Shibuya Shopping Center, Tokyo, Japan

Big things definitely come in small packages. I’ve never had so much to say about a little DS cartridge.

When Nintendo first announced the DS, their intentions were to give developers the tools to go beyond current video game ideas. Although many gamers like myself love the idea of porting over, real-time strategy (RTS) games, puzzle games, and other traditional uses of a stylus-based interface, Nintendo was more interested in ideas that had nothing to do with any game currently in the market. In my opinion, The World Ends With You (WEWY) is exactly one of those games. Calling this it a role playing game (RPG) is quite misleading. When I first began to play it I almost hated it cause I was so confused on what’s going on. The truth is, it’s it’s own genre. (more…)

Mario Kart Wii is a nice collaboration of many of the great ideas we’ve seen in many the previous versions. The slide boosting, drift boosting, battle mode, and all the classic arsenal like bananas and turtle shells. One of the best upgrades added to the Wii version is 12 player online racing. The game also allows a second player to play split-screen on the same console during these online matches. Unlike the Mario Kart DS, there are online battle modes and now with up to 8 players! (more…)

Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings for the Nintendo DS is a spin off of the PlayStation 2 (PS2) Final Fantasy XII (FFXII) game. Square-Enix totally went back to the drawing board on this one. The end result is pretty damn good. Forget all the turn-based mechanics you normally see in Final Fantasy Titles. Similar to Final Fantasy XII for the PS2, The game is real-time. However, this game resembles more of a traditional real-time strategy. Each member of your party is called a group leader. For each group leader, you can summon monsters to fight with them, or espers. Each leader and esper falls under one of three categories, melee, range, or flying. Like most strategy games, one category bests the other. Here we have, melee beats range, range beats flying, flying beats melee. You can mix and match your groups for more advance strategies. (more…)