Nintendo 3DS Message Board older than one year ago

The fruit-based comparisons are fast and loose as we evaluate the new plus-size offering from Nintendo.

Once again, the 3DS eShop is rich with content, including the 8 Bit Summer releases of Wario Land and Mole Mania, the latter being a somewhat under-the-radar puzzle game designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and a small team. There's also the fascinating Dot Runner: Complete Edition, a new game that mashes up Pac-Man and first-person RPGs into some kind of psychedelic anime monster, and Planet Crashers, a top-down dungeon RPG with a cute sci-fi theme, developed by Renegade Kid.

Two games are on sale on 3DS at the same time(!): Super Mario Bros. and the versatile drawing app Colors! 3D.

There's even a new Virtual Console game on Wii in the form of World Heroes Perfect, one of the Neo Geo's many, many fighting games.

#screengrab Stare, stare, stare at Nintendo's latest hardware and software sales figures and what do you see? The Wii and DS proved to be more popular in America and in "other areas" (aka the rest of the world) than they were in Japan by a wide margin. America is pretty big, of course! But the 3DS? Check that Life-to-Date column. It's still biggest in Japan. More »

#supermariobros Mario on rails? Some stages in the newest Mario game will borrow the auto-run mechanic found in many mobile games like Temple Run and Jetpack Joyride. More »

The Player ID system incorporates signature moves from the best players in the world, in a bid to make matches more realistic experiences.

#3ds There are various 3DS XL colors to choose from. There are even more colors for the smaller, original 3DS model. None of them are the color I want. I want the Nintendo 3DS with no color. I want the clear one. More »

#rhythmthief Just listen to it. That's the music that plays every time you clear a puzzle in Sega's Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure. It's like… some unholy blend of classic Sega "level cleared" music and hilarious vocal jazz. I love it so much. More »

#nintendo This week's Nintendo downloadables include the 3DS release of the Game Boy's Kid Icarus and Tumble Pop, a new puzzle game by Nikoli and a colorful action adventure game from Aksys, but the title I'm looking most forward to isn't a game at all. More »

The 3DS eShop is once again loaded with content, thanks in part to the 8-Bit Summer promotion, which brings Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters and Tumble Pop today. Other content of note includes Petit Computer, a tool to create BASIC games and other programs right on the DS, and share them via QR codes.

This week's eShop sale - yes, that's still going on! - is on the Game Boy release of Mario's Picross. Through the weekend, you can pick that up for $3.

The first playable demo for PES 2013 will be released on the 25th of July in Europe.

#fantasylife After being unveiled at the Level-5 World 2011 last year, news about Level-5's new open world RPG, Fantasy Life, remained mostly silent. Now, with a release of "2012" and only about 5 months of the year left, new information is slowly trickling out. More »

One of these puzzles is available worldwide, one is available in Japan only. As you can see above, one of these is for Kirby's 20th anniversary. The other is for Onitore in Japan. Thanks to the tons of you that sent this in!

This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer.
It's always around July or so that I'm most nervous about an RPG's potential for release in the U.S. With the overwhelming majority of Japanese-developed RPGs getting spring releases, official announcements usually don't happen until late in the fall. Until then, I'm left to stew, fingers crossed that everything will work out.

Some franchises I don't worry about. Short of some kind of catastrophic technical problem, Shin Megami Tensei is pretty much a shoe-in for release. Same goes for Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy (Type-0 being an unfortunate exception). Even Ys seems like a good bet these days thanks to the ongoing support of XSEED.

If it's new, obscure, or otherwise untested in the market though, I find myself getting nervous. Even certain major franchises aren't a sure bet anymore, especially when they are PSP releases. So I watch, wait and hope for good news. Here are four RPGs I've been watching closely over the past year, and what I think the odds are they will see a release stateside.

#3ds Last Friday, GoNintendo posted the photo you see above (full version below), indicating that UK-based retail entertainment chain HMV was advertising a curious version of the Nintendo 3DS XL with a feature that doesn't exist: the much clamored-for second circle pad. More »

Konami shows us what Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 looks and feels like on the pitch, with a little help from some familiar faces.

That sweet collector's edition package for Wayforward's Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?! - which includes a custom stylus, packaging and more for $40 - will not be exclusive to GameStop. A rep for the game retailer has confirmed as much with Joystiq, and says GameStop will also sell a standard package.

The standard editions for Adventure Time on DS and 3DS are already listed on GameStop's site for $30 each. We expect to see the collector's edition popping up at other retailers soon enough.

#review It's midnight in Paris, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance. A fearsome dictator has come back from the grave, secret treasures of untold power have been unearthed, a girl is in trouble, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Nothing left to do… but dance, dance, dance! More »

A Collector's Edition of Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?! has popped up over at GameStop, presumably as a retailer exclusive - we're checking on that. Both the 3DS and DS version toss in a custom stylus shaped like Finn's sword, Land of Ooo poster, steelbook packaging made to look like the Enchiridion (the handbook Finn is always lugging around) and an art book.

It's a pretty significant package for $39.99. We've also inquired about a regular version, one that could possibly be cheaper and void of less awesome stuff.

#3ds When Nintendo's upcoming 3DS XL was first revealed to the public a few weeks ago, most gamers had one question: Where the hell is the second analog stick? More »

According to NPD data, the 3DS has sold five million systems in the U.S. since it launched in March, 2011, Nintendo said today. Nintendo will release a new version of the system, the 3DS XL, on August 19. More »

#nintendo I don't know who is responsible for deciding which games make it onto the weekly Nintendo Download list, but whoever it is deserves a raise, as long as they keep packing it with games like Kirby's Pinball Land, Frogger: Hyper Arcade Edition and Sweet Memories - Blackjack, a game about playing cards and discovering true love. More »

#newsupermariobros Coins. Costumes. Collections. Yep, this new trailer proves that New Super Mario Bros. 2 sure is a Mario game. Looks cool. And Mario-like. More »

We could get used to this - there's a lot to download on Nintendo platforms this week! The "8-Bit Summer" brings two 3DS Game Boy games, one you likely know and one you probably don't. There's also a couple of new games, Johnny Kung Fu and Sweet Memories - Blackjack, which is, for real, about connecting with a high school sweetheart over blackjack games. And Mighty Switch Force is cheap this weekend.

DSiWare offers the fascinating-looking math-platformer Ace Mathician, by Flipper creator Goodbye Galaxy Games.

#3dsxl The Nintendo 3DS upgrade, the 3DS XL ("3DS LL" in Japan) will be hitting stores in Japan later this month and in the US in August. Looking at what will hopefully be a bigger launch than the launch for the original 3DS (Granted, they had to deal with a weak launch lineup and a major earthquake then.), Weekly Famitsu polled readers (552 valid responses) on their impressions and intent to purchase the 3DS's younger bigger brother. More »

#angrybirds Sure, you can play Angry Birds on your Android phone, your iPhone, your iPod and iPad, on Facebook, on PC, and in your browser, but what if that's just not enough? What if, instead of flinging irritated avians across the screen on the go, you want to do it from the comfort of your own sofa? Well, Rovio's got a solution for you. More »

You can buy Angry Birds plushes, t-shirts, fruit snacks, board games, and dozens of other items at stores, but until this holiday, the one thing you couldn't get in a box was the actual game. Now, Rovio has announced the Angry Birds Trilogy, a collection of Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, and Angry Birds Rio, on a PS3 or Xbox 360 disc or 3DS cartridge, for release this holiday season.

"You can think of the game as the ultimate collector's edition," Rovio EVP of Games Petri Järvilehto told IGN. "There are new cinematics, extras and other entertaining content. In addition all of the existing material has been uprezzed and re-treated for the high-resolution and big screen." New "reactive" backgrounds take advantage of the fact that you're playing on a screen big enough to see backgrounds.

The upgrades also feature Kinect and Move capability, as well as StreetPass functionality on 3DS. Most importantly, they support the "being able to be bought and given as holiday gifts" functionality that Rovio has lacked so far.

In what counts as a massive media explosion for such a little franchise, NiGHTS' new HD update will occur alongside the franchise's appearance in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. During a "Summer of Sonic" event over the weekend, Sega showed footage of NiGHTS and Reala (as vehicles) in the upcoming racer.

The dreamy flight game will also be represented in track form, with Spring Valley shown as a prototype, and another track based on Nightmare is in progress at developer Sumo Digital. It's nice to see NiGHTS come back into prominence, even if he has somehow transformed into a car along the way.

#clubnintendo It happens every July: Club Nintendo announces its loyalty gifts for members who reached gold or platinum status in the past year, and everyone craps all over them. Well, if you don't want another poster or desk calendar (and I quite enjoy mine, thank you very much) now you may pick a free game from the Wii Virtual Console or the 3DS eShop. More »

Nintendo reportedly posted its 2012 Club Nintendo Elite prizes briefly, before taking them down. The evidence remains in a screencap taken by NeoGAFfer Pappasman and a post on IGN, revealing the prizes that "Gold" and "Platinum" status holders will be able to choose this year.

The Platinum-exclusive prizes include a fancy Mario playing card set or a collection of three posters. Both Gold and Platinum have the option of the usual desk calendar, or - a first for the Elite prizes - a Virtual Console game (Super Mario Kart, Metroid 2, Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again, or The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask).

All of these games are available on the normal Wii (or 3DS) shop, so we only recommend opting for one of those if you really, really don't like any of the exclusive prizes.