Summary of Latest Nintendo Headlines- Mid-August 2015

Pokkén Tournament

At the Pokémon World Championships (that incidentally is concluding with the Finals Round today), it was revealed that the arcade fighting game Pokkén Tournament will be coming to the Wii U next year in Spring. Also announced was a brand new character for the game—Pikachu Libre, based off of the Cosplay Pikachu from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. This means that the roster, as of now, contains of Lucario, Machamp, Suicune, Gardevoir, Gengar, Charizard, Blaziken, Weavile, Pikachu, and, of course, Pikachu Libre.

Splatoon

For Splatoon, we had the release of a brand new stage this week—Flounder Heights. But, in addition to that, it was also revealed that the next Splatfest theme will be inspired by Hasbro’s Transformers. It’s Autobots vs. Decepticons! This is an exciting Splatfest for many because it seems to open the doors to many different Spaltfest possibilities in the future featuring other brands. The Splatfest itself will take place on August 28^th for 24 hours starting at 9 p.m. PST.

Believe it or not, that about it raps it up. News has been slow lately, but I’ll be sure to post again soon with another summary of the major Nintendo headlines.

Until Then,

-The Nintendo Nerd

Pokémon Announces Super Mystery Dungeon

Here’s a nice surprise: today Pokemon announced a brand new game in the Mystery Dungeon series called Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon. The game will be on the Nintendo 3DS and the press release says that you will:

“Battle alongside Legendary and Mythical Pokémon to save the world from a crisis in a tale of unprecedented scale.”

Aside from this, the only other thing we know about this game is that it’ll be released in Winter of this year. However, the press release on Pokemon.com does say that more information is soon to come.

Until Then,

-The Nintendo Nerd

Summary of Nintendo Direct – 4/1/15

It may be April Fool’s Day, but Nintendo wasn’t kidding around with this Direct. It was a long one, so keep on reading if you want to find out about the highlights from the Direct. Click here if you want to watch it for yourself. Without any further ado, here’s the summary:

• To start off, Mewtwo is on his way to Smash Bros.! An awesome new trailer showed off the Mewtwo DLC in Super Smash Bros for the Wii U and 3DS and even featured his brand new Final Smash attack! It was also revealed he will be available on the 28^th of April! If you registered both versions of Smash Bros. you will receive the download code on the 15^th.
• Smash Bros. will also be getting brand new Mii costumes, even some inspired by video game characters including Dunban, Link, and Proto Man which will be available on April 15^th as well!
• But there’s more! In a surprising announcement coupled with the tag “Lucas Comes Out of Nowhere”! Mother 3 protagonist Lucas will be coming back to the Smash Bros. series! He will be available via DLC in June!
• And a brand new Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot will be open to help submit ideas for new Smash Bros. fighters! They will not be able to listen to all requests, of course, but they will take suggestions into consideration.
• In amiibo news, the Wave 3 of amiibos will be released on May 29^th, and the next wave of Smash Bros. figures was also announced! These include: Dark Pit and Palutena (due for release in July) and Olimar, Bowser Jr. Dr. Mario, Zero Suit Samus, and Ganondorf (due for release in September). Some of these amiibos will also be retailer-exclusive. And, as a bonus, Mewtwo and Lucas figures are stated to be on their way in the future as well.

Five Things I Thought About Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire

Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire have been out for almost two weeks in North America and I’m still playing the games as much as I can trying to explore every nook and cranny of the new and improved Hoenn region. The game’s been a lot of fun and it’s no surprise that I’ve really enjoyed playing it. The following is a general review of the game that goes over five key things that I thought while I was playing the newest installments in the Pokémon series. Don’t worry, if you haven’t played the newest games yet, this “review” of sorts is free of any major spoilers.

1. The Graphics Are Wonderful

It’s funny how seamlessly Game Freak managed to transform the look and style of the R/S/E Hoenn in these new 3D games. If you played the original games, you’ll have no problem recognizing all of the familiar areas despite the graphical leap forward. Everything looks so classic, yet so new at the same time. Tiny details, like the waving of the grass, the Pokémon in the overworld, and the wide array of colors used to give life to the world really go a long way and fans of the older games will really appreciate it. Aside from just the overworld, though, the 3D trainer models look great and even better than they did in X and Y. Their movements and expressions are fluid and expressive and really add a lot to the experience. Speaking of the trainers…

2. Every Character Has a Distinct Personality

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire truly stand out in terms of character development. Each unique character you meet from your rival to the Elite 4 all have distinct and memorable personalities that are only enhanced by their expressive faces and movements. True standouts in this department are the previously flat characters of Courtney (she in particular I found to be both creepy and awesome at the same time), Tabitha, Matt, and Shelly. While the Magma/Aqua admins were never super memorable in R/S/E, they really stand out here. They not only have more interaction with the player and involvement in the story, but Game Freak really went out of their way to make each of them unique. The same can be said for your two rivals, Brendan/May and Wally, as well as the gym leaders. It’s unfortunate many of the gym leaders don’t do much but battle you, but even in the short time you see them, they make their impression. The gym leaders and Elite 4 also each get their own cinematic introduction that really helps get you hyped for each battle. Special props to the introduction and battle with Norman in particular which set the stage for your dramatic fight against him perfectly. I hope future games take as many steps as these ones did to help establish their characters because I think it’s something that fans young and old can appreciate.

New Pokémon ORAS Trailer Featuring Info from December CoroCoro Scans

Well, that was fast. A brand new trailer was released today that shows off all of the information that we learned from the CoroCoro leaks yesterday. Only, this time with a little more detail. As I stated yesterday, I’m using the “Continue Reading” tag to hide spoilers if you want to keep yourself in the dark, so again, there’ll be no specifics unless you click below and choose whether or not you want to read them.

Anyway, if you want to know more, click below to read about my thoughts and opinions on this new trailer.

December CoroCoro Scan Reveals New Information About Pokémon ORAS

Here we go again with what will likely be the last big batch of reveals about Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire before its release. The latest batch of CoroCoro scans from the December issue show off a bit more information about the games than we know before and likely this will be followed up by an official reveal in a few days. However, with the release of Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire so close, I’ve decided to hide any news about the games behind the “Continue Reading” tab so that anyone choosing to remain spoiler-free can choose to do so. In addition, I’ve decided that the week prior to ORAS’ release I will not post any potential news about the game as I will likely be avoiding spoilers myself. As for my review on the game, you can expect that, as well as a review of Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U, about 1-2 weeks following the release.

All right. Enough business. Click below if you’d like to hear about the latest reveals from the December CoroCoro Scan.

Info on How to Obtain Diancie in Pokémon X and Y

Here’s a video from Pokémon’s official YouTube page on how to go about getting Diancie in your game in Pokémon X and Y! For fans in North America, you’ll need to visit a GameStop in order to download Diancie into your game so that you can Mega Evolve it come the release of ORAS in less than a month! Check out the video by clicking here!

5 Mini-Thoughts About the Pokemon ORAS Special Demo

Well, the Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire Special Demo is out now, which means that many fans have gotten the chance to step foot into the new and improved Hoenn! Since this isn’t a full game by any stretch, I figured I just present my five thoughts about the demo in an abridged format. So, here it is, five things I thought about the ORAS Demo:

1. It’s nice to see Hoenn in 3D. At least, to see Mossdeep City in 3D. The beaches and trees in particular look really nice. And moving around in the game feels very fluid and smooth. Not to mention, the game felt like it ran faster than even X and Y, though I can’t say for certain it does. Random encounters certainly do start up fast, that’s for sure.

2. Mega Glalie and Mega Steelix are cool. Though the North American version of the demo didn’t feature Mega Steelix, what I’ve seen of it is pretty sweet. I mentioned these two in a prior post, so I won’t say much more on the topic, but getting to use Mega Glalie was fun (though the fact that it seemingly never closes its mouth is a little silly :P).

The Surprise Reveals from the ORAS Demo

Okay, so here’s the follow-up post to the last one. If you want to find out about the newest ORAS stuff from the demo, click the “Read More” button. If not, feel free to just check out my previous post for all of the other revealed information from today. After the demo’s official release in the U.S., I’ll post more freely about this information unless, of course, a trailer or something comes out instead between now and then. Anyway, click on in order to read about the latest reveals.

New ORAS Trailer, Offical Website Updates, and Much More!

This is a big day for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire news! Though we new a lot of this stuff already, there’s still plenty of new things to talk about, so let’s get started!

First off, here’s that trailer we expected to see! This video from Pokémon’s YouTube channel shows off everything from the latest CoroCoro scans including flying, the Pokénav Plus, Latios and Latias, and the new Megas. Though the Pokénav was known about for a couple days, I was waiting for this video to be released in order to share my thoughts on it. I really like it. I’m very relieved to see that so many familiar features from X and Y will be returning to these games as well. I honestly think things like Pokémon Amie, the PSS, and Super Training almost need to be included from here on out in some form or another in order for the games to feel complete.

Additionally, the flying looks really cool. And, am I wrong here in thinking that this is the first time they’ve showed us night time in these games? I’m not sure, but it might be. Nonetheless, it’ll be nice to finally see Hoenn with the day and night cycles it was noticeably lacking in Ruby and Sapphire.