Retro Gaming Australia

In celebration of one full year of the Nintendo eShop, Nintendo are offering select eShop titles at a discount for a limited time.

During the European Nintendo Direct briefing, it was announced that ten games (some of which are awesome!) will be available for 20% off – five on sale this week and the remainder on sale the week after. Australians also have access to the anniversary sale; however the titles for the second week are yet to be confirmed.

A list of the sale titles and their prices has been provided below.

Week 1: 22 June – 28 June
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX – £4.30/$7.20
Let’s Golf! 3D – £4.30/$6.00
Pullblox – £4.30/$7.20
Super Mario Land – £2.90/$4.80
Zen Pinball 3D – £3.60/$6.00

Week 2: 29 June – 5 July
Dillon’s Rolling Western
Freakyforms: Your Creations, Alive!
Fun! Fun! Minigolf TOUCH!
Mighty Switch Force!
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

I think The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX, Super Mario Land and Pullblox are this week’s necessary purchases – if you haven’t snagged them already.

Source: Nintendo Life, Nintendo Nation

It’s Mega Man’s 25th anniversary in December, and although Capcom is mostly focusing on the earlier Street Fighter series anniversary, they’re not leaving their most prolific character in the dark.

The first piece of merchandise for the anniversary to be revealed is the Rockcan, a 10 disc soundtrack bringing together the original tracks from Rockman/Mega Man 1 through 10, as well as the arranged tracks from the PlayStation Rockman Complete Works re-releases in the last 90s. It’s packaged together with a small booklet in a case that’s shaped like an energy tank.

The Rockcan will be out September 19 and will set you back 14,700 yen (~$AU184). You can order it here.

Source: Rockman Corner

Back in April, Nintendo teased us with the announcement of the then undetailed anniversary collection disc for the Wii to celebrate Kirby’s 20th birthday. Nintendo has now finally revealed the contents of the newly titled Kirby: 20th Anniversary Special Collection (in Japan) in Famitsu this week.

Kirby: 20th Anniversary Special Collection will feature the first 6 Kirby titles – excluding spin-offs. Fans of the series can look forward to once again playing Kirby’s Dream Land (Game Boy, 1992), Kirby’s Adventure (Famicom/NES, 1993), Kirby’s Dream Land 2 (Game Boy, 1995), Kirby Super Star (Super Famicom/SNES, 1996 – called Kirby’s Fun Pak in Europe), Kirby’s Dream Land 3 (Super Famicom/SNES, 1997) and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Nintendo 64, 2000).

The game compilation will be accompanied by a special booklet, soundtrack CD and on disc calendar looking at the series’ history.

Kirby: 20th Anniversary Special Collection will release in Japan on July 19 for 3,800 yen.

UPDATE: The collection will be titled Kirby’s Dream Collection: Special Edition in North America and will be available in September, however there is no word on price or contents at this stage.

Source: Andriasang, IGN

As part of celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the iconic Final Fantasy series, some pretty cute merchandise is being released.

A Chocobo Plush and Chocobo and Crystal themed Mug (pictured above) will be released in August. Preorders currently open at NCSX.

A scan from next week’s issue of Jump has confirmed the rumours that Final Fantasy III is (finally) seeing a PSP release.

Final Fantasy III was originally released on the Famicom in 1990, and saw its first release outside of Japan in the form of a 2006 Nintendo DS remake which also made it’s way onto iOS and Android devices many years later.

Unlike the Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II remakes which graced the PSP, the Final Fantasy III DS remake wasn’t a mere graphical update but a complete visual overhaul featuring redesigned 3D character models. The scans (provided below) indicate that Final Fantasy III for PSP is a port of this Nintendo DS remake, and will include content from the iOS version and the option of playing with the original Famicom soundtrack.

Final Fantasy III for PSP is set for release on September 20 in Japan, and will be available in both digital and physical forms.

Source: VG24/7

Square Enix has kicked off celebrations with the opening of a Japanese Final Fantasy 25th anniversary site.

Final Fantasy first released in December 1987 in Japan on the Famicom, and has gone on to become one of the bestselling video game franchises and has generated many sequels and spin-offs covering many genres and appearing on numerous platforms.

The Final Fantasy 25th anniversary site features a discography of all 14 of the main games, a listing of all the Final Fantasy game releases and ports including spin-offs, and a section dedicated to related merchandise.

The site also contains a Creator’s Voice section, which will be regularly updated with comments, remembrances and other tidbits from those involved in creating the Final Fantasy series. First up was Yoichi Wada, Square Enix CEO, who joined Square prior to Final Fantasy IX’s release in 2000.

“We’ll take the 25th anniversary as an opportunity to begin our walk towards the next 25 years,” Wada wrote. “In order to make the fans happy, we the developer have just one promise we can make. Outside of talent and ability, we will also make sure development is handled exclusively by creators who feel love of the FF series stronger than anyone else.”

Lovely.

Source: Andriasang

In celebration of Harvest Moon’s 15 years in North America, Natsume is releasing Harvest Moon: A New Beginning for Nintendo 3DS.

North America first saw the farm simulation RPG series in June 1997 with the release of Harvest Moon for the Super Nintendo. Since then, Harvest Moon has appeared on numerous consoles and handhelds and spurred various spin-off titles such as Puzzle de Harvest Moon and the Rune Factory series.

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, titled Harvest Moon: The Land of Origin in Japan, sees players rebuild an abandoned rural town in an effort to win back its inhabitants and return the town to its former glory. This instalment in the series features more customisation than previous Harvest Moon games, with players able to determine their character’s appearance and make changes to both their farm and town at large. There are also some new farm animals and crops to tend to, and the farmer can now go on family vacation – cute!

Expect to see Harvest Moon: A New Beginning released later this year.

Japanese trailer:

August marks 25 years since the debut of Street Fighter, and to celebrate Capcom will be selling a special 25th Anniversary Collector’s Set.

Priced at $US150, the set contains Street Fighter X Tekken (with all character and swap costume DLC), Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (with all costume DLC), Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online, a documentary on the history of the series and its fans, both Street Fighter IV anime movies, the US Street Fighter animated series, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, a light up Ryu statue, an 11 CD soundtrack featuring official and fan made music from the series’ history, a replica of Ryu’s martial arts belt and a certificate of authenticity.

It’s one hell of an impressive set, but it is only for sale through the Capcom Store at this stage, and I believe they don’t ship software outside the US, so you might need a friend or a forwarding service to help out.

Mortal Kombat celebrates its 20th anniversary this August, and in preparation for the event, Gamespot recorded a series of interviews with the game’s developers – Ed Boon, John Tobias, John Vogel and Dan Forden – and three of the original cast – Daniel Pesina, Carlos Pesina and Ho Sung Pak.

The video discusses the origins of the game (including the well publicised Jean-Claude Van Damme connection), the challenges they faced in capturing the fighters on video and the game’s first location test.

Today, May 17, marks the 10 year anniversary of the release of the Nintendo GameCube in Australia.

The Australian launch took place some eight months after the Japanese launch, much to the chagrin of local Nintendo fans. In fact, Nintendo Australia didn’t even have a planned launch date until some three months after the American launch.

The successor to the Nintendo 64, the GameCube had strong pre-release buzz in Australia, helped along by a nice pre-launch price drop from $AU399 to $329. It had a varied launch lineup, although it was the first Nintendo home console to launch without a Mario game. (continue reading…)