Nine Over Ten 9/10

I didn’t know that Nine Over Ten 9/10 is linking to an emo-blog. Teenagers these days, complaining about what they can’t get, in this case a laptop. I used to lug around a 5 kilo laptop with a RM 13,000 price tag back in college. I didn’t complain as having a laptop was sheer convenience (when it came to presentations, and doing assignments when the labs were full) to begin with.

Anyways. Here’s a throwback to times when things were a bit simpler, the latest iteration of the Puzzle Bobble series, Space Puzzle Bobble. Which could mean one thing, the cute dinosaurs are back.

If you haven’t guessed from the title, Space Puzzle Bobble is a puzzle game; you shoot bubbles of different kinds upwards into a formation of overhanging bubbles. Somewhat like Tetris, shooting a bubble into a collection of 2 or more bubbles of the same type will cause the collection of bubbles to disappear.

The bubble launcher is controlled by the D-pad and you can use the walls to bounce your bubble shot into hard to reach places in the bubble formation.

The objective of the game is pretty simple for the story and versus AI modes; just clear out the formation of bubbles. Should the formation reach the bottom of the screen, it’s game over.

For Those Who Take “Casual” Seriously

There’s also an endless mode which is pretty much self-explainatory; play until you get overwhelmed by bubbles. Just be sure to switch the background music off, it WILL drive you crazy. To keep things interesting, there are also 3-minute and 5-minute challenge mode, where the player will have to work to best the previous high-scores set within the aforementioned time limit.

Being a Taito published game, I’m glad that they stuck with having all the action in the one screen, eliminating the problems caused by the gap in between the screens like in Arkanoid DS where it was considered an area in play!

Look and Feel

Graphics wise, there are not many frills in this 2D game. Even the special effects are muted. The game supports both local WiFi play and WFC connectivity.

The Bottom Line

Being a Japanese import, Space Puzzle Bobble is a little on the import friendly side. The menu text are in Japanese (don’t be fooled by the Press Start text), but once you know which is for what game mode, you are all set to go.

The game is a good time-killer, like the Tetris clone that you like playing on your phone while waiting for your girlfriend/spouse trying on clothes in the store. And it certainly beats reading some emo-kid’s blog.

Where to Buy?

Interested in getting a copy of Space Puzzle Bobble? Click here for purchasing details.

I can’t believe it. In just one night, I’ve been transformed into a 14-match winning pugilist with, guess what, 14 KOs. Yup, Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting! DS does have a way in making you feel like a boxing champ. The game feels like a cross between Rocky and The Karate Kid, with reasons explained soon enough.

Bring ‘Em On

For starters, the game is divided into several modes, with the main one being the Challenge Mode. Here you fight a plethora of opponents in one-on-one matches. Each matches are interspersed with training sessions which take the form in mini games, which include catching leaves with the stylus and dodging rocks thrown by your trainer (who looks like a hard-ass, treats you like he is one and is quite hard to please..cue The Karate Kid reference).

The training sessions serve a dual purpose, not only improving your reflexes but also serving bonuses in your next match (e.g. a fully charged special move bar at the onset of the match). You play as Ippo, the titular character, in the Challenge Mode and having gone through 14 rounds with him, I found that he’s good with both arms and can take quite a beating, ala Rocky.

Pick Your Fights

Characters defeated in the Challenge Mode (it will take sometime to go through the ENTIRE roster), will be unlocked for the Free Match Mode. Here, you are accorded a whole bunch of options on customizing your match.

You’ll get to choose which fighter to fight as, and the fighter to fight against as well as the arena, background music, the number of rounds a match, the duration a match, as well as tweak both fighter’s attributes prior to a match.

Fight Night

Having said that, the matches in both Challenge and Free Match Mode are something to talk about. Fights take place in full 3D with the camera being directly behind the semi-transparent protagonist. Despite the DS’ known graphical limitations, you’ll still be treated to a visual feast in this game.

You get to see bruises and cuts appear as you continue to pummel your opponent’s face. Land a super move and you’ll find his mouth guard flying out rather realistically (trajectory and all). Opponents (and even you) might flail once the going gets tough and sometimes the opponent can be seen grovelling on the floor in pain after a TKO.

The action is shown entirely on the touch screen whereas the top screen plays hosts to the health bars and pugilist profiles. There was once my fighter got pummeled and the top half of the touch screen turned black! It turned out that it was an effect employed by the game to indicate the poor/blurry vision suffered after too many blows to the head!

Cutman!

After each round (in a match), you are given the choice to treat your boxer’s injuries or motivate him. In my case, treatment solved the black screen problem.

Going for the KO

Gameplay is entirely stylus driven; it is used to move the player, land hooks, uppercuts, midsection blows, jabs and even to dodge blows. The objective is pretty simple, just knock the opponent’s health bar down to nothing. He might get up the first couple of times (with the health bar restored to about half and then 1/3), but he’ll usually stay down after the third time. Some opponents, however, can take quite a beating, so it’s best to try and land Super Moves to the face.

The sound effects are a little let down, especially when compared to the animation/graphics, but they do their job.

If you get tired of getting punched in the face (happens at higher frequencies at higher difficulty levels), check out the Mini Games mode. Here, you get to replace the training mini games found in the Challenge Mode. You can also view your wins and your match and mini game records.

Connectivity wise, Hajime no Ippo doesn’t have WFC online gameplay but does feature local area WiFI matches.

The Knock Out Punch

The game is in Japanese but the menus don’t really pose problem after a bit of trial and error. The gameplay aspects are explained in a graphical manner and through the mini games, so no problem in picking the game up. More importantly, I had fun playing this brawler. I’m a bit surprised though, that the game has a Cero A rating (equivalent to the ESRB’s E rating), despite the on-screen violence.

Here’s a bit of trivia, Hajime no Ippo is based on a boxing manga of the same title? It is at present, one of the longest running manga ever (Wikipedia article)! Interested in getting the game? Click here for further information.

Mention the words tokusatsu and henshin, and immediately the Power Rangers and Kamen Rider come into mind. According to Wikipedia, henshin is the Japanese word for transformation; and it’s usually used when a character transforms into a superhero; complete with outlandish costumes and sometimes vehicles.

On the other hand, the word tokusatsu means “special effects”, and is used to describe live-action Japanese film and television dramas that make use of special effects (Wikipedia). As you can already guess, it is not uncommon to find henshin superheroes in tokusatsu shows (e.g. Power Rangers, Kamen Rider).

One tokusatsu show that I’ve never heard off until I reviewed a game earlier this evening is Tomica Hero Rescue Squad. Basically, the heroes use Super Tools and Super Vehicles (based on Tomica’s toy line-up) to rescue people from extreme disasters. If I may add..they kinda look like the Master Chief…anyways..

Now, you can do that too (rescue people as part of the Tomica Hero Rescue Squad) with Tomika Hero: Rescue Force for the Nintendo DS. A purely touch-screen driven game, Rescue Force will have you controlling Rescue Squad’s various vehicles in a plethora of mini games, with each level ending with a Final Rescue scenario.

The mini games range from guiding a police car through traffic to overtake a criminal, put out fires with the water cannon from the fire truck, drilling through obstacles, plugging potholes with a heavy duty shovel…etc, the list goes on.

The game is pretty easy to play as there’s a bit of a slide show tutorial going on before you head off to a rescue. The only thing is that everything is in Japanese, so there’s abit of a trial and error going on. Do note that aside from the CGI pre-renders used in the intro of each level, the bulk of the game is in 2D.

Interested? Click here for purchase details.

Previously when it came to shmups on the Nintendo DS, I thought the genre had the personality of a limpet mine. But the good news is that while the genre was previously populated by Nanostray (and Nanostray 2), it’s actually starting to heat up.

Renaissance?

First came the re-release of Taito’s Space Invaders in the form of Space Invaders Extreme followed by the DS version of an Xbox Live favourite, Geometry Wars: Galaxies. Treasure diminished anymore doubts that the shmup genre is not anything but dead on the DS, with the release of Bangai-O Spirits.

Now, the DS is further graced with more bullet porn with Cave’s Ketsui Death Label, and the upcoming title from Destineer, Little Red Riding Hood’s Zombie BBQ. The latter’s strange title aside, lets talk about Ketsui.

Difficulty Level

The game does sound hardcore (like anything with a title Death Label should be) and it is for a good reason: it is really really hard. The game looks like to be the DS version of the arcade game Ketsui Kizuna Jogoku Taichi but unlike its arcade predecessor where you face wave after wave of enemies, Ketsui’s levels consist only of boss battles after boss battles.

The amount of bullet porn featured in Ketsui’s battles is astounding but despite the amount of action on screen…the game never seems to slow down!

To cope with the “bullet hell” the two ships made available to the player have relatively small hit boxes. Both come with their own set of “options” which are key in differentiating the two. The first ship, Type- A (or RED if you may) has its option firing missiles in an angled spread away from the ship whereas Type-B (or BLUE) fires its missiles straight on from the ship.

Even with all the firepower, I find myself sweating trying to avoid getting hit.

Bells and Whistles

The game features quite a lot of stuff for a shmup. There’s a training mode available and you can retrieve records on your high score and play data. There’s even a replay option that plays back your last battle.

The “Special” mode is actually some sort of chat with the developer, whereby you can find tips on how to play the game (e.g. the differences betwen Type-A and B), but do note that it is entirely in Japanese.

The Options menu is also of particular note. You can set various options such as the main display (top or bottom screen), contrast type (DS or DS Lite), key configuration, and even the sound effects (stereo, monoaural, SURROUND!).

I most certainly recommend Ketsui Death Label to any shmup fan who owns a Nintendo DS, you owe it to yourself to check it out. The game comes with a bonus DVD as well. It is currently available at Play-Asia. Click here for details.

Culdcept DS is one of the more interesting Japanese titles that I’ve played on the Nintendo DS. Think of it as Monopoly, crossed with Magic: The Gathering.

It’s a board game whereby like Monopoly, you get to pass “Go” and collect money. At the beginning of each turn, you draw a card into your “hand” and your hand can consists of creature cards, equipment cards and spell cards, not unlike Magic The Gathering.

If your character is standing on a previously unoccupied tiles. you can summon a creature to occupy it. You can also play spells to enhance your character (e.g. giving it a high dice roll for that turn) or spells that would disrupt your opponent (e.g. destroying cards in his hand, destroying his creatures currently on the board).

Roll The Dice

The dice roll during your turn determines where you would land next and if you were to land on a tile with the opponent’s creature is on it, you better have a creature card in hand. With that, combat will ensue. Combat also borrows heavily from Magic The Gathering, with creatures having ATT and HP points.

You can cast your creature card and an equipment card (if you have any) to give your creature a boost in combat. If you were to win, your creature card will then replace the opponent’s creature as the one occupying the tile.

There’s also a twist from the MTG homage whereby money earned can be used to upgrade your creatures on the board (in form of buffs). There’s a twist though as you can only upgrade the creature (and nearby ones) when you happen to land on their tile.

Long Haul

My first game took more than 15 minutes and it seems that my deck has an unlimited supply of cards. But in any case, I think the winner is determined after a number of rounds based on the points accumulated from winning battles and occupying tiles. Statistics nuts will have a field day analyzing their progress with the charts and stats provided after each game.

The unique gameplay aside, Culdcept is probably the first Japanese DS game I’ve played to feature an entirely English voice work for its FMVs and in-game announcements! And it’s also the first Japanese game I’ve encountered that took my name (stored in the DS) rather than ask me to key in one all over again (there’s an option to do so if you want).

It’s a shame though that the menus are in Japanese, but hey, if you are one to not let a little bit of foreign language deter you from enjoying a game, check out Culdcept DS. It’s currently available at Play-Asia. Click here for details.

Doki Doki Majo Shinpan! 2 Duo was first to hit the bargain bin last month and now the First Print Limited Edition version of Doki Doki Majo Shinpan! 2 Duo follows suit with a whopping USD 55.10 discount!

This limited edition set comes not only with the Nintendo DS game but also a couple of figurines, a phone strap, a DVD and a passport of sorts:

Interested? Click here for further details.

Dad has been to Japan several times and has experienced a number of things over there, amongst them an earthquake and expensive sashimi. One thing that he always mentions (besides the earthquake) would be the speed limit on Japanese roads.

Unlike the speed limit on Malaysian roads which can range from 70km/h to 90 km/h, the Japanese would have to contend with a sedentary and sleep inducing range of 40km/h to 60km/h, with the exception of highways, of course.

Busses and Trains

Now, you can actually experience of driving within this kind of limits on your Nintendo DS with the release of Norimono Oukoku DS: You! Unten Shichai na You! The game takes a feature found in Grand Theft Auto games, which is making money by jacking a taxi, picking up passengers and dropping them at their desired location, to greater heights, minus the criminal aspect.

Norimono Oukoku will have you driving buses, trams, cranes, ambulances, police cars and even more. The objective of the game is pretty simple. The game provides you with a vehicle, you drive the vehicle around town in a GTA-III-ish fashion in a 3D town (complete with other vehicles on the road and sparse pedestrian population which you won’t be able to run over) and complete missions to gain points.

Have Points, Will Drive

There are a certain number of points to be fulfilled in each level, and once done, you get to drive another vehicle. Before I forget, points are deducted if you get into too many fender benders or by hitting the curb too hard. However, you don’t get the stick for traffic infractions such as driving against traffic, going pass the red light, etc etc (funny eh?).

Touchy Feely

As mentioned earlier, the entire game is in 3D, and even though the graphics are a little wash-out, the game handles itself admirably with decent draw distance and constant frame rate. The game features the touch screen as the main means of driving the vehicle. Accelerating and braking are controlled by the D-pad but the touchscreen has the steering wheel.

The touchscreen also plays host to a number of vehicle specific buttons. If you are driving the ambulance, there are buttons to turn on the siren and to open the vehicle’s back door so that the stretcher (and patient) can be taken out or placed in.

A mini-map and a pager round up the rest of the touch screen’s features. Aiding the mini-map in navigation is an on-screen arrow that points to your next objective, which is triggered by accepting your pager calls.

Driving Limits Revisited

Ah yes, regarding the speed limit. The vehicles in the game seem to have the same rev-limiter, in which they chug along at 71 km/h per hour. The horn is pretty useless in the game; and other vehicles on the road seem undeterred by an ambulance (or police car) with sirens blaring, and won’t move over. I don’t know whether the same thing happens in real life in Japan, but people can die because of that.

The gripe about speed and ignorant AI drivers aside, now I’m driving a police car and nabbing people driving slowly in their fancy sports cars. Hehe.

Lost in Translation?

Norimono Oukoku is pretty playable despite being a true-blue Japanese game. Don’t let the long (and rather talk-ie) intro deter you. I would pretty much like to drive a fire-truck next, if there’s one in the game.

Norimono Oukoku is available at Play-Asia now. Click here for details.

I’ve noted the differences between the box art for Japanese and American versions of games ever since my review of Atari Happy 10 Games (a.ka. Retro Atari Classics) more than one and a half years ago. And time and again I’ve always favoured Japanese box-art with the exception for Konami Arcade Hits

Anyways, I was reading IGN’s review of From The Abyss when I found that the box-art looked rather familiar. Since the review mentioned that game is the English version of a Japanese game released earlier this year for the Nintendo DS, I decided to search for it.

So, here’s the American solution to the dark, evil looking Japanese box art that you see above: add an androgynous looking character in questionable body armour (is he/she wearing nude coloured-pants?) to be front and centre on the cover art.

Anyways, if you need to get this (it did get good scores from IGN), the game is available in Japanese (click here) and androgynous boy on cover version, I mean, English (click here) from Play-Asia.

Hijouguchi: Exit DS’ red cover would make a rather nice addition to my collection of Nintendo DS games, but the real clincher would be gameplay!

Exit DS puts you in the shoes of Mr. ESC, who with your help, will find the rescue any survivors from a dangerous situation and find the exit. The premise sounds like a puzzle game and indeed it is. In each level, Mr. ESC will have to make use of different types of NPCs he rescues (most of the time to push stuff, or to grab an item) and besides that, he is endowed with abilities such as being able to jump across longer obstacles.

Most of the time, Mr. ESC’s bane would be heights. He can come down from a high ledge only by hanging onto the ledge (Prince of Persia style) before dropping down, or otherwise, you’ll have to restart the level :). There’s no in-level save and no complaints here as that serves to heighten the challenge.

Graphics wise, the game is cell-shaded with the characters in black and white. Kudos to the designers and artistes as the characters comes with really cool character animations, look out for how the fat guy walks about like Humpty Dumpty. The top screen is used as a map, and the touch screen is where all the action happens.

The sound however is a different beast altogether. Almost every level would have NPCs shouting “Help Me” and this gets annoying in after while. It’s best that the speakers and headphones sit this one out.

I’ve so far completed the levels in the first stage of the game, moving on to Stage 2. Don’t wait for me though, Exit DS is available at Play-Asia. Click here for details.

CERO ratings, these are the Japanese equivalent of the US ESRB ratings that you can find on video games. Games are rated using letters, A for all ages, B for 12 and up, C for 15 and up, D for 17 and up, and Z, for an audience aged 18 and above only (Wikipedia article here).

Having gone through the list, I was pretty curious to see a game which looks like an English language learning aid for Japanese speakers, having a CERO C rating. Titled Moetan DS, it’s based on the language aid books published by Sansaibooks and the anime of the same name.

Not For Kids

Why the CERO C rating? Lets just say the game has its fair share of pantsu and other stuff that make my copy of Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten as sterile as industrial bleach.

You Can’t Read This

The game is not import-friendly as some parts of the game require you to choose the Japanese equivalent to an English phrase. You’ll be hard-pressed to do anything after the first set of questions but in any case, the game comes with a note-worthy dictionary mode.

This mode gives you everything from how to pronounce a particular English word (with voiceovers!) and also examples of use. Pretty cool eh?

Softcore and Hardcore at the Same Time

When compared to English of the Dead (another English language learning game set in the House of the Dead series) Moetan seems to be the more comprehensive game and is way harder to play. The lack of hints (intentional or otherwise) makes the game quite a challenge.

You can get Moetan DS and DVDs of the anime at Play-Asia. Click here for the entire list.