Ron_DelVillano

@World "The first title to be released by Shipping Solutions is Pirate Pop Plus - developed by Dadako - on both the 3DS and Wii U."

It's actually cross-buy, so you get both versions!

@AlexOlney Same here.

You've dug your own grave, @Damo.

@King_Johobo I'll probably download the demo eventually, but I can almost guarantee that I won't enjoy it.

Thanks for the positive feedback, everyone

@Dazza I could EASILY write another article about Altered Beast and why it's so important. Here's the kicker: it has nothing to do with nostalgia!

To all of the clever readers commenting about my "Chinese history" mistake:

The Warring States period is generally used to refer to China. There was the Sengoku Period in Japan that was named similarly, but use of the term generally means you're talking about China. As mentioned in the review, there is an almost complete lack of story in the game, so beyond what was mentioned in press notes, there was little to no information available. Sure, the use of samurai probably should have tipped me off, but this would be very far from the first time that video games have incorrectly appropriated history or culture.

tl;dr - I overlooked a silly mistake. It's not as huge of a deal as you're trying to make it seem, but I changed it anyway. Sorry!

@Ryu_Niiyama If you don't care about multiplayer or 3D effects and you are a fan of the Harvest Moon series, there is a very good chance that you will enjoy this game.

@Dooyoo To be honest, I haven't played ToTT or ANB in a while, so I'm not sure which to compare it to. Does anyone else want to weigh in?

For anyone concerned about the score, keep in mind that a 7 on our site means this game is good. There were a few flaws that held it back a little, but I was very torn between rewarding it at 8.

I've played a whole lot of Harvest Moon games in my life, and this is easily one of the best.

I've played this game nearly to completion on my New 3DS XL and I haven't had a single instance of it crashing.

There is some occasional screen tearing, but no crashes and nothing game breaking.

@MysteriousBebsi Thanks! It's a cool little puzzler, if you're into that sort of thing.

@MysteriousBebsi Basically God.

Oh. Wow. This is fantastic.

@sinalefa You're probably right and that's how it should be. It's just difficult to get in the habit of adding that information to the game page when downloading a new game.

Most of us at NL work independently of each other, not all of us have the same permissions to edit pages, and we're not always at a computer to update the site when downloading games for review. It is something that should be worked on though - and I'm primarily speaking for myself here. Again, I appreciate your pointing this out. I'll definitely make a point of at least writing down the information when I go to download something new.

@sinalefa Thanks for pointing this out! I just went ahead and updated the page to reflect the file size.

There isn't really an easy way of going through and adding all of the file sizes to each individual game, but we're working on it. I personally added all of the US Wii U retail download file sizes to their respective pages over the weekend, so I can tell you for a fact that it's more of a "slow and steady" process. Patience, my friend.

@AnD4D You've now called me unprofessional twice on public forums.

This review was written as objectively as possible, pointing out what works and what does not. Then you took it upon yourself to argue that my assessment of your game is not accurate. That's all that happened.

We are not in the business of reviewing games based on their price or the potential of future updates or DLC. This review is based entirely on the game that is available right now and not its outlying factors.

This game would have scored higher had the lag not been so prevalent, but as stated in the review, "the amount here is inexcusable." The lag is not occasional. It appears in every stage and makes the gameplay frustrating and the controls inaccurate.

Just to clear up the question about the game targeting kids:

I enjoy playing this, but it's easy. The game does a fair amount of hand-holding to guide you from one goal to the next, but you still have to put in the effort. It's not insultingly easy to the point of making its players feel dumb, but it definitely wants you to succeed, and it's willing to make sure you do by providing all of the information you could possibly need very directly.

I know that's vague, but I don't want to delve too deeply into details. It's also a little difficult to explain. Let's just say that I wish I was younger so I could fully enjoy this game more than I already do.

@Joshers744 I hate to say it, but the game only supports one file.

You can change your character at startup, but it's a shared file. It's sort of like AC:NL in that you can use a different character, but you still inhabit the same town and you share progress.

This is such a great interview. One of my favorites that we've done.

Like I mention in the review, it's good casual fun. Definitely a game worth having on the console for quick pick up and play.

@Nico07 Thanks for coming back and posting. I appreciate the different perspective on this. I'm obviously not the target audience for this game, so the best I can do is articulate what it does right and what it does wrong in objective terms.

It's always interesting to see what the target audience thinks of a product though.

@XCWarrior Always. Someday very soon at that.

@nico07 I'm interested in hearing how your girls enjoy it. Would you mind posting reactions here when the game comes in?

@coldingLight Money.

@sinalefa We try to do the best we can with what we've got. I appreciate the support.

This would be so much better with Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe.

@Gioku I don't want to talk about it

I am unreasonably excited about this. I almost bought the XL cradle from Nintendo's online store a few times, so I'm definitely going to try and jump on this.

Morgan SLEEPER. Now I get it!

@OptometristLime I think the 2DS provides a good introductory model. The DSi is being phased out, so it's nice to have a choice available for people who want to continue playing new portable games from Nintendo but don't want to pay so much to play them. Honestly, if I had young kids, I'd probably get a 2DS for them. It's really sturdy and relatively inexpensive.

@KiDasharus That's a good question. That's not one of the games that I tried on it, but I'm guessing the controls are just about as hand-crippling as they've always been

@dartmonkey It's a very minimal increase, but the screens are slightly bigger than those on the original 3DS.

@OptometristLime You actually quoted me correctly the first time.

"The lack of 3D display is slightly detrimental to certain games, such as Super Mario 3D Land, that actually utilize the effect to enhance level and puzzle design, but it really won’t be missed in most titles or by most gamers."

Without 3D, some games will suffer, such as Super Mario 3D Land, but it's still a very playable game in 2D. Other games that don't take advantage of the 3DS's 3D effect beyond adding environmental depth, such as Code of Princess, won't suffer much at all.

Personally, I almost exclusively play with the 3D on. It doesn't help or even change every game that I play, but I generally like the way it looks. My point was exactly what I said. "It really won’t be missed in most titles or by most gamers." That group doesn't include me.

@tripunktoj I couldn't honestly tell you. I haven't played the 3DS version, but I'm assuming the bulk of stages are the same.

I guess justifying the second purchase is a matter of wanting to play it on your TV at home via the Wii U. Personally, I prefer portables, especially for games like this, so I would stick to the 3DS. But, again, I haven't played both versions, so I can't really speak to major differences. Sorry!

I'm in for this.

I started playing this last night just to check it out. Ended up playing for at least an hour. Great gameplay and tons of fun!

@C-Olimar That's a low blow. The Virtual Boy sold at least dozens!

@EvilLucario All of our lives are missing some James Newton.

@GazPlant What if I added "except not as good"? Does that help?

I'd love it if they made a Reggie skin as one of the costumes for Wii Fit Trainer. It would kind of make sense, and it would be extra hilarious.

@Knuckles I can't guarantee what it will be, but I was told that there will be DLC for this game. Forgot to mention that in the article. D'oh!

That's such a great quote.

@Spanish_Bread No problem and thanks for the kind words!

We do what we can

@Spanish_Bread Sorry for the delay on this. Our Deer Hunting King review should be live very soon though.

@MadAussieBloke To be fair, it's less about "bad graphics" and more about them doing absolutely nothing with the 8-bit graphics they had. I'm a huge fan of sprite-based games and 8-bit art, but this game is just ugly.

Look at the screenshots! They all look exactly the same except for the color swaps!

Thanks for the kind words! That's always appreciates.

@wasf I didn't notice any frame rate issues while I was playing, but if they do exist they are very minimal.

@DarkCoolEdge I actually prefer NAN, but it is much easier and shorter. And it's a Wii U game.

Did you mean Nano Assault for the 3DS? If you did, then I honestly couldn't tell you which I prefer because I haven't played either of those ones. Sorry!

Ant looks like he was born to wear the Luigi suit.

All right, folks. Let me clear some things up.

It's true that you're in command of a group of WWII era German soldiers in this game, and I considered inserting a long diatribe into this review discussing the merits of storytelling and how offensive this game may be to many players, but that wouldn't be fair of me. The truth is that my knowledge of history is based on what I've learned in American schools, and what I've read in English books. In a word, I recognize that my view of history is slanted. I'm assuming that what I've been taught about WWII is very different from what someone from Germany or Japan may have been taught, so I didn't think it would be fair to insert what is essentially my opinion on the past into a review of a video game that came out today and makes no claims at being factually accurate.

I can almost guarantee that no one reading this review or playing this game was alive and fighting during WWII (myself included), so who are we to claim that our views of what happened back then are the correct ones? I also chose not to include my opinions of WWII in this review out of respect for those who do have opinions that differ from mine. There is a time and place for historical discussion and argument, but this is not it.

It's also worth mentioning that (as far as I remember) they never once use the word "Nazi" in this game. If they had explicitly said that, or if they had mentioned what these particular soldiers were doing during WWII, then I may have been a bit more reluctant to stay quiet about the whole thing. Thankfully that is not the case.

As Phil implied above, my goal with this review is to talk about the game itself and explain what works and what doesn't. I'm sorry if some people are disappointed that I didn't delve more into specifics about the plot, but I think I covered it enough for players to decide whether or not it's something that they might be interested in. I see what I do as an opportunity to be as objective as possible when discussing games, and sometimes that means playing devil's advocate. I try not to take personal offense when a game's plot is something that I disagree with, and I would never score a game lower because of something like that.

I'd also like to thanks @k8sMum for cleaning this page up. It's not always easy to stay on top of these things. Keep up the good work.

I'd like to check out that new Wii Fit, but I couldn't care less about Wii Party U.

Great review, Katy! Can't wait to ruin everyone's town!

I actually went on Club Nintendo to check these out yesterday and they were sold out. I didn't realize they were limited edition. Just thought they were kind of cool.

@Windy I won't deny that it's a charming game, and I like the idea and plot, but as I said in the review, it falls short on so many fronts and it doesn't achieve what it could have.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't hate playing this one at all, but that doesn't make it a well-crafted game.