One of the reasons magazines aren't as popular as they once were is that the internet has made them obsolete. Anything in the magazine has usually been posted online months before the paper makse it to your hands.

Well now there are a couple of stories people are crediting to Nintendo Power of all places.

Mega Man 9:
Wow, really? Seems Capcom is making a WiiWare Mega Man game that takes place after Mega Man 8. It'll look and sound like an NES game. That's kind of cool, but also seems like a waste. (I think the SNES MM7 graphics are kind of the high point of the series, graphically.) You know how I feel about exclusively downloadable games too. <_<


Castlevania Judgment:
New Wii exclusive Castlevania game... and it's a fighting game? Hey, I got no problem with that. Oh, will make use of motion controls... Now you lost me again. Okay, well maybe they can make that work, but what the hell is with the character designs? Done by Death Note's Takeshi Obata, they're kind of... WTF? First I see this screen showing the face of a hot redhead. No wait, that's just Simon Belmont. Artwork showing his whole body makes him look a little more masculine. Of course he also looks like a bondage fetishist, bare-chested but covered in studded leather, plenty of straps and buckles (definitely a Nomura vibe going on), and of course the whip.

Well, S&M Simon is nothing new. He's been around since CV Chronicles, but Alucard is another story. He looks like a chick. I mean, really looks like a woman. Not just like a lot of anime guys look like girls, or how they say all the FF males look like women, but he pretty much is a woman. I have tried to find anything masculine about his face, and I can't. Also, since he's wearing some funky armor suit thing, there's no bare chest to give it away. Add in the fact that he's holding a really long sword, and he's like an even more feminine Sephiroth.

You've also got Maria, who's some kind of Victorian loli prostitute freakshow and still manages to be the least fucked up design they've shown. :)


Also in this issue: A new Nester comic! Now he's grown up, and has a kid. Neat.

HA HA HA. I remember back when it was still Howard and NESTER. Dam I feel old.

Anyway, 3 CHEERS FOR ANDROGYNY!!!! :D

That Castlevania fighting game is going to be absolutely terrible, mark my words. Probably the worst game to ever bear the name Castlevania. I would feel comfortable betting money on that. Castlevania doesn't need any 3D shenanigans, that has been proven time and time again. And when you make it a fighting game, you can just feel things sliding downhill. And a Wii-exclusive fighting game using the always terrible and imprecise motion controls? Woah, step back. That's a recipe for success right there. Because you know, people secretly hate when their special moves work when they need them to.

Seems like i heard about this Mega Man business quite some time ago, and i'm not sure how i feel about it. I might get it if it's cheap. It's too bad that most of the people who probably care are already out of storage space on their Wii. :)

Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness were both competent entries into the franchise. And CoD especially. Then again, that's just my opinion. Personally, I've never felt inclined to pick up a Wii mote. I see the appeal of that console but it simply doesn't appeal to me. I'm with Scumdogg on this one. I have skills. I don't need to wave a stick at a TV due to complete lack of ability. And if the actually DO make a Mega Man 9, it should be given proper care, not be some cash in hack job for the Wii virtual console. It should have graphics at least on par with Megaman 8, take place directly after Megaman & Forte, and wrap up the original story arc satisfactorily. Perhaps with Zero eliminating Rock once and for all thus creating the proper plot segue from original series to X.

Now I've read that MM9 is supposed to appear on all 3 consoles' download services. That's... better at least.

My own opinion is that Lament of Innocence was somewhere between extremely mediocre and kind of bad. I haven't played CoD though.