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Square Enix establishes casual gaming brand in Japan
While it may seem bizarre to think that Square Enix, developer of some of the deepest narratives to ever grace our video game libraries, would decide to travel the road less Peggled, the RPG juggernaut recently launched a new casual gaming brand named "Pure Dreams" in Japan. This joins their "DS Style" line of casual games, which offers players traveling tips as well as advice on choosing wine at a restaurant. We usually just ask the waiter, but they really love their DS Lites in Japan.The first two blockbusters sliding down the Pure Dreams chute are both based off of popular licenses in Japan -- Snoopy DS: Let's Go Meet Snoopy and His Friends! lets the player create their own member of the Peanuts gallery and play minigames with their hydrocephalitic neighbors, and Pingu's Wonderful Carnival is also a minigame collection, based off of the popular Swiss stop-motion series. We absolutely cannot wait to see Peppermint Patty's limit break.
Square Enix continues mapping the world
Apparently Square Enix did decent business on the first series of World Walking travel guide things, or at least made back their teensy budget. Maybe the team knows a guy who travels a lot and has a poor sense of direction. Whatever the reason, they're expanding the line, with another set of DS cards with maps and helpful cultural information.The World Walking non-games provide travelers with maps with landmarks and touristy points of interest marked. They also include pictures of attractions, information about local culture and food, and even niceties like dual time zone clocks. Oh, and also minigames, but you surely knew that.Read - World Walking: ShanghaiRead - World Walking: EnglandRead - World Walking: Seoul Read - World Walking: Hong Kong
Would you like to read impressions of the DS Style series?
Game|Life's Chris Kohler got a chance to "play" with the DS Style collection at the Square Enix Party, and came away with positive impressions of the title we're most interested in: the classical music program which he translates as Would you like to listen to classical music on the Nintendo DS? The program sounds pretty interesting: it contains 100 pieces of music, a shuffle feature, and information and images related to each piece. It also gives users information about buying the music on CD. Kohler's impressions of the other titles weren't as positive, but it didn't sound like there was anything wrong with them. He just couldn't summon up the excitement for looking at maps.
Get serious with new DS Style screens
We're expecting a load of news when the Square Enix Party starts. For now, we've got new screens from the DS Style series, which is obviously too serious for parties. Specifically, new screens were released of Flower Blooming DS: Gardening Life, Shall We Listen to Classical Music on the DS?, and three World Walking map programs: Italy, France and Taiwan.We could kind of see picking up a DS map program instead of a guidebook when we go on vacation, since we tend to take the DS with us anyway. We are definitely feeling a strong urge to buy the classical music "game" as well, since it's being developed by iNiS. Smart move, Squeenix.
DS Style details emerge-- screenshot-style
The first screenshots of Square Enix's DS Style series of nongames have shown up, and they look ... well, functional. The problem with nongames is that it's impossible to build hype for something that is used just for looking at a map of France, or teaching yourself yoga, even if the software in question is extremely well-designed.These screens answer the biggest question we had about the series: how could a game about listening to classical music possibly fill two screens meaningfully? The answer: dog animations and quizzing you on your feelings about the music.
