Nintendophiles 04.11.08

Posted by Theo Fraser on 04.11.2008

It’s been a week of highs and lows for Nintendo gamers, with bad news for Tales fans, a Phoenix Wright spin-off being primed for the DS, more hard-drive woes for Nintendo, the possibility of a new F-Zero title appearing at E3 and much more! That’s all inside this week’s edition of Nintendophiles!




Buongiorno! I'm back from my short Sardinian vacation, slightly tanned (save for my red nose which saw a little too much sun) and raring to go for another edition of Nintendophiles! I took my DS with me, with Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings in the DS slot and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga in the GBA slot, which I recently bought on eBay. Both are awesome, but they didn't quite satiate my gaming cravings whilst I was away, so I've definitely got the ‘gaming itch' right now. Fortunately, we've got a ton of Ninty news to cover, so let's get down to business.



Order! Order! Phoenix Wright spin-off heading to the DS!
Credit: Famitsu

When the original Phoenix Wright title was first announced for the DS, I was more than a little sceptical. A courtroom sim…fun? It simply didn't add up. Four games later (if we're including Apollo Justice's turn in the most recent title), I can proudly say I'm a Phoenix Wright convert, and thus extremely happy to report that a new Wright spin-off is making its way to the Nintendo DS; Perfect Prosecutor.

Yes, as you might be able to surmise from the title, this swaps your usual role as defence attorney to that of a prosecutor. Familiar faces such as Miles Edgeworth and Dick Gumshoe will appear, with Edgeworth in particular playing an important role in the story. What has been determined so far is that Edgeworth is concentrating on cases where overlooked evidence and inconsistencies at the crime scene has led to people being locked up wrongfully, in theory putting him in the place of defense attorney, so we can likely expect him to be your opponent once again throughout the game. New detective mechanics are being introduced that should make better use of the DS' capabilities (which has been a consistent criticism of the series so far), but at this early stage, the specifics have yet to be revealed.

No release date has been set, but considering the fact that neither Trials and Tribulations nor Apollo Justice are out in the UK yet, I'd say we've got a fair wait. For now, Phoenix fans can just sit back and rejoice in the fact that this glorious series will continue!




Nintendo's E3 announcement possibly F-Zero related?
Credit: Nintendo-Planet.de, CVG





Here's another newsbyte firmly rooted in the ‘rumor' camp for now, but more than worthy of a mention if it does indeed prove to be legit. German website Nintendo-Planet.de has apparently received word that Nintendo's E3 announcement will in fact be the unveiling of a new F-Zero title, currently entitled F-Zero Z.

All that is known so far is that the game supposedly features every track from F-Zero GX on the Gamecube, and will for the first time bring the F-Zero franchise online. The site also mentions that a ‘weapon system' of some sort has been confirmed, but many are putting this down to a bad Babel Fish translation. The F-Zero series has always been about high-octane speed, with an emphasis on the race itself and getting into pole position, rather than the weapon-oriented racing of something like Mario Kart, so I sincerely hope this is indeed just a misunderstanding.

Normally, rumors such as this wouldn't carry much weighting, but considering Reggie Fils-Aime's recent comments regarding a big game announcement at E3 in July, this kind of thing has to be taken somewhat seriously. I speculated a couple of weeks ago that the announcement would be about Animal Crossing Wii, especially as Reggie himself said the game would be something the casual market would be interested in, and I'm tempted to stick to my guns. Also, if the game is so heavily reliant on F-Zero GX, wouldn't the announcement be coming from the SEGA tent, seeing as it was Amusement Vision, a subsidiary of SEGA, that developed the GC title? Little things like that don't quite add up, but it's an interesting possibility nonetheless. We'll know for sure in just 3 months!




No Tales of Innocence for Western territories
Credit: Cubed3

Somebody better get me a Phoenix Down as I think a little part of me just died inside. Bandai Namco have just announced that the awesome DS entry into the "Tales Of" series, Tales of Innocence will not be seeing a release in either the US or Europe, making it a Japan exclusive. Cubed3 spoke with the Brand Manager for the Tales Of series, Hideo Baba, in an interview focused on Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (which fortunately WILL see the light of day on these shores), and was briefly asked about when/if Innocence would be coming to the West.

Baba-san: "I'm sorry to say that there are currently no plans at this point."

This really sucks, and not just for all the big Tales fans out there. Tales of Innocence was genuinely considered to be one of the best entries in the series, scoring extremely highly in Famitsu magazine a couple of months back, and could have played a huge role in attracting new fans. Alas, it is never to be! It's been pointed out that Tales of Phantasia on the GBA took an absolute age to come out over here, but I'm not going to hold my breath on this one. As it stands, Western gamers have been denied a remarkable RPG, certainly the best to appear on the DS, and it looks like we'll just have to wait for Symphonia on the Wii to get our Tales fix for the time being.




More hard-drive woes for Nintendo
Credit: CVG

Nintendo fans around the world have been pleading the Big N to produce an external hard-drive for the Wii ever since the console first launched with a 512mb internal memory. And whilst it's almost always the gamers themselves that have implored Nintendo to give them more space for Virtual Console downloads, this past week it was developer Harmonix's turn to get on Nintendo's case.

We recently found out that the upcoming Wii version of Rock Band would not support downloadable content, which was quite a significant blow as this was a feature that assure the game stayed fresh for many months to come. As it is, the Wii iteration is severely lacking in comparison to its PS3 and 360 rivals. But according to a recent interview with Harmonix, this wasn't down to any problems at their end; it was down to Nintendo's stubbornness regarding the on-going memory issues.


"Come on Nintendo, we need a hard drive. That's what we want. The whole problem is there's nowhere to store it. If the platform could do it, we'd jump on it. It's something that we championed to Nintendo, that we'd like to do it. Who knows what will happen down the line, I don't know what's coming down the line, but that's the reason there's no DLC in Wii Rock Band"

Rob Kay - Harmonix design director


As you can see, they're evidently leaving it open for the future in case Nintendo do decide to act on the matter, but for the time being, you can wave goodbye to your hopes of downloadable content for Rock Band on Wii. Gamers have questioned whether SD cards could have been utilised for the DLC, but according to Harmonix, the process would have been too fiddly, and there still wouldn't be enough room for any significant content.

We've yet to receive reports from Japan on memory issues regarding the introduction of the WiiWare service, but with the service coming to the US next month, we'll find out for ourselves. Whatever the case, the Wii's internal memory is undoubtedly filling up fast, and Nintendo desperately need to do something about it. I'm praying that Nintendo rectify the situation soon, preferably announcing something at E3, but I haven't heard any rumors as of yet. Stay tuned!




New Sonic details Unleashed!
Credit: ONM

Expect more lame "unleashed" puns in the coming months. Anyway, with the title being officially unveiled a week or two ago, the UK's Official Nintendo Magazine has uncovered some tasty morsels of info about the title, including storyline facts and the all-important gameplay mechanics.




(PS3 version)


The title has been developed from scratch with a new engine to emphasise this new take on Sonic. It was originally designed to be Sonic Adventure 3, but SEGA wanted to move away from the Adventure titles, which didn't exactly set the world on fire, hence the drastic changes. According to the report, the game has hardly any relation to any previous 3D Sonic game, including the awful 360/PS3 game or Secret Rings on the Wii, which in actual fact wasn't too bad at all. Having said that, it's still the same old Sonic we all know and love, but this time, he's going back to his roots, with a focus on speed, collecting rings and gunning for the bad guy, which once again appears to be Dr Robotnik Eggman.

That brings us nicely onto the subject of the game's plot. The Chaos Emeralds are once again in trouble (man, they should hook up with Princess Peach, the amount of times they get stolen…), and have been misused by Eggman, resulting in strange changes taking place inside Sonic's body. No, our favorite blue hedgehog isn't experiencing puberty; he's facing something much worse than spontaneous erections. A night and day cycle will be implemented into the game, and Sonic will appear as normal in the day, but will undergo some kind of metamorphosis during the night, which will "slow him down" and allow him to "manipulate objects". That's a little too vague for my liking right now, but I imagine we'll hear more on that reasonably soon.

Classic Sonic moves return, such as homing attacks and his trademark spin, but there are a few new elements, including the Sonic Boost (which gives our hero a quick burst of speed by collecting rings over the course of the level, much like in Secret Rings) and Sonic Dash, which is presumably the ‘quick step' we've seen in early footage and screens, allowing Sonic to rapidly dash to the left or the right to avoid oncoming projectiles, enemies or objects.

Realistic locations are said to be used during the adventure, which probably triggers alarm bells for many of you who played Sonic's 360/PS3 outing (referring to the near-sacrilegious Sonic/Princess Elise interaction which firmly cemented the fact in fans' eyes that Sonic should stay in his OWN universe and not interact with anything resembling a human. With Sonic Unleashed featuring realistic locations, there are certainly fears that the two worlds will cross over once again, and I can't see that being a good thing. But I guess if Sonic is just doing a loop-de-loop on the Arc De Triomph collecting rings, then it's not so bad.

Sonic Unleashed is scheduled for a release on PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii later on this year, and I'll be covering all the news as soon as it's released, right here in Nintendophiles.




FINALLY confirmed: Sam & Max are coming to the Wii
Credit: CVG, Cubed3

It had been rumored to be in the making for quite some time now, and its thanks in part to those rumors and the increasing demand from fans that developer Telltale Games has succumbed to pressure and are bringing Sam & Max to the Nintendo Wii.

Originally released on the PC in 2006 in episodic format, the Wii will receive a compilation of episodes from the first season. Whilst no new content is planned, Telltale Games are deep at work on an unnamed WiiWare project, which could turn out to be episodes from Season 2 of Sam & Max, which would be an awesome addition to the WiiWare catalogue. But let's not get ahead of ourselves! The first season was very well received, and it'll be very interesting to see how it fares on a different platform with a new audience.

Sam & Max is due out on Wii later this year, brought to you by Dreamcatcher and The Adventure Company. In the mean time, keep an eye out for that Telltale Games WiiWare project…


UPDATE: Shortly before going live on the site, the Telltale Games WiiWare project was revealed to be "Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People." So uh…that'd be a no for WiiWare Sam & Max then!




The 411 Games Crew

411mania has recently gone on a hiring spree, so let us welcome two new guys to the Games Zone; Chris Scott, who brings us The Red Snifit, a platform for Chris to spout off about anything related to video games, and John Curry, who has an interesting debate in the debut edition of The CheckPoint. Check them both out and leave them some feedback to tell them how awesome they are!

Joe Roche presents The Full Circle: 360 News Report.

Mark Salmela rates the top Playstation Network games in this week's B3yond The Report News Report, as well as breaking down all the Sony news from the past 7 days.


Next week, Nintendophiles will be back to its regularly scheduled day of Thursday, so enjoy the next 6 days and I'll see you right back here at the 411 Games Zone then!

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