It turns out Monster Tale has absolutely nothing to do with Monster Hunter, but it’s still a really good game.

Monster Tale is a 2D platformer, specifically a Metroi…cast…roidio…vani… one of those games where all the areas are interconnected. It’s developed by DreamRift, a studio born from the Henry Hatsworth developers. It tells the story of Ellie, a young girl who finds a mysterious bracelet that transports her to the Monster World. She runs into a newly hatched monster that follows after her, and names him Chomp. She then journeys to find a way back home, though she’s obstructed by other kids who’ve come to the Monster World and taken over, and now refuse to return.

You play the game as Ellie, while Chomp operates like a familiar from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and acts of his own accord most of the time. Ellie has short ranged melee attacks which can be executed with Y, and can fire projectiles from her bracelet with A (which consumes energy). With jumping set as B, this scheme may seem wonky to platforming aficionados, but you get used to it fairly quick. Ellie gains more abilities as she finds runes from statues (very much like in Metroid), like executing melee combo chains, ground pounding, firing more powerful bracelet blasts, and wall kicking. All of these are crucial to opening up additional areas, as well as giving Ellie more options when combat heats up.

Meanwhile, Chomp enjoys the game’s RPG-geared elements. Chomp can either be on the top screen or bottom screen. The bottom screen is his “rest area,” and the various items you pick up from beating enemies are sent here. Items include things like food, toys, books, and other gadgets, which each take Chomp a bit of time to consume or otherwise use. When items are “consumed” they give Chomp experience as well as stat boosts depending on what the item is. When Chomp is summoned to the top screen, he will automatically follow Ellie and attack enemies (which also grants experience). Chomp will also learn attacks which you can assign to L and R and use at will.

While on the top screen, Chomp’s energy gradually decreases, and will also decrease when you use his special attacks or when Chomp takes damage. You can send him back to the bottom screen to recharge, though if he gets knocked out he’ll just be sent back and become unresponsive until his energy recharges fully.

"Monster rave!"

As you might expect, Chomp levels up as he gains experience, and gaining levels will let Chomp learn new attacks and other assignable traits like stat boosts or elemental affinities. But making things much more interesting, leveling up Chomp also unlocks new forms for you to use. Each new form starts back at level 1 and has a different distribution of base stats. Forms are also elementally based in either fire, water, or earth (a common chain if you’ve played Pokémon). Leveling up these forms will let Chomp learn attacks and traits related to them, as well as unlock additional forms down the tree. What’s more, while Chomp starts with the “child tree” of forms, the game will also open teenage and adult forms as you progress, creating many more assist possibilities for Ellie.

You may want to play a little with each form and see what abilities they will learn. Leveling a form more, however, will let you master their abilities. Abilities that are mastered can be used with any form. You have to be careful, though, since each form caps at level 30. If there are still more forms down the chain yet to be unlocked when you hit 30, so far as I can tell it makes it extremely hard or even impossible to unlock them. I found this out the hard way.

To be honest, most of Chomp’s possibilities are fine since Ellie can kick a lot of butt in her own right. Once you learn the combo chain and upward bash, you’ll be juggling enemies in the air with painful blows, even after they’re defeated. This is key, since the longer you can keep bashing an enemy without it falling, the more money and items are likely to spill out of them. And really, juggling enemies is just a lot of fun, though it can leave you vulnerable to attack if you’re not careful.

"Even on the bottom screen, Chomp stays pretty content."

As mentioned before, Monster Tale is designed with an open world in mind. The world is split into five kingdoms, each of which are split into two or three unique regions. Some of the areas are from the typical platformer environs, while others are pretty unique, such as a wind swept wheat field with large, toy windmills. Also, a monster dance club. While the game is an open world, there isn’t very much in the way of exploration. Every path leads to a new power up, which in turns leads you to the next power up, and your next destination is always marked on the map. Furthermore, the game has you backtracking quite a bit just to progress. Even when you’re waist deep in the adventure, you’ll find yourself continuing to traverse back and forth across areas near the game’s beginning.

Areas are also dotted with the typical save rooms, as well as rooms where you run into a shopkeeper character. He will offer items that increase Ellie’s health and attack damage and so forth, as well as items for Chomp to consume. This is helpful since many of Chomp’s forms have preference to specific items.

Monster Tale is also pretty strong in the audio department. The sound effects are fitting, and really add a sense of physicality to Ellie beating down enemies. The music is pretty catchy, and upbeat where it needs to be. The variety of different lands allows the game to offer a good mix of styles, but most are still suited to an action platformer. Monster Tale also features small bits of voice acting, which don’t come off quite as well. Ellie’s sound bites lack consistency. Sometimes she sounds like a young girl, while other times she sounds like a mature woman. The other kids are also pretty cliché in character and have quips that are pretty corny. Some of them still do have their charm though, like the nerdy kit who attacks and yells “Blast processing!”

"Ellie still comes off as more manly than Alucard."

I’ve gone on record numerous times saying that the only developers who can still make worthwhile platformers are those who were there during the arcade era. But I always give credit where it’s due, and DreamRift has made a very solid and very enjoyable game with Monster Tale. It’s a little rough in places, especially with world design and all the backtracking. It’s a little on the short side, but the mechanics are pretty spot on and the world is fun to experience nevertheless.

I’m pretty sure Monster Tale will fall into obscurity being released by a developer that’s not well known and coming out so close to the release of the Nintendo 3DS. Some have even called it the DS’s Shantae. But I will say one thing; I know a number of people who are presently still not too confident in picking up a 3DS with its selection of launch titles. If you’re one of those people, I think Monster Tale is a great choice for you. It’s definitely fun and a lot cheaper than jumping into new hardware. And if you do finally get a 3DS, the game still looks and plays pretty good on it.

This review is based on a copy of Monster Tale purchased by the reviewer.

In Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Lynne dies. Oops, did I spoil it for you? In truth, I spoiled nothing. Lynne has to die. If she didn’t, there would be no way to progress the storyline. That’s really how Ghost Trick rolls: death is only the first piece of the puzzle.

This latest adventure title from Capcom’s Shu Takumi is the first to come completely separate from the well known Ace Attorney series, and not only features a new world with unique characters and story, but an entirely different gameplay system as well. Nevertheless, logic and problem solving are still key in this quest to avert fate.

In Ghost Trick you play as Sissel, or rather his departed soul. Awakening from unconsciousness, Sissel’s spirit is presented with a scene in a junk yard. A hitman is pointing a shotgun at a young woman, and his own corpse is lying in between them. Unfortunately, Sissel lacks all memory of the man he used to be, and why he was killed. Initially, Sissel only cares about recovering his memory, but another enigmatic spirit persuades him to help the woman using his “ghost tricks.” She’d be the first lead in figuring out his own truth. But there’s a problem: Sissel only has until dawn before his spirit disappears forever.

The above mentioned “ghost tricks” are the key to unraveling Sissel’s story. Various objects in the environment have “cores” that Sissel can latch onto, and the player can guide Sissel to them with the touch screen (and while the game is heavily touch screen focused, you can actually play it entirely using the buttons as well, if you prefer). Sissel’s soul can only extend so far, though. Certain items Sissel inhabits can then be manipulated. If he inhabits an umbrella, for example, he can make it open and close. Additionally, Sissel can move across phone lines to any other location, so long as a phone call is made from there, which becomes his primary means of getting about.

But Sissel’s most prominent ability is to inhabit dead bodies, which will come up pretty frequently in the storyline. This allows Sissel to use his greatest power: traveling back in time four minutes before the person died. When he does this, not only is he able to watch how the person’s final moments played out, but he can also manipulate objects during the time to change their fate, and prevent them from dying.

"The afterlife you always dreamed of."

While Ghost Trick has different mechanics than the Ace Attorney games, it has a somewhat similar structure. The game is divided up into real time segments, which sum up to an investigation mode of sorts. For the most part, though, you’re just trying to figure out how to manipulate the right objects to get to where you want to go. Also, you gain the ability to speak to people whose lives you save and interrogate them. This just fleshes out the story, though. You won’t have to be taking this information to court.

Then there are the segments where you’re trying to avert someone’s fate, which are akin to Ace Attorney’s court room sessions. Here, you must manipulate objects to prevent whatever happenstance causes the person to be killed. Watching the replay of the victim’s last moments, and seeing what items get interacted with, give you a good idea what to do.

The trick is, while you’re in the Ghost World (which is where Sissel moves from object to object) time stops, but outside of this events continue in real time. And it’s not enough just to manipulate objects. Sometimes you will need to wait for people to affect objects or the environment before you can proceed. This occasionally means you only have a small window to affect a proper change. And as time draws nearer to death, the music intensifies, much like when you press a witness closer and closer to cracking in Ace Attorney.

The puzzles get more tricky as the game rolls on, and in some cases there are intentional dead ends if you miss a cue or don’t manipulate an object at the right time. This may make the game seem pretty frustrating, but the truth is you can’t lose. If you get something wrong, you can rewind time again and again until you get it right. Even if you end up letting a person die, it just prompts you to start over without penalty. Additionally, often you can alter a person’s fate before averting it entirely, and these act as new restart points.

On top of that, there are thought bubbles you can press for hints, and the game is pretty good at signaling when you’ve worked yourself into a corner. To be honest, it’s better to start out just playing with objects and seeing what they do before concerning yourself with solving the puzzle right away. It will save you some pulled hair.

"I hope the accident was somehow chicken related then."

Another thing that helps keep Ghost Trick fun and fresh is its amazing presentation. The game uses 3D models that are entirely unshaded, and the perspective is always on a 2D plane, giving the game the appearance of a very smoothly animated cartoon. And it’s really the intricacies and details of the animation that give the characters so much life. Seriously, it takes pretty amazing effort for a game to impress me on the aesthetics. The music is also fantastic. It’s both jazzy and electronic, and works very well at setting the mood for scenes.

Of course, a fine story is also necessary for Ghost Trick to work, and I don’t think it disappoints here either. Granted, if you’re looking for something dark and somber in a mystery story, Ghost Trick might disappoint since it features the same lightheartedness and Japanese-style humor the Ace Attorney games are known for. I think this actually helps keep the story flowing and enjoyable since it largely focuses on death, which is not an easy topic to make fun. Nevertheless, the game does have its sad moments as you start learning how other people are connected to Sissel, and their own hardships. Aside from some nitpicks, and a few parts I thought were lame, I really enjoyed the story of Ghost Trick.

I also like how the story is divided up. It’s contained in 18 decent sized chapters, as opposed to Ace Attorney’s four to five enormous cases. And while those cases are broken into smaller segments, Ghost Trick’s chapters bring about an easier means of jumping back and replaying specific points of the story, if you so desire.

By and large, Ghost Trick is a fun mystery-themed adventure game. I’d certainly recommend it to any Ace Attorney fan, and I’d also say it should suit any fan of story-based adventure games who might find Ghost Trick’s features something off the beaten path. I can’t say I’ve ever played another game that offers the same experience as this.

This review is based on a copy of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective purchased by the reviewer.

"REAL adventure is waiting for you, DS."

I’m the type of gamer who mostly plays old Sierra and LucasArts adventure games. Some people might not even consider me a gamer at all, in fact. I didn’t have a console until very recently. My circa 2002 computer may be running like a champ, but it had some lagging problems running Psychonauts… in 2005. So, modern computer gaming is also out. I was lucky enough to be visited by the Wing Damage Fairy a while back, who blessed me with a DS.

I was excited about rumblings of the DS being the promised land of adventure gaming; I’d read on many a message board and blog that since the console’s point-and-click stylus interface was ideal for the genre I would have a bevy of adventure games to choose from once I had a look around. I was bummed to find out, however, that there is not, in fact, a whole lot of quality adventure games on the DS. At least not the kind I’m looking for.

Read after the jump to see my findings.

It started out promising. WingDamage-a Claus gifted me a copy of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and I loved it, despite it not being a straightforward adventure game. I was thirsty for more. After a basic Google search I had assembled a sizable list of games to check out. I was drawn to the game Trace Memory. I liked the look of the art and it’s plot. A ghost story that takes place on the ominously named Blood Edward Island? Yes, please. But what I found when I played the game was an easy-as-pie adolescent drama that lasted two brief evenings. I had caught wind of these flaws in online reviews of Trace Memory previous to purchasing it, but my optimism had blinded me to them.

Going back over my list of possible games, they all seemed a little off. Professor Layton is apparently a puzzle game in adventure game clothing. Reports of diminished graphics and a poor interface have scared me off of Syberia. Middling reviews have caused me to shun Insecticide. Ugly art, and the threat of the same developer that released Trace Memory, kept me from checking in to Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (although this review of it almost made me change my -bad pun alert- tune). Time Hollow gives off a tween vibe similar to Trace Memory. Hey wait, the Secret Files games look good, I’ll take them! Ah, no, not available in the US. Of course. I felt like I was spinning my wheels, so I set my DS down for a few months.

I recently came back to it, and found a game that looks okay. Broken Sword: Director’s Cut. It’s ported from PC, but it looks like it was redesigned for the DS and not just clumsily shoved into a new format. It looks like it makes good use of the DS interface, which is important to me.  I’m not a big fan of straight forward dramas however, which it looks like Broken Sword might be, and the comparisons to The DaVinci Code are kind of scaring me. But I clearly have to take what I can get here.

If I were the Don Corleone of the Adventure family on the DS, I would get Dave Gilbert on the case. I would play Emerald City Confidential or any of his Blackwell games on the DS in a heartbeat, and they’d look great on the shelf. I’d get Telltale with the program. I can’t imagine Monkey Island or Sam & Max not making a total killing if properly ported. I don’t think the Days series would do well on the DS, but wouldn’t an original Yahtzee game blow everyone’s minds? He really knows how to make limited graphics and sound sing. I think any of these entities would make a big splash if they released something on the DS, a system that I don’t think gets a lot of high profile, original releases that are of interest to the mainstream gaming community. There’s endless potential here, and I’m dying to seeing it realized.

Don’t get me wrong, the DS is a great system. It’s got a fun personality, a unique interface and a lot of games that make it worth having. I think it’s the only system I’d really want to have. But I am disappointed that it doesn’t have more of the specific type of adventure games I was hoping for.

Am I totally off base? Are there some amazing gems that I’ve missed? Am I wrong about any of the games that I dismissed above? Am I a cranky old man, asking the new world order to get off his lawn?

Let me know, internet.

"An improvement over Phantom Hourglass, but by how much?"

For the most part, I love the Zelda franchise. The portable titles in particular have a history of getting on my good side with Link’s Awakening being my second favorite title in the whole Game Boy catalog (next to Tetris). That being said, I was shocked when I didn’t fall in love with 2007′s Phantom Hourglass.

While Spirit Tracks looked disturbingly similar to the object of my disappointment, the Zelda fan in me was determined to give the game a fair shake from beginning to end.

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks takes place about 100 years after Phantom Hourglass. As somebody who’s dabbled in writing Zelda continuity theories in the past (nerd alert!!), having a well defined place in the timeline is something I can really appreciate. There are direct references to the characters of the last game and even some clever nods to the heroic deeds of the previous Link. For example, you will start the game in your engineer clothes (you know… because you ride a train), but end up with the iconic, green tunic by disguising yourself as one of the castle guards whose uniforms now resemble the famous hero of old.

The story of Spirit Tracks is very quirky and lighthearted. The new mythos explaining the trains, as well as sages known as the Lokomo is very silly. Fortunately, the game never takes itself very seriously, so this actually works to the game’s advantage. Due to various circumstances introduced in the beginning of the story, Zelda follows you around throughout the game as a ghost (it’s no longer a spoiler when it’s on the game’s cover in certain regions). Since she’s present for the whole game, they actually made her into a character with a personality. Her dialogue is often genuinely funny and one of the game’s highlights.

"The graphics look a little better this time around, but the changes are subtle."

If you played Phantom Hourglass, you know exactly what to expect from the mandatory touch-screen controls in Spirit Tracks. You’ll be dragging the stylus around to make Link walk, double tapping to roll, and so on. Though I prefer the button setups of the earlier games, the controls are bearable… most of the time. In certain instances, I longed for the precision buttons provide. I can’t count how much health I lost from failing to adequately compensate for the slipping caused by icy floors or how many times I had to restart a long sequence during one of the final boss’ last forms due to a dodge roll that I accidentally performed in place of a slash. Knowing that my failures were caused by imprecise controls rather than level or enemy design are what had me cursing at my DS from time to time as I played the game. Also, be prepared to blow into the mic a lot; both to use one of your items and to play your magical pan flute.

Like Phantom Hourglass before it, Spirit Tracks abandons the series’ staple of an overworld for a vehicle mechanic. Given the nature of how trains work, you won’t be drawing paths every which way this time. Instead, you’ll be tracing along preexisting tracks which will increase in number as the game progresses.

Your train can move forward in two different speeds, but you’ll soon wish it had a third. There are occasional enemies, but most of the time you will simply wait to reach your destination. While there are a few teleports unlocked as you progress, they are very inconvenient. Traveling by train is often so uneventful that it feels like an interactive loading screen. Sometimes there will be invincible, evil trains traveling on certain tracks that you’ll have to avoid. But rather than adding a much needed spice to your travels, this just temporarily shifts the trip from boring to downright annoying. In what I can only assume is some kind of sick joke, you’ll sometimes be forced to take on passengers that will force you to slow down during certain parts of the track.

"I'm not sure what feels slower: Zelda's Phantom body or the train."

Between dungeons, you’ll mostly travel back and forth to towns. These sections drag on. Anytime I wasn’t in a dungeon I was wishing I was. Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks are the only games in the series that have made me loathe not being in dungeons. The continued removal of the overworld in the DS entries is nothing short of baffling to me. The overworld is a vital staple of the franchise. Removing it is like taking jumping out of Mario. Without it, much of the joy of getting a new item is diminished since you won’t be using it to advance between dungeons. One of my favorites aspects of Zelda is exploration, and it pains me to see the developers toss this aside yet again.

The items you collect in Spirit Tracks are a mixed bag. The first two you acquire are literally Twilight Princes’s Gale Boomerang split into two separate items in two separate dungeons. I don’t mind them reusing items (the series does it all the time), but splitting an existing item’s abilities into two separate items, stripping the possibility of another unique item, just feels lazy. On the other side of the spectrum, one of the game’s last items, a rod that lets you control sand, feels very fresh and innovative.

Spirit Tracks has two sets of dungeons. First, you have the standard dungeons that provide you with your new items. Second, you have the Spirit Tower. Unlike Phantom Hourglas’s Temple of the Ocean King, the Spirit Tower never forces you to repeat floors you’ve already completed. It also has no time limit. These are welcome improvements over the last game.

The Spirit Tower is where Zelda will be able to occupy the bodies of Phantoms (the large knights) after meeting certain conditions. You can have her follow you or draw direct paths for her to follow. This leads to some pretty clever puzzles, but like the train she is incredibly slow. In fact, she is so slow that I’d often reach for my phone to keep myself occupied while I waited. There are different types of Phantoms Zelda can control, each with a different power. But this led to more moments of impatience as, for example, I walked a few steps at a time to allow a fire-based phantom to light the way in a pitch black level. As I neared the end of the game, I started to resent the Phantom almost as much as I resented carrying Princess Ruto through Jabu Jabu’s belly in Ocarina of Time.

"Download play was a great idea. Too bad they forgot to make the multiplayer fun."

Spirit Tracks also features a multiplayer mode, but it really feels like an afterthought. You and up to three friends can battle (without swords) to collect the most force gems as you try to trigger traps to disrupt your opponents. Jonah and I both agreed the mode was a disappointment, but at least your three friends don’t have to buy their own game cart to find that out.

I’m sad to say that The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is more tedious than fun. While it manages to fix some of the problems I had with Phantom Hourglass, it adds a few new ones and retains some of my most glaring gripes. If you were a fan of Phantom Hourglass, you’ll most likely enjoy Spirit Tracks. If not, though, this isn’t a better enough game to win you over.

From the re-makes of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy to the more obscure Shiren the Wanderer, the DS has become one of the best places to find old-school RPGs. Nostalgia is no exception to this trend. Matrix Software even did the programming and 3D graphics for the Final Fantasy III & IV remakes before their work on Nostalgia.

Nostalgia is set in a Steam Punk version of Earth, complete with giant airships and an adventuring based economy. It is clear right from the outset that this is a throwback to a time when not every RPG focused on a character whose main motivation was angst.

You play as Eddy, a young man whose goal in life is to become an adventurer, just like his Indiana Jones looking Dad (had Dr. Jones decided to grow an impressive mustache). Your village didn’t burn to the ground and there isn’t a giant conspiracy as to your origin. You are just a guy who wants to see the world. Eddy even lives in a huge mansion with both of his parents.

This sets a very light tone that is prevalent throughout the course of the entire game. Even when things transpire that threaten the destruction of all of humanity, Nostalgia’s protagonist doesn’t let that keep him down. It is so upbeat that I suspect it will come across as too saccharine for the taste of most modern, jaded gamers.

The gameplay also harkens back to an older era. Combat starts with random encounters and is played out in the traditional turn based fashion. I was very happy to see the inclusion of the Final Fantasy X style of showing you the turn order of the battle on the bottom screen of the DS. Using stat boost for your characters and moves that slow down your enemies adds a nice strategy element to the combat.

The airship battles are more unique than the regular, “four party members vs. a few monsters” fair. When you fight from the ship, all four characters control different weapons, but share an overall health bar. This forces you to be a lot more strategic in your battles than you normally have to with turn based combat. I only died in this game on the airship battles and usually when I was distracted by something else going on in the room. These battles also take a lot longer to finish since you can overcome much more powerful enemies, as long as you plan ahead with your moves.

Your ship doesn’t level up. As you find new cities throughout the world, you will find upgrades to the ship’s shields and weapons. As you discover more cities, new parts will start to show up in London (your base of operations).

The airship has three different planes that it can travel on, each represented by different altitudes. To start, you can only travel at the lowest height. The medium height allows you to fly over some mountains and the highest setting lets you travel anywhere. The trick is, the higher the altitude, the harder the random encounters. Since you have a shared health bar in these battles, there is no way to recover if you die, other than re-loading your save. My advice is to watch your health closely and save often.

As you level, you gain new abilities, both for regular and ship battles. You gain a separate pool of points that can be spent to upgrade these abilities. This pool is shared with the entire party, so you have to carefully manage what points you spend on which abilities. Each of these have ten ranks that are progressively more expensive to unlock.

I thought Nostalgia taking place on Earth, rather than a generic fantasy world, was a fascinating concept when I first heard about it.  Sadly, other than the overworld being shaped after it and the cities having familiar names, nothing about the in-game world is recognizable as our Earth.

"Just like our world, except that it's completely different"

While the game is generally straightforward, there were a few points where it wasn’t quite so obvious as to where to go. Missing something like a small opening in a mountain or a downed pillar that looks like background (but is actually used as a bridge) would lead to lots of wandering and frustration.

Nostalgia isn’t perfect, but it is a nice throwback to a time when games like Skies of Arcadia and Grandia II ruled the RPG scene. While the ship combat did require some thought, the regular battles, even bosses, were fairly easy. It would make a good introduction to a younger player or someone new to the genre.

This review is based on a copy of Nostalgia provided to us by Ignition Entertainment.

"The Legend of ChooChoo: Phantom, the Friendly Ghost"

There’s something we all need to come to grips with right now: Link rides a train. Why does Link ride a train? I have no idea, but let’s just get past that for now.

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks demo was divided into three sections. Each one had a different focus. The first one put you in a dungeon with your new Phantom pal. The other scenarios showed off a boss battle and Link’s latest wacky vehicle, the train. Thanks to multiple visits to the Nintendo booth, I was able to try out all three.

I selected the dungeon scenario first. Controlling Link is identical to how it was in Phantom Hourglass. Dragging the stylus around will make Link walk and drawing a quick line will have him perform a slash. What made things interesting was Link’s new Phantom friend.

Controlling the Phantom is done indirectly. If you put your stylus on the Phantom and draw a path, he will slowly follow it. Clicking on objects will have him interact with them, whether that be hitting a switch or an enemy. Thankfully, there is a call button to command him to follow you so that you don’t have to constantly be drawing paths while you move around the dungeon.

The Phantom appears to be invincible. Because of this, you have to use him to get past obstacles that would normally harm our fragile hero, Link. One example is lava pits. Disregarding all empathy, you can send the Phantom into a pool of lava, jump onto the safety of his head, and tell him where to go. Another part of the dungeon required me to have the Phantom walk across one path to block streams of fire while Link walked across a lower path. This also caused me to be separated from my ghostly chum temporarily before solving another simple puzzle. Other uses of the Phantom were pretty predictable, such as having him stand on buttons or hit switches.

The item I found in the dungeon allowed me to shoot tornadoes by blowing into the microphone. It’s similar to the gale boomerang in Twilight Princess, except without the boomerang. I’ve never been fond of blowing into the microphone to perform actions, but it seemed to work well enough.

The boss scenario was everything you would expect from a standard Zelda boss fight. I had to use the dungeon’s item  in a two-form battle with a giant beetle. Much like Phantom Hourglass, the battle took place on both screens.

Now what you’ve all been waiting for: the train. If you thought the boat in Phantom Hourglass was boring, I have some bad news: the train isn’t much better, if at all. In fact, a few of the train’s controls are lifted straight from the boat. Tapping the screen will shoot bombs out of your cannon, breaking rocks and destroying enemies. The right side of the screen has your throttle. There are two different forward speeds, stop, and reverse. Finally, there is a rope you can pull to sound your horn.

To allow you to still control where you are going, there is a switch at the bottom of the screen that controls which track to go on in conjunctions. One thing the train has over the boat is scenery. Looking at a lot of flat areas covered in blue gets old really fast, so it’s nice to see some landscape. I even had the pleasure of going through a tunnel with enemies crawling on the walls and ceilings.

I’m disappointed that Nintendo still feels that we need a vehicle to traverse the overworld map. The horse featured in Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess was a fine addition as it was fun to use and didn’t impair your freedom to roam the world. Both the boat and train feel like a chore, dumbing down the very thing that made me fall in love with the series in the first place: exploration.

Fortunately, I had a lot of fun playing the dungeon scenario. In fact, controlling the Phantom was much more enjoyable than I thought it would be. When I played Phantom Hourglass to completion, my enjoyment started high went downhill by the hour. I can only hope that Spirit Tracks doesn’t suffer the same fate.

“Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time” is the follow up to last year’s “Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates“. I’m not sure what the deal is with all these ridiculously long game titles, lately. Regardless, Echoes of Time makes a lot of improvements from the last entry in the series, establishing itself as a stronger multiplayer title, though the game is far from flawless.

Like the other games in the Crystal Chronicles series, Echoes of Time is an Action RPG. The first thing you will do when you start the game is create a character. Unfortunately, you won’t have a lot of options in this process. In fact, the only options you will have are gender and choosing from one the series’ four races. Thankfully, this is made up for by the fact that all of the game’s equipment is visible on your character.

"It's always good to have some variety in your party."

The DS and Wii versions of the game can actually be played together in multiplayer. However, both my party member and myself played the DS version for the sake of portability and easy touch screen access. Echoes of Time’s story mode can be played with up to four players. This was the number one draw for me as Ring of Fates only allowed multiplayer in a separate non-story mode.

Multiplayer can be toggled on or off at any save point. After the game’s very first cut-scene, you can walk to a save point and hop into multiplayer before you even fight your first enemy. This was an excellent design decision.

Combat in Echoes is very simple. You can perform a basic physical combo attack with a single button (bows and a few other weapon types have no combos), jump, cast magic, and pickup and throw allies, enemies, and items. Fortunately, there are a couple methods for character growth. Reaching certain levels will grant new abilities (such as a charge attack) and enemies will occasionally drop items that will permanently increase your character’s resistance to a specific element or status effect.

"The world map consists of a zoomed out screen with obvious locations to walk to."

Magic casting still uses the same ring system from the original Crystal Chronicles on the GameCube. Holding the cast button down will let you move around a ring and the spell will be cast within it once you let off the button. You can also combine your rings with the other players’, as well as lock your own rings in place to layer more on top of them. This allows you to cast more powerful spells. The simplest example would be layering two fire spells to cast “Fira”.

What sets the magic apart in Echoes is that the developers have finally decided to abandon the orb-collecting system the series’ used up until this point. You now always have the following spells equipped: Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, Cure, Life, and Clear. Using them will take MP and combining spells will take an even greater amount. It’s definitely a relief to no longer be forced kill countless enemies in hopes that they will drop the right colored orb for you to use on a door-opening switch.

One of of the games biggest downfalls is how incredibly formulaic it feels. It can be a lot of fun to jump in a party with a few friends and play a dungeon or two, but if you plan on playing for an extended period of time without breaks, the game will start feeling very repetitive.

"The cat is the only one in this picture that doesn't look completely ridiculous."

After most dungeons, some sort of story segment will happen. Unfortunately, the story didn’t feel at all compelling to me. I still looked forward to completing dungeons, but for a very different reason. Every time a dungeon is completed, new equipment is available in the town. Each piece gives your character a whole new look.

You can either make equipment from the various materials that enemies drop or simply buy it. Making equipment is usually more cost-effective and can even allow you to get certain items early. Equipment can even, to a small extent, level up. If a weapon or armor piece reaches level three, you can convert it into a jewel that you can then attach to another item to enhance it. So rather than selling your old equipment, you can combine it with your new equipment. Fortunately, the shop interface is much more intuitive than the last game, always showing stat comparisons between every item. You can even see these comparisons when looking at a scroll for making a piece of equipment.

I really couldn’t see myself playing this game alone. If you’re looking for a singleplayer action RPG on the DS, look elsewhere. But if you want a really simple and easy to pick up game to play in relatively small doses with one-to-three buddies, “Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time” can be a fun little game to kill some time with, though it could have done with a few less block-pushing puzzles.

“Wario Ware: Touched!” is one of the first games to have been released on the Nintedo DS when it made it’s debut in late 2004. I missed it the first time around, but had always heard it was one of the best games to show off the touch screen functionality of the system.

When you first boot up the game, there is a little bit of a story revolving around Wario eating junk food and needing to go to the dentist which drags on a little too long. This is in sharp contrast to the incredibly fast paced “microgames” that make up the bulk of this title.

As you progress, you unlock more characters, each with their own set of microgames. They generally follow a theme. One character’s games revolve around spinning things, one revolves around using the microphone, another are all themed like NES games, etc.

The down side is, the little bit of story that is there really only slows things down. Once you have finished the incredibly easy main game, you can go back and play harder and harder versions of the microgame collections. You even unlock a few characters that are there just to combine harder versions of the other characters’ games together and randomize them.

While it is a fun title, “WarioWare: Touched!’ is one of those games you can breeze through in a couple hours. Since it is so old now, it is most likely around in bargain bins and worth picking up at a discounted price, just to get in on the crazyness.

Sometimes I am very surprised when certain games make it outside of Japan. Sure, we live in an age where what will get localized is on the rise and what must be imported is steadily decreasing in comparison to times past (thanks to companies like Atlus and XSEED), but sometimes the choice of which games make it over still surprises me. What I mean to say is, Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier (or Sir Togsef as I like to call it) is VERY Japanese. In fact, there are even cross-over characters in it from the Japan-only Namco x Capcom.

Though a spin off of the Super Robot Wars series (most of which DID stay in Japan), the game makes several large departures from its predecessors. First off, rather than focusing on giant mechs like Gundams and Veritechs, the characters you control consist of people and people-sized androids. The second key difference is that the game is a JRPG rather than an SRPG.

The game takes place in land called “The Endless Frontier” which consists of many different worlds connected by “cross gates” scattered throughout each world. You take control of Haken Browning, a bounty hunter dressed in cowboy garb with a lot of guns, one of which acts as a giant (and deadly) swiss-army knife. The game couldn’t take itself less seriously if it tried. As more people from various worlds join your party, you’ll find that most of them are ridiculously proportioned anime girls. The game’s dialogue completely acknowledges this, constantly filling the story with comedic innuendo. It’s quite quirky and different then the average JRPG dialogue.

What this game does best is its take on turn based battles. Because it’s so “out there”, I embedded a battle explanation video at the top of the review that covers the basics. Turn order is visible (a la Final Fantasy X). At the start of your characters turn, you have 100% “COM”. Each action you take spends a section of that bar and it will be partially refilled at the start of your next turn. You can do a string of up to 5 normal attacks in a single turn. The order and type of these attacks are determined by a playlist of skills you build for each character. The key is juggle combos of all things. Each enemy has a different weight and, through timing your attacks at just the right time, you can keep your enemy in the air. If the enemy lands, they might stop your string of attacks and even counter. On top of that, the more combos you get in the air, the faster the “Frontier Gauge” fills. When this gauge is full, you can perform an extra powerful attack.

While actions like attacking and using items take sections of your COM, using spirits (read: magic) does not. You can use as many healing or other modifier spirits as you want, given you have enough Spirit Points (SP) to spend on them. The catch is that there are no spirits that will cause damage to an enemy. There are, however, skills that will spend both COM and SP that can damage or cause effects to multiple enemies, but they will end your turn.

Another thing you can spend SP on is support attacks. Once you have more than 4 characters (up to 8), you will have a back row. By hitting “left” on the d-pad amongst your regular attacks, you can call in a back row character to perform an attack at the cost of a small amount of SP. In addition to this, if one of your characters is up next, you can hit “right” on the d-pad to call in your next front row character to start their chain of attacks while keeping the enemy in the air. It all makes for a very unique and fun battle system.

Overall, I found this game to be a bit of a mixed bag. Though the tongue-in-cheek dialogue was amusing, the lack of an engaging story really hurts the drive to carry on through to the end. Thankfully, random battles feel more interesting than the average JRPG, even when they’re frequent. It also helps that the large battle sprites in the game are very visually impressive. Each attack you perform is a treat to look at and this is amplified further by seamless hand-drawn animations overlaid upon support and special attacks. Perhaps my biggest complaint with the game is that after you learn each characters’ five normal attack skills, you will probably be using the same playlist of attacks for each character for the rest of the game. Sure, you will still learn more spirits and even mentalities (modifier states that randomly take effect at the start of a character’s turn), but you no longer have the thrill of expanding your normal attack chains for the later portion of the game.

If you are looking for a new take on the old JRPG genre, but aren’t looking for any kind of serious story, SRTOGS:EF can be a fun little diversion from the norm. It’s comical enemy designs like a bipedal whale with a bazooka and a studious ogre sporting giant nerd glasses while clutching a book kept a smile on my face as I played. It’s a bit “boss battle heavy” and probably would have been better if it was about 10 hours shorter (due to the sparser leveling in the end), but all in all, it’s a charming little game given that you aren’t offended by all the gratuitus suggestive themes.

First of all, I must say that I am amazed that Retro Game Challenge ever came to the states. In Japan, it is called GameCenter CX: Arino’s Challenge, sharing its name (sans the subtitle) with the Japan-only show in which it is based on. The show follows comedian Shinya Arino as he plays popular retro games and documents his progress. In this videogame adaption, things play out a little differently.

The story begins with you getting transported back to the 1980′s by Arino, who then forces you to complete challenges in a series of fake, retro games. While you play, you are accompanied by Arino’s child self who not only talks to you between games, but also shouts things while you’re playing.

The progression of the game plays out in a very linear manner. You start with only one game and one challenge. Each challenge you beat will unlock the next until you have completed them all and the next game is unlocked. The process then repeats until all games are unlocked. After that, every game must be beaten from start to finish.

Between and even during challenges, you can look through gaming magazines. These magazines have interviews, previews, letters from readers, tips and even codes for the various games contained within this parody of the 80′s. There is also a full manual for each game that mimics those of times past. This, in combination with some of the dialogue, make for some nostalgic and endearing moments, especially if you really were into the gaming scene in that era. There is even some “engrish” slipped in to some of the games for good measure.

With each new game you unlock, you see the improvements in graphics and gameplay mechanics that parallel the ones that took place in our world on the NES. Most of the games are fairly obvious parodies of real retro games. The first game, Cosmic Gate, is a less than subtle parody of Galaga, for example. The games span a decent number of genres to keep it interesting. There are a couple SHMUPS, three installments of a platforming series called Robot Ninja Haggleman, a top down racer similar to R.C. ProAm, and even a Dragon Quest-like RPG.

Each game can be unlocked in its entirety after completing all the challenges for it. The depth and replayability can vary greatly from game to game. Robot Ninja Haggleman 3 is a definite standout. The action is reminiscent of Ninja Gaiden, while each stage has an open structure like in Power Blade. In addition to that, there are shops where you can buy equipment to customize Haggleman’s abilities. It is very solid, but like the other games featured, it is also pretty short.

Overall, I really enjoy Retro Game Challenge, but I have a few complaints. Anybody who is a seasoned enough gamer to appreciate the nostalgia will probably have little to no difficulty in completing the challenges. A majority of the challenges I was able to complete on my first try. Also, every time you complete a challenge it ends your game. I would have liked to have the option to continue, maybe even completing more than one challenge in a single play through. This leads me to my next point. You are only ever progressing in one game at a time. It would be nice if you had a list of challenges for several games and could bounce between them and play them at your leisure, rather than having to complete every challenge for a game before the next one is unlocked.

Despite these issues, it is still a fun little game. I actually really enjoy playing some of the games (mainly the SHMUPS) in freeplay mode. There is already a sequel out in Japan. Unfortuntely, the North American publisher has stated that not enough copies sold here to justify bringing the sequel over. Not all hope is lost, however, as they said that if sales did reach a certain point, they would consider it.

I think you know what to do.