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E308: Taking in Kirby Super Star Ultra's new minigames
The demo version of Kirby: Super Star Ultra was limited to one of the original minigames, Spring Breeze, and two new touch-based minigames, Kirby Card Swipe and Kirby on the Draw. It's not much of a revelation to say that Spring Breeze is great, because it was great on the original cartridge and it retains the same amount of greatness on the DS. The look did not need updating at all: Super Star's colorful, bright graphics hold up today. The new rendered intro scene looks awkward compared to the awesome original graphics.In case Super Star is new to you, Spring Breeze is an abbreviated Kirby platformer in the style of Kirby's Adventure. Kirby walks through a series of levels, sucking up enemies, whose powers he can absorb. The levels all tend to be full of breakable blocks and little secret health items. The main wrinkle to Spring Breeze is the partner system: in addition to stealing abilities, you can also put an enemy into service, fighting alongside you, with his own life bar.
E308: Rhythm Heaven is the best musical microgame collection at the show
Nintendo's E3 offerings included a three-minigame demo of the stealthily-announced U.S. version of Rhythm Tengoku Gold. The games featured are the ones seen in the trailer: Assembly Line, in which two metal squares roll toward the middle of the screen in rhythm as scales play, and you flick upward on the screen to launch a rod through them when the holes in the middle of the squares meet Robot Gallery, in which a newly-assembled robot moves from right to left on a conveyer belt and you have to hold the stylus down at just the right moment to drop the fuel pump and fuel the robot, then release before you overfill it. Chorus involves holding the stylus down until you want the player-controlled singer to join in the chorus with two other singers. You release the stylus to fit with the pattern of the two singers before. Frequently, the chorus leader will instruct everyone to sing out in unison, which I missed every time! These three games were (as far as I know) new to the DS version. Though two out of the three could just as easily have been controlled by buttons, the stylus worked great. Also, even though the game offered a tutorial for the "flicking" motion, it was easy to jump in. I consider the tutorial, then, a freeform minigame about knocking trucks over. %Gallery-26615%
E308: DS Fanboy hands-on with Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
What can I say about Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia? You've played this game plenty of times before. Sure, there are some slight changes here and there, but, ultimately, this is pretty much the same as every other DS Castlevania title released. Don't take that as a bad thing, though.%Gallery-22992%
E308: DS Fanboy hands-on with MillionHeir
MillionHeir is a very simple game. Sure, it has an overall story to it, but the meat and potatoes of the game has you staring at a large painting for several minutes, locating objects in the environment housed on a handy list. And, true to the Where's Waldo formula, finding these objects is not easy.%Gallery-26089%
E308: DS Fanboy enters the Retro Game Challenge
Holy crap is this the most awesome DS game! Seriously, when JC was talking up the title, I trusted the man's judgment, but he couldn't possibly prepare me for how utterly great the DS game is. And when I met up with the folks at Marvelous here at E3 to try out their titles, I had no idea that they were going to have to physically pull me away from Retro Game Challenge.Lucky for me, I have a good grip. So I get plenty of play time with what is sure to be one of my favorite DS games this year.%Gallery-27519%
DS Fanboy hands-on with Elebits: The Adventures of Kai and Zero
When in Konami's booth yesterday, I was happy to see Elebits: The Adventures of Kai & Zero available for play. And play it I did, as the first title was one of my favorite launch games, nay, favorite games period on the Wii. But, what's this DS title all about? Would it be just a portable version of Konami's first game?%Gallery-26907%
E308: The Jamie Oliver game is ... really cool?
Yeah, I'm kind of surprised. I passed by a demo of What's Cooking? Jamie Oliver at Atari's booth and I was overcome by curiosity. How abhorrent would a licensed celebrity-chef training game be? The answer, it would seem, is "not very abhorrent." I couldn't really figure out what to do that well, but not because the interface was bad -- What's Cooking is a hardcore cooking training game. Also pictures of Jamie Oliver show up from time to time, just to remind you that it's his game. Imagine (in a non-dirty way) if Cooking Mama and Cooking Guide had a baby. What's Cooking teaches real-life recipes, and then has players simulate their preparation with touch-controlled actions. Without holding your hand, at all. I actually couldn't get past the initial steps of my first recipe, because the thing is so deep. To make a sugar paste (the first step), you have to first get a bowl out of your inventory of kitchen implements, then pour some sugar into the bowl, then mix it with a wooden spoon. To heat something up, you have to move it (via a 'stove' icon) to the stove area of the kitchen, then turn on the heat, and stir it around. The game doesn't really tell you when you're done, or even when you've failed. You just cook, like in real life. You could really learn how to cook by playing this. %Gallery-27845%
E308: DS Fanboy hands-on with Away: Shuffle Dungeon
When I arrived at Majesco's booth on the now very diminished E3 show floor, I saw their offerings and immediately leaped toward Away: Shuffle Dungeon. The demo build only had one dungeon available, as well as the world hub and a boss fight.%Gallery-20078%
E308: Chrono Trigger's controls explained
While, for the most part, Chrono Trigger on the DS looks just like Chrono Trigger on the SNES, some liberties have been taken to make the use of the new, screenier hardware. I snapped this control scheme diagram from the Chrono Trigger demo station, figuring there may be someone out there interested in how it would play on the DS.Oh, and I played it. The big revelation here is the touchscreen movement. The touchscreen (which displays an automap of the room you're in) basically acts as a big analog stick: hold the stylus toward the right of the screen and Crono moves right; hold it farther toward the edge and Crono moves faster. Tap, or run into something, to make Crono interact. It's awesome if you want to have a really hard time performing basic movement operations in Chrono Trigger. But the traditional button controls remain more than adequate. It doesn't really mar the fact that it's OMG CHRONO TRIGGER. And battling on the touchscreen is perfectly fine -- you just touch buttons on a menu.In other Chrono news, an SE rep told me that the translation (yes, it was the English version!) was new! And according to a statement given to Spencer from Siliconera, the single-screen version just as it appeared on the SNES will be added to the cart before release. %Gallery-27682%
E308: SouthPeak's puzzle pair
Both Brave: Shaman's Challenge and Igor were available for demo at SouthPeak's booth -- two Puzzle Quest-inspired handheld puzzlers, and two games that are very clearly influenced by other puzzle games as well, to their benefit (as was Puzzle Quest). Brave, which is played book/Brain Age-style, is a match-four falling-gem game -- with a twist. The twist is that your opponents are weak to certain colors and strong to certain colors. Breaking blocks in their strong colors actually heals them! You have to get your strategy on in order to succeed. Thinking about which colors you're supposed to break instead of grouping everything as it arrives changes the flow of the game significantly. I didn't get much of a look at the story, but I'm sure I'll be able to continue ignoring it.Igor was a surprise. Not only had I never heard of the upcoming animated movie (starring John Cusack!) on which it is based, I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. Why did I enjoy it so much?Because it's Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. Like, exactly. And I love Puzzle Fighter. There is an added layer outside of the main puzzle game. Instead of fighting animations playing out automatically, each color fills a meter for a certain attack, which, when filled, you then tap to attack. I didn't even really know about this thing, and now I want it!
E308: A sneaky visit to Ninjatown
I don't know a thing about Tower Defense, so Ninjatown was scary and alien to me. But, unlike most strategy things, the world is so super-cute and appealing that it motivated me to try to play it. The game begins with an adorable cutscene in which the mayor, on his way to a good cower, entrusts Ol' Master Ninja to defeat the incoming minions of Mr. Demon.Playing Ninjatown is like a sort of strategy Actraiser. You pick a square parcel of land and place the ninja group of your choice there; the building gets built, then ninjas of whatever kind come out and start working. Wee Ninjas beat up on enemies, Sniper Ninjas shoot peas, and Snow Ninjas freeze enemies with snowballs. You can also build training centers and other enrichment buildings nearby. The ninja fortifications can also be leveled up for more stamina and attack power. All of these use cookies, the official currency of Ninjatown, which are replenished by defeating enemies.%Gallery-15839%
E308: Mushroom Men puts the 'fun' in 'fungus'
I got to look at the DS version of Mushroom Men at the Gamecock EIEIO event in March, but I didn't get to play it. Today, though, I arrived at an odd middle section in one of the demo rotations, and basically ended up being left alone in a room with a DS and the game. Aside from a very weird screen-flipping mechanic, it's a beautiful, inventive 2D platformer.As a heroic sentient mushroom (a meteor has fallen and made stuff sentient that ought not be) you wander around an environment made up almost exclusively of trash and junk. The first level is a tutorial that leads you through the interactive map (which features red dots that mark waypoints), the weapon system, and combat. The map's dots mark the location of other mushrooms that need to be rescued from bugs or other enemies, much like the rescue-based level design in Drawn to Life. %Gallery-15252%
E308: A mini hands-on with Big Bang Mini
Studio Arkedo's Big Bang Mini is a very simple game, and I mean that in the best possible way. Like the other recent retro-style shooters on the DS (Space Invaders Extreme immediately comes to mind), Big Bang focuses entirely on making you shoot almost everything on the screen. Unlike Invaders, it uses a totally stylus-based control scheme -- which is surprisingly okay! Usually, classic, frantic game style plus touch equals problems!You control a little icon of some kind (in the first level, a wireframe pyramid thing -- it changes with the theme every level) who shoots fireworks at stuff flying around on the top screen. You have to drag the little avatar around with the stylus, and then also swipe upward to shoot fireworks. If you hit the enemy, it blows up; if you miss, your shot explodes into fireworks, whose sparks then fall down towards the bottom screen and must be avoided. You can aim your shots by drawing lines at different angles, and you can shoot about as fast as you can slash the screen. %Gallery-18714%
