Shantae and the pirate's curse is coming to Wii U as well as 3DS

Wow some news of this game! It'll be out sometime this Summer they're saying and there's a nice new trailer and well... I hope it won't be ridiculously expensive.

Interesting slide from IGA's presentation

http://www.gonintendo.com/s/224669-igarashi-says-legend-of-zelda-was-an-inspiration-for-castlevania-symphony-of-the-night

I like this slide. I was looking forward to IGA's GDC presentation and I hope I can check it out somewhere online. For now this is a nice teaser.

Koji Igarashi leaves Konami

Wow. The days of classic Konami are well and truly over now. (Well, they have been over for a long time to be fair). Now the only thing Konami is good for is making us squeal occasionally when they make an obscure reference to their classic games. It doesn't have to be like this but that's the way it's going to be unfortunately.

Anyway, this news is emerging very close to Igarashi's GDC presentation, which is still scheduled for this Friday.

http://schedule.gdconf.com/session-id/828360

Koji Igarashi will resurface to talk about Metroidvanias

http://schedule.gdconf.com/session-id/828360

It's a speech titled "There and Back Again: Koji Igarashi's Metroidvania Tale".

I am going to love this!

Game Grumps (I mean Steam Train) are playing VVVVVV

When I watch Arin and Ross stop at an obstacle in this game and ask "Wait... how am I gonna do this?", it carries a nostalgic feeling. The game is nostalgia inducing in itself to '80s computer platformers but it's also a throwback to the time we'd crowd around the computer and ask each other ideas about how to "get past this fecking level".

Recent top 10 Metroidvanias by GameTrailers

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/ni7h98/gt-countdown-top-10-metroidvania-games

Just watched this and I was surprised to see Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet there. From watching Game Grumps (Steam Train sorry) I was under the impression that it was some kind of co-op escort mission maze spaceship shooter. I never would have thought of it as a Metroidvania. Yet I see it being sold and marketed as so.

I'm not sure about Muramasa either. Whatever you'd call that game I just find it too boring to be in the top 10 anything.

From now on I think I should be very careful when someone uses the word Metroidvania to sell something to me.

Bloody Vampare, a 3DS Metroidvania thingy

Heard a little bit about this recent eShop release. It looks like one of those weird DSiWare developers made a 3DS Ware game. I don't really know if it's any good, but it's another weird little curiosity in the eShop jungle.

La Mulana is out on WiiWare at last and it doesn't have shitty DLC! Yes!

I just saw Nintendo Life's revew of the game and they gave it a 10/10. I was delighted to read that there wasn't any DLC! Yes!

If you don't know about the big long development process of this game it was because of crappy pointless DLC that this game was delayed so much and also why Nicalis eventually refused to publish it. I can tell you right now that they would've published it long long ago if only the developer didn't bother to even think of ripping us off with DLC in the first place.

Now that the game doesn't have DLC it actually has some worth. Horray!

I love the word "Metroidvania"

Another word that some people don't seem to like but I love to bits. Even the guy who came up with the term doesn't like it anymore! I'm not sure why but I've been listening to the podcast he's on for a few episodes now and if I were to hazard a guess I would say it's because he's fickle.

The last time I came across the term was surprisingly in an Irish newspaper that has a small weekly section for video games. I say surprisingly because game articles in newspapers are normally complete rubbish. I was surprised the author was even familiar with the term so they may be smarter with their "gaming PR" than I thought...

... or they could simply be misusing the term.

Anyway I love the word "Metroidvania". It describes a type of game I found hard to find more of after playing some Metroid games but since the term got more widely used I came across lists and recommendations for many other games of this type I never heard of before. Games such as "Within a Deep Forest" and "Seiklus".

My favourite Metroidvania is Kirby and the Amazing Mirror.

How to know if you'll like Monster World IV on Virtual Console

Do you like this music?

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

If you do then there's a good chance already :) because you'll hear that music a lot!

It's a very good game so far and I've been playing it since I bought it on the Virtual Console. One would normally associate games like this with the likes of Dragon's Curse and Shantae but it isn't as excellent as those two games.

It's a great game itself though. I'm well into the third dungeon now and it's proven to be very challenging. Try it out if you like those two other games.