Dcubed

If you give the 3DS a little jolt while you're in a battle, you can make the health meter rock from side to side too This game is filled with loads of awesome little touches

Just got up to this part... LOL!

BTW, this port was done by M2 and not Arika like I had originally guessed. Wonder what Arika are up to ATM...

Agreed on both counts. It's so annoying that there's a huge drought of retail games up until March and everybody is just sitting on their titles to release them all in March/April!

The normal one is only £16 on Amazon... Ok that technically rounds up to £20, but that's close enough IMO!

I've got a regular edition one on pre-order. Missed out on the Ltd Edition one on Amazon sadly

But it's not actually region locked! You can use a US Gamepad on an EU machine just fine, just not while you're doing a system update!

Yeah, it would do. It's easy to forget that the Gamepad does have it's own simple CPU/GPU/Internal memory and Firmware when you consider that the Wii U console generates all the Gamepad images; but it does have all these things and that needs to all work properly when you install new firmware. It's the same reason as why you can't install Japanese firmware on an EU Wii/DSi/PS3 etc.

What a bloody day to go on So very sad

That was misreported. They're not actually region locked, it's just that you can't use a US Gamepad to do a system update on a JPN Wii U. In all other circumstances, foreign Gamepad's supposedly work just fine. Makes sense since the Gamepad has its own internal firmware. Using a US Gamepad on a JPN system during a system update would result in the US Gamepad's firmware being overwritten with the JPN Gamepad firmware (meaning that it will no longer work with US TVs with the remote function, possible incompatibility with games that store data on the Gamepad itself etc)

Like Smash Bros clones?

The new content is interspersed with the old, so you'll find new quests scattered amongst the old as early as the 1 & 2 star quests. Can't remember how many monsters are clones, but the majority of new ones come from Portable 3rd IIRC.

There's a Capcom Unity blog going over some of the localisation choices and why some monster names were changed/unchanged from the JPN version... http://www.capcom-unity.com/reno/blog/2012/12/21/monster-hunter-3-ultimate---localization-notes-part-1 Interesting stuff Otherwise... It's out in Japan and (surprise surprise!) it's supposedly the dog's bollocks. That's about it in terms of news :p

I did about a week ago. I haven't received a reply... I'm gonna wait another week before sending another message to them though, as I doubt that I'd get a response over Xmas week.

Yes, they did show a lot more of the Wii's future lineup upon its unveiling (as they did for every previous console and handheld). However, that is a deliberate decision with the Wii U. Like it or loathe it, Nintendo have embarked on a strategy of not announcing any games outside of the launch window (up until March, with the exceptions of the early announcements of SSB4 and Bayonetta 2) and also seem to be preventing 3rd parties from discussing their games as well (if out-of-nowhere unveils like F1 Racing Allstars are anything to go by...) While I think that it's a terrible strategy, the lack of currently announced future titles doesn't mean that nothing's coming. They could have a monster lineup for the 2nd half of 2013 and we'd be none the wiser.

Nah I doubt it. If he was an Easter character, people would've discovered it by now, just like how they found the special Xmas unlockable character...

They're all there, though for one of them you will need to venture elsewhere...

Not that I know of... BTW: I've just finished the second world (after spending ages running around trying to find the damn tablet pieces and doing some of world 3's levels first) OMG LOL @ the Murials in the Stadium! Mural Toad is best Toad

Yup, I've been abusing this like a Mofo. Works a treat

Yeah that's one of the big advantages in going with a HTML5 approach with the Wii U eShop. They can make layout changes like this on the fly with no need to update the console itself

They probably didn't get very far with the Wii U version. They probably toyed with the idea of having it as a Wii U title for launch, but when that proved to be unfeasible, they shifted that to the 3DS and ported MSF instead. That being said, I think a Wii U version of Pirate's Curse is inevitable at some point...

Honestly... I'm not 100% sure. The gameplay is fantastic, in that the battle system is unique and interesting, despite the complete lack of RPG elements (it's also quite hard, though perhaps not B&W2 Challenge Mode level hard), the puzzles are well designed with very little handholding, the level based structure of the game works very well (it's quite similar to Super Paper Mario's levels, but with 3D environments like PM1 & 2 and backtracking is a constant element that is done really well, with return trips always remaining interesting) and it's just all round fun to play... ... ... ... but there's almost no story whatsoever! If you enjoyed the other Paper Mario games for their stories, crazy characters and silly sidequests, you won't find that here. That's not to say that the NPCs you encounter aren't funny, because they are (in particular the Toads are a riot!), but you won't meet the likes of Grubba or Grodius and the lack of partners does make for a bit of a lonely experience all round (though Kersti is a good support character, with some good lines). Now I'd hazard a guess and say that you'd enjoy it, given how story light most of the Pokemon games are and the Sticker Museum collecting aspect may appeal to that OCD side of you that can't help but "catch em all!", but be warned that it is extremely story light and doesn't feature any new characters outside of the Mario canon like Count Bleck or the X-nauts.

I've wanted to play these 3 games for years and years. I've held out hope that they'll all get a proper re-release at some point down the line (I refuse to pay the ludicrous eBay prices for the Earthbound cartridge (especially when the other 2 games are impossible for me to play legally - and I also refuse to play a substandard version of Mother 1 or 3 through crappy emulation or an unofficial fan translation) This is the most positive sign I have ever seen about this ever happening. Don't let me down Nintendo!

That's much earlier than I had expected! Dare I hope that NOE may follow suit with a Feb/March release? (PLEASE SHIBATA!!)

To be fair, those two games kind of represent the worst case scenarios (The colour red compresses really poorly in general and S&ASRT uses some really aggressive form of anti aliasing that makes the game look very soft anyway - something that ends up looking blurry when compressed for the Gamepad) In general, I'm really impressed with the Gamepad's image quality (colour saturation aside). I'd say it's very comparable with the 3DS display (and much clearer than the 3DSXL!) in terms of picture clarity. But in regards to the physical image size, I'm still fine with the OG 3DS size really. Always thought it was a nice size in general (being the largest non DSiXL Nintendo handheld screen at the time of its release).