Dragon Quest VI is getting an official English language release!

In an earlier post I talked about the general feeling of anxiety fans had for the western release of Dragon Quest VI for the Nintendo DS.

Well, anxiety begone! The game is coming out in America in a couple of months on Valentines Day! This is fantastic news but I can only sing and dance so much because an Irish/European release date hasn't been finalised yet. I'll be sure to do an extremely enthusiastic encore of this news when a date is eventually confirmed.

I wonder if they'll keep the "VI" in the title for us?

I want Snatcher on Wii! (Part 2)

Look, Snatcher would be perfect on Wii. There are sections in the Mega CD version of the game where you use a light gun to do some shooting. Thanks to the Wii's pointer you're already sorted there! No need for buying an extra peripheral! No other console is as well suited for this as the Wii.

Well, there's the DS' touchscreen but Snatcher is a more cinematic kind of game and I feel it would be better playing it through a TV.

Also, I know you don't actually need a light gun but its not as fun moving a cursor around with a d-pad.

Retro Gamer Issue 84

Here's the Christmasey issue of Retro Gamer with some lovely looking artwork. It's really nice that we can still get a games magazine that does really nice cover work. I like the way the editor is looking in the window and the founders of RARE in a picture above the fireplace.
This is being put away for me for Christmas so I can't really comment on its contents. My apologies!

Irish/European edition of Super Mario All Stars for the Wii plays in 50Hz

I really don't like being negative when I talk about video games. The more I hear about this title though the less I think of it. Just today I heard that the PAL version of the game plays in 50Hz only, meaning we get the slower version of the game even though it's commonplace that we get 60Hz games now. It makes me unhappy and discouraged. Now it's not the worst retro compilation as there are an awful lot of rereleases by other companies that are really really terrible but Nintendo should not do stuff like this that make them seem like they're doing the same bad things other companies are doing.

The Nintendo I know is the one who put NES games in Animal Crossing, The Lost Levels as an unlockable in Super Mario Bros Deluxe on Game Boy Colour and the one who gave me Metroid 1 as a free gift (on at least 3 seperate occasions!). This compilation is unbecoming of them and time should be spent instead making better games than they've already made years ago.

But hey it's not like we'll even think of dwelling on this in a few years! If you really want to feel less bad about buying this then look at all the really bad games that are out there today. Really hard.

Forgot to mention the new Golden Sun game

Golden Sun Dark Dawn was released for Nintendo DS here last week. I remembered it alright but somehow I forgot to blog about it. I guess I had Cave Story's release on my mind non-stop! The truth is I never played the first two Golden Sun games (but I will someday). Shops locally are selling the game for approximately 35-40 Euro depending on where you go of course. It says on the box as well that a free map is included. That brings back fond memories of getting a map with Mystic Quest for the Game Boy! It may not be as special now though as DS RPGs  have no problems with showing the map ingame. Maybe this map has some intriguing tidbits of information like Mystic Quest's one did.

Mario Hacks

There's a lot of Mario hacks and tributes out there. The problem with them is that they're often torturously difficult and save state reliant making them absolutely no fun to play and they're often designed with dark gloomy backgrounds which takes all the joy out of them. Actually they're not all like that but it's hard to find a hack that would make a great Mario game.

Earth Bound Zero's Easy Patch

I just found out about this today, a month or so after beating the original localised version. Oh well! I did have a hard time with it but the game isn't too unforgiving (with the exception of Mt. Itoi that is). I wonder how much easier the patch makes the game? I'll try it the next time I play Earth Bound Zero.

I learned about this from gamespite's recent article. I also learned that the space between "Earth" and "Bound" is what makes the game's title differ from the SNES sequel's title. It's not enough though to make things any less confusing so I'll continue to call the game by its "Zero" fan addition to the title.