Filed under: News, WiiWare

Following the post about DLC, Nicalis has now officially come back to blogging, and by “blogging” we mean “teasing us regularly about Cave Story“. And, as they return to their schedule, we now find ourselves back in our weekly ritual of thinking dreamily about Cave Story in response to the posting of a new sprite from the game.

This time, it’s Curly Brace, who protects a group of Mimiga children and eventually joins protagonist Quote on his journey. The new sprite looks pretty great to us, but one Nicalis blog commenter classifies her new appearance as “fattie”. We guess … that one shaded square in her midsection is now white? And now she’s totally fat?

Brace yourself for a new Cave Story sprite originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News

And it’s doing away with that pesky subtitle Door to Phantomile. Yes, Namco’s remake of the classic PSOne game will release in North America, as reported earlier, and will simply be titled Klonoa. Should be easy enough to remember.

All we have to go on right now is a 2009 release window. Namco hasn’t specified an exact date within the year, but, hey, it’s 2009 right now. Let’s hope we get it sooner rather than later.

See also: Born for Wii: Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil

[Via press release]

Namco confirms Klonoa coming to North America originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News, WiiWare

Just as we were preparing to play along with the “Commander” viral campaign for months on end, Nintendo Power came along and saved us from a lot of tedious guessing by just revealing the damn game. And, hey, the once-mysterious title sounds way cooler than its viral marketing.

The Gaijin-developed, Aksys-published Bit.Trip: Beat is a rhythm-based WiiWare game in which you rotate your Wii Remote to control an on-screen paddle and bat away colored blocks to music. As blocks hit your paddle, they create sound effects of their own that blend into the “pumping” tunes.

According to the magazine, good timing is crucial, because you’ll need to deflect blocks in sync with the soundtrack. Play well, and the visuals become “flashier.” Play poorly, and the visuals lose their color, and the sounds dwindle down to mere, simple bleeps. Throughout the three levels (each of which has a boss battle), the block invasions become more complex. Finally, there’ll be a four-player co-op mode, and five other releases in the series to look forward to.

So there we go: mystery solved, and an awesome new WiiWare title to look forward to!

Rez meets Pong? The game behind the ‘Commander’ viral campaign originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News, Virtual Console, WiiWare

That copy of Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen you stashed under the mattress to partly fund your early retirement just got a whole lot less valuable. The ESRB has rated the rare Enix RPG for a Virtual Console release, along with another, more widely known SNES gem: Super Punch-Out!!. Is Nintendo planning to release the classic pugilist title alongside its modern Wii equivalent, as it did in the case of Super Metroid and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption? Perhaps!

Those aren’t the only surprises in the latest ESRB ratings: Lonpos, a launch title for the Japanese WiiWare service no less, has also been classified. As it’s been a while, here’s a reminder of what it looks like:

Super Punch-Out!! and rare Ogre Battle rated by ESRB originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Wii Warm Up

We’re basically too dense to understand all the details, but a patent popped up for an in-game system that seems designed to provide hint movies on demand for puzzles, and also to play games for the player to a certain extent, on a time delay. The idea is clearly to let people with less experience, skill, or time enjoy longer games, without the actual difficulty having to take a hit.

But what do you think? Does it ruin the game to give you the option to make it easier? Does the game become de facto nerfed due to a failure of self-control? Or do you feel some other justification for shutting the extremely casual out of something like Zelda? We’re sure some of you will. Some of you, on the other hand, may welcome such bridging efforts.

Wii Warm Up: Take the hint? originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News

A rating for Yuji Naka’s latest project, Let’s Tap, has popped up on the OLFC and would appear to indicate the title is destined for an Aussie release. Seeing as how we haven’t heard anything on a North American or European release, this is likely going to be good news to folks outside of Australia. If Sega plans to localize the game down under, there’s a very good chance that those of us who are looking forward to tapping away with the quirky title will get a chance to.

Let’s Tap down under originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Screens

No, this is not a hyperviolent sequel to Endless Ocean (though that might be kind of awesome, until PETA got wind of it and freaked out), but rather a little underwater adventuring — or hunting, if you will — in Monster Hunter 3 (tri-).

In these latest screens, our dear Hunter is faced with an underwater beast of epic proportions that might just be a very large, distant, and pissed-off cousin to the electric eel. There’s lightning, anyway. And teeth. Big, sharp, point teeth.

Underwater monster hunting originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Wii Warm Up

We’re one-third of the way into the first month of a new year! Hooray! Okay, that’s not much time, really. But was it time enough for you to buy a game? If so, did you use a gift card or other credit, or drop your own cold, hard cash? This time right after the holidays can be a major boom or bust, depending on all sorts of circumstances!

Of course, if you got something, we want to know what it was, too.

Wii Warm Up: Year to date originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Don’t you just love the weekends? It’s that time of the week when you get to catch up on all the games you have to play, and, especially for us, the time of the week when we get to indulge on reporting some interesting videos. Sit back and enjoy this one, folks.

If you’ve been around YouTube enough, you may have seen Matrix Ping Pong (also embedded below). It’s taken from a Japanese variety show called Kasou Taishou, where various groups compete with little skits in front of a black background. The cool part about it is when they show some interesting “Matrix” effects, all with the use of stage hands, costume changes, and other props. It’s a bit hard to describe, and you’re better off watching the vids themselves.

Via Kotaku, we hear that one of the more recent shows includes a Super Mario skit that has our Italian plumber going through World 1-1 and meeting Bowser. But that’s only half of the interesting things crammed in there - especially since one of the pipes becomes a portal to New York! Ha! See if you can spot Barack Obama!

For those who thought that was cool, check out Matrix Ping Pong below. I’ve also even thrown in one of my personal faves, the “Pretty Woman” Matrix skit. They’re not video game related in any way, but hey!, it’s the weekend! Enjoy!

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Time for some good ol’ J-rock! We’ve got here the music video for Capcom’s Wii-zombie game, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop.

And to make it a little bit easier for you to appreciate, the vid fortunately has English subtitles. The lyrics are direct, telling you that you’re gonna have to pray if you want to survive the zombie assault for 72 hours. Other tips include: “Survival of the fittest is the only rule you need/ If you don’t wanna be left in this zombie paradise/ You gotta slice and dice your way to the helicopter.”

Makes sense. Dead-o Rai-ching!

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