DS-Daily
Latest
DS Daily: Next for Nintendo
Nintendo has a lot of franchises to draw from. They're continuing to pump out those Pokemans, gave us a new Zelda game last year and a new Super Mario Bros. game before that. So what's next for them? We think it's high time we got an Elite Beat Agents 2 already, but what about you all? What's the next major Nintendo game you want to hear about?
DS Daily: Crafting a songlist
Last night's Elite Beat Agents 2 rumor has us dreaming of a songlist for the possibly-upcoming title. If such a sequel existed, or might exist (please?), we couldn't possibly guess all of the tracks ... but from some of the classics in the first -- memorable songs with a strong beat -- we may be able to guess a few. If nothing else, we can wish. So get to wishing, folks. What would you like to see in a sequel? Gallery: Elite Beat Agents
DS Daily: On display
DS game packaging is some of the best yet in Nintendo's history, largely because it abandons the flimsy, easily torn cardboard boxes of the past, but also because the games look very pretty lined up together. With this in mind, how do you display your games?Do you have them proudly sitting on a shelf for the world to see, or tucked away in a box? Do you use a dedicated DS game rack? Maybe your DS collection isn't even on display, but haphazardly scattered all over your living environment (that's a display of sorts, we guess). Are you, like this gamer, constantly frustrated by PAL region and NTSC region game boxes not lining up perfectly due to their slightly different dimensions and colors, or how rogue games (like Electroplankton) insist on not conforming? Or am I just incredibly anal?
DS Daily: Game squared
First, watch this awesome video. It's an awesome video, right? A YouTube user 007craft remade The Legend of Zelda, from the first screen through the first dungeon, in the Xbox Live Arcade version of N+. It's wonderfully bizarre to see the screens so faithfully rendered in a completely different gameplay style. Simple things like reaching doors at the top of the screen become acrobatic struggles. Have you ever used one game to recreate another game or its elements? Maybe you've edited all of the textures in your Animal Crossing town, Drawn Mario to Life, or composed some game music in Mario Paint. When you get access to an in-game editor, is making references to other games the first thing you do?
DS Daily: Drawn to License
Having had a day or so to absorb the news (oh man, that was totally unintentional, but we're leaving it) of a SpongeBob SquarePants-themed version of Drawn to Life, we're somewhat less negative about it and more ... conflicted. Basically, we don't know if we should feel bad for the original game or happy for the license. Being based on a good game means that SpongeBob SquarePants Drawn to Life has at least an outside chance of not being terrible, which puts it immediately ahead of just about every other licensed game for kids. However, the converse is also true: being stuck with some random license may sink what was great about DTL. Of course, there's also the separate issue of the game being passed off to another developer. We're pretty sure that doesn't bode well.
DS Daily: Phoenix Wright or Ouendan?
The time has come, faithful readers, for us to settle something once and for all. It's bound to be a heated issue, but it's a question worth answering. If you had to choose (and we grow faint just trying to imagine the horror of such a situation) between the Ace Attorney series and the Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents set, which side would you pick? Hot rhythm action or shouts of "Objection!" and an endless cast of wacky characters? It's a tough choice. Let's fight it out.
DS Daily: Blank canvas
Animal Crossing engages players by giving them tools to do whatever they feel like, a large part of which is designing clothing, wallpaper, flags, and even dialogue to personalize their towns. Mario Kart DS has customizable emblems. And then there's Drawn to Life, which looks like the ultimate example of the in-game drawing tool, with the whole game designed around player-created characters and items. What is it that is so captivating about putting your own work into a game? We were really amused by the Drawn to Life demo, specifically because we got to watch our creations move while we were still creating them. But why are our crude scratchings often so much more interesting to us than professionally-designed art? Or is it just us?
DS Daily: Was EBA good enough to make you import Ouendan?
We've been playing a lot of Elite Beat Agents lately and the comparisons between it and its Japanese counterpart Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! are unavoidable. We can't really say which we think is superior, as they both have their own distinct charm, but our mind floats back to when we first tried Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! in a very inebriated state, in our hotel room, during E3 2005. As we tried to follow the visual clues on-screen and tap in-time with the beat, we found that such an experience had to be a figment of our imagination. We visualized those cartoons of old, where a thirsty traveler searches the dunes for some sign of water, only to find a mirage and soon snap out of their delusion to find that they have nothing in their mouth but sand. We wondered how much we drank. We then remember how much it was and pretty much settled on it being a drunken fantasy. But no, the next morning we played it again and it was as good as that first play, if not better. But, more appropriately, it caused us much debate at Fanboy HQ today. We wondered about Elite Beat Agents, and if it was good enough to cause some to import the Japanese game? We then wondered which version people preferred? We wonder a lot. Do us a favor? Let us know! Did you import Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! after playing Elite Beat Agents (and having it rock your world, natch)? Did you dislike Elite Beat Agents? Did you love EBA, but found the Japanese charm of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! to be anything but? Bueller?
DS Daily: Bridging the gap
As we were discussing the best traditional games on the DS, some other issues were raised, and we thought they might merit further discussion. When it comes to discussing the effects of the DS on the gaming industry, the Touch Generations brand is a good place to start. Nintendo's set of titles aimed at gamers of any age includes an interesting mix of the traditional -- say, Tetris -- to the innovative titles that make great use of everything DS, like Elite Beat Agents and Brain Age. These games make it easy to go from something straightforward, like Brain Age (hey, writing -- we can do that!) to different, more complicated games. Many of you have even seen it happen; the DS is all about training up new gamers. What we want to know is -- do you think these traditional games, as they're played on the DS, are among the best links for helping people make that step, or the worst? After all, moving on from the pick-up-and-play simplicity of Nintendogs may not be conducive to attempting a slog through Final Fantasy III.
DS Daily: Localization
Yesterday we linked the Capcom USA interviews with Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice For All localization team members, and they mentioned what every game translator mentions: changing cultural references to fit better with the target audience. The translations considered "best" are the ones that attempt to maintain the spirit of the original game without too much Japanese culture left behind. Our question to you is this: do you like localization, or would you prefer a direct translation? Do you want things to be exactly as they are in the Japanese version, but directly translated to English? Are you happy with American TV references in Phoenix Wright? And what about the localized-from-the-ground-up Elite Beat Agents?
DS Daily: New horizons
There have been a lot of familiar franchises on the DS, and we love them! But, and this is where a lot of the system's publicity comes from, there has also been an explosion of new genres and new experiences, as well as revivals of past trends. So, as hardcore gamers (the kind who read game blogs), has your gaming universe been expanded by the DS? Have you taken part in any completely new experiences? Played your first graphical text adventure? Minigame collection? Whatever Brain Age was?Or maybe what you discovered on the DS is something popular that you just missed out on for some reason, like Final Fantasy or Castlevania. We want to hear about your experiences! We want to know how the DS has affected your gaming tastes! We want to know how you classify Brain Age!
DS Daily: What's your style?
We already know that you guys use your DS at home more than anywhere else, despite its portability. Now we want to know how often you pull it out. Is the DS secondary for you to another system, or does it dominate most of your free gaming time? Do you prefer games you can play in short bursts, or the extended sessions of a game like Final Fantasy III? And how do you approach games? Are you satisfied with getting through a game any old way, or do you like to dedicate yourself to perfecting every challenge and every level of difficulty in games like Trauma Center and Advance Wars, no matter how long it takes?
