Category: Nintendo News

Don’t you just hate it when you go outside for a stroll and the heavens open, leaving you drenched? Soon you won’t have to worry about that any more as Merchoid are here to equip you with the stylish Legend of Zelda Song of Storms Umbrella.

This officially licensed brolly has a design modelled after Link’s famous Master Sword and amazingly it transforms into an umbrella at the push of a button.

Merchoid’s community manager, Jessica Adams cheerfully said:

With the Zelda Song of Storms Umbrella you can do battle with the elements, transforming your sword into an umbrella at a push of a button. In Breath of the Wild, when scaling a mountain in search of a mystical shrine, you knew you were in trouble if dark clouds start rolling in during your ascent. Worry no more!

The umbrella is deployed simply by pressing the release button located near the top of the molded handle. The waterproof canopy features a repeating pattern of triforce emblems in pale blue with alternate darker blue panels with a single larger crest. Upon closing the umbrella there is a tie tag to secure the canopy in place.

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It all looks rather lovely. If you fancy picking one of these up you can pre-order from Merchoid today for the princely sum of $34.99. They will be shipped just in time for the April showers. Now, if only we could get one of these in Breath of the Wild for those annoying moments when the heavens open, we’d be even happier…

Another week and another batch digital delights are winging their way down the pipes to the North American eShops. Whether you’re a Switch kid or an advocate for all things 3DS, this weeks menu is packed with tasty dishes for every kind of palette. We’ve got retro helicopter shooters, cutesy tennis games, Metroidvania platformers and much more.

So to ensure you know exactly what’s new hot and fresh on both platforms, we’ve collected every new game, piece of DLC, new demo and special discounts. Scroll down, pick the ones that catch your eye and watch your poor bank balance begin to tremble…

Switch eShop

Zero Gunner 2 For Nintendo Switch (Zerodiv Inc, $7.99) – Famous for its cool world and innovatively omni-directional shooting system, Zero Gunner 2, is coming back as Zero Gunner 2-. Let’s blast off every enemy’s planes from various sides of your screen. Read our review.

Tennis (D3Publisher, $7.99) – A tennis game that can be picked up and played by anyone. Enjoy the game by yourself, or play against family and friends. With 8 characters and 6 courts available, feel the excitement that tennis brings. The game can be played not only with the Pro Controller, but also by swing the Joy-Con or touch the screen.

Tachyon Project (Eclipse Games, $9.99) – Tachyon Project is an action-packed dual-stick shooter driven by a story. Through the story mode you’ll progressively unlock all the weapons, secondary weapons and perks available to configure your ship. You’ll need them to face the increasingly hard enemies you’ll find with over 30 different types. Read our review.

Super One More Jump (SMG Studio/Premo Games, $7.00) – Simple to learn one button controls. Hard to master levels. Test your muscle memory, concentration and sanity! Features: Now fully reworked & upgraded for the Nintendo Switch, including 100+ Hand crafted levels and insanely-hard challenge levels! Read our review.

STRIKERS 1945 II For Nintendo Switch (Zerodiv, $7.99) – The classic, long-run shooting game from the 90s has been perfectly remade! With its endless fun, STRIKERS 1945-2 is now available to enjoy again! Play it now!

FANTASY HERO ~unsigned legacy~ (Arc System Works, $9.99) – Save the world in “Fantasy Hero -Unsigned Legacy-“, by choosing from one of four heroes, and reclaiming what was lost to the Decoders! Set yourself on fire and charge head in and pulverize them with powerful throws or pick them off with projectiles, or send your robot in to do your bidding.

Dustoff Heli Rescue 2 (Invictus Games/Ratalaika Games, $14.99) – Jump into the hot seat of a combat helicopter and fly behind enemy lines under heavy fire as you search and rescue hostages! Play through 35 tense missions that include rescuing hostages, providing air support and more. Read our review.

CELESTE (Matt Makes Games, $19.99) – Help Madeline survive her inner demons on her journey to the top of Celeste Mountain, in this super-tight, hand-crafted platformer from the creators of multiplayer classic TowerFall.

ACA NEOGEO WORLD HEROES 2 (HAMSTER, $7.99) – Players are able to take part in epic battles between 14 historic figures such as Hanzo Hattori and Jeanne. Players can enjoy numerous battle strategies via the simple but deep game system featuring mechanics such as Throw Back and Projectile Bounce Back. Who’s the strongest in history? A new World Heroes Tournament begins now!

Arcade Archives Kid Niki Radical Ninja (HAMSTER, $7.99) – Kid Niki Radical Ninja is an action game released in 1986 by IREM. Destroy the enemies in your way and defeat the boss that appears in each stage as you head to the castle to save the captured princess. Enjoy the colourful stages and unique enemies as you battle along and aim for a high score.

Tales Of The Tiny Planet (Joindots, $19.99) – Tales of the Tiny Planet tells the story of a Planet searching through the galaxies for his lost friends. You have the ability to manipulate the world elements to guide him safely through the galaxies in this Physics-Puzzle-Adventure.

EARTH WARS (One Of Eight, $4.50) – In the year 2020 the world has become a nest for the unknown hostile organisms (E.B.E.). No current weapons appear to make any impact on the E.B.E. leaving humanity powerless, and on the brink of destruction. However, humanity has now got one last hope for survival in the development of bioarmor which fuses the EBE’s body tissue with metal…

Space Dave (Choice Provisions. $9.99) – Space Dave!, the spiritual successor to the hit game Woah Dave!, is a modern take on the fixed shooters of yesteryear. Defend your ground against the alien onslaught! Protect your terrain from their endless arsenal of weapons!

Demos

INVERSUS Deluxe – Demo Version (Hypersect, Free) – INVERSUS Deluxe is a competitive and cooperative arcade shooter with a mind-bending twist. Player movement is constrained to opposite colors of a black and white grid. My walls are your paths and your walls are my paths. Each shot flips tile colors in an attempt to block, trap and close in on the enemy. Read our review.

eShop sales

Nintendo Switch eShop Sale – Looking for something new to play? Starting at 9 a.m. PT, you can get up to 30% off select digital games for Nintendo Switch. My Nintendo members also earn Gold Points on qualifying digital purchases, so it’s a win-win. Act fast, though, as this sale only runs until Feb. 1 at 8:59 a.m. PT.

3DS eShop

Pokémon Crystal Version – Originally released for the Game Boy Color system in 2000, the Pokémon Crystal game added several new features to the Pokémon franchise. For the first time, players could choose a female or male character, and Pokémon battles featured animation. And now, this game is available in 2D via the Virtual Console service and invites you to explore the Johto region again—or for the first time. The Pokémon Crystal Version game launches on Jan. 26 at 9 a.m. PT.

ZIG ZAG GO (RCMADIAX, $1.49) – Use the touchscreen to switch directions quickly and avoid oncoming shapes. It’s like Tetris, only in 3D! Endless fun for everyone! 

Activities

Kirby My Nintendo Rewards: Let the battles begin! Kirby is back with pink ’n’ puffy My Nintendo rewards to celebrate the launch of the Kirby Battle Royale game. Visit my.nintendo.com for the latest reward information.
Nintendo 3DS HOME Menu theme: Kirby Battle Royale: May the Best Kirby Win!

Kirby February calendar: My Nintendo Presents Nindie Game Gold Point Rewards Vol. 3: Got Gold Points? Get select digital games! My Nintendo users can redeem Gold Points for some of the hottest digital indie games on Nintendo platforms between Jan. 26 and March 25. During this limited time, users can redeem Gold Points to download select Nintendo 3DS and Wii U digital games from talented independent developers. Users will receive a download code that is redeemed in Nintendo eShop. Visit https://my.nintendo.com/news to see a list of the games.

As always Nintendo of America wants you to browse the eShop and check out the official sales and deals website for discount details.

So there are today’s big (and small) hitters arriving on the Switch and 3DS eShops. Let us know which ones you’re picking up this week!

By now you have probably heard all about Nintendo Labo, if not have you been living under a cardboard box?

With each Nintendo Labo kit, inspired minds across all generations can transform modular sheets of cardboard – specially designed to interact with the Nintendo Switch console and Joy-Con controllers – into interactive creations called Toy-Con. From a piano to a motorbike, a robot and more, each Toy-Con comes to life when combined with the Nintendo Switch in different ways. As you make, you will have fun discovering how the technology works and even invent new ways to play with each Toy-Con.

Of course some folks might be a bit hesitant to drop £59.99 on a bit of cardboard… albeit sturdy well designed cardboard kits along with a companion game. So we have good news for you if you are living in the UK.

For today only (offers ends midnight Thurs 25th Jan) you can save £10 off a £50 order on Amazon UK, using the special code “BIGTHANKS“. This will not work for all products on sale at Amazon, however we have tested and you can happily redeem this code on a Nintendo Labo pre-order.

So if you wanted to try out the variety kit, rather than it costing you £59.99, you could pick it up for the more palatable price of £49.99 instead. Should you wish to order the Robot kit, that would be reduced from £69.99 to £59.99. 

Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale which helps support the site. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.

Let us know if you took advantage of this great offer with a comment below.

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• by Mitch Vogel
• 5 hours ago

Last year we learned Nintendo Switch is set to get its first MOBA in the form of Arena Of Valor, and now the Tencent-developed online battler is getting a closed European beta this month from midnight (UTC) Saturday 27th January to midnight Monday 28th January.

The 5v5 MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) – which shares at least a passing resemblance to PC-based, eSports super-hit League Of Legends – has already been out on mobile since December 2017 and now the Chinese developer is planning to test its servers and netcode on Nintendo Switch.

There’s no word on a North American closed beta just yet, but if you’re here in the EU you can join the game’s official Discord channel and share your thoughts with your fellow warriors (as well as getting updates on future events). Here’s the game’s official CGI and some gameplay footage taken from last year’s No-Pro Tournament between the UK and Germany – let us know what you think and whether you’ll be joining us for the closed beta.

One of the criticisms we’ve seen time and time again surrounding the Nintendo Labo construction toys is that you could easily just recreate it yourself for mere pennies and a spare half an hour. Well, we thought it would be interesting to see if we really could do as so many claim they can, so we set aside a morning to recreate Nintendo’s design, and we actually came up with something that looks pretty close to the original Rc car/bug/thing.

We took some liberties with the design due to our limited tools and because we didn’t have a full understanding of the design’s intricacies, but even so we were fairly pleased with how accurately we managed to reproduce what Nintendo designed. Unfortunately we were limited to only being able to vibrate the Joy-Con in the controller menu that allows you to vibrate a controller in order to find it should you have misplaced it on a hard surface.

We had to use two Switch consoles for this though as this menu only allows you to control one controller at a time, and we weren’t going to get very far without simultaneous vibration. And wowsers trousers, as the video and gif above show, it actually works! True we had to put it on a very uniform and sloped surface to get it to move, but even so, we were marginally chuffed.

It doesn’t move anywhere near as freely or smoothly as the official product however, and this can partly be put down to the limited control over the controllers’ vibration, but also simply due to our own knockoff design. What this has shown us more than anything is just how well-designed Nintendo Labo actually is, and that ‘just making your own’ is not going to prove a viable option. Having said that it will be interesting to see how well it works with the actual game this cardboard cutout is made for once it’s released.

Has this affected your view of Nintendo Labo at all? Let us know down there in the comments.

The Media Creates figures for week three of January 2018 are in, and they show another strong set of performances for Nintendo Switch in the East. Nine games in the top 20 are on Nintendo’s latest platform with Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle continuing to show cross-market appeal as it grabs the number one slot.

Splatoon 2 (3), Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (4), Super Mario Odyssey (7) and The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (10) all held strong in the top 10 when it came to Switch titles, while Pokémon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon (8) and Mario Party: The Top 100 (9) prove 3DS still has plenty of fans in Japan. The Famitsu charts also saw Mario + Rabbids on top with 14 out of 30 of the charted titles on Nintendo Switch.

Hardware wise, PS4 outperformed Switch to take the number one slot on both charts, but the Nintendo hybrid console still racked up 43,027 units sold, while the collective 3DS family sold a total of 12, 115 according to the Media Creates figures.

Nintendo Switch is still continuing to perform in Japan, and the launch of Mario + Rabbids is obviously helping a great deal. Let us know what you think of these new figures in the comments section below…

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• by Damien McFerran
• 17 hours ago