Mario And Wario: An Unlikely Adventure
Mario And Wario: An Unlikely Adventure is a sidescrolling 2-D platformer for the Nintendo Connect, starring Mario and his rival Wario. The basic level structure mirrors that of a typical Mario game, with seven worlds broken up into a collection of levels, while the gameplay combines the traditional running and jumping of Mario games with the unique powerups and coin collecting of the Warioland series. There are Fire Flowers, Ice Flowers, and Super Stars, but also the Bull Helmet, Jet Helmet, and the Garlic Pot. You can play as either Mario or Wario, and levels are designed in such a way that both of them can access any part of the level, though some parts are trickier to access for one than the other. Each also has a unique ability: Mario can spin jump, while Wario is able to fart, blasting himself into the air or taking out nearby enemies. Coins can be used for a variety of different things, including buying lives/power-ups, buying collectible items, or even accessing secret levels, while enemies include both Mario and Wario's respective rogues' galleries, along with some new enemies unique to this game. The game's plot sees Captain Syrup kidnapping Princess Peach, hoping to ransom her off, which upsets Wario since that was his original plan. However, the two are soon attacked by a new enemy, the Flying Birdbrain, who captures both Peach and Syrup, locking them up in his flying ghost ship, which forces Mario and Wario to team up and come to the rescue, pursuing the ship across seven islands, each with its own set of tricks and challenges. These include:
Palm Tree Island: A beach themed area, and the basic starting area of the game, full of beach themed levels and some unique challenges.
Cocoa Waterfall Island: An island based around sweets and candy, with a gigantic chocolate waterfall in the middle.
Scrambled Egg Island: An island themed around breakfast foods, with "lava" in the form of runny egg residue everywhere.
Dust Bunny Island: An island covered by a gigantic bed, on which a massive giant sleeps. Most of this world takes place under the bed.
Earthquake Island: An island regularly split by powerful earthquakes, with a huge volcano in the center.
Golden Casino Island: A casino themed island rich with golden coins.
Pelican Port Island: A rowdy port city, which is run by the Flying Birdbrain and is his center of operations, with his ship docked in the middle. It's full of rowdy pirates.
Each island has its own boss enemy waiting at the end, and these bosses are unique because Mario and Wario must team up to take them down, with the player required to switch between them at certain parts of the fight. The final boss, the Flying Birdbrain himself, has four different phases each, where the player must switch to damage the Birdbrain again. The game is full of brief animated cutscenes, in which Mario and Wario mostly bicker with each other, though some of these cutscenes focus on Syrup and Peach, who equally dislike each other. In the end though, after Mario and Wario defeat the Flying Birdbrain, they end up bickering over who gets to save the ladies, while Syrup ends up taking all the money from Birdbrain's ship and leaving. Peach actually leaves with her, annoyed by Mario and Wario's bickering with each other, and it's implied that the two go on vacation together while Wario seems upset at losing his money and Mario is just happy that Peach is all right.
Mario And Wario: An Unlikely Adventure is released on August 26, 2016, the same day as equally huge Nintendo first party game The Legend Of Zelda: The Dungeon Fairy. The game is received well, averaging around an 8.5/10 with critics (a good game overall, but compared to other recent 2-D Mario games, it's a bit low). Sales are significantly better than those of The Dungeon Fairy, with first week sales coming in around three times better. It's a more accessible game appealing to a wider demographic than the Zelda title, though both are big successes for the Connect, and coupled with the release of a new Connect model for an MSRP of $129.99, drives sales of the device significantly throughout the rest of the year.
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The Legend Of Zelda: The Dungeon Fairy
The Legend Of Zelda: The Dungeon Fairy is a new 3-D Zelda adventure for the Nintendo Connect, and a spiritual successor to Tower Of Sentinels (different timeline, but same basic gameplay and slightly enhanced graphics). Developed at the same time as the 2015 Reality Zelda remake, it was made by a different development studio, but had a few of the same personnel in supervisory roles, and a few of the quality of life improvements from that title are present in this game. In it, Link must battle a dark sorcerer known as the Collector, who has kidnapped the seven Faeresses of the world and has imprisoned them in dungeons built on leylines, in an effort to channel their power into a machine that will allow him to recreate the Triforce (which was separated by the will of the Goddesses before the events of this game took place). Link is tasked by Zelda (who is best friends with one of the Faeresses, a girl named Norene who only recently discovered that she was a fairy when her magical powers began to manifest) to rescue the fairies, while she goes to protect the separated Triforce shards. Link remains in communication with Zelda at several points in the game, where she updates him on her own quest while giving him advice about the future. As for the game's progression, it's similar to many other Zelda titles in that Link must roam the world in search of these seven dungeons, each of which contain both a special item and the Dungeon Fairy/Faeress herself. The item (including the Bow, the Hookshot, and other important tools) is kept by Link after the end of the dungeon, but the Faeress is only present inside the dungeon itself, and once found, grants him a unique and special power that not only helps him navigate the rest of the dungeon, but also defeat the boss, and this power leaves Link when he exits the dungeon, as the Faeress returns home. These powers range from the ability to fire a magical projectile beam, to temporary invincibility, to free flight, and allow for some unique challenges in the final rooms of certain dungeons. Each Faeress has her own distinct personality, and they also range in age: one of them is a young stoic girl, one of them is a spritely, sagely old woman, while most are either teenagers or younger women (Norene, for example, is a teenager the same age as Link and Zelda). As for the world itself, it's best compared to the world of games such as Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time, relatively free roaming, with gated off areas opened by story events or the acquisition of certain items. Once a Faeress is freed, her territory on the map changes, to allow for new challenges, new events, and new items to be gained.
The game's seven dungeons, like the dungeons in any Zelda title, encompass a range of environments and motifs, with the first dungeon being a forested dungeon and featuring a fairly typical Faeress (a young woman with a somewhat flirty personality), who gives Link the ability to charm enemies (which he must then use to solve puzzles in the dungeon, and during the boss fight, he can turn the boss' minions against him). Other dungeons include a fire-based dungeon, a purple poison based dungeon, and a woodpunk based dungeon, with steampunk-like technology but all based on wood, and a Faeress who doubles as an inventor. The game has an interesting selection of bosses as well, including a giant monkey lord (that's the first dungeon's boss, and he summons smaller monkeys to attack Link), a soaring bird of prey, and a boss based around mirrors, which can be killed by reflecting Link's Faeress-granted projectile beam around the room back at him. There's a boss that floods the entire room with lava, creating a situation that would be normally inescapable (but in this dungeon Link has the invincibility powerup, and can survive this). The final dungeon sees Link finally going to rescue Norene, and this dungeon is one of the series' more intriguing designs: a quiet temple-like dungeon with a blue motif and enemies that rely on sound to target Link. Called the Sanctum of Silence, this dungeon features sound themed puzzles, and Norene's unique ability grants Link the temporary use of her voice, which he uses for a huge variety of things in the second half of the dungeon. This dungeon is absolutely massive, featuring huge rooms and eight stories, several minibosses and some brainbending puzzles, and the boss is a humanoid creature with a bird motif and a blue cloak that somewhat resembles the Thunderbird from Zelda II, and must be taken down by using Norene's voice to disrupt its attacks and then shatter the various walls around the room. Defeating this boss restores the leyline and ends the Collector's threat to restore the Triforce, but he manages to capture Zelda, and is eventually revealed as Ganon, who was previously defeated (which is how the Triforce was shattered) before the events of this game, only for his spirit to rebuild itself from his own willpower and sheer hatred. He implores the seven Faeresses to come to the Grounds of the Goddess, and it's revealed that the leylines are tied to Link's Triforce of Courage, which is why the Faeresses were able to grant Link their power. The Grounds of the Goddess are sort of a dungeon in which Link must use all of the Faeresses' powers to advance, and when he reaches Ganon, the Faeresses restore Link's Triforce of Courage by merging into him, granting him the Faeress Sword and all of their unique powers for a final showdown with Ganon, in which Link and Ganon can both fly through the air and attack each other with beams, very Dragonball Z-esque, though not quite as fast paced. Link must use the Faeresses' powers to weaken Ganon before striking him down with the Faeress Sword. Ganon has only one form, a sort of humanoid beast form, but the fight has three phases in all. Ganon's defeat ends the threat to the world once and for all and frees Zelda. The Faeresses phase out of Link and each go their separate ways, with Zelda and Norene saying a tearful goodbye to each other before Norene has to return to the Fairy Realm to protect the world from afar.
The Dungeon Fairy scores slightly stronger reviews than Tower Of The Sentinels, and is overall one of the best received Connect titles of the year, though as far as Zelda games go, it's pretty average in terms of reception. It's a fun and epic adventure that really pushes the power of the Connect close to its limits, and is one of the most action packed Zelda games ever despite being a handheld game. It's released on August 26, 2016, and achieves strong sales, though it's soundly beaten by Mario and Wario in all territories. Mostly, it reinforces that the Connect is still going strong and that Zelda is still one of Nintendo's most valuable franchises, and neither of those things are going to be proven wrong any time soon.
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New Connect Lite Is Sleeker, Smaller, Cheaper, But Not A Whole Lot Better
The Connect Lite, which is being released on August 26th alongside new entries in the Mario and Zelda series, is the new form factor for the Nintendo Connect, and is Nintendo's way of reducing production costs while incorporating five years worth of technological improvements into their flagship handheld. The system itself is about 10 percent smaller and 25 percent lighter than the original Connect, while the screen remains the same size, owing to improvements in the materials and chips used in the design. The battery, despite being significantly less bulkier, will help the Connect run an hour or two longer, even with the most graphically intensive titles, so you'll be able to play it on the go even longer than before. All of this comes in a package that Nintendo will sell for $129.99, or $149.99 if you purchase the Mario or Zelda bundles that include the new games, Mario And Wario: An Unlikely Adventure and The Legend Of Zelda: The Dungeon Fairy respectively. The price on the old Connect model will also drop 20 dollars to $129.99, though Nintendo says it's planning to phase that model out in favor of the new one. So, has a whole lot changed? Not really. It's a bit easier to carry the Connect Lite around in your pocket, and the extra battery life is nice, but there's certainly no reason to swap out your old Connect for this new model, especially since it's the exact same machine under the hood, with no enhancements to memory or graphical power. It's a new form factor to allow Nintendo to save some money on parts, and that's pretty much it. That said, the price drop will definitely help Nintendo in its ongoing battle with Apple's Gemini. The Gemini remains close behind Nintendo in terms of current sales, though it's no longer narrowing the gap nearly as fast as it once was, and Nintendo has sold more Connect units so far this year, after briefly falling behind the Gemini last Christmas. The release of Pokemon Amethyst and Topaz should give Nintendo's handheld a nice cushion that will prevent them from losing a second holiday in a row, and the Connect's overall sales figures are still on pace to make it the best selling Nintendo handheld ever, surpassing the Supernova.
-from an article on Kotaku, posted on August 20, 2016
Mario And Wario: An Unlikely Adventure is a sidescrolling 2-D platformer for the Nintendo Connect, starring Mario and his rival Wario. The basic level structure mirrors that of a typical Mario game, with seven worlds broken up into a collection of levels, while the gameplay combines the traditional running and jumping of Mario games with the unique powerups and coin collecting of the Warioland series. There are Fire Flowers, Ice Flowers, and Super Stars, but also the Bull Helmet, Jet Helmet, and the Garlic Pot. You can play as either Mario or Wario, and levels are designed in such a way that both of them can access any part of the level, though some parts are trickier to access for one than the other. Each also has a unique ability: Mario can spin jump, while Wario is able to fart, blasting himself into the air or taking out nearby enemies. Coins can be used for a variety of different things, including buying lives/power-ups, buying collectible items, or even accessing secret levels, while enemies include both Mario and Wario's respective rogues' galleries, along with some new enemies unique to this game. The game's plot sees Captain Syrup kidnapping Princess Peach, hoping to ransom her off, which upsets Wario since that was his original plan. However, the two are soon attacked by a new enemy, the Flying Birdbrain, who captures both Peach and Syrup, locking them up in his flying ghost ship, which forces Mario and Wario to team up and come to the rescue, pursuing the ship across seven islands, each with its own set of tricks and challenges. These include:
Palm Tree Island: A beach themed area, and the basic starting area of the game, full of beach themed levels and some unique challenges.
Cocoa Waterfall Island: An island based around sweets and candy, with a gigantic chocolate waterfall in the middle.
Scrambled Egg Island: An island themed around breakfast foods, with "lava" in the form of runny egg residue everywhere.
Dust Bunny Island: An island covered by a gigantic bed, on which a massive giant sleeps. Most of this world takes place under the bed.
Earthquake Island: An island regularly split by powerful earthquakes, with a huge volcano in the center.
Golden Casino Island: A casino themed island rich with golden coins.
Pelican Port Island: A rowdy port city, which is run by the Flying Birdbrain and is his center of operations, with his ship docked in the middle. It's full of rowdy pirates.
Each island has its own boss enemy waiting at the end, and these bosses are unique because Mario and Wario must team up to take them down, with the player required to switch between them at certain parts of the fight. The final boss, the Flying Birdbrain himself, has four different phases each, where the player must switch to damage the Birdbrain again. The game is full of brief animated cutscenes, in which Mario and Wario mostly bicker with each other, though some of these cutscenes focus on Syrup and Peach, who equally dislike each other. In the end though, after Mario and Wario defeat the Flying Birdbrain, they end up bickering over who gets to save the ladies, while Syrup ends up taking all the money from Birdbrain's ship and leaving. Peach actually leaves with her, annoyed by Mario and Wario's bickering with each other, and it's implied that the two go on vacation together while Wario seems upset at losing his money and Mario is just happy that Peach is all right.
Mario And Wario: An Unlikely Adventure is released on August 26, 2016, the same day as equally huge Nintendo first party game The Legend Of Zelda: The Dungeon Fairy. The game is received well, averaging around an 8.5/10 with critics (a good game overall, but compared to other recent 2-D Mario games, it's a bit low). Sales are significantly better than those of The Dungeon Fairy, with first week sales coming in around three times better. It's a more accessible game appealing to a wider demographic than the Zelda title, though both are big successes for the Connect, and coupled with the release of a new Connect model for an MSRP of $129.99, drives sales of the device significantly throughout the rest of the year.
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The Legend Of Zelda: The Dungeon Fairy
The Legend Of Zelda: The Dungeon Fairy is a new 3-D Zelda adventure for the Nintendo Connect, and a spiritual successor to Tower Of Sentinels (different timeline, but same basic gameplay and slightly enhanced graphics). Developed at the same time as the 2015 Reality Zelda remake, it was made by a different development studio, but had a few of the same personnel in supervisory roles, and a few of the quality of life improvements from that title are present in this game. In it, Link must battle a dark sorcerer known as the Collector, who has kidnapped the seven Faeresses of the world and has imprisoned them in dungeons built on leylines, in an effort to channel their power into a machine that will allow him to recreate the Triforce (which was separated by the will of the Goddesses before the events of this game took place). Link is tasked by Zelda (who is best friends with one of the Faeresses, a girl named Norene who only recently discovered that she was a fairy when her magical powers began to manifest) to rescue the fairies, while she goes to protect the separated Triforce shards. Link remains in communication with Zelda at several points in the game, where she updates him on her own quest while giving him advice about the future. As for the game's progression, it's similar to many other Zelda titles in that Link must roam the world in search of these seven dungeons, each of which contain both a special item and the Dungeon Fairy/Faeress herself. The item (including the Bow, the Hookshot, and other important tools) is kept by Link after the end of the dungeon, but the Faeress is only present inside the dungeon itself, and once found, grants him a unique and special power that not only helps him navigate the rest of the dungeon, but also defeat the boss, and this power leaves Link when he exits the dungeon, as the Faeress returns home. These powers range from the ability to fire a magical projectile beam, to temporary invincibility, to free flight, and allow for some unique challenges in the final rooms of certain dungeons. Each Faeress has her own distinct personality, and they also range in age: one of them is a young stoic girl, one of them is a spritely, sagely old woman, while most are either teenagers or younger women (Norene, for example, is a teenager the same age as Link and Zelda). As for the world itself, it's best compared to the world of games such as Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time, relatively free roaming, with gated off areas opened by story events or the acquisition of certain items. Once a Faeress is freed, her territory on the map changes, to allow for new challenges, new events, and new items to be gained.
The game's seven dungeons, like the dungeons in any Zelda title, encompass a range of environments and motifs, with the first dungeon being a forested dungeon and featuring a fairly typical Faeress (a young woman with a somewhat flirty personality), who gives Link the ability to charm enemies (which he must then use to solve puzzles in the dungeon, and during the boss fight, he can turn the boss' minions against him). Other dungeons include a fire-based dungeon, a purple poison based dungeon, and a woodpunk based dungeon, with steampunk-like technology but all based on wood, and a Faeress who doubles as an inventor. The game has an interesting selection of bosses as well, including a giant monkey lord (that's the first dungeon's boss, and he summons smaller monkeys to attack Link), a soaring bird of prey, and a boss based around mirrors, which can be killed by reflecting Link's Faeress-granted projectile beam around the room back at him. There's a boss that floods the entire room with lava, creating a situation that would be normally inescapable (but in this dungeon Link has the invincibility powerup, and can survive this). The final dungeon sees Link finally going to rescue Norene, and this dungeon is one of the series' more intriguing designs: a quiet temple-like dungeon with a blue motif and enemies that rely on sound to target Link. Called the Sanctum of Silence, this dungeon features sound themed puzzles, and Norene's unique ability grants Link the temporary use of her voice, which he uses for a huge variety of things in the second half of the dungeon. This dungeon is absolutely massive, featuring huge rooms and eight stories, several minibosses and some brainbending puzzles, and the boss is a humanoid creature with a bird motif and a blue cloak that somewhat resembles the Thunderbird from Zelda II, and must be taken down by using Norene's voice to disrupt its attacks and then shatter the various walls around the room. Defeating this boss restores the leyline and ends the Collector's threat to restore the Triforce, but he manages to capture Zelda, and is eventually revealed as Ganon, who was previously defeated (which is how the Triforce was shattered) before the events of this game, only for his spirit to rebuild itself from his own willpower and sheer hatred. He implores the seven Faeresses to come to the Grounds of the Goddess, and it's revealed that the leylines are tied to Link's Triforce of Courage, which is why the Faeresses were able to grant Link their power. The Grounds of the Goddess are sort of a dungeon in which Link must use all of the Faeresses' powers to advance, and when he reaches Ganon, the Faeresses restore Link's Triforce of Courage by merging into him, granting him the Faeress Sword and all of their unique powers for a final showdown with Ganon, in which Link and Ganon can both fly through the air and attack each other with beams, very Dragonball Z-esque, though not quite as fast paced. Link must use the Faeresses' powers to weaken Ganon before striking him down with the Faeress Sword. Ganon has only one form, a sort of humanoid beast form, but the fight has three phases in all. Ganon's defeat ends the threat to the world once and for all and frees Zelda. The Faeresses phase out of Link and each go their separate ways, with Zelda and Norene saying a tearful goodbye to each other before Norene has to return to the Fairy Realm to protect the world from afar.
The Dungeon Fairy scores slightly stronger reviews than Tower Of The Sentinels, and is overall one of the best received Connect titles of the year, though as far as Zelda games go, it's pretty average in terms of reception. It's a fun and epic adventure that really pushes the power of the Connect close to its limits, and is one of the most action packed Zelda games ever despite being a handheld game. It's released on August 26, 2016, and achieves strong sales, though it's soundly beaten by Mario and Wario in all territories. Mostly, it reinforces that the Connect is still going strong and that Zelda is still one of Nintendo's most valuable franchises, and neither of those things are going to be proven wrong any time soon.
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New Connect Lite Is Sleeker, Smaller, Cheaper, But Not A Whole Lot Better
The Connect Lite, which is being released on August 26th alongside new entries in the Mario and Zelda series, is the new form factor for the Nintendo Connect, and is Nintendo's way of reducing production costs while incorporating five years worth of technological improvements into their flagship handheld. The system itself is about 10 percent smaller and 25 percent lighter than the original Connect, while the screen remains the same size, owing to improvements in the materials and chips used in the design. The battery, despite being significantly less bulkier, will help the Connect run an hour or two longer, even with the most graphically intensive titles, so you'll be able to play it on the go even longer than before. All of this comes in a package that Nintendo will sell for $129.99, or $149.99 if you purchase the Mario or Zelda bundles that include the new games, Mario And Wario: An Unlikely Adventure and The Legend Of Zelda: The Dungeon Fairy respectively. The price on the old Connect model will also drop 20 dollars to $129.99, though Nintendo says it's planning to phase that model out in favor of the new one. So, has a whole lot changed? Not really. It's a bit easier to carry the Connect Lite around in your pocket, and the extra battery life is nice, but there's certainly no reason to swap out your old Connect for this new model, especially since it's the exact same machine under the hood, with no enhancements to memory or graphical power. It's a new form factor to allow Nintendo to save some money on parts, and that's pretty much it. That said, the price drop will definitely help Nintendo in its ongoing battle with Apple's Gemini. The Gemini remains close behind Nintendo in terms of current sales, though it's no longer narrowing the gap nearly as fast as it once was, and Nintendo has sold more Connect units so far this year, after briefly falling behind the Gemini last Christmas. The release of Pokemon Amethyst and Topaz should give Nintendo's handheld a nice cushion that will prevent them from losing a second holiday in a row, and the Connect's overall sales figures are still on pace to make it the best selling Nintendo handheld ever, surpassing the Supernova.
-from an article on Kotaku, posted on August 20, 2016