Nintendo Archive

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Pix’n Love’s History of Nintendo Vol. 2 coming March 9

By
Matt Keller
– February 18, 2012


You might remember a couple of months ago that I posted a gushing review of Pix’n Love’s The History of Nintendo Vol. 1 – 1889-1980 (which you should still totally buy if you haven’t already). Florent Gorges in-depth history of one of the greatest forces in gaming was packed full of facts you (probably) didn’t know about Nintendo, along with images of many of their pre-video game products.

The second volume of the series, The History of Nintendo Vol. 2 – 1980-1991, which exclusively covers the Game and Watch line up, will be available on March 9. You can preorder the book here.

This should be an excellent book, if the first is anything to go by.

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Video Game Ad of the Day: Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble

By
Matt Keller
– February 15, 2012

Rare’s final SNES release.

Donkey Kong Country: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble was the third and final game in the series to appear on the SNES. This time around, both Donkey and Diddy are kidnapped, and it’s up to Dixie and newcomer Kiddy to do the rescuing. The game actually came out after the Nintendo 64, which hurt its sales performance.

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Video Game Ad of the Day: Super Mario Bros. 2 (Japan)

By
Matt Keller
– February 12, 2012

Still a right jerk of a game.

The Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 is a good case study for the way markets operated and content was controlled in the late 1980s. Today it would be unthinkable that Nintendo would develop a major Mario sequel and not release it here, but it happened back then. It was eventually released in its updated form as a part of Super Mario All Stars, but not in its original form until its Virtual Console release in 2009.

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Video Game Ad of the Day: Diddy Kong Racing

By
Matt Keller
– February 9, 2012

Originally developed as RC Pro Am 64, would you believe?

Diddy Kong Racing is a multi-vehicle kart racing game for the Nintendo 64. Basically rushed out for Christmas in 1997 when Banjo-Kazooie and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time were delayed, DKR‘s adventure mode and multi-pathed tracks proved popular with content-starved N64 gamers everywhere.

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Video Game Ad of the Day: The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages / Seasons

By
Matt Keller
– February 5, 2012

Flagship’s first crack at Zelda was fantastic.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons are two parts of a whole. Originally, they started development as “The Triforce Series” – three interconnected games that could be played in any order – The Mystical Seed of Power, The Mystical Seed of Courage and The Mystical Seed of Wisdom. Co-ordinating the development of the titles and getting them to interact proved too difficult, so The Mystical Seed of Courage was cancelled, and Power and Courage were adapted into Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons

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Video Game Ad of the Day: Metroid Fusion

By
Matt Keller
– February 4, 2012

Very nearly missed today’s post due to the upgrades and an afternoon spent finishing Banjo-Tooie.

Metroid Fusion is the last non-remake game in the series to be presented entirely using 2D graphics. It takes place after Super Metroid, with Samus becoming infected by a new alien lifeform and, somewhat ironically, saved by a serum derived from a Metroid, a species she was bent on destroying.

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Video Game Ad of the Day: Mario’s Picross

By
Matt Keller
– February 2, 2012

Kind of disturbing, no?

Mario’s Picross is the first of a number of Picross games developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo. A picross is a kind of puzzle where players have to mark specific squares to create a picture. The game didn’t do well outside of Japan, so we missed out on a number of sequels until Nintendo took another crack with Picross DS.

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Video Game Ad of the Day: Super Smash Bros. Melee

By
Matt Keller
– January 31, 2012

Falcon Punch!!

Super Smash Bros. Melee was the best-selling game for the GameCube, taking the formula that made its predecessor so successful, and jamming it with new content until it was bursting at the seams (though it didn’t have a trophy for Poochie from Yoshi’s Island).

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Video Game Ad of the Day: Pokemon Gold & Silver

By
Matt Keller
– January 28, 2012

Gen 2 is the best.

Pokemon Gold & Silver was the heavily anticipated second game in the Pokemon series. It’s difficult to sum up in this short paragraph the wealth of content that the second game brought to the series – 100 new mons, a huge main quest, new attributes, a day night cycle, Pokemon gender – the list goes on.

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Video Game Ad of the Day: Super Mario Sunshine

By
Matt Keller
– January 6, 2012

Still have a soft spot for the void levels.

Super Mario Sunshine is perhaps Mario’s most divisive adventure to date. Some will argue that it wasn’t enough of a step up from Super Mario 64, others will claim that it was too radical a departure mechanically. There are a scant few of us who enjoyed it for what it is.

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Video Game Ad of the Day: Blast Corps

By
Matt Keller
– October 8, 2011

Clear the way!

Blast Corps is an oft-overlooked gem from Rare’s peak era. Players control various demolition equipment and must clear the way for a truck which is carrying enough nuclear armament to destroy the world. It’s one of those games that’s relatively easy at the basic level, but has some downright dastardly challenges if you’re going for full completion. This ad is from the UK release of the game.

Search for Blast Corps on eBay

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Iwata Asks: Star Fox 64 3D

By
Matt Keller
– August 3, 2011


The latest entry in the Iwata Asks series is available. This one discusses the origins of Star Fox and the making of the upcoming 3D remake of Star Fox 64.

The interview gives a lot of insight into the conditions in which Star Fox was developed and the relationship between Dylan Cuthbert and Nintendo. Cuthbert and fellow Brit Giles Goddard were the first non-Japanese people to work at Nintendo’s Entertaintment Analysis Division, if I recall correctly. There’s also a lot of stuff in there about the cancelled Star Fox 2.

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Ocarina of Time 3D: 1 million served

By
Matt Keller
– August 1, 2011


In its financial briefing last Thursday, Nintendo announced that its recently released 3D upgrade of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has shipped in excess of 1 million units across the world.

The game sold 810,000 copies in the West and 270,000 copies in Japan in just two weeks of reporting. It is the second Nintendo-published game to hit the platinum mark on the 3DS – Nintendogs + cats was the first.

The news really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, since Ocarina of Time 3D is arguably the best thing on the 3DS, not to mention a fantastic update of one of the best video games ever made.

Still should have been a launch title, though.

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More details on GBA, NES Virtual Console

By
Matt Keller
– July 28, 2011

It seems that there are a few caveats to go with the recently announced NES and GBA Virtual Console news.

Nintendo Australia has announced that the 3DS system will drop from $AU349 to $AU249 on August 12, with similar price drops occuring across the world. As a bonus for early adopters (anybody who buys a 3DS before September 1), Nintendo will be giving you 10 free NES and 10 free GBA games, some of which we elaborated on in our earlier story.

It’s not as cut and dry as these games simply appearing on the Virtual Console store and you downloading them. On September 1, Nintendo will be pushing out “early bird” versions of the 10 NES games. They won’t have any of the usual VC trimmings, and it is understood that the NES emulation is at a beta stage. These titles will be added to the Virtual Console store at a later date, and joined by other classic NES games.

It gets weirder with the GBA situation though. No date has been announced for when these will be available to download, and it is understood that Nintendo is not planning on adding the GBA to the Virtual Console – instead, these 10 GBA games will remain exclusive to the 3DS early adopters and will not be for sale later down the track.

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Video Game Ad of the Day: Killer Instinct

By
Matt Keller
– July 28, 2011

There’s something I don’t like about Nintendo of America’s mid 90s advertising, but I can’t pinpoint it.

Killer Instinct was a fighting game developed by Rare for the arcade and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The arcade cabinet famously claimed that it was running the same hardware as the upcoming Ultra 64 console, which was proved to be false. The SNES version of the game is a pretty huge technical achievement, but in reality, the underlying game is not particularly memorable when the graphics are stripped away. This ad is for the SNES release.

Search for Killer Instinct on eBay

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