Aug. 31 to Sep. 6 Nintendo News Roundup

PAX Prime Vlog

During the week, Nintendo uploaded a new episode of Nintendo Minute where Kit and Krysta go over their experience at Pax Prime 2015, from last weekend.

You can watch the video below:

Splatoon

Splatoon’s version 2.1.0. is now live and mainly just fixes some small problems with th game.

You can find the patch details and changes below:

Updated Stages:

• Arowana Mall: Adjustments to stage layout in all modes to prevent users from swimming over some of the ledges.
• Camp Triggerfish: Adjustments to stage layout in Turf War and Splat Zones so users cannot jump directly over to the opponents’ turf.

Main Weapon Adjustments:

• All Rollers: Adjusted the movement of the camera angle when users lift up the Roller back to the movement in Ver. 1.3.0.

Sub Weapon Adjustments:

• Splash Wall: Fixed the issue in which users can sometimes inflict damage on their opponents by throwing a bomb while standing up against the opponent’s Splash Wall.

Ranked Mode Adjustments:

• Fixed the issue in which the teams’ points are erroneously considered as tied when the numbers are extremely close to one another in Tower Control.
• Changed the amount of points awarded to teams when the opposing team takes control of the tower after the player’s team has not been able to take the lead when the points are tied.
  *In Ver. 2.0.0, the leading team’s score goes down by 1 point, but this will revert back to the settings in Ver. 1.3.0 where the losing team’s score goes up by 1 point.

Other:

• Fix the issue in which the 104-2230 error occurs after downloading Ver. 2.0.0.
• Adjustments have been made to make for a more pleasant gaming experience.

A new weapon, the Mini Splatling, has also been recently added to the game.

You can find some screenshots and footage of it below:

Nintendo has also announced that Splatoon will be getting it’s next Japanese Splatfest next weekend.

The new face-off will be between the boke and tsukkomi archetypes. In Japanese comedy, “boke” is usually accepted as the “funny man” who cracks out jokes or says silly things, while the “tsukkomi” is seen as the “straight man” who corrects him or calls him to reason, creating the aforementioned comedic effect.

Japan’s 5th Splatfest will begin on Saturday, September 12, at 12 PM, and will run for a full day, like previous events.

In a final note about Splatoon that might be of interest, the game has almost reached the same amount of sales as Super Smash Bros. for Wii U during it’s 14 weeks on the market, with Splatoon sitting at approx. 610,000 units, while Smash sits at around 670,000 units.

That said, Smash Bros. does have a 3DS version. Nonetheless, Splatoon seems to be doing quite well in Japan, considering the usual disregard for the home console market existent in the region.

Super Mario Maker

The official website for Super Mario Maker is now online, you can check it out here.

Nintendo of Japan also uploaded new mechanics videos to their YouTube Channel, this time focusing on pipes and the fly swatting mini-game.

You can watch both of them below:

Nintendo of America also launched its latest promotional effort for Super Mario Maker, the “Super Creator Challenge”. The company gathered five YouTubers together and gave them the challenge of creating levels to compete for the title of Super Creator, which will be decided by fan votes.

You can watch the introduction video below, followed by each participants video.

The latest episode of Nintendo Minute also focused on Super Mario Maker, with Kit and Krysta showing off the game package, idea book and classic colors Mario amiibo.

You can view it below:

Next we have two more commercials for the game.

https://youtu.be/W9ylfWSrLHg

https://youtu.be/6Fd_l_0qRP8

Finally, you can find a video below showing off all of the costumes available to Mario in the game.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon

A new Japanese introduction trailer for Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon has recently been uploaded.

You can watch it below:

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer

Nintendo uploaded a new introduction trailer and some new commercials for Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer this past week. They also released a small video showcasing the Collector’s Album for the Animal Crossing amiibo cards.

You can watch all the videos below:

In addition to the videos, you can also find several new screenshots in the gallery below:

The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes

Nintendo recently released a new Japanese trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes. The Japanese site is also now open and can be found here.

The trailer in question can be seen below, and confirms that there are 32 stages in the game.

You can also find some new screenshots and several pieces of artwork from the game in the gallery below:

Chibi-Robo!: Zip Lash

The official Japanese Chibi-Robo!: Zip Lash website is now open and can be found here.

Thanks to it we now know the title is compatible with 57 amiibo in total, which let you earn in-game coins (except for the Chibi-Robo! one, of course).

You can also find some new clips and screenshots below:

Star Fox Zero

Nintendo has recently released another batch of screenshots from Star Fox Zero, which you can view in the gallery below:

Xenoblade Chronicles X

When it comes to Xenoblade Chronicles X, we have the first of five videos in a “Survival Guide” series dedicated to explaining the various mechanics in the game.

You can watch the first episode below:

Genei Ibun Roku #FE

At the very end of August, the Genei Ibun Roku #FE website was updated with two new staff blogs by art director Fumitaka Yano and CyDesignation’s Hideo Minaba, where both discussed the design process behind the Mirages.

You can find both translated blog posts below, thanks to the translation wizards at Nintendo Everything:

With Minaba-san and Mirages – Yano

Here is my late-summer greeting card.

I’m meeting you for the first time. I’m Fumitaka Yano, and I work as an art director at Atlus.

This time I’m going to discuss things that are related to art.

Nintendo and Atlus are developing #FE together. Also everything isn’t done in-house, as many people are cooperating on the project.

On the art side, prominent people are participating, like toi8-san with character designs and Minaba-san leading the people of CyDesignation with Mirage designs.

As toi8-san has talked about things like the character outlines in a previous blog, this time I’d like to introduce Minaba-san, who is responsible for designing Mirages that are like buddies for the main characters.

I got an order from director Hirata when creating the world of #FE, ‘I want to make a story in which the player is living in present-day Japan and meets by chance people that have completely different principles’, and I racked my brains in order to find a person who could express this kind of a world.

In the middle of that, a discussion came up how Minaba-san of CyDesignation is known for combining fantasy and science and how that would be just fitting for Mirage design.

Minaba-san is well-known from certain epic RPGs and he is a very busy person on top of that, so I was nervous whether he would accept to talk, but when I visited his office with a #FE project summary in my hands, he was interested and we gladly accepted to cooperate.

Now I’m going to tell you about an impressive episode of encountering Minaba-san.

I think it was on December 2013, when we had the first meeting with Minaba-san at Atlus.

Just when things related to this game’s world, protagonists and Mirages were explained, Minaba-san, who had been silent up to this point, suddenly took out a brush and created a character in a moment! It was that cool-looking Chrom. With speed that was like magic, he overwhelmed everyone who happened to be there. No – he wanted to show everyone!

Although image documents for creating 3D models were drawn again later, that influential silhouette and essence that was drawn during the meeting was entirely fixed at that early phase.

There are still Mirages that haven’t been shown to everyone, and all of them have a wonderful design, so please look forward to it.

Of course we at Atlus don’t lose to people who are cooperating with us when it comes to working hard every day. In order to show visually that characters are an active part of the show business, we elaborated a plan to produce many different stages and gorgeous costumes. If you’re a fan of Atlus, you might recognize some familiar outfits… (haha, please look forward to those, too)

The project is currently entering debugging, and all of the developers are going all out on the challenge every day. I hope you will like it.

Also many people have helped us, like Tomomi Ozaki and Hokekyo Tashiro, and I’d like discuss it in detail, but the developers’ turn is coming to an end and I’d like to return to the frontlines.

Thank you for reading until the end.

[On the greeting card/art:] It isn’t just about females, hello from the male side! Toma is a really cool guy! -Yano

About the design of Mirages – Minaba

Hello.

I’m [Hideo] Minaba from CyDesignation, and I was responsible of designing Mirages.

I wanted to write an article that has something to do with designing Mirages, but I pondered what I’d write and I thought to discuss ‘identity’.

As you know, Genei Ibun Roku #FE is designed as a collaboration of Fire Emblem and Atlus. I’m following that concept plan also in the Mirage design.

…But that is difficult!

I’m originally ‘Jack of all trades and master of none’ type of person, so I think that putting a thread through a needle hole like this is my strong point, but early Fire Emblem games that I respect and love have character designs that are just impossible! Straightly put, they have their unique design.

And it is wonderful how each of the series tends to reflect their own era. In addition to this, Atlus works on both Shin Megami Tensei and Persona! (It goes without saying!) … I remember starting designing while thinking it was an impossible mission.

While Mirage Chrom is named Chrom and the design represents successive lord lineage, it has sharpness and darkness that is a characteristic of Atlus games. And you can’t have him taking the spotlight from the main character, but then again you can’t lower his presence too much, either.

It is the same for Caeda. Whether a red or blue outfit would be better was already a cause of trouble. (During a play she wears red, but usually Fire Emblem series shows allies with blue costumes and enemies with red costumes in-game)

At those times I remembered the words of Takada-san from Atlus.

‘In order to pile up two cultures on top of another, we too had discussions repeatedly at first, we did trial and error over and over again, but finally it is something that has the identity of the creator.’

Please enjoy the fruits of struggling to find an identity like that.