Miyamoto Makes Surprise Samurai Warriors 3 Appearance
Nintendo's famed designer Shigeru Miyamoto made a surprise appearance at Koei Tecmo's Samurai Warriors 3 (Sengoku Musou 3) press conference in Tokyo, of all places.
While previous installments in the Warring States-themed series released for PS2 and XBox 360 -- with a poorly received first-person spin-off put out for Wii last year -- Koei Tecmo revealed Samurai Warriors 3 will ship exclusively for Wii due to the system's popularity, according to a Japanese live blog report from Inside Games translated by Andriasang.
Koei Tecmo and developer Omega Force plan to present Samurai Warriors 3 as a title that will introduce Wii players to the "Ikki Tousen" genre popularized by the Samurai and Dynasty Warrior games, in which a lone hero battles against hundreds of enemy soldiers.
As for Miyamoto's appearance, the Mario creator took the stage to announce a "Nazo no Murasamejō" mode in Samurai Warriors 3. Never released outside of Japan, Nazo no Murasamejō, or Mysterious Murasame Castle, is an early Famicom Disk title developed by Nintendo EAD and taking place during Japan's Edo period.
Though most U.S. gamers aren't familiar with Nazo no Murasamejō, it's popped up several times in Nintendo's recent "fan servicey works", as Hardcore Gaming 101 notes, with its main theme showing up in Super Smash Bros Brawl. and its disk included as a treasure item in Pikmin 2.
You can see video of the 1986 top-down action/adventure game, which shares a lot of similarities with the first The Legend of Zelda (also a Famicom Disk release in Japan) in its presentation, below:
As you can see, this looks very different from the traditional Samurai Warriors experience. I wonder what this mode will entail?
As with Capcom's recently released Monster Hunter Tri for Wii, Samurai Warriors 3 will support a "standard controller", though it's unclear whether that will replace or supplement motion controls. The game is expected to release in Japan this November, with a playable build debuting at September's Tokyo Game Show.
[Image via Gemaga]
Comments
I'm a big Koei Warriors fan from other systems, so its great to see the welcome from Nintendo.
Samurai Warriors 2 had a special mode where you complete challenges in a tower. I'm wondering if this new mode is similar?
Can't wait to see more information on SW3.
Posted by: Bryan Rosander | August 6, 2009 2:11 PM