This Week in Nintendo History: August 9th to August 15th

Hey everybody! Welcome to another fun-filled, fact-fattened episode of This Week in Nintendo History. At the request of a reader we're going to try something a little different this time and do things in complete chronological order. We've been doing things according to the day of the week, but we'll try this and see what we think. If you like it, let me know. If you hate it, let me know. I'm here to bring the history to you.

Rain Shower was a multi-screened Game & Watch game released on August 10th, 1983. In the game you played as a character who has their laundry hanging on the clothesline to dry, but it begins raining. The rain came and you were tasked with moving the clothesline left and right in order to keep your clothes from getting wet. Wouldn't it have been smarter to just take your clothes down and bring them inside? Rain Shower was re-released for the Game Boy Advance in Game & Watch Gallery 4.

Nintendo's second generation home console was unleashed to North America on August 13th, 1991. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System featured a new rounded controller that tripled the number of buttons on the NES from two to six. It also is the best selling console of the 16-bit era having sold over 49 million units worldwide. It was home to many gamers favorite games including things like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Final Fantasy IV (2 in America), and Super Mario World.

Tetris is one of the best selling games of all-time, and the franchise continued with the release of Tetrisphere for the Nintendo 64 on August 11th, 1997 in North America. This was the first game in the franchise not played on a two dimensional field. In Tetrisphere you played on a 3-D globe and you were trying to reach the center by destroying the edges with tetriminoes. It was originally developed for the Atari Jaguar, under the name Phear, but legend says that Nintendo approached the game's developer with an offer to make it a Nintendo exclusive.

Japan saw one of the best selling RPG's of the Nintendo 64 released on August 11th, 2000. Paper Mario released on that day for the Nintendo 64 and would go on to be one of the best games developed for that system. It would also be the start of a new franchise that has crossed three platforms and differing play styles and win the hearts of gamers everywhere. Upon learning that Princess Peach has been kidnapped, one character exclaims "Princess Peach as been kidnapped...AGAIN!?" Who'da thunk it?

On August 9th, 2002 Japanese gamers were given Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse for the Gamecube. This was a point and click adventure developed by Capcom starring the world's most famous mouse. It featured a mode called Kid's Mode geared towards players who were six years old or younger and took out many of the challenging elements. It would be released four days later in North America on August 13th, 2002. The game was based on the 1936 animated short Thru the Mirror, which was itself based on the Lewis Carroll classic Through the Looking Glass.

That same day Pichu Bros. Mini was released for the Pokemon Mini in Japan. When it was first announced there was speculation that it may have been a title that would be released on the Gamecube as the word Mini did not appear in the title. It was a mini-game collection that featured six different games. The main character was Pichu, but other Pokemon such as Pikachu and Cubone made appearances.

August 13th, 2007 was a good day for Virtual Console fans in America. That day brought on the release of the NES classic Metroid, as well as Shining in the Darkness for the Sega Genesis, and Cratermaze for the Turbo-Grafix 16. By far the star of the day was Metroid and if you've played it you know why.

Fans of poisonous liquid were overjoyed on August 14th, 2007 when Mercury Meltdown Revolution was released for Wii in America. It was a well received puzzle game that featured a blob of mercury they player would control similarly to the classic Marble Madness. Levels featured areas where you had to split the mercury and change to color to complete puzzles that would unlock access the next area of the level. You could play this game without the real danger of mercury poisoning.

Farming got a bit of an upgrade that same day when Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon was released for DS. This game featured the same farming/dating simulation found in the regular Harvest Moon series, but added elements found in traditional RPG's such as dungeon crawling for a bit of a twist. You could capture monsters during your dungeon crawl that would then help out on the farm making that part of your day a bit easier.

Our last releases of the week occured on August 11th, 2008 and are for the Virtual Console in Japan. Gamers were given the Turbo-Grafix 16 titles Break In, and Star Parodier.

That's it for this week in history. And if you have anything you know of coming up that would feature in this article let me hear that as well. Check back next week for more interesting, and hopefully fun facts about Nintendo.