We are slowly but surely moving towards the end of the year. If you’re in America you probably celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, which started of the holiday season I guess. For me it was a normal working day, a day ending a crazy working week with a lot of extra hours put in. So it’s time to kick back and share some handheld gaming news with you, time to start the weekend! Would you care for a nice cup of coffee?
Pokémon Sun or Moon release in Europe
Today the new Pokémon games are released in Europe. A long awaited event everywhere, judging by the number of pre-orders. Apparently the pre-orders have been the highest Gamestop has seen of any game in the past five years. And since release in America last week they are the best-performing games for GameStop all year.
I’ve been playing the game this past week and I can say they managed to make it a fresh new experience while keeping the old familiar things in place. It’s nice to see all kind of new Pokémon, to experience the feel of Alola, which is clearly based on Hawaii. One new feature I like in particular, and that’s Pokémon Care. It’s a bit like Pokémon Amie, but much more real life. While caring for your critters you get the feeling they really respond to you.
If you love catching Pokémon, but you feel your appearance in the game is equally important, you should check out this blog by bobaandgames. A detailed instruction of how to get which female hairstyle!
Black Friday Sales in games
Of course, with Thanksgiving comes Black Friday. Funny that we see more and more Black Friday deals over here too. I checked out the deals in handheld games, and here are some examples. Nintendo of America has various games in the eShop with a discount up to 50% till December 5th. Games like Monster Hunter Generations, Zelda TriForce Heroes, Hyrule Warriors Legends, 7th Dragon III Code: VFD and various Lego games like The Force Awakens and Jurrasic World. See the details on Nintendo.com.
Nintendo Europe couldn’t stay behind. There are sales up to 40% but only until November 28. So hurry if you would like a game like Story of Seasons, Hyrule Warriors Legends and BoxBoy. Not as many as on the American site though. See the details on Nintendo.co.uk.
The Playstation store has all kind of attractive deals as well to fulfil all your gaming wishes. Some that stand out to me are a discount on Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth, Star Wars the Force Awakens, the Arland Trilogy Plus (three Atelier games), Otome novel Amnesia: Memories and Ar no surge Plus: Ode to an Unborn Star. The discounts all end on November 28, not long to decide. You’ll find more details here, though this is the Dutch site. Discounts in your own region might differ!
Atelier Firis gets a release date
As you know I keep a close eye on all Atelier games, as to me they are a perfect combination of RPG with crafting and some simulation gaming thrown in. The next brand new game, Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey is to be released on the PS4 and the PS Vita in Spring 2017. What surprised me is that it will also be released on Steam, to play it on the PC. So if you don’t own a Sony device, here’s your chance!
This successor to Atelier Sophie is about Firis Mistlud and her older sister Liane Mistlud. Firis learns about the Alchemy Exam and decides to leave her sheltered little town and travel the vast outside world. I use the word vast with a purpose: it’s said that the world with towns, environments and other locations will be ten times the size of this in Atelier Sophie! I’m already looking forward to it!
Want to scan old photos?
I know I normally give you all kinds of handheld gaming news, but every now and then something non-gaming comes along that I can’t wait to share with you. Lately we have been poring over old pictures of our parents and grand parents. Trying to reconstruct how our hometown looked in centuries past. Eindhoven is an old town, almost 800 years old, but it was a fairly small village before Philips founded their factory there in 1931.
Anyway, what I wanted to mention was an app in iOS and Android that managed to capture the pictures perfectly. PhotoScan by Google captures the pictures on five different points and merges them together. It automatically crops the picture and turns it into the best possible representation of the original one. Works very well, and it’s free!