Topic: RetroActive #15: Nintendo DS Edition

[Jonnyboy117]

Notes:


All of these DS games have been released in Western territories. Currently, they are all available via Amazon and/or eBay for less than $20, some less than $10. Availability at brick-and-mortar stores like GameStop will vary.


Reviews:


Soul Bubbles


Hotel Dusk


Lunar Knights


The World Ends With You


Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

[UncleBob]

Hotel Dusk is the better game, but I would have went with Trace Memory/Another Code.  The fact that it's an early DS game, no one played it and they came up with some really clever ways to use the DS really makes it shine.  But, anywhoo, Hotel Dusk got my vote.

[NWR_Karl]

The bonus for Hotel Dusk is that you actually play as Evan Burchfield.

[vudu]

The World Ends With You is arguably the best original RPG available on the DS.  If you like non-traditional RPGS and you haven't played this game you're doing yourself a disservice.

[broodwars]

Hotel Dusk could make for interesting (and short) conversation, but I have to go with The World Ends With You.  I wasn't the biggest fan of the game (the repetition of the game's structure just wore on me over the course of the game), but it is one of the more interesting RPG concepts that Square-Enix has played with in recent years.

[anand]

All good choices, in that they are all (supposedly) quality games that I own, but haven't played. I went with Lunar Knights, just to shed a bit more light on the awesome MGS/Zelda fusion that was the first Boktai.

[Halbred]

Had to go with World Ends with You. I've heard so many good things about it, this will give me an excuse to go out and find it.

[Mop it up]

I don't have a DS anymore, but The World Ends With You was on my short list of games I wanted to try before selling it, but I never did, so I wouldn't mind hearing discussion of the game.

[UncleBob]

Mop it up: You should just come over and play one of my four DS systems for awhile.  While you're here, we can play Mario Kart: Double Dash on my five Game Cubes.  By the end of the visit, you'll understand why you should never, ever sell any Nintendo stuff.  Unless it's to me.

[KDR_11k]

Wow, I actually own three of those five. I think I'll vote Lunar Knights just for the heck of it.

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

Seconded. Lunar Knights would be a great one to catch up on, from everything that's been said on this podcast and others. It's also the only action RPG without irksome controls in the poll.

[GearBoxClock]

I've been reading up on it and I figure that Lunar Knights would be the most interesting of the bunch. The Boktai series always seemed interesting and I regret not having a GBA to play them.

[FZeroBoyo]

The World Ends With You. It'd give me an incentive to play it again. 

[LittleIrves]

So far, seems like it'll be a very close match-up between World, Dusk, and Lunar.  I've been curious about the adventure-style games on DS for awhile, but the lack of true running-around gameplay has always made me hesitant about Hotel Dusk or even Phoenix Wright.  Probably missing out.  And I'm not a huge RPG guy, but World Ends With You sounds pretty amazing.  As for Lunar Knights, I do have Boktai for GBA, and the sunlight mechanic is crazy (if frustrating) and the game itself is very cool and inventive.  Hard to find others doing the same thing that Kojima did with that series.  I'm gonna have to meditate on this one...

[Stratos]

World Ends With You FTW! Switching to my classic avatar to trump for it. Plus staring at Lindy's goofy face old face every day is starting to wear thin on me.

Though interestingly I've been playing a lot of Advance Wars. I have two missions to clear before I've beaten all of the side missions and even thought I told myself I wouldn't I've started going through the campaign missions to try and get all S ranks. I'm looking to get the first DS one to get my fill of the genre. I tried Age of Empires again but that feels too slow.

[NWR_insanolord]

I didn't like Lunar Knights; it's one of the few DS games I've sold. I bought The World Ends With You recently, so I'm going with that.

[oohhboy]

Voted Advanced Wars. 1. Because it's the only one I own, 2. It's the only one I am interested in.

Years ago, I had a look back at the original Famicom wars and I have to say it, things have come to far from that. Famicom Wars felt so backwards as to be unplayable. I have gotten every Advance Wars game since GBA and the evolution, the number or refinements, the missteps, AI tweaks, additional units and the removal of the Neo tank/stealth bomber. It's like going on a dig, tracing the history leading to this game, Battion Wars and for me, the unplayed sequal to that.

Theere are two major additions to this game. The first isn't much of an addition and more of a side step.

In pervious games you destroyed opfor units to fill a meter in order to use your super power. Later the powers are seperated by two power levels. While the more powerful powers required a higher kill count/value, by Dual Strike things had seriouly gotten out of hand. Days of ruin now requires you to place your commander in a unit and in the line of fire to charge now much weaker powers. As the meter fills the aura the commander projects gets larger boosting units within and allowing a bigger catchment area. Lose the unit the commander is in, meter empties.

Secondly, the arrival of a fully functional navy based similar to real world blue water navies. The Carrier turned up in Dual Strike, but that was a glorified airfield with a long range AA missiles. There was a serious time penelty to landing aircraft as you had to "drop" them next the Carrier leaving them useless for an extra turn. Days removes the missiles and now aircraft can take off with full movement allowing you to base a Carrier off shore providing a base of rolling airstrikes to any beach head. Carriers also build a limited number of sea planes, not quite as strong as fighters, nor as powerful as bombers, but has both their strenghts allowing them to attack anything other than subs.

Battleships now move and shoot! Range reduced to the same as rockets. No longer a floating target that scares peeps off a beach head by actually pounding them. To balance these technological terrors is the Missile Boat. A brown water, low tech counter with a single load of damaging torpedos working in pairs, able to attack anything on the water. In fog of war, terrifying. Fast, paper thin, expendable speed boats of death. Countered with massed firepower and good intelligence.

A fantastic game all round.

[KisakiProject]

I'm curious to play any of these.  But I voted for AW cause that series is great but seems to have fallen off the radar.

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

In an ideal world, I would have voted for Soul Bubbles, because that is one I feel everybody should play; there's nothing quite like it. Sadly, it has about as much chance of winning this poll as one-legged man has of winning an ass-kicking contest [end of bad analogy].
Therefore, I find myself gravitating towards whichever game has the most potential to beat out The World Ends With You, which seems to be Lunar Knights judging by the comments. Come on, Lunar Knights!

[TJ Spyke]

I haven't played Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (I don't like that they removed the two screen battles), but I loved Advance Wars: Dual Strike and enjoyed Advance Wars (the original GBA game from 2001).

[StephenSSA]

It'll be interesting to see your take on Lunar Knights as you've repeatedly slagged off Boktai since the ide of sunlight was invented. Soul Bubbles could also make for an interesting discussion.

[Jonnyboy117]

It'll be interesting to see your take on Lunar Knights as you've repeatedly slagged off Boktai since the ide of sunlight was invented.

To whom are you referring? I loved Boktai but haven't played since the first or second game on GBA. Lunar Knights removed the sun sensor, so there are no restrictions on when you can play.

[oohhboy]

I haven't played Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (I don't like that they removed the two screen battles), but I loved Advance Wars: Dual Strike and enjoyed Advance Wars (the original GBA game from 2001).

The dual screen battles was pretty gimmicky, built back during he whole dual screen gameplay fad period. Also the super powers were really getting out of control. It got to the point where I was advancing, killing enough things that the opfor was super powering every two turns until he ran out of units. A lot of the game was built around the powers and the preparation of it being used against you. Especially dual strike. Unless you paired up with the power drainer, it gets painful. Some powers also had no upper limit, like power of money and the damaging waves which brought about logistical nightmare countered by bringing a healer. Against the AI, whatever, but the lack of balance and so forth prevented it from ever being a real thinking mans game or a fun multi romp.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Another exciting poll so far.... I haven't played any of these games but am interested in all of them except Advance Wars.

[Stratos]

I haven't played Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (I don't like that they removed the two screen battles), but I loved Advance Wars: Dual Strike and enjoyed Advance Wars (the original GBA game from 2001).

The dual screen battles was pretty gimmicky, built back during he whole dual screen gameplay fad period. Also the super powers were really getting out of control. It got to the point where I was advancing, killing enough things that the opfor was super powering every two turns until he ran out of units. A lot of the game was built around the powers and the preparation of it being used against you. Especially dual strike. Unless you paired up with the power drainer, it gets painful. Some powers also had no upper limit, like power of money and the damaging waves which brought about logistical nightmare countered by bringing a healer. Against the AI, whatever, but the lack of balance and so forth prevented it from ever being a real thinking mans game or a fun multi romp.

Wasn't a new Advance Wars announced some time recently? Considering what you just said about the older ones I'd rather get a new one as opposed to the previous DS game. I've come close to completing DoR and am looking for a new Wars fix. I might even try the Age of Mythology just to get a fresh taste of turn based strategy gaming.