Hello there, welcome to the selections in this series for which 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 & Wonderful: 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!
Way back at the start of this series I mentioned that I might regret not listing 3D Space Tank under it's US or Japanese title of X-Scape or X-Returns and that has proven to be the case as there's no other games for 'X' in the whole DSiWare catalogue.
Well Known and Wonderful
I'm exactly sure how this DSiWare version differs from the retail original as I don't own the boxed variant and the internet has been uncharacteristically unhelpful. What I can tell you is that this absolutely 'feels' like a full retail release and, when it comes to this franchise, that's a very good place to start.
Like everything in this series, Touched is a vast compilation of micro-games featuring a bizarre cast of characters and even more bizarre challenges. By the end of the just the first set of levels you'll have stroked a dog, erased a blackboard, and filled a bucket full of rainbow - and this is just the very very tip of a very very odd iceberg.
The visual are the usual bonkers mix of the simplest line art and barely animated photographs, while the sound and music play no small part in creating the manic atmosphere required for games that last 5 seconds a piece.
Accelerometer fuelled Twisted on the GBA remains my favourite in this series, but touched has stormed into a strong second place.
Games, certainly in the early days of the DS line, sometimes struggled to find a way to crowbar in the hardwares touch screen capabilities but here it's the perfect pairing; all the usual brilliant insanity of Warioware combined with a control method that's as 'instant' and intuitive as the games need it to be.
Honourable Mentions
This nicely designed vertical bullet hell shooter was destined for for a higher accolade than this - and then I completed level three and the game looped back to the start. Sad times.
As you'd expect from this series, it's a simple affair, but one elevated by nicely drawn and animated sprites and a focus on end of level bosses. If there were just a few more of them we might have been onto something quite special.
Z-One and Z-One 2 (G.G. Series)
I've lumped these together for the usual reason, that the sequel is such a small step up from the original that there's little point in going over them separately.
Both games are to Horizontal shmups what Wonderland is to the vertical kind; simply, enjoyable, but somewhat lacking in depth.
Gradius is the clear inspiration with directional firing available from a couple of pods alongside your ship but, unlike the game above there are no real end of level bosses. Instead the scrolling stops and you have to survive in a roomful of baddies for a set time.
It's an original take, but sadly an unsuccessful one. Seeing, and eventually defeating, end bosses is a key component of this genre and one without which these games are left sorely lacking.
Zenonia
My caveat at the top of every one of these posts about not playing RPGs has sat there entirely redundant for the 17 previous entries waiting for this very moment so that could ignore this game.
However, when I fire up all these games for the first time I usually know nothing about them - and that was obviously the case with Zenonia. As I skipped past the screens and screens of text dialogue that revealed this as a JRPG, I realised that I couldn't just leave this piled up with the unmentionable shovelware.
Personally, all RPGs leave me cold, but Zenonia is clearly a beautifully crafted game and, as much I personally will never rate it, it's only fair that I make you aware of it so you can check it for yourself.
As I can't really offer an opinion I'll end by noting that Nintendolife described it as "a mix between classic Zelda and Sword of Mana" while IGN reference Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy in their review. Both sites scored it 9/10.
Zuma's Revenge
As much as it pains me to give credit to to a game series as artistically bankrupt as the Zuma franchise, there's no getting away from the fact that this is a ridiculously addictive puzzler that is thankfully devoid of the micro-transactions that plague every game of this type that you'll find on your phone.
Also Rans
An attempt to fold the DS's camera into the Warioware experience that borders on abject failure.
A tiny selection of levels in which your grainy, laggy, shadow appears in game to interact with a fraction of the usual array of microgames is just no fun to play. By a distance the worst Warioware game in the series.
No comments:
Post a Comment