Nintendo Okie

If you’re here reading this it means you want to find out what happened over the course of the coming week in history. This week brings us few events, but some big names.

July 11^th, 2004 saw the release of Pokemon Box: Ruby & Sapphire. This was different from the traditional Pokemon releases in that it was more of a storage area for the GBA versions of Pokemon. You could store and trade pokemon that were captured in the Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed and LeafGreen versions of Pokemon. Any of the pokemon stored in the game could be interacted with and even allowed to mate with other pokemon. the game came bundled with a Memory Card and GameBoy Advance cable allowing it to be connected to the GameCube. While it was an interesting game it was considered, by many, to be unnecessary.

Final Fantasy first launched in North America on July 12^th, 1990 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game followed the adventures of four youths known as the Light Warriors who each carry an orb for a different element. These orbs have been darkened by the four Elemental Fiends and the group must combat them and restore light to the orbs. The game featured an over world that players traveled to get one from area to another. Random battles would bring up the battle screen where commands where chosen from a menu for each of the different characters during the game’s turn based battles. Defeating enemies would earn players experience points that were used to level up characters and gold that could be used to purchase new items. Final Fantasy was the first RPG to show battles from a side perspective rather than from first person. The game gets it’s name from the troubled past of Square as a company. The series’ director Hironobu Sakaguchi declared that his “final” game would be a fantasy roleplaying game and the ironic title was born. Final Fantasy has been remade for numerous systems throughout the years since it’s initial release. The series continues to be one of the most popular role playing franchises in history selling numerous millions of copies with each release.

July 13^th, 2009 was download day in North America. On that day Secret Command for the Sega Master System, and Pulseman for the Sega Genesis were released. WiiWare received three titles that day; Ant Nation, Bit Boy!!, and Incoming!.

Wii MotionPlus is an attachment that can be added to the Wii Remote to enhance the motion control for the system. The peripheral was first revealed to the world one day before E3 2008, on July 14^th. That was the date Nintendo held their yearly press conference for the event. It would be first released to the public the next year with the release of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, which came bundled with the device. Third party accessory manufacturer Nyko would also release a new version of their Wii Remote that removed the necessity of the external device by including inside their Wii Remotes beginning in 2009.

July 14^th, 2008 was also download day in North America. On that date Ninja Commando for the Turbo-Grafix 16, and Donkey Kong 3 for the NES were released for the Virtual Console. WiiWare would get one title; Major League Eating: The Game.

Octopus was a wide screen Game & Watch game released on July 16, 1981. The object of the game was to get to treasure located inside a sunken ship and get it back to the surface without being caught by the octopus which was guarding the treasure. Like most G&W games there were multiple modes. The first mode was a more laid back and lazy experience, while the second mode featured faster paced action and more obstacles. Octopus was considered one of the best, most complex Game & Watch games ever released. It has been re-released numerous times in Game & Watch collections for the GameBoy Advance and the Nintendo DS. It is also featured in the Wii game Super Smash Bros. Brawl as Mr. Game & Watch’s final Smash move.

July 16^th, 2007 was Virtual Console Day in North America. On that date Balloon Fight for the NES, Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64 and Silent Debuggers for the Sega Genesis were released.

That is all we have for North American releases this week. I said it would be short when we started. Next week we’ll be back with a whole lot more to learn, but before we go we have to take a look at the games that were released outside of North America. As always if you know of things we missed or if you know of anything coming up that you would like to see featured in the article please feel free to let us know and we’ll make sure to mention it in an upcoming article.

Foreign Releases

July 12^th

2002 – SSX Tricky (GCN, Europe)

July 13^th

2006 – Project Hacker: Kakusei (DS, Europe)
2007 – Elite Beat Agents (DS, Europe)

July 14^th

1992 – Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES, Japan)
1998 – F-Zero X (N64, Japan)
1999 – Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber (N64, Japan)
2005 – Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix (GCN, Japan)

July 15^th

1983 – Famicom released (Japan)

July 16^th

2004 – Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken (GBA, Japan)

July 17^th

2008 – Boom Blox (Wii, Japan)