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Harmoknight review: Out of step
I love Game Freak. The studio's rise from being Satoshi Tajiri's one-man doujin strategy guide production house to creating Pokémon, a franchise beloved the world over, is both incredible and inspiring. But Pokémon's success also came with a cost. Before addicting a generation to pocket monsters, Game Freak made games of all different genres across multiple platforms – the awesome action/puzzler Mendel Palace for the NES, Jelly Boy and its sequel on SNES, and my personal favorite, Pulseman – a Mega Drive title I rank among the best 16-bit platformers ever made. Since Pokémon took Japan by storm in 1995, however, Game Freak has devoted the vast majority of its resources to making more critters for us to catch. It's only made three non-Pokémon games since, most recently 2005's distressingly overlooked Drill Dozer on GBA. Now, 8 years after Drill Dozer, we've finally got another new and original Game Freak IP in Harmoknight. As a longtime fan of the developer – and someone very hungry for something new – I was eager to get my hands on this one. %Gallery-184909%
New Nintendo eShop releases: HarmoKnight, River King
Welcome to a special all-3DS edition of the weekly Nintendo download releases. Or, if you only have a Wii U, Wii, or DS, welcome to a post you can just skip.Game Freak's HarmoKnight debuts on the 3DS eShop. Game Freak rarely diverges from its main business, Pokémon, so this is a rare chance to see the developer's production values and expertise applied to something other than an RPG about collecting all the world's flora and fauna into sealed containers.Other releases include Game Boy Color fishing RPG Legend of the River King, and former retail exclusives Resident Evil Revelations and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Transformed.
HarmoKnight hops to Europe March 28
Cutesy 3DS rhythm platformer HarmoKnight bops its way to Europe's eShop on March 28. Nintendo confirmed the same release date for North America earlier this year, but Europe will have to wait a little longer for the demo. It's out in North America now, but won't be across the ocean until March 21.As you might gather from the above trailer, HarmoKnight comes courtesy of Pokémon dev Game Freak. As this Iwata Asks feature reveals, while Game Freak was apprehensive about putting Pokémon songs in a fantasy-themed game, they couldn't resist adding some bonus Pokémon-themed levels outside of the main story. So yes, in HarmoKnight there's a taste of a Pokémon rhythm platformer - something we've never wanted until right now.
New Mario and Donkey Kong, Dillon and more headed to 3DS eShop
Nintendo has unveiled several new games for the 3DS eShop. First up is Kerploosh, a puzzle game about ... dropping things down a well, which is set for March 7 in North America, while Europe gets it a bit earlier on February 28 - there it's called Splash and Crash for some reason.On March 11, Dillon the armadillo cowboy returns in Dillon's Rolling Western: The Last Ranger. The game expands upon the tower defense elements of the first game, adding new characters and a moving train to defend. It arrives on March 11. Next we have the rhythm platformer HarmoKnight, which will arrive on March 28, with a demo set for March 14.Nintendo also revealed Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move, which brings the puzzle series to the 3DS. A release date was not revealed for North America, while Europe got a Q2 2013 window, once more with a different name: Mario and Donkey Kong.Check out a trailer above, and find trailers for HarmoKnight and Kersploosh after the break.
Game Freak's HarmoKnight coming to 3DS in North America
Rhythm Hunter HarmoKnight, a 3DS eShop game by Pokemon developer Game Freak, was released back in September in Japan. There's been no word on an international release for the rhythm action game, however, until today's Nintendo Direct. The game, now called simply HarmoKnight, has been confirmed for a North American release, but no date was provided. In HarmoKnight, players run, jump and attack in side-scrolling levels to the beat of the background music.
