Nintendo News Week

Welcome back to my latest look back at the week in Japan. In total four new games were announced including a new Harvest Moon title, a free-to-play first-party amiibo game, two 3DS eShop titles, two Wii U Virtual Console games, plus a Hyrule Warriors Legends demo, Mother wallpaper, a date for Yokai Sangokushi and more! Remember to check out Japanese Nintendo for daily news updates, Japanese game reviews and scanned content from Kadokawa Corporation.

● A brand new Harvest Moon game was announced for 3DS for release in early Summer. Graced with a million names you can take your pick from the following: Bokujou Monogatari: Mitsu no Sato no Taisetsu na Tomodachi, Harvest Moon: Precious Friends From Three Villages or Story of Seasons: Cherished Friends of Three Towns. 2016 marks the twentieth anniversary of the Harvest Moon series.

● A Zelda Musou: Hyrule All-Stars (Hyrule Warriors legends) demo was available in CoroCoro magazine and is 1,006 blocks with thirty plays. The framerate apparently runs so much better on new 3DS than the original models. Looks like the demo will be coming next week also to the eShop but for now check out the QR code here.

● Nintendo are delivering a new amiibo game Mini Mario and Friends amiibo Challenge free of charge if you buy an amiibo after 28 January and input the code (found in the package) onto your console (the same code can be used on both 3DS and Wii U). Mini Mario and Friends amiibo Challenge will also be distributed free of charge onto the eShop at an unspecified date.

● Culture Brain announced Oshigoto Theme Park 2 Light for the 3DS eShop which will release soon for ¥800. The non-light version saw a retail release in 2012 which itself was a sequel to the 2011 DS game Nakayoshi Quiz no Oshigo to Theme Park. In-case you’re wondering it is a ‘work experience’ game although the Girl’s RPG: Cinderelife hosting vacancies have already been filled.

● Abylight Studio’s Musicverse Virtual Keyboard is coming to the Japanese 3DS eShop in early February courtesy of Rainy Frog and it will be priced at ¥800. The Western version should be available soon too (as Musicverse Electronic Keyboard).

● Next week’s Virtual Console games on Wii U will be the N64 classic 1080° Snowboarding (¥1,024) and Kaze no Klonoa G2: Dream Champ Tournament (¥702) from Game Boy Advance. Don’t expect anymore 3DS Virtual Console announcements (other than Pocket Monsters) anytime soon.

● In other game news: Yokai Sangokushi has been dated for 2 April and will be priced at ¥4,968, Dragon Quest XI will be available before 27 May 2017 and a Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 3 demo will be available early March (probably March 3rd).

● And finally: five panels of Mario Kart 8 badges and five panels of Pokémon badges have been added to Nintendo Badge Arcade, fortune cards and Mother wallpaper have been added to Nintendo’s official LINE account and nineteen new themes were added to the Theme Shop including Lovely Muco, 7th Dragon III, Cardfight!! plus several vocaloid tracks.