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The NWR E3 2013 Awards

Cloudberry Kingdom

by Neal Ronaghan - June 17, 2013, 12:13 pm EDT

One Wii U eShop game took most of us by surprise at E3 2013.

We here at Nintendo World Report seem to usually have a predilection for hard-as-nails platformers. It's not a total staff-wide phenomenon, but if you show us an interesting and challenging platformer at E3, chances are we'll probably include it in some sort of awards. It should be no surprise that Cloudberry Kingdom impressed the hell out of us.

From their Kickstarter origins to their Ubisoft-backed final stretch, Pwnee Studios has put together what seems to be a delightfully difficult platformer that can work for a wide audience.

Check out a bit of Jonathan Metts' E3 2013 impressions for a little more detail:

A year ago, Cloudberry Kingdom had an ongoing Kickstarter campaign, and we spoke with its creators, Pwnee Studios, having never actually played the game before. They're back at E3 this year, but with a near-final multiplayer demo of the game right in the center of Nintendo's giant booth. I've put some time into the Steam beta, but this was my first chance to try the game with other people, and running on Wii U. Good news: this version looks exactly the same, and it clones everything to the GamePad screen for easy remote play. Better news: multiplayer raises the game's appeal to a whole new level.

Cloudberry Kingdom is one of the simplest 2D platformers I've ever played. You move left, right, and jump -- there's not even a run button. The game is fast enough without one, and learning to manage your momentum is actually a key skill. The game's AI-designed levels are each about 5 to 15 seconds long, and their difficulty ramps up constantly as you keep playing. The game "plays" every level to ensure it's possible before loading it up for you; we actually got to see this feature in action on some of the most insane settings, but it's not clear whether the final game will allow this kind of spectator mode (So far, it has been used to cut some of the trailers).

Talkback

Professor ClaytonClay Johnson, Associate EditorJune 17, 2013

The 3DS Batman game is the only thing on this list that I'd count as something of a pleasant surprise... I didn't have high hopes for it until hearing the away team's impressions. Now it's something I'll be keeping a really close eye on. If they can make a strong offshoot of the console series for 3DS, I'll be quite pleased. Of course, if not... I'll have to blame you guys for getting my hopes up. ;)

Leo13June 18, 2013

What i want to know is if the exclusion of Donkey Kong from this list had more to do with disappointment about what you were hoping Retro was making or was the game legitimately not that fun?

CericJune 18, 2013

Quote from: Leo13

What i want to know is if the exclusion of Donkey Kong from this list had more to do with disappointment about what you were hoping Retro was making or was the game legitimately not that fun?

I played the Demo at the Best Buy event.  Its Donkey Kong.  Its Donkey Kong.  Not much more to say.  Going against Super Mario World I can easily see why it wouldn't make the list.

Donkey Kong was one of the last ones out. Our conclusion was that it didn't really wow us because it was so similar to DKCR. Although, remember, DKCR kicked ass, so that doesn't mean we all think DKC Tropical Freeze was bad. It just wasn't one of the best games we saw at E3.

jarodeaJune 18, 2013

I don't really disagree much with the games on the list being there but it's still a pretty disappointing list to me.  Like Professor Clayton only Batman for the 3DS was a pleasant surprise.  Even more shocking that my favorite game from a Nintendo E3 was a 3rd party game, and even more shocking than that it was on a handheld.

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