Magnolia can use a special move called “Megaton Swing” with axe weapon.

Source 1, Source 2

More: Bravely Second, Japan, Square Enix

REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–From having Kirby ride on hamsters to turning him into yarn, Kirby games have always experimented with inventive visual styles and unique game play. Launching for the Wii U console on Feb. 20, the visually striking new adventure Kirby and the Rainbow Curse finds players controlling Kirby exclusively using the touch screen on the Wii U GamePad controller in a world made of clay. By drawing lines on the touch screen with the stylus, the player creates Rainbow Ropes that will help Kirby navigate obstacles and defeat enemies. Three friends can hop in and out at any time using Wii Remote controllers to play as Waddle Dees and assist Kirby, and players can even use compatible amiibo figures once a day, per stage, to power up Kirby with special abilities.

“Kirby and the Rainbow Curse kicks off another absolutely stellar lineup of Wii U games for this year,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “In the first half of the year alone, Wii U owners will be able to adventure with Kirby, party down with Mario and his friends in Mario Party 10, build levels in the Nintendo eShop-exclusive Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars and experience Nintendo’s newest IP with the action-packed Splatoon.”

Read More

More: Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, press release

A small update has come to Miiverse today. It’s now possible to see when the people you follow start following somebody else. Users can check out that person’s profile/favorite posts, and even follow them. This can be accessed in the activity feed.

Source

More: Miiverse

More: boxart, Japan, Monolith Soft, Xenoblade Chronicles

A translation coming from Nintendo’s recent investor Q&A meeting shows the President of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, admitting that the port strike on the west coast of America has had an impact on shipments regarding amiibo and the New Nintendo 3DS XL.

This would explain the amount of delays, shortages and vague dates we’ve been getting since amiibo first launched alongside Super Smash Bros. for Wii U back on November 21st, 2014, which is the only time there’s been a solid date on an amiibo release in the US. Video games, on the other hand, haven’t been impacted in this strike, as “games are light and can be flown to America”, Iwata says.

Let’s just hope this doesn’t go on for much longer so both the consumers and Nintendo can go about amiibo and any future products stress free.

The Q&A meeting is currently available in Japanese here

More: Amiibo, Meeting, Satoru Iwata

Podcast Crew: Austin (Twitter), Jack (Twitter), Laura (Twitter)

Welcome to episode 106 I mean episode 109. How are you? I’m okay. I hope you’re okay too. Here’s an overview of what we’ll be talking about on this episode:

Segment 1, Intro: Star Tropics makes its first appearance on this podcast, and we discuss some cool tidbits about its development and how it’s similar to Metal Gear Solid in a certain respect.

Segment 2, What We Played: Austin gives his impressions of the New 3DS XL, Laura waxes poetic and tells a story from her time with Majora’s Mask 3D, and Jack updates us on chemistry, computer science, and other collegiate affairs.

Segment 3, Book Club: Our next week of the A Link to the Past book club creates a rift that eventually morphs into a learning experience for everyone involved! Jack likes the Dark Palace and dislikes the Swamp Palace, but Laura and Austin think the opposite! Some interesting notes about Zelda temple design in this segment.

Segment 4, Listener Mail: Listener mails brings about a particularly interesting topic this week: Are 2D Zelda games really just gimped versions of 3D Zelda games? Are they just a stopgap between the “real” Zelda games? We don’t go quite as in-depth as I’d like to someday, but it’s a fascinating idea.

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More: highlight, Monster Hunter 4, New 3DS XL, podcast, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D