61 Frames Per Second : captain rainbow

WiiWare: Nintendo, Babe, It Just Isn’t Working Out

John Constantine — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Nintendo has been on my mind over the past few days. Not as a corporation in the business of making video games. More like a singular anthropomorphic entity. This is how Nintendo exists in my head these days, so when I see them making business decisions, my psychosis interprets those decisions as being made by an individual. You know, as an affront against me personally. For example, I look at the abject madness that is Skip’s Captain Rainbow and then I remember that it will never come out in the US. Sure, WarioWare comes out, but do we get Mother 3? Tingle’s Rosy Rupee Land, a game that’s actually available in English? Nintendo doesn’t bring their weird games here, so Captain Rainbow, with its legion of obscure, z-list Nintendo characters, will flounder away on an island nation half the world away. Nintendo does things like this to spite me. Like my first experiences with WiiWare this past weekend.

On Saturday morning, I decided that, given my overwhelmingly positive experiences with original content on PSN and Xbox Live Arcade in recent weeks, it was time to give WiiWare’s offerings a shot. I loaded twenty dollars worth of Wii points onto my account and went to download Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People and David Braben’s Lost Winds. I was then promptly informed that there was not enough space on my Wii to download either title. My Wii does not get frequent use, so this was the first time I had to “clean out my fridge”. At first, I figured I would back up my Virtual Console titles to the SD Card I purchased two years back, but after fifteen minutes and only backing up five VC classics, it hit me that backing up everything was going to take up most of the day. I had to delete most everything to make space for just two WiiWare titles. It took over half an hour before I could even play them. Strong Bad and Lost Winds turned out to be okay, fun but fairly insubstantial after spending five hours total to complete both. The whole experience was, for lack of a better word, annoying.

When things like this happen between Nintendo I start to feel like the Big N is an ex-girlfriend with whom I had a messy break up but am now trying to be friends with. We're polite to one another and able to be at social functions at the same time but there's a smoldering bubble of bitterness under the pleasant small talk. Sometimes that bitterness boils to the surface.

“Well, if you would broaden your horizons we'd still be together! Try Wii Play or try not downloading so many things!”

"Well, maybe if you didn't start making such subpar software, maybe if you actually released your more interesting games in a language I can understand, and actually kept your word sometimes, I wouldn't have had to leave! Why don’t you support USB hard drives!"

“I don’t even know why I bother talking to you!”

“Go make another crappy Zelda or some Brain Training crap!”

*Door slams*

Okay, well, maybe that got a little weird. WiiWare is a chore to use and needs better games. Probably could have just said that.

Related articles:

Where is Wii's Disaster: Day of Crisis?
Trailer Review: Captain Rainbow
Many Colors in the Hardcore Rainbow
This Week in Shrieking Annoyances
Quickies: Homestar Ruiner
Whatcha Playing: Lost Winds

Many Colors in the Hardcore Rainbow

Derrick Sanskrit — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:00:00 GMT

The hardcore Nintendo fanbase have made their voices heard. They're sick of games with Miis and annoying rabbits. They want games with the characters from all the old-school games they know and love. They want fan service. Just look at Super Smash Bros Brawl, the definitive hardcore Wii game and a game that is 100% fan service. Sega may soon be delivering with MadWorld and House of the Dead: Overkill, but there's a lot of talk about what Nintendo's next "hardcore" game for the Wii will be. Kid Icarus? Disaster: Day of Crisis? Pikmin?

What if I told you there was already a game coming out for the Wii which combined fan favorite characters from Super Mario Bros., the Legend of Zelda, Punch-Out!, and more along with the side-scrolling fighting of Viewtiful Joe and the community activity of Animal Crossing? Sounds like exactly the kind of game we've been waiting for, right? Now what if I told you this game was coming out in Japan this very week? You'd probably ask when its coming out in the rest of the world, wouldn't you? Well, we don't know yet because Nintendo has yet to make any announcements regarding localization of Captain Rainbow. That's right, I'm talking about Captain mother-flippin' Rainbow here.

See that blue dude up there with the snarly teeth and tiny red boots, gloves, speedo and wings? You may remember him as Devil from Devil's World, a Japan-only NES game who also recently appeared as a particularly treacherous assist trophy in the aforementioned Brawl. In Captain Rainbow, you have to help him become the number one villain in the underworld. How badass is that? Remember Little Mac from Punch-Out!? He also showed up in Brawl as an assist trophy. Well he ain't so little anymore and you have to help him get back in shape to become world champion once more. Lip from Panel de Pon (Tetris Attack/Puzzle League) also needs your help, and her weapon of choice – Lip's Stick – has long been a staple of the Smash Bros. inventory.

Perhaps the most surprising, and welcome, comeback for this game is Crazy Tracy from The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. That's her to the left, decidedly more... um... mature than the original Game Boy sprite made her seem. Remember her? Enter her house and she offers you a "special treatment" that will restore all of your hearts? Yeah, even when I was prepubescent I picked up on that subtext.Well, now it seems her greatest wish is to enslave all the men in the world. Hmm... knowing the way Nintendo games work, if she keeps on looking like that and cooking up more of that sweet medicine, I'd say her goal is well within her own reach, even without Captain Rainbow's help.

Other Nintendo b-listers making appearances include soldiers from Famicom/Advance Wars, Birdo from Super Mario Bros. 2, Tao the dog from skip ltd.'s own Chibi-Robo and others. North American gamers may not be familiar with all of the fan-service characters, but that didn't stop us from clinging to Marth and Roy in Super Smash Bros. Melee, eventually leading to the localization of the Fire Emblem games.

Despite its bright colors and playful presentation, Captain Rainbow promises enough superhero action and suggestive content to delight the longtime Nintendo audience who worries the Wii is a system for grandmas and babies. Moreso than Mother 3, this is a game that I think Nintendo needs to localize for the rest of us.

Related articles:

Trailer Review: House of the Dead - Overkill
Where is Wii's Disaster: Day of Crisis?
Trailer Review: Captain Rainbow
Independent at a Price: Sega and Platinum Games

Trailer Review - Captain Rainbow

Derrick Sanskrit — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:00:00 GMT

skip LTD. are not a second-party Nintendo developer, though a look at their game catalogue might have you believe otherwise. They are responsible for six of the seven delightfully simple BitGeneration games for the GameBoy Advance as well as the colorful and charming Chibi-Robo on Gamecube and its DS sequel Park Patrol. Vibrant, energetic, genre-defying, critically-acclaimed all-ages games exclusive to Nintendo platforms, if you haven't played any of these titles (and odds are 99% of gamers haven't) you're missing out on some truly special experiences.

Now skip are turning their attention to the Wii, and they've brought along a yoyo-slinging Captain Planet wannabe.

Without understanding a word of this trailer outside of the game's title, this new superhero seems to be a logical progression from Chibi-Robo's Drake Redcrest and Park Patrol's General Greenthumb. Its a pleasant surprise, though, that the game's graphics look to be a delicious mix of Chibi-Robo and Okami. Even more surprising...holy crap, is that Birdo?! That's totally Birdo! Sweet!

No idea what is being said in this Japanese trailer, but really, who cares? There's a boy who turns into a rainbow-clad superhero with a yoyo. There's a dishpan gag in case you forgot this game is made by the same crew that made Chibi-Robo (because the TV and surrounding area at the beginning of the video don't look exactly like the one in the lovable Gamecube gem). There's some pretty particle effects. There's Birdo with an appropriately confused sounding male voice. And according to 1up, there's the promise of more third-string Nintendo characters! If this game gets localized for North America, I've already seen enough to make it a guaranteed first-day purchase for me.

Thanks to WiiFolder for posting the sweet video!

Previous trailer reviews:
Mega Man 9 & Chrono Trigger DS
Densetu No Stafi 5
Sonic Unleashed