The North American WiiWare launch is almost upon us, and instead of the stealth releases that we thought were coming, Nintendo's press release of WiiWare games debuting this Monday (along with their point values) was recently leaked. While we can't be sure this list is 100% valid, it looks like we can expect the following:
Although we're disappointed by the lack of Dr. Mario, this looks like a pretty solid launch list to us. It'll be difficult to pick and choose exactly which titles we want, but there are definitely some that stand out more than others.
How about you? Do you plan on downloading any of the above, or are you going to wait for impressions and reviews first?
Okay, so they aren't Earthbound. That one got its own post (and, we hope, its own release sooner than ESRB-rated gems like Pro Wrestling and Zombies Ate My Neighbors). Even though we're all tired from freaking out about Shigesato Itoi's sci-fi RPG, a bunch of awesome game ratings that would normally cause us to freak out have as yet gone un-freaked-out-about, on both Virtual Console and WiiWare.
The biggest news for us on the VC: Super Dodge Ball. It's probably the NES game, but there's an outside chance it's the Neo Geo game. Either way, we love Aksys. And from SNK, Samurai Shodown II and Metal Slug.
WiiWare's ratings range from expected to thrilling. Among the games found on the ESRB website that were not yet confirmed for U.S. release, Dr. Mario Wii and Family Ping Pong stand out. Other new ratings include Gyrostarr, Pop, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, V.I.P Casino: Blackjack, and Magnetica Twist (Minna de Puzzloop).
[Update: removed reference to Donkey Kong Country 3. Not sure why that was mixed in with the recent ratings, or why I forgot it was already out. Well, I know why I forgot about it.]
We don't know how a Ruliweb poster came across these statistics for Japanese sales of four WiiWare games. They could be inaccurate, they could be stolen from some analyst, or they could even be totally made up. Don't start writing any in-depth articles about these sales numbers or anything like that.
Besides checking out what retail Wii and DS games Nintendo had available, Joystiq also managed to spend some quality time with WiiWare and a few of its games. The general consensus? It's a mixed bag.
Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People seems to capture the Flash toon's look and feel, but is fairly linear (at least in the demo available at NMS08). Stern was also able to pry some more info about the episodic nature of the game from the title's marketing director, who said "Each episode, a different designer [is in charge], which is more like they do on TV. ... It's still the same team. [But] it'll be interesting to see how the episodes feel as a result. With Sam & Max, we've had complaints that they feel too similar. We might find with Strong Bad, that each one feels very different."
LostWinds is shaping up nicely, apparently, as Stern commented "Because of game's playful controls, I wish I could have spent the time progressing through the entire game." He says this because LostWinds is actually finished, and the folks behind it hope its in the WiiWare launch lineup.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King is more for the folks that like everything outside of the combat in RPG games. It's very menu-heavy, and you're very much like the manager of the game, sending out your townfolk to find goodies to bring back to you.
Pop seems to have some very interesting multiplayer mechanics and, like LostWinds, is totally finished. The single-player games are "casual and a trance-like way to relax," apparently. They hope that it will be in the WiiWare launch lineup and between 500 and 800 Wii Points.
Major League Eating is offering up a buffet of features for users to take from, including Wi-Fi gameplay and the complete package of competitive eating. There's going to be gross out techniques, as well as actual attack and defensive maneuvers. We're not all about who can eat a billion hot dogs the fastest ourselves, but it looks like this one is shaping up to be a full meal of fun on WiiWare.
World of Goo is something that we've been interested in, surely you all know. And everytime someone checks it out and bothers to write something up on the internet, we're even more convinced this is a must download. Stern's label that this title has the "clever puzzle mechanic" and "irresistible gameplay" we've been hoping may have just cemented its status as a must own for us.
Read - Major League Eating Read - World of Goo Read - LostWinds Read - Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King Read - Pop Read - Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People
Don't get us wrong -- we're not against downloadable content by any means. Yet, the way in which microtransactions were presented during the WiiWare launch for games like Lonpos and My Life as a King seems really ... cheap. And by cheap, we mean the DLC is a total cheap shot, because it's actually expensive. Take Square Enix's title, for example, which released $13 worth of downloadable content on its first week. Yes, we're familiar with the "If you don't want it, then don't buy it" argument (and we won't), but all of that just sours us on the game in general.
What do you think, though? Are we being to hard on Lonpos and My Life as a King? Or, is there a wrong and right way to present DLC? Then again, it could also be possible that you don't support any microtransactions. Share your thoughts in the comments below.
You have to download an updated My Life as a King from the Wii Shop (and delete the old one) before you can have the privilege of adding any of the new content to your game. Luckily, the interface for feeding your money to the game is nice, and doesn't force you back out into the Wii Shop again. The menu shows how many points and blocks you have available, and the cost in both Wii Points and space of each item on the list.
The only thing missing is a pop-up window that provides periodic "WHAT ARE YOU DOING" and "YOU COULD BE BUYING BONK'S ADVENTURE WITH THOSE POINTS" messages.
Gallery: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Young King and the Promised Land
The three tribal buildings (which allow players to recruit other races, including Lilitie warriors, Selkie thieves, and Yuke mages) come in at 300 Wii Points apiece (though all three can be purchased as a pack for 800 Points), and there are new costumes for Chancellor Chime and Leo (100 Points each), an Extravagant House (100 Points also), and a Sacred Shrine (200 Points).
The cost of all this extra fluff? 1300 Wii Points, thanks very much -- and that's presuming you purchased all three tribal buildings at once. That's right: Square Enix has very nearly doubled the price of its game with the first wave of DLC (and more is on the way). We're still waiting to hear news about U.S. pricing, but this doesn't bode well for your wallet if (like us) you're a weak-willed, impoverished Final Fantasy fan.
Gallery: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Young King and the Promised Land
Thanks to the good folks at NintendoWorldReport, we've got some videos for you from some of the launch titles for Wii Ware in Japan. With it hitting Japanese Wii consoles earlier today, we imagine Japanese gamers are doing what they usual do: enjoy being alive and laughing at the rest of the world. You can't blame them. We would be jerks, too, if we had it that good.
Anywho, hit up the video above for your first taste of Wii Ware goodness. Then head past the break for the rest.
While most of us were sleeping -- like a bunch of chumps -- Nintendo launched its WiiWare service in Japan early this morning. As expected, the WiiWare servers are taking a beating from thousands of gamers hoping to try out the new downloadable releases, but Siliconera's Spencer Yip and Wired's Chris Kohler were still able to grab a few games and write up their impressions, all of which you can peruse below.
A few surprises revealed themselves with the service's launch:
My Life as a King is rife with microtransactions, offering additional costumes, dungeons, and races (Yukes, Selkies, and Lilties) for 100-300 Wii Points.
Star Soldier R features three light modes -- a two-minute mode in which you play through a quick stage for a high score, a similar 5-minute mode with two levels and boss encounters, and a "Fast Shot" mode for testing your button-tapping skills.
Saku Saku Animal Panic, the only WiiWare launch title from a US developer and a game we haven't paid any attention to at all, is apparently "pretty fun!" Judging by Chris Kohler's impressions, it sounds a lot like Jezzball, minus the balls ... And the Jezz.
Read - The WiiWare Shopping experience Read - WiiWare Impressions: Lonpos Read - WiiWare Impressions: Angel's Solitaire Read - WiiWare Impressions: Saku Saku Animal Panic Read - WiiWare Impressions: Star Soldier R Read - Extra content in My Life as a King explained Read - Lonpos has pay-to-play content too
We've had English-language trailers for some time now, but this is at least twice as long, and contains walloping great chunks of in-game battles, cut-scenes, and indecipherable kanji. There's plenty of footage that's new to us, as well, though sadly a lotless Moogle. You can't have it all, we suppose.
Gallery: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Young King and the Promised Land
Hudson's Takahashi Meijin, the star of Adventure Island, will be a featured guest at a Wii Ware event hosted by Japanese cell phone company KDDI. The KDDI Design Studio will take place on April 1st and 2nd in Harajuku, and will feature playable versions of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As a King, Dr. Mario & Bacillus Extermination, and Hudson's Star Soldier R. Admission will be free. Plane tickets to Japan continue not to be. Takahashi will participate in a "talk show" as well as game demonstrations. He rose to fame with his Star Soldier shooting skills, so attendees should expect some feats of button-mashing from the Meijin on the new version.
Were you wondering how you'd be ruling your kingdom on the Wii once Squeenix's My Life As a King hits WiiWare? It looks like it won't necessarily be with the Wiimote, as the game supports four different control schemes.
Supposing you like your Wiimote just fine, you can use that alone or with a Nunchuck while playing the game. Some of you might prefer the GameCube or Classic Controller, though, which are also supported. Furthermore, widescreen TV owners will be happy to know that Square Enix's country-building RPG can be played in 16:9.
For those of you craving more details for this title, Game Watch reports that it will include a thief class. This is a nice addition to the game, although no big surprise in an RPG with a class system. The thief will have the usual skills of being able to unlock things, quick movement, and searching capabilities. If you ask us, a thief will be worth using just for the sweet dagger. This thief's got bling.
Gallery: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Young King and the Promised Land
Square Enix is building excitement for their downloadable Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, with ... downloads! How appropriate. The official Japanese website for My Life as a King (The Little King and the Promised Land, over there) has begun offering a daily wallpaper download featuring art from the game, in 1024x768 and 1280x1024 resolutions.
We couldn't be happier, because it's only a matter of time until we get a Pavlov wallpaper. Today's wallpaper features -- we think -- some of the adventurers that do the unseen dungeon crawling.
Gallery: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Young King and the Promised Land
When it comes to Wii Ware in Japan, Nintendo is cutting it fine. Just this morning, the company announced that the service would launch in the region on March 25th, a mere fortnight from now. The U.S. launch of Wii Ware, you may recall, is down for May 12th.
As well as a date, Nintendo revealed a launch line-up of nine titles with prices that ranged from 500 (Okiraku Ping-Pong Wii and Angel's Solitaire) to 1500 (My Life As A King: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles) Wii points:
Update 1: GameTrailers has just updated with videos of Everybody's Pokemon Ranch, Star Soldier R, Word Puzzle Mojipittan Wii, and Dr. Mario. Hit the break, people!
Aside from being one of the most high-profile games coming to Wii Ware (come on, May!), Final Fantasy: My Life as a King will have an interesting dynamic involving medals. The medals will apparently have three different categories: power, endurance and special.
The power and endurance medals will affect your character specifically, while the special medals look like they will have more of an affect on your game world than your character. Also, it would seem that medals can be used as a kind of currency and, as one might assume, awarded for completing tasks in the game. Thanks to machine translation, we can't really get much more information than that, so head on over and check out the new screens.
Gallery: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Young King and the Promised Land
Okay, so they aren't Earthbound. That one got its own post (and, we hope, its own release sooner than ESRB-rated gems like Pro Wrestling and Zombies Ate My Neighbors). Even though we're all tired from freaking out about Shigesato Itoi's sci-fi RPG, a bunch of awesome game ratings that would normally cause us to freak out have as yet gone un-freaked-out-about, on both Virtual Console and WiiWare. 
Hudson's Takahashi Meijin, the star of Adventure Island, will be a featured guest at a Wii Ware event hosted by Japanese cell phone company KDDI. The KDDI Design Studio will take place on April 1st and 2nd in Harajuku, and will feature playable versions of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As a King, Dr. Mario & Bacillus Extermination, and Hudson's Star Soldier R. Admission will be free. Plane tickets to Japan continue not to be.
Were you wondering how you'd be ruling your kingdom on the Wii once Squeenix's My Life As a King hits WiiWare? It looks like it won't necessarily be with the Wiimote, as the game supports four different control schemes.
