Arachnid Games recently revealed that Ballpoint Universe is finally heading to the Wii U eShop next Thursday. The company didn’t say, however, if the news applied to both North America and Europe.
Well, now we have an answer! Arachnid told one gamer on Twitter that the European launch of Ballpoint Universe will be taking place “a few months” after the North American release. This is because of the “separate publishing process for each region”.
Arachnid’s tweet in full:
@JeGeekJePlay The Eurpoean release will be a few months later.There's a separate publishing process for each region! : 0
— Arachnid Games (@Arachnid_Games) October 3, 2014
In an interview with Siliconera, Shantae director Matt Bozon touched on the different prototypes that the studio experimented with in the past but never saw the day of light. Among the projects include “a polygonal Shantae that could be run around in three distinct gameplay ‘gyms’”.
Bozon’s full comments:
“We had a polygonal Shantae that could be run around in three distinct gameplay ‘gyms’. One was a spline-scroller (like Namco’s Klonoa), one was a free-range 3D like Mario 64, and the last was an isometric 3D platformer. We’ve done a lot of exploration in this area… Shantae was a sprite/3D hybrid for PlayStation and PC, and was free-roaming on the PlayStation 2. She even rode a river raft on the GameCube. It’s possible that we’ll see a polygonal Shantae down the line, but only if it serves the style of gameplay we want to create at the time.”
Bozon also spoke with Siliconera about WayForward’s upcoming Shantae games. Speaking about the differences between Pirate’s Curse and Half-Genie Hero, he said:
“The games are fairly different. The teams have no real crossover besides me and Jake (Virt) Kaufman. Half-Genie Hero is more about dancing, over-the-top spectacle, arcade action, and some light quest elements to keep it true to the series (and it’s still in development, so anything can happen!). It’s like a Shantae TV show come to life!”
“Pirate’s Curse has a deeper narrative and is more rooted in 16-bit stylings, even though it has higher resolution paintings and occasional voice over. Pirate’s Curse expands the original gameplay and takes into new territory. Half-Genie Hero goes back to belly dancing and magic, but adds a ton of variety with more playable characters and HD visual design.”
Westone Bit Entertainment seems to be in serious trouble. Based on financial reports, the Wonder Boy developer will soon be filing for bankruptcy. Westone has already closed its official site in light of this news.
It’s unclear what will happen to the studio at present. If we hear something, we’ll be sure to let you know.
Club Nintendo Japan has been updated with yet another reward. For 300 points, users can obtain the AR card holder. The card holder can be fitted with up to 36 cards of roughly 86mm × 54mm in size.
Following yesterday’s leak from the USK, XSEED has now come forward with an official confirmation regarding Rune Factory 4’s release plans in Europe.
Executive VP Ken Berry told Siliconera:
“The situation is that we know the Rune Factory 4 fans in Europe have suffered enough with one cancellation already, so we didn’t want to announce anything until the game passed [Nintendo of Europe] certification and we were sure its digital-only eShop release was imminent since we are using a different programming house to try to pick up where the original dev team left off.”
“Though I can’t disclose which development house is handling the PAL localization programming duties for us, I can say that it’s been in the works for months already and we hope to start the master submission process with NOE within the next couple weeks.”
It was previously said that Rune Factory 4 wouldn’t be released in Europe due to technical difficulties. All of the problems likely came down to the fact that Neverland, the game’s original developer, shut down late last year.
According to a Media Create report, Super Smash Bros. sold 109,811 copies in its third week in Japan. While the game moved 321,363 units in the week prior, there’s a logical explanation for the sales decline.
Media Create says in its latest report that Smash Bros. 3DS is suffering from stock shortages. Had more units been available, the title could have sold more.
Total sales for Smash Bros. 3DS currently sit at 1.37 million copies.
