For those of you eagerly awaiting news about Wario Land: Shake It!, the arrival of Japan’s site for the game may sate your thirst.

Japanese Wario Land: Shake It! Site

The first button leads to an introduction to the game. Clicking down on the purple ‘next’ button guides you threw the button configurations and ends at a gameplay video.

The second button leads to some of the game’s anime prologue. There’s a video here, too.

The third button shows us some of the main characters: Wario, Captain Syrup, A Melful, Queen Melful, and the Shay King.

There are more buttons but they remain unaccessible as of now.

The game seems to be shaping up to be great!

Wario Is Shaking It!

First4Figures is bringing the look of classic Sonic back to life. Here is their newest offering, exclusively available for pre-order right now on Play-Asia, this huge 12 inch vinyl statue is extremely limited and only 3,000 will be made, I placed my order the second I layed eyes on this guy as I did not want to miss a chance to own one, which will look great right along all my other Sonic items. To go along with him I also ordered the 3 smaller 4-5 inch vinyl statues of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, which are close to releasing this month, and are also available for pre-order and will be sold for only $12.90 each. Platformer and especially Sonic fans don’t miss your chance to own these, quantities will be limited so pre-order now!

 12-inch Classic Sonic Statue: Pre-order (only 3,000 made)

4-5 inch Classic Sonic Statue: Pre-order

4-5 inch Classic Tails Statue: Pre-order

4-5 inch Classic Knuckles Statue: Pre-order

Developer/Publisher: Capcom
Year: 1990
Fun Fact: the title screen just says “Mega Man” - nothing about “Wily’s Revenge”

Whether or not you like this game is going to depend on several things. Are you a fan of the classic Mega Man series? Do you like it when an NES series goes all Game Boy on you and plays just its big brothers? Finally, do you like your games to be unapologetically tough (sometimes even cheap) ? If you answered yes to these questions, you’ll love this little adventure.

All right, then. As I’ve already suggested, this game will feel very familiar to veterans of the NES Mega Man games. Everyone looks exactly as you remembered them but in black and white. Mega Man himself controls the same exact way. The only real difference is your field of view is understandably smaller as it’s square instead of rectangular.

MMDWR features 4 robot masters from NES Mega Man and 4 from NES Mega Man 2.  HOWEVER, the levels are actually original to this game and not recycled from previous games.  These levels are just as challenging as you might expect but there aren’t very many of them.  Only the first 4 robot masters have their own levels.  The other 4 appear in a warp room after Dr. Wily’s first stage.  All in all, that means there are only 6 total levels!  So, yes, it’s a tough game but its sheer shortness limits gametime. 

The overall shortness, mediocre music and lack of new enemies puts this game fairly low on the list of mandatory classic Mega Man games.  Still, it’s not a bad game by any means and a much more successful NES-to-Game Boy attempt than many, many other games.  If you love the Blue Bomber and don’t mind games that have blind jumps that occasionally lead straight into instant-death spikes, this is the game for you.

Grade: B-
Personal conclusion: not quite what it could have been 

Platformer fans must be happy to see a rivival of a great series, and better yet it is going to retain a traditional 2D gameplay style along with hand drawn graphics. Sure the game will have plenty on remote shaking action, if that wasn’t apparent from the title already, but since it is being made exclusive to the Wii by Nintendo I have a feeling it will turn out just fine. Wario Land: Shake It! is currently set to be released September 29th in the US. For some screen shots check out the high-res gallery over at Jeux-France.com

According to the latest Nintendo Power magazine Mega Man 9 will be appearing on Nintendo Wii’s WiiWare service. The game is to maintain the traditional two-dimentional and retro graphics from the NES games (a step backwards from MM8, very unexpected!). Games of the future are moving faster and faster toward downloadable and doing away with retail packaging, when a series like Mega Man that has spawned the most games in a series (according to Guiness Records) makes a shift to Downloadable content, you know this is the future for gaming.

While a new Prince of Persia is coming to consoles following an upgraded cel shaded look and is geared more towards its action than platforming, a new Price of Persia game has been announed for DS titled Prince of Persia: The Fallen King. Ubisoft says it features unique controls as well as a new playable ally named Magus who will focus more on magic to help solve puzzles. A new side scrolling PoP game is good news, lets just hope these magic elements and new “kid-friendly” look don’t distract from the near miss jumps and difficulty this classic series is known for. Look for the release Holiday 2008.

Under the Office of Film and Literature Classification (the Australian ESRB) Capcom has registered the name ‘Mega Man 9′. Great news for fans of the classic series, as it is without an X, ZX, Battle Network, Kart Racing, Capcom has finaly decided to go back to its numeral roots. The last game in the “classic” series was Mega Man 8 (if you do not count remakes) on the PS1. While there is a good chance the game will make its way to XBLA or PSN, heres hoping we see a 2D (or atleast saide scrolling in some way) Mega Man game without any kinda twists like turning into werewolves.

Developer: Gameloft
Publisher: Ubisoft
Year: 2007
Fun fact: available as a download through Xbox Live Arcade

I have an admission: I have not played the original Prince of Persia, at least not past the first couple of levels.  I just couldn’t get past those awkward controls and unforgiving animations.  It frustrated me to no end that the Prince can’t jump in the middle of a diving roll, even though a person wouldn’t be able to in real life.  Everything seemed too exact, too picky.  Enter Prince of Persia Classic, an Xbox Live Arcade release that’s 75% oldschool and 25% new - a potential bridge title for clueless gamers like me.

Classic is based closely on the original game.  The levels designs and objectives are all the same.  There is a slight difference in the controls with some slight tweaking to make them more forgivng and a couple of minor new moves thrown in.  The graphics have been given a complete overhaul with all of the main characters - the Prince, the Princess, and Jaffar - using the character designs from the 2003 release, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, the only other Prince game that I happen to have played through.  These minor changes have a major effect.  As someone that really enjoyed Sands I felt pulled in by the familiar elements.

In spite of the changes, this is still a game that requires patience in the form of re-attempting certain sections many times over.  Just as in the orinal, you’re dealing with a 1 hour total time limit.  Don’t worry, though, after a couple of levels you’re allowed to save your progress.  In the end I had way more time than I needed, so I’d say you shouldn’t sweat the time limit.  Even if you have a terrible time on a particular level, the game allows you to revisit each level to improve your time and score. 

You may surprise yourself by beating some levels, even later ones, on your first or 2nd try.  That’s one of the strenghts of this game - there isn’t an artifical accelerating difficulty curve.  Rather, each new level is a mystery sometimes requiring exploration and logical thought and sometimes requiring a quick brawl.  There are many one-time events and surprises, very impressive for a game desgned in 1989. 

I’m not terribly experienced with Xbox 360 at th moment but so far this is the most enjoyable game I’ve played for the system (sorry, Gears of War).  Perhaps the most impressive achievement of Prince of Persia Classic is that I now have a strong desire to play through the original Prince of Persia, a game I thought I hated.

Grade: A
Personal conclusion: well worth $10 to download

Developer: KCE Japan
Publisher: Konami
Year: 2004
Fun fact: Uses the GBA Castlevania engine

Yes, you read the fun fact correctly, this game uses the engine created for Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, and yes, it does play quite a bit like them.  If you’re a fan of Konami’s long-runnin, vampire-hunting series, then you may be interested in Shaman King.

This game reminds me of the DuckTales, Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck games that Capcom made for NES using the Mega Man game engine.  In other words, Shaman King is a high quality adventure that retains enough of the solid gameplay of the inspiration-providing game while possessing enough unique qualities to prevent it from being a retread.  Shaman King utilizes a world map containing several points of interests.  Typically, when games uses world maps each point represents a level but in this game, the paths between the points represent a level.  This means that if you want to go from point A to point B you play through a level and if you want to return you play back through the same level going the other way.  This can result in some tedious backtracking, just like in the Castlevania games but it also makes some sense as that’s the way traveling works.  Thankfully, a powerup is available later in the game that lets you fly through defeated levels.

There are many abilities and power-ups to aquire throughout the game by various means - dropped by standard enemies, provided by vanquished bosses or just found sitting on the ground.  Managing the various abilities is a large part of the game’s fun.  You can set up 4 different combinations of powers that can be quickly scrolled through using the Select button.  There are also items like food and money to be located and managed.  It’s all enough to keep things interesting but not nearly as complex as some of the RPG systems found in recent Castlevania releases.

The biggest difference between Castlevania and Shaman King is the presentation - this game features cutesy, gender-indeterminate anime characters with big eyes and bizarre features.  Of course, this isn’t especially apparent in the sprites as they’re too small to have a huge amount of detail.  Also unlike your typical Castlevania quest, there is a wide variety of scenes and settings.  Some of these settings actually do represent a Belmont adventure, with haunted castles and tombstones but there are also forests, icy caverns and striking mountain scenes.  The backgrounds are usually very impressive, portraying some far-off scene like a majestic mountain range or a very large moon.  The music is also quite impressive, at times reminiscent of Final Fantasy. 

These are details that indicate KCE Japan was serious about making a good game and not just another anime licensed game.  For the most part they were successful.  The challenge associated with Castlevania games is even intact.  In spite of that, it does come across as ‘Castlevania Lite’, containing a less-than-epic quest and characters whose actions seem completely without logic to non-fans of the show (like me).  It only takes about half as much time to beat as a Castlevania game.

Fans of the show are lucky to have such a quality game associated with their license.  Platformer fans should definitely take it for a spin, as well, provided they’ve already played all the Castlevanias they can get their hands on.

Grade: B+
Personal conclusion: Love Castlevania, liked this game

Developer: Westone
Publisher: SEGA
Year: 1988
Fun Fact: originally released in the arcades and then on TG16 as Bikkuriman World

Wonder Boy in Monster Land is easily the best 1980s platformer not starring a fat, little, Italian guy.  It deserves all the praise that its sequel instead receives and then some.  If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to play a 1980s Mario game infused with a big dose of Zelda then you can stop wondering.  It’s all here, including all the jumping, swordplay, hidden items, magic spells and octopi that you can handle.

Like Super Mario Bros. and its NES sequels, WBIML must be played in one sitting, with a limited number of lives.  Actually, the number of lives is REALLY limited.  You begin the game with a single life refreshing potion and unless you can locate one of the very few others hidden throughout the game, that’s all the lives you’ll get.  To complete the game you will traverse about a dozen levels of medium length, so most of the playing time comes from finding out just how you’re supposed to make it through.  Thankfully, everything about the game encourages extended playing sessions. 

WBIML features great character designs and a very colorful presentation.  The music is worthy of special mention, featuring several hummable melodies, many unique to certain stages.  Managing your money and resources has a certain addictive quality.  It took me many attempts to make it all the way through this game.  After each failed attempt I fumed for a few moments and then jumped right back in, eager to improve on my last attempt. 

The only real drawback to the game is the final castle, an almost ridiculously labyrinthine deathtrap eager to undo all the good you’ve managed to in all the previous levels.  There are some very specific items that will help you here, requiring a trade-up system throughout the game, a concept explored in much-later Zelda titles. 

WBIML is short but will require many hours to actually complete.  The platforming action is reminiscent of Super Mario and the RPG-like item management was well ahead of its time in a game of this nature.  So do yourself a favor and give it a shot.

Grade: A
Personal Conclusion: loved it