At the end of May, Treasure announced the winners of their Bangai-O Spiritsstage contest. The 1st place winner, MKLL, received a 50,000 yen prepaid debit card, a soundtrack CD, and a Bangai-O Spirits t-shirt (which we'd like to see) for the "Tokimeki Doukasen" stage. The 2nd place winner, NeoGAF's Sp0rsk, won a Wii in addition to the soundtrack and shirt. All the contest-winning stages are now available for download and play via Sound Load.
That means that we won a bunch of downloadable stages that we're going to grab now and hang onto just in case they work in the U.S. version of the game. We wouldn't be surprised if these contest-winning stages made it onto the cartridge anyway!
If you're wondering why the DS Fanboy staff is so wired up for Bangai-O Spirits, you only have to watch this trailer to understand. Packed into a minute of explosive goodness, this video manages to highlight all of the completely sweet features that will be in the game. With so much content and such a deep stage editing/sharing system, you can bet that this Treasure title will be keeping us occupied for a long, long time.
Those of us in North America and Europe that are waiting for its localization can expect the game in August.
In what is yetanother statistical landmark for the DS in its homeland, the data gatherers at Media Create have revealed that Japanese consumers have purchased their 100,000,000th Nintendo DS game.* Considering the handheld itself hit the twenty million mark only last November, we calculate that to be ... a pretty good attachment rate! In total, 922 titles have appeared in the region, 21 of which have been million-sellers. Hit the break for the top ten best-selling games to date.
* Rumors that the 100,000,000th game sold was Bangai-O Spirits are yet to be verified, and are suspected to have originated at popular Nintendo DS blog "DS Fanboy."
Unless you have abundant amounts of currency, though, you probably can't afford to buy that many games in such a short period of time. Also, money isn't the only problem. Supposing that you could afford everything you wanted, you wouldn't even have the time to play them all.
Narrowing down the field is tough, but necessary. What games that are coming out in the next three months do you consider must gets? And they don't have to be chosen from the games listed above, so go nuts.
Last week was the week of new releases! Anticipating high holiday sales, many publishers made sure to release their games last week, with a total of fifteen ending up in the top thirty (seven of those being DS titles). With this slew of new releases, though, a lot of games were bumped off the chart to make room. Etrian Odyssey II and Soma Bringer, for example, did not survive the onslaught. Yet, somehow Mario Kart DS managed to move up a spot -- that game never ceases to amaze us.
The top of the heap was none other than Pokémon Ranger: Batonnage, which completely crushed the competition in its debut week. Sim City 2 DS did well also, ending up in the number four spot. In fact, this is the best an EA game has ever done in its first week in Japan, with the exception of the FIFA titles. Time Hollow and Super Dodgeball are some other notable new releases, ending up in spots ten and seventeen, respectively.
This week, there are a lot of DS games headed out all around the globe, but it's particularly a great week for those of you who keep your eyes peeled for interesting Japanese releases. Not the import type? That's okay -- there's a lot of other games to consider, and some that aren't even quite games, per se.
Gametrailers stopped D3's Product Manager for Bangai-O Spirits, Sam Guilloud, to talk about some of the features of the new game. It's mostly stuff we've heard -- the sound transmission feature, for example -- but any chance to see some gameplay footage is worthwhile. And we are personally impressed any time an interview about Bangai-O Spirits doesn't go like this:
Q: DUDE BANGAI-O SPIRITS
A: I KNOW, RIGHT
Guillloud said that D3 is keeping a hands-off approach to the development of Bangai-O Spirits, allowing Treasure to do their own thing. "They have their own prestige and we wouldn't dare tell them what to do."
In other wonderful Bangai-O news, Gamefly now has the game listed for a June 26th release. Sure, it's not today, but it's not that far off!
The awesome Japanese trailer we posted last week was just not enough. Just having one video fails to convey the excess, the overkill, that is the essence of a Bangai-O game. Also, there's the simple fact that we like the game a bunch and want to see more of it.
So naturally we were pleased to find that Gametrailers had uploaded fourBangai-O Spirits gameplay videos. In the "Missile Maze" video above, the player cleverly uses the respite of a few enemy-free corridors to charge up a scatter bomb, sending a wall of missiles out into the turret-filled chamber ahead before venturing in that direction. This tactic of scatter-bomb-as-shield figures heavily into gameplay, even with the existence of an actual shield item. We've posted the other three videos after the break -- Hold down your attack button, then charge through and launch a video-watching attack!
More often than not, Bangai-O Spirits looks staggering. At stages, it's almost as if the screen becomes just missiles. Nowhere is this better displayed than in the Japanese trailer above, with Riki and Mami simultaneously unleashing what seems like hundreds of criss-crossing projectiles. It's bracing stuff, alright. Also spotted: brief footage of the game's extensive stage editor.
Looks like Jeux-France got into the Bangai-O Spirits level editor. Either that or there's an official level comprising a huge pile of giant space soccer balls between the player and a bunch of enemies. Although, now that we think about it, that's entirely possible. Especialy since the soccer ball item must be an existing part of the game for it to be accessible in the level editor.
Whatever they've done, it's resulted in another spate of extraordinarily wacky screenshots, which we pored over in delight. This set, in addition to weirdo soccer ball shenanigans, contains the best screenshot of a Scatter Bomb super attack in action we've seen. That white curtain? Missiles.
One of the first appointments I had when I got into San Francisco for GDC was with D3 Publisher. This appointment was what I was looking forward to most out of the trip, because I was going to get to play Bangai-O Spirits. And play it I did, while gushing unprofessionally at the D3 QA person giving the demo. I did my best to learn as quickly as possible how all the new parts of Bangai-O Spirits work. It's the same as the N64 and Dreamcast games in a number of ways, but it's also very different in a few fundamental ways. Unfortunately, I didn't get to play with the sound transmission feature, one of the most different things about the game.
Head past the break for detailed impressions, and be sure to check out our gallery of brand-new screens!
It's quite possible that this is absolutely the weirdest, yet most incredibly awesome, news DS Fanboy has ever presented. We're going to take a moment to collect ourselves here.
Okay, we're ready to go now. You see, current life obsession for one of our bloggers, the quirky and wonderful Bangai-O Spirits, will have a very unique way of saving user-created stages and replays. The game will output an audio file, through the DS's headphone jack, allowing users to back-up the file on their PC. Then, the audio file can be played back to the DS through its microphone (weren't we just complaining about how awesome the mic is and how it's not being used?).
One of our own came up with an interesting question regarding all of this: what if you took the file and remixed it with a song from, say, the early 90's? What kind of stage would we get then? We'll just have to wait and find out ourselves.
An actual Japanese release date for Bangai-O Spirits gives us a lot more faith that it'll make its announced Q2 release for North America. Treasure has finally announced one, and it's soon: March 19. How wonderful!
Along with this happy news comes an overhaul of the official site. Too long have we been staring at the single splash screen waiting for content. Now there are tiny screenshots to squint at and information about the edit mode not to be able to read very well (although we think Wi-Fi stage sharing is possible!)
Riki and Mami are not returning for this iteration of Bangai-O. They'll be turning the spotlight over to kids named Ruri and Masato, the latter of whom is, no doubt, named after Treasure president Masato Maegawa.
Hello!! It is me, the super sexy M. In the year 2001 we had a Bangai-O shooting game on the Sega Dreamcast. Children Riki and Mami had a very big robot to go fight SF Kozmo Gang! I was in Infostation and sold them many infos to survive. They needed secret help information so they know how to use robot shooting power! We had many great talks together, and our game has a very deep storyline because of it! You should play our game and send money if you like it afterward!
Now the Treasure company is making a new Bangai-O shooting excitement game for the Nintendo DS! Can all of the 2D big explosions fit on such a small thing? Only time can tell!! Also it is yet to know if the delightful Mrs. M herself will be returning. If Infostation does not have me, how will players learn the shooting? Failure is very possible. But without knowing if I have a job, I will be nice and offer my very special information for free! You can thank me later!! It is because of the greatness of Bangai-O that I continue.
In my Bangai-O big robot had the ability to make extreme explosions based on number of the bullets on screen! It was out of control for sure! New Bangai-O Spirits has gone back to the way of N64, so the player (who is you) now has to charge up! What an exciting change of pace!
Back in 2001, Riki and Mami only had two weapons on the Bangai-O robot -- homing shot and bound shot (which bounced). Now so many new weapons are available! You can choose from start and have multiple weapons, including a bat that repels enemies and a sword that absorbs bullets! Then add on EX abilities that you unleash by charging up power and you are an explosion firing machine! Make 50000 credits please! I know I said it was free but this information is too good!
I wish I knew about when this game was coming out! It would be super premium information! I have been told that it is Q2, but not exactly known! I will just have to start planning my own levels for when it is out -- oh yes, did I not tell you? Bangai-O Spirits lets the beautiful Mrs. M and even normal kids like you make a level! Do you think you can make a level good enough for our 2D shooting action?
Posted Jan 16th 2008 3:45PM by JC Fletcher
Filed under: News
Nintendo sent out a press release detailing the 2008 release schedule, and along with all the yay-awesome stuff we knew about, there's a ton of new stuff! We were just casually looking down the list, expecting familiar titles and release dates, and we almost spit out our Diet Cherry Coke when we saw previously-unknown release dates, and even a few new titles! For the safety of your computer, DS Fanboy recommends that you put down your Diet Cherry Coke before proceeding.
For the first time, the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon sequels have been announced for U.S. release. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness are tentatively slated for a "Q2" release. More personally exciting is the revelation that Bangai-O Spirits was picked up by D3 of America, also Q2. And by "personally exciting" we mean "OH YES AWESOME. AWESOME."
Other surprises include Ubisoft's Quick Yoga Training (April), Nintendo's Crosswords DS (May 5th!), Rondo of Swords (which we Eric surmised is Success Corp.'s Ituwari no Rondo) and complete unknowns like Organize It (May 8th).
We've reproduced the whole list for you after the break, so you can freak out. We think we're over the initial shoOH DUDE SUPER DODGEBALL IN APRIL. If you can handle the intensity, check out the Wii schedule as well!
At the end of May, Treasure announced the winners of their Bangai-O Spirits stage contest. The 1st place winner, MKLL, received a 50,000 yen prepaid debit card, a soundtrack CD, and a Bangai-O Spirits t-shirt (which we'd like to see) for the "Tokimeki Doukasen" stage. The 2nd place winner, NeoGAF's Sp0rsk, won a Wii in addition to the soundtrack and shirt. All the contest-winning stages are now available for download and play via Sound Load.
Last week was the week of new releases! Anticipating high holiday sales, many publishers made sure to release their games last week, with a total of fifteen ending up in the top thirty (seven of those being DS titles). With this slew of new releases, though, a lot of games were bumped off the chart to make room. 
This week, there are a lot of DS games headed out all around the globe, but it's particularly a great week for those of you who keep your eyes peeled for interesting Japanese releases. Not the import type? That's okay -- there's a lot of other games to consider, and some that aren't even quite 
Looks like Jeux-France got into the 
It's quite possible that this is absolutely the weirdest, yet most incredibly awesome, news DS Fanboy has ever presented. We're going to take a moment to collect ourselves here.
An actual Japanese release date for 
Now the Treasure company is making a 
_thumbnail.jpg "Prince of Persia: The Fallen King")
