We talk about the pink Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Zone, and Resident Evil: Revelations this week. Also revealed is our Victoria Justice contest that will be on the site soon!

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The running time of this podcast is 66:35. *There are a few instances of swearing, you have been warned!*

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eShop: Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword, $6.99

Princess Cherry Blossom has been imprisoned for many years, but now you have been chosen to rescue her. Travel across the countryside, battling enemies with your sword and relaxing in nearby towns. Perfect your timing to defeat your foes and save the princess!

DSiWare: GO Series: Undead Storm, $1.99/200 Nintendo Points

A meteor strike has resulted in a wave of zombies overtaking the town, and you’ve got nothing to protect yourself with except for shotguns, grenades and flame throwers. Play as one of four characters in one of three ruined locations, by yourself or with up to three other friends through local wireless play.

WiiWare: Carmen Sandiego Adventures in Math: the Great Gateway Grab, 600 Nintendo Points

Carmen Sandiego has made off with the Gateway to India, and ACME wants you to track it down using your math skills. Solve math puzzles as you travel around the world and try to catch the world-renowned thief. This game is geared for grades 4-5.

Sakura Samurai is an excellent choice, as we indicated in our review. Besides that, I’ve played one of the GO Series games and it was fairly good, though short.

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For those Operation Rainfall individuals who were chomping at the bit to get Xenoblade Chronicles among other Wii titles brought to the US will not have to wait much longer to get their hands on a US copy. That’s because the official Xenoblade Chronicles website has been updated with a release date for the game which has been set for April 6th. The game is still only being made available via GameStop or Nintendo’s official online store.

Xenoblade Chronicles is rated T for Teen and is priced at $49.99.

User DarkWish of the NeoGAF forum, but also of NintendoFuse.com just got his hands on the Resident Evil: Revelations pre-order case that’s available exclusively through GameStop. He was able to provide a bit of information regarding the bonus:

- Is thin
- Adds a small amount of bulk to the system
- Hard case, feels cheap, nothing special
- Easy to put on, fits snugly
- Lenticular top may scratch in your pocket with keys, but otherwise doesn’t seem susceptible to scratches
- Case can interfere with L/R buttons and volume slider
- Will not fit in the charging cradle when attached to the Nintendo 3DS

DarkWish received the bonus immediately upon visiting his local GameStop and placing a pre-order. Those interested in the case can still pre-order the game to get the bonus, but only while supplies last.

Resident Evil: Revelations will be released on February 7th.

Thanks again to DarkWish for the information and photo!

From now until February 29th, Club Nintendo members can choose between two new game rewards. The rewards are Art Academy: First Semester (3DS) and Mario Party 2 (Wii). Each are available for 150 Coins.

These offerings are two less than what has been offered in the past.

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Right as January drew to a close, Nintendo released a new trailer for the upcoming Nintendo 3DS title Kid Icarus: Uprising. This “Intensity” trailer shows how voluntarily increasing the difficulty of the game leads to greater rewards.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kid Icarus: Uprising is slated for release on March 23, 2012.

I generally play with increased difficulty on The World Ends With You; I’ll probably do the same here.

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Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: February 2, 2012
Score: 4.5 / 5

In recent months, Nintendo has been pushing their online presence on their new Nintendo 3DS handheld; Mario Kart 7 had excellent online options through the newly-announced Nintendo Network, and the Nintendo eShop has been expanding its selection of quality titles. Renegade Kid unleashed the retro platformer Mutant Mudds last week, and before that, Nintendo rolled out their own innovative puzzler, Pushmo. Now Nintendo is tossing out another internally-developed downloadable: Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword. Does this game continue the flow of quality titles, or does it fall flat?

Sakurai Samurai puts you in the shoes of a nameless samurai, who is dubbed the Sakura Samurai after being blessed by a local kappa. A long time ago, Princess Cherry Blossom was kidnapped and stolen away from the world, and the kappa has been waiting for a hero who could go and rescue her. He then sends you on a quest to defeat the enemies of the princess and rescue her from evil’s clutches. It gets kind of easy to forget this particular motivation for playing, though defeated bosses will remind you that there is indeed a princess that needs saving. Fortunately, the gameplay is enough reason to keep you going.

Sakura Samurai consists almost entirely of sword battles. You’ll wander around a world map, moving from level to level, and each level contains a few enemies in a small arena, who will approach to attack you one at a time. Defeating these enemies is entirely a matter of timing. They’ll swing their weapons at you, or fire their projectiles at you, and you’ll need to dodge at the right time in order to have any opportunity of counterattacking. If you rush forward and start swinging your sword like crazy, you will be completely doomed.

There are four basic enemy types, and each one has between one and two different attacks. As you progress through the game, however, the attacks not only become faster and more powerful, but they’ll start stringing multiple attacks together, not giving you an opening until you’ve dodged all of them. What makes this especially annoying is not knowing when the attack is concluded, as the window of opportunity is very small; until you’ve memorized an attack pattern, you’re stuck deciding between rushing forward and risking damage, or dodging continually and risking losing your chance to attack. Completing battles later in the game can get quite difficult, but it’s also very satisfying.

You have a few options available to you in battle, instead of just dodging and slicing. You can also block enemy attacks with your sword, though doing this too many times will dull your sword and make it less powerful. This is where items come into play, however; a dull blade can be sharpened by using a Whetstone, one of four items at your disposal. You also have kunai blades that can be thrown to damage enemies, frogs that can be thrown to scare your enemies, or rice cakes that can be eaten to restore your health. Dodging attacks also builds up your sword meter, and once it’s full you can press Y to unleash a powerful special attack that damages numerous enemies.

The game contains three regions, with a little under 30 levels split between the three of them, and for every two levels you complete, one heart is added to your health bar. Each region is also capped off by a boss level. As opposed to most of the levels, where you fight one area full of enemies, a boss level consists of about a half-dozen of these battle areas, topped off by a longer battle with a larger, more powerful foe. These bosses usually take between six to eight hits to take down, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but you will have to seriously earn every last one of them. Their attacks can be both hard to predict and hard to dodge; the final boss of the game is very imposing and difficult, and I failed multiple times before I was able to fell him and save the day. Despite the difficulty, the game rarely feels unfair, except for when you find yourself up against a wall and unable to dodge, which is maddening.

During your quest, you can take a break in one of the three towns that you’ll come across, which contain a surprising amount of stuff to do. You can restore your health and save your game in the inns, and the local blacksmith can sharpen or strengthen your sword, for the right price. The shops can sell you any of the standard items, along with special, more expensive items that can seriously improve your chances of survival. Additionally, when you dodge a large number of enemies in a row, the game keeps track of your current dodge streak, which can be sold to vendors for gold, although it’s not quite clear what they would do with it.

Gold is obtained from defeating enemies, though it can also be won from the street challenges that occur in each town. Each area has two street challenges you can undertake, which involve testing your timing and/or reflexes; some of these are easier, while others are bafflingly difficult, at least for me. You can win gold, or you can choose to pay gold and play for stamps; the more stamps you obtain, the more prizes you’re offered, like item refills or improved special attacks. It’s not difficult to forego your quest for a little bit, focusing on improving your wealth through challenges instead; more gold does allow you to improve your chances of victory, though, so it all evens out in the end.

Once the main quest is over, there are still things for you to do. Each defeated boss unlocks an endurance challenge on the main menu, challenging you to defeat 30, 50, or 100 enemies in a row, with limited health and recovery items. There’s also a Rock Garden mode, which uses the steps you’ve taken throughout the day and uses them to try and make a sakura garden bloom. Lastly, once you’ve completed the game, you get the option to try the quest again on Expert Mode, where enemies do double damage, you can’t buy rice cakes, and your health bar never grows. There’s an impressive amount of content packed into this downloadable title, and big fans of the game will probably squeeze out somewhere between five and ten hours of gameplay.

The game looks rather nice, using a wide range of colors and a distinctly cartoony art style, where people have exaggerated faces and bodies and such; the overlays and effects, where sakura petals fly about as you battle, do the game justice. The 3D effect also works well, though there is one instance where an enemy sticks his sword too far toward the player, and it appears to split into two if you have the slider all the way up. The game’s music and sound are all inspired by traditional Japanese music and instruments, making the audio stand out more than usual. The only major problem with the game is a vague sense of repetition, though the difficulty curve and street challenges help to mitigate this.

Clearly, Nintendo is having success developing original and interesting downloadable titles for the 3DS; I’ve managed to completely forget about the lack of strong retail titles in January, since I’ve been too busy playing eShop offerings like this one. If you’re in need of a fun adventure title that you can haul around, Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword should fit your needs excellently.

Thanks to Nintendo for providing a review code for this title!

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The system will lose the pack in game and come with the normal accessories a standard Nintendo 3DS is packed with.  Those looking to get their hands on this colored system will only need to wait until February 10th.

This is an extremely strange move to me considering the pink bundle was the same price and was recently launched on December 4th.

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Earlier today, Capcom announced that, instead of the higher price point of $50, their upcoming Resident Evil: Revelations will be sold at the standard 3DS price of $40. Brett Elston, Capcom Unity’s Online/Community Manager, stated in a post that “since the announcement of the $49.99 price point, we’ve spent weeks looking for a way to bring your cost down to standard 3DS pricing. Today we can finally confirm we were successful in this, and hope the reduced price encourages even more people to check out this strong entry in the Resident Evil canon.” Revelations launches in North America on February 7, 2012.

This is great news, as the high price was putting me off from Revelations a bit. I’ll try out the demo on my 3DS, then maybe head down and pre-order it.

Tons of news to discuss on the podcast this week with all three of your normal podcasters. A bit of profanity this week, so do be extra aware of that.

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The running time of this podcast is 74:47. *There are a few instances of swearing, you have been warned!*

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