We Nintendo fans often pride ourselves on our vast and intimate knowledge of the company's back catalogue. Even when a piece of hardware or software isn't released in our territory, we'll either import it or sit there poring over details and videos of obscure releases we'll never get our hands on. Knowledge is power, after all, and 'Nintendo' and 'power' go hand in hand like strawberries and cream, or cheese and onion, or...
Okay, getting back to the point — Nintendoji! More casual fans, and even die-hard devotees, may never have heard of this DSiWare dungeon crawler. It was a digital-only reward for Gold and Platinum Club Nintendo members, much like the Zelda: Twilight Princess Picross game, although this one was Japan-only and therefore it will only have been played by a small fraction of fans worldwide.
Developed by Grounding and released almost exactly nine years ago on 4th April 2013, YouTube channel One Controller Port has taken a closer look at the turn-based battler in which players work through dungeons and take on enemies to improve their abilities and inventory, and ultimately find sacred relics which include items from the Mario series and other Nintendo franchises. The protagonist Kageshina Kurabe has, of course, turned up in Super Smash Bros. as a trophy and spirit, so you may have seen him there.
As you can see from the video below, if the limited availability doesn't present a large enough barrier to entry, there's also a language barrier for non-Japanese speakers. That said, we live in an age of machine translation which can help determined players get through even the most text-heavy games with a little persistence (if you can find the game, that is). Plus, the maker of the video made an item guide Google doc to aid curious players.
Risking life and limb to retrieve Mario's hat? Nah, you're alright. Still, as fun as it is to feed the mythology and have Nintendo curios 'hidden away', with the 3DS, DSi and Wii U stores disappearing soon, it's also sad to see yet another Nintendo game that's vanished.
Not that many of us knew about this one to begin with.
Let us know below if you knew about Nintendoji — or if you miraculously own the game, tell us about it!
[source youtube.com]
Comments 12
A new dual-screen game console akin to the Wii U will be necessary for (3)DS and Wii U exclusives to not remain lost to time.
This looks so interesting! I hope Nintendo can bring games like this back/to a wider audience in the future. Interest in Japanese culture has been extremely high due to the influx of anime over the last decade. A game like this could probably do pretty good with the right marketing.
The game itself looks intriguing and the art style is great! It's a shame it's getting 'locked in the vault'.
If only they would have made it so the Switch could dock wirelessly to a TV. The Wii U was just ahead of it's time.
This is why I backed up my digital file of Grill Off with Ultra Hand.
I knew about it, I wanted it, I never got enough points to get it before Club Nintendo shut down. (Same with the 3DS version of Famicom Wars) Thought, I did get the Club Nintendo picross game.
@nukatha Or an official version of the flip grip to put the Switch console in portrait mode with a touchscreen at the bottom.
I thought that Kappa looked familiar, it's the same one from the shop in Sakura Samurai that Grounding also developed!
It's worth a pick up before the 3DS eShop closes if you've not already.
I have heard of this game, from Smash. Considering my not-knowing of much more common games, this headline makes me happy.
Curious.
@Ogbert - I thought so. It and the shop keep looked familiar.
@Ogbert That's what I've been saying! That's the only thing stopping the Switch being used like how the Wii U gamepad can be used for DS virtual console games. I don't even care if they can get the Joy Cons to charge.
@nukatha i could immagine a "Switch 2" that can be used both as the actual switch and somehow in "wireless" dock mode to keep the console screen as secondary one and the TV as the primary for Wii U/3DS retrocompatibility. The actual console can't do this for a couple of technical reasons (raw power for wii u isn't there and even for 3ds it should have both on console and dock additional hardware for low latency video streaming) but i think it would be manageable in a future console. We will see but honestly i doubt it will be ever a thing, that hardware would add costs to a console and Nintendo business model isn't about costly consoles from long time now.
Funnily enough, I had heard of this game the first time just the day before this article was posted, as I was searching for DSiWare games I might have missed. Kinda scary to see such a coincidence. ^^
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