I haven't written any reviews in a bit, so I've decided to write several quick ones...here goes:
Dragon Ball Origins - This game was a surprise, most DB/DBZ games suck. This game has taken a new look on the series and has turned it into a Phantom Hourglass type game...but its better than PH. The story is very meaty (although very linear) the graphics are some of the best on the DS to date and so far the gameplay changes to keep things interesting. The cutscenes can get a little long and if you skip them you'll have no idea whats going with the story in the game. My only real gripe is the stylus controls, which sometimes don't seem to respond or lag or are so strict they won't read your movements. This may sound like a big problem, but its really not.
Ninjatown - Check out this sleeper hit of the fall. This is a tower defense game (tower defense is a game where you setup...defenses and enemies travel a set path and your defenses have to stop them from reach the end or their goal. Almost like a RTS game.) where you help a town of ninjas defend the town from demons. This game is extremely cute and a lot of fun, it also gets hard as hell later on. Definitely check this one out.
Prey the Stars - This game is very weird, you play as some type of monster that eats things around a level in competition with three other monsters. Special items make you bigger, which allows you to eat bigger items, which gives you more points and allows you to knock around the competition. The person with the most points at the end of the round wins, simple. Fortunately, there are items you can get that give you powers or temp stat boosts to use against others. The game is kinda like Hungry Hungry Hippos with Mario Kart like items tossed in, the computer cheats and I haven't been able to find enough people to play online with.
Legend of Kage 2 - This is the sequel to the NES game that came out forever ago. Its basically like the original, but with updated graphics and some skills added to the game. The game is actually kinda hard in the beginning, but as you go on and learn some new skills, you'll be on a role. The game feels kinda repetitive, endlessly running through forest slashing through ninjas, but it's good for some brief mindless fun. Rent or borrow this one or buy it super cheap.
Tornado - I haven't spent a lot of time with this game, but so far I'm having fun with it. I've skipped the story, because I couldn't give a rat's ass, but the game is basically a Katamari clone. Instead of rolling things up in a ball you get to suck them up in a tornado. The more things you claim, the bigger the things get that you can suck (...). The game usually consists of you sucking up crap looking for specific items needed to beat the level. This can be frustrating because you only have a few minutes to look around and you have no clues as to where you should go. On top of the, the screen is really close to the action which makes it hard to see what where you want to go. Otherwise, this is a fun game.
Master of the Monster Lair - This game is definitely an RPG, but its kind of hard to explain. Its almost like Etrian Odessey as in you go into the same place, just further and deeper each time (...), but you don't gain stats or EXP through battles. You take on the job as a "digger" in a dungeon with a talking shovel, the mayor wants you to trap the monsters and kill them. You dig out the dungeons, one square block at a time, (and some dungeons have as many as 200 squares) plant traps and kill the monsters that come out. You gain stats by what the monsters drop, the more monsters you fight at once (up to three) the more chance you have of getting a drop. When you leave the dungeon the day ends and certain characters in your party are allowed to have a meal (one a day). Depending on what monster drops you got determines what food you can make and which stats go up. Most meals only raise your stats a point at a time, this makes leveling very tedious, but consistent. Theres a literal slime ball in you party that can mimic parts of certain monsters you kill, this is how his stats go up. I've been playing this game the most because its very time consuming, but also a lot of fun. Definitely check this one out.
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia - You guys aren't going to like this mini review, but so be it. Out of all of the Castlevania games on the DS I've played, this one is my least favorite. On top of being insanely hard and extremely frustrating its basically the exact same thing as the other games. However, like I said earlier, this game is so hard that it makes you want to pull your hair out. Unfortunately, this game doesn't make itself harder by upping the ante, it actually takes things away from you and leaves you defenseless. Remember all of those weapons, items and armor you had to chose from in the other games? Well now you have to find those items and most of them you will never see, you can't buy them because they're not in the shop and chances are you wouldn't have the money for it anyways.
Online mode is a waste of time. The shop mode sucks because it takes forever to find someone to connect and once you do, the chances of finding what you're looking for or the people looking in your shop finding what they need is minuscule because only eight items in your entire inventory are allowed to be put up for sale. And, when the host leaves online mode, every has to leave online mode, so many people don't have a lot of time to look either. If you are the host and everyone leaves, you get kicked out of wifi mode. It would have been so much smarter to allow the host to stay connected as long as they wanted and have people connect to them if they wanted. Luckily, you don't lose your wares when you sell them, they're only copied to the buyer.
The other online mode is race mode, but you're lucky to face some who is equal to you. Since you bring all of your equips with you into race mode, someone further into the single player story will always kick your ass...and theres no way to tell who is more advanced until you have lost. Online mode is still completely weak in the series.
