Kickstarter project 'NES' seeks to jazz up classic Nintendo tunes

Kickstarter, a site where just about any type of project can seek to be "crowd funded," seemed to come out of nowhere, for me anyway. It has, however, become an integral part of gaming culture, as many indie developers have successfully funded their games through the service. Through all of this, I haven't actively participated on Kickstarter...until now, that is.

I have now backed a whopping two projects on Kickstarter! The second, and most recent, is 'NES' by Richie Palys, an ambitious and promising musical tribute to NES games. According to the project's Kickstarter page, "The album is going to be in the genre of jazz with a heavy emphasis on synth and production." Palys promises it'll be an enticing mix of jazz and the retro 8-bit sounds we all recognize and love.

It'll be a real loss to the Nintendo fanbase if this project fails to come to fruition, so click on over and pledge your support now!

April GBA releases on Wii U bring retro joy

April is set to be packed with GameBoy Advance releases...for the Wii U virtual console. We've known about GBA games heading to Wii U for a while, but now we have some solid games, release dates, and prices. They are as follows:

April 3
Advance Wars ($7.99)
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga ($7.99)
Metroid Fusion ($7.99)

April 10
Kirby & The Amazing Mirror ($6.99)
Warioware, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! ($6.99)

April 17
F-Zero: Maximum Velocity ($6.99)
Golden Sun ($7.99)

April 24
Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island ($7.99)

If you still have an Ambassador 3DS system, you likely already own many of these games (Metroid Fusion, Kirby, Warioware, F-Zero, and Yoshi's Island, to be exact), but there are a couple to keep your eyes on: Advance Wars is a great turn-based strategy game (supposedly: I never played it, but I would love to), Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is one of the best RPGs to grace the GBA, and Golden Sun (which I have played) is a beautiful throwback to SNES RPGs.

Considering used GBA games go anywhere from $10 to $20, the pricing on these games is not half bad. What are your thoughts?

Nintendo Wishlist Vol. 1 - Simian Dreams

Welcome to the first edition of Nintendo Wishlist!

As big a Nintendo fan as I am, I still wish for certain things from the company, particularly at this controversial time. This is not your typical wishlist: most wishlists are filled with things that are already available and desired by the wishlist's creator. This is a wishlist of things I wish Nintendo would do, games I wish it would announce, and so on.

In my first Nintendo Wishlist, I feel I'm asking for a few things that should be well within Nintendo's ability to deliver. Let's take a look, shall we:

• Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, and 3 announced, and then released as soon as possible, for the Wii U virtual console

When I transferred data from my Wii to my Wii U, I had to redownload all of my numerous virtual console and WiiWare games. It wasn't too much of a hassle: virtual console games in particular took very little time to redownload. However, probably a week later, I went to play Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, only to find that it wasn't there. I thought maybe I missed it as I went through the list of games to redownload. Regrettably, that was not the case. The Donkey Kong Country games are no longer available on the Wii Shop Channel. Therefore, the games (which I did pay for, Nintendo, thank you very much) are no longer available for me to play.

Releasing the Donkey Kong Country games on the Wii U eShop would allow me to purchase them at a discount ($1.50) and make them playable in GamePad-only mode. It might also just make me want to forgive Nintendo for this grievous error. But the likelihood of that happening dwindles by the day. This will probably be a sore spot in my relationship with Nintendo for the rest of my life. 

Pokemon Battle Trozei - A Miiverse journey

I haven't always played puzzle games, but when I finally delved into the genre (I thank Pushmo and Tetris) I loved it.

I have always played Pokemon games, so it stands to reason that I would enjoy the recently released eShop title Pokemon Battle Trozei for Nintendo 3DS. In the touch-based game, the player must line up 3 or more of the same Pokemon head on the bottom screen to clear them. Matching 4, then 3, of the same head unleashes a "Trozei Chance," during which matching just 2 or more Pokemon heads will suffice, so as the heads above fall down to the playing field, the player can rapidly make matches to pull off major combos that may just lead to clearing the whole Trozei box. The type of Pokemon the player matches first will be the type of attack unleashed on wild Pokemon, and the objective is to catch, or Trozei, the Pokemon in each stage by depleting their health to zero. The wild Pokemon can attack back, however, so the player must also keep an eye on his/her health bar, displayed on the sides of the bottom screen.

As you can see, there is a lot to Pokemon Battle Trozei. And as I've mentioned before, it was very difficult for me to get the hang of it. With time and practice, however, I have come to really enjoy the game. It wasn't an easy road to walk, though:

Initially, I was very discouraged. A C-rank on the first level?!

If I did any better on attempt 2, there would be "NEW!" signs next to my scores.

I finally got a B-rank on level 1! I was still not enjoying the game much, however...

As you can see, the health bar on both sides of the screen is hugely depleted.

I commented on the same Miiverse post. My first A-rank!

The next level...

The tips really did help me a lot!

I finally learned how to apply support Pokemon to a level, but I still had a hard time surpassing my old level 1 record...

Swords & Soldiers II, thoughts on a genre and a reveal trailer

When I heard that a game called Swords & Soldiers II was heading to the Wii U eShop, it meant virtually nothing to me. The game's predecessor, a WiiWare title called Swords & Soldiers (fancy that), is a real-time strategy game with a big personality. You know, lots of humor and the like.

As generally occurs with a curious gamer like myself, I did a little research into this obscure series, especially after watching this new trailer for S&S II:

As I mentioned above, the two games are of the real-time strategy genre, played in 2D sidescrolling fashion. The only context I have for understanding real-time strategy games comes from sinking hours upon hours into Warcraft II when I was younger and Age of Mythology when I was older. The concept in those games is that the player is in control of entire civilizations, typically on a mission to build up expansive bases of operations, followed by well-rounded armies, which then must be directed to battle and defeat enemies for whatever reason. This all takes place from an overhead perspective.

I get 2D sidescrolling, and I get real-time strategy (at least partly), but getting the two ideas to coexist in my mind is fairly difficult, especially given my unidirectional history with real-time strategy games. But get this: Swords & Soldiers was ported to the Nintendo 3DS eShop, among others, making it really easy to get a hold of in more than one way.

Swords & Soldiers II doesn't have a solid release date yet, not even a timeframe really (2014 probably), but I intend to give the mix of real-time strategy and 2D sidescrolling a shot with its forbear. Full review to come!