How is the week going for everybody? I don’t know about you, but I’ve personally needed ample distraction from “reality: this week, and videogames are my usual drug of choice. Even though I have a Vita, I tend to defer to my 3DS, even though I have many more games to beat on my poor Vita. Regardless, there are always lots of games to play on Nintendo systems, even if the vast majority these days are 3rd party offerings. This week we actually have a mixed bag, with a couple new releases from the Big N, some Virtual Console goodies and even a sale or two. Let’s see what’s in store this time!
Firstly, Fire Emblem Heroes, the first mobile adventure of the series, is ready to play today. Available on the App Store and Google Play, the game is nominally free, though it also offers in-app purchases. I am most curious to see how popular Heroes turns out to be, though I’m personally far more interested in Echoes, which is right around the corner! The other big new release this week is the adorable Poochy and Yoshi’s Woolly World, only for the Nintendo 3DS. This game is a port of the Wii U game, just with some new Poochy centric features and an adorable Poochy amiibo bundled with the game. If I hadn’t already bought it on my Wii U, I would be most interested in this portable adventure. Much like Mario Maker, it’s the type of game you don’t really need to own on multiple systems, but I recommend it to anyone who is a Yoshi fan and who doesn’t own a Wii U.
As for the Virtual Console, Gradius launches this week. The classic shmup is well worth owning, since the series has been around practically forever. Speaking of ancient, Bomberman ’94 also releases this week. The game originally launched for both SNES and Genesis, and introduced many unique factors to the series, such as different Bombermen, women and children, animal mounts and multiplayer mayhem. It’s nice to see the recently ignored series get a little retro love, and it should tide me over nicely until I pick up Super Bomberman R for my shiny new Switch!
Next up is the sales. Though the standard sales this week are pretty bare bones, with only Toki Tori nicely discounted to a mere 67 cents, there is a Valentine’s Day sale happening this month (no joke). Though I’m not entirely sure what decided which games made the cut, there are 6 titles on sale – Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash (which I recommend), Paper Mario, Rhythm Heaven Megamix, Dr. Luigi, Game & Wario and Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars. Each of the games is up to 30% off, which isn’t bad.
Lastly this week, there are a couple of new releases worth a quick mention. First is the futuristic racer Lifespeed, which pits you against other ships in a fight for survival. And the other new release is Legna Tactica. This tactics game has multiple endings and lots of standard RPG conventions. Though it was previously released on mobile, it looks pretty fun on 3DS.
That’s it for this week! Stay tuned to oprainfall for more Nintendo Download news as it hits, and keep reading weekly to see my eventual descent into madness the closer we get to the Switch release!
