Shhh. Don't Be Scared (be scared)

What are you afraid of?

The dark, high places, ghosts, flying....CLOWNS?!

Upcoming Wii U rpg Hush, from developer Game Studio 78, is all about horror and fear. The main character is little girl named Ashlyn who's trapped in an old broken down Orphanage. She'll have to rely on her toys to help her get through the areas in the game. She scared of many things, including clowns.

The game will be released episodically and include rpg & survival horror elements.

It sounds pretty interesting to me. Hopefully it'll turn out to be a cool Wii U eshop game.

Here are some screenshots from the developer's twitter page:







For more information about this game, visit the official Hush website here:
http://www.gamestudio78.pt/hush/index.html

And check out the developer's twitter here: https://twitter.com/gamestudio78

Xenoblade X Nintendo Direct Thoughts

Earlier today, Nintendo had a Japan Only Xenoblade X Nintendo Direct. In my post yesterday, I had thought that this was a direct for everyone. I was wrong. So no big news for us North American Xenoblade X fans. But there are some things I want to talk about from the Direct! Here are my thoughts:

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The entire Xenoblade X Nintendo Direct was just footage from the game & in-game characters explaining the game's world. We didn't see Iwata or any of the other Nintendo people this time and that was fine. I don't speak japanese, but some people on twitter do, thankfully, so I was able to find out what the characters were talking about.

We were shown many different areas of the Xenoblade X's world and.....WOW. This is a MASSIVE game. Dare I say that it looks a ton bigger than any of the Elder Scroll games? There's just so many huge areas in this game.

The most important one to talk about is New Los Angeles. Xenoblade X is set on an alien planet which humans have crashed landed on. They built their own new city and named it NLA. The city has an industrial portion but it also has a huge area that looks like the suburbs on Earth and a big shopping district too. Blade is also located in the city. Blade is the military organization in the city, its where the main characters can buy weapons and get major missions. The characters can also talk to people in the city and get missions from there.

NLA looks like an amazing hub to explore and I think you could just spend hours in that city alone. Of course then you'd miss the delights that lay for outside of the city...

There are several continents in Xenoblade X.  There's a desert continent, a fiery one, an ice one, a jungle one, and the grasslands where NLA is. These places so very huge and there are all kinds monsters and different quests to find out there. And you can run around in those areas but thats not the only way you have to get there...

The Direct showed off the Mechs in Xenoblade X more. These big, hulking machines can be entered and you walk around with them, fly in the air and they can transform into vehicle to drive too! Its so impressive and will be very handy. Running will only take you so far. The flying and driving look to be great ways to get around in the game.

I've heard that Xenoblade X nearly didn't fit onto a Wii U disc and I can see why. Xenoblade X looks to the biggest game on the Wii U yet. And the graphics are extremely detailed and gorgeous.

Oh and one final thing I'd like to note: the game will have 4-player ONLINE quests that people can take on together. This wasn't mentioned in the direct. It was mentioned after the direct on twitter. Also up to 32 players can passively share information & items. Wow. This game is amazing.

I can't wait to play Xenoblade X. It might be a wait though. The game is coming out in April in Japan but it doesn't have a date yet for North America or Europe. The game will need to be translated and American/European voices will have to be added to the game! Sounds like a lot of work! So I wouldn't expect this game till Fall/Winter. I'll just have to keep dreaming about it for awhile.

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I'll be back tomorrow with an Indie game preview.

Cool Nintendo Stuff

There's some cool things happening on Nintendo systems this week (and next) that you should all know about:

If you like first person shooters, you should check out Moon Chronicles on the 3DS eshop this week. The first episode is on sale & three new dlc missions have been released. This is an awesome game. I can't wait to play the new episodes & will write about them sometime on this blog!

Also if you have a 3DS and you didn't get a chance to try the Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate demo, its on the eshop now for everyone to download! I thought the single player was ok but the multiplayer was pretty good. Play it with a friend if you can!

Tomorrow, Nintendo will have a Xenoblade X (Wii U) Nintendo Direct. I'll be watching and I'll have a blog entry talking about the direct tomorrow. Will we get any big news out of the direct? New features? A release date?! We'll see! I'm excited.

Next week, on Friday the 13th, Nintendo will be releasing the New Nintendo 3DS, Majora's Mask 3D, and Capcom & Nintendo will bring out Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate! Its big deal for Nintendo fans.

And thats all the cool Nintendo Stuff for today. Like this feature? Please let me know. Maybe I'll do more blog entries like this!

Saving the Universe Again

Here's a game that I've wanted to write about for a little bit now but I wasn't sure if the game was going to come to a Nintendo system so I held off. Its still not a definite thing, in fact, that this game will come to the Wii U and 3DS but....oh man....I really hope it does! So, I thought I'd write about it now that there's more of a chance that it will come to these Nintendo systems!

What game am I talking about?

The game is Starr Mazer by developer Imagos Softworks!

Starr Mazer is a point & click game adventure game with space shooter elements too! As I've mentioned in other blog entries, I love point & click games. In fact, Starr Mazer reminds me of one of my favorites: Space Quest! I really loved the humor and the fun of Space Quest. Starr Mazer looks to have a lot of that too. Plus the shooter levels look awesome too.

It excites me to no end to imagine this game on Wii U and 3DS. I'm just not sure which system I'd buy it on. On one hand, it will look great on Wii U or the other hand, it would be so great to have this game always with me so I could play it whenever I want. Hmm. Decisions, Decisions.

Though, as I mentioned earlier, its not a definite thing that this game will come to Wii U and 3DS. Or even PC really. This game is on Kickstarter right now! Before I give you the link to the Kickstarter, please check out these awesome screenshots (and gifs) from the kickstarter page & website:



















And here's a trailer:

Please check out their kickstarter page here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/imagosfilms/starr-mazer

Here's the official website too: http://www.starrmazer.com/

I really hope this game comes to Wii U and 3DS. I want to play this game!!

The Wonderful 101 First Impressions

Today, thanks to the awesome Club Nintendo prizes this month, I was able to get Platinum Games The Wonderful 101 for my Wii U for the cost of 600 Club Nintendo coins. A fantastic deal! I had played a demo of this game and thought it was cool. But I admit with some many other games coming out, I just never had the time to pick up this game before. I'm very happy that Nintendo added it as one of their final rewards.

And now, after playing the game a little, I want to give you my first impressions of the game:
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The Wonderful 101 is the Incredibles plus Viewtiful Joe plus Pikmin. 101 has a ton of action and some puzzles into the mix. The view is zoomed out a bit.

I'm not a major fan of zoomed out views but I can understand why this game has it and thats because of the many, many, many, MANY people that you pick up along the way.

The graphics are REALLY good. The cutscenes do remind me of the Pixar movie the Incredibles. The dialogue is corny, yet fun.

The controls are a bit hard to master. So far I suck at them but I'm sure I'll get better. I like the game's use of the gamepad for fighting moves and inventory. This is a well put together game.

Sound wise, the voice work is well done. The Prologue level music was SO annoying. I thought it would drive me nuts. But the next level's music was pretty good.

I haven't played a ton of the game yet. I beat the Prologue and the first mission. I did good on the prologue but not so good on the first mission. I like how you can buy stuff like items & upgrades in between missions. I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this game, even if I never master its controls. Can't wait to play more!

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Tomorrow's blog entry will be a bit late. I'm not sure what I'll do for it yet. We'll see!

Let's Go to Mars

Have you ever wanted to go on a journey into outer space?

At the moment, the closest us normal, non-Astronaut people can get is through video games.

And today's indie game preview is about an outer space puzzle adventure game?! Where do I sign up?!

39 Days Till Mars, developed by @philipbuchanan & coming to Wii U, has you controlling two explorers on a steam powered spaceship on a journey to Mars. The game also has co-op too so that a friend can help you out. You'll have to feed and take care of the explorers, while also taking care of the ship too.

Graphic wise, 39 Days has a very unique hand-drawn artwork style. This looks like a very interesting game!

Here's some screenshots of the game from the official website:












For more information and a trailer of the game, check out the official website here: http://www.surrealix.com/39days/

And the Kickstarter page (its fully funded) here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/philipbuchanan/39-days-to-mars/posts/764438

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Note: I'm very thankful for Nintendo Enthusiast's list here: http://nintendoenthusiast.com/article/120-upcoming-wii-u-games-indie/  . It makes looking for cool Indie's to talk about easier!

Back to Fantasy Life

Recently, I finally reached Level 50 in Fantasy Life and got to play the Origin Island dlc. Here are my impressions of the new area:
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Wow! The Origin Island DLC did not let me down.

While the main quest in the dlc isn't too long (it is a lot of fun though), the amount of content the dlc unlocks is amazing!

The Island is a pretty big area and there's a lot of new content in the place. New characters to meet, enemies to fight, chests to find, bounties to collect, etc. Its jaw dropping.

Origin Island may be the best Fantasy Life area yet. Its certainly the best area to level up in now. The enemies can be pretty hard at times. I would recommend going to the island with a friend to level up or if you're doing the story or story related side quests, grab a NPC ally. I'd recommend the Celeste Queen for sure. She's pretty awesome in battle!

The Origin Island dlc has really renewed my interest in Fantasy Life. I'm at level 55 now and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon.

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I'll be back tomorrow with an Indie game preview!