Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem coming to Europe in 2013

Anyone who was hoping to be in debt to Tom Nook or um… firing stuff at emblems by the end of this year is in for a bit of a shock.

The Nintendo of Europe president Satoru Shibata has revealed the 3DS titles Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem: Awakening  will be released in the first half of 2013 during the latest European Nintendo Direct.

The news comes as a surprise to many considering Fire Emblem was originally announced as a 2012 release, and Animal Crossing 3DS was revealed to the world way back in 2010. It wasn’t about delays everywhere though, the Japanese Nintendo Direct featured brand new footage of Animal Crossing.

The video of Animal Crossing shows the player (who is now the Mayor of the town) hopping off a tram, viewing purchasable town items in a menu, talking to villagers, walking around and… solar panels! Weird, hey? It also seems as if Kicks the shoe-shining Skunk from Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City now has his own little store. Where this particular store will be located though is yet to be revealed. It has also been reported Animal Crossing for the 3DS will utilise StreetPass to allow game characters to travel to new towns.

As good as the new footage is, you’re probably all wondering what these 2013 releases mean for Australia, right? Well, nothing has been confirmed for us yet, so there is still a very slim chance Nintendo could release either or both of these games down under before 2013 to test the waters before releasing in the bigger markets. Or we’ll probably just have to sit back and wait for a release close-by to the European one.

There’s just one other possibility though, while Japan is scoring both Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem this year, and Europe has to wait until 2013 for both, all America got from Reggie during their Nintendo Direct presentation was a 2013 confirmation for Fire Emblem.

We don’t like to speculate around here, but with any hope Animal Crossing actually makes a 2012 release in America, and somehow, just somehow, we get tied to the American release. It has happened here in the past, and we’ve even beat all of them before, so who knows. We’ll just have to wait and see.

For now enjoy the new footage of Animal Crossing on the 3DS and make sure you pre-plan some strats for the upcoming Fire Emblem game.