For the release of Bravely Default: For the Sequel, Square Enix is preparing a set of drama CDs known as “Reunion Festival”. Japanese fans will have access to an all-original script starting on December 25th, which is about “bringing the important people back together for a celebratory meeting”.

CD buyers will also receive a special download code for four costumes. These include a Dimensional Officer suit for Tiz, Bunny Bravo costume for Agnes, a Dukedom Civil Officer Apprentice outfit for Edea, and a rather odd piece of garb for Ringabel.

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Nintendo tends to make use of various art styles with the Zelda games. We’ve seen approaches that have been realistic, cel-shaded, and even impressionistic.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker most definitely introduced the biggest change in the series. No one saw the cartoon-like visuals coming, and the style initially caused quite the uproar. It’s in part due to Wind Waker’s original reception that it seems as though Nintendo will be more cautious with art styles in future Zeldas.

Eiji Aonuma, speaking with GamesTM this month, said the development team “will be a bit more careful in the future” with regard to the visual direction of Zelda entries. That being said, Aonuma would be willing “to break new ground again” if an approach was created that would appeal to the developers and players.

Aonuma told the magazine:

“We encountered an awful lot of problems from the drastic leap we took with Wind Waker. I think we will be a bit more careful in the future, but if we find a new approach that not just the developers, but also the users would enjoy then I think we will want to break new ground again. But we haven’t found such an approach yet.”

Thanks to joclo for sending this our way.

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Nintendo has announced the 2013 Japanese Club Nintendo Platinum rewards. Members who reached the status this year will receive a download code for Advance Wars: Day of Ruin as well as a calender.

Advance Wars’ inclusion as a reward is particularly noteworthy. Nintendo never released Days of Ruin in Japan, but is now doing so through Club Nintendo.

Platinum members can download the title as a DSiWare title starting today. Nintendo will also allow all Japanese Club Nintendo users to pick up Advance Wars: Days of Ruin for 800 points beginning in May 2014.

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The following is an excerpt from the latest round of Iwata Asks about the development of Wii Sports Club. Specifically, these quotes relate to the game’s online functionality (Miiverse included) and how the team (including folks from Namco Bandai, who helped the game along) tackled various issues that they came across:

“When we thought about how we want people to have fun with Wii Sports on the new hardware, the Wii U console, there was no way, given the expectations, that we couldn’t prepare online gaming. So as we began development, we set online gameplay of Tennis — the representative sport of Wii Sports — as our first goal. [We wanted to] pour our energy into how we could make [online gaming] fun.”

“In a typical online game, the information of the button presses are sent to your opponent, and the inputs are synchronized between the players, but for this game you have to send complex information from the gyro sensor and accelerometer of the Wii Remote Plus controllers, in addition to information from the buttons, which was a brand new challenge.”

– Nintendo EAD Takayuki Shimamura

Specifically regarding Miiverse:

“So we thought about how [Miiverse] should work. But if we were to simply implement Miiverse to a sporting game, the winners would probably write cheerful comments like ‘Yay! I won!’ But I bet the losers would hardly write anything at all, like ‘Oh I’m so frustrated I lost.’ We were concerned that Miiverse would become a cruel place. We also thought many people who play Wii Sports would have never played competitive games online.”

“Everyone has a hometown or someplace where they live, so we thought about setting it up in a way as if at first you join the sports club in the area where you live, and if we made sports clubs for the various states and provinces, each of the regions could compete.”

– Nintendo EAD Takayuki Shimamura

Via Polygon

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NIS America will bring Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl to Europe, the company announced today. A release is planned for 2014.

Atlus launched Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl in North America earlier this month. The game originally hit Japan in late June.

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Two new Virtual Console games are on track for the Japanese Wii U eShop next week. Clock Tower (Super Famicom) and Donkey Kong 3(Famicom) will be out on November 6. Pricing is set at 800 yen and 500 yen respectively.

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Two new games have been confirmed for the Japanese 3DS Virtual Console. Shining Force II (Game Gear) and Mega Man V (Game Boy) will be out on November 6. Pricing is set at 500 yen and 400 yen respectively.

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