After Pressing Start: Animal Crossing

Who needs someone telling you what to do all the time? You can do what you want, when you want, where you want. Yeah, living on your own, being free. It feels great. You can’t help but giggle at first.

Put Mario back on the slippery slope

We recognize theme with all our senses: the sights, the sounds, the heavy rumble in our hands, the font used to display text. Forgotten in this equation are the game’s mechanics. What the buttons you press do determines how the

Leaving Japan: What strategies should Nintendo adopt for the Wii U

There is trouble brewing for the Old Gods. On April 10th, Sony has released some very interesting numbers, announcing a ¥520 billion loss and an operating loss of ¥95 billion. It is the operating loss that matters, for it relates

Role playing games without borders

A funny thing happened in Japan: the year’s biggest and brightest Japanese RPG turned into a Western RPG. The moment this crystallized for me came towards the beginning of Monolith’s Xenoblade Chroncles. The main character and his love interest Fiora

Rabid Speculation: Genetics in Pokemon Black and White 2?

We’ve got another one of those entries in a popular franchise whose announcement can be solely, “It exists, get hype!” and get away with it. At least with this one we have some images of combined Pokemon to go with our speculation apetizer. Are these direct sequels? The full titles for both games are Pokemon Black Version 2 and Pokemon White Version 2, so these could very well just be expanded variations on the games. Naturally our most interesting speculation comes from the only content we’ve now seen of the games; the images of Zekrom and Reshiram that appear to have fused with the disaster-causing Kyurem.

Let the speculation begin!

We won: On The Last Story and American release

A scant two days before its European release, us Western RPG players got the best news we could hope for: The Last Story is getting an American release. The forces of good have prevailed. We’ve now gone full circle on

After pressing start: Super Metroid and efficiency

(After Pressing Start is a new series running on Nightmare Mode every Friday by resident narrative guru Tom Auxier. It focuses on beginning, on the stories that happen directly after pressing start, and how those stories influence the arcs of

Nintendo enters the digital age with 'Nintendo Network'

Nintendo has finally decided to catch up with the competition by introducing Nintendo Network. Nintendo Network is practically everything fans have dreamed of. It allows users to set up separate accounts on the 3DS and Wii U to purchase downloadable

Link's next adventure is already in development

Surprising no one, Skyward Sword was a huge success and the next big Zelda game is already underway. The hazy confirmation comes from the Hyrule Historia book via a quote from series producer Eiji Aonuma. “The voices of those who’ve

Pokemon and samurai collide in Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition [UPDATE]

CoroCoro magazine recently teased the reveal of a brand new, “shocking” Pokemon title to be revealed in their January 2012 issue.  Turns out Jump Festa had other plans, seeing as they decided to showcase the game early.There is a chance