Marvelous Entertainment revealed Contact director Akira Ueda's next project, Sakura Note, with a teaser web site. According to 1UP's summary of a Famitsu preview of the game, the game involves two mysterious sakura trees in two towns. One is blooming late in the year, and the other is dying. This is somehow connected to a new arrival in your neighborhood, and subsequent attacks against her by ghosts. In order to solve these two mysteries, you explore the nostalgic scenery of two neighboring towns, "talking to people and unlocking new story episodes as you go along."

The game is being created by an all-star team. As on Level-5's Fantasy Life, Nobuo Uematsu and Hideo Minaba are contributing music and character design, respectively. Kingdom Hearts' Kazushige Nojima is writing the story, and Half-Minute Hero producer Kenichiro Takagi is producing. Sakura Note will be out in Japan November 5.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Framed as a conciliatory gesture for No More Heroes 2 coverage that didn't happen, the back page of the latest Nintendo Power promises that the next issue will reveal something of interest on DSiWare. The back-page blurb mentions that the mysterious reveal will be "a major DSiWare title that should make many of you very, very happy." Though, unless it's a free app that lets us read new information about No More Heroes 2, we don't see how we'll ever be satisfied.

It shouldn't be too hard to make DSiWare users "very happy." So far, if you don't like Art Style games (and somehow, plenty seem to dismiss the series), the service has been lacking. Even if you love Art Style, for that matter, it's been light on content. We just hope the new announcement is truly new and not something that is already out in Japan.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Aspiring artists that want to publish their songs in the Rock Band Network will have to stick with Xbox 360. The tools, which were developed through Microsoft's XNA program, can't be ported over to Sony's machine. However, PS3 owners will still be able to access a large number of user-uploaded songs through the Rock Band Network Store, which will be patched into Rock Band 2 late this year; most likely in mid-November.Not every song from the Rock Band Network will be available for PS3 owners. The option to bring a song over to the PS3 version of the Store will be offered at Harmonix's discretion, and even then it will be entirely "opt in." Artists will have to do some paperwork to properly port their songs onto the PlayStation Network, a process Harmonix believes no one will refuse. "It's more revenue, right?"Essentially, PS3 owners will have access to the "greatest hits" of the Rock Band Network, while members of the Xbox 360 Creator's Club will be able to play and review every song that passes through the servers. Wii owners, on the other hand, are completely out of luck. "We would love to get it running on the Wii," Harmonix told us. However, the studio doesn't have the ability to patch games on Nintendo's platform. Until Harmonix discovers a workaround, Wii owners can only purchase additional songs officially distributed through Rock Band Weekly.
Permalink | Email this | Comments

NinjaBee Games is continuing the process of taking over the downloadable game market, making its first second move into WiiWare by publishing Grubby Games' The Amazing Brain Train, which manages to have both indie cred (it was a 2008 PAX 10 title) and WiiWare marketability (it's a brain training game).

The Amazing Brain Train features educational minigames in five categories: Search, Planning, Spatial, Memory, and Numbers. In addition to the obvious "Test Mode" and the single-game practice mode, Brain Train has a Quest Mode that offers players "quests and epic deeds."

NinjaBee has announced no release date for The Amazing Brain Train -- being WiiWare, we probably won't have any idea until it's released. In the meantime, you can download a free demo of the PC version here.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments