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New Nintendo eShop releases: Level-5 sale, Tetris Axis
There's a ton on the 3DS eShop this week, between retail re-releases (Tetris Axis, Harvest Moon: A Tale of Two Towns) and new original games. On top of that, Level-5's Guild series sale begins today, with all three of its eShop games to date discounted. It's a good chance to check out that bizarre collection before it doubles in size. Oh ... and Dress to Play: Cute Witches! is on sale, in an unrelated offer.
Tetris Axis has a lot more going on than just Tetris
No, you don't need a trailer to know how Tetris works, but you do need one to see the surprisingly numerous array of extra modes in the 3DS game, Tetris Axis. The bonus games range far beyond the normal "Tetris with some blocks already laid out," including weirdo modes like one in which you guide a single game piece through a racetrack, a game about building up a cylindrical tower, and even AR modes that put the Tetris playing field on your desk. We're sure a lot of people will balk at the idea of another retail Tetris, but this is a good effort toward filling that cartridge. Also, there's a dancing monkey.%Gallery-134631%
Professor Layton and the Last Specter includes bonus RPG, dated this October (along with Tetris: Axis for 3DS)
While maybe not technically a 3DS game, the October 17 release date for Level 5's Professor Layton and the Last Specter is of more interest to those of us at Joystiq HQ than the latter half of this post. The fourth game in the popular series, Last Specter also includes, as a North American "exclusive," the bonus Professor Layton's London Life RPG developed by Brownie Brown. We say "exclusive" because the bonus game was included on the Japanese release of Last Specter as well; it appears the exclusive is that North American players don't need to beat the game to unlock the RPG. On to the 3DS: While some of you have 20 free 3DS games to keep you company, newcomers to the system – who, yes, got in at a much-lower $170 asking price – are stuck with a still nascent library of games to choose from. With price out of the way, Nintendo's hoping to remedy this other 3DS shortcoming with a series of major fall releases ... like Tetris: Axis, which brings the always popular block-dropper to the 3DS on October 7 with new features like 8-player wireless multiplayer, augmented reality features and, of course, threedee. It joins Pokémon Rumble Blast, Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS this fall.
Tetris Axis, other 3DS titles revealed in Japanese release schedule
Last night's announcement of the 3DS' software release schedule brought a number of surprises, including the reveal of titles such as BlazBlue Continuum Shift 2, Tales of the Abyss and Raving Rabbids Travel in Time. However, hidden deeper in the folds of that manifest are a few more heretofore unannounced games -- though only one of them rings our proverbial bell: Tetris Axis, a Hudson-developed installment in the brick-laying series due out in Japan this summer. We can only imagine exactly what twists on the franchise's tried-and-true gameplay this new installment will incorporate -- considering the availability of an extra dimension, we wouldn't be surprised if players now had to stack bricks up, down, left, right, in and out.
