Club Nintendo halves free game offerings. I was impressed that Nintendo was giving away a free game for each of its download platforms (eShop, DSiWare, WiiWare, Virtual Console) through its U.S. reward program during the past couple of months, but this time around it only has two titles available.
If you’ve registered enough games with Club Nintendo to earn 150 coins, you’ll be able to pick up Art Academy: First Semester for DSiWare (but only downloadable for 3DS owners) and Mario Party 2 for Virtual Console. It’s difficulty to justify arguing with free games, but neither of these are terribly exciting, and we’ve been spoiled by Club Nintendo’s recent selections.
Anne’s Doll Studio: Gothic, a new DSiWare game released today by Gamebridge. DSiWare has reached that magical point in a console/service’s lifecycle when any random game is snapped up for localization by someone — in this case, the app is Atelier Deco La Doll: Gothic, which released in Japan last year.
Too bad its contemporary, Make and Sing Monkey Band, didn’t come along! Instead, the eShop today offers EnjoyUp’s Gaia’s Moon (DSiWare) and Data East’s Lock ‘n’ Chase (Virtual Console). And, of course, the Resident Evil Revelations 3DS demo arrives as promised.
Go Series: Undead Storm, a top-down zombie shooting game for DSiWare (what). European publisher Gamebridge didn’t use my proposed title of Zombierrhea Panic, even though I just left it out there for the taking. Missed opportunity!
Gamebridge is releasing this co-op shooter in “early 2012” for 200 DSi Points.
Club Nintendo (U.S.) updated its selection of downloadable games, which you can grab by trading in the coins you receive from registering titles you’ve purchased.
The new rewards include Kirby’s Dream Land (3DS Virtual Console), Dr. Mario Express (DSiWare), Dr. Mario Online RX (Wii), and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (Wii Virtual Console), all available until January 31, when Nintendo will introduce a new set of games.
Nintendo just put out its North American launch schedule covering all its platforms for the first quarter of 2012. It’s not as promising as the European slate — which has The Last Story, Pandora’s Tower, and Inazuma Eleven 2 — but that seems to be the pattern lately. At least we’re getting Kirby’s Block Ball and Jett Rocket Super Surf on eShop.
The 3DS’s second analog stick add-on, the Circle Pad Pro, will make its debut in the States on February 7 with an MSRP of $19.99 through GameStop. :o/
We also have a release date now for Kid Icarus: Uprising. Here’s the schedule so far for retail 3DS games:
Trailer for Flipper 2: Flush The Goldfish, the 2D DSiWare title following up Goodbye Galaxy Games’ 3D, voxel-based puzzle platformer Flipper from last year.
Check out the built-in level editor! And the Ghosts’n Goblins-esque intro! Details on the gameplay variety:
“Flush starts at the left side of the room and moves automatically. You have one button that can be pressed to perform a action. The action differs from room to room
So it’s up to you to figure out what the action is, and how to use it to avoid the traps and enemies! There are over 300 rooms for you to complete!
In random castle mode, you can select your difficulty and theme and the game will generate a random castle! This is perfect for quick burst of handheld gaming!”
Cake Ninja, coming to UK DSiWare December 15. So … it’s not just an outright clone of Fruit Ninja, it’s also kind of sexist. And in need of a copy editor: “They have made his ninja wife put on weigh.”
You can buy select downloadable games with Club Nintendo points now! Well, not now exactly, as North America’s Club Nintendo site is down for maintenance, but as this screengrab shows, you can soon choose to spend your points on a handful of first-party eShop, DSiWare, Virtual Console (on Wii), and WiiWare releases.
The initial selection includes the following:
3D Classics: Xevious (eShop) for 100 points
Super Mario Kart (VC) for 100 points
Fluidity (WiiWare) for 150 points
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! (DSiWare) for 150 points
The games are chosen based on Club Nintendo member feedback, and are replaced with “a new surprise selection each month”. This is an obvious idea that I always assumed Nintendo would never implement because it’s too awesome, but here it is! The only problem is now I’ll never save enough points to get a Game & Watch: Ball.
In other digital download news, Pushmo is out on the eShop today or $6.99! Grab that shiz.
Blaster Master: Enemy Below for Game Boy Color. The Japanese version of this game, Meta Fight EX, comes out on that country’s 3DS eShop next week.
This week (in Japan), it’s Bionic Commando, another Game Boy sequel to an NES classic. I’ve played neither, and I love both NES predecessors, so I’m way interested in seeing these make their way to my 3DS.
As for eShop/DSiWare releases in North America today, we get 3D Classics: Kirby’s Adventure (!), Escape Trick: Convenience Store, and Play and Learn Chinese.
Cave Story (DSiWare) trailer. So Cave Story will finally be released on DSiWare in Japan on November 22!
Is it just me, or is the new footage of Quote sitting in the dark playing Cave Story just slightly creepy? Like, not full-on creepy, but bearing an essence of creepiness.
Battle of the Elements, a new DSiWare puzzle game by Barcelona-based Undercoders. This will be released in North America on November 24.
It features both a marathon mode and a mission mode with 40 different puzzle-based missions. I wasn’t able to catch how the gameplay works in this trailer, but I did happen to catch some damn adorable animals. With my eyes, I mean. I wasn’t poaching while watching the trailer.
“Contrary to the wishes of two or three guys on the Internets, we’re not just going to rip through games we love just to put out sub-par versions no one is happy playing (that’ll give said trolls more reason to bitch).
I’m much happier hearing a few guys complain about our games ‘coming out in 2015-2020’, then have something out there that one of our developer friends or I’m happy to release.”
Nicalis delivers real talk while also announcing a delay of Ikachan for DSiWare, until 2012.
So what’s the developer doing with the extra time? “First, the artwork is being redone from scratch by Daisuke [Pixel].” New enemies and a new, larger play area are also being added. The team is making a new localization, too, replacing the fan translation in the English PC version.
I’m sure most of us will have plenty to play for the rest of the year even without this game. Maybe not on DSiWare, but everywhere else — certainly on DS cards. This game would get super lost in holiday 2011.
