Nintendo Connection Tour 10 – WA Saturday Recap

The Nintendo Connection Tour 10 hit Western Australia last weekend, and we went to check it out

Although the Connection Tour has been around some of the country already, we couldn’t head to all of them but I did head down to the Western Australian one last Saturday at Westfield Carousel. The second day, I am told, got off to a better start. Just the day before, the tour hit a small delay at the start because all the gear hadn’t been delivered yet. No real problems though.

On offer was a good selection of games for people to check out, on both Wii and DS. There wasn’t anything that wasn’t out yet but not everyone has everything like you and me. There were free customised shirts given out during the day and free spray-on tattoos for everyone. A good showing for everyone but the key reason I and many other Nintendo gamers turned up was for the New Super Mario Bros. Wii Coin Challenge. The ever awesome Jamie was on hand to commentate and host the day. Great work by him and all the staff.

While the first day featured the individual Coin Battle tournament in which Vooks member ShadowLizard had won, the Saturday was for the tag team battle with teams of two going against each other. The tournament used the same rules that the Coin Battle tournament used in the Japanese series.

The four players in the two teams play through one of five different stages which was picked by a member of the audience. I entered the competition as did many others, while my team mate and I (a young boy whose partner had abandoned him and never played the game before) won the first round quite convincingly, we were eliminated in the second round. Other Vooks members had better luck though with many advancing right until the second last round. The Coin Battles have a lot of strategy in them that may not seem apparent at first glance. These strategies vary on different stage.

It was good too catch up with a bunch of the forum members, including Playa, Sweep, NinjaDead, ShadowLizard (who is off to Sydney!), ShadowStriker, Toshiya, Alzi, Prof and everyone else who I didn’t write down.

The Connection Tours continue to be a great place for Nintendo fans of all ages to come and get together. It’s also good to see Nintendo out there with a presence. A funny story, the young boy I was partnered with told me his three favourite franchises, and then his favourite games from them. His favourite Pokémon game was Pokémon Emerald, he then asked about mine.

I said it was Pokémon Gold to which he replied "I like Pokémon HeartGold too". While making me feel really old, it also reminded me that Nintendo fans continue to be old and young, male and female and these Connection Tours are great in bringing them all together.

Good luck to our man ShadowLizard as he takes on the best in Sydney. We’ll keep you updated on how he goes.