First and foremost, I'd like to wish everyone here at SDK Forums a happy New Year! 2012 was a great year for Nintendo, but from what it looks like, 2013 is going to be even better! I suppose that the main thing that I'm looking forward to is Animal Crossing: New Leaf, which has sold over 2 million copies in Japan. No, seriously, 2 MILLION! That seems like a pretty good sign of a quality game to me!

I have plenty of Nintendo related news for you guys today, from the noteworthy to the flat out bizarre. Let's get started!



The first big announcement of the day is for a new Nintendo 3DS game! Well, it's not exactly brand new... It's a port of an old Wiiware game. Swords and Soldiers 3D is essentially a revamped version of the original real-time-strategy game released on the Wii a few years back. The game has received praise for its cartoony art style and balanced gameplay, but is known for being slightly repetitive. The point of the game is to take one of three factions– Either Aztecs, Imperial Chinese, or Vikings– and march towards the enemy's base. The "strategy" aspect of the game mainly consists of deploying the right units at the right time. It's a relatively simple game, and a great starting point for those new to the RTS Genre. No release date has been confirmed, but expect it to arrive in the eShop sometime this spring.


This will undoubtedly look absolutely gorgeous in 3D.

Now here's the "flat-out bizarre" news that I hinted towards earlier. The original story, posted on 3DS Blog yesterday, was so well-written that I decided to post it here. To be clear, I am in no way taking any credit for this article.

WRITTEN BY DAVID OF 3DS BLOG

"In what can only be referred to as a “dick move”, someone purchased a 3DS XL from Walmart, then returned the product without the system inside the box. The person who processed the return should have checked that the product was inside, but they didn’t, and it turns out something else was inside: rocks.

Because of this, an unsuspecting mother purchased the 3DS XL: Rock Edition, then gave it to her son for Christmas. He of course, did not find a handheld gaming device inside the box. It was still just the rocks. But on the upside, at least it wasn’t coal. That’s sort of a consolation…ish.

Luckily, the story has a happy ending. Walmart was informed of the issue, the boy received his 3DS XL, and balance was restored to the universe. Phew."

As I read this, I couldn't help but picture the boy's face as he opened the box. I imagine that it probably looked something like this: