Tag Archives: DS

Best of 2007, Games, GOTY, Nintendo

Best of 2007 #10: Hotel Dusk: Room 215

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Hotel Dusk: Room 215

If I wasn’t giving it its little bit of recognition here, this would be a shoo-in for one of those fun but meaningless awards like ‘best game nobody played’ or ‘most overlooked game of the year’ (surely an oxymoron if you’re recognising it with an award?). It’s been and gone so completely that it’s hard to believe that it actually came out this year.

It felt to me like 2007 was a poorer year than previous for the DS in all respects but sales, which are still in the stratosphere. The new entry into the Ouendan series lacked the immediate appeal that the first game had, and even Zelda seemed to arrive with little fanfare, missing out on the event game status that New Super Mario Bros enjoyed. Hotel Dusk, though, is a uniquely DS game that won me over with its noirish style and storyline. It really wouldn’t have worked as well on any other platform.

While far from perfect, it was able to tap my enthusiasm in for a number of different things. The old adventure games, for one. And noir. And the brilliant design decision to hold the DS vertically like a book, emphasising the pulp novel influence and really making it perfect to play on the bog, and allowing for the genius idea of writing your own notes in your notebook. If only they’d fixed some of the minor annoyances – slow text scrolling is a pet peeve of mine, and the plot progression wasn’t always smooth – Hotel Dusk could have been even higher on this list. More adventure games please, Nintendo. Or make LucasArts do the right thing.

But in the meantime, play this one. I’m sure it’s cheap now.

Games, Impressions, Music, Nintendo

Ouendan 2 Impressions

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Ouendan 2

It’s finally here! The sequel to the best cult game ever has turned up, and I’ve been exercising my hot-blooded rhythm soul with it.

Think of it as Ouendan with the improvements made to Elite Beat Agents (3D map, skippable intros, better graphics, saved replay ghosts, four player support) and, most importantly, that quirky Japanese humour and music that made Ouendan so great. I always thought that EBA was very good but lacked that something.

The best that the original had to offer like Kokoro Odoru and Loop & Loop are a high benchmark, and it’s not just out of laziness (OK, it is) that the Ouendan soundtrack has been in my car’s CD player for the best part of two years. While I’m so far not sure that Ouendan 2 will be the one to displace it, it beats the pants off Madonna and Avril Lavigne. Alas, nothing as immediately memorable as I’d been hoping but far from a bad selection.

All the characters from the original turn up, either as background characters or because they’re in trouble again, and Ryuta’s cheer squad is joined by a competing team who they stare menacingly at between missions. It of course makes very little difference because much of the game is spent looking at concentric circles and trying to decipher some headscratching storylines (what’s happening isn’t always as obvious as last time), and I’m sure it wouldn’t make much sense even if I could understand it.

It wouldn’t surprise me if many of Ouendan’s fans have bought this already so I’m waiting for the new chart data to see whether all the importers will make this one register significantly – it’s a DS game so I assume it’ll be somewhere on the Japanese charts regardless – and if you liked the original, even if you weren’t as obsessive as I was back in the day, it’s worth buying. Just make sure that you have the original first. No excuses.

Games, Music, Nintendo

Burn! Hot Blooded Rhythm Soul!

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Today is a good day. Elite Beat Agents may not have been quite as good, but with a touch of impenetrable Japanese weirdness and some more obscure J-rock I’m confident that iNiS will be able to capture lightning in a bottle again. If you still haven’t played Ouendan (or even EBA), shame on you. Atone!

My only fear is that they won’t come up with such a brilliant soundtrack – the original has been in my car CD player for months – but everyone who helped give this game such a massive cult following can pat themselves on the back. Whatever happens, they’ve outdone themselves with the title. Moero! Nekketsu Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm-Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 roughly translates as Burn! Hot Blooded Rhythm Soul! Go! Fight! Cheer Squad 2. Superb, but Ouendan 2 would have sufficed, wouldn’t it?

Best of 2006, Games, GOTY, Music, Nintendo

Best of 2006 #8: Elite Beat Agents

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Elite Beat Agents

The almighty Ouendan’s sequel/remake/bastardisation (take your pick) may not manage those heady heights, but it certainly deserves a place on here. What could easily have been a cynical rehash of a cult classic kept what made the original great and managed to forge a personality of its own.

I don’t like it as much as I did Ouendan, possibly because that game came out of nowhere without any expectations whatsoever, and to be fair I was probably predisposed to not liking this as much. Inis did a great job of keeping it faithful to the style of Ouendan but just having English text and Madonna and Avril Lavigne over impenetrable Japanese and bands you’ve never heard of takes something away from it. I maintain that all an English version needed was a menu translation, but that’s probably why they don’t let me make games for Nintendo.

Despite the shortcomings, EBA makes the list because it builds on an extremely solid base and still does a good job at something that – let’s be honest – was never going to please all of the fans who imported Ouendan. It’s still a hell of a lot of fun and well worth picking up, especially if the original was a bit too “out there” for you.

Best of 2006, Games, GOTY, Nintendo

Best of 2006 #10: New Super Mario Bros.

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New Super Mario Bros.

The debate over originality in games kind of becomes moot when we’re talking about a game like this, doesn’t it? It’s quite possibly one of the least innovative games of 2006…and that’s a good thing?

When it’s something as timeless as a 2D Mario game, yes. While this might have lacked the simple perfection of the NES games or the sense of wonder that came with turning on Super Mario World for the first time, it threw in a couple of new abilities to mix things up and then essentially let the gameplay do the talking. This is Mario; what does he have to prove?

The extra power of the DS was put to good use with assorted scaling tricks and almost subconscious use of the two screens (did you notice how subterranean sections are played out on the bottom screen?), and what it lacked in speed compared to its sprite-based progenitors it made up for in good clean fun and the novelty of a new 2D Mario. Did I mention it was one of those?

Games, Nintendo, PlayStation

Megaton!

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The announcement that Dragon Quest IX would be a DS game, despite the size of its new host platform, could end up being one of the biggest news stories of recent years. It represents a huge shift in development trends right up there with the mass exodus of Nintendo’s oppressed minions to Sony circa 1995.

The movement of Dragon Quest back to Nintendo – for this instalment, at least – comes over a decade since the last ‘proper’ Nintendo Dragon Quest and may not have the impact of Final Fantasy in the West, but in Japan this is, infamously, the game that cannot legally be released on a school day because of the effect it has on productivity. It’s second only to Final Fantasy and, when coupled with the insane popularity of the DS in Japan, has the potential to smash sales records. I was in Japan when the FFIII DS remake came out and the only units I saw on sale were expensive import models from Europe. This should be even bigger.

More than anything this is a slap in the face to Sony. One of their bigs guns has gone portable, and it’s not on theirs. This is going to put even more distance between the DS and PSP, in fact. And if this is as big of a success as it should be I’d bet money that Dragon Quest X turns up on DS or Wii. Low development costs and colossal sales are an irresistible combination for any company, and I’m sure they’re quite aware of how much a game on the scale of DQVIII would cost to develop on the PS3.

I’ve seen the complaints the people expecting this to be a PS3 game and can understand them (although I think the DQIX screenshots look great), but Square Enix won’t be able to hear them. They’re too busy filling up a swimming pool with money.