3DS News: March 12, 2014

• Pure Chess is coming to the 3DS on March 20.
• One Piece: Unlimited World -- Red is coming West on a number of platforms, including the 3DS. Expect it later this year.
• Fantasy Zone has gotten the 3D Classic treatment, and is coming to the Japanese eShop next week.
• According to Media Create, this was a slightly disappointing week for the 3DS, with the platform losing about 10% of its sales week over week. Still, plenty of 3DS games sold well.
• A new video of Mario Golf: World Tour. I'm left wondering how that bomb can do that underwater...
• A cute Yoshi tribute.
• That new eShop Pokemon game looks pretty good.
• Streetpass can be cruel sometimes.

Watched a little bit but soon lost interest. May start back up though soon.

They got the first 3 badges in Johto quite quickly.

They did a lot of nothing for a while, but they did get the machine part and now are in the Power Plant.

Revenge of that same ledge was glorious tho.

this weeks North American e-shop downloads

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/03/nintendo_download_13th_march_north_america

Used my $5 Digital Deluxe credit to get The Lost Levels! Still waiting on Nintendo to speed up VC releases though, they mentioned that months ago o.O

Small things like this always makes me wonder if the developer at all has asked someone else than their buddy to go trough the interface - or the more conspiratorial thought "if we give that information some people might not buy" as you have limited amount of memory on the Wii U and 3DS.

Well I made a Persona Q thread
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=180048

AS I said in the review, it just felt disappointing.  There were fewer worlds, far less variety in gameplay and style, Not nearly as innovative level design, and it was short.  Plus, for all the love the water levels were getting pre-release, I found them to be absolutely terrible without exception.  

It's not a bad game, but it's not as good as the others.  I'd rank them: 

1 - Donkey Kong Country 2:  Diddy's Kong Quest
2 - Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble
3 - Donkey Kong Country
4 - Donkey Kong Country Returns

5 - Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. 

The first four were all pretty tight, and great for different reasons.  The first was original, revolutionary, pretty, and had some great levels and worlds.  the second absolutely mastered the mood and atmosphere with the best soundtrack.  The third one had a tonne to do, great level design, and a surprisingly good soundtrack (seriously, listen to it again, it's kind of outstanding).  The fourth one had great level design and more content than any other DKC game to date (even if it was lacking some features and had terrible control options.)  

Tropical Freeze, however, isn't new or revolutionary; the worlds aren't interesting or unique.  The soundtrack (despite being composed by Dave Wise) just wasn't as memorable as 2.  There wasn't as much to do as there was in the third one, and it wasn't as long as the fourth, and the level design was probably the worst in the series, aside from the first one. 

Basically, it has nothing to make it stand out.  It's got a lot of 'good' or 'decent' features, but not a whole lot of outstanding elements or any sort of great thing about it.  Each of the others had something that made it special and unique, this one did not.  

Wii U news of 13/03/2013: I'll talk about Software tomorrow, too many news today.

• Global HW, week ending the 8th: Wii U fell another 11%, going to 35k this week. It sold 14k in North America, 11k in Europe, and 8k in Japan. It fell in each region about 10%, which is kind of stable, but very bad overall. But this system might have been undertracked on the site lately, according to NPD...
• NPD: Tropical Freeze sold over 130k (retail + digital) in its first 8 days of sale. Compared to last year, hardware sales of Wii U are 25% higher, and software sales over 180% higher! So the Wii U sold over 82k units of hardware (VGC had it at 66k) This was all during the month of February 2014.
• Famitsu's most wanted (12/03/2014) MK 8 loses one spot, goes to #3. SSB4 Wii U wins seven spots, goes to #12, and is 9 spots ahead of the 3DS version. And Hyrule Warriors gets three spots more, and is one behind SSB4 Wii U, at #13. 
• The Motion-Sensor Bomb has a new look in the next Smash!
• Sakurai is impressed with the PS4!
• ... If we aligne the sales of the PS4 and Wii U in Japan, the Wii U is winning by a lot! Of course (article writers seem to forget this), the Wii U was released very close to christmas, and it wasn't severely supply constrained globally as the PS4.

3DS News: January 13, 2014

• Yoshi's New Island is getting disappointing reviews. Unlike Pokemon Battle Trozei...
• Upcoming eShop game Strike Force Foxx has newly released info and screens.
• The creator of Ace Attorney wanted the series to end as a trilogy.
• Get Steamworld Dig for 50% off! That was a command, not a suggestion.
• Can The Binding of Isaac still come to the 3DS? I personally doubt it.
• Inafune's new Mega-Man-ish game is coming to the eShop this summer in America and Japan.
• Cubit looks hard.