DSi in review

Okay, I gotta find THE DARK SPIRE post haste!

Thanks for the heads up Barnes!

While we're at it what where the top 5 games published for the Gameboy Advance?


@ Thaadd: pshhh, sissy.

I want that Korg thing...I have, in fact, wanted to make a Yaz album. Just like in the LCD Soundsystem song.

If you like match 3, do check out Henry Hatsworth. I kissed it goodbye with the tradeup, but it's pretty good. The platform stuff is old-school hard, the match 3 is well done. Odd combination, but it mostly works.

Do try to get THE DARK SPIRE with the CD...the soundtrack is really pretty neat, and I'm not usually the kind of person to listen to video game music outside of the game (outside of the SUPER METROID OST).

The game is stupid tough though...you create a dude and he's got like 4 hitpoints at level 1. It's actually made me laugh a couple of times, the narration is dead-straight but very knowing. The graphic style is probably the best I've seen on the DS- totally fresh. It is lame that there's no stylus support at all, but whatever.

the*mad*gamer wrote:

This old basketball game was the last handheld I owned. It was a rage back in its time. In fact I wanted the Football game but it was sold out EVERYWHERE and got the basketball game instead. I was unbeatable!

I had the football game. Yet another way in which I am superior to Weeks.


I'm still getting along with my DS Phat.

-MMM

GTA: CHINATOWN WARS: They did an amazing job on this. It will blow your mind to see how well they handled this hardware. Great game, not for kids, though, cripes.

I was just about to ask GTA on the DS. You sold me. I'm buying on Saturday.

jeb wrote:

The good DS games let you finish a mission or complete a board while taking a shit. That's how they are designed, I swear.

Ok I'm sold. Thanks for the DSi suggestions so far fellas and keep 'em coming.


As for the GBA here were my favorites:

Wariorware Mega Microgames - Insanely fun and incredibly stupid. I loved the 2-finger nosepicking game

Pokemon Ruby - The diebetic inducing cutesy theme aside, this was a good game. Think of it as an RPG where your weapons get better with training.

FF: Tactics Advance - A really fun RPG with some wacked out turn based combats. Jugglers may sound stupid until you get rocked by them.


-Will

Didn't play much DS games yet. My three favorites are GTA Chinatown Wars (simply AMAZING), Advance Wars Days of Ruin and Disgaea, but I have very little to compare these titles with.

Most of the DSiWare available at the new download store is crap, but Birds and Beans (200 points) and AQUIA (500 points) are fun little apps. You get 1000 points free with your DSi.

A few more game recommendations in addition to the excellent choices offered so far:

Peggle: Dual Shot - has all the levels from Peggle AND Peggle Nights. Under $20 at Walmart.
Picross - Sudoku meets paint by numbers
N+ - 100s of levels of pure old-school platforming action.
Space Invaders Extreme - Fabulous tribute/reimagining of the original shooter.

Got RHYTHM HEAVEN...it's a fun casual game...devilishly hard though. I love music/rhythm games, and so far this is one of the better ones. I like it better than ELITE BEAT AGENTS, but if you liked that then this is a no-brainer.

Downloaded AQUIA too...I think it's the best match-3 I've ever played outside of PUZZLE QUEST. The theme is actually interesting, and oddly fatalistic. The darkness thing is actually kind of spooky and it gives the game a lot of tension.

btw, Blockbuster video has a pretty sweet videogame clearance going on. I read about it here:

http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=216693

heh, I actually just traded my DS Lite for the DSi too just last Friday... They had a good deal and my Lite was getting old already (with some help from my little kids... ) the touch screen was just impossible to calibrate well, and it was a bit of a pain...

I also recently got GTA which I loved even though its "theme" is not one I enjoy much... open ended games are great. If they'd only release a sequel to Frontier for the DS or Wii

And as I said in another thread, if you like roguelikes (like nethack, rogue, moria, etc...) Shien the Wanderer is excellent. I'm also enjoying The world ends with you. The combat system is fun and the story is intriguing. I also like the weird graphical style.

Other great games have been mentioned: New Super Mario Bros, Kirby Canvas Curse, Mario Kart DS is the one I like the most, although the one on Wii is pretty good too, and I do love Picross, which I tried first on the GBC years ago. I've noticed there's one of the japanese only SNES picross games on VC, which I guess I'll get eventually. If anyone still has a Palm handheld, there's a great version of this game with hundreds of fan-made levels: Picture Logic.

I'm considering selling my DS phat and buying a DSi when I get some money from this study from a local university my wife and I are participating in. I think the DSi will be a big step up from my phat. Glad I never upgraded to the lite.

I tracked down a copy of KIRBY'S CANVAS CURSE after you guys mentioned it a few times here...WOW. That's an _amazing_ game. It's really a damn shame that it's out of print, I think it's as good a showcase for what the DS is capable of in terms of innovative gameplay as anything else out there. I think it's one of the most interesting platform games I've ever seen. The guys that made CRAYON PHYSICS obviously played a lot of KCC.

An interesting note about the DSi- it seems like some older games with save files from an earlier DS have some kind of problem. KCC wouldn't load up at all at first, but then it did after a few tries and when I saved my game, the date and time were all 9s. I wonder if it's some kind of weird incompatibility with the time/date on older games. FFIV did this to me too.

I got to play around with one this weekend and I'm almost sold. By that I mean that now I really do want one, I just need to justify spending the money I don't really have.

Though the lack of the GBA port is a major, major issue and the one that I think will keep me from making the jump since I'd want to keep my regular DS (phat for life!) to play all those awesome games. But then again, I do have an Advance that I put the lit screen into so maybe not.