Twinworld Game Reviews

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Freedom Planet is coming to North America this Thursday on the Wii U eShop! pic.twitter.com/cKTbuDYDZB

— Stevie DiDuro (@galaxytrail) September 28, 2015

Fast Racing NEO is one of the hottest titles in the Wii U ‘Nindies’ section at EGX, which is currently taking place at the NEC in Birmingham in the UK. It’s the largest expo of its kind in the country, and the Shin’en Multimedia title is getting plenty of attention.

We’ve spent plenty of time with Martin Sauter, the Art Director on the project, to talk about the title and to also go hands on with the game. We’ll be sharing a full interview feature and videos very soon, but we did get into details on a new Hero Mode coming to the title. It’s going to be an unlockable available after some progress in the speed classes in the campaign, and is designed to offer a substantial challenge. Sauter told us the following.

• It’s designed to pose a big challenge for experienced players
• A key mechanic is switched up with the boost energy meter also functioning as a shield mode
• Must finish first in the race to unlock the next

The boost gauge, which in normal modes simply charges for that extra charge of speed, will be tied to the craft’s shield. Though this title very much has its own identity, Sauter acknowledged the similarity to F-Zero. He said the difficulty means that progressing all the way through will suit “F-Zero-starved players”, saying the mode is “pretty close to F-Zero”.

Source: Nintendo Life

All robot masters better watch their metal butts this winter.

Mighty No. 9 is due out February 9 in the Americas, according to developer Comcept and publisher Deep Silver. You can will hit retailers as a physical version for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U — additionally it’ll go up as a digital download for all of those systems and the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, Linux, and Mac.

Mighty No. 9 is the spiritual successor to Mega Man from one of the game’s original artists, Keiji Inafune. After Inafune left Capcom, he took the idea for a Mega Man-style platformer to the crowdfunding site Kickstarter and was able to raise $3.85 million with that campaign. During development Comcept revealed it was also partnering with Deep Silver to help publish the game.

While the game is due out February 9 in the Americas, it will not go live in other territories until February 12. Comcept and Deep Silver also plan to release Mighty No. 9 on PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS handheld systems, but those version won’t go on sale until later this year.

Source: VentureBeat

VANCOUVER, B.C., September 25, 2015 – Nook’s Homes is looking for you! The renowned real estate business is seeking a new designer to help decorate the interior and exterior of villagers’ homes and public facilities in town. Candidates must own a Nintendo 3DS system and the new Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer game and be willing to interact with animals with big personalities who like to wear stylish clothes. The highly coveted position requires a love of designing (obviously!), strong animal skills (no brainer!), a knack for decorating (of course!) and a passion for amiibo cards (they’re cool!). Interested parties can contact Tom Nook through snail mail, carrier pigeon, megaphone pointed in the direction of Nook’s Homes … or by picking upAnimal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, now available for Nintendo 3DS.

• Great working environment: Working for Nook’s Homes places you in the esteemed company of other star employees, including Tom Nook, CEO and wearer of fabulous sweaters; Lyle, Tom Nook’s right-hand animal and real-estate veteran; Digby, brother of Isabelle and all around great pup; and Lottie, the newest member of the Animal Crossing family. Optimistic and outspoken, Lottie will walk you through the ins-and-outs of design. She’s a pro, so listen up if she offers you some friendly advice. (She even excels at posting on Twitter! Lottie truly is a renaissance otter.)
• Fun day-to-day duties: When you step into the role of designer, there’s no need to worry about daily office tasks like scheduling meetings or checking up on those all-important memos that OMG-have-to-get-out-before-the-deadline. Your tasks in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer are all about having fun and using your imagination. In fact, the motto at Nook’s Homes is “Have Fun!” Well, it’s not the actual motto, but it very well should be! What other job asks you to design the homes and town facilities for hundreds of beloved Animal Crossingvillagers? That’s right: None of them! And designing is made simple and streamlined using the touch screen of the Nintendo 3DS system.
• Creativity encouraged: After taking on new design requests, your catalog of usable items and decorations will grow. And this will totally help with expanding your creative options. When animals come to you with their vision, they may think they know what they want, but by using the tools provided, you can design homes that are more creative and imaginative than the villagers ever dreamed! If someone requests a new home that is “cool,” you can flex your creative muscles and give him or her a house full of snowman furniture, snowflake wallpaper and a relaxing “cold” tub. Why not? You’re the expert.
• One-of-a-kind benefits: Let’s talk perks! Boy, there are some unique perks at Nook’s Homes. First and foremost: amiibo cards. What are those, you ask? They are the next evolution of amiibo and work with Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. Packs contain six random amiibo cards and can be purchased at a suggested retail price of $6.99 each. There will be hundreds of cards in the wild (perfect for trading with friends!), and each card represents a different Animal Crossing character. After tapping them in the game using the New Nintendo 3DS system or the Nintendo 3DS NFC Reader/Writer accessory for players who own Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo 3DS XL or Nintendo 2DS systems, the character joins your game and gives you a unique design request or can be assigned to work at one of the facilities around town! There are even some high-profile clients like DJ K.K. and Isabelle that will only visit if you use their respective amiibo cards.
• Giving back to the village: Designing homes is not the only focus of Nook’s Homes. If you impress them with your design savvy, they’ll even ask you to help redesign the school, hospital or Department Store to help build up the town.
• Positive reinforcement: Folks who love sharing their awesome work (who doesn’t?!) have many options in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. If you’re working on a particularly creative request, you can share images of your inspired designs on Miiverse or your favorite social media channels using the “Image Share” feature. And since peer reviews are a staple of any well-run business, Nook’s Homes offers the ability to rank fellow designers’ creations in the “Happy Home Network,” which will be available through a software update at launch. Creations can be ranked in one of four categories: cute, cool, unique or “I want to live here.” You can even turn your designs into a QR Code pattern to share in the Happy Home Network that other designers can view.

With all this great information, how could you not want to take a job at Nook’s Homes? It’s the best animal home designer job in the competitive world of animal home design. All you have to do is get Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer in stores or the Nintendo eShop on Nintendo 3DS at a suggested retail price of $44.99 and then you are in! As a bonus, the retail version comes with an amiibo card, while the digital version comes with a code for an Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer Nintendo 3DS HOME Menu theme. Prospective designers looking to get the most out of this opportunity can also get the Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer Edition bundle, which includes a download code for the game, the New Nintendo 3DS system, two cover plates and one amiibo card at a suggested retail price of $269.99. If you own a Nintendo 3DS or Nintendo 2DS system, you can even grab a bundle that comes with the game, one amiibo card and the NFC Reader/Writer accessory at a suggested retail price of $59.99. So many fun choices!

For more information about Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, visit http://animal-crossing.com/happy-home-designer/.

Nintendo 3DS features parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other features, visit http://www.nintendo.com/en_CA/3ds.

Like the Nintendo of Canada Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/nintendoofcanada.

Follow Nintendo of Canada on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nintendocanada.

About Nintendo: The worldwide pioneer in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Wii U^™ and Wii^™ home consoles, and Nintendo 3DS^™ and Nintendo DS^™ families of portable systems. Since 1983, when it launched the Nintendo Entertainment System^™, Nintendo has sold more than 4.3 billion video games and more than 680 million hardware units globally, including the current-generation Wii U, Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo 3DS XL, as well as the Game Boy^™, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi^™ and Nintendo DSi XL^™, Super NES^™, Nintendo 64^™, Nintendo GameCube^™ and Wii systems. It has also created industry icons that have become well-known, household names such as Mario^™, Donkey Kong^™, Metroid^™, Zelda^™ and Pokémon^™. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo’s operations in the Western Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, please visit the company’s website at http://www.nintendo.ca.

• Explore this 2D world by moving in 3D parallax layers. A wall is blocking your path? You can go in front it. There’s treasure off in the background, far away In the distance? You can go there at the touch of a button. The world of Poncho has no limits on the Z plane…

• There are no levels in Poncho. You wake up in the centre of the game, and choose to go any way you want. With no hand holding to tell you where to go, it’s up to you to choose the right path. The Maker is out there somewhere…

• Interact with every little creature. Every area is filled with randomly generated ecosystems of creatures, all co-existing and reacting to every movement Poncho makes.

Source: Poncho Official Site

After reading about Poncho and watching the video, I was interested to find out more about this game. I love puzzle-platformers and the site left me with some unanswered questions about the game. After emailing Delve Interactive for further details, here’s what I got back:

1. Are you still on track for a September release on the Wii U? If so, do you have a confirmed date?

We don’t have a confirmed date just yet, we have an ambition to release on all platforms at the same time, so we’re just going through the approval process with each console right now. We’re definitely releasing before winter arrives though.

2. Have you decided on a selling price?

Poncho will be available for roughly $15

3. Will the game provide any kind of upgrade / item system to help Poncho solve puzzles and find his father?

Yes, there are unlockable abilities and a shop where you can buy keys to access new areas of the game.

4. Are there multiple endings to the game based on the path you take to find your father?

Yes, Poncho does indeed have multiple endings!

5. Are there any enemies / bosses or does the game focus strictly on exploration & puzzle solving?

No, there aren’t any enemies. Believe me, the game is challenging enough already! It’s a mix of exploration, puzzles and the occasional hardcore platforming areas.

6. What do you anticipate to be the average play-through time for your game?

This is probably about 4-5 hours, though since the game is kinda open world, it’s not likely you’ll see everything in a playthrough. To 100% complete the game, I anticipate at least 8 hours.

7. Are there any Wii U / Miiverse specific features incorporated into the game? (off-TV mode etc)

Right now the only Wii U specific feature we have is off TV mode, similar to Shovel Knight.

Based on the information provided and the video, I’m definitely looking forward to playing Poncho when it comes out on the Nintendo Wii U!

Gnomes vs. Fairies is a single-player, high fantasy, action-adventure game playable across multiple operating systems. Currently in beta, Gnomes vs. Fairies is produced by Dano Kablamo at Prismic Studios in Oklahoma City. Dano began production on a bus trip in March 2015, devoting countless hours to game development.

In July, Gnomes vs. Fairies was selected by the Steam community to be published on Steam.

This Fall, Gnomes vs. Fairies turns to Kickstarter for the final stages of development. With movement similar to Mario 64 and inventory ranking system inspired by Legend of Zelda, Gnomes vs. Fairies gameplay features acrobatic platforming, devastating swordplay and a fistful of magic!

Players create and customize their own unique Gnome who will cut through hundreds of bad guys in floating, surreal worlds set to an original score written by Me, Dano, a longtime professional musician and composer.

Source: Kickstarter

VANCOUVER, B.C., Sept. 10, 2015 – Flying Piranha Plants? Bill Blasters that shoot helpful coins instead of dangerous Bullet Bills? A level full of 20-Goomba-high stacks, dozens of trampolines and Hammer Bros. flying in Koopa Clown Cars? Mamma mia!

While all this sounds like some kind of amazing Nintendo fever dream, it’s all possible in the Super Mario Maker game, launching exclusively for the Wii U console on the 11^th of September. This new game lets players’ imaginations run wild! Anyone with an Internet connection can play a near-limitless number of Mario levels created by people all over the world. Using the Wii U GamePad controller, players can quickly and easily create their own original levels using items, enemies, graphical styles and even power-ups from four classic Mario styles: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World andNew Super Mario Bros. U. These levels can then be uploaded online to share with players everywhere. Things that were never possible before in a Super Mario Bros. game are now possible in Super Mario Maker– and players are in control of it all.

“Super Mario Maker is a dream come true for Nintendo fans of all ages,” said Pierre-Paul Trepanier, Nintendo of Canada’s General Manager and Senior Director. “Whether you prefer creating levels or playing ones created by others, the game is a virtual Mario playground.”

With the Wii U GamePad, players simply have to drag and drop elements on the controller’s touch screen to create levels using a set of intuitive tools. Breaking the rules of normal Super Mario Bros.games is encouraged, as items, enemies and sound effects can be combined and used in unexpected ways. Toying around with the different combinations and numerous options is a big part of the fun. Once players have created their Super Mario Maker masterpieces, they can name and upload their levels for others to play. To avoid frustration, levels can only be uploaded if players can actually reach the goal themselves. This ensures that all uploaded levels can still be challenging, but not impossible.

A robust online ranking and search system makes creating, playing and sharing in Super Mario Maker a seamless process. Want to know which levels are easy or hard? A helpful course-difficulty display is determined by the percentage of players that complete the level. Players can also see new arrivals and “master makers” (creators that upload the highest-ranking levels). Players can even create a “Follow” list to keep an eye on submissions from the level creators they like the most.

In addition to the four game styles, players can set their levels in six themes: above ground, underground, ghost house, airship, castle and even underwater. Seeing iconic enemies like Bowser underwater for the first time is certainly a sight to behold. And it’s this kind of imaginative scenario that is at the heart of Super Mario Maker. Whether it’s experiencing outrageous game-play elements or manipulating the dozens and dozens of items and enemies in the game in unexpected ways, Super Mario Maker allows players of all ages to laugh, smile and have fun.

Launching on the same day as Super Mario Maker are two special 30^th Anniversary Mario amiibo figures – both inspired by the 8-bit look of Mario – with one retaining the classic colours from Super Mario Bros. and the other sporting the modern-day colour scheme. If players choose to use these amiibo figures in the game, the amiibo adds a Big Mushroom power-up to the level, allowing players to play with a giant Mario. The 30^th Anniversary Mario Classic Color amiibo will be available at a suggested retail price of $15.99. The standalone 30^th Anniversary Mario Modern Color amiibo will be available at Walmart stores across Canada for $15.99. Walmart will also be the exclusive retailer for a special Super Mario Maker Wii U bundle that includes the game and the 30th Anniversary Mario Modern Color amiibo. The bundle goes on sale the 11th of September through October 1st after which it is available at retailers across Canada for $329.99.

Additionally, many of the other currently available amiibo are compatible with Super Mario Maker. In the game, players can access a Mystery Mushroom to include in their levels. This mushroom is used exclusively in the Super Mario Bros. 8-bit-styled levels and, when picked up, changes Mario into an 8-bit costume of a random character – picture an 8-bit Wii Fit Trainer, Link from The Legend of Zelda series or even Chibi-Robo hopping around the level with their own sound effects and animations. With 99 different Mystery Mushroom costumes to unlock in the game, using a compatible amiibo with a corresponding character will automatically unlock it, allowing players to tie that specific character to the Mystery Mushroom as they design levels. Mystery Mushrooms can also be collected when players complete the 100 Mario Challenge. In this mode, players will be given 100 Mario characters representing 100 lives and challenged to complete a series of randomly selected levels.

Super Mario Maker launches exclusively for Wii U in stores, in the Nintendo eShop and at Nintendo.ca on the 11^th of September at a suggested retail price of $69.99. All physical versions of the game sold in stores will contain an idea book that illustrates the boundless possibilities of the game. This collectable booklet features ideas from the Nintendo development team, special codes that can be entered in the online manual to watch creation videos from the development team, concept art and level designs from the original Super Mario Bros. game. For digital games purchased through the Nintendo eShop on Wii U, players will receive access to a PDF version of the booklet.  The PDF is also available to download from the game’s website for anyone, even if they have not purchased the game.

For more information about Super Mario Maker, visit http://supermariomaker.nintendo.com. To view a list of compatible Super Mario Maker amiibo, visit http://amiibo.ca.

Wii U features parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other features, visit http://www.nintendo.com/en_CA/wiiu.

Like the Nintendo of Canada Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/nintendoofcanada.

Follow Nintendo of Canada on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nintendocanada.

About Nintendo: The worldwide pioneer in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Wii U^™ and Wii^™ home consoles, and Nintendo 3DS^™ and Nintendo DS^™ families of portable systems. Since 1983, when it launched the Nintendo Entertainment System^™, Nintendo has sold more than 4.3 billion video games and more than 680 million hardware units globally, including the current-generation Wii U, Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo 3DS XL, as well as the Game Boy^™, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi^™ and Nintendo DSi XL^™, Super NES^™, Nintendo 64^™, Nintendo GameCube^™ and Wii systems. It has also created industry icons that have become well-known, household names such as Mario^™, Donkey Kong^™, Metroid^™, Zelda^™ and Pokémon^™. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo’s operations in the Western Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, please visit the company’s website at http://www.nintendo.ca.