Digimon World DS

The first Digimon game released by Bandai for the Nintendo DS. Guess Bandai also took steps to monopoly the marketing for NDS.

Unlike the game title implies, Digimon World DS is rather different from Digimon World (PS). In fact, both of the game has but only one thing in common - raise digimon. The only things that matters is you do not need to concern about your Digimon life age, care for it's food, bring it to bladder, etcetera. Personally I did not like Digimon World (PS) as I'll need to take care of my Digimon every second, starting from the moment I load my game file. So if you are going for toilet or even answering a phone call for a moment, make sure you Pause the game to prevent yourself to miss a certain event that may occur to your Digimon.

So in Digimon World DS, it's a contrary of Digimon World (PS). You just need to level up your Digimon, train it or leave it in the Farm, then you're up to go. No need to extra concern like the Sims. Although Digimon World DS include three characters from Digimon Savers (which you'll meet in the beginning quest) such as Touma, it's a different plot. You take part not as a DATS, but as a normal tamer that being 'sucked' into the Digimon World without any Digivice at all. You get it at the moment after you arrived in the Digimon World. I couldn't figure out how on earth is this happening though, to be teleported inside a Digimon World without a Digivice? Anyways, One you're in, you'll be given a certain briefing and then you'll be choosing your first partner. Any partner will do as you can obtain them in the game later.

Unlike Pokemon game, there's no such thing as DigiBall to capture or be friend with a Digimon you met. In fact, you scans them. Once the scanning percentage is over 100%, you can digiconverting them to their physical form by accessing the menu in the DigiFarm. If you had played Digimon World 4 for PS2, the DigiCentral is almost alike with DW4. With portal and such.

Like the other Digimon game, but unlike Pokemon game, level doesn't matter. The only things that matter is the Stats. Just as Digimon World 2 (PS), there's a level cap for each digimon. In order to maximize the level cap (aptitude is the term in the game), you'll need to keep on Digivolve and De-generate your Digimon until it satisfied you. For a perfectionist, level 99 is the max and the max value for each stats is 999. The level and stats cap is rather moderate and acceptable compared to DW2 which the level cap is 999 and the max stats is 9999. It's just insane for one to raise such Digimon without any cheat codes.

If you want to complete the quest, you'll probably feel bored after doing the first few quest. For every quest, it'll whether required you to go looking for a certain items in a dungeon or just talking to someone in the DigiCentral to obtain the items. The same process go through for most of the quest, or should I say, EVERY QUEST. So why bother to do the quest anyways? Well, you'll earn Tamer Points for each quest. After you had reached a certain Tamer Points, you can talk to a professor in the DigiCentral and you'll be given some items.

There's no need to level up your Digimon to the maximum level, plan your Digimon Team for battle or any other things like you did with Pokemon games. In Digimon World DS, you can only do a Egg Matching event with other friends via WFC. For digimon battling, you can only access the wireless connection features, with other friends near you. So you'll mostly spent the time with your hardly raise Digimon for nothing aside from completing the Digimon Gallery.

For the battle scene. You can never see your Digimon sprite during battle. In fact, you can only see your enemy sprite. The good thing is the illustration for each Digimon is great and the size is rather logic. You start the battle with only 3 Digimon. If all of your 3 Digimon had been KO'ed, then you'll have the option to exchange them with another 3 of your relief Digimon (if available). All the enemy HP will never exceed 999 except for bosses. So just as I mentioned above, there's no need to max out your Digimon stats. You'll end the battle in merely 3-5 seconds when you're progressing in the later of the game. The enjoyment and excitement is not as fun as Pokemon.

In conclusion, Digimon World DS is worth playing when the game is released last year. If you had decided to go to a local store for this game, don't. Just wait for another dual release of the game - Digimon World: Moonlight and Digimon World: Moonlight (both name in Japanese) as the next installment include a wide range of improvement. The US release date is due to confirmation and will probably be released in 2007 September. Just stick to Pokemon Diamond or Pearl until then.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Clue:
AW - Advance Wars

First it's Advance Wars (GBA), then the second sequel Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (GBA). And now, the moment for all Advance Wars fans are waiting for is finally come true. Let's give an applause for Advance Wars: Dual Strike! The first AW debut game for the Nintendo DS. I must admit that it's one of the game that drive me into buying a Nintendo DS for myself.

Do not concern yourself too much for thinking that you won't even know the storyline well, especially if you had not played the 2 AW game for the GBA before. Although AWDS doesn't provide any major flashback of the previous game storyline, you wouldn't mind to bother as some characters will provide little information about their background throughout your game play.

In the beginning, your military instructor, Nell's sister (Nell is the main millitary instructor/guide for the 2 previous AW title), Rachel is going to brief you through the game. Do not worry if you hadn't played AW before as she will guide you throughout the game. Quite frankly though, experienced user such as myself didn't find that tutorial to be any help as the control is simple.

As you can see, AWDS is designed exclusively for NDS. So it must somehow implement the use of Dual Screen right? Dual Screen - Dual Strike, any ideas what it's all about? In certain campaign, you'll be force to take control in both screen. That's right, you can use up to 2 CO's at a same time in a battle. Likewise your opponent will also do the same. In normal campaign, certain campaign will automatically setup a CO for you. However in the hard campaign, you can choose your CO's for battle. No more restriction.

So control both screen at the same time, how is it possible? Well, the mechanic behind it is pretty simple. Since your main goal is to defeat the lower screen (touch screen) by either capturing the HQ or demolish all enemy units, you wouldn't bother to defeat the enemy on the top screen eh? I'm afraid you're wrong. In certain campaign, you'll need to destroy the enemy units on the top screen in order to destroy the barrier for the enemy structure in the lower screen. Simply put, unless you managed to destroy the enemy units in the top screen, you won't be able to give a single scratch to a single enemy structure in the lower screen. Hope it doesn't sound confusing for you.

Throughout your game play in normal campaign, you may think you can't use the previous AW CO's such as Jack, Nell, Drake, Kanbei and more just as I did. Apparently unless you managed to beat through all 26 missions in normal campaign, you won't be able to use them. In other words, you can use them in hard campaign which you can buy from Hachi via access to the [Battle Map] in the main menu. Every CO's has their own pros and cons. For example:
  • Jess has higher offensive value for ground type mobile while the offensive and defensive value for naval and air units has been slightly lower, ever than Colin perhaps?
  • Colin can built units at a cheaper cost. The only downside is the unit firepower had been slightly downgraded.
Single and Full CO's power still applies in this game. There's even a mode called Tag Force which you can only access if two CO's (in a same screen) has the full CO's power with them. With this, you can move 2 turn in 1 day. Whether using or not using it is your call as building full CO power for both CO's is definitely going to be longer and tough. For mission which you can use 2 CO's, you can change the current CO's. However, keep in mind that it will end your turn. So change CO's only after you had assigned your units for attack/move/capture. There's no undo button for every AW game. So use your CO wisely.

For your information, the normal campaign missions in the previous game, especially for AW: Black Hole Rising is far more harder than you thought it could be compared to AW:DS. However, if you're willing to challenge your command & conquer skill in AW:DS, you can try and beat the Hard Campaign. As the name 'Hard' implies, the mission is really hard and you'll mostly need a more strategic ways to win it. Getting a S rank in all the missions in Hard Campaign seems a little bit impossible for me, unless you are good at it.

Whenever you managed to clear a mission, you will be graded based on 3 main aspect - Power, Technique and Speed. For those who doesn't know how they're being judged of, I'll simply brief you:
  • Power - Amount of enemy units that you're managed to demolish/destroy
  • Technique - Amount of your own units that are destroyed by enemy units. The lower the number of your destroyed units, the better. Luckily it's judged by percentage. So if you think you are able to clear a mission in that turn, try and build some cheap units such as infrantry unit, recon in order to increase the percentage.
  • Speed - The amount of days that you need to clear a mission. It's obvious that the sooner the better.
For you to acquire a [S] Ranking for a mission, you'll need to have at least or equal to 280 points. Extra points for damaging enemy units such as Oziom doesn't count in.

Another addition to boost the game excitement would be the increment for the units. Additional units such as Oziom, Stealth, Carrier, Megatank, and even flying missile had been added to this game. For further information about those units, just play the game and eventually you'll find out the specifications about them.

Since there are many unlockables features in the game, the replay value for this game is definitely high. Nothing much to say about the unlockables, just figure it out yourself as I would not like to spoil the fun for you.

I think the great deal about this game would be nothing more than the Wi-Fi features. Although I hadn't get a chance to test it since I hadn't got myself a Wi-Fi router or Nintendo Wi-Fi USB connector, I got a hunch that it's the major attraction for the popularity for this game. With such features, you can battle any AW user worldwide without knowing that this world is indeed, what do we call again? Oh, LARGE!

Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2007 vs. Yu-Gi-Oh! Spirit Caller

Clue:
WC - Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2007
SC - Yu-Gi-Oh! Spirit Caller

I guess the fancy quote "Newer version of stuff always beat old stuff" applies to Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2007 over Yu-Gi-Oh! Spirit Caller. For those who doesn't know, Yu-Gi-Oh! Spirit Caller is the first debut of Yu-Gi-Oh! game for Nintendo DS. As we all know, the first debut doesn't always sounds too good, at least not as best as the sequel eh?

Unlike Mario & Luigi: SuperStar Saga (first sequel of mario & luigi co-op game for GBA which many people claims that it's a game far more better than the second sequel for NDS - Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (second sequel for NDS), Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2007 seems to prove just the opposite thing. In fact, in the latest addition for the game, many cards had been added and as you may recalled Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2006 for GBA which is a non-RPY style game, compared to Yu-Gi-Oh! Spirit Caller.

The battle mechanics and graphic still applies the same for both game - The summoned monsters will appeared in 3D (although it's not well-rendered, it's still nice looking) and the blasting, slashing battle scene still the same. Don't misunderstanding here, you won't see the monsters battling each other as seen on TV anime. Instead, the only thing you'll see is two cards, both left and right, and the blasting (usually dragon, demon), slashing (warrior of course, bugs) graphic scene are done when you're being attacked or attacking other monsters cards. You can't expect to see those monsters attacking sprites would you? Consider the fact that NDS doesn't equipped with high-end 3D graphic card or what-so-ever. Even if Konami did consider to implement the battling sprites for the game, it would take up many space as the game normally would, 1 or 2 GB perhaps?

Nevertheless, WC is definitely a better choice than SC for most Yu-Gi-Oh! fans. The main reason is probably the elimination of RPG style game (SC) which required the user to search and pinpoint any nearby enemies to initiate a battle. As in WC, your opponent is pretty straight forward for you to choose. Just select 'Free Duel' from the main menu, select an opponent (consisting of monsters and humans) then battle. Frankly I couldn't figured how on the earth does a monster duel you? Choosing their card with their tiny or fat fingers than you could barely imagine it would be true. Anyways, each enemies own a deck that are appropriate for their look and their deck name. For example, for a fire fox, it will use deck that mostly consist of Fire type monsters and so on.

The password features doesn't really work in the same mechanic as the GBA version of Yu-Gi-Oh! game. If you think you can just input the password for the card (you'll probably get those password via GameFaq just as I did) and use them in the early battle to gain easy victory, then I'm afraid you're wrong. In WC (I haven't tested the password features with SC yet, sorry), even though you had entered the correct password for a card, let's say 72302403 for [Sword of Revealing Light], you still can't get it unless you had at least one card with the same name or unlocked a packlist that contained the card. Other than that, I'm afraid you just can't get it.

As you may recalled a features in all Yu-Gi-Oh! game - Forbidden card, it's still apply the same in WC and SC. In this time, the forbidden card number just grow larger and larger. You might think it's bad eh? No more Raigeki, Pot of Greed... However, if you think in other perspective, neither you or your opponent can use it! So you can turn this as your advantage. No more need to fear your opponent for using Raigeki upon your monsters.

For me, I really isn't a Yu-Gi-Oh! fans as I seldom play the card game with my friends. However, it's really worth to play if you have got plenty of free time to spent.