Level-5 Vision Conference

Gaming developer Level-5 (Professor Layton, Dark Cloud) held its annual press conference today and Andriasang was present for all the details. Here's a link to their live blog.

I'll just narrow it down to a few highlights and snippets.

• Ni no Kuni, a game being made for both the DS and PS3. This looks pretty cool, an RPG with lots of puzzles.
• A new Layton game for the 3DS. They will put up a new puzzle for download every day for an entire year. Release planned in the Spring.
• A new Inazuma Eleven game for the regular DS. These are silly soccer games with RPG elements. Never played them, but if they're anything like the old Captain Tsubasa games, I'll have to try them out.
• Little Battle eXperience, also known as Danbal Senki. A PSP game, and they're going to be making an anime and manga at the same time. It's a mech/robot game.
• Mystery Room, another puzzle-style game for the DS. Music by Yuzo Koshiro (Ys I & II, Streets of Rage, and more recently, the Etrian Odyssey series)!
• Kyaba Joppi, a waitress simulation game for the 3DS.
• Time Travelers, a crazy looking suspense game for the 3DS. Here's a trailer.

Vote for a new Megaman Legends heroine!

Capcom is running a poll in which fans can vote for a character design for a new girl in Megaman Legends 3! They say "new heroine" but it won't be a replacement for Roll.

Here is the link to the English site. Unfortunately, you need to set up a Capcom Unity account to vote!

Here is the link to the Japanese site. You don't need an account to vote here!

They also promise that there will be more ways for fans to contribute to the game soon.

Here is a picture of all the females, along with the names of who designed them.

I think I'll have to side with the consensus here and go with Haruki Suetsugu's design. She's currently the leader in votes in the west, while the characters on the bottom row are popular in Japan.

Suetsugu was heavily involved in Zak & Wiki and Zelda: The Minish Cap

And here's an early video of the game.

3DS to Download Firmware Updates Automatically?

There's no official text source, but a lot of places are reporting that Nintendo President Satoru Iwata announced Wednesday that they are "looking into having automatic system updates via the internet," in regards to the 3DS. This is done by a feature called "SpotPass," which will allow the 3DS to update even in sleep mode, as long as it has internet access.

No news further than that. The big question is whether you'll be able to turn automatic updates off or if they are forced. Fans of homebrew or less legal things ought to be worried if they are interested in online services. And if Nintendo handles 3DS firmware like Sony handles PS3 firmware (by completely removing features), everybody should be worried.

An In-Depth Look at the 3DS

With all the hype surrounding the Q1 2011 release of Nintendo's new 3D handheld, the 3DS, I thought I'd take a quick look and compare its specs to the various current-gen DS models.

	3DS	DSi XL	DSi	DS Lite	DS "Phat"
Weight	8.1 oz	11.1 oz	7.5 oz	7.7 oz	11 oz
Dimensions	5.3×2.9×0.83 in	6.3×3.60×0.83 in	5.4×2.95×0.74 in	5.2×2.91×0.861 in	5.85×3.33×1.14 in
Screen Size	3.53 in top, 3.02 in bottom	4.2 in	3.3 in	3.1 in	3.0 in
Screen Resolution	800x240 top, 320×240 bottom	256×192	256×192	256×192	256×192
Battery Life	TBA	13 to 17 hours	9 to 14 hours	15 to 19 hours	10 to 14 hours
Card Slots	3DS, DSi, DS, SD	DSi, DS, SD	DSi, DS, SD	DS, GBA	DS, GBA
RAM	64 MB	16 MB	16 MB	4 MB	4 MB
CPU	TBA	133 MHz ARM9 and 33 MHz ARM7	133 MHz ARM9 and 33 MHz ARM7	67 MHz ARM and 33 MHz ARM7	67 MHz ARM9 and 33 MHz ARM7
Camera	640x480 resolution	640x480 resolution	640×480 resolution	N/A	N/A

In weight and dimensions, it is most similar to the DS Lite. However, the top screen is much bigger, and both screens have improved resolutions. The 800x240 top screen might seem a little bit crazy, but it is effectively 400x240 for each eye. Not too sure about how that works technically, but at any rate, it looks like a marginal improvement over its predecessors.

4x as much RAM as the DSi/DSi XL and 16x as much as the original DS Phat and DS Lite. Battery life is unknown, but said to be similar to the DSi. CPU model and speed is currently unknown. No backwards compatibility to anything older than the DS, sadly. Certain DSiWare can be transferred to the 3DS, which has 2GB of data storage. It now has WPA/WPA2 security support, in addition to WEP.

They threw in an analog stick, and the 3DS still supports touchscreen with a stylus. The new stylus folds in like a telescope. 

While the 3D feature and the specs are nice, I'm more excited about the games. Tons of big name titles from both Nintendo and third parties, but you have to wonder how many of them are going to be simple ports and remakes. Can't wait to see what Megaman Legends 3 looks like, Sony's response, and what the opening retail price will be.