Yu Narukami from Persona 4 still looks totally cool as a chibi dude. And that combined Persona/EO battle system! Very interesting. Here’s another video released today featuring Persona 3 characters.
BUYPersona 4 Golden, upcoming games
It’s the regular boxart, in greyscale. Not that thrilling to describe I guess, but classy! As seen on Amazon, via @NintendoTweet. Here’s the UK CE for comparison. And Japan.
PREORDERBravely Default, upcoming games,our holiday gift guide
I was really charmed by this track by Fulhäst. As many of you may already know, I have a weakness for bedroom recordings and chip pop-punk.
Making a telephone mic like the one Nik uses in these recording isn’t too difficult, if you’re an aspiring musician and want to add a simple but incredibly charming vocal effect to your music. I’ve actually been really grateful that 2013 seems to have taken off as a year that chipmusic and vocals finally meet in a widespread way.
MORE Fulhäst's Broken, upcoming games,our holiday gift guide
Wow, Vanillaware keeps tinkering with Dragon’s Crown! A new patch adds a randomly generated dungeon, the Tower of Mirages, with “tens of thousands” of floors. And to keep you interested in tackling those floors, your level cap is bumped from 99 to 255!
Here’s the list of changes, with big stuff bolded:
[Bug Fixes]
[New Features]
[Feature Modifications]
Atlus says this is the final planned update, but, like, what if George Kamitani randomly decides to work more on this game. Dude’s been thinking about Dragon’s Crown for a long time. Image by Miso.
BUYDragon's Crown, upcoming games,our holiday gift guide
Yay, Nina Matsumoto and the SA-GCCX translated the latest Game Center CX special challenge for NES Remix, in which Arino competes against three kids in the new Wii U eShop game — stream it on Dailymotion here.
Check out Arino having no qualms about rubbing his victories in these kids’ faces (pics via mitsumaple). Not even trying to act like an adult, just straight up laughing and pointing in their faces. This is our hero.
Speaking of SA-GCCX, they have this new slick site where you can download torrents for the group’s fan translations. That will come in handy for whenever that Dailymotion video gets pulled.
BUYRetro Game Challenge, Retro Game Master DVD set
Brian Provinciano has continued fine-tuning Retro City Rampage for its 3DS release, pushing the final version into 2014. There’s plenty to play this year anyway!
So, good news:
"Every mission has been reworked for the 3DS, the frontend and UI rebuilt for two screens, and touch features added where it makes sense. I spent a good amount of time on R&D playing with the touch screen to see what worked and what didn’t, ensuring every use of it felt natural and added to the game."
I can’t wait to pick this back up!
BUYNintendo 2DS&3DS/XL, upcoming games, our holiday gift guide
Check out this dope situation. Procyon has added voxel support to the NES emulator FCEUX, instantly turning NES ROMs (which you’ve legally acquired, etc.) into 3D games. This looks amazing!
Official emulation (Virtual Console and the like) have a lot of catching up to do – catching up that will never, ever occur. But whatever, let’s stare at some cool graphics!
BUYNintendo 2DS&3DS/XL, upcoming games, our holiday gift guide
You guys have found the Sand Rod gag with the Geldmen dudes in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, right? It’s gold.
BUYZelda: A Link Between Worlds, upcoming games, gift guide
Though I have yet to play it, I sure have been thinking about NES Remix. The Retro Game Challenge-like Wii U game came out of nowhere, and was fairly unusual for Nintendo – not because it recontextualizes old NES games, though there’s not nearly enough of that. No, it’s weird because it seems designed to promote the Virtual Console!
A screen in the game (image above snapped by Kotaku) actually points you out to the eShop, where you can buy the games featured in Remix. And in what cannot possibly be a coincidence, every game featured in NES Remix is part of the Wii U Virtual Console’s tiny selection of NES games.
I’m going to take this as a good sign for the future of the Virtual Console. Not only is Nintendo actually stepping up promotion of the service, it’s advertising it with a custom game (Does that mean it’s the development side of Nintendo doing the promotion?). Sure, it’s a $15 ad, but for an ad that is also its own neat game, that’s totally cool. If anything, it’s Nintendo at its Nintendo-est: responding to criticism in a way that nobody expected, and maybe nobody knew they wanted.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t call out the other great things Nintendo’s been doing with Virtual Console lately, like the themed sales and bundle discounts. It all points to a bright future for the past!
BUYNintendo 2DS&3DS/XL, upcoming games, our holiday gift guide
Even the difficulty selection screen is awesome (thanks for the pic, ice cream & bats; and for the localization, Binari Sonari). Can’t wait for this to come out in the States (February 7). Can’t wait for the demo (January 2). Soon.
PREORDERBravely Default, upcoming games,our holiday gift guide
Here’s the best new holiday chiptune album, Robby Duguay’s 12 GB of Christmas (shout-outs to Doctor Octoroc’s 8-Bit Jesus, which has been holding it down for years). There’s only four preview tracks online, but oh my gawd, when that first track, “MegaChild”, breaks down around 1:24? This was my face. And “Deck the Zones”, the Sonic tribute? Kris Kringle be wylin out to that joint. It’s like the Christmastime equivalent of M.O.P.’s "Ante Up".
We have a bunch of free codes to download the entire album for free. Want one? Just reblog or leave a comment telling us what your favorite chiptune song/album was in 2013. Or if you don’t listen to chiptunes, just tell us what your jam was in the Year of Lugi. I’ll pick some random winners tomorrow morning and send you the codes (if you’re leaving a comment, make sure to use your real email address)!
And if you don’t want to wait until tomorrow morning, you can cop the album for like seven bones. Joys be thine, kids.
BUYNintendo 2DS&3DS/XL, upcoming games, our holiday gift guide
Is it too late to take part in Animal Crossing: New Leaf's Toy Day event? If not, now’s a great time to return to your town and visit all your old friends.
BUYZelda: A Link Between Worlds, upcoming games, gift guide
When they’re not breaking your heart, random Miiverse messages are always great for a laugh. Credit to DaCo for the pic.
BUYSuper Mario 3D World, upcoming releases
Might actually be literally, really, for seriously, dying right now. Angel in the back is all, “I can’t even do this, guys. Dead.” The tiny arms under Luigi…
Merry Luigi-mas, y’all. Props to Secret Octopus for the pic.
BUYLuigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, upcoming games
Since no Christmas morning is complete without someone giving you clothes you didn’t ask for, here’s a special Animal Crossing: New Leaf tee designed by Das Fuzzlez. And here are two other TinyCartridge shirts, and an ugly Christmas sweater, for good measure. Joys be thine.
How’s your Christmas going? What were your standout gifts?
BUYAnimal Crossing: New Leaf, upcoming games, holiday gift guide
Exactly 2013 years ago, our savior Luigi was born. It’s only fitting then that Good Smile release these new photos of its planned Luigi figure today. When this releases in Japan, it will come with interchangeable faces, special backgrounds, and accessories (pipe, Bullet Bill, Goomba, dash clouds).
BUYLuigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, upcoming games
Okay, the Virtual Console menu for Gradius may not be the most exciting thing, but it shows that Konami’s VC emulation for PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 games has nice options. Like Gradius, I guess!
You can remap any button, resize the screen into 4:3, 5:4 or 1:1 aspect ratios, and turn on rapid fire just like the PC Engine controller. I also like the PCE red/white/black color scheme!
Excellent work, Konami. Now let me play them in the U.S.!
BUYNintendo 2DS&3DS/XL, upcoming games, our holiday gift guide
The Japanese launch of Pokemon Bank, combined with about a billion new NNID activations worldwide from people who got 3DSes and Wii Us over Xmas, have waylaid the poor eShop. I have some extra time to deliberate over what to do with this gift card, I guess!
The network outage is temporary, but Pokemon Bank has been taken off the eShop in Japan, and its release date in North America and Europe has been moved from tomorrow to “TBD.” The free trial will resume when the software is available.
Don’t worry too much about this crisis. We’ll bail out the Pokemon Bank somehow, because it’s too big to fail.
BUYPokemon X and Y, upcoming games
Not a bad Amazon deal! With the money you save, you can buy a hunting guide over at Culty. The guys up in sales are also strongly urging me to mention that you can get free two-day shipping on the game by signing up for an Amazon Prime trial. [Update:MonHun deal is dead :o( .]
GIF is via Not Enough Creativity!
BUYMonster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Monster Hunter 4, upcoming games
It takes around 40 seconds for anything to happen in this trail, but Persona Q video beggars can’t be choosers. The few seconds of gameplay here look very, very Etrian Odyssey-esque! And there’s a cameo by Catherine's Vincent!
BUYPersona 4 Golden, upcoming games
