Bit by Bit: February 10-16

It has been an exciting two months.  Things have been falling into place in my life and for this blog.  This Sunday is WWE's Elimination Chamber PPV, the final PPV before WrestleMania, and that marks the return of my Road to WrestleMania series on my wrestling blog, The Silverdome.  I would love to have a weekly post on both blogs, but with all my school work I cannot get around to writing two blog posts a week.  For the time being, I will be taking a little hiatus from Silver Bit.  I will most likely try to put up previews for Tomb Raider and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, two games I am personally excited for, next month.  Things will return to normal once WrestleMania has past.  Now without any further ado, let us get down to business.

Game of the Week

Game of the Week, Game of the Month and a possible frontrunner for Game of the Year.  I am talking about Fire Emblem Awakening for the 3DS.  It has been a while since a game has blown we away like Awakening has done.  Intelligent Systems has improved their already masterful strategy series to astronomical heights.  The excellent pair up system, a support system that adds much more than bonus conversations and a seemingly endless supply of missions to play, teams to fight through SpotPass and StreetPass and bonus challenges and maps to complete.  I have played Fire Emblem Awakening for close to 30 hours and I am only halfway through the main story of Awakening.  On top of all that, Nintendo is releasing new DLC missions every week for gamers to buy that adds much more value to this incredible game.  The more I play Fire Emblem Awakening, the more I love it.  It is a masterful game and possibly the best game on the 3DS and the best game in the Fire Emblem series.

Most Anticipated Games of the Week

I have two Most Anticipated Games this week.  Both games have out for a while, but this week they will be going on sale.  They are F-Zero for the Wii U Virtual Console and Crashmo for 3DS.  The former will be on sale for only 30 cents, while the latter will be on sale for 6 dollars.  It is a no brainer for someone who has been wanting to buy these game for a while now.  I highly recommend also checking out these deals if you own either a 3DS or Wii U.

Video of the Week

The Nintendo dominance continues here in this week's Bit by Bit.  This past Thursday, Nintendo gave us the best Valentine's Day present we could of ever asked, a brand new Nintendo Direct.  This Nintendo Direct focused on the 3DS games that will be released later this year and it was amazing.  Announcing Mario Golf World Tour, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team and Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D was the most newsworthy announcement from the show, but we also got a plethora of information on new eShop games for both 3DS and Wii U and some smaller Wii U announcements.  If Nintendo keeps releasing these Nintendo Directs at a regular pace, it could be an excellent year for us Nintendo fans.

The Rayman Legends Debacle

This past Thursday was not a fun day for Wii U owners including yours truly.  Just under three weeks before the release of easily the most anticipated third-party game for the Wii U, Ubisoft decided to announce two big changes to the latest instalment in the Rayman series.  Rayman Legends is now going to be multi-platform and has been delayed until September.  Ubisoft's reasoning for the delay was that it was for the fans.  One of the biggest loads of crap I have heard in a while.  It is just like Activision saying that the newest Call of Duty is not exactly the same as previous entries, it is a lie!  If Ubisoft remotely cared about their fans, they would not have waited until the eleventh hour to pull this bait-and-switch with Rayman Legends.  

Going multi-platform is best for business and personally I am totally fine with Rayman Legends going multi-platform because it allows more gamers to experience this masterful platforming game and it will help support Ubisoft Montpellier in creating new games such as Beyond Good & Evil 2.  While a multi-platform release is good for business, delaying Rayman Legends only 19 days before the game was set to release for the Wii U is definitely not good for business.  The delay alienates fans who have been promoting Rayman Legends through social media and other forums on the internet and supporting the game through pre-orders.  It serves as a slap to the face of every Wii U owner who Ubisoft promised would support their new system with quality games. Also a slap in the face to all the developers at Ubisoft Montipellier who have been in crunch since last summer in order to get Rayman Legends complete for its February release date only to have it delayed right when it goes gold.

Apart from all the people Ubisoft upset with this delay, nobody seems to notice how stupid delaying Legends until this September.  What HUGE game releases just got announced to release this coming September?  It is Rockstar's newest entry in their open-world behemoth known as Grand Theft Auto V.  Yes, there will be other games that will most likely release in September other than GTA V, but sales-wise most gamers will be buying GTA over any other game released in September.  Since this delay was most likely made to maximize profits on a simultaneous multi-platform release, releasing Legends in the same month as the biggest game of 2013 is just asking for history to repeat itself.  For those who do not know or remember, Ubisoft made a similar decision when they released Rayman Origins back in  2011.  They released Rayman Origins on the same day as Assassin's Creed Revelations and Saint's Row The Third.  Long story short, Origins got lost in the shuffle of the holiday season and the game did not come close to Ubisoft's sales expectations.  How is putting Rayman Legends in the same exact situation going to help sales especially since Ubisoft easily hurt sales by alienating their entire Wii U audience?  If Ubisoft wanted Rayman Legends to succeed, they would release the game in the summer when gamers are starving for new games instead of feeding it to the cannibalistic holiday season.  I love Rayman, but it cannot compete with the Grand Theft Autos, the Assassin's Creeds and the Call of Dutys.

As much as it hurts to have Ubisoft delay one of the games I bought my Wii U to play, there is nothing I can do alone to change this delay.  All I can do is talk about here, but it comes down to all of us Wii U owners to make our voices heard.  Do not stop at a measly exclusive demo, we want the entire game.  If we can convince Ubisoft to release Rayman Legends for Wii U before September, it will be amazing.  If not, at least we tried.  There are other ways of making our voices heard such as boycotting Ubisoft games or buying Rayman Legends used, but we should not unintentionally hurt the excellent developers at Ubisoft's many studios who sacrifice a lot to make the games we love including Rayman Legends because some idiot in a suit thought more about the money lining his pocket than the customers he ultimately serves.  No matter what happens, I will still buy Rayman Legends on the first day it releases.  Now I will definitely think twice before pre-ordering another Ubisoft game.  Sorry Ubisoft, us gamers do not like to be treated like trash.

For those interested in making your voice heard about this situation, please sign the petition I provide in this link, http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/ubisoft-entertainment-s-a-keep-to-the-original-rayman-legends-release-date-for-the-wii-u?utm_campaign=new_signature&utm_medium=email&utm_source=signature_receipt#.  The more people sign this petition, the more Ubisoft will take notice and hopefully release Rayman Legends when it was originally scheduled to release.  Like Ubisoft says, they listen to their fans.

Launch Station: Fire Emblem Awakening

It has been a long long time since we have had a Launch Station.  Seeing this is the first Launch Station of 2013, we start the year out right.  The first big release in February goes to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems with Fire Emblem Awakening.  Well known for the Paper Mario and Advance Wars series here in North America, Intelligent Systems' premier strategy RPG franchise, Fire Emblem, did not reach our shores until late 2003.  Ever since then, it has been a struggle to get Nintendo to localize each game in the series.  The first Fire Emblem game developed from the ground up for the 3DS almost did not see the light of day on this side of the pond.  It is a good thing that Fire Emblem Awakening will soon release in North America as it looks to be the biggest and most polished entry in the series.

At the forefront of every Fire Emblem is the story and Awakening is no exception.  You take control of Chrom, the prince of Ylisse, and his band of soldiers known as Shepherds in a world on the brink of war.  The forces of Plegia, commanded by the Mad King Gangrel, start attacking the borders of Ylisse and it is up to Chrom and the Shepherds to defend their homeland of invading forces.  Everything is not what it seems to be as unholy creatures known only as Risen start appearing out of nowhere.  Along with this new threat comes a masked swordsman who claims to be the legendary hero Marth.  This swordsman's message, that the world is not on the brink of war, but its own destruction.  While the story does take centre stage in Fire Emblem Awakening, you cannot count out the series' iconic turned-based gameplay.  If you played any Fire Emblem game, you will be very familiar with the grid-based moving and rock-paper-scissors combat system.  It may seem very simplistic at first, but the gameplay offers a whole lot of depth that few games can match especially with the new concepts Intelligent Systems has added in Awakening.  A lot of effort has been made in improving Fire Emblem's relationship and support systems.  On the battlefield, pairing up characters or even placing two characters side by side offer stat boosts in combat.  The more you pair characters together, the stronger their relationship gets.  Aside from the increase of stat boosts, some characters may even get married and have children due to these strong relationships.  Other big additions come on the side of online functionality.  At any point in the game, you are able to connect to the Nintendo Network to download items, maps, challenges and even teams to fight.  Also you are able to purchase new map packs that has its own stories and features characters from past Fire Emblem games such as Roy, Lyn and Ike that you are able to recruit to your party.  That is not all Fire Emblem Awakening's online has to offer as you are able to exchange avatars in StreetPass and fight others in local multiplayer.  Fire Emblem Awakening offers plenty of value outside of the epic and long story missions.

As a huge Fire Emblem fan, I have been looking forward to getting my hands on Fire Emblem Awakening since the game was first announced back in 2011.  Thanks to a little blunder by EB Games Canada, I got Fire Emblem Awakening a week early.  So far I have put close to eleven hours into the game and I am only on the seventh chapter.  It is an incredible game that is very to put down.  If you are looking for a game to play on your the 3DS, look no farther than Fire Emblem Awakening.  It is a deep strategy RPG that will keep you occupied from hours on end and a portable experience that is not to be missed.