Time to catch up with the blue blur.

Recently I have been playing through the latest Sonic game, Sonic Lost World for the Wii U. Leading up to the release one of my concerns was, how well would Sonic control this time around? Thankfully, the answer is, quite well.

Before I get into my thoughts on Lost World, lets wind the clock back... Read more...

Why is the Darumeshi Sports Shop owner an Osaka-dialect-speaking Dalmatian?

Until recently many said that Nintendo, focusing only on retail and downloadable digital games at the time, would not be able to survive in the age of the online micro-transaction business model. However, very popular DLC in Fire Emblem Awakening and other recent Nintendo games have proven Nintendo... Read more...

For the second year in a row, Nintendo kills it at New York Comic Con.

Nintendo once again put together a pleasant showing to New York Comic Con, which was made even stronger by the fact that Microsoft and Sony with their fancy new consoles were nowhere to be seen. A month away from the next generation, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were absent from the New York Comic Con show floor. Mario, Zelda, Wii U, and 3DS, though, were all over the place.

The future of the Pokémon series could be very bright.

I’ve been playing Pokémon since Red and Blue first hit North America. Back then, I was one of those super hardcore fans playing the video games and the card game all the time. Heck, I was even an official Pokémon TCG League Gym Leader.

My love for Pokémon has never died, though I will say... Read more...

Giving Mario a break will make him a better man for it.

Mario is not your friend. You may think he is, but he isn't. Mario has become too big and too busy to hang out with you anymore. Mario has become more of a corporate icon than a video game character, similar to the problems Mickey Mouse has faced. Not only that, but Mario games are released far more... Read more...

In which someone decrees that Nintendo needs a Halo, and they're probably right.

These are interesting times, aren’t they Nintendo fans? Transitions always are. People are used to the status quo of the current generation, giving next gen consoles a tricky balancing act. Do companies stick with their proven formulas or do they try something new? Both Microsoft and Sony have showed gamers their respective hands… and they are interesting to say the least.

It's hard to write a good article about your feelings when you're not entirely sure what they are.

This article was originally about EA’s securing of the Star Wars license. I intended to explore their internal development teams and try to find obvious opportunities for them to best use the Star Wars license. It was a fluff piece. I thought that if I hit a single prediction I could celebrate it as if I were Nostradamus, and if I missed entirely I could forget it ever existed. 

With Yakuza 1 & 2 HD hitting Wii U in Japan, could the rest of the franchise follow?

The beginning of the Japanese Nintendo Direct on May 17 was quite a surprise. It began with the good old “Seeeeegaaaaaaa” voice as it started out unexpectedly labeled as “Sega Direct,” with the special guest Toshihiro Nagoshi, a Sega CCO. Nagoshi may be best known as the producer of the Super... Read more...

A look at one of the biggest letdowns in an otherwise-fantastic book.

When Hyrule Historia first released in Japan, I was highly skeptical of the official Zelda timeline it presented, but I managed to keep an open mind. I can’t read Japanese and decided to wait for a translated version that would, hopefully, explain specific confusing events in greater detail. Well, after having time to read the English translation of the book, cover to cover, I still feel the official Zelda timeline has two major flaws.

Why Nintendo has third party relations all wrong.

As if the future was too bright for Nintendo’s new console, we learned this week that Ubisoft delayed Rayman Legends, its seemingly high-quality, Wii U-exclusive platformer, seven months to port it to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Judging by the reaction on our own forums and across the Internet, this was a punch to the gut for Wii U owners, and for Nintendo itself.

Fire Emblem: Awakening lets you turn off permadeath. Here's why you shouldn't.

Ricken was always looking for a way to prove himself to the others. The youngest member of the Shepherds, he was often overlooked when preparing for battle. “Stay here, it’s too dangerous for you,” he would hear time and time again. Still, he was a mage of remarkable skill, and, disobeying direct... Read more...

In 2007, Nintendo outsourced Nintendo Power and destroyed NSider.

Not so long ago, Nintendo of America (NOA) had two great means of communicating with its fans. NOA used both Nintendo Power magazine and NSider, Nintendo’s official online community, to talk with fans, build a community, and respond and interact directly to those most interested in its products.

I shouldn't have to import a system to get an equivalent experience. 

Virtual Console on Wii U, what a great idea! Last week, Nintendo announced and then released the first Virtual Console game for Wii U. Many were excited at both the announcement and the forth-coming games that have been promised. Nintendo pleased all of their fans, right? This announcement was a great... Read more...

Alex makes some predictions about tomorrow's Nintendo Direct.

Today is a very anxious day to be a Pokémon fan. With the promise of news on the horizon and no school or good games to play, I've been spending today bumming around the internet for answers as to what this Nintendo Direct-worthy news might be. What I have is not one answer, but several based on what I deem to be educational guesses.

Nintendo doesn't play by normal industry rules. Here's why that can be a good thing.

There seems to be a narrative among gamers and the industry regarding the Wii U. It is often more exciting to have negative news about the console rather than positive. This is just an unfortunate part of the industry. However, some have gone so far as to say Nintendo should have made the Wii U more powerful to perhaps rival Sony and Microsoft's next consoles, or to somehow conform more to industry standards. I disagree with these assumptions.

Nintendo might have finally figured out how to do Comic Cons after a few years of struggling.

I've been to four New York Comic Cons as a staff member at Nintendo World Report now. Over that time, I have seen a blossoming of Nintendo's appearance at the event, beginning with nothing and evolving into a spectacle that involved two show floor booths and one off-site event. It took longer than some companies, but Nintendo of America seems to understand how to do these fan-focused conventions now.

Animal Crossing on 3DS looks like it won't come out in North America and Europe until way more than six months after the Japan release.

Yesterday was an exciting day. We found out about a sequel to Pushmo/Pullblox called Crashmo/Fallblox. Level-5 announced they are bringing some of the Guild 01 games to the 3DS eShop in North America and Europe. European Nintendo fans stepped back from the edge of the cliff as they found out that Paper Mario: Sticker Star is coming out in 2012. Even with how exciting today was, I came away from it worried about one game.

Dear enthusiast media: games trump features.

I consider myself to be a rational person. When I start to get the feeling that I’m surrounded by fanboys, I lash out. I have spent more hours than I’d care to admit arguing in comment threads, bulletin boards, and even at the dinner table. Whenever someone comes at me with a hard and fast opinion,... Read more...

Nintendo of America isn't making it easy, and doesn't seem to care.

Kid Icarus: Uprising came out in March. Even before the title hit store shelves, the official game trailers teased an AR card collecting element included in the game. Nintendo continued to whet the appetite of players hungry for AR cards by including sample cards with every copy of the game.

In... Read more...

We try to make sense out of Nintendo's launch windows.

Astute North American Nintendo fans might have noticed something different about Nintendo of America's Wii U release list when compared to Europe and Japan's. According to the North American release list, Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101 (formerly Project P-100), and Wii Fit U are all slated to come out before the end of March 2013.