St. Nicalis leaves coal in our X-Mas stockings

I predicted yesterday that this could be the week we finally receive Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth and the Cave Story remake, basing my prophecy on the absence of both titles in Nintendo’s 2010 schedule. As those of you who checked your WiiWare stockings this morning for a Christmas week present found out, however, neither title showed up! Sorry if I ruined Christmas for you.

Instead of those titles, we got a bunch of junk and Intelligent Systems’s Eco Shooter: Plant 530, which might be junk, too; who knows? Of course, none of this was actually the fault of Cave Story developer Nicalis — it just made for a snappier headline. Blame Nintendo of America for holding back its anticipated releases, leaving you to spend your holiday break playing TV Show King 2 (although at least one person has told me this is an interesting game).

I think I’m going to stop making guesses on release dates because I’m always wrong about them (And no, Reflection, I haven’t forgotten about you). But before I do that — I guarantee you that Castlevania and Cave Story will come out on WiiWare next week. In fact, if they don’t, I will make up for it by not mentioning my failed prediction at all and by acting as if this post never happened.

See also: Lots of Cave Story posts

[Image via Usujio Aji, St. Nicalis joke stolen from Mindwater]

tags / nicalis / cave story / konami / pixel / wiiware / castlevania / castlevania the adventure rebirth / ec

Konami reveals Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth for WiiWare

Considering that Konami already released throwback Rebirth games for Contra and Gradius to WiiWare, it’s unsurprising to see this new ESRB listing pop up:

Castlevania the Adventure ReBirth

Platform: Wii

Rating: Teen

Content descriptors: Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence

Rating summary: This is a side-scrolling action game in which players battle against monsters in Dracula’s castle. Players use a chained whip to fight their way through halls and dungeons filled with zombies, skeletons, flying eyeballs, and bats. The enemy creatures frequently shoot projectiles and attack players in hand-to-hand combat. If players sustain too much damage, they keel over and emit a burst of red blood. Some rooms in the castle also have spikes or spears stained with red, blood-like splotches.

GamerBytes, which first spotted the ESRB listing, suspects the game is a remake of Game Boy’s Castlevania: The Adventure, originally released in 1989 (see video above).

This first Game Boy entry for the series is universally regarded as crummy and much less impressive than its follow-up Belmont’s Revenge, but who knows, maybe Konami’s remake will atone for the original’s sins.

tags / castlevania / rebirth / wiiware / konami / castlevania the adventure rebirth