| Mail |
You might also like: WoW Insider, Massively, and more

New Nintendo eShop releases: Pokemon Battle Trozei, Yumi's Odd Odyssey


This week's headline new release is Pokemon Battle Trozei, a game that mixes the series' trademark critter-battling with one of gaming's most prolific genres, the match-3 puzzler. If you've caught 'em all in Pokemon X/Y, you can get reacquainted with every known Pokemon in Battle Trozei - at last count, there were 7,543,207 known species of Pokemon. So it might take you a while.

Moving on, games are always finding new ways to enliven the art of fishing, and Yumi's Odd Odyssey tries it by mixing the pastime with platforming. Yumi breaks all kinds of fishing etiquette in the 3DS game, from using her line to swing and catapult over gaps to beating up all kinds of piscine enemies. She's a fishing renegade, that Yumi.

There are a few new sales and offers to close things out: Renegade Kid has a 30 percent sale on select 3DS games including Mutant Mudds, ATV Wild Ride 3D and Bomb Monkey, while Nordic Games is discounting some of its Wii U games including Jeapordy and Wheel of Fortune. Finally, Nintendo is offering free access to all of Wii Sports Club between March 21 9AM PT and midnight PT on March 23.

As ever, we've got this week's full list of new releases after the break.

Continue Reading

Mighty No. 9 alpha gameplay video looks mega, man


Comcept released a new gameplay video of crowdfunded platformer Mighty No. 9 running in alpha, and it showcases some familiar-feeling run-and-gun gameplay along with images of Mighty Numbers 1 to 8. If we had to pick a favorite it would have to be Mighty No. 6, because he's got a cross between a bomber plane and a helicopter for a head, and missiles that launch out of his ankles. He looks like he'd be a lot of fun at a party.

Keiji Inafune's new platformer was one of the most successful gaming fundraisers of 2013, amassing a mighty $3.8 million through Kickstarter alone. While Comcept is starting to show more and more gameplay we're still a good year away from the estimated release date of spring 2015, when the game will rock and roll onto Xbox One, PS4, Wii U, PS3, Xbox 360, Vita, 3DS, Windows PC, Mac, and Linux.
[Image: Comcept]

Animal Crossing: New Leaf moves into 7.38 million homes worldwide

Animal Crossing: New Leaf has reestablished the concept of being financially indebted to a shopkeeping raccoon, with 7.38 million copies sold worldwide. Animal Crossing series creator Katsuya Eguchi shared the sales data during a panel at GDC 2014, adding that the 3DS itself has found 42.74 million homes in Nintendo's global audience.
[Image: Joystiq]

Walmart dips into trade-in market this month, selling used games in summer

The used game market just grew immensely, as Walmart announced plans today to begin taking video game trade-ins across the United States, putting itself in direct competition with GameStop. Starting March 26, those trading their games in at more than 3,100 Walmart stores will receive a gift card usable at any Walmart or Sam's Club location in exchange. All exchanged products are then "sent to be refurbished and made available for purchase in like-new condition starting this summer."

The retailer will accept online trade-ins for all games, but will only allow in-store exchanges for hardware. Walmart provided an exchange rate calculator on its website to give customers an idea of trade-in values. As for functional hardware, when including all the accompanying cables and one controller, the Xbox One has a current trade-in value of $390, the PS4 is $375, the Wii U Deluxe is $120, a 3G-enabled Vita is $95 and 3DS XL is $105. Working copies of Grand Theft Auto 5 currently exchange at $27.72, Dead Rising 3 is $38, the PS4 version of NBA 2K14 is $35.42 and Super Mario 3D World is $38.
[Image: Walmart]

Continue Reading

Titanfall helps the Xbox One almost double weekly sales in the UK

The Xbox One saw UK week-on-week sales jump by 96 percent alongside the arrival of Titanfall, with the game's bundle accounting for 70 percent of the hardware shifted. It's no surprise, then, that EA's multiplayer shooter went top of the country's sales charts, despite a valiant effort from Dark Souls 2.

Namco brought Demon's Souls to Europe almost a year after Atlus released it North America, and it debuted sixth in the UK charts back in June 2010. A year later, Dark Souls landed in third, and its sequel went one better with a 20 percent rise in UK sales over its predecessor. Not a bad performance for the action-RPG series, especially since at one stage it looked uncertain to even reach Europe.

Looking down the UK charts, a month that's been packed with new releases meant there wasn't enough space in the top ten for Yoshi's New Island. The 3DS game placed 12th.
[Image: EA]

Continue Reading

Persona Q, Pokemon Trozei 3DS XLs revealed for Japan

It's kind of fun to anticipate special edition 3DS XL designs, except for when they don't end up reaching Western audiences. Two new XL handhelds were shown off this week, wearing the influences of the upcoming Pokemon Battle Trozei and Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, respectively.

Serebii points out that, unlike most special edition XLs, the Trozei XL can't be found at retail - it's currently only obtainable by winning a Pokemon Daisuki Club competition, a Japanese fan club for pocket monsters. Considering that Western plans also haven't been announced for it while Trozei is only four days away from its North American release ... okay, we might be able to count this one out.

That leaves the Persona Q XL, which coats an argyle backdrop with Persona art and lines up the game's cast on its backside. This design will reach Japanese retailers and is priced at $250, with Persona Q bundled in. Now it just remains to be seen if the special edition XL will join the game when it reaches North America in Fall 2014. Considering we're still crossing our fingers for that Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy: Curtain Call XL, we don't mind getting our hopes up once more ... nope, not at all.
[Image Credit: Atlus, The Pokemon Company]

Report: Persona Q features FOE battles, touch-screen cartography

While it's long been known that Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth blends characters from Atlus' beloved Persona franchise with the mechanics of its likewise beloved Etrian Odyssey games, we've had scant solid information on how exactly this collaboration would work - until now.

Famitsu, via Siliconera translation, claims that the map-making functionality of Etrian Odyssey will make an appearance in Persona Q. This gives prospective dungeon crawlers the chance to sketch out a map of their virtual surroundings using the 3DS' touchscreen. It's unknown how big a role this feature will play in Persona Q, though in the Etrian Odyssey games it was just shy of mandatory for anyone hoping to make any real progress.

Likewise, Persona Q will feature FOE encounters. Officially, "FOE" is an acronym for "Formido Oppugnatura Exsequens," but more pragmatically you can think of these FOEs as largely optional boss encounters. Killing a FOE results in great rewards, but more often than not, it will be in a player's best interest to flee from the battle until properly prepared for that specific fight.

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth lacks a specific release date, but Atlus has targeted the Fall of 2014 to launch the handheld roleplaying epic.
[Image: Atlus]

Phoenix Wright creator objected to sequels after Ace Attorney 3

Shu Takumi is not one to pump out game after game in a series just because it's popular. After finishing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trials & Tribulations, or Gyakuten Saiban 3 for purists, Takumi firmly told Capcom, "Hold it!"

"I felt that Phoenix's story had been told, and that the series should not continue", Takumi told Official Nintendo Magazine in a recent interview. "Knowing when to end a story is very important and I wanted to avoid dragging it out and having it become a shadow of its former self."

Trials and Tribulations provided a nice cap on the story of Phoenix Wright, a young lawyer with a penchant for bluffing his way into proving clients' innocence, that started on the Game Boy Advance in 2001. That's why when Capcom decided it would push the series forward with or without Takumi, the designer came up with a new ace attorney.

Continue Reading

February NPD: PS4 sells more, Xbox One leads in dollar amount

xbox one
The PS4 outsold the Xbox One in the US during February, with the Xbox One selling 90 percent of what the PS4 did, consumer research group NPD reports. The Xbox One costs $100 more than the PS4, meaning it led sales by dollar amount in February.

The Xbox One sold 258,000 units in February, surpassing comparable Xbox 360 launch sales by 61 percent, Microsoft says. Xbox 360 sold 114,000 units in its 100th month on the market, "more than any other seventh generation console." Xbox One owners buy an average of 2.75 games per console, with a total of 772,000 sold in February. Xbox 360, meanwhile, sold 2.46 million games.

Sales of video game hardware in the US were $347 million in February, up 42 percent compared with the same month in 2013. Software sales dropped 9 percent to $318 million, while accessories were up 3 percent, to $221 million.

Next-gen software sales in the consoles' first four months are up 80 percent compared with the combined sales of Xbox 360 and PS3 software in the same time period. The 9 percent decline in overall software sales is attributed to weakening sales for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, which is expected, according to NPD. Call of Duty: Ghosts led software sales in February, followed by The Lego Movie Videogame, NBA 2K14, Thief and Grand Theft Auto 5. See the full list after the break.

Continue Reading

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze sales reach 130K in eight days

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze sold "more than 130,000 combined physical and digital units" during its first eight days of release, according to Nintendo and U.S. sales data from consumer research group NPD. Tropical Freeze launched on February 21.

Nintendo 3DS software sales increased 25 percent over the same reported period last year with the launch of Bravely Default and continued success of the Pokemon X and Y series. Life-to-date, Pokemon X and Y have sold "more than 3.4 million" in the United States alone. Wii U software sales skyrocketed 180 percent over the same month last year.

Highlights going forward, Nintendo notes, are the upcoming launches of Kirby: Triple Deluxe, Mario Kart 8 and Yoshi's New Island, which Joystiq recently reviewed.
[Image: Nintendo]

Yoshi's New Island review: Not quite dino-might

Mario games, the good ones, anyway, are a gestalt, rising above their sundry components to become something truly special. Yoshi's New Island is no such beast. It is exactly the sum of its expertly-hewn parts, offering a platforming experience that is impressive in its intricacy, nonetheless feeling like the result of a well-researched equation. It plays all the right notes without ever quite making exquisite music, masterful but not special. Sure, you'll dig it, but will it be a game you look back on with wistful nostalgia ten years from now? Probably not.

Once again, the stork has proven that he is particularly ill-suited to transporting newborns, as Baby Mario and Baby Luigi go missing. Mario tumbles to earth on the new, egg-shaped island home of the multicolored Yoshis, and immediately starts crawling off in search of his diapered brother. The Yoshis, being the sweet-hearted souls they are (or perhaps simply reluctant to take up child rearing) decide to help the tyke locate his sibling, each Yoshi handing Mario off to the next as they navigate the treacherous and oddly-constructed terrain of the island. Seriously, who moves into a place littered with spike traps and falling platforms?

At least the property taxes are probably low.

Continue Reading

New Nintendo eShop releases: Yoshi's New Island, Super Mario Bros - The Lost Levels


There are plenty of new releases to dig into on the eShop this week, including the return of everyone's favorite sneaker-wearing dino-thing in 3DS platformer Yoshi's New Island. All but one of the games out this week are for the Nintendo handheld; the only new release on Wii U is a retro release, and that's Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels.

The Lost Levels is the true sequel to the original Super Mario Bros. - SMB2 is awesome, we know, but facts are facts. The game famously didn't make it out of Japan until it was re-released in the SNES compilation Super Mario All-Stars, and finally Western players got to grips with some really challenging Mario. Not that the first SMB isn't tricky because it is, especially if you don't use warp pipes, but The Lost Levels is, er, another level.

Anyway, the Virtual Console version is the NES game rather than the SNES re-release, and it's priced at $5. Finally, look out for discounts on Steamworld Dig on 3DS, which should be going down from $9 to $4.50 - that sale ends 9AM PT/12PM ET on March 16 - and on Zen's collection of 3DS pinball games, which will all be half-off between March 17-31.

Continue Reading

Shovel Knight staying underground for a few more weeks

Yacht Club Games announced a short delay for retro platformer Shovel Knight so it can make sure the final version is polished to satisfaction. The Wii U, 3DS, and Steam game was due on March 31, but it's now expected to surface a few weeks after that.

"This isn't a major delay, or a long one," reads an update on the Kickstarter page, "it's simply a stretch of time to get everything polished and aligned. While major development is quickly drawing to a close, there are still some external factors, like submission preparation, which need a little bit more breathing room before the game goes live."

The delay should see Shovel Knight arrive close to exactly a year after it was crowdfunded, when it received more than four times its asking amount. Backers clearly bought in to the game's 8-bit aesthetic, as well as the clear nods to classics like Castlevania, Mega Man, and DuckTales. Let's hope the delay helps the final game to deliver on its potential in spades.
[Image: Yacht Club Games]

The Last of Us high-fives at BAFTA awards, indies do well too

The Last of Us only delivered wins on half of its BAFTA Games Award nominations, but since it was nominated ten times, the Naughty Dog game didn't do so bad. The Joystiq Game of 2013 picked up the Best Game award at last night's ceremony in London, along with Best Story, Action & Adventure, Audio Achievement, and Performer - that went to Ashley Johnson for her portrayal of Ellie.

Other big-budget games did well with Grand Theft Auto 5 and Tearaway both walking away with three awards, but it was also a good night for indie games. The Gone Home team went home with Debut Game, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons won Game Innovation, and Papers, Please stamped its name on the award for Strategy & Simulation.

For the full list of nominees and winners, head over to BAFTA. Also, be sure to check out Steam's one-day-only sale on a selection of the nominated games.
[Image: Sony Computer Entertainment]

Fantasy Zone next up in Sega's 3D Classics series for 3DS

Image The next Sega 3D Classic from port studio M2 is 3D Fantasy Zone: Opa-Opa Bros, due out in Japan on March 19. After beating the game, a new mode lets you play as the brother, Upa-Upa, and allows you to buy power-ups during the game. [Image: Sega]... Continue Reading

GameStop celebrates Disney Infinity Day with price drops, Phineas and Ferb debut

Saturday, March 15, is Disney Infinity Day at GameStop, and the retailer plans to celebrate with a round of price drops accompanying the debut of the game's final two playable character figurines.

Disney Infinity's Phineas and Ferb Toy Box Set will be available exclusively at GameStop this Saturday, introducing Phineas and Agent P as playable characters and adding series-themed items, buildings, and backgrounds to the game's sandbox-style Toy Box component. A wider retail release for the set and individual figurines will follow on April 1.

Customers who purchase the Phineas and Ferb Toy Box Set at GameStop this weekend will receive a code for a downloadable Phineas and Ferb mini-comic, along with a free Disney Infinity poster, while supplies last. Disney Infinity fans will also get the chance to complete their collections for cheap, as GameStop is offering a buy two get one free sale on individual character packs, along with a 50 percent discount on all play sets and accessories.

[Image: Disney / GameStop]

Nintendo eShop, Pokemon X/Y undergo extended maintenance this week

Heads up, Poketrainers, Virtual Console addicts and Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies fashion mavens always purchasing new outfits for Phoenix Wright: You'll have to take a siesta on Thursday when the Nintendo eShop goes offline on Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Not to worry! This is just an extended maintenance period to keep the works running.

From 1PM PST to 5PM PST on Thursday, March 13, the Nintendo eShop will be "intermittently unavailable" according to Nintendo. Pokemon X/Y will also go offline for maintenance on Monday, March 17 from 1PM PST to 5PM PST. Those planning to force tiny animal companions into mortal combat that afternoon may want to make alternative arrangements at a local pet store.

Maintenance on the eShop isn't unusual, especially on Thursdays, Nintendo's regular day for new digital releases. This maintenance period is a touch longer than usual, though, and comes exactly one month after the last Nintendo Direct. As the good folk at Nintendo Life note, Nintendo has a habit of running Nintendo Direct video announcements on a monthly basis. Rest assured that if there's a stealth Nintendo Direct, we'll have coverage for you, but until then it's best to simply adjust your Steel Diver: Sub Wars purchasing plans for the week.
[Images: Nintendo]

Yumi's Odd Odyssey journeys to 3DS eShop on March 20


Agatsuma Entertainment's sealife-themed puzzle-platformer Yumi's Odd Odyssey (yes, it's an apt title) is hitting the Nintendo 3DS eShop in North America next week, publisher Natsume announced.

Released in Japan last year (as Sayonara Umihara Kawase), Yumi's Odd Odyssey is part of a long-running series that, to date, has never seen a Western release. The game equips players with an elastic fishing line, which can be attached to walls, floors, and ceilings in order to swing to faraway platforms, Bionic Commando-style. You'll also need to keep an eye out for wandering koi, eels, and other undersea critters, who have grown to monstrous size and sprouted legs in their pursuit of delicious human flesh.

Yumi's Odd Odyssey was initially announced as a localized port of a PSP entry in the Umihara Kawase series way back in 2008, though the title was abandoned in the years since and reassigned to next week's 3DS release. Yumi's Odd Odyssey will be priced at $29.99 when it premieres on March 20.

[Image: Natsume]

Pokemon's Honedge brought to life


The folks behind the Man at Arms video series and makers of replica weaponry from games and films are at it again, this time with a Pokemon look-alike. The latest Man at Arms video shows the creation of the Pokemon Honedge, a new creature introduced in Pokemon X and Y that resembles a sword with a blue cloth attached to its hilt.

While the Man at Arms crew chopped together a fine approximation of the creature (complete with a rather sharp blade, as seen in the ending demonstration), they did leave out Honedge's ornate sheath. Not that we'll be the ones telling them about the minor detail. They make swords, after all, so we'd hate to critique them.

Led by master swordsmith Tony Swatton, Man at Arms' past work includes the energy sword from the Halo series, the God of War series' Blade of Chaos as well as swords from Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag.
[Image: Man at Arms]

Club Nintendo adds accessory box, pouches, eShop games to catalog

Club Nintendo is offering new rewards for loyal customers, namely the sort of rewards you put other items in. Those with 700 free coins can pick up a green Mario-themed accessory basket that measures just under a foot wide. Don't be fooled by the name, as Nintendo can't stop the rebels among us from putting anything other than accessories in the basket, like cats. Or other, smaller baskets.

Club Nintendo's two other new physical rewards are Animal Crossing-themed pouches. Available in both pink and blue, the pouches store handheld systems as large as the 3DS XL for 500 coins. We're eyeing up one of the pouches to store candy instead, because Nintendon't tell us what to do.

As for the loyalty program's featured eShop game downloads, players can pick between four games until April 6: Kid Icarus of Myths and Monsters on 3DS (150 coins), Number Battle on 3DS (200 coins), Yoshi on Wii U (200 coins) and Bonsai Barber on WiiWare (250 coins).
[Image: Nintendo]

Featured 3DS Stories

Engadget

Engadget

TUAW

TUAW

Massively

Massively

WoW

WoW