Seconded. Layton is awesome. Maybe I’m a masochist, but I actually enjoy trying to solve some of those really difficult puzzles.
Yeah, Prof. Layton was an awesome game. Can’t wait for the sequel.
For you guys that are having Rhythm Heaven problems… its supposed to be really precise. I’m not trying to diss, but you need to have good rhythm and flick/tap at exactly the right moment, there’s not a lot of room for error. The controls aren’t wonky, their unforgiving 
on the contrary… Tengoku gold is inprecise as fuck. I feel like they left a wide margin of allowable error to facilitate use of the stylus.
or at least the import was… I donno if they changed it up for the domestic release.
but compared to the GBA version, DS version was a breeze. GBA version demanded tons of retries when trying to get all perfect on stages. DS version u perfect stages on the first try O_o
pokemon is a must. come on, its pokemon
Chrono Trigger is also an excellent addition if you never enjoyed before, and even if you have, its just that good of a game
im so sick of people saying games are bad because they are difficult, and the controls are fine, theres only 3 things you need to do, tap flick, or tap and hold, and variations on that. Yeah i have lost on a few of the games, but really each game is like 2 minutes long so its not even a big deal
dentron: layton is the shit, one of my fav ds games, and i have about 30 games. Also all the castlevania games are great if you like those games. and you cant go wrong with new super mario bros. But yeah def pick up henry hatsworth, its damn good.
yeah, getting perfects are hard, but the fundamental mechanics of the game are easy. you have to consider that the game has no difficulty settings, so the added challenge of perfecting stages compensates for that.
I did play Soma Bringer briefly, but I didn’t get too much of it, so I stopped. Nah, played that straight with all that Jap I could take. The game made the ESRB leak. Waiting for it and ASH to make my day.
Digimon>Pokemon.
That’s funny because I didn’t say Rhthym Heaven is a bad game at all. I just don’t like it.
I strongly disagree that the controls are fine. There’s been several times that I performed a flick motion but the game did not register it as such. I’m not the only one who’s experienced this problem:
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3173575&p=39
The lack of a “Retry” option makes it more frustrating since you have to put up with an autosave, brief load times, and skipping the tutorials whenever you Quit a game and reselect it.
BTW, I highly recommend Retro Game Challenge for fans of old-school games. Some of the games are really fun and the magazines are cute and occasionally funny. If the game sells well enough, Xseed will bring the sequel out here.
I played it. I was kind of psyched for it as it’s a dungeon crawler but… to put it simply, the game is shallow. Monsters die very quickly like in Diablo which, IMO, doesn’t work very well when you’re not on a keyboard + mouse. Not only that but it kind of makes the game’s juggle system useless because enemies will die long before you can get them in a juggling state.
You create your own character and choose one of 6 or so classes. This is great and all but skills are somewhat useless as you can just tear everything up by simply mashing the attack button. I found myself adding points to passive skills as active ones were just a hassle. Though this changes if you’re a “soma” which is this game’s mage class. That one actually requires you to use some skills… but alas; the best weapons for somas are often 2x swords. You can relocate your skill points at any time which is a huge plus.
Dungeon Design is OK. No annoying puzzles like in Crystal Chronicles Echoes of Time but nothing out of the ordinary either. There are side quests you can pick up and often complete while doing your main mission. They are very simple and there aren’t many of them though. I’d say the thing I liked the most about Soma Bringer was the art direction and the music too, I guess.
WTB Super Mario All Stars for DS. No idea why they have not done this yet.
Probably because of both the Super Mario Advance series and Virtual Console.
Unfortunately, the DSi can’t do anything but DSi games now (or DSiWare), so hopefully it will make it’s way to VC or on to a DS cart. :sad:
Or you could just keep your DS or GBA.
I don’t know if this has been found already yet, but I noticed a cute little Easter Egg in the DSi’s camera function today. Try taking a picture of anything and then open up the “edit” function. Choose the “graffiti” option and clear the screen. Open up the symbol types and choose the music note. Start placing them anywhere on the screen. Here the sound that accompanies it? Pretty cute touch right, but did you know that it’s not random?
Try this, clear the screen again. Now place the stylus in the lower left corner of the touch screen and slowly drag it all the way to the right. This should yield eight notes that are escalating as you move to the right. Now place the stylus in the middle left and do the same thing. Now it’s gone up an octave. Finally, place the stylus in the upper left and drag. Once again, you’ve gone up an octave. Cool, huh? Clear the screen again, and place the stylus back in the lower left corner again. Now drag up the stylus straight up. You should get six notes. Each pair of notes represents one level of octave. The middle acts as the starting octave and the ones above and below it represent higher and lower octaves.
I did some experimenting and found that the notes are laid out in a certain sequence that mirrors a piano’s layout. If we assume that we have three zones of octaves with eight notes going across, that would give us twenty-four locations for notes. Here is a visual example of what I’m talking about:
C D E F G A B C
C D E F G A B C
C D E F G A B C
The “C” on the far right matches the “C” on the far left on the octave above it. Try it out for yourself. Touch the “C” location on the middle right and then touch the “C” location on the upper left. See, same sound. The same goes for the “C” on the lower right and the “C” in the middle left.
Now for the fun part. Get out a piece of paper, or use something on your computer, and draw out a 3x8 grid and fill it in with the above letters. Now take your DSi and take a picture of the grid so that it fills the touchscreen perfectly. Once you have the picture saved, open it up and choose the graffiti option. If you took the picture right, your screen should have twenty-four squares each with a letter in them. Tap the stylus on the squares to listen to the proper notes.
Now, try playing this and guess what it is:
(starting on the middle octave) D-D-D, G, !D, C-B-A, !G, !D, C-B-A, !G, !D, C-B-C, A
The “-” means play it quickly and the “!” means use the higher octave.
Do you get it? It’s the beginning of the main theme of Star Wars.
But wait, there’s more! If you hold up or down on the D-Pad while touching a note, it will apply a sharp (up on the d-pad) or a flat (down on the d-pad) to the note. Using this new technique, try playing the following:
(starting in the middle octave) B, B, B-B-B, B-A, B-B, B-B-B, B-A, B-B, B-B-B, B-F-F, F-F-F, F-F-F, F-F
All of the “B” and “A” notes are flats. The “F” notes are normal.
If your gamer sense is tingling, you should get the beat almost immediately. If not, try tapping it out as though you were playing the intro to The Legend of Zelda.
Now go out and find some sheet music and tap out some of your favorite songs! Here are some good resources that helped me figure it all out:
The Basics of Reading Sheet Music
Sharps, Flats, and Natural Notes
The Empire Strikes Back Music Sheet
The Legend of Zelda Music Sheet (pdf)
I hope you guys find this as cool as I did. Have fun tapping out music to your pictures…with the slightly obnoxious picture music in the background.
Edit: I uploaded a video on youtube showing how it’s done. Check it out:
[media=youtube]6i6w21HFbq0[/media]
^haha sick find dude. stupid costco was sold out of DSi today, so im gonna order online and have to wait to mess with it.
Bosshog:
That’s really awesome, and the first I’ve heard of it. I think you should submit it to a gaming blog like Joystiq, it might generate more hits on your youtube site and ultimately your mnc site!
Still loving Rhythm Heaven, and I still have to disagree, I have not made mistakes in the game where I thought the game’s controls were being unfair, its always my fault. I don’t have trouble flicking…
Hint: 4 letter word. Starts with a C. It ends with a H.
Cunh?