DS Games

Okay - so like last holidays - at the end of these holidays I'll post a blog about the games I've recently finished. In the mean time, I'm gonna talk about the DS games that I've played. Some I've completed, some I've completed and am re-playing, some are yet-to-be-completed and some probably never will be completed.

Magical Starsign (Nintendo DS): This is a decent game. The story was poor and characters were only slightly better than bearable but the way the game was presented was very fun. There aren't many RPGs on the DS, let alone good ones so Magical Starsign definately shines a little more because of that. At the beginning of the game you can choose your element (light or dark) and your gender (male or female). Gender doesn't affect anything except for I think one scene in the game and element doesn't affect too much as personally I don't think either were particularly useful. Dark had a better mid game but light had a better late game so it's really up to you. There are 5 other characters in this game all with their own personality and element. Lassi (Wind) is a cute little bunny girl who is rather scatter-brained but fun. Mokka (Earth) is a robot who may or may not have emotions, I was never really sure. Chai (Wood) was a green lizard guy. He was... Shy? TBH, there wasn't really much to him. Pico (Fire) was the "Ima so cool" hot-headed tough-guy. He was alright, but nothing amazing. The last character was Sorbet (Water). Sorbet gets a lot of hate but personally I thought she was the best character in the game. She may have been irrational at times but she had more personality to her than the others. Too bad she sucked in battle. Seriously, what were the makers of this game thinking when they gave the tanks awesome magic power and powerful spells? And opposite to that, they gave the girls with low HP and high MP shitty magic spells? Oh well. It's not like this game was too hard. Especially when abusing spellstrike and that thing that changes the planet's locations. The story in this game didn't really exist. For the whole 20-30 hours it was just "Oh noes our teacher has gone missing let's go save her. Whoops, we got caught up with Mr Generic Villain!" However the game didn't take itself too seriously so it's bland storyline never really felt like a negative, just not a positive. Everything in this game was named after some kind of food and everything about it was just so... Weird. Spiny mole kingdom? Village of teapots? Some stick? Yeah, I think you get it.
[5/10]

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (Nintendo DS): *throws up* I can't believe I'm even here wasting my time writing about this game. Remember FFXII? Remember how it was kind of average? Remember Vaan and Penelo? Remember how they pretty much sucked? Yeah, well wouldn't it be awesome to create a sequel about them for the DS? NO! NO! NO! Seriously, WTF was Square Enix smoking when they created this game? Did they just feel guilty for not developing the supposed main characters of the original so they thought they'd do it in a sequel? Okay, then why was it crap? And why for the frickin' DS!? Everything about this game was just so... Stupid. Maybe childish is a better word. Either way, it all sucked. Let's look at the characters. Vaan sucked. Penelo sucked. Kytes sucked. Filo sucked. Llyud sucked. Balthier, Fran, Ashe and Basch returned but oh noes, they sucked. Seriously, how could you but awesome characters like Balthier and Ashe in a game and reject them so much that they were shit? And WTF was up with the shitty battle system? Nobody could tell WHAT was going on. And also, graphics? Well let's just say they weren't very good. That's all.
[2/10]

Final Fantasy III (Nintendo DS): "A remake for Final Fantasy III? AWESOME! IMA TOTALLY BUYING THATZ!" *buys it, plays it for 2 hours* "Oh yeah..." *puts the game down* "I remember now, Final Fantasy III sucked"

And it still does.
[2/10]

Final Fantasy IV (Nintendo DS): Mehh... This game wasn't bad. Nor was it good. It was simply average. In every possible way. The characters weren't annoying, however they weren't interesting. The story wasn't boring, however it wasn't engaging. The dialogue was pretty good. The music was alright, not up to par with other FFs. The graphics were alright - for a DS game. Voice acting is a plus. But... Mehh... Unless you're a hardcore RPG or FF fan than it's probably better to pass on this game. It just doesn't really have... Substance.
[4/10]

Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2: Grimoire of the Rift (Nintendo DS): This game was fun at the beginning, but quickly got boring. The battle system was slow and repetitive. After a couple of battles, you had pretty much done them all. It takes far too long to learn new skills, especially considering the rate in which you can by new weapons to teach you new skills. The character were really boring. The main character was a young boy named Luso with an adventurous spirit. How thrilling. I really didn't feel for him nor did I care for his reasoning for wanting to go on this huge dangerous journey. Cid was an older mysterious strong but nice man (or whatever the fuck those cat things are). OMG HAO KEWL!!! And there's Adelle. Adelle is a thief girl who is an enemy the first time you meet her and then goes "Ohai, can I come too?" and then tags along for no reason. And all the other characters are generic peeps who join your team but never do anything storyline-wise. So yeah, characters in this game kinda fail. Storyline was also kinda fail. Pretty much the same as the previous FFTA but worse and less interesting because it was just a recycled story. The graphics pretty much sucked. Only slight graphical upgrades from the GBA game and this is a FRICKIN' DS GAME!
[3/10]

Pokemon Diamond (Nintendo DS): Pokemon Diamond is Pokemon Diamond. Need I say more? Okay, I will. Awesome. Amazing. Still not enough? Okay.

Pokemon Diamond stays true to its roots. DP remains very similar to the RB, GS and RS games. And the recently released Platinum is the third wheeler in this set. There is a definite graphical improvement from the 3rd gen Pokemon games however the graphics still aren't spectacular or anything. The three starter Pokemon keep the traditional elements of Grass, Fire and Water. However they each get another element once they've fully evolved. Although this is nice and makes starters much more useful than when they were single elemental, the elements they chose make it really easy to break the Grass > Fire > Water > Grass triangle. The Grass guy gets Ground moves to own the Fire guy. The fire guy gets Fighting moves to own the Water/Metal guy. And if you teach the water guy Ice moves he is 4x effective against the Grass/Ground guy. But oh well. It's not like Pokemon games are hard anyways. But we'll get to that later. The worst thing about the three starts is like the RSE guys, none of them are really that good. Okay battle-wise, they're all pretty decent but they just look... Bad. Torterra (Grass) is definitely my favourite but most of that is purely because Infernape (Fire) and to a lesser extent Empoleon (Water) both look shitty. And WTF was up with Piplup fam's moveset? They don't learn ANYTHING good except for sort of Bubblebeam at like 25ish and then finally Hydro Pump at like 50-60. Also, WHY was Torterra's ultimate move Special rather than Physical? Ugh... However speaking of that, the Special/Physical split was GREAT. It was always something that needed to be done and it did wonders for some Pokes, although it hurt some others but meh. Now, the difficulty level in this game was disappointing. I think the 3rd Gym Leader and the Champion were the only people in the game I struggled on my first time through and even then, I didn't actually lose to either of them. This has always been a problem in Pokemon games, however. Also, I felt that the game was too long. And not because there was a lot to do or anything. But because everything takes forever. Battles for instance, can take far longer than they should. Also things like surfing speed, using HMs and waiting for trainers to move and stuff drag the game out. However, even with these minor irritations Pokemon Diamond remains a very fun game and a worthy entry to the Pokemon Series.
[7/10]