Metroid Database.com

Nintendo held a special press conference today in Japan that revealed several new Wii and 3DS titles, including Yoshio Sakamoto's latest game. In a land of bizarre games, and coming from one of the most bizarre designers at Nintendo, the man who brought the world Rhythm Heaven, WarioWare, and Tomodachi Collection has revealed what may be his oddest game yet: Kiki Trick.

Essentially, Kiki Trick is a "listening game", a collection of mini-games based on sound and voice recognition. The Japanese name "Kiki Trick" is a pun on the Japanese word kiki-toru, which means "catching a person's words" or "understanding what is being said", and "trick". Ergo, these WarioWare-style mini-games "trick" you by altering the words you hear. For instance, one mini-game has you speak with Noise-kun, or "Mr. Noise" (Other characters include Mr. Zebra and Ms. TV). You have to understand what Mr. Noise is saying based on the frequency of the sound, timing of words, and context. For example, in the image above, listen and guess what the blocked out text means and then choose the proper response from a list to fill in the blanks. Master this art and become a "Mimi Pro", or "Ear Pro". Think of it like Michael Winslow from Spaceballs meets WarioWare!

Another mini-game presents you with a series of videos and some spoken words, and you have to match the sound with the video. In a multi-player version of this game, you have to select the correct answer faster than the other players. Videos are both animation and videos of people doing things. Just take a look at some of these crazy videos!

There's also a Ramen mini-game where you have to click the correct icon to go with the SFX of a man eating Ramen. The official Nintendo of Japan website has a video of the game in action, but it is entirely in Japanese. (If you pay attention, you can spot Yoshio Sakamoto's single hipster earring!) Nintendo World Report has a translation of the game's rap sheet, and more photos are available on Siliconera.

Lastly, the game was given a special Iwata Asks, but that's not likely to be translated any time soon. However, from this I was able to gather that the game had been in development for about four years, with initial designs six years ago. The game was a collaboration with Dr. Rikimaru from Doshisha University, who has been researching sound psychology. One of these theories involves the "cocktail party effect" wherein you can filter out all the noise in a room full of people to focus on a single conversation happening across the room. This game will thus exercise a different part of your brain, similar to Brain Age. (Sakamoto-san also suspects women might perform better at this game than men.)

Kiki Trick will be released in Japan on January 19th for the Wii for 5800 yen, obviously with no North American release in sight. Needless to say, it is a game that requires a high degree of fluency in Japanese to be able to play, so if the game is ever released in the US, it will undoubtedly undergo a considerable amount of localization, similar to Elite Beat Agents. Unless it proves financially successful, this bizarre and imaginative new title will likely remain in Japan.

Until next time...
Captain Commando