Nintendo Okie

Nintendo Okie turns one this week, but that’s not the only thing that’s happening.  There have been a lot of games released during this week over the last few years.  You’re here to find out what those are, aren’t you?  Well let’s find out.

Urban Champion hit the NES on August 1^st, 1986.  It was Nintendo’s second fighting game, after Punch-Out!! and their first attempt at a 2D fighting game.  The goal of the game was to knock your opponent into a manhole behind them by hitting them with a combination of light punches and heavy punches.  Light punches were hard to block, but wouldn’t knock your opponent back very far.  Heavy punches were much easier to block but would send him flying back farther.  Throwing punches or getting hit by falling flower pots would cause you to lose stamina.  The game has been re-released a number of times, including for Nintendo’s e-reader and the Virtual Console to overwhelmingly negative reviews.  Urban Champion is scheduled for re-release on the 3DS.

Mario Paint was released on August 1^st, 1992 for the Super Nintendo and is probably most famous, not for being a good game, but for the hundreds of Youtube videos created with it.  People have been using that software for years to cover a number of their favorite songs and the videos end up on Youtube.  Mario paint featured a paint program that was rather fully featured over 40 different colors, 60 different textures and close to 100 different stamps that could be used in a freeform mode or to color in pre-made black and white pictures.  It also featured a mini game where you used the included computer style mouse to swat dozens of flies that would appear on screen.  Before the advent of Flash on PC’s Mario Paint was used to create the Homestar Runner cartoons.  Since its release it has proven to be a very popular piece of software.

Super Mario All-Stars was released on August 1^st, 1993 and was made as a compilation disc of all the previous main entry Mario games.  The game came bundled with 4 different Super Mario titles, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3 and The Lost Levels, which was the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2.  The gameplay for all of these games was faithful to the original release, but with enhanced graphics and sound to fit with the contemporary Super Nintendo releases.  It also allowed for game saves, which none of the previous games had featured, allowing you to restart from a previous save point rather than the beginning of the game.

August 1^st, 1993 was a day Zelda fans long remember.  That was the day that the series went portable with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.  The game was built similarly to the very successful A Link to the Past on the SNES with a  top down view.  Taking place on Koholint Island it was one of the few games in the Zelda franchise not to take place in Hyrule.  After the events of A Link to the Past Link goes on a journey to continue battling threats to the world.  His boat is hit by a storm and he washes up on the shore of Koholint Island.  When he wakes up Link is told that to return to Hyrule he must awaken the Wind Fish by collecting eight different instruments spread throughout the world.  After finding all of these instruments and playing the Ballad of the Wind Fish Link has to battle one final enemy a Nightmare in the form of Ganon, and Dethl a tentacled Shadow.  After this battle everything begins to fade away and Link wakes to find himself lying on a piece of driftwood having dreamed every event in the game.  Link’s Awakening was very well received by fans and critics with many praising the ability to take Link’s adventures on the go, in the palm of your hand.  It was re-released a few years later as Link’s Awakening DX on the Game Boy Color and has sold almost 4 million copies worldwide since its launch.

August 1^st, 1995 saw the release of Killer Instinct for the Super Nintendo.  This was a fighting game developed by Rare, most known for games like GoldenEye 007 and Banjo-Kazooie.  The game was originally released for the arcade, but was later ported over to the SNES and the Game Boy.  It featured 11 different fighters in a game that borrowed heavily from popular fighting titles like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.  It different from those titles because rather than using a single health bar to determine rounds each character had a double health bar, so that if one player was knocked out, the other continued the next “round” with whatever health they had remaining.  Other popular fighting mechanics featured in the game were finishers similar to the Mortal Kombat style, Ultra Combos and Combo Breakers.

The man who brought character like Kirby to life, Masahiro Sakurai was born on August 3^rd, 1970.  He created Kirby in 1989 at the age of 19 and would soon after direct the first title starring that character, Kirby’s Dream Land.  10 years later, in 1999, he would direct Super Smash Bros., which would end up being the beginning of one of Nintendo’s most successful franchises.  Sakurai would leave HAL Laboratories in 2003, leaving the future of Kirby and Smash Bros. in Jeopardy, to begin his own game studio.  Currently he and his company Sora Ltd. are working on Kid Icarus: Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS. 

August 3^rd, 2009 was Download Day in North America.  That day would see the release of Tecmo Bowl, originally for the NES, on Virtual Console.  WiiWare would receive Overturn and Sexy Poker. 

August 4^th, 2008 was Download Day in North America.  Sonic the Hedgehog and Splatterhouse 2, both for the Sega Genesis, were released on the Virtual Console.  Wild West Guns was released for WiiWare. 

August 6th, 2007 was Virtual Console Day in North America.  That date would see the release of the Adventures of Lolo for the NES, Wave Race 64 for the Nintendo 64 and Galaga ’90 for the Turbo-Grafix 16. 

Boogie was a karaoke style game released for the Wii on August 7^th, 2007.  This game, created by Electronic Arts, used a microphone and the Wii Remote to combine singing and dancing into one game.  While the song was playing the Wii Remote would be used to hit pre-determined dance moves while singing to the 39 included songs in the game.  After recording one of the game’s songs, you could then enter a mode that allowed you to create a music video by editing a number of different features such as the camera angle.  The game received very mixed reviews with some people praising different aspects of the gameplay with a number of other outlets saying the game was a shallow experience that was fun for a very short period of time.    

So there you have the releases that make up this week in Nintendo’s North American history.  If you know of anything we missed, or of anything coming up that you’d like to see included in this article feel free to let us know.  Before we leave though, we have to recognize many of the releases that happened outside of North America.

August 1^st

2001 – Golden Sun (GBA, Japan)
2003 – Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire (GBA, Japan)

August 2^nd

2007 – Forever Blue (Wii, Japan)
            Slide Adventure: Mag Kid (DS, Japan)

August 3^rd

1992 – Kirby’s Dream Land (GB, Europe)
2006 – Rhythm Tengoku (GBA, Japan)
            Star Fox: Command (DS, Japan)
2007 – Mario Party 8 (Wii, Europe)

August 4^th

2005 – Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness (GCN, Japan)

August 5^th

1995 – Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (SNES, Japan)
2004 – Densetsu no Starfy 3 (GBA, Japan)

August 6^th

1986 – Metroid (FDS, Japan)
1993 – Secret of Mana (SFam, Japan)

August 7^th

2008 – Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (DS, Japan)