NOA Reveals Winter 2006 Schedule

November 3, 2005, 3:27 pm EST
Total comments: 27

Nintendo to publish Namco's Tales of Phantasia for GBA. Chibi Robo, Odama, and others get concrete release dates for the first time. And what's this about Princess Peach having her own game?

Nintendo News:

Nintendo’s Q1 Software Lineup Lets Users Make Music and Become a Robot

Even after the holidays are over, Nintendo will give you something to celebrate. The first quarter of 2006 will see the arrival of much-anticipated games like Metroid® Prime Hunters, as well as only-from-Nintendo experiences like Electroplankton™ and Odama™. Everyone should find something on the list below to help them chase away the winter blues.

Nintendo DS™

Jan. 9: Electroplankton – Make beautiful music with this artistic tune generator. Ten different modes keep the music humming in endless combinations.

Jan. 23: True Swing Golf – Players swipe the touch screen to stroke the most realistic golf swings ever possible. Just like out on the links, if their swing is off, they’re in the rough.

Feb. 27: Super Princess Peach™ – After kidnapping Peach for years and years, Bowser finally wised up and kidnapped Mario instead. Now it’s Peach to the rescue, pink parasol and all.

March 20: Metroid Prime Hunters® – This Wi-Fi-enabled adventure will have friends near and far blasting away for hours on end.

Nintendo GameCube™

Feb. 6: Chibi-Robo™ – The hero is a 3-inch-tall robot who desires only to bring happiness to his human family. Players explore a huge house and help Chibi-Robo complete chores and fend off enemies while maintaining his energy level.

March 6: Odama™ – This wild game wowed crowds at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. It’s the best microphone-controlled Japanese feudal warrior pinball game you’ll ever play.

Game Boy® Advance SP/Game Boy® Micro

Feb. 6: Drill Dozer™ – Pilot a destructive Drill Dozer robot to recover a stolen red diamond. Players demolish everything in their path. What could be more fun?

March 6: Tales of Phantasia® - In this classic RPG with a real-time battle system, players take on the role of Cress, a young swordsman who must set out on a fantastic quest when his village is destroyed in mysterious circumstances.

Talkback

KnowsNothingNovember 03, 2005

ToP! Chibi Robo!

This is the best day ever.

odifiendNovember 03, 2005

Tales of Phantasia - I was worried it would never come.

Ian SaneNovember 03, 2005

Winter 2006 is misleading. I tend to think of Winter as being the end of the year instead of the beginning. So I read this was like "they're already revealing the late 2006 stuff? That's weird."

NinGurl69 *hugglesNovember 03, 2005

Is Tales of Phantasia the longest/oldest jpn-english port EVAR?@!

KaironCarmine Red, Associate EditorNovember 03, 2005

Hey...I just realized that if you take September, October and November as fall... then December is the only winter month at the end of the year... I never thought about it like that before, lol.

That must be why the Chinese celebrate new years in or after February...

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

Bill AurionNovember 03, 2005

BEST...FIRST QUARTER...EVER...

Seriously, a Mario platformer, the Tales game I've been waiting for YEARS to be localized, a new Metroid game, and three new unique franchises...I couldn't ask for more...

Feb. 27: Super Princess Peach™ – After kidnapping Peach for years and years, Bowser finally wised up and kidnapped Mario instead. Now it’s Peach to the rescue, pink parasol and all.

Oh come on, NOA, Mario Is Missing DOES exist... (and I like it too!)

joshnickersonNovember 03, 2005

I checked out the Metroid trailer on IGN... it looks leaps and bounds ahead of last year's demo.

And out of that list, there are at least FIVE titles I'm interested in. Kudos Ninty. Sweet, crunchy kudos.

DjunknownNovember 03, 2005

Wasn't Odama playable with the bongos or something? Or was the input drastically changed.

Last I heard from trusty PGC, Odama's a stinker. Do you still hold true to that statement?

Nintendo publishing Tales of Phantasia? I'm willing to bet its going to be sanitized as there were some 'moments' that may be too risque for the children... Hunny the half-elf witch has an erotic dream if memory serves, where she emotes sexual satisfaction.

Chibi-Robo... not quite familiar with it. Though it sounds vaguely like Katamari Damacy or Pikmin where you're chibi-person in normal sized world. Any outstanding features?

nitsu niflheimNovember 03, 2005

Does my eyes decieve me... Tale sof Phantasia is finally coming to N.A. About freaking time. I know Bill is probably salavating among other things probably. lol

Bill AurionNovember 03, 2005

Dj: That's Arche, to you bud...

MarioNovember 03, 2005

CHIBI ROBO!!!!!! YAY! Odama! Sweeeet.

True Swing Golf? I guess that's "Touch! Golf" right? The new name suits the game well because of the gameplay mechanic where you hit the ball (it's really innovative and accurate), but Touch! Golf still sounds better.

KnowsNothingNovember 03, 2005

Apparently Odama dropped bongo control for some broken mic input. If I remember correctly it has a lot going on at once and no good control scheme to manage it. Still though, I'm interested, I still think it has potential.

Hostile CreationNovember 03, 2005

Chibi Robo is good news!
I'll also be getting Electroplankton and Super Princess Peach.

BloodworthDaniel Bloodworth, Staff AlumnusNovember 03, 2005

Quote
Chibi-Robo... not quite familiar with it. Though it sounds vaguely like Katamari Damacy or Pikmin where you're chibi-person in normal sized world. Any outstanding features?

Excuse me?
Chibi Robo is awesome.
http://planetgamecube.com/reviews.cfm?action=profile&id=664

PaleMike Gamin, Contributing EditorNovember 03, 2005

Anyone else kind of weirded out Zelda didn't get a mention??

I mean, I know these are quarter 1 games... but still... ZELDA IS COMING OUT NEXT YEAR!.... right?

UncleBobRichard Cook, Guest ContributorNovember 03, 2005

I thought Odama used both the mic *and* bongos... I'll be sad if it doesn't.

RABicleNovember 03, 2005

Only first quarter releases Pale. Zelda is second quarter.

ruby_onixNovember 03, 2005

Quote
March 6: Tales of Phantasia® - In this classic RPG with a real-time battle system, players take on the role of Cress, a young swordsman who must set out on a fantastic quest when his village is destroyed in mysterious circumstances.

Yay! It's about time. Nintendo Power put it into their "coming soon" section back when it was first announced for the GBA in Japan more than two years ago, and then they stubbornly neglected to ever take it down.

If this has anything to do with Alan (NP's resident RPG fan and talking blue Slime Plushie) moving from Nintendo Power to NOA's localization department, then Alan is even more awesome than he was yesterday (which is pretty awesome).

Or it may have to do with the fact that Tales of the Abyss (the unofficial sequel to Tales of Symphonia, made by the Symphonia team) went PS2-exclusive, and maybe Nintendo realized they might have to get off their butts every now and then if they want to keep games on their systems.

Here's hoping that the translation is top-notch, considering that Nintendo and Namco both have not-so-hot reputations in that area. Nintendo's been quite good lately though, and I don't think there were any real complaints about Symphonia (except for my pet gripe, in that the voice acting was incomplete due to time/budget constraints, and Nintendo/Namco's decision that "silence" was preferable to the original Japanese voice acting). At the very least, it can't be any worse than DeJap's infamous fan-translation.

NephilimNovember 04, 2005

Hopefully it sells well and they release "Tales of the World: Summoner's Lineage"
which is baised after Phantasia, since it was Jpn only

couchmonkeyNovember 04, 2005

Chibi Robo = YAY! I'm happy to hear all of these announcements, it's good to see Nintendo putting a serious effort in to produce some new games at the end of the GameCube and GBA's lifespans. Especially the Cube, I remember wanting to play Animal Crossing and Sin and Punishment on my N64 so badly and Nintendo just wouldn't translate them, even though there were all of like 10 games released for the N64 that year.

KDR_11kNovember 04, 2005

Game Boy® Advance SP/Game Boy® Micro Feb. 6: Drill Dozer™ – Pilot a destructive Drill Dozer robot to recover a stolen red diamond. Players demolish everything in their path. What could be more fun?

Screw Breaker?

Bill AurionNovember 04, 2005

Correct...I miss the old name...

TMWNovember 04, 2005

This just made my day.

WuTangTurtleNovember 04, 2005

OMFG, is there any other way to how much i just creamed by pants?

Tales of Phantasia! I've been staring at that coming soon release date in Nintendo Power for so long. For the longest time i thought i was foolishly hoping that it would but practically 120% chance that it wouldn't ever be translated.

This and Chibi Robo make up for the no Zelda thing, oh that and the fact that Naruto is coming out in America. I really hope Nintendo continues this trend into the Revolution.