The letter 'F' provides another small haul this week, but a very nice selection nonetheless.
Quick recap: To facilitate this exercise I played every game made available on the DSiWare service and, once I weeded out the shovelware, I have divided the remainder into four categories:
Hidden Gems: Games you've probably never heard of that are utterly brilliant
Well Known & Worthwhile: Still gems, still potentially brilliant, but perhaps not quite so 'hidden'
Honourable Mentions: Those games that are good, but lack the real spark required to fit into one of the top two categories
Also Rans: Not bad enough to be completely ignored, but probably not quite good enough to warrant higher status
Two caveats: Firstly, I don't enjoy RPGs. Like, at all. So you won't see any of those at any point. And secondly it's very hard to define 'Hidden Gem' on DSiWare, as the service itself was never hugely popular, so please excuse a potential few miss-categorisations along the way!
Hidden Gems
There's an excellent horizontal shmup from a few years back called REVOLVER360 RE:ACTOR, and it virtually impossible not to think of it while playing Flip the Core.
Whilst the PC game is obviously good bit slicker than anything the DSi could even dream of producing, the central question that drives both games is the same: what happens if you put a 2D shooter in a 3D world?
The answer, in both cases, is 'awesomeness'!
It's all very familiar to start with. Your craft flies from left to right in the usual way, blasting enemies and collecting the little pink dots they leave behind. You have three distinct weapons at your disposal and these dots raise the level of them in the way you would normally see from a traditional power-up. There's a touch of RPG about this as a bar is filled that gives a step upgrade to your selected weapon with each third filled.
The literal and figurative twist happens first when a wall of white blocks would seem to block your path. You can fly into these without damage, but they will push off the back of the screen eventually, causing you to lose a life.
Luckily, a tap of the 'L' shoulder button will rotate the entire level 90ยบ on the y-axis. What was once a screen-blocking pillar can become just a small square in the middle of the screen. What was a huge circular explosion of enemy fire radiating outwards instant becomes a single line of easily avoidable bullets. Even the power pick-ups only exist on a single plane at a time and you must be sure to match the the correct one to collect them.
In truth this isn't the game's 'twist', it's the game's core mechanic. As a shooter it's pretty good, the lack of level bosses isn't great but the visual style is nice and the power-up system is solid. But it's as a kind of puzzle journey through hybrid 2D/3D space that it's a joy to play. Making sure you're in the right place before rotating and flipping from one perspective to the other as you dodge and weave around enemies and their ordnance is brilliant, unique fun.
Flip the Core may be simple if a little lacking as a shooter, but the gimmick it brings proves to be more than enough to make this a must-play title for anyone interested in games that try and do something a little different.
Well Known & Worthwhile
Games like Final Fight and Streets of Rage have been firm favourites for decades, and Fatal Blow (AKA Super Hero Ogre) is an attempt to bring that style to the limitations of DSiWare.
The first thing to fall by the wayside is the usual scrolling format. Fatal Blow takes place in mini arenas, about two screens in length with an impassable invisible wall at each end. There's also no movement on the y axis, all the action takes place on a single lane as seen way back in the likes of Kung Fu Master, or Vigilante.
At this point you're probably thinking that this doesn't sound much like Street of Rage at all, and you'd be absolutely right, but what this game might lose in movement and mobility, it more than makes up for with combos.
It may seem like a simple thing, but the combo and juggling system in Fatal Blow really kick the playability up a considerable notch.
The standard attack is a basic punch flurry which can be embellished with a standing or jumping 'Hero Kick'. There's a 'Hero Punch' too, and landing any of these moves not only adds knock back to your attacks with the chance to juggle, but will also charge up your Hero Gauge. This is divided into three segments. Fill one segment and you have the opportunity to perform one of three 'Super Hero Attacks'.
The game will usually throw three enemies at you at one time. Then, after you've put the minions to the (laser) sword, there's a boss battle to contend with.
The three different types of attack, and the variations within them, all have different knock-back and bounce effects on these enemies. When you get the hang of how and when to link them together you really can start to feel like the Super Hero your avatar represents.
The best advice I can give for this game is to give it a go and then, after the first boss destroys you, watch the trailer on Youtube (you'll find it by searching the AKA) to get the idea of what is possible in the game.
Then go back to the game and have some real fun!
The first 'Flipper' was something of a darling to Nintendo fans and media, but there are good reasons that it appears further down the page than it's sequel. This does, however, make it hard for me to explain just how different the two titles are... so I'm not going to bother.
Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish is a one button platformer that is most easily (lazily!?) compared to a Warioware mini game.
Each level is broken down into several single-screen events that you, in the role of the sub-titular Flush, must navigate using a super secret robot suit (fans of both Earthworm Jim and The Umbrella Academy may well raise an eyebrow) and the 'A' button.
Appearing on the left side of the top screen, the game will provide a simple instruction on the lower one. "Jump!" it might say, or "Inflate". "Tap to keep moving" is probably the most detailed order given, but whatever the suggested action is, the 'A' button is always the way to perform it, with just the timing of the press, the length it held, or the speed of the tap adding variety to proceedings.
The game has three main modes and it's interesting how they build into one another. Story mode comes first and is a great introduction to the basics of the game. Finish this and 'Random Castle' opens up which, as one might imagine, generates random levels based on a couple of parameters set by the player. Finally there's edit mode, in which you can play around with any level unlocked in 'Random Castle'. Truthfully, this final mode falls a bit flat - not least because any genuine ability to share with friends has been lost to the annals of time.
Fortunately, the other two modes offer more than enough entertainment to make this a recommended play. And that's before I've really talked about the presentation.
Flipper 2 has a hyper-detailed sprite style that looks like it should exceed the limitations of DSiWare. The animation and art clearly benefit from the pared-back interaction style and simple level design. As a result it can, at it's best, feel like a cross between the fast paced simplicity of the Warioware games and interactive cartoons such as Dragon's Lair or Space Ace.
I'm aware that there's plenty who won't get on with the hyper-simplified controls in this game. But I think if you go into it knowing what to expect there's a lot of fun to be had here.
Honourable Mentions
Flipper
As mentioned above, this game caused a lot of fuss in the community even before it was finished. The voxel foundations were pretty fresh back then, and the allowance they gave for free-form destructible environments struck a chord with gamers.
In that context it was difficult not to be a little underwhelmed by Flipper; a partially 3D puzzle game concerned with a boy moving from A-to-B to rescue his goldfish. I say partially 3D because you can only rotate the levels in increments, even though, as you would expect with voxels, they are rendered fully in 3D.
The destruction that was the focus of the tech demo that brought the game to public attention, is now mostly reduced to forming ramps and removing obstacles and, as such, it's hard not to wish this was a project designed for a slightly less limited platform.
In the end it's a well made but limited action-puzzle game, more interesting than entertaining after a few levels, sadly, but worth a look out of curiosity.
Ferrari GT: Evolution
I mentioned in my recommendation of Drift Street International that the whole DS platform is woefully short of (relatively) realistic racing games. I also made it clear that, for that game, it wasn't a case of big fish - small pond.Can the same be said of Ferrari Gt Evolution? Well... I think probably not. This is a game with all the polish and class that you could hope for from a racer bearing the most famous license in motorsport. And at first glance everything is here to follow through on the promise made by the prancing horse - but sadly it goes wrong at, quite literally, the first corner.
Yup. The handling is atrocious. Aiming for the sweet-spot between fun and realism it is instead too stiff one moment, and too loose the next. Even with a fair few options available to address this they don't change things enough to make any of the cars enjoyable to drive.
So. Why are we here in Honourable Mentions and not languishing amongst the Also Rans? Well. I have to admit that I can never resist looking at reviews around the net to see what other players thought of the games I write up. This is pure curiosity and never something that influences what I think - or what I write. But, in this case, I couldn't help but notice that very few agreed with me about the handling of this game.
So, we're here in Honourable Mentions so I can recommend you try this game for yourself. If you look more favourably on the handling than I do then this is a quality product. Otherwise, meh.
Flight Control
The very first game I remember playing on an Apple handset, Flight Control has you using the touchscreen to draw flight paths for various aircraft to land while avoiding crashing into each other. The graphics are as simple as the concept, but this is nevertheless, still, a very addictive little game.
There's a little extra depth added from the original with a couple more airports and aircraft types, but it's nothing revolutionary. You know exactly what you're getting here, and that's a tight, enjoyable, if essentially very limited little game.
Also Rans
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