Kirby Right Back At Ya! - Episode 6

Oh today's episode was amazing. There was no monster or anything, just King Dedede and his hi-jinks; he gives everyone in Cappytown a TV so they can watch programmes about him being a hero and making Kirby look silly — It was especially amusing to see Meta Knight enjoying the show!

What's really cool is that this exact same thing happens in another Nintendo game — though I won't say which one!

King Dedede then broadcasts a hoax that makes Kirby look bad and everybody in town gets brainwashed. Kirby's gang go to the Channel DDD studio and expose the hoax, snapping everyone out of it.

No Kirby ability this time, except for his inhale ability.

Unbelievable Smash Bros Brawl purchase

Today I saw this game in HMV for three Euro new. I kid you not.

In the past I've traded this game in twice and I still couldn't pass up this bargain. It was the only copy there but it was ridiculous! It's not something you would expect or bet on a price to be at all but it happened!

Kirby Right Back At Ya! Episode 5 and notification

On Saturday I got a pink letter on the Wii message board - sealed with a Kirby - telling me about the episodes that were streaming this week. It's really nice to get these.

Now for Episode 5:

Here we have the appearance of one of the most recognisable Kirby characters, Wispy Woods. On the scariness scale I would say this version of him is slightly scarier than that time in one of the Kirby games where he puts on a mean face and uproots himself to chase Kirby. It's cool the way Wispy is a king himself and his kingdom is the forest.

King Dedede tricks Wispy Woods into thinking Kirby is his enemy and then chops him down while he's distracted with attacking Kirby. It was a little uneasy to watch for some reason. It was something you wouldn't expect, like the way Kracko and some of the other enemies were cut in half.

There was no monster from NME this time because Dedede was annoyed with getting a huge bill for ordering monsters that failed to get Kirby. No abilities from Kirby either!

Can we add Another Code R to Operation Rainfall please?

Everybody online is getting excited about getting the Last Story, Pandora's Tower and Xenoblade localised in America. More power to them but I would ask them to root for games like Another Code R as well.

Don't forget about other games that didn't get released over there; they are pretty good!

My Wii collection as of this date

I was able to organise my growing Wii game collection. As of this date I have 38 boxed Wii games. It will definitely pass 40 and I think I'll eventually get it up to 50.

I felt especially proud of my collection when I got it organised. There are so many good games for the console!

Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn drops to 9.99 Euro in Gamestop

Well, there we go. This game has stayed at the 39.99 to 44.99 price for years until recently. I was only ever slightly curious about the series but sinced it dropped so low in price I thought I'd check it out. Who knows, I might enjoy it.

Kirby Right Back At Ya! episodes 1-4

The new Kirby TV Channel came out with 4 episodes and I watched them all so I'll give some commentary on them.

Episode 1

The one that'll be available for as long as the service will! Kirby crashes in Dream Land and most of the characters are established. Meta Knight has a funny voice, sounding like Puss N Boots from Shrek. I love King Dedede's voice; I generally love his character, which is a lot like Foghorn Leghorn. He's the antagonist but he's not a bad guy really - just jealous of the attention Kirby's getting. He's not like an evil king with his own empire of baddies, he's the King of the town of goodguys but since he's the antagonist of the show, there are some interesting conflicts happening that keep me glued to the screen.

The formula familiar with these kind of cartoons is established in this episode: a monster shows up that has been ordered by Dedede, Monster causes ruckus, Kirby struggles with it, Kirby gets a super ability transformation sequence, Kirby defeats monster, bad guys are like "Oh no my monster! I'll get you next time!"

This time it was a big octopus and the fire ability.

Episode 2

So Kirby's looking for a place to live in this new town that welcomes him but King Dedede keeps interfering by doing damage and making it look like it's Kirby's fault so everybody kicks him out - including Cook(or Chef) Kawasaki, a character I remember as a mini boss from Kirby's Fun Pak. It was nice spotting him in this and I loooove his voice. Come to think of it, I like Dedede's sidekick Escargoon's voice too; he sounds like Paul Lynde (Hooded Claw from Penelope Pitstop and Nervous Elk from Cactus Jack). I also like the appearance of the helpers from Kirby's Dreamland 2!

This time it was a big rock dressed like a sumo wrestler and the rock ability.

Episode 3

King Dedede orders Meta Knight to go challenge Kirby to a duel. This is a great chance for us to see how fascinating Meta Knight is. He fits the personality of the good guy that works for a bad guy so he has to be coy and mysterious and cool and badassy. He's all about 'honour' and other samurai type stuff, which makes his personality seem out of place in a universe where everything seems to be all about fluffs of puff. Anybody who's played as Meta Knight in Brawl or unlocked the Meta Knight mode in recent Kirby platformers already knows full well what he's like! It's an interesting contrast and that's what makes him so fascinating.

Anyway the monster this time is Bugzzy and it's the sword ability.

Episode 4

This time the monster is Kracko - one of the regular bosses from the Kirby games - and it's the sword ability again.

Kirby's running all over the place so Kracko's lightning won't hit him. Tiff goes to see Kabu and Meta Knight and here we learn about Meta Knight and Kirby's origins. We also get another bit added into the regular formula - the warpstar that flies from Kabu so Kirby can fly atop it. This helps him avoid the lightning.

I haven't mentioned Tiff and Tuff (nor Fololo and Falala) even though they're always on screen. Honestly they're only there at all to act as the good guys arguing with the bad guys and for plot exposition because Kirby's just like a baby that turns into a superhero. It's like they're there to replace bits of the protagonist that are missing. It's this kind of thing that makes video game adaptations so very strange and awkward that no one could really identify with it.

But it's ok, I've gotten used to them.

Kirby TV Channel review and in-depth info!

This channel was just released today on the Wii for free so I nabbed it straight away! As far as the content goes there are 4 episodes of "Kirby Right Back At Ya!" up there already and they're all in English. I wonder if it's different for non English speaking European countries outside Ireland?

Each episode will only be available for two weeks and then they won't be available on the service anymore(except for the first one). There's a timetable showing what dates episodes are going to be released on. There are 51 episodes in total and they'll be released gradually every Monday and Thursday until the 1st of December of this year.

The menus and settings are nice. You can see a timetable of the schedule and you can have announcements sent to the Wii menu's message board when a new one becomes available. The menu also plays 2 remixed background music from older Kirby games:

Orange Ocean from Kirby's Adventure - for the most part
Beginner's Show from Kirby's Fun Pak - for the timetable menu

I love all these nice little touches :)

I watched all 4 currently available episodes. I'll talk more about them another time. They streamed perfectly on my connection without any hitch whatsoever! I love it.

There are two things that would improve the service for me:
1. Subtitle options.
2. Being able to watch the Japanese version of the show too.

Kirby TV Channel coming to the Wii in Europe, including Ireland!

http://www.nintendo.co.uk/NOE/en_GB/news/2011/kirby_tv_channel_press_release_43546.html

This literally just came out of nowhere. It's a pleasant surprise alright, as I've always wanted to check out the Kirby Right Back At Ya! cartoon but the only time it was shown on TV here was on a SKY Digital channel called POP (That's a fantastic channel actually). It was hardly ever shown though.

So from tomorrow we'll be able to stream an episode of Kirby onto the Wii via a special Kirby TV Channel. I'm looking forward to that!

The 3D effect on 3DS is... it's ok. Just ok.

I like the 3D effect on the 3DS. It's ok. Also, like the gyro, entirely optional.

You have to keep the 3DS perfectly steady though and dead centre or else it goes kind of haywire. I gotta say that whatever kind of technology this is, it's got a looooooooooong way to go yet.

It's not amazing but it's nice to have something like it.

Ocarina of Time 3D - Gyroscope controls

They're lovely. Also – entirely optional.

It's my favourite thing about the game so far. I love taking the slingshot out and picking Skulltullas off the wall I want to climb. It's just brilliant actually holding the 3DS above my head to match Link aiming his slingshot straight up above his head. It's very immersive. I can't wait to use it with other stuff later like the boomerang, the hookshot and the bow & arrow!

Loads of Xenoblade footage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CUNNyNK-4w

Lots of footage here. It's even more footage of the characters running across landscapes for nearly twenty minutes. I can't wait to play Xenoblade Chronicles, or as I like to call it: Super Landscape Running Adventure.

Wii Play Motion trailer features some very interesting games

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYzpnZ_6FtI


This trailer gives a good idea of what the games will be like -- I particularly like the look of the Wind Runner and Jump Park games. There's some fun looking arcadey gameplay there so check this trailer out.

Finally got a 3DS!

Alright! After a few months since it launched I finally buy one of these. I ended up getting a great deal too. I was shopping around and eventually I found this brilliant bundle from GAME that suited my needs:

Aqua Blue 3DS + Zelda for 240 Euro. Super Monkey Ball for 20 Euro when bought with Zelda.

So I paid 260 Euro for a 3DS and two games I was really hoping to get. If I bought them at any other shop it would've cost well over 300.

Ocarina of Time 3D is out tomorrow in Ireland

If I buy this tomorrow or over the weekend I'm going to do a little shopping around as I'd be buying the 3DS with it. I'll also need to shop around for prices on Super Monkey Ball 3D - especially if there are bundle deals.

I'll report my findings here; this should be a good bit of fun!

Dragon Quest VI's Job System

I'm playing a lot of this game recently. (I'd want to be, seeing how much talking I've done about it!)

But anyway I just got comfortable with the job system. It's a nice system. Each job has 8 of its own levels and it's at that point you master the job so you can switch. This is great, compared to other RPGs I've played that have 99 levels for a job! It doesn't punish you for switching jobs either so it's a huge huge improvement.

This is just based on my experience of course. Though I usually hate job systems it's because I could've played RPGs that didn't do it very well due to them being really old games or something. There's probably other RPGs I haven't played that have magnificent job systems. That's why I'm hesitant to give examples right now though this is the best I've come across.

Sean Malstrom makes an excellent sales pitch for the Wii U

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/evolution-of-the-ds/

I have to admit Nintendo's press conference left me with more questions than answers when I watched it. The idea here of calling it the DS U instead of Wii U makes so much more sense and it would make you feel like looking forward to buying one!

I like this guy's blog. I read it quite often. I'll have to send him an email before he finishes up with his blog.

Kirby Mass Attack: Footage of someone playing it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1ZdCuzYP1Y

Look at that glorious hectic arcade like action! Those noisy sound effects! The happy music! The fruit collectables! This looks like a very pure type of video game. I can't wait to play it!

One thing though. There's a lot of screen scrawling and that always makes me nervous. I wouldn't take that control scheme out for the world though. Looks like I'm going to have to invest in screen protectors!

Ocarina of Time 3D is out this Friday

I still don't have a 3DS and haven't decided yet when I'll get one(though it is for definite that I am). I'd like to play OOT3D. I hear there's a special cover for people who preorder it but I haven't seen that preorder offer advertised anywhere so I'm not pushed about preordering. Looks like I'll have to go over in my head the games and features I want if I were to get a 3DS!

Reggie VS Geoff @ E3 2011

This is becoming a kind of pattern isn't it! There always seems to be something sparking between these two guys. I still maintain that Reggie is like Troy McClure and Geoff is like the inquisitive boy from the Simpsons. Sure it doesn't look that way at first but it ends up being that way since all the answers to the tough questions get delivered.

There are three parts to this interview and this is the first part:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2011-nintendo/715144

Man they're well able to take each other on. I really enjoy Reggie. I don't talk about the man enough!

The games that were featured at E3 2011

I'll talk about the games I liked seeing the trailers of from the show.

First of all the two new Kirby games are going to be a lot of fun, especially Kirby Mass Attack. It looks very arcadey and original! I honestly think non Kirby fans who only liked Power Paintbrush(aka Canvas Curse) will love this game too.

The Wii Kirby looks a lot like the cancelled Gamecube game from years ago. It'll be decent enough I'd say. I'll get it.

Luigi's Mansion 2 is my favourite of the 3DS announcements. I just hope it doesn't have stylus overusage!

The Rolling Western is a bit of a surprise. That game came out of nowhere. It's about an armadillo that rolls up in a ball in the wild west and goes to defeat his enemies. There's a lot of stuff that reminds me of Zelda, such as the Wind Waker font, the noises the main character makes being similar to Link's as well as the overall ability to roll which works the same as Goron Link from Majora's Mask. Might be interesting who knows.

Other stuff looks great too like Super Mario 3DS, Paper Mario, Ocarina of Time 3D, Kid Icarus Uprising, Rhythm Heaven/Paradise Wii, Skyward Sword, Snake Eater, Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2.

I also really hope that there'll be a 2D Super Mario Bros for this Wii U at launch! That demonstration Mario Bros Mii really should result in it happening!

Nintendo's next console will be called "Wii U"!

Wow! That show was fantastic! I'm no longer cringing which is great. Nintendo's E3 2011 presentation was great. It wasn't as funny as last year's show (which was funny in an awesome way of course).

So yes it's called the Wii U which sounds like it takes getting used to and it all sounds very exciting yet it's something uncertain and kind of scary. This thing has the potential to play all kinds of games. I'd love to play Four Swords with the controller. It's like a cross between the GC-GBA connection feature and the general idea of having an extra screen in the Nintendo DS.

When the video demonstration of it was playing there were plenty of oohs and aaahs. That's a good sign!

Nintendo's E3 2011 show starting in an hour!

My body is ready for it! Haha!

I'll talk about what I think of it tomorrow and about what I liked and what games got me excited but for now I'm just going to enjoy the show. You do too! Watch it here:

http://e3.nintendo.com/

I want Snatcher on Wii! (Part 7)

Recently I bought a game called Spy Fox: Dry Cereal for the Wii.

It's a point n click adventure game that first came out in 1997. The reason why it's on Wii (not to mention Broken Sword Director's Cut) is because it's extremely suitable for adventure games, even ones that came out during the 90s. It's during exact same era that the SEGA Mega CD version of Snatcher came out. It's a natural fit.

I want Snatcher on Wii! (Part 6)

For this post I'm going to to be speaking directly to the average PS3 and Xbox 360 fan in a language that only they can understand.

Snatcher belongs to the same type of games that hidden object games belong to. Games like Mystery Case Files and Women's Murder Club. The only action sequence in the game is where you're clicking on things with a cursor. It's a glorified whack-a-mole minigame.

The rest is 100% talky cutscenes. You hate those. Most of them aren't even voiced. There's actually very little gameplay to speak of. You'll have it finished in a couple of hours with your player's guide. That's another thing, it's too short for you. It's a fraction as long as any Metal Gear Solid game and it doesn't have any extra difficulty settings or modes or "New Game+"s or any bonus content to speak of at all. There isn't even any online connectivity involved with the game at all. That's got to be a big strike against it in your book.

So there you have it. It's a casual game. Not a hardcore game.

Repeat the following two statements to yourself over and over please.

1. Snatcher is NOT a hardcore game.

2. Snatcher is a casual game.

Don't ask for Snatcher. It will ruin your console. Rally for it to be put on Wii instead.

Just caught Shigesato Itoi on NHK World TV! Wow!

This was a nice surprise. It didn't have anything to to with video games or the MOTHER series though. I didn't catch the whole show either. It was called "Today's Close up" or something like that and he seemed to be talking about the the general issue of wellbeing and happiness of Japanese people after the disaster that happened in March.

It was nice and positive and it had a general uplifting and hopeful tone about it. It was like something that would appear on Irish TV about coping with recession.

Now, a fan of him and the games he was involved in already knows his job is as a copywriter (or even a journalist you could say) and he's famous for that too. So we know he could very well appear on TV talking about issues like this. I wonder if he appears regularly? Might be interesting to check out.

Another thing about NHK World TV I've noticed is that they very rarely talk about video games. In fact the only time I've seen them talk about games was when they were reporting on the Playstation Network being hacked.

Thinking about E3 2011 Part 2: Nintendo's new system announcement is going to be REALLY huge

I didn't watch Konami's event last night(5P.M. PST but 1A.M. here) but I do have a suspicion as to what's happening. It's actually the same suspicion I have about Sonic Generations' lack of announcement for a Nintendo home console.

Absolutely no software has been announced yet for Nintendo's new machine and this suggests to me that the reason is that noone's allowed to announce software for it yet. Sonic Generations isn't coming to the Wii because according to SEGA it's for HD formats. The new machine is said to be in HD so it makes sense that SEGA aren't announcing the format. They're simply not allowed to yet. It's the only plausible explanation.

Konami's conference seemed like it was missing some very big Nintendo related announcements and this could be because they're not allowed to announce anything right now.

Will they announce something? Well... going by patterns we can probably expect a brief video clip where Hideo Kojima briefly comments on the new Nintendo hardware when it's announced.

In any case, stuff like this is secretly stockpiling and will be let loose in a huge outburst when the big reveal happens next Tuesday.

Konami's E3 2011 "Pre-E3" show is on in a couple of hours

I never actually tuned into Konami's E3 showings at all unless they were about Metal Gear. Well, Hideo Kojima's expected to have something for it anyway so that'll be worth waiting for. Snatcher for Wii please!

It would also be brilliant if Konami announced all new installments from their classic franchises for a Nintendo system. I'm not just talking about Castlevania either! I'll hang around and check it out anyway. You have a look too if you want on this site:

http://www.konami.com/e3/

Edit: A 3DS version of Frogger has been announced. OK I mean from classic franchises other than the usual suspects!

NGamer Issue 63

A Resident Evil cover. Based on the upcoming 3DS game. Looks about as good as how any Resident Evil game would make a magazine cover look. It came with 2 free gifts, them being magnetic photo frames.

Didn't get a chance to look through it thoroughly but I did give at least two belly laughs on the bus home while reading some funny bits. Ocarina of Time 3D is featured in a big way but doesn't have a score and there's a big feature about the Wii Successor with a "truthiness" rating given to some of the rumours. It'll be worth a more thorough read.