Nintendo

Early Sonic Boom Designs Caused “Discomfort” to Original Sonic Team

At one point, the current iteration of Sonic and his friends looked even more different compared to their original selves. So much so that it caused quite a few headaches to the series’ original creators. Speaking to GameSpot, Bob Rafei, head of the studio in charge of the character redesigns, said that early on, the…

The 1980s Are Back To Help You Beat Super Mario 3D World

Travel back in time once more to the 1980s, a magical age when video game tips and tricks were delivered by warm, friendly voices over tinny television speakers, and no one called you names for needing help beating a Mario platformer.

Mario Brothers-themed pregnancy announcement

‘Twitch Plays Pokémon’ Has Defeated Lord Helix

They revived a god. Now they’ve defeated a god. It was the only way. As some of you know, ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon‘ had thousands of people banding together to control a single Pokemon trainer—first, in a modified version of Pokémon Red, and later in a modified version of Pokémon Crystal. The Crystal run took a…

Yoshi’s New Island: The Kotaku Review

Yoshi’s New Island is a perfectly pleasant video game that I have a hard time recommending. It’s technically a new game, though there isn’t much novelty in this purportedly-new Island. Sure, the 3DS sidescroller has all-new levels, but the game feels less like a sequel and more like a remix and an inferior rehash of…

Lord Helix Makes A Most Unexpected Return In ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon‘

It’s not what you’re thinking. Heck, it’s probably not what you’re expecting, either. The latest run of ‘Twitch Plays Pokemon‘—which has thousands of people banding together to beat Pokémon Crystal—has had a most amazing (and unexpected) turn. As some of you that have played Pokémon Crystal know, after you beat the main portion of the…

Awkward: Nintendo Video Family Forgets Wii U Games

Sometimes using real people in your advertisements makes things more real. Sometimes, it makes things more awkward. The following is a video from Nintendo on how a regular family makes use of their Wii U. Say hello to the Kato family from Chiba. For them, the Wii U is about more than just playing video…

First Look at the Persona-Branded 3DS XL

Upcoming spin-off title Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is getting its own emblazoned 3DS XL. This is it. Well, the back of it, anyway. As you can see, it reads “3DS LL” because in Japan, “XL” is called the “LL.” And here is the front, courtesy of Famitsu: I like how you have to…

Digital Distribution Could Learn from Nintendo’s Disk Writer Kiosk

A few weeks ago, I saw the Retro Game Master movie, half of which took place in 1986 Japan. In the film, the characters are often seen visiting a game store—a store complete with one of the coolest things Nintendo ever created, the Nintendo Disk Writer Kiosk. In 1986, Nintendo released an add-on to the…

Metroid Dreadnought: check out this cool Metroid conversion for Doom. It aims to combine the speed and atmosphere of Super Metroid with the gunplay of Metroid Prime. It’s not done, but you can download it here.

Smash Bros. Creator Reviews the PS4

As creator of tent-pole franchises like Kirby or Super Smash Bros. you might think Masahiro Sakurai is a pure bred Nintendo loyalist. So what do you think he has to say about Sony’s newest console? “First off, the console looks cool.” Sakurai wrote in his semi-weekly column in Weekly Famitsu. “As hardware evolves, people tend…

​Let Nintendo Characters Show You What’s Cool About the Wii U

It’s been a struggle for Nintendo to sell the Wii U. People got confused about it early on. And there’s been some difficulty communicating just what’s cool about Nintendo’s latest console to the average consumer. So why not have Mario show the nice people what Wii U can do? The Wii U doesn’t have the…

​Smash Bros Comes Back to the World’s Biggest Fighting Game Tournament

A while back, Nintendo’s homegrown fighting franchise wasn’t showing up on the list of games that would be featured at Evo 2014, this year’s edition of the world-renown fighting game tournament. Wasn’t on the rolls for Major League Gaming’s Anaheim championship event, either. But, now, months after fans protested the absence of Mario, Star Fox…

Two Incredible Glitches Make The First Pokémon Games Way Easier

One thing many Pokémon fans have in common is that growing up, we’d hear all sorts of stories about glitches and legendaries we could capture if we did something random and esoteric. Most kids, as we now know, were lying. Or, well: it’s more like they didn’t know how to pull the glitches off, exactly.…

Inspired by various stop-motion movies, Gabriel Salas used the exact same 3D tools and a hand-made diorama to create this really special Legend of Zelda fan-art. I’d love to see something like this coming to life as an animated-short. The Legend of Zelda fan art by Gabriel Salas [CGhub, via The Omega Nerd] Dayshot is…

The Sword Pokémon, Now As A Real (And Dangerous) Weapon

Sure, some people aren’t fans of Pokémon that resemble man-made objects. But having Pokémon like, say, Honedge—which resembles a medieval sword—means one thing: we can actually make these Pokémon a reality. (Without having to resort to horrific genetic experiments, I mean.) So really, it was only a matter of time before someone came along and…

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy: The Kotaku Review

One. Five. Two. Four. Six. That is not a string of numbers that need to be deciphered in a puzzle in a Professor Layton game. It is the order in which I’ve played the games in the Layton series that has concluded—for now—with the newest and possible best of the bunch. From Professor Layton and…

Yoshi’s New Island 3DS commercial.

​A Brutally Honest Trailer for Mario Kart

“Witness the incremental evolution of franchise-based go-kart combat racing!” Yup, that’s Mario Kart in a nutshell. This fake advertising clip from Smosh Games for Nintendo’s long-running vehicular competitive game throws down some rough truths about the stuff we love to hate in Mario Kart. Raise your hands if you liked two-man karts. Keep ’em up…

Eight Things You Might Not Know About The N64

Just because you’ve used the N64 before doesn’t mean you know everything about it, hotshot. The 18 year old console has a curious history behind it, after all. Here’s DYKGaming/Normal Boots with their ever-informative “Did You Know” series, which this time walks us through all sorts of cool trivia about the N64. Watching the video…