line-attack-heroes
Latest
Nintendo's 'Line Attack Heroes' moves from retail to WiiWare
At E3 2009, we played Nintendo's Line Attack Heroes, a bizarre action game, designed by Secret of Mana creator Koichi Ishii. In the game, players build a line of allies, which is used to attack enemies. While fun, the simple gameplay and single-screen level design seemed like an experience better fit for WiiWare instead of the proposed disc release. Surprise! The game has been turned into a WiiWare title, due out next Tuesday (in Japan) for just 1,000 Wii Points. The odd fighter still features cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes, including Battle Royale, Flag Battle and Tag Match. All of these multiplayer game types are demonstrated in video on Nintendo of Japan's site; though with four small armies running around the tiny rectangular arenas, it's pretty incomprehensible. Given its appearance as a retail title at E3 last year, Line Attack Heroes would seem to be a title Nintendo is interested in localizing. It'll be even easier to do so now that it's been transitioned to WiiWare.
Nintendo report hints at new Wii titles, Other M release
Nintendo is one of a few companies to release its earnings report earlier this week, and a supplemental report released today has some surprises and new information for Wii owners. Not only does it finally list a target date for Metroid: Other M (you can expect it as soon as summer of this year if all goes according to plan), but there are two brand new names in the list as well: Xenoblade and The Last Story. Xenoblade is listed for a Spring 2010 release, so we should be hearing about that one soon, and The Last Story is listed for sometime this year, with both slated for release on the Wii in Japan. There's reason to believe these are just new names, as both Monado: Beginning of the World and Cosmic Walker are missing from the report, and Monado was being developed by Monolith Soft, known most notably for another Xeno- title you may have heard of. But Monado is still listed for a release in the US this year, so who knows? Other than that, the report lists some titles we expected to see soon: A new Kirby Super Star title, Super Mario Galaxy 2, the Wii's Legend of Zelda, Golden Sun for DS, and a few other releases scheduled in 2010. Full list of Japanese Wii releases is after the break.
Hands-on: Line Attack Heroes
Nintendo's Line Attack Heroes seems like a game from another time. The self-contained, themed, square levels and simplistic bring to mind NES classics like Kickle Cubicle and Adventures of Lolo and retro arcade games like Toy Pop more than any modern game. Unlike those, however, Line Attack Heroes is all action, with no puzzles to be found, except for perhaps the puzzle of why this is so much fun.%Gallery-33430%
Nintendo conference screen mega-roundup!
Click for full-sized image Nintendo announced a lot of games last night at their Japanese conference. Many of them, like Punch-Out!! here, were brand new. Some, like Supan Smasher and Cosmic Walker, we still don't know anything about. But we've got screenshots. So many screenshots. After the break, you'll find galleries of all the new games, along with new screens of some upcoming games we've known about for a while. Of special interest to us: the previously-announced Oboro Muramasa Youtouden, coming to the US as Muramasa: The Demon Blade, because it looks super hot, Karaoke Joysound Wii, which appears to have art by Parappa creator Rodney Alan Greenblat, and Takuto of Magic (Wand of Magic), which appears to be a followup to Taito's LostMagic on the DS. %Gallery-33381%
