It's unusual for big companies to admit they made a mistake - and even rarer for them to give their customers' so much free stuff to try and make up - but Nintendo have certainly gone out of their way to try and win back favour with their fans for the sudden 3DS price drop, just some three months after the console's launch. Maybe it's the whole traditional Japanese humbleness coming into play, but with Nintendo's top brass serving themselves with pay cuts, an apology from their president, Satoru Iwata, and a total of twenty free games promised for anyone who bought their 3DS before the price cut on the 12th of August, we certainly aren't feeling short changed in any way.
If you were one of the many who bought their 3DS before the 12th of August, you'll likely already have downloaded your ten free NES titles from the 3DS eShop - and now Nintendo have released the details of the final ten games to be released, which are all digital copies of Game Boy Advance titles. If you only got on board with Nintendo in the DS/Wii era, this is a great chance to catch up on some of the greatest handheld games you may have missed out on. As of this Friday, the 16th of December, anyone who bought their 3DS before the 12th of August will be receiving an early Christmas present in the form of the following games, all downloadable from the eShop, courtesy of Nintendo:
Metroid Fusion
When bounty hunter Samus Aran's spaceship gets attacked by an unidentifiable life-form en route to the planet SR388, she too gets attacked by the parasitic creature. This causes her to mutate into a weird fusion of herself and the 'X' creature, granting her new and unusual abilities that she'll need to use as she explores the planet, making use of her bombs, missiles and other weapons as she investigates the life-form and searches for a cure.
WarioWare Inc: Minigame Mania
When the 'financially motivated' Wario hears about the lucrative video games market on the TV, he knows he's found his next get-rich-quick scheme. So he soon sets up his own company - WarioWare Inc - and begins work on his game. While everything starts well, Wario quickly gets bored and calls up his closest friends to lend a hand, producing their own five-second microgames - because a fully-fledged game would cost too much, obviously. Frantic, button mashing fun, this is a great pick-up-and-play game.
Mario Kart: Super Circuit
The odds are you know what Mario Kart's about by now - choose your favourite Mushroom Kingdom character, jump in a Kart and race your way round a series of brightly coloured tracks, avoiding obstacles and pitfalls, picking up as many coins as you can to increase your speed and nabbing items to hinder your opponents - from slippery banana skins to explosive shells and everything in-between. Luckily, this Game Boy Advance version isn't much different.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong
When that dastardly Donkey Kong decides to loot a toy shop of Mini-Mario dolls, kidnapping three of the Toad shop assistants too, it's up to Mario to save them from the nasty simian. You'll be following a trail of dropped dolls left by Donkey Kong, which means solving a load of puzzles and collecting keys to open the locked doors, and preventing any harm befalling the dolls - before getting into a battle with the ape himself to save the day.
Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3
A stork was delivering two twins to the Mushroom Kingdom, when he was ambushed by a meddling magikoopa, who kidnaps one and sends the other spiralling to the ground. Thankfully, the baby Mario lands on a Yoshi's back, who sets off on a journey to reunite the twins and give that magikoopa what for. You'll be jumping, stomping and swallowing enemies as you make your way across the land, trying not to lose your pint-sized passenger.
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Peace is broken in the land of Magvel when the Grado Empire suddenly invades it's neighbour, Renais, aiming to destroy the five sacred stones of the land - which are all that's preventing hordes of evil monsters from taking over. The twin heirs to the Renais throne, Prince Ephraim and Princess Erika, set out to warn the other provinces and seek help, commanding their armies against anything the monsters slowly taking over in this involving strategy game.
F-Zero Maximum Velocity
Jump into a lightning-fast hovercraft and get ready to speed-boost your way round looping courses as fast as you can - but watch you don't crash and destroy your vehicle, or you'll be out of the race. Unfortunately, this is the only game in the entire series that doesn't feature that lovable scamp Captain Falcon, or my usual burly Samurai Goroh and his pretty pink flying mobile...
Kirby And The Amazing Mirror
High in the sky above Dream Land is a Mirror World, where any wish reflected comes true - but one day things turn bad, and Meta Knight goes to investigate. Suddenly, Dark Meta Knight attacks Kirby and slices him into four, before throwing the real Meta Knight into the mirror world and slicing up the entrance, scattering it all over. Kirby, Kirby, Kirby and Kirby must scour Dream Land to collect the fragments and save Meta Knight and the Mirror World.
The Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap
When the evil sorcerer Vaati turns Princess Zelda to stone, it's up to Link to save the day, by collecting up the four elemental artifacts and using them to restore the Picori Sword, which is the only blade capable of defeating Vaati . With the help of the teeny tiny Picori people and a strange bird-like talking hat (who can also shrink link to Picori size), Link has his work cut out as he explores the land of Hyrule, defeating enemies and saving the princess.
Wario Land 4
Reading the newspaper, Wario hears of the pyramid found deep in the jungle belonging to the Princess Shokora, who was cursed by a money-crazed Golden Diva. Just like the Diva, Wario is obsessed with money, so hops in his car and heads to the pyramid, in search of treasure. As he enters, he falls down a cliff and gets trapped in the bowels of the pyramid - but there's treasure in here, which needs nabbing, as you help him escape.
When Friday rolls around, all you'll need to do is the exact same thing you did in order to download the NES games. Simply pop to the Nintendo eShop, scroll all the way to the left to 'Settings/Other', and select 'Titles You've Downloaded' from in there, where you should find the ten games have been added to your list and have the option for re-downloading them. For each of them, you'll need to click re-download, go through the rigmarole of setting it to download and waiting for it to finish, although now, assuming you've updated your 3DS, you can set each of the downloads to download while the system is in sleep mode when you're not using it.
