G.G. Series: Z.ONE, coming to North America’s DSiWare service “soon”. While it looks basic compared to Z.ONE2, the sequel that hit Japan in June, at least it’s coming here and is priced at a super-cheap 200 Points. Genterprise also plans to bring Wonderland, its Alice in Wonderland-themed shoot’em up, to the States with the same price.
Don’t forget that Genterprise has already published Super Hero Ogre and Ninja Karakuri Denare U.S. DSiWare — the latter of which is supposed to be quite nice!
In related DSiWare news, Abylight will release Kawamoto Industrial’s Dairojo! Samurai Defenders (previously Amakuchi! Dairoo Castle) here this winter:
Yeah, it’s yet another Tower Defense game, but it’s certainly more interesting than this week’s DSiWare releases.
Ninja Karakuri Den 2 (Ninja Robot Legend 2), coming to Japan’s DSiWare service next week with a new playable character, more complex environments, and the same 200 point budget pricing. If this series follows Haggleman’s progression (after all, the primary hero here looks ripped from Retro Game Challenge), the next Ninja Karakuri Den release will elevate the simple action game to masterpiece status with a completely different approach combining Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania.
That probably won’t happen at all, but one can dream.
Go Series DSiWare games coming to North America and Europe. Rising Star Games and Gamebridge are localizing a batch of budget DSiWare titles from several small Japanese developers. The first two titles releasing as part of this deal are G-Mode’s time-attack platformer 10 Second Run and Tom Create’s Defence Wars, which hit Europe next month (no U.S. dates announced yet).
This trailer also shows off several G.G. Series titles like Dark Spirit and Fatal Blow. Genterprise is already releasing the latter in the states as Super Hero Ogre, so I presume its Go Series inclusion is only for Europe? Oh, and that reminds me: Ninja Karakuri Den released in the U.S. yesterday for 200 Nintendo Points, so pick that up!
You’ll notice that ArtePiazza’s Pinball Attack is in this video, too — nice to see that making it out of Japan, as I’ve heard it’s pretty fun. I hope Rising Star and Gamebridge have more DSiWare titles in mind to bring over. I’d love to see them publish G-Mode’s Chicken Spirit and its game about manners here!
Ahead of debuting its budget G.G. Series of DSiWare games in the States, Genterprise has launched an Engrish-y site introducing the first two titles headed here: Ninja Karakuri Den (or Ninja Robot Legend) and Super Hero Ogre.
Both games are priced at 200 Nintendo Points, and Ninja Karakuri Den, the Haggleman-esque (at least in the hero’s design) platformer shown in the above footage, is slated to release on August 23rd. You can watch more videos for the two downloadable titles here.
[Update: JC points out that the ESRB just rated two G.G. Series shoot’em ups — Wonder Land and ZONE!]
A surprising title popped up on the ESRB’s rating information site today: G.G. Ninja Karakuri Den (or Ninja Robot Legend), the Haggleman-esque platformer from Genterprise/Suzak’s budget DSiWare series in Japan.
“This is a strategy game [?] in which players control a ninja who jumps and dashes around each level while collecting coins and avoiding enemies. Some enemies can try to attack players with swords, throwing stars, and blow darts, requiring players to restart the level.”
Though this is the only G.G. Series title currently rated by the ESRB, it paves the way for Genterprise’s dozens of other 200 Point games to release in the U.S. DSiWare shop. Who knows, maybe we’ll one day even see the G.G. Series Collection+ cartridge released here!
Z.ONE2, the follow-up to Suzak and Genterprise’s budget DSiWare shoot’em up released only in Japan and included in recently shipped anthology G.G. Series Collection+. According to this naming convention, Genterprise will title this game’s sequel Z.ONE23, and the game after that will be Z.ONE23MOSDEF&TALIBKWELI.
Scheduled to release on June 23rd, Z.ONE2 features three difficulty modes, what looks like a new system for those pods that act as your shield/weapons, and some other junk.
What’s really exciting about the game is that it kicks off a “Second Season” of G.G. Series releases! More 200 point games on DSiWare! In Japan. Yes, G.G. Series titles usually turn out to be kind of meh after a few minutes, but they’re a lot more exciting than the downloadable games that have come out of Japan’s DSiWare the past couple weeks, which haven’t been even worth mentioning here.
Variable Arms, one of 14 new titles included in the upcoming 30-game anthology G.G. Series Collection+ (ships in Japan next week). Just in case you haven’t follower our coverage of this release, it’s a compilation of Japanese budget DSiWare games originally sold for 200 Points apiece from Suzak and Genterprise.
In this 2D action game, you pilot a Thexder-esque robot that transforms into a Blaster Master-type tank. It looks very simple and cheaply produced, but I bet you could find at least five minutes of fun in it. And after you’re done with it, you can just load up one of the 29 other games included in G.G. Series Collection+.
G.G. Series Collection+ trailer. Along with sharing cramped clips of the 16 DSiWare games released from the budget G.G. Series in Japan so far, this new video gives you a preview of the other 14 titles included in the anthology — games like The Last Knight, Shadow Army, Kakure Ninja Kagemaru, Hero Puzzle, and many others.
This hits Japanese stores in three weeks, and since its a DS release and not a DSi-enhanced game, you can play releases originally intended for DSiWare on a standard DS system! And unless Genterprise fiddled with the region-locking like Sega did with Sonic Classic Collection, you should be able to import this and play it on your U.S. DSis, too.
As noted in our post from then Genterprise announced G.G. Series Collection+, not all of the games are unlocked as soon as you turn on the game; you’ll need to play the available titles, earn GP, and buy from the in-game shop’s limited (and random daily) selection. If you don’t like a particular day’s offering, you could always just spend your GP on customizing or accessorizing the female Navi Character that appears on the top screen!
G.G. Series: Throw Out trailer. As far as I can tell, this new Japanese DSiWare game is just Team Handball, except to make it more interesting, Suzak replaced humans with robots for players. I love the team names — Vermillion, Hell Hound, Bad Religion, and Bloody Hearts.
Publisher Genterprise released this in Japan last week for 200 points and plans to put out G. G. Series: Exciting River, a top-down kayaking game with an odd Irish folk music soundtrack (at least in its trailer), for the same price next Wednesday. Both titles and 28 others will be included in the upcoming G.G. Series Collection cart.
Genterprise and Suzak announced G.G. Series Collection, a retail cart featuring 30 (!) titles from their budget G.G. DSiWare releases in Japan. It looks like standard Nintendo DS systems should be able to load the cart, so you won’t need a Japanese DSi (or a DSi at all) to enjoy this!
It makes sense that they’re packing so many games into the collection, as I hear many of them are crap; what do you expect for 200 Points? Still, a tally of 30 games is impressive, even more so when you realize that Genterprise has put out only 14 of them so far; 16 of the titles are still unreleased, and the majority of them were previously unannounced (full list/more details after the break).
G. G. Series: Assault Buster, a new DSiWare game from Suzak and Genterprise slated to hit Japan’s shop in two weeks. If the gameplay seems a little familiar to you, that’s because it takes a lot of inspiration from Treasure’s Bangai-O games — a series Tim Rogers once described as “Brain Training for God.” Yeah, I still don’t understand what that’s supposed to mean.
At 200 points, it’s unlikely Assault Buster will match Bangai-O’s excellence, but what do you expect? Suzak puts out like two new games each month! No time for quality!
I loathe putting together these round-up posts because they require so much effort and no one bothers to read through them, but someone has to cover these DSiWare items, right? Sure, Nintendo Life and Go Nintendo mention this junk from time to time, but I’m kind of focused on building the audience for this site. Anyway…
This trailer for Burning Puzzle Flame Tail presents a curious concept: the game scrolls like a vertical shoot’em-up with the DSi turned on its side but has the mechanics of a puzzler. You ignite block groups by touching them with your snake-like form, and collect letters spelling out power-ups. It’s the latest from Mindware, the little known studio that produced surprise gem Maboshi’s Arcade.
