While Nintendo seems content to keep WiiWare mostly set aside for indie game makers, they're also finally making some of their own damned downloadable games. Interestingly, they're ports of a Japan-only Game Boy Advance series.
Bit Generations was a series of seven inexpensive Game Boy Advance games released in Japan in 2006, seven different novel games with simple controls and stylish presentation. While Nintendo toyed with releasing them outside Japan, the death of the GBA in these parts ensured that wouldn't happen.
But it seems as if they're remaking all of these games for WiiWare, with slightly different branding. In the U.S., the series is called Art Style, and the first game in the series is called* Orbient*, based on *Orbital *from the original portable series.
Coincidentally, this is the one I sunk the most time into: You're a tiny celestial body, and you have to orbit around larger ones, using their gravity to move around and collide with other planets and stars and rocks.
Nintendo says that two more Art Style games will be released here this month. Six of the games, including Orbital, were developed by Chibi-Robo maker Skip; the final game Digidrive was by Pixeljunk Eden creator Q-Games.
Also on tap for WiiWare today is Hudson's Bomberman Blast, with eight-player online. For Virtual Console, there's the cult classic Super Turrican 2. At first glance this would appear to be an uncommonly solid week overall, but remember of course that every week that does not contain Secret of Mana is failure.
