Nintendo Download: Week of October 19th

Discover New LostWinds, Numerous Domo Games and a True Arcade Classic

Eight is great for gamers this week as Nintendo adds eight new titles to its ever-growing library of downloadable games. First on the list is LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias, a follow-up to one of the most popular releases on the WiiWare™ service. Next, Shootanto: Evolutionary Mayhem makes survival of the fittest the law of the land. Meanwhile, Nintendo DSiWare™ welcomes Domo™, a strange creature who hatched from an egg. Also known as the popular mascot of Japan’s NHK television station, Domo stars in five separate new Nintendo DSiWare games. Topping it off is RYGAR™, a 1980s arcade gem making its Virtual Console™ debut.

WiiWare

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias

Publisher: FRONTIER
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Mild Fantasy Violence
Price: 1,000 Wii Points™
Description: LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias is a sequel to the award-winning WiiWare launch title LostWinds. Enril the Wind Spirit returns to protect and guide young Toku by powering his jumps, aiding his glides and smashing his enemies. An evil adversary binds the fate of Toku’s mother, Magdi, and the ancient Melodia civilization. To save Magdi, Toku and Enril must face new foes, enlist friends old and new, and wield incredible new powers – including the ability to switch the very seasons themselves – as they explore the diverse, richly interactive Chilling Peaks and Melodia City areas of the magical land of Mistralis. This enchanting, exhilarating, explorative game play experience is bursting with new ideas that make exceptional use of the Wii Remote™ controller. The awesome power of the Wind is back in the palm of your hand.

Shootanto: Evolutionary Mayhem
Publisher: Hudson Entertainment
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Crude Humor, Mild Fantasy Violence, Suggestive Themes
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: Battle for the future in a world governed by the law of the jungle. As you move through the stages, your character evolves and your weapons and shooting abilities change. First, throw weapons by hand, then proceed to use tools and different types of projectiles. A cooperative two-player mode is also available. The controls are simple: Move the character with the control stick, adjust the crosshairs with the Wii Remote controller and shoot down targets while dodging enemy attacks. Getting hit by an enemy bullet or touching an enemy close to you will count as a miss. With each miss, you’ll lose one heart; losing all hearts will end the game.

Nintendo DSiWare

Crash-Course Domo™
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Comic Mischief
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points™
Description: In Crash-Course Domo, you’ll guide Domo across the finish line in six increasingly difficult bicycle races. Steer Domo around other racers and patches of rough terrain, pedaling as fast as his stubby legs will allow.


Hard-Hat Domo™
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: In Hard-Hat Domo, Domo is a construction worker trying to get to the top of a building. Match ladder colors to floor colors – using cans of paint, if necessary – to earn points and continue climbing higher. Reach the top floor to clear each of the four levels of difficulty.


Pro-Putt Domo™
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: In Pro-Putt Domo, Domo hits the green in an effort to win the world putt-putt golf championship. Domo competes to finish with the lowest number of strokes in either the nine-hole Small Classic or the 18-hole Big Open tournament. Along the way, he’ll collect coins and earn bowls of meat-and-potato stew while avoiding bunkers and water hazards.


Rock-n-Roll Domo™
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: In Rock-n-Roll Domo, you’ll control Domo as he takes the stage in search of fortune and fame. Hit the right notes in rhythm (using the touch screen, if desired) to rock the house. If your timing needs work, use the mixer to practice songs. Complete five different songs at a series of increasingly larger venues to help Domo become a superstar.

White-Water Domo™
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Take control of Domo as he hops into his kayak and races the river rapids in White-Water Domo. Jump and paddle as you steer Domo through the treacherous rapids in an effort to cross the finish line as quickly as possible. Finish with one of the top three times to proceed to the next stage.

Virtual Console

RYGAR™
Publisher: Tecmo
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Mild Fantasy Violence
Price: 600 Wii Points
Description: The year is 19XX A.D. and the human race has been brought to its knees by the resurrected ancient Beast Lord. The people have brought legendary warrior Rygar back to life in order to save the human race. Armed with Diskarmor, a weapon that extends, you’ll also make full use of your jumping abilities to venture through and clear all 27 stages. Appearing at arcades in 1986 as a side-scrolling action game, RYGAR received high acclaim for its beautifully rendered graphics, including waterfalls and a setting sun. As extra features, players can collect the five Powers of Indra to obtain special bonuses or gain 1,000,000 bonus points for finding hidden items. Also, the number of lives and the level of difficulty can be altered.

Nintendo adds new titles to the Nintendo DSi Shop and the Wii™ Shop Channel at 9 a.m. Pacific time on Mondays. Users with broadband Internet access can redeem Wii Points or Nintendo DSi Points to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel. Nintendo DSi Points can be purchased in the Nintendo DSi Shop. A Nintendo Points Card™ can be purchased at retail locations. All points from one Nintendo Points Card must be redeemed in either the Nintendo DSi Shop or the Wii Shop Channel. They are not transferable and cannot be divided between the two systems.

Remember that both Wii and Nintendo DSi feature parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other features, visit Wii.com or NintendoDSi.com.

Sourece: PR Email

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias Hits WiiWare on Monday, October 19th

16th October 2009, Cambridge, UK. - Frontier Developments Ltd. (‘Frontier’) today announced that LostWinds®: Winter of the Melodias will be released on Monday 19th October 2009 by Nintendo of America on the innovative WiiWare service.

David Braben, Frontier’s Chairman and Founder, said: “The original LostWinds was embraced by the US, and the sequel has major new gameplay features and improvements across the board. After the incredible reception in Europe for Winter of the Melodias, we’re excited to see what the American reaction will be.”

The eagerly awaited follow-up to last year’s best selling, award-winning WiiWare launch title has received high praise across the board in Europe including:

IGN UK 91% “With satisfyingly challenging puzzles expertly woven between engaging platforming and a thoroughly charming narrative, Winter of the Melodias represents an essential purchase. It’s not simply the best WiiWare title on the market, but one of the best Wiiä games full stop”.

Eurogamer 90% “If this is the kind of thing WiiWare can do, let’s have some more of it, frankly.”

Vandal Online 93% “LostWinds was probably one of the most attractive and interesting games on the Wii (not only WiiWare), and Winter of Melodias completely surpasses it.”

zConnect 96% “Even if you’ve never played the first game, make sure to pick up this wondrous little gem.”

Videogamer 90% “the game’s overall aesthetic is so powerful that Winter of the Melodias might well be one of the most beautiful games ever created.”

Once again puts the power of the wind in the palm of your hand, as you experience Toku and Enril’s new adventure to save Toku’s mother, lift an ancient curse and thwart the evil Balasar. The elemental powers of Enril the Wind Spirit are used to protect and guide the young boy Toku - power his jumps and glides, suspend and smash new enemies, and explore all-new expanses of the stunningly presented, magical land of Mistralis.

Players can instantly transform Mistralis between Summer and Winter, harnessing the brilliance of nature: frozen Winter ponds and waterfalls become deep, teeming Summer pools and chambers in which to dive and unlock secrets, enemies can be frozen or doused, and the very air itself used to form snowballs or moisture-laden clouds. Other amazing new abilities include the cyclone, which can be used to transport Toku, smash powerful enemies and even drill through the rock of Mistralis’ diverse, richly interactive Chilling Peaks and Melodia City areas.

With production values to match the very best Wii disc titles, LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias will be available to download directly to the living rooms of millions of families in the Americas exclusively via Nintendo’s WiiWare service.

Price: 1000 Wii Points.

See http://lostwinds.frontier.co.uk/ for more details including latest video footage, screenshots and exclusive content.

Source: PR Email

LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias European Launch Trailer

Lost Winds Sequel Releasing on Friday in Europe

European readers have something to be excited about.  I just received word that LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias will be releasing this Friday, October 9th.  It will be the 100th game released for WiiWare in the European territories and will sell for 1,000 Wii Points.  Any of you that pick up this game will have to let us know how it is.

With the European release now so close that means that an American release can't be that far behind.  I've put in word with Frontier and when I hear back from them I'll let you know.

Update: A representative with Frontier has indeed confirmed that the North American release will be very soon, but could not confirm the date as that is set by Nintendo.  Stay tuned here to find out more about this game and head on over to the forums to speak your mind about the game

Source: PR Email

New LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias Screens

Frontier has passed along more screens from LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias. Check out the rest at our Flickr page.

Interview With David Braben (Lost Winds: Winter of the Melodias)

LostWinds was a launch title for the WiiWare service. It was met with a great reception and is still on many gamers favorite WiiWare games lists. David Braben, Founder of Frontier Developments, has joined us for a few minutes to talk about the upcoming sequel LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias. I'd like to thank David for his time and for joining us today.

First of all, what can you tell us about the story of Lost Winds: Winter of the Melodias?

I’d like to avoid spoilers, but in general:

Little time has passed since the events which unfolded between Toku, Enril, Deo and Magmok in “LostWinds”.


Notéa's sudden return from an expedition brings with it saddening news. Whilst searching for the ruins of the Melodia City Toku's mother, Magdi, has mysteriously disappeared. The only clues to her whereabouts lie within the tattered remains of her treasured journal.

As repayment for saving his life, the ancient Guardian Magmok pledges his assistance to Toku and Enril as they head up into the mountains in search of Magdi. Toku and Enril arrive at Summerfalls Village, a picturesque location that has been beset by an eternal winter. Even more worryingly, its people now live in fear of ferocious monsters that hide in the snow. Fearing the worst, and with the chilling cold taking its toll, Toku and Enril seek the help of Sonté the Spirit of Seasons. Sonté's season changing powers will provide the key to unravelling the plight of Summerfalls, and unearth an ancient curse that haunts the Melodia City.

As events continue to take unexpected turns, Toku and Enril venture onward. Wielding their new powers with care and in the face of potentially fatal dilemmas, Toku and Enril are plunged into a race against time to save not only the life of Toku's mother but also the future of Mistralis.

We think players will be much more engaged in this story and its twists and turns in a way that wasn’t possible in the first game.

One of the biggest complaints was that the original Lost Winds was too short. How has this affected the development of Winter of the Melodias and can you tell us how long you expect this game to last? We know WiiWare games have a fairly small size limit. What types of things can you tell us that you're doing to help put as much content in the games as you can with that small limit?

You have to remember we are fitting an environment-based game into a strict file-size limit, which is always a challenge. We are aware of people’s perceptions of the play time of the first game, and have been able to learn a lot from our experience of developing it, and so have been able to cram even more into the space. There are significant optimizations which have really helped us to save space, and therefore add more content, and new and different types of gameplay. I don’t have a hard figure for you, as it depends on the player, but we’re confident that Winter of the Melodias will be significantly longer than the first game for any given player.

Lost Winds was a launch title for WiiWare. What were some of the things you learned by being one of the first games on the service? How have you seen things change since that time?

Other than the things mentioned above, the big thing we have benefitted from is seeing how the pricing has settled down on the service. For the first game we were entirely blind, this time there is a history.

Toku and Enril's first adventure was pretty innovative for platformers. How has motion control changed the way you think about things when you're developing a game? What types of motion will we see in Winter?

Thanks – we’ve tried very hard to make this game as innovative as the first one; not rest on our laurels and just churn out more levels, but really take the game forward with some novel new gameplay elements, different and better environments, NPCs being more involved in the game and so on. We now have swimming, control of water – freezing, melting, making clouds, rain - there are many exciting new things you can do.

Will we still have all the powers that we had in the first game and how are you adding more without overwhelming the player with control options?

The game starts with the player having all the powers they obtained by the end of the first game, and gradually new powers are added (and hardly ever taken away ;-) ). A clear control system is one of LostWinds’ strengths, and a lot of thought and testing has gone into all the new features that have been added to make sure they all feel as intuitive as in the first game. Most of the new abilities are based on context, so need no new controls (like swimming, changing the seasons), and the main new ability that does need a control, cyclone, is used widely in many different ways so you will get used to it very quickly.

I know one of the biggest issues I had with Lost Winds was getting lost because I didn't have any sort of map to follow. Will that be added to help guide players during Toku's next adventure?

Again that’s something we are aware of from the first game. LostWinds generally for us is an explorative experience and we certainly don’t want to remove this. But yes we’ve thought very hard about how we can give more general guidance and context to the player with a high level map that doesn’t reveal too much, but avoids getting lost. We’ve used a variety of techniques and are very happy with the balance we’ve struck.

Seasons have played a part in games before and Winter of the Melodias has had a season element added. Is that going to be something that Toku or Enril will have some control over or will there be a new character introduced?

Again trying to avoid spoilers, Toku and Enril earn the help of Sonté the Spirit of Seasons, allowing them to use her amazing power to switch between Summer and Winter at will in order to help them on their journey. So the player has to use the different characteristics of each season to help them during gameplay.

What are your feelings on the sales of the first game and how do you expect this sequel to compare? Have you ever thought that LostWinds might benefit from a full retail release or has this been something that has always been thought of as a WiiWare franchise? Do you have any ideas for the franchise past this game?

Obviously we wouldn’t be doing a second WiiWare game if we didn’t think we’d be happy with the sales  There is nothing limiting LostWinds to WiiWare, and yes we have a TON of ideas going forward – its such a strong concept and world, and we have a huge enthusiasm for more.


Lastly, when can we expect to see Winter of the Melodias available for download and how many Wii Points will it cost?

Sorry, can’t reveal this yet.

I want to thank you very much for your time and we're looking forward to more information on this game as it becomes available.

It’s a pleasure, thanks for your interest!

Stay tuned to Nintendo Okie for more information on LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias when it becomes available.