Currently at 3rd place, Wii Fit, Nintendo’s Balance Board enhanced “Workout Title”, has sold 7.9M units since its release last year. Experts seem to predict that may just take the second place spot, which is currently being held by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which has sold 8.25M units. Even with sales justifiably going down, and that Nintendo released a new Wii Fit Plus bundle, Nintendo and analysts seem to think it will take over that benchmark with ease.

What it may not even touch is the number one seller this decade. Care to guess what it is? With 11.1M units sold, we are of course talking about one of the most hotly contested games when it comes to both quality and the very definition of being a game: Wii Play

Brad’s Take: It’s almost jaw dropping how Nintendo seems to have a claim in every footnote in this generation. They’ve not only gain profits with their systems, but they’ve also gained tons of profits with their software, as evidenced by this (and not mentioned Mario Kart Wii, which is 4th place this generation).

That being said, lightning won’t strike twice for Wii Fit Plus. It will sell marginally well, but not nearly as well as the monstrous success of Wii Fit.

Share/Save

Brad’s Take: $50 isn’t much of a drop, especially for a system that was only slightly dropping off in sales. This drop could show a slight increase in sales for the holiday season, but honestly it’s not going to be that big of a deal in the end.

Share/Save

The key difference? The disc was labeled as free on the latest survey. Both Netflix and Nintendo declined to comment.

Brad’s Take: Could it actually be that Nintendo might outdo Sony in getting full streaming video on a proprietary service? Mind you, this would be an excellent addition for the Wii, but can the Wii handle full streaming video in any form with the very limited amount of space it has to cache video?

Anyone who’s tried loading a website on the Wii can attest to how slow it can be, so I don’t know if this is technically a good idea.

Share/Save

For Playstation 1 players, the 2-1/2D platformer was one that few people actually embraced. Mainly used as a stop gap for gaming studios who couldn’t make the jump to 3D right away, the 2-1/2D prespective was adopted by games like Pandemonium!, Tomba! and other games that apparently needed an exclamation point to show a sense of urgency.

Sandwiched in between all of those games (and there were a number of them) was a gem that was largely ignored but was superior to all of them - Klonoa: The Door to Phantomile.

This sickeningly adorable cat/bunny mascot thingy was released at a time when gamers got burned by shotty versions of Gex, Bubsy, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot and other PS1 titles that were responsible for milking the mascot platformer dry. Thus, a large amount of gamers ignored the game, but a few fans carved the game into a niche, sleeper hit in 1996. To this day, Klonoa for the PS1 is considered to be a rare gem of a game that is hard to find.

After that, a few Gameboy Advance games were released, followed by the sequel Klonoa 2 for the PS2. The sequel was especially breathtaking, since it melded almost perfect cel-shaded graphics with a bright and colorful palette. Sadly, even though this game was one of the first PS2 games released, it didn’t garner much sales at all. Thus, this beloved sleeper franchise was thought to be doomed to never see the light of day again.

Fast forward to now. The Wii is selling a ton of consoles and is gaining a new audience in this floundering economy. Suddenly, new types of gamers are being created as the days go by. Suddenly, mascot games (Mario, Wario, etc) are a big hit again on this little console. It was then that Namco finally decided to bring back their beloved underdog mascot in a remake of the original PS1 game simply titled Klonoa.

Speaking from a fan’s point of view, the remake is everything it needs to be: It remakes the entire game with an overhauled graphical engine and leaves the entire game intact. But this isn’t just an exact port of the original with a really nice touch job.

In fact, a lot is added in this remake. More levels, more enemies that were seen in the 2nd game and an overall control retooling was added to the remake to give it a more refined, balanced feel to the game. For fans of the first two games, Klonoa is a definite purchase to play through.

The only problem someone may have with the game is it’s length and difficulty. Klonoa is an easy game…like very simply easy. You only get one attack in the game and a jump, so there’s no complicated move system involved. No wall jumps; just jumping and grabbing. Also, Klonoa will only last a good gamer about 4 – 6 hours.

OK, so you’ve read this review and you are saying yourself, “Brad, I have never even heard of this damned game, will I enjoy it?”. To me, it’s a resounding YES.

Klonoa has some of the best 2D platforming this side of Mario. Whereas nearly every 2D franchise has reverted to 3D at some point, Klonoa started old-school in the beginning of a burgeoning 3D trend and it continues to refine that craft into an incredibly polished, lovingly crafted game.

With the exception of New Super Mario Bros on the Nintendo DS, there hasn’t been a 2D platformer this good in a long time. We live in an age of retro revivals and remakes: Klonoa racks up there with Pac-Man Championship Edition and Space Invaders Extreme as one of the best.

Worth the Price – Let it Drop – Keep it Away

Brad Wiswall
XBL: Gamakarmica
PSN: Vanillatwisted
www.twitter.com/gamakarmica

Share/Save

In this fiscal year, 26 Million Wiis were sold, which were second best to the Nintendo DS, which sold 31 Million Units. Combined software sales totaled 401 Million units, which was split nearly 50/50 between the systems.

Nintendo predicts to sell another 26 Million Units of the Wii, 30 Million Units of DS, 220 Million units of software for the Wii and 180 Million units of DS software by fiscal year end.

Brad’s Take: Just wow.

Nintendo’s projected growth over the popularity of the Wii and DS is making Nintendo tons of green.

The question is: Will it last? This really depends on what’s announced at E3 and if Wii Sports Resort can bolster more of those sales.

Share/Save

XSEED announced today that they are no longer publishing Marumasa: The Demon Blade in the United States. Maramusa: The Demon Blade is the follow up from Vanillaware, creators of the cult hit on the PS2, Odin Sphere.

Brad’s Take: So…you’ll release Little King’s Story, Arc Rise Fantasia and Flower, Sun and Rain — three games that will likely have no marketing, advertising or word of mouth.

But Vanillaware’s Maramusa, a game that a good contigency is looking forward to, you’ll just keep in Japan?

Actually, it might be a smart move on XSEED’s part, since the cost to promote a game that is only for the core gaming set may not be such a great idea to invest in. Especially since games like MadWorld and Rune Factory: Frontiers didn’t generate any sales for their companies…and they were core marketed games.

Here’s hoping that this game does see the light of day in the United States.

Here’s also hoping that this fate doesn’t also ring true for No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle which XSEED is publishing for the US for Marvelous.

[Update: 24 hours after XSEED jettisoned Maramusa, Ignition has picked up the publishing rights to the game. A release date is slated for September, 2 months before the original release date]

Share/Save