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DS Daily: Cartridge rancher
Yesterday we mentioned that Monster Rancher was going to be ranchin' up some monsters on the DS. One of the most notable features of the new version is that it uses GBA games to generate monsters, in the same way that previous Monster Ranchers used CDs, or the Barcode Battler used dog food labels, or Treasure Gaust uses magnetic fields. There have been a few games that give GBA bonuses, like Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, which rewarded Aria of Sorrow owners with an extra item, but this is different. To some extent, your success in Rancher is contingent on your GBA game ownership.How does that strike you? Is it cool to be rewarded for having access to a nice GBA collection, or do you feel like you're being punished for not buying enough cartridges? Or has this news got you out searching for cheapo cartridges?
Treasure Gaust battle mode screens
Treasure Gaust, Bandai Namco's Pokemon-esque monster game that uses magnetic fields to generate monsters, is headed toward a Spring 2007 release in Japan. We've got some new screens that show off the battle mode, which is more Pokemon Stadium than Pokemon Ruby, in that it is presented in full 3D. We like the pseudo-cel shading they've used.Treasure Gaust's battling appears to be more action-based than Pokemon, as well. Players pick three creatures and battle with an opponent's three creatures in an underwater arena. You can capture defeated enemies to train them as partners. If a monster-collecting game with more action and more mysterious natural forces sounds good to you, then this may be exactly the game you're looking for! At least, it's as close as anyone's ever going to get to that specific description. We hope Banco decides to localize this one, because we're eager to play with the magnetism gimmick.
Magnetism-based monster collecting game from Namco Bandai
A DS game is on its way to Japan featuring something new to a Nintendo system -- a gimmick. Entitled Treasure Gaust: Gaust Diver (and coming in "Crimson Red" and "Deep Blue" versions -- thanks for that trend, Pokémon), the game is based on a popular Japanese handheld toy that requires kids to hunt magnetic fields; when they find one, it apparently generates some kind of trainable monster (thanks for that trend too, Pokémon.) Insert Credit, in their report on the game, equated it with the old Barcode Battler toy, which made Campbell's Soup labels mm, mm, powerful for like one whole summer.While we question the wisdom in training children to intentionally expose their electronics to magnets, we love the idea of using video games to give little practical physics lessons, and we love the idea of tying the real world into gameplay in unexpected ways. This game makes a nice companion piece to the momentum-based Wii game we're working on, TV Buster.[via Insert Credit]
