DS

Dragon Ball Origins 2

September 4, 2010

There have been many Dragon Ball Z games in recent memory (both good and bad), but the same cannot be said for the original Dragon Ball series. You know, back when main protagonist Goku was three feet tall and had a tail? Back then the series had an engaging story that wasn’t about power levels. Thankfully, we have the Dragon Ball Origins series from Namco Bandai to fill that void. Like the first game in the series, Origins 2 is a DS action adventure title that closely follows the original anime’s plot…sometimes a little too closely.

Dragon Ball has always been a more loveable and accessible show than its big brother Dragon Ball Z, and Origins 2 does a very good job of conveying the humor and style of the older show on the DS. As Goku you will journey through forests, caves, deserts and more while you progressively build your move repertoire and raise your stats. Much like its predecessor, Origins 2 does not bring much of anything new to the action adventure genre, but what it does it does well. It’s a very polished title with great pacing and satisfying mechanics. Players can choose between button-based or touch controls—both schemes work well but have their advantages and disadvantages. I chose to use buttons most of the time because I found it easier to remember Goku’s ever expanding moveset that way.

Dragon Ball Origins 2 picks up where the first game left off, so if you didn’t play that game or haven’t seen the anime (or read the manga), it is probably a good idea to do so. That said, the game can be perfectly enjoyable on its own as well, if you don’t mind wondering where the colorful cast of characters actually came from. In this outing, Goku must battle the domineering Red Ribbon Army and its hordes of soldiers and robots. For the most part the enemies are easy to dispatch, but some of the bosses can prove to be quite tricky. Most of the game takes place from an isometric overhead perspective, but a few boss battles switch to a 2D “fighting game” perspective, which is a nice change of pace. By the end of the game Goku should be so powered up that players are able to handle anything that comes their way.

Origins 2 has very nice graphics for a DS game; it does an admirable job of emulating the look of the TV series. The game also does a great job of presenting the storyline from the show/manga, but I found this to actually hinder the game a bit. Every new level of the game starts off with a lengthy cutscene featuring limited voice work. The cutscenes themselves can be fairly entertaining because they are pulled straight from the show, but after a while it gets a bit tiresome to watch instead of play. If you do not know the story you may not feel the same way, but I found myself wishing to skip everything after a while just to get into the action.

The main story campaign of Origins 2 is quite lengthy, even taking the over abundance of cutscenes into account. With all of its extra levels and modes, the game also proves to be quite replayable as well. If you are a Dragon Ball fan, or an action-adventure fan, this game is definitely up your alley. A game as polished as Origins 2 doesn’t come around all that often—I fully recommend a purchase. 

Pros: highly polished, good controls, nice graphics, decent replayability

Cons: cutscenes are too numerous and a bit too lengthy

 

Dragon Quest IX

July 20, 2010

Dragon Quest IX stays true to the standard Dragon Quest formula with a few new additions, multiplayer and wireless downloading of dungeons, which can greatly improve your enjoyment.

In Dragon Quest IX, you are a Celestrian, an angel who guards and protects the mortals of the ‘Protectorate,’ complete with wings and a halo. Your charge is to help and protect the inhabitants of a small village called Angel Falls. Unfortunately, shortly after you begin watching over Angel Falls, a catastrophe occurs and you fall from the Observatory into the world below, losing your halo and wings along the way. Now you have to explore the world and figure out what happened, and how to get back your Celestrian powers.

You create a custom hero, from your gender to your build to the color of your hair and eyes. When you reach the point where you can add new members to your party you can go through the same steps with each member, adding a personal flavor to your adventure. In addition to the standard character creation, Dragon Quest IX changes the appearance of each character based on what armor, weapons, and accessories each have equipped. With over 900 different pieces of equipment to find and choose from, there’s a huge amount of customization here.

The combat system is the same as it has always been for the Dragon Quest series, with you choosing the actions for each party member then watching the battle play out in real time. This is a great way of mixing real-time and turn-based elements into battles. Graphically, Dragon Quest IX looks simple, yet beautiful. The signature artwork of Akira Toriyama permeates the entirety of the game, and everything looks distinctively Dragon Quest in nature. The fact that the same artist has been used to create the artwork for each game lends a feeling of nostalgia and charm to each entry in the series. The soundtrack isn’t as distinctive and memorable as one would expect of a Square Enix RPG, but it does a good enough job of staying in the background that it doesn’t really add or detract from the game.

So far, this may seem like just another Dragon Quest game, and for the most part it is. But what about multiplayer? Yes, players can join up with three friends and venture across the game’s world completing quests and defeating bosses. Unfortunately only local wireless is supported, but it’s fun nonetheless. Everyone joins one player’s world, taking the place of that player’s party. They can venture on their own, but if players are in the same area, they battle together. (What’s more, everyone but the host gets boosted experience.)

The only real problem I had with Dragon Quest IX is a complaint many have had with the entire series- inventory management. DQIX continues the tradition of having one of the more obtuse inventory management systems in modern gaming. 

Dragon Quest IX does little to change or update the core Dragon Quest experience. If you have a problem with the previous games, there is little here to change your mind about the series. If, however, you want a charming, enjoyable, and long RPG, then this is one you can’t miss.

Managing Editor Graham Russell contributed to this review.

Pros: Long, enjoyable story; customization lends a personal aspect to your party

Cons: Inventory system is clunky and outdated

 

Puzzle Quest 2

July 11, 2010

First sequels are formidable tasks for developers, and Puzzle Quest is no exception. The original benefited from the charm and novelty of its premise: an RPG with puzzle-driven combat. With the followup, Infinite Interactive had to keep the gameplay familiar while still freshening things up enough to warrant a second purchase. It seems the team was a bit hesitant to take on this task, as they’ve spent the last few years making spinoff titles for various publishers.

Considering that, things didn’t turn out too badly.

The core gameplay of Puzzle Quest 2 is still the same: players match gems Bejeweled-style to gather mana and cast spells against various fantasy opponents. Spells don’t just do damage, either. You can try to drain opponents’ mana, augment your own abilities or manipulate the board. The balance of things has changed a bit, with the removal of the experience and gold gems. This puts the focus on the task at hand, rather than just stockpiling resources for later. Put in its place is Action Gems, which allow players to use equipped items. Collecting enough allows you to swing your sword, block with your shield or drink mana potions, depending on what you’re using at the time.

In the original, the AI seemed like it knew off-board gems, essentially cheating. This led to many fits of rage from players. While they’re still prone to fits of extreme luck, this seems to no longer be the case. Don’t get me wrong, though: they’re still tough to defeat. (Especially on higher difficulties.) It just seems like a fairer fight.

The overworld has been completely scrapped for a new system. Rather than a big map of cities to capture and protect, it now uses a zoomed-in, isometric view of a room or small area. Navigating is done through arrows, and you talk to NPCs and walk up to shopkeepers and such. While some of the aspects of the original (like monster catching and such) have been taken away, the game ends up feeling more like an RPG with the fantasy scenery and (intentionally?) bland and cheesy dialogue. It comes off as a bit clunky at times, but after a few hours you get over it.

This wasn’t simply a process of stripping down elements, though. The aforementioned equipment brings a new dimension to the game, with trying to find better versions of staves and bows becoming a continuing quest. There are new minigames for standard RPG tasks, like unlocking doors, searching for hidden items and acquiring loot. Unlocking requires you to match certain gems at the bottom of the screen in a limited number of turns. Treasure quests involve matching gems to create rare item gems, then matching those…all while rows keep disappearing one by one. 

The sound design is better than the original, though that’s not saying much. Those who played it know that a few voice clips came up a little too often. Now, at least in the DS version, it’s replaced with an ambient and less grating soundtrack, and that’s certainly an improvement. This is a game you’ll play for dozens of hours, and while it’s still not at the level of the classic Tetris themes, it’s closer in terms of getting you absorbed in gameplay.

If you’re looking for a new dimension to gameplay, Puzzle Quest 2 isn’t it. It’s a refinement of the original, and those who loved that one will find lots here. 

Pros: Streamlined gameplay, improved graphics

Cons: Frustrating map system, removed city elements.

 

100 Classic Books

July 11, 2010

100 Classic Books is exactly what it sounds like – 100 books in digital format for your DS. Now you can read Wuthering Heights without lugging around a book. If you’re in the market for eBooks but don’t own any of the various e-readers then 100 Classic Books is a decent start.

100 Classic Books requires only the stylus to select a book, turn pages, or place a bookmark. Text is easy to read, and when a book is completed it is marked with a small r on the spine. If you’re not sure what you’d like to read a built-in quiz will examine your interests and recommend you a book. And when you finish reading the 100 included books more are available to download via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

I have a hard time recommending 100 Classic Books despite it being a perfectly serviceable book-reading utility. While new books can be downloaded via Nintendo WFC I can’t see this one DS cart getting the same support as, say, the Kindle store. Granted, the investment is higher with a dedicated device, but you’ll be able to purchase whatever you’d like to read in the future, and you’re not stuck paying for novels that you don’t want. If you’re dead set of buying digital books and like what you see in the following list then save some cash and pick up 100 Classic Books. Everybody else, a dedicated eReader will serve you better in the long run.

Louisa May Alcott

Little Women

Jane Austen

Emma

Mansfield Park

Persuasion

Pride and Prejudice

Sense and Sensibility

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

R.D. Blackmore

Lorna Doone

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Jane Eyre

The Professor

Shirley

Villette

Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights

John Bunyan

The Pilgrim’s Progress

Frances Burnett

Little Lord Fauntleroy

The Secret Garden

Lewis Carroll

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Through the Looking-Glass

Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone

The Woman in White

Carlo Collodi

Adventures of Pinnocchio

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

Joseph Conrad

Lord Jim

Susan Coolidge

What Katy Did

James Fenimore Cooper

Last of the Mohicans

Daniel Defoe

Robinson Crusoe

Charles Dickens

Barnaby Rudge

Bleak House

A Christmas Carol

David Copperfield

Dombey and Son

Great Expectations

Hard Times

Martin Chuzzlewit

Nicholas Nickleby

The Old Curiosity Shop

Oliver Twist

The Pickwick Papers

A Tale of Two Cities

Alexandre Dumas

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Three Musketeers

George Eliot

Adam Bede

Middlemarch

The Mill on the Floss

Henry Rider Haggard

King Solomon’s Mines

Thomas Hardy

Far From the Madding Crowd

The Mayor of Casterbridge

Tess of the D’Urbevilles

Under the Greenwood Tree

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter

Victor Hugo

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Les Miserables

Washington Irving

The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon

Charles Kingsley

Westward Ho!

D.H. Lawrence

Sons and Lovers

Gaston Leroux

The Phantom of the Opera

Jack London

The Call of the Wild

White Fang

Herman Melville

Moby Dick

Edgar Allen Poe

Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Sir Walter Scott

Ivanhoe

Rob Roy

Waverley

Anna Sewell

Black Beauty

William Shakespeare

All’s Well That Ends Well

Antony and Cleopatra

As You Like It

The Comedy of Errors

Hamlet

Julius Caesar

King Henry the Fifth

King Lear

King Richard the Third

Love’s Labour’s Lost

Macbeth

The Merchant of Venice

A Midsummer-Night’s Dream

Much Ado About Nothing

Othello, the Moor of Venice

Romeo and Juliet

The Taming of the Shrew

The Tempest

Timon of Athens

Titus Andronicus

Twelfth Night

The Winter’s Tale

Kidnapped

Robert Louis Stevenson

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Treasure Island

Jonathan Swift

Gulliver’s Travels

William Thackeray

Vanity Fair

Anthony Trollope

Barchester Towers

Mark Twain

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Jules Verne

Round the World in Eighty Days

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Oscar Wilde

The Importance of Being Earnest

The Picture of Dorian Gray

 

Pros: Lots of books to choose from, large easy-to-read text

Cons: Dedicated devices have larger selection and better support

Plays Like: A small Kindle with a limited library

 

Picross 3D

May 26, 2010

Picross, as the name sort-of implies, is picture crosswords. The two-dimensional variety feels a lot like Sudoku cross with a crossword puzzle. You’ve got numbers along the top and left of a grid telling you how many squares are filled in. That’s not all the information you need to figure out the puzzle and draw the picture though. What the numbers don’t (always) tell you is how many of the squares are no filled in. If your picross grid is small (let’s say 5×5), and “2 2” is one of your clues then you know that particular line is “shaded shaded blank shaded shaded” because that is the only arrangement that satisfies what “2 2” tells you which is “2 shaded squares, >0 blank squares, 2 shaded squares.” As puzzles get more complicated you’ll need to determine where some blanks are guaranteed to be and where some shaded squares are guaranteed to be in order to draw the picture. It’s a fun little puzzle, and it works great on the DS (if you don’t already have 2007’s Picross DS you should pick it up as it’s a ridiculous value). Now, extend that basic idea into three dimensions and you’ve got Picross 3D.

When working in three dimensions instead of two, the clues take on a different format and the presentation changes. No longer are you marking the squares you need on a grid – now your task is more akin to sculpting than painting as you’ll use the clues to chip away blocks that you don’t need from the puzzle. Picross in 3D is more complex than Picross in 2D, but HAL does a good, if lengthy, job of teaching the mechanics and then setting the player loose on a puzzle that makes use of the newly learned trick. Since the clues are written on the faces of blocks HAL had to come up with a way of telling you how many groups of blocks are in each row or column. “2 2 2” won’t fit so they went to shapes. Numbers mean one group, circled numbers mean two groups, and squared numbers mean three or more groups. It takes a little getting used to, but all of the puzzles are designed with the clue system in mind so you never feel like you’re missing vital information. My only complaint is that it’s easy to mess up slicing the puzzle open and chipping away that one block that doesn’t belong.

After you learn all of the games tricks it is time to start earning stars. Each puzzle has three stars associated with it: one for completing the puzzle, one for completing the puzzle quickly, and one for completing the puzzle without trying to chip away a necessary block. Another small touch (which you’ll remember from Mario’s Picross) is that once a puzzle is completed the created object animates for a moment. The train chugs, the whistle blows, etc.. It’s little touches like this that set puzzle games on the DS apart from their Flash counterparts on the Internet. Accrue enough stars in each set and you’ll unlock the bonus level.

Picross 3D took another page from Picross DS’s book, and it’s a good one. The online component allows you to download new puzzles from the Nintendo WiFi Connection service. You can also upload puzzles of your own creation to the service for others to try. And if you have friends that really ought to try Picross 3D out you can send a demo of the game from your DS to theirs (alternatively you can just hand them your DS). Picross 3D, like Picross DS before it, is easy to learn, and difficult and rewarding to master. If you’re itching for a new puzzler on the DS then give Picross 3D a shot – with 350 puzzles on the cartridge you’ll be busy for a good long time. 

Plays Like: Picross DS, Mario’s Picross

Pros: Lots of puzzles, good tutorial

Cons: Can still be difficult to think in three dimensions and chisel that last block out of the middle of a puzzle