Nintendophiles 01.07.09

Posted by Theo Fraser on 01.07.2009

It’s a brand new year, and already the rumors are pouring in, such as the latest gossip on Pilotwings for the Wii. Also, Nintendo’s new Club Nintendo service is detailed, the development team working on Fragile talk about the title’s progression, and Another Code R looks impressive in its first gameplay trailer. Check out the first 2009 edition of Nintendophiles inside!





With Christmas and the New Year out the way, it's back to Uni for me in a couple of days. Normally that spells the end of my prolonged gaming sessions, BUT! My good friend who lives just a few doors away from me has just hooked himself up with Rock Band 2. Score. Mind you, another friend of mine has just purchased Guitar Hero: World Tour. I can see myself getting caught up in the debate there. I smell me a rivalry! Anyway, as long as I get to scream my lungs out to "Livin' on a Prayer" I'll be a happy camper.




Club Nintendo compatible titles detailed

Nintendo's new Club Nintendo service (their customer loyalty scheme) which launched on December 15th is already off to a good start, with the Game & Watch Collection originally up for grabs for 800 Coins (now sold out). The service is constantly being updated, so you'll be wanting to save up those coins and keep an eye out for any rare gems that become available. The Club Nintendo presented in Europe is a bit pants to be honest, with a lot of ‘digital' media such as wallpapers, desktops, iron-on t-shirt stickers etc, but the new US version plans to be a lot more like the uber-awesome Japanese service, with gashapon, lots of games and limited edition figurines and models.

With a large catalogue of Wii and DS titles eligible to be redeemed for coins via entering a verification code on the Club Nintendo site, Nintendo have released a full list of the titles (mostly first and second party offerings) you'll be able to register.


~ Wii Games – 50 Coins

~ DS Games – 30 Coins

~ WiiWare/Virtual Console downloads – 10 Coins

~ Completing online surveys – 10 Coins


Wii Games

• Animal Crossing: City Folk


• Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree


• Endless Ocean


• Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn


• Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess


• Link's Crossbow Training


• Mario Kart Wii


• Mario Party 8


• Mario Strikers Charged


• Mario Super Sluggers


• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption


• Pokemon Battle Revolution


• Super Mario Galaxy


• Super Paper Mario


• Super Smash Bros. Brawl


• Wario Land: Shake It!


• WarioWare: Smooth Moves


• Wii Fit


• Wii Music


• Wii Play

DS Games

• Advance Wars: Days of Ruin


• Animal Crossing: Wild World


• Big Brain Academy


• Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day


• Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day


• Clubhouse Games


• Crosswords DS


• Diddy Kong Racing


• Electroplankton


• Elite Beat Agents


• Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day


• Hotel Dusk: Room 215


• Kirby Super Star Ultra


• Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass


• Mario Kart DS


• Mario Party DS


• Master of Illusion


• Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir


• New Super Mario Bros.


• Nintendogs (All versions)


• Personal Trainer: Cooking


• Planet Puzzle League


• Pokemon Diamond /Pearl


• Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness


• Pokemon Ranger


• Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia


• Professor Layton and the Curious Village


• Super Mario 64 DS


• Tetris DS


• Yoshi's Island DS

WiiWare/Virtual Console

• Alien Crush Returns


• Art Style: Cubello


• Art Style: Rotohex


• Big Kahuna Party


• Boingz


• Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure


• Brain Challenge


• Bruiser and Scratch


• Digital Champ Battle Boxing


• Earthworm Jim


• Enduro Racer


• Forgotten Worlds


• Gradius II Gofer No Yabou


• Hockey Allstar Shootout


• Home Sweet Home


• Mega Man 3


• Metal Slug 2


• Pit Crew Panic!


• Secret of Mana


• Sonic the Hedgehog 2


• Space Harrier


• Space Invaders Get Even


• Space Invaders: The Original Game


• Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition


• Strong Bad Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands


• Strong Bad Episode 4: Dangeresque 3


• Strong Bad Episode 5: 8-bit is Enough


• Sudoku Challenge!


• Target Toss Pro: Bags


• Tetris Party


• The Incredible Maze


• World of Goo


• Yummy Yummy Cooking Jam

In theory, you could have an awful lot of coins at your disposal if you've been a loyal Nintendo gamer for the past few years. Happy spending!





Namco not so Fragile in run up to game's launch
Credit: NeoGAF

Bandai-Namco recently conducted a roundtable interview with some of the development team on upcoming Wii action-RPG Fragile, namely Kentarou Kawashima (Producer), Keiko Harada (Art Director) and Munehito Yasui (Main Programmer). The roundtable highlighted some interesting notes on the title's development, and also revealed a few tidbits about what we can expect from the game when it hits Japanese store shelves at the end of this month.

According to the developer's research, a typical gamer identifies three things in a game; Story & Characters, World presentation, and Gameplay (in that order). The idea with Fragile is to create a deep, rich and rewarding experience, which is said to be of an ‘oppressive' nature. The team took inspiration from various Japanese locales, noting the atmosphere and recording environmental sounds to give the game an authentic feel, despite its stylised visuals. Sound is said to have played a big role in the title's development, as the team hope to blend background music with environmental and natural sounds that interlink seamlessly. Quite an ambitious task, but the orchestral score we've heard so far is beautiful so I don't doubt their capabilities in the aural division.





The game is currently clocking in at a 30 hour lifespan, and producer Kawashima has said that he wants those hours to be "as meaningful as possible." In theory, this would indicate the absence of any backtracking missions which often plague lengthy RPGs to string them out that little bit longer.

Talk of original ideas for the game came up. It was originally to be set in Winter with a treasure hunter as the protagonist. The bleak winter environments evidently made it into the final version, as we've seen in a couple of outdoor screenshots, and look astounding. The ‘Winter' version included some elements that have been brought across, such as bonfires, messages on the wall, and the pointer-based flashlight control mechanic, all of which were seen in the debut trailer.

The team revealed that the project had firmly stayed on target and on schedule consistently throughout development, meaning they don't have to rush anything in this final stage and can take their time tweaking and perfecting. This is shaping up to be an extremely solid RPG that should go down well with Western gamers due to its real-time action-oriented combat system. A North American release hasn't actually been confirmed at this point but seems pretty inevitable.





The New Year Clutching-At-Straws report
Credit: LiveWii.fr





First report of the year, and we already have a crazy rumor flying around. It's kind of a perpetual rumor at this stage; the idea of a new Pilotwings instalment on the Wii.

An unconfirmed report from French site LiveWii says that Pilotwings is headed to the Wii in the first half of 2009, with added Balance Board control and Mii intergration. Balance Board control wasn't detailed, but it was mentioned that it would particularly be put to use in the Skydiving section of the game.

Pilotwings has been rumored for so long now, I've got to believe it's in the works. It was expected back on the Gamecube but never arrived, and talk of a Wii version has been bandied around since the console's launch. An early Wii demo showed the console's potential for a Pilotwings outing, showcasing how one might use the remote to control a bi-plane; providing an obvious link with the bi-plane landing tasks found in previous titles. It makes perfect sense for Nintendo to be working on it, and with hardly anything going on in the first-party department (that we know of officially *wink wink newzeldaandmario wink wink*), Nintendo could be keeping this one under wraps, presumably alongside the oft-rumored new F-Zero.

I'm not so sure about the ‘first half of 2009' release window. That seems a little optimistic if you ask me. And aside from holding another exclusive company conference, I can't see a viable time for Nintendo to announce such a game in the coming months. Pilotwings may not have the heritage of your Marios or Zeldas or Donkey Kongs, but a new entry is a big deal to the core Nintendo fan, and the company knows this, so they aren't going to throw away an announcement via a quick little press release. With that in mind, the release date is somewhat dubious, but I'm positive Pilotwings will show up in some form in the near future.





Another Code R: First gameplay trailer

Puzzle fans, take note! This is the sequel to early DS title, Trace Memory (or Another Code in European territories, and for some reason that name seems to have stuck for the sequel), that received critical acclaim upon its release. The puzzles were ingenious at the time (although The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass later re-used some of the ideas to better success) and it made extremely good use of the DS, with the only downside being its relative shortness. Well, as revealed at the Nintendo Fall Conference a couple of months ago, a sequel has been announced, bringing the series to the Wii for the first time with Trace Memory R. The sequel sees the return of heroine Ashley Mizuki Robbins to Lake Juliet, where she hopes to unravel the mysteries of her latest quest. Subtitled, Gateway of Memory, it would seem that the game further explores Ashley's family history.

The DS original used pre-rendered backgrounds, but with the added horsepower of the Wii, environments will be fully 3D, and you'll actually move from one area to the other, albeit with a point-n-click system, keeping Ashley on a straight path and only changing direction when the path presents you with a choice. This doesn't quite give you the freedom you had in Zack & Wiki, where you could click anywhere and Zack would run to it, but it's not such a big deal, as the game focuses more on detailed exploration once you arrive at your destination. Check out this trailer below which details a chemical experiment set inside a cabin...





Clearly, the Wii remote will be put to good use. I like the idea of shaking the remote to mix the chemicals together. Nice touch, Cing! Hopefully we'll see a lot more from this in the run up to its Summer 09 release. If it manages to utilise motion control in an interesting and innovative way that actually benefits the gameplay, Zack & Wiki may have some stiff competition coming up...





The 411 Games Crew

Derek Robbins presents B3yond the Report.

What If...Mario became President?! Greg Bruno asks the all-important question.

Fact or Fiction: Games, with Drew Robbins and Adam Larck.

Vincent Chiucchi's "WTF?!" edition of The Select and Start News Report.

Todd Vote dissects the year of 2009 for the Nintendo Wii in Eye on the Future.

Tommy Coloma has the New Year Release List for you.

John De Large rips apart Grand Theft Auto IV in What I Hate About You.


Also, minor pimpage for myself, if I may. I've participated in the Wrestling section's Year End Awards, which you can find Part One and Part Two of here. As always, it's the cause of much controversy and debate, so make your voice heard in the comments section!

Also, our very own 411 Games "Game of the Year" awards will be going live on the site in the next day or two, so please keep an eye out for that one to see if your favorite game made the cut!

Thanks for reading, hopefully business will start to pick up again now that the holidays are over. See you next week!

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