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DS Daily: We would like to taste the rainbow
Alright, listen. We need everyone who doesn't already own a copy of Brain Age to go out and buy one. C'mon, people, sooner is better than later. While you're out, you can pick up a copy for everyone that you know. Perhaps then we'll finally see additional DS Lite colors here in the States.Seriously, what gives? Suddenly, even Nintendo of Korea (who only just got the DS Lite) is rolling out the rainbow, including the brand new Metallic Rose and Gloss Silver models! Where's the love, guys? Reggie, please ... go to bat for us! Make it happen. [Via GoNintendo]
Picross DS gets downloadable content in the US
We mentioned previously that the European and Japanese releases of Picross DS had weekly downloadable puzzles, some of which were drawn from Mario's Picross and Mario's Super Picross. Well, being total skeptics, we didn't believe we'd see this feature in the US. It's just too cool for us! It turns out we were delightfully wrong. Starting on the game's July 30th release date, players will be able to download new bonus puzzles every week. That should be great for people who, unlike us, will complete more than one puzzle!
DS Daily: Two limited editions enter ...
Ring of Fates vs. Revenant Wings. There can be only one!Oh, we can talk about the games, too. If you want.
A possible justification for Sonic RPG?
Level Up's N'Gai Croal has been thinking about the Bioware Sonic RPG announcement, and, like the rest of us, trying to make some kind of sense of it. Why would anyone make a Sonic RPG? Why would Bioware jump onto a ship that is not only sinking, but sinking at blast-processed speed?Croal thinks it's because they're using Sega's franchise-- and money-- to practice making kid-friendly handheld games, so they can then make their own good ones. It makes sense-- they made a Dungeons and Dragons game, learning about fantasy RPG's, and now they're working on Dragon Age; Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic lead into Mass Effect and Jade Empire.The good news is that all of these licensed games turned out great. That doesn't mean we're going to allow ourselves to have high hopes. We're all out of optimism for new Sonic games.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates DS Lite
Another Square Enix game, another special-edition DS Lite. SE seems to have set up a template for these: logo on the left, line art on the right, money in the bank. This time, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates gets the special-edition treatment on a Crystal White DS Lite. For Japan, obviously. We like the pseudo-stained-glass look, which can be found in full color on the box. This new DS variant is great news for people who were holding out on a DS purchase until the Japanese Ring of Fates came out. It's probably a little irritating for Square Enix fans who already have a plain DS.
Rockman ZX Advent notepad to carefully avoid writing on
Here's a notepad that we can guarantee will never be used. This promotional Rockman ZX Advent notepad is being given away to a limited number of Japanese e-Capcom shoppers who buy the game online. Those shoppers will then carefully enclose the notepad in a plastic bag and display it on a shelf. Why mess up the Rockman notepad when there are perfectly serviceable junk mail envelopes and backs of hands to write grocery lists on? That's just common sense.
DS Fanboy travels Around the Interweb to whine about hard games
Siliconera has started doing these great roundtables called "From Around the Interweb" in which various game writers opine on a topic. The last one was about the DS Style series-- check it out for some interesting discussion on non-games!This week, Spencer was kind enough to invite me along for a discussion of hard games. This week's panel included Spencer, RawMeatCowboy from GoNintendo, CheapyD from CheapAssGamer, PSP Fanboy's Andrew Yoon (who has made mysterious appearances here!), and, for some reason, me! We were all able to reach a consensus on the divisive issue of whether or not hard games were, in fact, hard. I had a great time and I was honored to be in such illustrious company!
Take that! Presenting official Phoenix Wright manga
Sometimes the Internet randomly drops some delightful content on our laps. Depending on our mood, we feel that either the forces of the Intertron love us and are giving us wonderful gifts, or that they're conspiring to keep us from working.Case in point: we knew about Court Records and all of the good works they do for those of us afflicted with Gyakutendonitis. But until GoNintendo pointed it out, we hadn't realized that there were fan translations of official Gyakuten Saiban/Phoenix Wright manga available on the site right now. We'll, uh, try to keep posting while we read.[Via GoNintendo]
A Tom Nook plush toy at a Tom Nook price
NCSX is selling more adorable Animal Crossing toys, including a lil' plush K.K. Slider and Blathers the owl-- you can pretend to be annoyed about how long it takes to get your dang fossils appraised! But the real star of this update is the freaking huge Tom Nook seen here, gettin' his Potion on. He comes in at 15.74 inches tall, with an 11-inch-wide head. That's big enough to intimidate us about our house payments!Unfortunately, to get an armful of Nook, you need an armful of cash-- $49, plus shipping. Better get started selling cherries you find on the ground!
'Backlit' DS Lite mod
The past few DS Lite mods we've featured didn't venture far beyond lodging LEDs into the handheld's face, so we're glad to have a twist to that formula for today. AcidMods forum administrator F00 f00 installed light-emitting diodes into the back of his portable. To emphasize its glow, he used what looks like Onyx Black casing and a clear replacement shell for the DS's frame. How long will it be before we see a DS Lite kitted with ambient lighting? Staring into those bright screens while you're in the dark puts a lot of strain on your eyes, and there are times when turning on a light just isn't an option (e.g. like when you're hiding in a blanket because there are ghosts floating around your bed). Put on some sunglasses and check past the post break for more photos of F00 f00's mod.
Two lovely Nintendo crafts
These two crafts have the potential to change our lives. How so? In order to acquire and use them, we must learn how to knit, find a reason to start carrying a little handbag, and take more notes. We're not sure we're ready for such a drastic change, so we'll just look at them on the Internet and appreciate them!The felted Mario bag has a tutorial, so if you can knit, we suggest you do so. The Zelda notepad was previously available for sale on Etsy, but is now sold out. Perler bead crafts are not so hard to do, however! [Via Wonderland: here, here]
DS Daily: Five dollars down
In the last ten years or so, led by the pre-Gamestop game specialty chains (Babbages, EB, EBX, Software, Etc., Funcoland, Rhino Video Games), the practice of preordering games has become commonplace. Before the preorder, companies just shipped enough products. Crazy, right? We're generally not fond of the practice, since we like to pay money for stuff and not a chance at stuff later, but we recognize that it's firmly entrenched in the gaming business model. How about you all? Do you habitually preorder your games? Or only when you perceive a chance of limited availability? Which do you think benefits more from a preorder-- huge releases or niche games with tiny print runs?
DS Daily: Happy Father's Day!
In honor of Father's Day, we thought we'd ask a themed question: Who's your favorite father and son/daughter team? Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr., or, uh, hmm. Oh, how about Bowser and the Koopa Kids? Pac-Man and Baby Pac-Man? Pitfall Harry and Harry Jr. from Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure? Man, we already had to go to Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure? Maybe you guys can think of more. We can't be retrogaming encyclopedias every day, okay? It would be pretty hard to limit this to the DS, but if you can think of DS characters, you win at commenting.
More Pokemon, more mystery, and more dungeons
Chunsoft is already hard at work on the sequel to Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, a process that they should have down by now after God knows how many licensed Roguelikes. The new one looks pretty much just like the last one, but with new critters. This should not be a surprise to anyone who has ever played, seen, or heard of Pokémon. Check out the screens at GAME Watch and see if you're interested in another journey into the cave of monsters.We have two theories about the sales of this game: either they'll be boosted by renewed Pokémania due to the recent release of Diamond and Pearl, or they'll be reduced due to the fact that fans are satisfied with the real games and don't need to go into spinoff land. What do you think?
Show and Tell: Gamer babies in the house
We're not sure children really count as gaming gear, but who are we to define the boundaries of a parent's love? Don't worry, Elmer, we're just kidding -- we absolutely approve of your sending us this picture of your twin daughters, which is why we've chosen to feature them in our first edition of Show and Tell. These little dolls are only a year and a half old, and they've already mastered the art of wrangling the handhelds away from their parents ... and from those looks of intense concentration, they're already on their way to becoming serious gamers. The proud papa even sent us a video -- you can check it out after the jump. And just remember, you too can be in this spot, with everyone cooing over your awesome game-related photos and swag. Just take some pictures and send them to showmeit at dsfanboy dot com, and we'll take care of the rest. We've gotten lots of great submissions so far, but we always want more. Thanks again to Elmer and his lovely daughters!
'Dear Diary: Today I went to the wrong castle again.'
Every day, someone makes an adorable video game artifact to make his or her daily life slightly nerdier, out of nothing but love for the games. Meanwhile, all we do is hang around here and talk endlessly about Pokemans and pseudo-pornographic witch-touchery. This Mario journal was made from the outer cover of a hardbound book, covered with corduroy. Each teensy felt pixel of the Mario sprite was then stitched on by hand. We considered trying this ourselves, but we remembered where all of our writing goes, and we don't want to make a cover big enough to fit over the Internet.[Via Wonderland]
Harry Potter and the Gallery of Screenshots
We were taken aback by these screens of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. They look fantastic. It could be using prerendered backgrounds to display these artistic views of Hogwarts, but whatever it is, it's working. Whenever Harry is walking around the (strangely empty) building, it's breathtaking, and one of the nicest-looking adventure games we've seen on any platform.And then we see the other screenshots. The combat-- for which you apparently rotate the DS Brain Age style, and the magical minigames. They might be fun, but they don't quite evoke ICO in the same way as the environments do. Oh, well, this is still amazing for an EA licensed game.
Mario vs. Palkia in the arena of your imagination
NCSX never fails to encourage us to clutter our rooms and empty our wallets in the name of video game fandom. Today, they started taking preorders for some new Mario and Pokemon toys that we wouldn't mind having on our desks! So we can show them to people, obviously.First are the above Dialga and Palkia soft vinyl figures, which allow you to reenact the boxarts of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. In fact, if you buy these, you can't help but reenact them, because the boxes just feature these characters standing alone. Also available for preorder are two Mario toy lines: a vinyl figure of Mario in either his normal outfit or his Fire Mario finery, and a set of plush toys that make some kind of jingling sound. All of these cost between $20 and $25 and will ship toward the end of the year.
Japanese Phoenix Wright 3 gets boring bonus
If you buy the Japanese Best Price release of Gyakuten Saiban 3-- cue the chorus of "don't buy it or Capcom won't localize the next one"-- you may be entitled to a set of reversible box covers for the whole series of DS releases. It looks like they're designed so you can store 2 games to a case. However, the Gyakuten Saiban series already uses a consistent boxart design in Japan, meaning that all four of the DS games already match. And on top of that, the design for these bonuses is significantly less interesting than the original boxart. Of course, we're still getting this thing.We wish it was nicer-looking, but it's lovely of Capcom to hand out bonus stuff in general. We hope these get included with import orders (that's right, we're ordering the import!)
Toys R Us summer toys list contains up to one video game
Toys R Us has put out their list of the top 24 hottest toys for this summer, and, surprisingly, there is only one video game on the list-- and even that one's kind of a non-game, according to some people's definitions. Nintendo's brain-teasin' hit Brain Age represents the entirety of our hobby in Toys R Us's summer marketing campaign, despite being a game about math problems, and despite being over a year old. Technically, they also advertise the Leapster, but ... don't worry about the Leapster..Are we seeing early signs of a Japan-style Brain Age phenomenon? Should we start hoarding DS Lites? [Via Game|Life]
