Excellence in a clamshell

The Nintendo 3DS is gradually being put out to pasture, now that it's bulkier, flashier half-brother is taking over. We're bidding adieu to a console t?hat had a pretty impressive back catalogue, and dominated the handheld ??market for a good number of years. 

But what if you're not ready to say goo??dbye? What if you want to get more use out of the little pocketbook marvel? Or what if you want to get an older console for the first time? Well, the 3DS is backwards compatible with the original DS's games, and if ?you never tried those out, then you're missing something special.

[For where to buy the games/hardware, I've linked to Amazon and eBay sellers, but that's not an endorsement for buying off of these sites – you might find better de?als elsewhere.]

Hardware

If you're interested not only in playing your original DS games on your 3DS, but in actually getting some hardware, there are three different versions of the DS that you could purchase: the original DS, the DS Lite and the DSi.

I would recommend the DS Lite, as it is more elegant and compact than the unwieldy original. The DSi comes with an internal camera and very small selection of exclusive games, but is crucially missing the Game Boy Advance slot in the bottom of the console. It's your choice – between messing around with a by-now pretty low-grade camera, or opening yourself up to Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, or Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, just for starters. I would take my pretty white DS Lite any day?? of the week.

The staples

I got a huge amount of use out of my DS Lite, and I still do today, because some of the more popular titles are replayable, distracting fun. One of my favourite aspects of the original DS is that the games we?re so whimsical; I value a game ??that can completely pull me out of any stress going on in my personal life.

As with a lot of consoles, the titles that are popular have earned that position due to their quality. There are six of these titles tha??t I would recommend above any others.

1. Trauma Center: Under the Knife (Atlus, 2005)

This game came out around the time I started watching House, M.D. I'd always been fascinated by medical shows, whether it was catching snippets of ER as my parents watched it (I'm still haunted by the surgeon getting his arm chopped off by helicopter blades), or being warned not to run with scissors after watching a particularly grisly episode of Casualty with my grandma. Theme Hospital is also one of my favourite games of all time, so why not take the action?? a step further and actually remove lumps? of tissue from patients' chest cavities? Heck yes!

In Trauma Center, you conduct surgical examinations of patients and treat a range of illnesses and injuries that span the mundane to the outright bizarre. Frankly, only Atlus could make draining abscesses with a sy??ringe this compelling. Needless to say, it's not a game for people who flinch at the sight of cartoon pus, but it's hardly a gorefest, either. A sequel was released in North America and Japan (not an issue for us PALsters, since the DS, aside from DSi games, is region-free), but the original is absolutely w?orth giving a go first.

2. New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo EAD, 2006)

Getting back to the roots, how can you collect for a Ninty console and not buy a legitimate Mario platformer? Not including this one on the list would have raised a few eyebrows, and for good reason. New Super Mario Bros. is probably one of the more definitive entries to the Mario platforming series. It has very few quirks and twists, though it's undeniable that games that ran away with a theme, such as Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy, are some of the best games ever released for their respective consoles. It's just a simple box-headbutting platform game, which was invaluable for those of us who had long since consigned our Game Boys to the car boot sale. I think this and Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins are the two entries I would give to someone if I wanted them to have an immersive experience with Mario games in a single afternoon.

3. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (Capcom, 2007)

OK, I get it. Why pick a game from the Ace Attorney series and not go with the r??eal G, Mr Phoenix Wright? Did I not enjoy t??hose games? Did Maya cast some sort of befuddlement hex on me?

No, I am deliberately selecting Apollo Justice above any of the originals, as great as they all are. I remember tearing through the Phoenix Wright games as an activity I did every year, when I went on holiday to Majorca with my family. All of the Ace Attorney games I've played (Justice for All, Trials and Tribulations, and Apollo Justice) have been equal parts taxing and fascinating. But Apollo Justice has the most interesting story, in my opinion.

Seeing a young upstart filling Phoenix's defence attorney big boots spoke to me more than being the loveable oaf, Phoenix, himself. Also, the storyline with Klavier Gavin pipped any of the prior ones to the post. I suppose if you want to understand the story properly, you should start right from the beginning and get the first Ace Attorney game. But if you're not the sort of person who minds jumping into a series halfway through, you will certainly enjoy Apollo Justice as your first entry. You don't have to dig around on eBay for a used DS cartridge, either – it's coming to 3DS via the eShop in November.

4. Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Level-5, 2007)

I'll admit that this is a series I?? always borrowed off my sister, rather than buying for myself – and one that even my fairly smart 15-year-old brain had trouble with.

Any riddle aficionado will enjoy playing as the Professor as he investigates...well, a curious village, accompanied by his impossibly young assistant, Luke (Layton can expect truancy fines and court summons through his letterbox any time now). You hop from villager to villager, solving the puzzles that they are agonising over, some of which still leave me scratching my noggin. Rather than starting with the most recent iOS release, this is one series where I would advise going back to where it all began, simply because the conundrums have always been flawless. And you'll want to try every single one of them, once you've experienced the Curious Village.

5. Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo EAD, 2005)

This title isn't actually the origins of the series. In this case, there had already been an Animal Crossing title released worldwide for the GameCube, simply called Animal Crossing. Confused yet? Still, I feel like the marriage between Animal Crossing and handheld consoles is an indefatigable one, ??so you owe ??it to yourself to pick up the first pocket version of the game.

You probably know the drill with Animal Crossing: get into fights with bees, rid the landscape of all su??stenance, put up with your neighbours' incessant nagging and become an indentured servant. No,?? but seriously, you plod around your little town, interacting with a number of delightful animals living in nearby shacks, building collections and making your abode beautiful.

If you already have the 3DS release, New Leaf, I would still advise getting Wild World, to see all of its little individual quirks. As with all original DS games, you will have to accept that the online functions are no longer functional. But, regardless, you can have hours of aimless fun in your own little town with Wild World, all while?? failing to socialise with your real-life neighbours! ??As it should be.

6. Picross DS (Jupiter Corporation, 2007)

This is a very special entry to the list for me, because it's a game I still play on a regular basis. I became interested in on-paper logic puzzles at a very young age, ever since my grandma used to let me try out old puzzle books she hadn't finished. These books always contained a couple of nonograms, and as I got older, I started buying books with just nonograms in. My own rule was always that if I screwed up, that specific puzzle was a wash, because an eraser usually ?couldn't get rid of the markings 100% and the grid would become impossibly muddy if I tried to start afresh.

Imagine my joy when I released, in 2017 (oh dear, Charlotte), that nonograms had actually clawed their way onto a handheld! Suddenly, I could undo my shoddy work and try the same grid over and over again. It was an amazing discovery for me, and I snapped up a Picross DS cartridge for a handful of coins.

Picross DS is made all the more enticing by the fact that the??re are theme categories, various difficulty options and mini-games, and the more you play, the more p?uzzles you unlock. I have spent hours in bed watching Netflix and tucking into a nonogram or ten, and I can guarantee that if you love picture-based puzzles, you will love picross, too.

Honourable mentions

I admit that everything I've included so far isn't very obscure. But if you're in the market for some cult classics, the DS also has plenty to offer in this regard. Elite Beat Agents is an unmissable rhythm game, if you haven't got your fill of the genre after the fairly recent Parappa the Rapper Remastered release. The World Ends With You combines RPG elements an??d hip-hop, while remain?ing effortlessly cool.

If you want to do something more gruesome with your DS (not an invitation for photos), Resident Evil: Deadly Silence is a commendable port of the game that christened survival horror, with a few of its own neat additions. If you want rock-hard dungeon-crawling, it might be worth keeping an eye out for Etrian Odyssey and its sequel on eBay. For some broodier detective work, check out Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and Flower, Sun and Rain. The graphics for the DS port of the latter are eye-bleedingly awful, bu?t most Suda51 games are work a peek, at least for curios?ity's sake.

Of course, there are a few more obvious entries I would encourage you to consider, even though they didn't make it onto my "staples" list. The Cooking Mama series is a guilty pleasure, as I find being rewarded for repetitive movements quite soothing; admittedly, since I learnt how to cook for myself in real life, it's lost some of its charm. And whether the Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old ?Is Your Brain? ?;games actually make you smarter or not, they do provide a nice level of entertaining challenge – plus, you can't go wrong with sudoku.

Which of the original DS games would you recommend to a first-timer? Did you own a DS back in its heyday? If so, what did you think of it? Let me know in the comments down below!

The post A brief buying guide for the original Nintendo DS appeared first on Destructoid.

Elite Beat Agents

For years, gamers have waxed poetic about how certain videogame moments have made them cry. Whether it is killing off a beloved character or presenting a poignant plot twist, it seems ?more and more games nowadays are trying their best to get the most hardcore gamers around the world to shed a collective tear.

But, in all honesty, how many games have resulted in actual, physical sobbing? Getting a little extra emotiona??l or slightly teary-eyed during a scene is a whole lot different than actually letting t??he waterworks flow.

Wh??ile I would definitely agree that there have been numerous virtual moments over the years that have got me pretty choked up (heck, most of these Memory Card moments fall in that category), there has only been one specific sequence in the history of videogames that has resulted ??????????????????????????in actual tears emitting from my eyes and streaming down my ashamed, horribly embarrassed visage.

Let's experience one of the saddest and most touching videogame moments ever from one of the most unlikely of candidates, Elite Beat Agents for the Nintendo DS.

I know, ?I know – please try to contain your laughter before continuing on … just trust me on this one …

The Set-Up

For those of you not familiar with the greatness that is Elite Beat Agents, let me explain the basic premise: Elite Beat Agents is a rhythm game on the Nintendo DS that has you tapping, sliding, and spinning your stylus to keep? the beat with a? handful of popular songs.

While this main rhythm-centric gameplay sounds almost too basic to be engrossing, what makes Elite Beat Agents extra unique is how each &ldquo??;level” is presented.

In the game, you play as three members of a fictional government agency who are assigned to help people in their time of need. But instead of helping these troubled citizens directly, the agents use their power of dance?? and song to motivate each individual to perform whatever task he or she is having trouble with. I know, it sounds pretty ridiculous, but the concept suits the game perfectly.

Each level in Elite Beat Agents is a different song, and at the beginning of each song a cutscene sets up the story. The cutscenes are presented ??as amazingly well-done comic book style vignettes. The art work and direction is really s?pot-on and really sets the perfect tone for each level.

Throughout the entire game, the age??nts are involved in mostly lighthearted moments. From a guy asking for help scoring a winning touchdown to a babysitter needing assistance taking care of a gaggle of kids, each level offers jovial?? storylines to go with the usually upbeat songs.

Not to get too off trac??k, but to say the game is addictive is an understatement. Even when certain songs are presented that are almost unknown or, even worse, ridiculously cheesy (*cough* "Y.M.C.A." *cough*), having the entire sequence bookend with these awesome little sto??ries makes the entire experience surprising and very entertaining.

All of this harmless merriment pretty much guarantees you will have a huge smile on your face when playing Elite Beat Agents. Its goofiness and genuine appeal is nothi??ng short of intox??icating.

But as the game nears the end (and your head bobbing and toe tapping have reached maximum level??s), one sequence comes out of nowhere that really throws your em?otions for a loop.

It is with great humil??ity ??that I present to you all the next Memory Card inductee: the “Christmas gift” sequence.

The Moment

As one of the later levels starts, the tone changes considerably. Instead of a wacky, over-the-top character doing something even more wacky and over-the-top, the traditional opening cu??tscene begins by showing a little girl, Lucy, right before Christmas, saying good-bye to her father, Mr. Stevens, who is heading off on a last minute business trip.

The little ?girl’s father has his cute daughter make a wish to Santa about wh?at she wants as a gift for the upcoming holiday.

After thinking for a second, Lucy holds up?? her stuff?ed bear and says, “A girlfriend for Teddy.”

?Smiling at his precio?us girl’s response, Mr. Steven’s says a final farewell and walks out the front door, promising his wife and daughter that he will be back by Christmas.

It is with this that the scene fades out …

Cut to six months late??r: Lucy picks up a picture of her father on a side table and asks her mother when daddy will be getting home. Mrs. Stevens, he??r mother, mildly scolds Lucy, asking her to not talk about her dad.

It is this moment when you find out that Mr. Stevens was in an accident (assumed car crash) when he left on his business trip months ago and was killed. Obviously, he never made it home on Christmas to spend the day with ?his loving family.

*small tears*

Lucy then proceeds to yell at her mother,?? confused as to why her father promised to come home and never did. Mrs. Stevens, distraught and overwhelmed, retreats out of the room, leaving her daughter all alone with her ridiculously sad thoughts.

No joke, Lucy then actuall??y looks to the sky and says, “Daddy … pleas??e come home” as the cutscene fades out … (are you kidding me with this, Nintendo?) …

*grabbing heart*

On this morbid note, the playable level begins, this time to the song “You’re the Inspiration” by the band Chicago.

Like always, the agents leap into action a??s they try to help Lucy mourn and get her ultimate wish: to see her father one last time.

One thing that is cool about Elite Beat Agents is, as you play each song, there are small breaks that continue the story on the top screen. Depending on how many points you score and how well you have kept up with the beat, the story will reflec?t your in-game performance. If ??you do well, things go great for the character you are trying to help – do poorly, and your assignment runs into some unfortunate luck.

Needless to say, when you are trying to control the emotions of a little girl who has just lost her father, you ha?ve a lot of motivation to do well and make sure she is happy.

Assuming you are playing like a pro, the first break in the song shows Lucy and her mother? cleaning the late Mr. Stevens’s room. As they pick up one of his books, a picture falls out.

When Lucy and her mother look at the picture t??hey realize that it is a photo of them. Mr. Stevens obviously loved them very much and alway??s wanted to keep a picture of them with him at all times.

*grabbing a tissue*

The in-game cutscenes get more heart wrenching as they go along. Taking place over a time span of a few months, one story sequence has Lucy baking a cake for her deceased father on his birthday. I??f you are doing well in the song, a starry breeze will come through the kitchen window, blowing out the candles that Lucy lights on the cake. It is at this moment that Lucy, almost teary-eyed, responds with a quiet “Daddy blew out the candles!”

*openly sobbing*

As “You’re the Inspiration” finally comes ??to a close, and after all of this, the next Christmas finally rolls around, with Lucy and her mother decorating the tree.

Suddenly, there is a knock at the door. Surprised, Lucy and her mother look up and see the ghost of Mr. Stevens standing in the doorway. And, of course, in his hands he is holding … wait for it … a stuffed b??ear girlfriend for Teddy, wrapped and ready to be put under the tree.

*curled up in a ball on the floor, shaking*

As the newly reunited family embraces, the level comes to a close, ending one of the?? most emotionally out-of-nowhere moments in?? the history of videogames.

Open yo?ur jaded, cold heart for a second and check out the entire sequen?ce here – hopefully you will agree that it packs a pretty surprising emotional punch:

The Impact

I can’t necessarily say I hate the band Chicago, I just never really knew enough about them to warrant a solid opinion. Sure, I had h??eard some of their songs, but I never really thought twice about the chart-topping group from the late '70s and early '80s.

Well, after playing Elite Beat Agents, I really can’t hear one of their arguably biggest hits, “You’re the Inspirat?ion,” without bawling like the?? little girl I am.

Seriously, I don’t know wha??t it is about that scene, but it gets me every time.

An?d it really shouldn’t! Every single awful cliché is in full effect during this entire?? level: from the sappy song to the doe-eyed, helpless girl losing her loving father – from the opening, dramatic good-bye to the final shot of the two teddy bears together. I have no idea how this sequence actually works and doesn’t come across as being the cheesiest thing, well, ever. Heck, that alone is reason enough to triumph it as a success.

Breaking the scene down -- if you are a fan or have at least played Elite Beat Agents in the past, you must know that there are certain “triggers” yo??u tap with your stylus that make a clapping sound that goes along with the song being played.

One thing that is cool about this scene (and helps make it work so perfectly) is that those loud, distracting claps are replaced with soft, melodious chimes that only add to the touching mood of everything happening on-screen. Really, the tone of the entire game (ev??en down to the little gameplay details) is flipped on its side during this sequence.

Another reason this scene really stands out as being almost (again, try not to laugh) revolutionary is that it occurs in a musical rhythm game. Think about that: a game akin to something like Dance Dance Revolution that actually has the power to elicit a genuinely emotional response out of the player? That is pretty impressive and an obvious testament to the power that even "simple" videogame??s possess.

While most people may shrug this scene of??f as nothing but fluff, I have an intuition (and some shaky confidence) that there are others that feel the same awkwardly-timed emotions when playing this “Christmas gift” sequence.

Although I am a little (tran??slation: very!) embarrassed to admit I actually cried while playing this level, that doesn’t change the fact that this is an unbelievably powerful sequence (especially for a handheld videogame!) and really will be remembered as one of the greatest videogame moments of all time.

The Memory Card Save Files

• .01: The return of Baby Metroid (Super Metroid)
  
• .02: Palom and Porom's noble sacrifice (Final Fantasy IV)
  
• .03: The encounter with Psycho Mantis (Metal Gear Solid)
  
• .04: The heir of Daventry (King's Quest III: To Heir is Human)
  
• .05: Pey'j is captured (Beyond Good & Evil)
• .06: The Opera House (Final Fantasy VI)
• .07: Attack of the zombie dog! (Resident Evil)
• .08: A twist on a classic (Metroid: Zero Mission)

The post The Memory Card .09: A Christmas gift appeared first on Destructoid.

H?ave you ever had o??ne of those dreams where you think you've already woken up?

You know the ones. You wake up, get out of bed, get dressed, head off to school, college, or work, and get on with your day quite happily, before suddenly waking up again an??d realiz??ing that none of it has actually happened, except in your mind. And on top of that, you've usually slept straight through your alarm and are now going to be late for wherever you thought you already were. 

Today is a lot like that for me. You see it's finally been announced that Elite Beat Agents is coming to Europe on? July the 13th, and frankly, I'd long since forgotten it wasn't already out. It's not that I'm not used to thi??s sort of thing you understand. I've lived here for 26 years, so I'm fully au fait with the continent being seen as the hungry dog under the dinner table; not a real guest at the party at all, but okay to throw scraps to every so often. 

It's just that with EBA we're talking about an eight month delay, for a game which I've already played three versions of since this year began, including its originator's official sequel. And which they've already had in Japanese stores for months, meaning that everyone in the world has already completed it several times over. The kind of double-take I made when reminded that the release date is still over a month away hasn't been seen since the heyday of Looney Tunes. 

Odds of Ouendan 2 not getting a European iteration when EBA inexplicably?? doesn't sell to everyone who's alrea?dy got it? Place bets now!

[Via Kotaku]

The post Elite Beat Agents European release date: “Why do I still live here?” edition appeared first on Destructoid.

The first Osu! Tatake! Ouendan!, and its psuedo-sequel, Elite Beat Agents, were two of th?e most ??excellent games ever made based on the premise of male cheerleaders helping Leonardo DaVinci bag hos.

Only moments ago, I came across some new scans of the sequel to Osu! Tatake! Ouendan!, and it looks exactly the same as it's predecessor. Far from being a knock on a game I have yet to play, this is the first set of pictures I've ever seen on this sweet Internet that has actively sexually aroused me, an??d after staring at them for tw??enty minutes straight, I impregnated my laptop.

Yeah, don't ask ... 

[Via JeuxFrance] 

[Stylized picture courtesy of Todd Umbarger, stereotypical cheerleader names courtesy of Nexypoo.]

The post Osu! Tatake! Ouendan! sequel scans; no catzilla? appeared first on Destructoid.