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It’s been a week of announcements over the last seven days. We’ve got Wii bundles arriving on both sides of the Atlantic, a release date for Tales of the Abyss and the announcement of more 3DS games in a single cartridge than you can shake a real 3D stick at. So strap yourselves in, readers, and enjoy.
Tales of the Abyss gets a release date
For those of you who are in desperate need of a 3DS RPG fix, then you’re in luck– the 3DS port of Tales of the Abyss has finally received a release date.
The game will be hitting European shores on November 25th of this year, but North America will have to wait a little longer until February 14th 2012.
Originally released for PlayStation 2 in 2006, Tales of the Abyss was the second title by Team Symphonia, the developers responsible for making GameCube’s excellent Tales of Symphonia.
3DS Omnibus from Level-5
This week’s issue of Famitsu has revealed that Level-5, the developers behind Professor Layton, will be releasing a new 3DS title called Guild 01 in Japan next year. But Guild 01 isn’t just any old game– it’s four games in one cartridge, and there’s a whole lot of talent on board:
The first game, Kaihou Shojo (Liberation Girl), is a shooting game from Suda51, the team behind No More Heroes. The game’s suitably wacky story will detail a future Japan who elects a schoolgirl as their president. She’ll pilot a huge robot which players will control using the stylus.
The next game is Rental Bukiya de Omasse (I am a Rental Weapons Dealer), an RPG by Japanese comedians American Zarigani. As the aforementioned arms dealer, you’ll be inventing new weapons and then renting them out to adventurers.
The third game is called Air Porter, an air sim from Yukata “Yoot” Saito, known by most people as the man behind GameCube’s Odama. Apparently, you’ll be responsible for taking charge of an airport’s luggage system, making sure everything runs efficiently and on time.
But if airport luggage control doesn’t quite sound like your thing, then maybe Crimson Shroud, the last game in the omnibus, will. So far all that’s known about it is that it will be a fantasy RPG adventure from Yasumi Matsuno, designer of Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII and director of the Ogre Battle series.
There’s currently no word about whether this four-games-in-one title will be released outside of Japan.
Yet another new Wii bundle
On the back of last week’s news about a new “Ice White” colour for 3DS, this week Nintendo have announced that they’re releasing two new Wii bundles.
The first one has already been covered in this week’s installment of Industry Chatter, which will see North America being treated to a black New Super Mario Bros. Wii bundle featuring the newly redesigned Wii console that was announced back in August.
The second bundle however will be heading across the pond to Europe. In conjunction with the European release of Mario & Sonic at the London 2010 Olympic Games on November 18th, Nintendo have announced that they will be packaging the game with a new blue Wii bundle (also redesigned with no GameCube compatibility), along with an equally fetching blue Wii Remote Plus. Personally, I think I know which one I’d rather have (and it’s not the blue one).
Update your Pokédex 3D!
Also, don’t forget to update your Pokédex 3D application for your 3DS. This new update allows you to bypass the requirement for collecting a tonne of AR Stickers and lets you use the previously locked features straight away. So if you’ve ever bemoaned the fact that you can’t use the pause button to stop a Pokémon mid-motion, or the stopwatch button to freeze a Pokémon in place in the AR Viewer, or even the note button to hear a Pokémon’s cry, then your prayers have been answered.
There’s also a new AR Settings menu you can access inside the AR Viewer. By using the scale settings, you can switch between Model Mode, which lets you scale a Pokémon to make it easier to see, and Actual Mode, which lets you see how Pokémon look relative to each other.
The new Background Settings will also let you choose a photo from an SD Card to use as a background when you’re using Pokémon AR Markers in the AR Viewer.
All you need to do to update Pokédex 3D is simply launch the application and select the Settings option. Scroll to the bottom and tap the Update button. Remember, you’ll need an internet connection to receive it.
And that’s all the news for this week! What do you think about the avalanche of Wii bundles or any of the other news stories featured in this week’s Weekly News Roundup? Let us know in the comments!
