Nintendo DS

[Bahamut]

Nest of Evil on PoR > *

Did you beat it?

First room:

Hey this aint so bad.

Second room:

Why the hell did I stay in the corner?

It doesn't really get bad until you have to fight two The Creatures at once - that is when it starts to get really painful.

I guess most people here are enjoying PoR? I think I was going to buy DoS first, but I have no idea how the plot goes. Should I really care? I think it's important, but gameplay is also important too. Any suggestions for a beginner type Castlevania game? I played a little DoS before, so I know how it plays... seemed pretty fun.

I'd recommend just going with PoR first. While all of the Castlevanias are pretty much related in plot, Dawn of Sorrow sort of ends the Castlevania saga. Also, PoR sort of makes things easier, and doesn't have the shitty stylus usage that the first DS one did.

[CE]

They're both solid, and not related, storyline-wise. I'd go with DoS first since it's probably cheaper by now.

[The Author]

I liked DoS' use of the Stylus. And I would love to see the alternate story's ending be the cannon. But either way, it does not end the Castlevania story. It just stops Dracula for a generation, more or less. I could easily see a future Castlvania where Soma fully embraces his destiny.

Now PoR makes me wanna see Castlevania 1999. That one will be the biggy.

Also, they are gonna run out of reincarnations pre 1999 soon. Since Dracula's begining has been established as the 1300s, and the games leave little place to add more story, I really think the next big Castlevania will be the assault of 1999. And at that point, it will be interesting because it was Justin Belmont, a bunch of soldiers, Yoko Belnaldes and Alucard, all at once, in the castle fighting Dracula. And the only 4 to survive were Hammer, Alucard, Yoko, and Justin, if I remember correctly.

[Brycepops]

I liked DoS' use of the Stylus. And I would love to see the alternate story's ending be the cannon. But either way, it does not end the Castlevania story. It just stops Dracula for a generation, more or less. I could easily see a future Castlvania where Soma fully embraces his destiny.

Now PoR makes me wanna see Castlevania 1999. That one will be the biggy.

Also, they are gonna run out of reincarnations pre 1999 soon. Since Dracula's begining has been established as the 1300s, and the games leave little place to add more story, I really think the next big Castlevania will be the assault of 1999. And at that point, it will be interesting because it was Julius Belmont, a bunch of soldiers, Yoko Belnaldes and Alucard, all at once, in the castle fighting Dracula. And the only 4 to survive were Hammer, Alucard, Yoko, and Julius, if I remember correctly.

Uh...according to wikipedia, Yoko is 24 years old in DoS, and since DoS takes place in 2036, there's no way she could've been alive when Julius fought Dracula in 1999

[Kitsuta]

Nest of Evil on PoR > *

Did you beat it?

First room:

Hey this aint so bad.

Second room:

Why the hell did I stay in the corner?

There are many, many more than two rooms. Good luck.

I LOVE The Nest of Evil. Being a completionist on this game, I've beaten most of the levels 10+ times, excluding the last level. So awesome, but very hard.

Brycepops: Castlevania timeline(you know, the one that came with the preorder) to the rescue!

It does, in fact, say that: "It is Julius, the heir to the Belmont clan, who takes up the Vampire Killer to face Dracula's power" in 1999. It never mentions Yoko.

Not that it actually explains anything..

[The Author]

Then Yoko's mother...

Oh and that makes Hammer a very very old pervert. I was sure in AoS it mentionned hammer and the military being involved in the 1999 events. I assumed Yoko was the Belnaldes to be involved, but I guess Yoko's mother could have worked out as well.

Don't forget, the Belmont of 1999 needed a Belnaldes to reactivate the whip carried by a Morris.

[The Damned]

My friend Matt bought me Kirby's Squeakers for a christmas present. I'll have to try it out later tomorrow, but I plan to give a mini-review on it once I can put some time into it.

Yeah, so a few days at it, and here's what I got:

If you like Kirby, you'll like Squeak Squad. It straight forward Kirby side scrolling stuff, with a few new powers (favorite so far is Magician, where you shoot doves and playing cards out of your hat). There really isn't anything that could be considered groundbreaking or completely new.

Item management is sort of limited (in terms of use and actual numbers; you can only have five items at once). If you take two powers and combine them, you don't get a new, hybrid power. Instead, you get a randomly selected power. So if you think mixing that Fire power and the Sword power is going to get you some sort of firey Sword of Gabriel deal, think again. You'll end up with the Umbrella or Wheel power.

But you can combine food and Bottles to make better food and items. For instance, if you take a berry and a bottle, you get a piece of meat. If you combine that with another berry or bottle, you get one of those "M" tomatoes. Combine three tiny Kirby icons, and you get a 1-Up. But that's the extent of it.

There are lots of items to collect, which is why the limit of five items is so annoying. There are treasure chests that contain things like scrolls (they add extra abilities to your powers and are permanent), as well as pieces of a picture, medals, and lots of stuff that you get to look at in your collection. All of it is outside of the normal game, so it's completely extra.

There are also large chests that the Squeak Squad are after, and you have to fight one of them for it every time you see one. These hold more important items. Again, you have to use up a slot in your "stomach" screen to keep these, so toss that power-up or item if you want to keep that treasure.

I think if they let you have more slots for items, it would have been better. But as it stands, it's a decent Kirby game. Kirby fans should be happy, as it gives you more of the same while adding some new stuff here and there.

[CE]

The reason I'm not getting is that it's too easy and also you can't create cool new powers like in Crystal Shards.

[The Damned]

Oh joyous joys! Someone is saying that Nintendo is going to make yet another DS model! Who? Why, the French of course!

Every time I see a rumor of something from this site, I never hear of it happening afterwards. I swear, they only exist by being one of the few game sites in France, and by occasionally spitting out stuff they make up. Why do they bother?

But for the sake of argument, Nintendo does like to make newer versions of the same hardware, as anyone familiar with the Gameboy line can attest. Does this mean another, newer DS? I can't see why. The Lite is doing very well all around, and it's not even a year old yet.

And some of the comments coming out of sites like Kotaku and Joystiq... "why are they doing this? Nintendo is just greedy!" and the like...

No one is making anyone buy the new version, and nothing is making the previous versions obsolete. The DS didn't magically stop working once the Lite was released. Meanwhile, Apple releases ten new iPod models in a year, and no one complains about that.

Man, gamers like to make themselves look bad...

[Stealthshark]

Checked the last few pages and didn't see it posted so...

Heroes of Mana is apparently an RTS.

Not quite Mariocraft but it still sounds like it'll be fun. Always good to see series try different directions. We've had several turn-based strategy games from Squenix, it's about time they tried their hand at something realtime.

[Kitsuta]

Oh joyous joys! Someone is saying that Nintendo is going to make yet another DS model! Who? Why, the French of course!

Every time I see a rumor of something from this site, I never hear of it happening afterwards. I swear, they only exist by being one of the few game sites in France, and by occasionally spitting out stuff they make up. Why do they bother?

But for the sake of argument, Nintendo does like to make newer versions of the same hardware, as anyone familiar with the Gameboy line can attest. Does this mean another, newer DS? I can't see why. The Lite is doing very well all around, and it's not even a year old yet.

And some of the comments coming out of sites like Kotaku and Joystiq... "why are they doing this? Nintendo is just greedy!" and the like...

No one is making anyone buy the new version, and nothing is making the previous versions obsolete. The DS didn't magically stop working once the Lite was released. Meanwhile, Apple releases ten new iPod models in a year, and no one complains about that.

Man, gamers like to make themselves look bad...

A new DS is very unlikely, unless for some reason they end up needing a hardware upgrade to be compatible with the Wii(also, very unlikely and would be quite bad for Nintendo). The black and pink versions are only a few months old.

I would look more for a new Gameboy than anything, unless Nintendo decides to drop the GBA altogether.

[The Damned]

They pretty much have. An article from a few weeks ago stated that Nintendo sees one more "season" for the GBA. Now, if they meant the holiday season (Christmas) that's doable. There are still games coming out for it, and the existing library is pretty solid.

But let's face it, the GBA has pretty much been replaced by the DS. The only reason why the DS isn't called the "Gameboy DS" is because the uncertainty Nintendo had when they announced the DS. If the DS failed, then the Gameboy name would still be untarnished. But the DS was an amazing success, and they have no reason to rename it to include the Gameboy name.

I suspect that in the future, maybe after the successor to the DS, they will bring the Gameboy name back once more. Maybe the Gameboy Ultra?

[Kitsuta]

They pretty much have. An article from a few weeks ago stated that Nintendo sees one more "season" for the GBA. Now, if they meant the holiday season (Christmas) that's doable. There are still games coming out for it, and the existing library is pretty solid.

But let's face it, the GBA has pretty much been replaced by the DS. The only reason why the DS isn't called the "Gameboy DS" is because the uncertainty Nintendo had when they announced the DS. If the DS failed, then the Gameboy name would still be untarnished. But the DS was an amazing success, and they have no reason to rename it to include the Gameboy name.

I suspect that in the future, maybe after the successor to the DS, they will bring the Gameboy name back once more. Maybe the Gameboy Ultra?

Yeah, someone posted a thread about that article a while back, where we all argued whether or not the GBA would continue.

What would be funny is if they made a widescreen type Game Boy with gamecube level graphics, just to stick it to Sony and their PSP.

EDIT: Of course, while it would be amusing, it probably wouldn't work very well and I wouldn't encourage them to do it.

[Penfold]

So I got Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime this weekend. It's awesome. I was originally gonna get Final Fantasy III (I played the GBA FF1&2 and enjoyed that, so I figured 3 would be a good bet), but the store didn't have it in-stock, so I decided between DQ and Children of Mana. For those who played Children of Mana, how did you like it? How was the multiplayer?

[Bigfoot]

I heard the multiplayer is really great in Children of Mana. CoM is really just a dungeon crawler/button masher. It's not really like your classic Secret of Mana type game.

[KakTheInfected]

Children of Mana is a button masher that, if you're like me, are going to get bored of very quickly.

DQH:RS rules though. You made the right choice.

[Penfold]

Children of Mana is a button masher that, if you're like me, are going to get bored of very quickly.

DQH:RS rules though. You made the right choice.

Cool, kinda glad to hear it. I put about 5 hrs into DQH:RS this weekend, and it's all pretty much been fantastic. Btw, how was Magical Starsign? I like the look of the game, so I've been thinking to get it for that reason, but I'm just curious what people thought of how it played.

[The Damned]

Yeah, someone posted a thread about that article a while back, where we all argued whether or not the GBA would continue.

That was me. I loved the GBA, so it was a little sad to hear that sort of thing.

What would be funny is if they made a widescreen type Game Boy with gamecube level graphics, just to stick it to Sony and their PSP.

EDIT: Of course, while it would be amusing, it probably wouldn't work very well and I wouldn't encourage them to do it.

Maybe the next portable? Nintendo has proven with the entire Gameboy and GBA and DS lines that having superior hardware doesn't mean anything. Sega, Sony, the Wonderswan, the Lynx... all of them were better in terms of technology, but they all failed against whatever Nintendo put out at the time.

Of course, I would like to get a little more use out of my DS before the next one comes out. I only got the thing in July 2005.

[UnforgivingEdges]

Oh joyous joys! Someone is saying that Nintendo is going to make yet another DS model! Who? Why, the French of course!

Every time I see a rumor of something from this site, I never hear of it happening afterwards. I swear, they only exist by being one of the few game sites in France, and by occasionally spitting out stuff they make up. Why do they bother?

But for the sake of argument, Nintendo does like to make newer versions of the same hardware, as anyone familiar with the Gameboy line can attest. Does this mean another, newer DS? I can't see why. The Lite is doing very well all around, and it's not even a year old yet.

It actually makes perfect sense. The article you linked to only states that the rumors are criculating on Japanese forums and blogs. It also says that the rumor suggests that the new version would be released in Japan in 2007; nowhere else. Seeing how hot the DS lite is there (Nintendo can't even produce enough to fill demand), another redesigned DS would sell godly numbers of units.

[insert "It Prints Money!" gif here]

From a business standpoint (and ESPECIALLY after the recent DQ9 announcement), releasing a new DS lite model in Japan is good business.

And some of the comments coming out of sites like Kotaku and Joystiq... "why are they doing this? Nintendo is just greedy!" and the like...

No one is making anyone buy the new version, and nothing is making the previous versions obsolete. The DS didn't magically stop working once the Lite was released. Meanwhile, Apple releases ten new iPod models in a year, and no one complains about that.

Man, gamers like to make themselves look bad...

Stop being a Nintendo fanboy and shutup with this crap.

[JoeFu]

Man, the DS is steamrolling in Japan. I love looking at the weekly numbers just to see what kind of numbers it sells. I wonder what it will look like the week DQ9 comes out.

[The Damned]

Stop being a Nintendo fanboy and shutup with this crap.

Fanboy? Hardly. I call shit on all three sides when I see it. But since one company does it a lot more than the other, you call it being biased. Fuck you.

[UnforgivingEdges]

Stop being a Nintendo fanboy and shutup with this crap.

Fanboy? Hardly. I call shit on all three sides when I see it.

lol

[KWarp]

I'm not buying another DS redesign.

Kirby Squeak Squad will have to wait a little while.

[CE]

Guys guys! A Square Enix streetcred game trailer! Did no one even watch it?

[JoeFu]

dude, i like posted the link to the site of the game. The music is freaking awesome.

but i dont know if anybody actually went there.

Game looks interesting. I have no idea how to keep up with both screens though...

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/subarashiki/

was the site. I love the music there.