Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

Epic Mickey takes the cover as we head into one of Nintendo’s best holiday seasons in recent memory. Metroid fans will dig the factoid-heavy retrospective, and the review of Other M yields the expected high score (8.5). Sit back for a scans-heavy read-a-long!

Issue #259, October 2010
featuring Epic Mickey (Wii), Metroid (multiple), Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals (DS)

The ten page article on Epic Mickey goes over some by-now-familiar ground. The game sends Mickey into a world of forgotten Disney characters… spear-headed by long lost cartoon star Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Early reports suggested Oswald was the villain, but we now know that Mickey ends up working with Oswald to redeem the inked-up sub-world. The Phantom Blot (borrowed from old Disney comics) and the Mad Doctor (an unmemorable baddie from a single 1933 short) are the new villains of the piece, although the entire mess is actually Mickey’s fault.

Developer Warren Spector had a revelatory conversation with Pixar great John Lasseter. Lasseter explained to Spector that they defined the Toy Story franchise as being about “What does a toy want?” So Lasseter asked, “What does a cartoon want?” Spector came up with four points.

“To be drawn, to be animated and brought to life, to be … seen by an audience, and, finally, to be loved. If you think about, Mickey has all four. Oswald had all four, but lost them. … And the Blot [in our game] had none of them.”

While it sounds to me think those four could be condensed, it stands as an interesting basis for the thought process behind the plot of Epic Mickey.

The article revealed additional Disneyana that will be found in the game, some of which I think are newly out from under the curtain. There will be a Haunted Mansion level that combines elements from all the various theme park rides. The derby-wearing prankster spirits from the 1937 short “Lonesome Ghosts” will make an appearance. A jungle level will use elements from “Peter Pan” and “The Jungle Book.” The game’s last level is Dark Beauty Castle, which sounds like an amalgam of the usual Disney princess locales to me.

There are three kinds of levels. Action maps are what we saw in the E3 demo, where Mickey combines “platforming, exploration and combat.” Quest maps sounds like the usual RPG towns where you pick up missions and buy junk. Travel maps are 2D platformers based on specific Disney cartoons. Spector says they’re “a palate cleanser between the 3D maps” and that they work “like a classic Mario game.”

Early production artwork showed a robotic Donald Duck. Although very little has been said about that art, Spector verifies that Audio-Animatronic versions of Mickey’s not-forgotten pals (Donald and Goofy are name-checked) will play a major role in the game.

Epic Mickey was recently outed by Toys R Us for a November 15 launch date (that is still officially unconfirmed). TRU is also pimping a Collector’s Edition for $70 that includes console skins, a DVD of bonus features, and a Mickey figure. It doesn’t seem like enough to justify the assumed $20 hike, in my opinion.

Bowser, this is your life.

A couple months ago, NP started a character spotlight feature. This month’s look at Bowser included a brilliant career graph:

Can you name the nine games represented by the screenshots?

Tell me this doesn’t make you want Super Scribblenauts.

The addition of adjectives to next month’s Super Scribblenauts opens up some seriously impressive possibilities. Check out this genius work by NP as they try to insert some classic gaming icons.

You can preview the next Sonic game your own damn self.

This is taken from the first paragraph of this month’s article on Sonic 4 for WiiWare. It can be used to preview every single Sonic game since 1996.

And every Sonic for the next twenty years. Clip ‘n’ save!

Download Staff Picks: None! Is NP stopping the personalized recommendations by NP staff?

Top scoring Wii review: Metroid: Other M, 8.5 (all scores out of 10)
Top scoring DS review: Ivy the Kiwi? 7.0
Lowest rated Wii review: Gunblade NY & LA Machineguns Arcade Hits Pack, 5.5
Lowest rated DS review: NA, Ivy was the only DS game reviewed in this issue

NP gave the Wii version of Ivy the Kiwi? a 7.5, Disney’s Guilty Party a 7.0, and the hockey stick peripheral-based NHL Slapshot a 6.0.

Another issue, another wrestler interview. – This issue interviews the father-son legacies of Dusty Rhodes and Ted DiBiase. Seriously, is the overlap between Nintendo fans and wrestling fans so impressive that we have to do this every other month?

The power of tradition. – The GameCube controller just barely beat out the Wii Remote as the favorite Nintendo controller in this month’s reader poll.

A brush with greatness. – Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii has tagged over 1000 different players of DQIX and he suspects most of them have no idea it is him.

We ain’t commiting to nothin’. – Nintendo 3DS games have been added to the monthly Game Forecast list. Over 70 titles are included, and every one shows a release date of TBA.

Yes, this is really happening. – This fall brings Babysitting Mama to Wii, the Mama franchisee that comes with a stuffed baby peripheral. You put the Remote in the back and the onscreen mini-games require you to interact with the doll. I am not making a shaken baby joke, because that is not cool.

A cool Layton spoiler. – We already know that this month’s Professor Layton and the Unwound Future features an older version of kid sidekick Luke. NP reveals that this Luke comes from a dystopian future where London is run by underworld crime boss Professor Layton!

Finally, mini-game brilliance. – Wii Party will have a mode where you hide your Remote somewhere in your house and your friends must listen for the speaker noises to find it.

So what is HIStory? – Michael Jackson was supposedly somehow involved with the music for Sonic the Hedgehog 3. NP put the question to Sega sound director Jun Senoue, who coyly replied “Actually, I know quite a lot [about that], but I can’t tell.”

My final word on the matter. – Every screenshot of the new NBA Jam looks like crap.

Next month in Nintendo Power… Jesus, it’s another damn anniversary NES retrospective. It feels like they do this EVERY ISSUE.