Now I love Picross in 2D, I don’t need to tell you that. In 3D it’s a bit different; you can’t take in the whole puzzle at a glance, and building off each new step is much more fiddly. The numbers you need to solve each logic puzzle are printed on the sides of each cube. You rotate it in 3D space and you have a progressive cross-section function, so it’s a matter of repeatedly checking each slice and cycling through both vertical planes. Did that make sense? It’s hard to explain.
More Lego games! Wait, this one’s different! One of the small number of RTSs for DS, Lego Battles takes elements of the Lego formula such as collectibles and Red Bricks, which add a nice extra element of exploration to the stages, but remains a competent if basic real time strategy game.
The game plays well enough, with the stylus and shoulder buttons being the major players. This doesn’t quite give you enough control; attack-moves and loading/unloading transport ships is all done through a touch screen sub-menu, so it can be clunky. The R button is for selecting an assigned group, but there’s only one available. Sure the maps are relatively small and multitasking isn’t really required most of the time but it seems like a limitation enforced by the buttons available, or maybe it’s trying to keep the design simple. Either way it’s certainly no Starcraft, but a decent scaled-down approximation.
Speaking of popular RTS games, the developers of Lego Battles can be traced back to Total Annihilation, my favourite PC strategy game of all time. Oh wait, Homeworld 2 exists. Anyway, as I’ve been saying this isn’t nearly as involved or complex as those; only one resource type, a small unit cap, no research or development apart from tower upgrades. It keeps things interesting with hero characters who have buffs or damage abilities, as well as partner sub-races in the campaigns.
I didn’t play the multiplayer but the story mode is pretty cool; rather than using licensed IPs like other Lego games, this one falls back on nostalgic original Lego lines: Castles, Pirates, and Space. Each of these has two campaigns for opposing factions. Mission objectives and parameters vary, and for example there’s much more ship combat and island-hopping in the pirate story, so there’s variety. But the gameplay loop does start to get samey and I ended up turning on many Red Brick cheats just to get through it faster.
There’s unlockable concept art but it’s not very exciting. The game is worth playing if you have feelings for the old Lego sets of yesteryear or for the novelty of a traditional RTS on the DS, but it’s no substitute for the real thing, and too awkward to be as enjoyable as the “real” Lego games either.
A recommendation from a friend and a second-hand online store brought this smaller game to me easily enough. It’s shortish, on the verge of indie downloadable territory, but a few years before that would be such a big thing. As it was, it released on both GBA and DS; the DS version is basically identical but with a map on the bottom screen.
Scurge Hive is a Metroid-inspired isometric game. You explore interconnected rooms in a research base, fighting off a parasitic incursion and finding upgrades. The ¾ perspective makes depth perception and jumps occasionally off, but it’s fairly forgiving. There’s a lot of combat, being rushed by aliens or robots while you only have ranged attacks to keep them at bay. You’re always switching between three main elemental attacks depending on which enemies are around, plus more for puzzle solving. This mechanic is well integrated and it’s snappy to switch between them, so it feels good especially when you turn an “overwhelmed” situation into a bunch of enemies exploding into health refills.
These pickups also add to your experience bar, which is the only way to improve your character apart from plot-based suit enhancements; and these level ups only increase your max health. There’s an enjoyable survival element with your main character Jenosa being constantly worn down by the alien infection, an ever-present tense encouragement to seek out the next save room to reset your timer, or else risk pushing on. Backtracking can be tedious if you miss something, though.
The main loop is to find a new area and seek out security keys by exploring and solving environmental puzzles, while also pulling things into thing sockets to unlock the teleport out, at which point you confront a boss. These bosses make pretty good use of the isometric angle, and are also the only hard part of the game. The final battle in particular is a hardass but satisfying to conquer; by clearing the game once you unlock a boatload of extra palettes for Jenosa. Unfortunately with there being no optional content in the game (upgrades, collectibles, etc) I felt no need to play again—I wish the costume options had been present throughout the game instead of all at once at the end.
I’d mention the typos but I’ve seen worse in games from bigger companies like Capcom and Konami, so I’ll forgive them. For a studio with so few games to their name it’s well executed. Too bad they put a “to be continued” message at the end; the company apparently folded not long after making this game. But I loved having a spunky lady protagonist, especially one with long flowing hair (Shantae or Zero fans take note), and the pixel art is crisp and colourful, with a unique “big hands” art style.
Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars… Battlefront games are usually third- or first-person shooters, but this DS conversion by n-Space is, well, you can see in the screenshot. I gather that the “proper” version of this game on PSP has a ton of customisation and stuff, but this one is much more streamlined. Or to put it another way, so simplistic as to be dull a lot of the time. There are four classes to choose from, as well as the bonus Jedi class, so at least you have options, but combat is generally very easy.
You’re either moving from room to room blowing up small groups of enemies, or just mowing down incoming waves. Spaceship levels break it up but are even more mindless, with only X and Y axis movement, and even worse are the turret sections or speeder bike-type bits. Boss fights are also spammable with the right class. Multiplayer is a focus of these games, and that mode has potential as a party game, but I didn’t have any human opponents and the Wi-fi connection is gone.
So the gameplay is no great shakes, but I still liked the game. The campaign mode has an enjoyable story spanning the whole saga and beyond, with chapters set in the Clone Wars, the original trilogy, and the OG EU New Republic era. You get to interact with major characters from the movie, as well as Rahm Kota from off of the Force Unleashed, which pleased me. I liked the plot, a tale of two Jedi clone brothers who choose different paths and end up clashing over many years, and your character X2 has a nice arc over the events.
Experimenting with the different classes and weapons was pretty cool, and once you unlock your Jedi powers I had fun using them in addition to the other classes. The gameplay works at least, even if it’s a little shaky at times. But overall the game feels very “Star Wars”, whatever that means. But maybe the PSP version would be a better way to experience the game and story… who knows!
Ahhh, I like getting awful licensed games for cheap. I love Philip Pullman’s books but haven’t seen the movie adaptation on which this game is based. Still, that won’t stop me! Basically this is a cheap, clumsy licensed game from a software house that specialises in cheap licensed games.
Clumsy is the word that kept returning to me while playing. The platforming, the stealth, the combat, the alethiometer minigame; none of it is particularly accomplished, or fun. There’s also technical problems: slowdown is frequent, especially when your viewpoint is split between two characters.
To elaborate, the game is a sidescroller where you play as Lyra, a young girl with a special destiny. She’s a bit frail but can grab ledges and pull levers and stuff; her gameplay is supplemented by puzzles or combat involving her dæmon Pan. Pan can switch between different animal forms; you can unlock extra forms as collectibles, which I think are mostly aesthetic but I only ever found two. In his forms, Pan can fly, dig, fight, etc. You also meet the bear Iorek eventually, and his sections are mostly just lazily beating up waves of bad guys. There is some strategy in combat; soldiers are sometimes accompanied by their dæmons and targeting one will bring them both down.
You can have two of the characters active at a time, and it’s a nice idea to switch between them based on their skills. But key word: clumsy. It’s often a requirement to run up to the second character and give them a “follow” command, lest ye backtrack repeatedly. Controls are unintuitive. The gameplay possibilities are interesting but not executed super well.
There’s also levels that take the form of dialogue trees. Sometimes this will include interludes of using the alethiometer to divine the truth or find the right response. It’s a good way of including this key plot component into the gameplay and involving the player in the story. It’s too bad that the game either forces backtracking and scouring levels to find collectibles which tell you the meaning of symbols and how to draw them in the touch screen minigame thing, or else looking up the solutions online (which is what I did).
On the one hand, I like encouraging a player to get invested and search out these things in the corners of the game. But on the other, I wasn’t having much fun playing it so I just wanted to get to the end. And that’s the Golden Compass DS. It does an OK job portraying the world and characters in game form, but it’s not a good game. Sorry.
A while ago I chose between this game and Spirit Tracks, its sequel. I reasoned that they would have refined any niggles in their experimental control system for the sequel. Having now finally played both, the main difference is they changed how the roll works; it is annoying to pull off in this game, but barely ever used so it’s not a big deal. On the whole I enjoyed this first game a lot more.
Phantom Hourglass is an early first-party DS game, so it goes all-out with mandatory touch screen controls, using the microphone, etc. It works fairly smoothly, and apart from some overlap between moving, interacting, and attacking (not to mention forgetting that blowing the microphone was a valid input from time to time) I had no problem controlling Link; this time I knew from the beginning that the shoulder buttons were used for items, which I discovered halfway through Spirit Tracks. Oh, I just remembered the final battle which dumps a symbol-drawing thing out of nowhere. Had to watch a video for how to do that. Apart from the gimmicks, the double screens are used excellently, with gameplay and maps, the ability to make notes on your maps, and both being used during certain boss battles for an epic feel.
The story is a direct continuation of Wind Waker, but the cast is all new apart from Link and Tetra. It’s this generation’s Link’s Awakening really, with an existing Link entering a sort of alternate world governed by a whale deity (although you only find this out at the end). Having it carry on the story from another game is nice, and the new characters are ace, especially Linebeck. His bickering with fairy companion Ciela are a great source of humour and personality, and travelling with them in the ship has a great adventurous feel. This is helped by the ability to upgrade and customise the ship, although it gets tedious to be “rewarded” with duplicate ship parts as the game progresses.
Speaking of rewards, the Spirit Gems are a good idea; your fairy companions can be upgraded, affecting your abilities, by finding these collectibles. Unlike Spirit Tracks, I was motivated enough to obtain them all, and all the Heart Containers. But why, what’s the difference? It might be as simple as the ship being more fun to control than the train. It’s freeing to be able to sail anywhere at any time: open seas adventure to uncharted islands. ST has Zelda as a main companion character, which is a huge plus; but the party of Link, the earnest Ciela, and the loveable scoundrel Linebeck made for a better dynamic.
PH has a fishing minigame, which earns it points from me. This was strangely missing from Wind Waker. Treasure salvaging returns, but there’s a minigame attached to that as well. Overall the game feels like a mini Wind Waker, with a smaller world and streamlined mechanics for the control scheme and format, but with additions and expansions in some areas. I think the ending undermines it slightly but the game is well executed, there’s lots to do, and it’s very endearing. If you’re going to pick only one of the DS entries as I did long ago, choose this one.
As I’ve said, the Avatar Book 1 game tells an original story set after Book 1. To experience the story at the same time as I watched the show, I played this game; M. Night Shyamalan’s movie is an adaptation of Book 1. There’s two angles here: how this game adapts the movie adaptation, and how it follows Halfbrick’s previous effort, the Into the Inferno DS game.
I still have not seen the movie but I know a lot of details by reputation. From what I can tell, there are a few tweaks here to make it a more playable game that also coincidentally (or not) bring it closer to the show, the most prominent being that firebenders are able to create their own fire.
I kept being put off by the character designs, although they have their own consistency. Just because they’re different, they’re not necessarily bad. The Fire Nation army look is pretty cool and I do like Aang’s redesign even if he’s a very dour child now instead of a happy-go-lucky tween. But there’s still dissonance which can’t be helped.
The game frontloads some exposition that is not revealed til later in the show, which bogs it down a bit. But there’s also at least one new “event”, Zuko being trained by some kind of martial arts master called Jiu Jiao (not to be confused with Zhao or Jeong Jeong). That’s the kind of thing I look for, even if it’s simply a tutorial level for Zuko’s abilities.
Speaking of Zuko, he appears to be the primary protagonist, or if not it’s close. Levels alternate between him or his Blue Spirit guise and Aang. The focus on the game as being this dual story is welcome, with Zuko as a sympathetic character rather than a stock villain, just as the show portrays. However, there are a few downsides to the way the story is told, both due to alterations the movie made and cutbacks due to the scope of the game. But on the other hand, the added touches of humour in incidental dialogue are much appreciated.
Still, the game is competent enough as an abridged Book 1. But how is it as a game? Well, I had fun, although it is easy and brief. As I said, it very much builds on its immediate predecessor, the DS Into the Inferno game based on Book 3 of the show, but without the chibi style. As before, it’s entirely stylus-controlled except for the shoulder buttons to enter bending mode, but there’s a bit more of an emphasis on combat than puzzles.
It makes up for having only 2 playable characters with a sort of RPG progression system. You find chi orbs as a collectible or receive them for doing tasks, which can be spent on upgrading the characters’ skills. Don’t bother saving up though because they throw them at you, especially towards the end. There are also health and mana upgrades to find in the levels (there’s no backtracking, but the game actually contains more than you need to max them out). I felt invested in the characters because of this, and despite their abundance these collectibles were a better motivator than the lotus tiles in Inferno.
So it was a fairly breezy time, but I enjoyed the situations the game put me in, even if they were sometimes contrived in a game-y way. Maybe it helped to play along with episodes of the show. The enemies were mostly Fire Nation soldiers of various types, but there were also a kind of spider, as well as a memorable boss battle against Katara as Zuko! It is short but not bad by any means, and it’s the only way to play the Book 1 story on a handheld (if that’s appealing?).
EDIT: I have now watched the movie. So I can say that like the film’s comic adaptation, the game takes aspects or scenes of the movie and handles them better than the film itself did. And indeed tweaks the story in a slightly more show-like direction. Also Zhao in the film stabs Tui in the bag. In the game he hilariously punches the bag. That’s all I wanted to say.
I want to believe that licensed games can be good. But the more Evacuation Earths that come out the harder it is to make that argument. Or should that be Evacuations Earth?
Playing only one minute of this game will tell you almost everything you need to know about it. It’s a fairly blatant Professor Layton clone, and not a very good one. They’ve lifted the structure of those games without investing in good puzzle design or slick presentation, hoping that a layer of Doctor Who theming would be enough to make a compelling package.
The Matt Smith era isn’t my favourite Doctor Who but it is pretty good. Having him and Karen Gillan doing the voices is a nice idea but they sound tinny and you only hear the occasional soundbite outside of the occasional cutscene. And the game’s 2D likenesses are not exactly flattering. The writing can be amusing for sure, although Amy is suddenly a lockpicking expert for some reason. It’s also undermined by lines sometimes appearing out of order, a symptom of the slipshod construction of the game.
Evacuation Earth is not put together well. The menus are perfunctory, tap targets are unclear, and there is a frequent flickering in the screen during dialogue that is highly distracting. The music is bland and extremely repetitive. And as I alluded to earlier, the puzzles are a pale shadow of Layton’s brainteasers. They’re often so easy as to be boring, and puzzle types are often tediously repeated. The only time I had trouble was with a sliding panel puzzle, a notorious blind spot of mine that eventually had to be resolved by my wife. All you can say about them is that, unlike Layton, they are integrated into the game world as things that other characters need doing or are related to your environment.
As with other licensed games I’ve sought out, by far the most appealing part of the package is having new material based on the license. In this case it does feel like an interactive episode of the show, which is helped by the writing and environment design. The plot is vaguely linked to the episode The Beast Below, with people fleeing Earth due to solar flares or something. I liked the junkyard, with a scrappy (ha) group putting a ship together, giving you lots of opportunities to fix things for their launch and meet some quirky characters. A nice twist arrives with some Silurian stowaways. Good conflict, and a chance for Doctor-ish peacemaking. Unfortunately the implications of an alliance are immediately shoved under the rug with the intrusion of (of course) Daleks, who boot the Silurians out of the plot. Then there’s a series of door-unlocking puzzles and you beat the Daleks. It’s rather a lame third act, although it does pay off a few things that were set up earlier including the long-term goal of retrieving the TARDIS which had been built into the ship.
So I give the game a pass on the story, but it’s difficult to enjoy it with how bad the game is. Unfortunately there’s not much going in Doctor Who games, and all are critical flops. At least this one doesn’t have super uncanny 3D models?
Originally I wanted to try the Wii version of this as a co-op experience. Unfortunately the disc was scratched up badly and refused to work after the tutorial. I found the DS version as a consolation. Interestingly, it was made by TT Fusion, the team that creates the handheld Lego games. I can see similarities—I swear they reused some interface noises—but this is more action-focused than the Lego games.
So this is a retelling of the Lord of the Rings trilogy from the perspective of Aragorn. There’s a framing device with Sam telling his children the story, which is nice for newly recorded Sean Astin dialogue and showing some measure of the peace of the Fourth Age, but these cutscenes can get tedious. You do also miss big parts of the story; at one point Sam essentially goes “and then me and Mister Frodo went and destroyed the Ring”, but it’s also humorous because his kids interrupt him: “We’ve heard that part hundreds of times!”
The game’s fairly simple action fare. You move through the levels, whacking bad guys. There’s some backtracking, items to find and chests to open, minor environmental puzzles. You also level up, unlock skills, and find different equipment (with cool lore names). But the main thing is using the two different sword attacks to make different simple combos, sometimes blocking or pulling out the bow.
Of course the levels span Aragorn’s journey through the War of the Ring, so there’s some amount of variety. But you’re doing basically the same thing in most levels. Luckily it doesn’t outstay its welcome; it’s over in several hours, a bit more if you want to collect all the things and clear the bonus battle arenas.
So it’s a fairly basic licensed game. The journals and equipment customisation are a nice touch, and the occasional touch of levity from an orc tripping and falling off a ledge was appreciated; I wish there was more of this sort of thing, although the Lego game, released later, does cover that angle. I would also add more characters. The Fellowship’s talking heads often popped up, but apart from the very occasional friendly NPC Aragorn feels alone. Maybe it’s symbolic. On that point, since Sam is narrating you don’t really see what Aragorn is thinking or feeling—he seems like a mere avatar, which doesn’t feel right for a game which is strictly about him. But anyway, it’s an acceptable job. Perfectly adequate.
Kirby’s never been my favourite, but this game has two big selling points: the innovative Pikmin-like gameplay, and the robust unlockable subgames. Both delivered right around my expectations. The end.
Seriously though, this is pretty different to most Kirby games. It likes to think that there’s a strategy element to guiding 10 Kirbys around, but the Pikmin comparison I’ve heard is overstated. It is sometimes beneficial to split up the Kirbys but opportunities are limited with the small screen size. More often than not you just throw every Kirby you have at a problem before moving on to the next one. It is adorable to see them swarming over each other while running, but your wrist will be tested by the frequent required flicking motion.
The levels frequently introduce new gimmicks to keep it interesting, especially the Dedede Resort, but some levels can drag. I went for all medals, and the game requires multiple replays of some levels to cover branching paths. This is a little tedious. Overall though they had a lot of ideas for this core gameplay of indirectly controlling a bunch of little blobs, and it was explored thoroughly and for the most part entertainingly, with gradually increasing difficulty.
I’m no expert, but the main game doesn’t seem to have too many returning faces, aside from the obligatory Wispy Woods, Waddle Dees, and Dedede. No, they saved all the fan service for the subgames, which deliver in spades—even the anime is referenced. The three most fleshed out are the RPG-style timing-based battle one Kirby Quest, the fun scrolling shooter Strato Patrol EOS with its snaking line of shooting Kirbys, and Kirby Brawlball, probably the best virtual pinball game since Pokemon Pinball for GBC. And I LOVE Pokemon Pinball for GBC.
I wouldn’t say these subgames are worth the price of admission alone since they’re still a bit short (and finding a copy of this game was taxing for me… literally), but they definitely add value to the package. Experimenting with different genres as a break from the core game was a neat idea, and well realised.
So, yeah. It’s a good game. It didn’t blow me away but it does feel overlooked, coming so late on the DS and not even having its manual on Nintendo’s designated page for manual downloads!! …Ahem. It’s cute, it’s satisfying, it’s got plenty to keep you playing, and the pinball is excellent. Recommended.
AKA Mario Slam Basketball in my area, but I imported a US copy because that’s all I could find. A weird localisation choice, because the theme song has audible vocals saying “3 on 3”.
So I’m following up the visually daring Strikers with this entry, which at first glance seems pretty conventional. It’s got all the Mario staples, but the courts are well realised and varied, each with their own hazards to be aware of. There’s also the novelty that later on you can unlock some Final Fantasy players and courts, a crossover element that comes due to the game being developed by Square-Enix. This was a selling point for me, along with the surprising inclusion of Dixie Kong; an all-Kong team is possible, and glorious!
So this is a 3D basketball game controlled entirely with swipes on the DS touchscreen (and the L button). This works fairly well, and the mechanics are robust enough to reward skill (or at least exploiting the AI, which I found necessary to unlock the elusive Ninja). At times the challenge was high enough to get me in quite a tizzy, but it kept me trying again with its quick-fire matches and my eventual triumph was quite satisfying.
As expected of a Mario sports game, it’s no vanilla simulation. Panels can be run over when not in possession to grab items like shells and banana peels; you know the Mario Kart drill. When you’re dribbling though, the game is keeping the ball and bouncing on those panels to accrue coins. Baskets don’t just give you 2 points; no, 20 is the baseline, and each coin adds points. A full load of 100 with one of the special shots (unique to each character) can give you 140 points in one basket. Beating the opponent is not hard, but to get a tourney’s unlocks you need to stay 200 points ahead.
It was fun getting through these unlocks, changing up my team, and braving the dangers on each court. The game’s well made and it looks very nice. Lovely pixel art sprites bounce on the select screen, the portraits are attractive and expressive as is the game’s official art, and the courts have a nice visual identity with lots of detail on the sidelines. Have a scroll through this page, it’s neat. Even the Final Fantasy characters were made to fit right in, which can be an issue when worlds collide. It’s a gem on the DS, another reason why it’s one of my favourite consoles ever.
I had trouble finding a copy of this game. Well, a PAL region copy anyway. you see, I’m fascinated by the rare and elusive cross-console connection. In this case, having Castlevania Judgment on Wii (a poorly received 3D fighting game with radically redesigned characters) and Ecclesia on DS unlocks a few characters early and exclusive accessories there, and an early item and mode here. And despite the DS not being region-locked, it seems that when you connect like this the games must share a region, and the Wii is locked.
Anyway, moving on. The early unlocks were good because as with the two previous DS Castlevania games that I played and loved, I don’t see myself conquering Hard Mode. This game is challenging; venture too far and the tension rises as you try to make it back to safety, realising you’ve overstepped yourself. It’s gripping.
So OOE isn’t too different from said prior instalments. It’s a wonderfully crafted 2D action platformer with a great soundtrack and crisp spritework, and perfectly fluid control. The particulars have been tweaked; you now have a world map with selectable locations. Some are small, straight corridors, others are Portrait of Ruin-style mini-areas to explore. It isn’t until you get to the traditional Castlevania twist point that Dracula’s castle rises up and you get a huge linked map to roam. Having these different locations allows variety in the environments, but despite this they tend towards blandness.
Shanoa is your protagonist: it’s great to have a capable woman as a lead, but the plot involves a cliche case of amnesia and even worse, loss of emotions. It’s not explored too thoroughly, and in fact the plot itself is a bit barebones besides a few key scenes and a nice massive twist that re-casts the whole first half. You do get some fun interactions with the villagers though: Wygol village is a safe haven with NPCs that you rescue. They form the basis of the quest system, which returns from Portrait of Ruin as well although they’re often just “bring me this item”. This also ties into a new loot system, where set chests will be refilled when you enter a zone with some randomness.
I like the equipment system: Glyphs are a combination of weapons and souls (from Aria/Dawn of Sorrow). Some enemies may drop a new way to attack, and dual-wielding gives you more options. Enemy weaknesses also encourage you to switch it up, but I found that a few key sets were enough and experimentation was not super necessary. Even mastering a few attacks feels good, but I invariably will double up attack Glyphs to make it simpler.
People say that this is harder than the previous two, but I found it on par with them. Maybe my leet skillz are improving. But overall it really is more of the same, and that’s no bad thing to be sure. A notable change is a return to the detailed gothic style of artwork, seen in dialogue portraits, in the style of Ayami Kojima’s work on past games (although in this game it’s done by Masaki Hirooka), as opposed to the more generic anime style adopted by DoS and PoR. The new map structure also helps the feeling of pursuing your adversary around the countryside, and restoring the villagers is rewarding. But really what it is is another very good Castlevania game.
Rounding out the Raving Rabbids games proper that I’m covering in this playthrough, it’s the DS version. Despite having the same cover art and name, the three versions (Wii/PC/XB360, GBA, DS) are very distinct. In this case, it’s a combination of traditional 2.5D platformer and touch-controlled autorunner, with some minigames thrown in. It’s based more closely on the console version as it exists than the GBA one, which worked out some of the project’s concepts.
I’d explain that partly by it coming a few months after the initial Wii/GBA release. The later development time also seems to inform the plot, as the opening cutscene mentions the Rabbids invading Earth, which seems to be borrowed from the in-development-at-the-time Raving Rabbids 2. In-game evidence, however, suggests that it’s the same setting in the Glade of Dreams as the first game.
Costumes return; four this time, with new elemental affinities. They’re activated by corresponding pads, and the cues in the level leave no confusion about which is required. It’s simple but works for blocking off areas or what have you. The gating is important because each level has 2 or 3 different paths you can take by replaying it, which require jumping around between the level menu hubs when new abilities are unlocked.
So each level has 3 phases: the first is in 2D platforming style with 3D models on an occasionally rotating plane. Finishing this phase takes you to a minigame, either converted from a corresponding one in the Wii game or made new for the touch screen. After this is an autorunning part, seen in the screenshot where costume powers are freely available and you have to use the touch screen and power-switching to remove obstacles. It’s reminiscent of the Murfy-only parts of Rayman Legends. Later in the game you get a flying machine thing which works like the autorunning bits but with shooting and a grappling plunger gun.
An interesting thing about this game is its look and feel; it’s seemingly built with the same engine and some assets from the DS port of Rayman 2. It’s got the same font and sound effects, and some carryover mechanics and animations (including an overly sensitive ledge grab). It’s cool that they repurposed it for a 2D game, but one that feels so very different to the actual 2D Rayman games. On the other hand, music is taken from the console Rabbids game, heavily featuring the dance tracks (yes, especially Girls Just Wanna Have Fun), and loading screens show what looks like Rabbid concept art.
The level designs are quite simple, with nothing too challenging. Enemies are Rabbids with different weapons such as plunger guns or vehicles, the elephant demon guys (seen in the screenshot) from the graveyard parts of the console game, and various other creatures, some unique to this game (including a flying robot fish boss). You deal with them with a basic short-range punch attack, or a longer-range and more powerful attack that throws a Yellow Lum, looking like the attack from R2. Yes, in this game Yellow Lums are not special or finite but common ammunition. They can also be cashed in for health at certain spots so it’s not a bad idea, but the game throws them at you so often that after a few capacity upgrades I constantly used them and never ran out, so it’s not too balanced. Enemies drop stars that fill an experience meter, which on level up will increase your max health. Again interesting idea but it tops out well before the game’s end, and it would have been nice to do something else with that other than health upgrades.
So the DS game is an interesting little concoction; take a brace of Rabbids, a dash of Rayman 2, and mix in a whole lot of odd new gameplay ideas that don’t always work super well in practice. It goes to show that overall the first Rabbids instalment had some unique things to offer for the series as a result of being a combination of Rayman stuff with the emerging Rabbids phenomenon with their associated, shall we say, “voice”. It’s not the most fun or polished game, but I appreciated it as “Rayman done differently”.
Until now I haven’t really dealt with reconciling the three original Rabbids games to each other and the greater Rayman universe. But now that they’re done let’s have a quick crack. It doesn’t help that they each feel so different, but here’s how I see the plot. The Wii version doesn’t have much of a resolution but the final shooter segment does show Rayman plundering their base, followed by his escape. Of the important named Rabbids, Pink is destroyed but Serguei unharmed. The GBA version must be after this, as this time when Rayman is captured they’re not so lenient and confiscate his hands. Since the Glade has now had time to react to the surprise invasion, Ly and Murfy have shown up to help. The game ends with Rayman defeating a prominent Rabbid contraption, which is sometimes referred to as their mothership. This must be when they decide to leave the Glade and set their sights on easier targets, namely Earth, which carries into future Rabbids games. The DS game possibly represents Rayman trying to abort their invasion of Earth before they’ve left. He defeats Seguei at the end (named as Rabble Droid in the game), tying up the loose end of the power structure established in the console game. This vacuum is filled in later games, though, apparently, and his efforts aren’t enough to prevent the invasion of Earth. Oh well, at least they’re not bothering the Glade anymore. That’s my summary, and it’s possibly more thought than the developers put into maintaining a consistent narrative! Nah, just kidding, they’re alright.
So that’s the main releases of the Raving Rabbids era covered. But there’s a few little things to go, not least of which are the next few mobile titles. Keep track of the Rayman posts I’ve made here.
I bought a used copy of Yoshi’s Island DS ages ago online. I received it, played it, finished it. My 3DS’s activity log can attest to over 20 hours of gameplay. Yesterday when I popped it back in to check out the enemy museum, the system consistently gave me an error message when booting it. Other 3DS and DS systems also refused to run the game.
What I (and indeed the store that sold it, I think) failed to notice at the time, is that there are some very subtle differences between it and a genuine DS game card. Let’s play spot the difference. I apologise for the photos, but hopefully with careful observation you can see something wrong.
The first warning sign in fact was difficulty inserting it. The card when pushed in turned at an angle and there was an internal click before it slotted into place. Nothing seemed wrong visually but comparing it to another card, I noticed: 1, the small notch on the right side of the rear is smaller. 2, the logo and text stamped into the back is slightly bigger and with a smaller space between them. 3, the green board visible through the contact slots reads “Nintendo”, instead of a series of numbers and letters like other cards.
Looking at the front, I also noticed that the printing on the label was of a lower quality than genuine games. The “E” on the ESRB rating, being black, is noticeably mottled and fainter, and this extends to the whole image: fuzzy, and washed out. There’s also a slight gap in the front panel at the bottom, showing a slightly lower quality construction. Hopefully these details come through, but it was only when inspecting them carefully under bright light compared to other cards that it became obvious.
The conclusion: I had bought a fake. And for some reason, it had a shelf life that had expired; the game played fine earlier, but now would not load at all. I couldn’t sell or trade in a non-working, pirated game. There was only one thing to do.
And that’s my story.
Although the SNES has a reputation for being a haven for JRPGs, we didn’t actually own any on ours. Didn’t help that quite a few skipped our entire hemisphere: Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Super Mario RPG, even Final Fantasy 4 and 6, all never released in PAL. Sure most of that is Square’s fault, looking at the list. My experience of console RPGs was Secret of Evermore, Mystic Quest, and Lufia 2 (none of which have universal random encounters—what a skewed view of the genre I must have had!); all borrowed from friends or played at their houses.
I caught up with a lot of them through emulation later on, and one I was especially pleased to revisit was Lufia 2. It’s got a few good hooks to it, such as finding capsule monsters, the action/puzzle elements, and the optional random dungeon. A lot of the rest was novel to me at the time but on retrospect has been done. Still, the connection was there and the gameplay and story held up for me.
This game is a remake, or rather a reboot of Lufia 2, which is a prequel to Lufia… confusing. It changes the gameplay to action RPG, removes the world map, and streamlines the whole plot, drastically shortening it (no bad thing in my view: it moves along well and hits the important notes). The capsule monsters are gone unfortunately, but a new system is the mystic stone board which lets you power up characters by placing gems on a grid with bonuses and such on it. The customisability was nice and collecting and upgrading gems feels good, but I miss those little friends. Still, they wouldn’t have fit with the gameplay as they reimagined it.
Although the characters have also been redone, they’re all there in the same roles, but tweaked for the better. The writing is really entertaining and the secondary characters are memorable. More importantly, I felt a good connection to the main players, helped by the voice acting which although sparse was well done. I love all those goofs and in fact they inspired me to get into pixel art; scroll back in my blog to see some examples.
The streamlining of the plot helps give it more impact; the story of a pantheon of gods turning against the people of the earth and having a flipped evil nature is scary and effective. Gades serves as the main villain for the first half of the game, there’s a climax, and a lengthy epilogue-type series of scenes, before the characters find out that there are more Sinistrals to deal with. It’s a unique structure and although I knew about the late plot twist, it’s still emotional and the New Game Plus also hinges on it thanks to a nice post-credits scene. The second playthrough contains a few small additional lines sprinkled through the game in addition to an expanded Ancient Cave (the random dungeon I mentioned earlier).
The Ancient Cave is essentially the end-game content, but it’s a bit tedious and when you play for four hours only to fail at floor 99 of 100, it can feel very unfair. But I took up the challenge and I’m happy to say beat it the second time. The combat system is robust enough to sustain essentially four straight hours of dungeon crawling, or I thought so at least. Unfortunately due its nature it doesn’t contain the puzzley bits of the normal dungeons, which were a highlight.
I feel very positive about this game, it’s a real labour of love. The original game’s team got together again to do it, this time under Square Enix. They managed to redo the most popular game in the series very well, albeit with lots of changes, big and small. It’s inspired me to follow up with the series and play the other games; chronologically, of course. I also have opened a new comics project with the 32-page Lufia 2 special from Germany’s official Nintendo magazine, Club Nintendo. Look out for that later. After all, translating comics is the other thing I’m the best in the world at (psst, it’s a quote from Dekar in this game).
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