VGM of the Week #68

Can I just say how much I love Fire Emblem: Awakening?

It's fucking amazing.

Fucking.

Amazing.



Also, There is an Adamant Ditto Review of Fire Emblem all but posted on the blog, but for those of you that do still read the blog, know that we've got some renovations planned and that review is being held onto until that's done first. As far as I'm aware.

Extra Joy #7 - Wii U Nintendo Direct

Yesterday, Nintendo announced a whole ton of stuff at their latest Nintendo Direct conference all about the Wii U. Things we haven't heard of before, things we wanted and things we didn't know we wanted until now. Bombs were dropped and we came from the battlefield cover in ash. So naturally, we decided to talk about it in podcast form. It might be shorter than our average Extra Joys but hey, if you want to know what we thought of all the news, it might be worth a listen.

You can check out the downloadable MP3 version here.

E3: Fire Emblem Awakening announced via Twitter

Of all places... Yes, Twitter. It's not like they did this whole showcase specifically for most of the 3DS games they got in the pipeline just minutes before this official statement. Nope. Never happened.

https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/210570017471864833

We are excited to confirm a NEW game announcement coming to the US: the new 3DS Fire Emblem! More info to come.

It's not like Fire Emblem is a big franchise to Nintendo or anything. Nope. Nobody hardcore gives a damn about this relatively niche title that sold poorly in Japan.

NOPE.

It should also be noted that the news didn't even originally come from Nintendo. Rich from IGN tweeted the following after the conference;

Reggie just confirmed to us that Fire Emblem Awakening is coming to the United States.

It wasn't until after Rich tweeted his tweet that Nintendo decided to confirm the rumors. So yes, Nintendo wasn't even the first to break this news that had the potential to actually make their conference interesting.

Good on ya, Nintendo.

Nintendo Direct 2012.2.22 recap

If you missed Nintendo Direct when it was live, you can still check it out here.

For those of you who don't have time to watch a 12 minute video, here's a basic rundown of what Reggie had to show for us. No bombshells, of course. They save those for E3 obviously.

Nintendo's first Paid DLC is for 3DS Fire Emblem

 
It may come to you as a surprise but you heard right. Nintendo's doing paid DLC with microtransactions for the 3DS. They're aiming to start off this program in March 2012 with the 3DS Fire Emblem.

I was under the impression that Nintendo wasn't interested in doing paid DLC. The title on this article is very misleading. In fact, in the original interview they credited as a source, Reggie pretty much says that they're bring DLC to the 3DS and they were going to do it right.

I've had this conversation with a number of our key developers, and their mentality is, "Reggie, when we sell a game, we want the consumer to feel that they've had a complete experience." Now, in addition, if we want to make other things available, great, and we'll look at that.
But what we're unwilling to do is sell a piece of a game upfront and, if you will, force a consumer to buy more later. That's what they don't want to do, and I completely agree. I think the consumer wants to get, for their money, a complete experience, and then we have opportunities to provide more on top of that.

Other companies may cheat you with "DLC" that's data already on the disc. Nintendo understands that this is a problem and have said it themselves that they're not going to do that. I'm being biased but I'll take their word for it. Paid DLC can be a good thing. I honestly wouldn't mind paying a couple bucks for level pack in Super Mario 3D Land. So, I'm very interested in seeing what exactly they plan on putting out with Fire Emblem. For all we know, it could just be overpowered units you could recruit with real money. Here's hoping it's more like a side campaign with several maps and new units. An optional story arc, if you will. That would be neat.