Sonic and the Black Knight

THIS IS NOT FAN ART OR FAN FICTION!!! THIS IS REAL!!!
Sonic and the Black Knight takes on after the style of Sonic and the Secret Rings. You know, going into story book tales. Well, this not being Arabian Nights but King Arthur, there are many differences. A sorceress named Merlina actually summons Sonic to the world of King Arthur, where King Arthur is evil and corrupted!! Thus, the Black Knight. However, I find this un-original. The Black Knight is Ike's (from Fire Emblem) arch foe. So, this isn't that original....
Anyway, as always it's up to Sonic to set things straight. First time director of Sonic series Tetsu Katano was getting to the end of the development for Sonic and the Secret Rings, when they were asked to start thinking about the next Wii exclusive Sonic project. It seemed to Tetsu, that they could do some amazingly cool (and strange... at least for Sonic) things with a sword. Thus springing off of that game into this.
Thankfully, this game will not have some of the strangeness of Sonic Rings. In Sonic and the Secret Rings, you didn't get to steer Sonic. You just got to move him laterally along the track, make him jump, etc. However you could choose different paths. But the path choosing was rare. You now use the analog stick on the Nunchuk to steer him and with a simple flick of the Wii-mote, you slash through enemies. However, for the guys at Nintendo Power, the demo they played seemed extremely realistic with the sword.... Even for a DEMO!! A simple slash can swipe through most regular baddies, and you don't even need to slow down (nor do you get slowed down by the slash)! But when you face a harder adversary, you can have more advanced sword play. He can do quite a few moves for an animal with a sword. Thrusts, parries, and even a super cool (and lethal) buzz saw move in mid jump (oh, imagine the awesomeness on the screen, and the thoughts going through the baddies' head when they see him doing this at them)! Of course, swords have more uses than slicing baddies (or at least, now it does!). In the demo that the NP staff saw (and the screenshot I saw) Sonic can stick his blade into a wall, and slow his decent to avoid injury. How cool is THAT!!??
Now, the creators said that they didn't want to just add a sword to the old Sonic. They wanted this game to let Sonic come to knighthood. And only by being a full-fledged knight does Sonic even have a CHANCE of beating King Arthur! Because Sonic is not the most chivalrous character around, Sonic's sword, Calibur, serves as a mentor to Sonic (you) as you go along. Also, throughout each stage you have the chance to help people along the way. Like, getting someone out of wrongful imprisonment. If you do things like this, you'll get knight points. At the end of each stage you will get your good and not-so-good deeds tallied up. Not-so-good deeds include killing innocent bystanders. In other words, your knight score takes a hit (and if you do it on purpose, stop being Sonic, go work for King Arthur in his corruptness!). It is also good to do these deeds because you get the ability to buy things from great-ful townsfolk. Special items and the like, that can get you extra bonus' in certain areas. Speed, strength, etc. You can also trade items via WFC, so you are not totally lost if you have a friend with the same game who has an extra one of the items that you are looking for. There are 200 items in all, so there's gotta be SOMETHING that you'll want (and something that you'll want AND not be able to find!).
Nintendo Power also assures us, that even though this game is still in development, the game is STUNNING (the screenshots are amazing too)! They also showed me how many things have been changed to fit the Arthurian setting. No more rails, but you can fire a Ballistae (a huge crossbow) that has a rope attached to the arrow, that you can grind upon to get over a gap. Rings now come in cloth sacks instead of computer monitors, among other things. But, what seems better than all that, is that in some places, the game will go sidescrolling platforming awesomeness action, that relates back to the blue blur's 2-d, 16-bit origins!!!!!!
There is no more slowing down time or ultra speedboosting in this game, but there are other things like those super moves that I THINK I might be able to explain. One has you do a bunch of slices. Where you slice one enemy, rocket to the next, slice it, so on so on until you have to stop the technique or you run out of power in your special meter. Other special features from the Wii debut are also returning, but there is so much that I cannot type fast enough.... ok, I could, but my fingers might fall off. I guess you'll just have to wait for 1) More information. Or 2) The 2009 release. Until then, I'll be your friend in gaming,
CPU12 The Nintendo Freak
Good Luck.

New Fire Emblem

Well, I recently found out that Fire Emblem DS will be hitting Japanese shelves August 7 this year. So I don't know when WE will get to see this amazing game. This new Fire Emblem is a remake of the first Fire Emblem, Shadow Dragons and the Blade of Light. However, the title that is being shown in Japan is currently directly translated into Fire Emblem: New Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. Info on US name has not yet been announced seeing that we are still so far away from the JAPANESE launch date. The Wi-Fi capability will be a little different than what I was expecting. You will take 5 players from your single player game and have them fight with another player in a special vs. map. This means that the players who have beaten the game in Japan will probably WHIP the guys here once we get the game! Uh, oh. That's not good!
Another fact I found interesting is the fact that the game will cost 4,800 yen. My first thought was, "WHAT ON EARTH!!! I THOUGHT THAT 9-10 YEN MADE UP A US DOLLAR!! THIS PRICE IS, LIKE, 500 BUCKS ON OUR PART!!!!!" Well, turns out that I was very wrong. Yuan, Chinese currency, is 1/8 of a dollar each, while yen, Japanese currency, is about 1/104 of a dollar. WHOA!! 104 YEN TO MAKE A DOLLAR??!! Anyway, it would probably be in the end cheaper in Japan. Because that price totals out to about 26 dollars. DS games don't START that way here, especially not monster franchises or big games! So, we will probably have to buy it more expensive, and later. But hey! It's the next Fire Emblem! Or, is it the oldest one??....