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So much stuff just happened right there and we are super excited about Shovel Knight burrowing his way to us on 26/06/14 and i personally can’t wait. the release trailer shows off all kinds of mechanics, NPC’s and OOOH that metal remix it’s … it’s Beauuuuutiful.

But i’ll let you guys decide for yourself if you think that this just looks like the coolest thing ever. One thing is certain it’s only a few days until The Squire of Spades entrenches himself in our hearts.

Eiji Aonuma, the developer behind recent Legend of Zelda games has hinted that the next game in the franchise might offer “more than just a single-player experience”, causing many to speculate that the next game could feature some form of multiplayer.

In a recent chat with Game Informer promoting the release of Hyrule Warriors, Aonuma was asked about the co-op in the Dynasty Warriors/Zelda crossover, and if that would influence the as yet un-named Wii U entry in the franchise.

In reply, he said:

“The two-player functionality of Hyrule Warriors is actually something that has traditionally been done in the Dynasty Warriors series, but they’ve changed because of the hardware and the second screen on your GamePad.” He continued to say that, “Instead of having a splitscreen on the television, you have one-player playing on the television and one on the GamePad. When I was talking back about making Zelda more than just a single-player experience? That’s something you will see in the future, maybe next year.”

Of course, the new Zelda was only just revealed at E3 and Nintendo is notoriously tight lipped when it comes to releasing early details on major franchises such as Zelda. Needless to say, this is a story we’ll be following closely.

What do you think? Do you like your Zelda the way it is, or would multiplayer in an open world Zelda interest you? Sound off in the comments section!

Part of Nintendo’s presentation yesterday was a new trailer for the announced Gen 3 Pokemon remakes, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. As with X and Y, part of the trailer was devoted to new ‘Mega Evolution’ forms for certain Gen 3 Pokemon.

One of the fully evolved starters of these games, Blaziken, obviously has already gotten a Mega Evolution with X and Y that will be returning in these games. Similarly both Swampert and Sceptile will have their own Mega Evolution forms to use. Sceptile gains many new fern or palm leaf-like spikes, longer ‘ears’ as well as new red tipping to its arm leaves. Swampert on the other hand bulks up tremendously, it gains an extra head fin and its orange whiskers lengthen greatly. Mega Swampert retains its Water/Ground typing and has a new ability of ‘Swift Swim’, while Mega Sceptile gains the ability ‘Lightning Rod’ and becomes a dual-type Grass/Dragon.

As well it debuts a new form for each of the two Legendaries that appear on the box art, Kyogre and Groudon. Both forms bear resemblance to the ‘Primal’ form Dialga took in the second Mystery Dungeon series and appear on the front of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. They have been called Primal Kyogre and Primal Groudon.

One further Mega Evolution has been revealed, thanks to a scan from CoroCoro. Mega Diancie mega evolves from the Diancie pokemon and will be a Rock/Fairy type but as of right now, no information on Ability is known. The Mega Evolution gives Diancie more ‘dress-like’ frills, lengthens the ‘ribbons’ and changes the shape of the lace-like patch on its forehead slightly.

And today hot on the heels of the new information about the games, a video has gone up on the Official Pokemon Youtube channel that shows off the mega evolution sequence for Sableye – a Ghost-type introduced in the Ruby and Sapphire generation, the new form having been announced at the Nintendo’s Kid Conference at E3.

The mega evolution is very subtle compared to other Mega Evolutions, the only changes seem to be red eyes, an extra head spike and a large jewel that Sableye uses as a shield. The large jewel shield is apparently the gem that used to be on the Pokemon’s stomach area, and has absorbed most of the evolution’s energy to swell and detach as a shield for the small imp-like Ghost Pokemon to hide behind. It doesn’t seem as of this moment that the Mega Evolution changes Sableye’s typing from its standard Ghost/Dark dual-type, nor is it known if it will gain a new ability.

These are the confirmed Mega Evolutions coming in the two new remake games. Nintendo have confirmed more are to come though, so we’ll keep you updated when new Mega Evolutions appear!

Four years ago, Nintendo discontinued making physical appearances at E3 in favour of digital presentations – deciding that, as trailers and video make up a large part of what gets shown off for a video game, it’s cheaper to just put the whole event on-screen than actually send people to turn up at the event and talk. This year was no different, but Nintendo DID see fit to make a joke of on-screen presentations with the intro to this year’s Digital Event, with clips of a CGI audience who would heckle Reggie Fils-Aime twice during the course of the event – and subsequently get laser-eyed or beaten up before moving on to the next presentation. It’s a charming Nintendo-isation of the realities of E3 and a perfect demonstration of what Nintendo’s about – making you smile.

Yes, Day 1 of E3 kicked off today and to kick off proceedings, Nintendo took the “stage” for its annual Digital Event. In an hour of non-stop reveals, trailers and on-screen appearances and interviews both real and digitized, over a dozen games were revealed or had further information shown off about them; and we even heard of a new Nintendo toy line coming out and how it’ll tie in with Mario Kart 8 and future Nintendo titles, plus a new character reveal for Smash Bros.!

Over the coming hours I’ll be writing articles on each game and what was revealed. But here’s a quick run-down:

• Super Smash Bros.: Mii characters become playable fighters for the first time and can be customised for three specific types of fighting.
• Amiibo: New line of NFC-enabled toys from Nintendo that will be compatible with Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros Wii/3DS and many future titles.
• Yoshi’s Wooly World: Gameplay footage, discussion of the concept, 2-player co-op revealed.
• Captain Toad’s Treasure Tracker: Puzzle game featuring Toad as main character, release Winter 2014.
• Open-World plans for a future Zelda title discussed.
• Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire: New Trailer launched with some game-play footage and first look at Groudon and Kyogre’s new formes.
• Bayonetta 2: will include original Bayonetta; and Zelda and Samus costumes.
• First look at Hyrule Warriors, launching September 19, 2014.
• Digmbot gets angry on Twitter following last announcement.
• First look at plans for a new, as-yet untitled Kirby game coming 2015.
• Xenoblade Chronicles: New footage.
• Mario Maker: Create-your-own-Mario-level Wii U game revealed.
• First look at Splatoon, “a 4-on-4 game about controlling territory” – by dressing as squids and shooting ink. Seriously.
• “One more thing”: Lady Palutena joins the fight in Smash Bros; two S.FM staff members go crazy at the news.

There was a lot of exciting news to be seen in the hour-long presentation; and Nintendo even ended by saying that they still have much more to reveal that they just didn’t have time for. Personally, I think the titles they focused on this time around were carefully selected and made a lot of sense – mostly big titles, a few First looks in the middle, new first-party titles being announced that aren’t anything like what you may have expected, an interesting third-party effort to round off and Smash Bros. buffering both ends. I was personally surprised to see Mario Maker announced – the ability to make your own Mario levels had been a common fan request for Mario titles from almost the beginning; but while fans have often made their own self-developed game engines to do the job themselves, or have ROM-hacked the official games to introduce their own levels (we at Sanitarium.FM do NOT condone this practice!), over the years the idea of a Nintendo-authored, official tool or feature to do this just began to felt like a pipe dream. Now it’s finally happening, my question is – what took you so long, Nintendo?!? (Admittedly, the Wii U may well be the best platform for the tool what with it’s controller with built-in touch-screen offering an excellent interface for level creation; and the large TV screen offering tons of space to work with – a DS screen may not have offered anywhere near the real estate for the game or its interface.)

However, my pick of the crop has to be the announcement of Amiibo – the idea of NFC-enabled Nintendo figures was actually discussed in the Wii U promotional material before it even launched; and with Skylanders already showing how it can be done, it’s about time Nintendo got into the game too. The idea of the figures not just representing the characters though, but also acting as storage to keep your own character’s stats and enhancements on within compatible games seems like an interesting concept though; and seeing how the figures will be cross-compatible with multiple Nintendo titles which are likely to be very different in play – Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. aren’t even in the same genre! – it may well turn out to be something quite big indeed for Nintendo. Stay tuned!