Mitch has been a fan of Nintendo ever since he got his start on the GBA in 2005. When he's not busy playing games or writing, you can find him down at his local MMA training facility learning how to punish the unrighteous.
Review G.G Series HERO PUZZLE (DSiWare)
A long journey
The G.G Series aims to provide players with quick arcade experiences on their DS systems at a low price point, and it experiments with a wide variety of genres to achieve this goal. Some of these genres are a better fit than others and this results in a somewhat unpredictable line of games that's a collection of highs and lows...
News Miiverse is Getting a Massive Redesign this Summer
Screenshot Albums, Play Journals, Redesigned Communities, and more!
Miiverse is Nintendo's take on implementing a social network-like platform that integrates and directly ties in with the games that people play. At the tap of a button, players can post screenshots, share thoughts and discussion, or draw pictures, and share this with the rest of the...
News 30th Anniversary Super Mario Concert Comes to Japan this September
No love for the West, Nintendo?
It seems that Nintendo has a thing for putting on excellent concerts to celebrate landmark anniversaries for its most treasured franchises. Here in the West, fans have had the privilege for the past few years of attending the Legend of Zelda Symphony of the Goddesses, a touring orchestra that covers several tracks and...
News Shovel Knight is Coming to Retail
Will include the Plague of Shadows expansion and Challenge Mode
Shovel Knight is easily one of the best Indie games to come to the eShop. Created as a love letter to fans of the 8-bit era of gaming, the action platformer has been met by nearly universal critical acclaim and it's sold almost a quarter of a million copies. Not ones to let their...
Review G.G Series WONDERLAND (DSiWare)
We're all mad here
It's not often that a new DSiWare game shows up on the eShop, as that particular line of software is on the brink of extinction. Imagine, then, the shock when the G.G Series made its return to the service when Genterprise chose to localise the remaining games in the series. G.G Series WONDERLAND marked the beginning of the...
Review G.G Series THE SPIKY BLOWFISH!! (DSiWare)
Under the sea
DSiWare is admittedly a pretty hit or miss service, with games on it typically being forgettable mini-games and otherwise unexceptional apps. The G.G series does a remarkable job of providing decent quality arcade experiences, and the next game in the long list of titles in this series is no different. G.G Series THE SPIKY...
News Shigeru Miyamoto Defends Star Fox Zero's Controls
"Compared to other games, it is a bit complex."
Though response to Star Fox Zero has been generally positive, one of the main criticisms seems to lie with how the Arwing controls. As we echoed in our first impressions of the game at E3, the dual screen, gyroscopic controls definitely have a learning curve to them and this has been a point of concern...
Talking Point Nintendo's Approach to Transforming Franchises Clashes With Fan Expectations
New ideas that haven't necessarily been welcomed
It's safe to say that Nintendo's E3 efforts have been received with mixed responses from fans. Especially given that Microsoft and Sony arguably brought the thunder this year, many expected that Nintendo would have some similarly headline grabbing announcements to match. What we received instead was...
News Animal Crossing Director Talks More About Happy Home Designer and amiibo
"To be sure, Happy Home Designer can be played without any Amiibo cards."
It's safe to say that fan reaction has been rather mixed towards the amiibo-centric focus of the two upcoming Animal Crossing games for Wii U and 3DS. While it's far too early to definitively judge the quality of these upcoming games, it's very apparent that these new games...
Review Cube Blitz (Wii U eShop)
More like a square than a cube
Every once in a while, you play one of those games where it just makes one wonder how exactly it got published in the first place. Usually, this is due to a woeful lack of polish or because some part of it could be argued as being fundamentally broken, be it due to core game mechanics or unforgivable performance...
News Keiji Inafune Would Still Be Interested in Making Mega Man Legends 3
Just when you thought you'd forgotten!
Keiji Inafune and his studio - Comcept - showed at this E3 that they've been quite busy as of late. With development of Mega Ma-, er, Mighty No. 9 wrapping up, it was revealed that the studio's now working on a brand new game called ReCore for Xbox One, with Armature studios co-developing. ReCore will be a...
News Never Alone Will Start Keeping North Americans Company on 25th June
Snow kidding!
Never Alone is a unique puzzle platformer with a rather fascinating development background. After collaborating with about forty members of a native Alaskan tribe, Upper One Games crafted a folklore inspired game about the journey of a girl and an arctic fox as they travel to find the source of an eternal blizzard. Playable in either...
News Nintendo Posts a New Fatal Frame V Trailer, Fall Release Confirmed For North America
I'm ready for my close-up
Nintendo's E3 Digital Event this year was a rather mixed affair, a rollercoaster ride of high peaks and low valleys. However you may have felt about it, there's no question that it was unsurprisingly light on third party content, with Yo-kai Watch, Skylanders Superchargers, and Hyrule Warriors Legends being the only games...
Review Cube Life: Island Survival (Wii U eShop)
A summer blockbuster?
For the past few months, multiple developers have been releasing their own clones of Minecraft in an effort to provide Nintendo gamers with the closest approximation to that source material as possible. Though the concept may seem simple initially, most developers have failed to recreate it in any meaningful way, with...
Feature Nintendo Franchises We Want to See at E3 - Kid Icarus
Time to soar again?
In the lead up to E3 we'll be doing a series of features covering game franchises that we want to make an appearance, and what we'd like to see out of a potential next entry in each series. In this entry, Nintendo Life news, reviews and features regular Mitch Vogel goes over the Kid Icarus franchise. There are minor plot spoilers...
Feature Nintendo Franchises We Want to See at E3 - Metroid
Crawling into the current generation?
In the lead up to E3 we'll be doing a series of features covering game franchises that we want to make an appearance at the show, and what we'd like to see out of a potential next entry in each series. In this entry Nintendo Life news, reviews and features regular Mitch Vogel thinks over the Metroid franchise...
News Xeodrifter Port Confirmed for Wii U eShop
Time for another run through Renegade Kid's Metroidvania
Back in early December, Renegade kid released a new bite-sized Metroidvania called Xeodrifter to generally positive feedback. We awarded it an 8/10, citing the short length and occasionally frustrating platforming as drawback, but we were overall quite pleased with it. It may have been over...
News Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Smashes Past $3.5 Million, More Stretch Goals Announced
Less than a week to go!
It's pretty safe to say that the Kickstarter for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has been a massive success. The spiritual successor to the Castlevania series will now be coming to nearly every current-gen console and the money still keeps rolling in, practically guaranteeing that this will be the gothic Metroidvania to end...
News Fan Site Randomly Generates a "Leaked" List of Nintendo's E3 Plans
Prepare yourselves for the worldwide reveal of Metroid: Badger
As previously pointed out in a talking point earlier this week, we are officially in the thick of E3 silly season. Every year, we receive "official internal documents" from various fans and readers who claim to have received such highly confidential information from their best friend's...
News There's Already a Splatoon Inspired Minecraft Mod
Where there's a will, there's a way
It seems like there's a mod for just about anything in Minecraft. The extremely open ended and modular nature of the core game leaves the door wide open for just about any type of game to be created within it, from platformers to shooters to racers. Granted, there's usually an absurd amount of complicated...
Review Mega Man Battle Network 4 Red Sun & Blue Moon (Wii U eShop / Game Boy Advance)
Nothin' but net
In every long running game series, there's always "that" one game which greatly splits the fanbase. Usually due to a major overhaul of an aspect that flies in the face of series tradition, these black sheep games typically are wrongfully seen as a bad or disappointing release simply because they did something different. Mega Man...
News Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Confirmed for Wii U
Next stretch goal will add asynchronous online multiplayer
Just earlier this week, it was revealed on the Kickstarter page for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night that a Wii U version would be made if the project reached its next stretch goal. Rather amazingly, over $250,000 has been raised over the past four days, hitting the stretch goal and...
Review Blocky Bot (Wii U eShop)
Simplicity at its best
There's something to be said about the power of simplicity. Some of the best experiences to be had in gaming are compelling not because of their depth or complexity, but because of how they offer a distilled example of an excellent gameplay concept. Nintendo has seemingly adapted this approach in many of its current generation...
Review Stone Shire (Wii U eShop)
As plain as a stone
In the absence of Minecraft on Nintendo platforms, many developers have opted to try to recapture the legendary game's magical gameplay in their own knockoff attempts. These have, by and large, fallen short of the high standard that's been set and failed to present any meaningful contributions to the popular formula. Stone Shire...
