With the Year of Luigi wrapping up on March 18, Nintendo needs a new mascot character to lead the way in 2014. While any one character may not get a year just devoted to them this year, Yoshi is getting some love right at the start of 2014 in celebration of his latest game.
Nintendo announced this morning that it will be releasing a special edition Yoshi-themed 3DS XL. The console sports a lime green color and a graphic of Yoshi leading an egg. Of course, this is all to celebrate the launch of Yoshi’s New Island on the 3DS XL.
Launching on March 14, Yoshi’s New Island can be considered the first real sequel to Yoshi’s Island on the SNES as it’s being worked on by the creator of the original game. In it, Yoshi must transport Baby Mario through numerous levels to reunite him with Baby Luigi. The levels feature the same egg making, egg throwing gameplay of the original alongside some new transformations, including a jackhammer and submarine.
The Yoshi-themed 3DS XL will launch on March 14 for $199.99 Unfortunately, it will not include a copy of the game. That will be available separately for $39.99. In short, the Yoshi-themed 3DS is for collectors, new owners who like the color or those who really want to pretend that 2014 really is the year of Yoshi.
Early this morning, Nintendo sent a message to its fans and detractors – the company is serious about bringing top notch games to its newest system. The Wii went through years of casual gimmicks and broken promises before it delivered on its true potential with titles like Super Mario Galaxy and Xenoblade Chronicles. This morning proved that Nintendo is not going to let that happen with the Wii U.
Before Nintendo floored us all with news announced later in the video, the company first took some time out to address its wonderful Miiverse app. The big news is that developers will soon be able to obtain verified accounts that come with special powers.
The company announced that the Wii U would be getting the Virtual Console before long with a selection of NES and SNES games. The company also said that a number of Gameboy Advance titles would be making their way to the service.
As for games, Nintendo shared more details on upcoming games like The Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2. Development is progressing smoothly on both titles, but they can’t show any gameplay from the latter just yet. The Wonderful 101, however, looks like it’s just about done. We’ll hopefully see it launch before E3 in June.
The real surprises came in the later half of the show as it featured announcements for a new Yoshi game, a Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem crossover title, and a Xenoblade Chronicles successor from MonolithSoft. The biggest surprise, however, came in the form of Nintendo announcing that it is bringing a The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker remake to the Wii U later this fall. There is no gameplay footage available, but you can check out some wonderful screens in the above video.
This will probably be the last “earth shattering” Wii U related announcement from Nintendo until E3 in June. It will be worth the wait, however, as we will get to see the first details of Nintendo’s newest Mario, Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. titles at that point.
Earlier this week, Nintendo said it would be announcing new games during a Nintendo Direct presentation this morning. Many fans may have been skeptical since Nintendo hasn’t exactly shown a lot of exciting stuff for its new console since last year, but the company dropped some major bombshells this morning.
Starting off, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata announced that its internal teams are working on new Mario and Mario Kart titles for Wii U. He said that both titles will be playable at E3 in June. Both titles are being developed by their respective teams that have worked on the series for the past few iterations.
As for the new Smash Bros. game, Iwata says that development is moving along smoothly. Sakurai’s team should be able to show something by the time E3 rolls around. It won’t be playable, but we’ll at least get to see what the next entry in what is arguably Nintendo’s most popular franchise will have to offer.
Up next is a sequel to Wii Party, a party game that made use of Mii characters as they traveled across a game board playing mini-games. The sequel appears to be using the Gamepad as a virtual board game of sorts where players can toss dice, play roulette and perform other tasks.
The developers of the delightful Kirby’s Epic Yarn are coming back on the Wii U with a new Yoshi title. The game will be overseen by the director of Yoshi’s Island and Yoshi’s Story. The game will retain the charming yarn style seen in the studio’s previous effort, but the gameplay will obviously be more in line with Yoshi’s Island.
After these surprising, but somewhat expected announcements, Nintendo pulled the rug out from underneath us with some announcements that nobody could have ever seen coming. The first is a collaboration between Atlus and Nintendo in a Fire Emblem x Shin Megami Tensei crossover. It’s a strange combination, but it’s bound to be one hell of a strategy RPG.
Iwata later invited Eiji Aonuma, supervisor of The Legend of Zelda series, to talk about Link’s newest adventure on the Wii U. Aonuma said that the team is now rethinking Zelda and wanting to return to basics. It sounds like they want to make a non-linear game similar to the first Zelda on the NES. In the meantime, the team is working on a remake of Wind Waker that will be released this fall.
Finally, Nintendo showed off the first footage of MonolithSoft’s newest title. The game looks a lot like Xenoblade Chronicles, but it features all new characters and locations. The existence of mechs and the use of the “X” used in Xenogears makes it seem like MonolithSoft may be making a sequel to the classic PlayStation RPG.
