It seems fair to say that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is a success for Nintendo, what with the largely positive reviews it’s been getting (including the requisite 40/40 from Famitsu). Following up on last week’s interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, the Japanese magazine sat down with Skyward Sword producer Eiji Aonuma and director Hidemaro Fujibayashi to discuss the game in further detail — here are some of the highlights:

- Plotwise, Skyward Sword is a prequel to Ocarina of Time, telling the story of the origin of the Master Sword. This came about despite the fact that the game’s Wii MotionPlus support came along long after plot details were finalized. “It’s funny,” Aonuma said, “but Fi, the sword-spirit who appears in this game, was something we finished up before we decided this would be a Zelda that used Wii MotionPlus. We already had her as a sword spirit beforehand, and during our announcement at the 2009 E3 show, her design was modeled after the Master Sword. At the time, though, you used her in a completely different way gamewise than you do now. The MotionPlus swordplay was something that was completed later on, and as a result the game’s story and action gameplay came to both focus more on the Master Sword. It wound up coming together pretty well.”

I was pleasantly surprised when I sampled Nintendo’s upcoming Wii party game Fortune Street last month at New York Comic-Con. Despite being a multiplayer title starring Mario and other game mascots in a virtual board game setting, Fortune Street is the furthest thing from Mario Party you could imagine. The few minigames it contains are generally automated affairs that play themselves in a few short seconds: no button-mashing or stick-twirling required. Rather, Fortune Street has far more in common with Hasbro’s Monopoly than with the usual minigame collections that have shown up as multiplayer releases over the past decade.

What I didn’t realize based on my NYCC hands-on is that it’s even deeper than that. Fortune Street is playable in both standard and simplified modes, and at public events Nintendo has been demoing it in the latter mode. With the training wheels taken off, Fortune Street is kind of ridiculous. Like a real “grown-ups” board game such as Risk or Monopoly, a single match can take hours. I recently played a demo with other members of the gaming press — including IGN’s Audrey Drake — and two hours wasn’t enough for us to complete a game. And that wasn’t even on one of the more complex boards!

Last month marked the five-year anniversary of Bully’s release on PlayStation 2. Aside from a re-release (in the form of Scholarship Edition) on Xbox 360 and Wii in 2008 and a PC port later that year, there hasn’t been much talk of a future for Bully. In the meantime Rockstar has been busy — Grand Theft Auto IV and both its expansions, Red Dead Redemption, two Midnight Club games, and more have been released since then, yet Bully remains the preeminent Rockstar game for many. With Bully developer Rockstar Vancouver currently occupied with Max Payne 3, there are plans to evalute the prospect of a new Bully following MP3’s release in March.

Bully isn’t the only Rockstar game that has had to wait a long time for a sequel. Max Payne 2 was released in 2003, making it at least an eight-and-a-half-year wait for MP3. Red Dead Revolver was out a year later, in 2004, but it wasn’t until 2010 that Redemption came along.

Kirby fans who own a 3DS are in for a treat this week. The fifth 3D Classics title has arrived on the eShop in North America today, and it’s the second Kirby game ever release: Kirby’s Adventure.

The game was originally released on NES in 1993 before later being released on Game Boy Advance in 2002 as Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land. A Wii Virtual Console version is also available. The obvious benefit of this 3D Classics version is the addition of 3D support and the ability to play it on the go if you don’t have a copy of Nightmare in Dream Land (and a system that plays GBA games) handy. Its price is set at $5.99.

There has been much said about the slow sales of the 3DS early in its life. And it’s not as if it was just a creation of the media or fanboys — it was failing to meet expectations to the point where Nintendo decided to drop its price by $80 in August, not even six months after it first went on sale. Besides the money it’s losing — which will contribute to the company’s first annual loss in 30-plus years — this drop might cause consumers to be wary of picking up a Wii U early in its life for fear that its price will be dropped soon afterward.

As dire as that may all sound, the DS didn’t have the hottest of starts either, yet it went on to become the best-selling portable game system of all time worldwide, and the best-selling game system of any sort in the United States. While it’s no guarantee the 3DS will follow in its footsteps, Nintendo has delivered word today that first-year sales of the 3DS are on track to surpass those of the DS.

Following the 3D remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for 3DS, Majora’s Mask seems like the natural choice for Nintendo’s next remake project. The company is instead working on an original Zelda game for 3DS because it didn’t want to release back-to-back remakes. While Majora’s Mask 3D may end up happening — fans asking for it will only help its chances — it’s not the only Zelda game that may end up with a 3D remake.

Earlier this year, Shigeru Miyamoto talked about how more game remakes on 3DS are a lock. When it comes to Zelda, it’s A Link to the Past he’d like to see next.

When the Wii U was officially announced at this year’s E3, the multiplayer possibilities immediately started coming to mind for scenarios where each player had his or her own tablet? Soon after we learned Nintendo wasn’t planning to sell the tablets separately because the system could only support a single tablet at a time. In other words, multiplayer would consist, at best, of one player with a tablet controller and others using Wii remotes. That’s hardly an ideal scenario for gamers or developers, and as such, Nintendo is reportedly trying to work out a way to support two tablets on one system.

The tablet controller itself is not filled with the sort of hardware you’d find in an iPad or any other tablet; the system streams content to the controller, which is why you can’t play games on the controller when it’s far away from the console. Were the tablet sold separately, this would be good because it’d keep costs down. But without support for more than one tablet on a single system, there would never be any need to sell it on its own.

Battlefield doesn’t do “map packs.” At least, that’s the key talking point EA wanted writers to walk away with after sinking a few hours into the first “expansion pack” for Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand. It seems that DICE and EA want to conjure up images of shooter expansion packs of old, rather than the IV drip of DLC that modern games offer players. Back to Karkand will include four new maps, but it also offers three new vehicles (including a sweet looking VTOL F-35B), five new dog tags, ten new weapons, and five new Achievements/Trophies. A hefty package to be sure, especially by today’s standards. However, the phrase “expansion pack” seems a bit forced — Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII this is not.

I’d love to tell you about all the new weapons and vehicles, but we don’t actually get a chance to touch them in our three hours playing the game on PS3 at EA’s offices. We start out with level one soldiers — denying us the opportunity to check out the new weapons — and the versions of the maps we play lacked the fancy new vehicles. We do however get to spend those three hours exploring two of the new maps available.

Dragon Quest X is going in a much different direction than most of its predecessors. While DQIX did incorporate multiplayer elements, DQX is going even further in the direction of being an MMO. The Wii (and Wii U) game is without a release date as of yet, but a beta is planned to iron out any kinks before Square Enix unleashes the game (complete with subscription fees) in Japan.

A Japanese website filled with information on the beta has just been launched. Gamers can begin applying for access beginning sometime in mid-November, although you must live in Japan and have a free Square Enix Members account to be considered. You’ll also need a Wii that can connect to the Internet and be willing to actively participate by submitting bug reports and things of that nature.

Feature

Super Mario Land Versus Super Mario 3D Land

Though it may borrow the branding of a known sub-franchise, 3D Land can’t compare to a specific brand of Nintendo weirdness.

By: Bob Mackey
November 4, 2011

The title “Super Mario 3D Land” might be a bit misleading; sure, the game stars Mario, exists on a platform capable of displaying 3D graphics, and presumably features land of some sort, but this new portable adventure in The Mushroom Kingdom really doesn’t have much in common with the Land-branded titles of the past. 3D Land is still in capable hands, though, with the talented folks of Nintendo EAD Tokyo heading up development — specifically, the uber-talented team behind the Super Mario Galaxy series. Those who’ve demoed the game at trade shows can tell you Mario’s newest portable outing stands as a tightly-designed mashup of his greatest moments over the past 25 years, with some new elements thrown in to take advantage of the hardware.

Despite 3D Land’s apparent quality, one important element implied by its title seems to be missing: the balls-out game-changing weirdness of Nintendo Research & Development 1 — now known as SPD Group No. 1 — the in-house development studio responsible for Super Mario Land, Wario Land, WarioWare, Rhythm Heaven, and many other Nintendo classics. While their games didn’t take an explicitly revolutionary tack from the very beginning, subverting expectations eventually became the studio’s M.O., all thanks to the creative minds of directors like Hiroji Kiyotuke (Super Mario Land 2 and 3), Takehiko Hosokawa (Wario Land 2 and 3), and Hirofumi Matsuoka (Wario Land 4 and the original WarioWare.