going solo in the legend of zelda: four swords anniversary edition

although i’ve worked my way through quite a few series by now, including the zelda series, i haven’t finished any remakes of any of the games, or any replays. i recently dusted off the legend of zelda: four swords anniversary edition on DSiware not long ago, and finished up the last two stages that i was planning on tackling this playthrough, which were the last two (of three) bonus stages in the “realm of memories” (more on that later).

a little history lesson for people who may not already know. the four swords game was originally combined with the GBA remake of a link to the past, and at that time required two people to play (my post on that game is here). the game was succeeded by the gamecube game the legend of zelda: four swords adventures, which again focused on multiplayer, but didn’t require it since the game enabled you to switch between characters and change the configuration of your team (e.g. a horizontal or vertical line) as needed.

this remake is of the GBA game, although it’s a standalone release and, similar to the gamecube title, has the new feature that you can play it entirely solo (along with being able to switch between two characters, the AI jumps in and controls the other character when needed). the solo mode works perfectly well, and from that perspective the game is already a big improvement over the original version. however, other pluses are that it was a free download, and it enables simple-to-connect local co-op with DSis and 3DSes (as opposed to the GBA’s multi-link cable). the DSi and 3DS’s second screen is used to show the locations of the other players and the goal but isn’t an actual map; it functions more like a radar, just giving you a general sense of where things are relative to you.

but the big draw is that this release includes 18 additional stages, more than doubling the amount of content in the original. these take the form of the “hero’s trial” (more-difficult stages unlocked by winning 5 multiplayer matches or collecting 30,000 rupees), and the “realm of memories”. the “realm of memories” is particularly notable because these stages revisit familiar locations from past games (namely link to the past, link’s awakening, and the original NES title). although the link’s awakening stages are spot on (and even presented in black and white) and include the same sprites as the original game, i was slightly disappointed to find that the stages based on the original NES title used the same sprites as the link’s awakening stages, although that’s just me being nit-picky. aside from the layout and presentation, those stages don’t have much to do with the original games since they feature the same enemies and mechanics as the rest of the game, but it’s a nice bit of nostalgia and a great inclusion in this title which was released for the series’ 25th anniversary.

all in all this game is a definite improvement over the original and enjoyable overall, esp. with other players. although it includes more stages, the game does start feeling repetitive pretty quickly (although not nearly to the extent as four swords adventures which was a total slogfest), and it’s still somewhat annoying that you have to beat all the regular stages three times in order to get the final ending (which i just don’t have the patience for). the zelda series has always been about the exploration and the puzzles, and so since this game is more focused on combat and multiplayer there’s not much chance it will rank that high in my list of favorites in the series. still, it’s nice to have a change of pace compared to the rest of the series, and it was fun to see familiar locales from previous games in a new setting.

don’t go solo without these the legend of zelda: four swords anniversary edition links:
– official site, although somewhat barebones
– entry at zeldawiki.org
– review at nintendolife.com
– list of unlockables at gamefaqs

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impressive flipnote studio

even though flipnote studio has been and gone, i’ve been sort of avoiding spending much time with it since it usually just reminds me how little i have in the way of artistic skillz. i’d made little 5-frame doodles with it before, but this time i made a conscious effort to sit down with it and explore it in order to get a better feel for the app and its set of tools by actually creating a couple of slightly longer animations.

well, it’s just as well that the sharing service was discontinued a year ago, because my creations were pretty dismal. still, it’s easy to see why many people called it the DSi’s “killer app” when it released, esp. since it was free. technically there’s not much about the app that couldn’t have been achieved on the regular DS, though (with the exception of the minimal camera features and the fact that it’s a downloadable title). also, there’s a fair amount of awkwardness shuffling between screens and menus due to the fact that the DSi only has one screen that’s touch enabled, which makes the whole experience a bit more cumbersome than it would otherwise have been. still, eventually i got more used to its setup and, as evidenced by the huge number of quality flipnotes online, it feels like your creations are pretty much only limited by your talent, time, and imagination. when the service was still up the app had a nice feature where you could easily browse random flipnotes and mark ones you liked as favorites, which was fun to use.

its sequel, flipnote studio 3D, has been delayed outside of japan for almost a year now, supposedly due to the huge amount of server load it has caused. no word yet on when it will be making its long-awaited appearance, but its unique pricing scheme (which rewards people who create, or curate!, worthwhile content) is intriguing, although its friends features have been affectively neutered. anyway, even though i expect it to be pretty much the same as this edition, i’m looking forward to checking out other people’s amazing creations while trying not to dwell too much on the resulting blows to my artistic self-esteem. 😉

impressive flipnote studio links:
– although the website for the original version has been discontinued (although supposedly we’ll be able to view people’s transferred flipnotes in the new website), there are many great flipnotes that have been still preserved online. nintendo ran a mario and a zelda flipnote contest, and even released a “mario drawing song”. awesome.
– the app has some advanced features that are revealed after you spend some time with the game. flipnoteartist.wikia.com includes even more-advanced techniques that help take serious artists’ flipnotes to the next level.
– random site that has put together a handy flipnote help card that you can print out and keep in your DSi
– glowing review from nintendolife.com
– entry at wikipedia
– aardman animations made a series of flipnotes. this one is basically an extended (and totally awesome) commercial for the DSi itself.
– this guy made two music videos of his original songs entirely out of flipnote. here’s the first one.

polished mighty flip champs!

i’d played through mighty switch force! early last year and had enjoyed it, although the central premise (using a button to switch blocks from the foreground to the background, and vice versa) didn’t really hold my attention. it was the first game i’d completed by wayforward technologies, and although the gameplay itself wasn’t my favorite, the stylish presentation, including great music, character design, and smooth controls, was enough to keep me playing through to the end.

at first it felt like its predecessor mighty flip champs! was going to end up falling around the same place in my esteem. the game’s central premise is that you press a button to switch the bottom screen to the top screen, and the game is perhaps even more polished than MSF, despite (or because of) it having simpler pixel graphics. the character design is great, as is the music and general colorful art style. the presentation in general has a nintendo 1st-party game-like vibe, which in my book is a very high compliment indeed.

despite the sky-high level of polish, the gameplay was slow to grab me. the review at nintendolife covers the mechanics and is typically complimentary, but i found the puzzle aspect to be fairly tame and somewhat obvious and just a matter of navigating a maze that shuffles around. after playing for a while, though, the game’s mechanics became much more enjoyable, and i really appreciated how beautifully the game makes use of the second screen of the DS. i’d go so far to say that it makes one of the most unique and essential uses of the DS’s second screen of all of that system’s (and its similarly two-screened successors’) library (although it has since been re-released on other platforms with the second screen flipped horizontally to the right instead of vertically in order to fit single-screen devices).

this shift in my enjoyment was due in no small part to the trickier levels that appear later in the game, around worlds 3 and 4 (of 5). many of the other levels have a single route that’s very obvious, i.e. at any single point there’s only one place you can go in order to safely flip from the current to next screen). those levels remind me a lot of the highest-ranked user-created levels in games like mario vs. donkey kong: minis march again! where instead of being a puzzle the level is really just a rube-goldberg like contraption that the player just has to set in motion. but there are some levels where you can see where you’re supposed to go but it takes some head-scratching to figure out how to get there (being able to mark a spot on the screen with the stylus is a huge help in some of these stages). it’s admirable how much gameplay wayforward was able to squeeze into these single-screen levels, and a higher percentage of truly puzzling levels (as opposed to just following the single path laid out by the level designer) would have really helped. as it is some people have complained that the game is too difficult, so i guess you can’t win ’em all. personally i thought the difficulty curve was fine, and since the game has such a limited amount of actions you can perform overall even younger players shouldn’t have much trouble completing it with enough patience.

overall i would agree with the general opinion that mighty flip champs! is one of the highlights of DSiware, even though it was one of the earliest releases for the system. wayforward has steadily built up a library of great games and i’m looking forward to playing the third of their mighty trilogy, as well as trying out their other acclaimed titles.

polish these mighty flip champs! links:
– page at wayforward.com and official site
– interview with the developers, at pocketgamer.co.uk
– entry at howlongtobeat.com (FYI, the game includes 41 levels, although the majority of them are quite short)

minimalistic art style: base 10

another short game. i’m a big fan of puzzle games, esp. tetris-like games, and even with my high standards i’ve been consistently impressed with nintendo’s art style series, a collection of often retro-inspired puzzle games that appeared on the DSi eshop and wiiware (and were preceded by the closely related bit generations series on GBA) with a small file size but intensely creative and addictive gameplay, and true to the series’ name, a stylish presentation. the next one i had lined up was art style: base 10, which is the third release on the DSi that i’ve played.

the gameplay of base 10 is easy to describe, but a bit hard to appreciate unless you’ve experienced it (i’m surprised nintendo didn’t put out a trailer for this game since it doesn’t look like much from static images, but check out this video for a sample of the gameplay). basically you’re presented with a set of numbers like on a calculator and you have to select groups connected horizontally or vertically that add up to 10. it starts off with just the numbers 1 and 2, but you can flip the 2 in any direction with an adjacent number to form a 5, although 1s aren’t horizontally flippable (if you look at a 1 on a calculator you’ll see that the 1 part would move to the left side of the LCD box, and the game regards this as being an invalid number). so already you have multiple ways of clearing pieces (e.g. 5 + 5, 5 + 2 + 2 + 1, 5 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1, etc.) and moves that will render numbers (in this case just 1s) invalid. the game has a nice progression, where every level in the standard mode includes the next number (so level 2 features numbers 1, 2, and 3). 3s are like 1s and are vertically but not horizontally flippable, but 4s can only ever be oriented one way. 5s are as versatile as 2s, as are 6s and 9s, whereas 8s and 0s are usable wherever you might move them to.

clearing the main (“target”) mode isn’t that hard once you’ve gotten used to the mechanics. every level is standalone and the game records your high scores for each, but what makes the game more worthwhile in this mode and the endless mode is trying to create combos (by linking sums of 10, domino style), and clearing an entire row at once, both of which presumably provide bonus points. i’m not that big on chasing high scores, and once you’ve mastered the mechanics it’s not very hard to get pretty high up in endless mode. the vs. mode would be more worthwhile, but i haven’t had a chance to try that out yet.

the real time sink to the game, though, is the puzzle mode. this is like other games’ puzzle modes where you have a limited number of moves to clear the board, and here the freedom of options in the main modes works against you since there are so many options of how to move the pieces around. because of this blind shuffling won’t get you very far and you’ll have to sit down and actually use logic to figure out the solution. because of the depth of these puzzles, this is actually the centerpiece of the game instead of the main mode, unlike most other games of this type. although i do like logic puzzles now and then they’re not my favorite type of game, so i didn’t put in too much time into them.

although i appreciate the elegance and ingenuity of the core gameplay, which seemingly effortlessly presents an interesting, unique, and addictive mechanic, the main mode is just a bit too easy once you’ve mastered the mechanics. it would have been nice to have had an option to select the speed in the endless mode, or have harder levels that consisted of harder combinations of numbers or placed more emphasis on combos (e.g. you have to make combos to eliminate numbers). the presentation is clean and works fine, but it’s a bit too minimalistic and could have been a little more engaging. overall a stylish and enjoyable puzzle game, but should be appreciated more by casual players or people who love logic puzzles.

minimal set of art style: base 10 links:
– page at nintendo.com
– review at nintendolife
– entry at metacritic

sticking to maboshi’s arcade

maboshi’s arcade, aka maboshi: the three shape arcade for wiiware, is a game that i had a hard time getting into. the game has a unique hook: the board is divided into three sections, and you and two others can each take one, or you can save any of your replays to any of the three sections. the twist is that doing well in your section will give bonuses to the adjacent window or windows, making the game significantly easier for you and your partners. the game’s concept is definitely interesting, although i found the games themselves to be more frustrating than fun initially. you’re not required to play a different game in each of the three windows, and i liked the visual simplicity of the three games, each of which is based around simple shapes (circle, stick, and square).

the reason the individual games were difficult for me to get into in spite of their simple controls (the first two require you to just use the A button while the third just uses the D-pad), is that the physics of the circle and stick games took a significant amount of time for me to internalize. the circle game features a fairly lightweight ball that spins clockwise or counterclockwise, and pressing the A button changes the direction of its spin. the changes in momentum and in turn the movement of the ball were hard to get used to and it was difficult to get it to go anywhere close to where i wanted it to, but after a fair amount of dogged persistence i was able to make much better progress. similarly, the stick game (which features a mechanic somewhat reminiscent of the mini-game chiritorie from the original warioware game on GBA, which was in turn based on an actual nintendo vacuum cleaner), was easier to get into than the circle game but still required some perserverance before i was able to make much progress.

the square game is completely different from the other two and features a mechanic somewhat similar to the old snake games although in this case the game focuses on the tail of the snake which burns blocks. the square game is much slower paced and more of a puzzle game which gives it a unique feel compared to the other two, but also makes it feel a little out of place. (incidentally, an extension of that game has also been released as a standalone DSiware title called flametail).

the game’s overall objective is to get a million points in each of the three sub-games (which also unlocks an expert mode), although getting 100,000 in each will unlock the credits, which was a good enough stopping point for me. a million points sounds daunting, but the game’s mechanics include a multiplier which maxes at 9x, so once you get it maxed out it should get much easier to rack up the points. using your own high-scoring replays in adjacent windows to help you progress in your own game is key, and the game also has some bonuses in the form of sending your best replays over wi-fi to your buddies who can then use them in their own game, and also the ability to download a version of the game to your DS via DS download play (although, as with all download play, the game is lost if you power down your device).

overall, although i enjoyed the inclusion of both arcade-y and puzzle elements and the unique hook, the game wasn’t a classic for me. i don’t think i have much patience for slogging through the same levels over and over again in order to try to get the goal of a million points in each sub-game, but the game provides a nice contrast to more typical multi-player types of games. an enjoyable game, but be prepared to be a bit patient and invest in some ramp-up time before it really starts to get you hooked in.

stick to these maboshi’s arcade links:
– review at nintendolife.com
– official page at nintendo.com/games
– entry at metacritic
– entry at wikipedia

more art and style with art style: aquia

i thoroughly enjoyed my first of the art style series, art style: pictobits, and i “finished” playing through another entry recently, art style: aquia. although pictobits made great use of classic 8-bit NES sprites and music, aquia follows the more lumines aesthetic that more of the rest of the series has used. although lumines has influenced a whole generation of puzzle games with its hypnotic techno aesthetic, many of them are forgettable and, frankly, not much fun to play. neither of those could be said about aquia, though. its aesthetic is clean, attractive, and, well, stylish, as is its soundtrack (much of which is generated from the user’s actions). but an equal draw is the gameplay itself, which offers a unique spin on typical match-3 puzzle mechanics to create something thoroughly fresh. for a run-down of the game mechanics, check out the review at nintendolife.

i’ve played many a puzzle game by now, and if you’ve read my blog you’ll see that i consider the only real challenger to tetris for the title of greatest puzzle game to be the games in the panel de pon, aka tetris attack, aka puzzle league series, thanks to its deep combo/chain system. aquia proves to be, if not quite a contender, certainly a worthy runner up, because although it does have a combo system, the game is so fast paced that you’ll end up simply focusing on finding matches as quickly as possible. i really haven’t had much interest in puzzle games that don’t require a more cerebral element, but this game is incredibly well designed and its presentation is supremely polished, and its progression of difficulties (horizontal shape to vertical shape to square) and progression of levels using the same shape (a new color gets added every other stage) is so mathematically elegant that the game as a whole is supremely satisfying to play, not to mention wicked addictive. and make no mistake: the game’s mechanics do take some time to master, and randomly moving pieces around will never get you very far. (although i wasted a lot of time making the game harder for myself b/c i didn’t realize for a while that you can rotate the colors in the blocks with a press of a button.) also, in a not atypical nintendo fashion the first of the three shapes, while the easiest to understand, is the hardest to play through.

with all this gushing it should come as no surprise that the game has earned a place on my list of greatest games of all time, the first DSiware title to do so and the first game of this year. once i mastered the game’s mechanics i didn’t really feel like playing more would make me a better player (unlike the puzzle league games, which always make me feel like there’s more to master), but the game is so enjoyable to play that i could easily spend more hours just being hypnotized by the gameplay and the soundtrack. in any case, time to download my next art style game and see if anything else in the series comes close to surpassing this one.

more art and style with these art style: aquia links:
– page on nintendo’s official site
– trailer on youtube which will also give you a taste of the game’s killer music
– entry at metacritic
– entry at wikipedia

sparkling planet puzzle league

in my last post i had written about getting back to the panel de pon, aka tetris attack, aka puzzle league series, and i had been, quite frankly, somewhat demoralized by my recent experience with pokemon puzzle challenge. i thought i’d skip over the GBA version and try dipping into the DS iteration, planet puzzle league, since i had it on hand. like the GBA version the DS game eschews both yoshi and pokemon trappings and instead like many other recent puzzle games opts for a very lumines (i.e. trippy techno) influenced design.

as i’d expected, my poor performance in pokemon puzzle challenge wasn’t just due to my gradual decline towards senility. as i mentioned in that post, the size of the board definitely plays a factor (it’s significantly smaller in both the GB and GBC titles), but comparing it to planet puzzle league it immediately becomes apparent that that game gives you much more time to create “active” chains (i.e. making chains during the small pause before the blocks drop due to gravity). i’m guessing the amount of time is about the same as the N64, but in the case of pokemon puzzle challenge you have to rely on setting up all of your chains before you set them off, which is much more difficult and limiting.

the ability to make chains more easily made the game much more enjoyable than the GBC title, and overall the game is easier than the N64 game as well. the biggest change, though, is that the DS version introduces touchscreen controls to the series for the first time (and also allows you to hold the DS sideways as in brain age or in its usual orientation). this addition almost makes the game feel a bit too easy, but it’s probably the biggest evolution the series has seen thus far and helps make this the most addictive game in the series yet. there are all the standard puzzle game modes (marathon, time attack, etc.), plus the addition of wi-fi friend and random battles and items in VS mode with all the abilities that you’d expect.

it’s easy to see why the game received such a warm reception when it was released, and it’s probably the first game in the series to really rival the pitch-perfect original. the game was also released on DSiware in a stripped-down version (mostly due to excluding multiplayer features), but copies of the original DS version should be fairly readily available. in either case this is a wholly enjoyable title and certainly earns a spot near the top of the games i’ve played thus far this year.

sparkling planet puzzle league links:
– page at nintendo.com
– entry at wikipedia

forgettable brain age express: arts & letters

in order to get myself ready for the 3DS interation of the brain age series, i finished going through the 30 days required to unlock all the modes in brain age express: arts & letters on DSi. similar to how brain age 2 was a much slower and more boring experience than the original, this entry was much less engaging than its enjoyable companion brain age express: math. like that “express” title, this game isn’t just a subset of previous entries in the series, and includes 3 brand-new exercises, all of which include harder modes. i enjoyed two of the three new exercises (the exception being “meet and greet” in which you memorize names and cartoon faces), but of the 3 returning exercises the only one i really liked was “word scramble”, in which you have to unscramble a group of letters to form words. the “themes” were still enjoyable, and the challenge mode (10 levels unlocked when you achieve a brain age of 20) wasn’t too frustrating for the most part (see below for the list of challenges if you’re interested). the main exception there was the “3-back” photo recall challenge. this was one of the new exercises, in which you have to remember photographs while being presented with a constant stream of new photos, some of which are flipped horizontally. this type of brain training has actually formed one of the cores of the 3DS’s “concentration training”, so it’s been interesting to move from this experience to that one.

all in all this wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as the other brain age express title, and concentration training has actually rendered both of them obsolete in most cases since it looks like the new exercises have been incorporated into that game. i was a bit leery of the challenges that i’d have to work through for the 3DS game, but so far i’m really enjoying it. more on that before too long.

don’t forget these brain age express: arts & letters links:
– FAQ at gamefaqs.com
– review at nintendolife.com
– if you’re curious about the challenges, here’s the list:

• 0: symbol match, < 35 seconds
• 1: word memory, memorize 20
• 2: word attack, < 1 min 20 seconds
• 3: photo recall (2-back), < 1 minute
• 4: meet and greet challenge mode (face, first and last name, occupation for all 8), all correct
• 5: word scramble challenge mode (i think they use the ones you’ve previously missed), < 3 minutes
• 6: connect maze, < 35 sec
• 7: dr. mario challenge mode, clear
• 8: piano player, get perfect on march from aida
• 9: photo recall challenge mode (3 back), < 1 min 40 seconds

stylish art style: pictobits

although i haven’t gotten fully into it, it’s pretty clear that the DSi shop is an absolute treasure trove of addictive puzzle games. not too long ago i zipped through number battle in just a few marathon sessions, and this week i had a similar experience with art style: pictobits.

this was the first art style game i’d spent a significant amount of time with, and as most people know by now a trademark of the series is the top-notch presentation. with its NES trappings, including pixel art and classic remixed 8-bit tunes, the game is an easy sell for retro junkies like myself, but it was also fascinating to see how the core concept of the fairly forgettable early game boy title quarth has become completely reworked into an essential experience. you can read about the mechanics more in other reviews, such as this one at nintendolife.com, but suffice it to say that the combo system is quite nearly as satisfying as the puzzle league games.

i had a somewhat unusual trajectory with this game, where i really enjoyed the first half and mastering the mechanics, but playing through the hard mode actually made me less enamored with the overall experience (perhaps not coincidentally, i had a similar experience with the punishingly difficult pokemon puzzle league). in typical nintendo fashion the game isn’t artificially stuffed with levels, and although the game mechanics stay the same throughout, many of the levels, especially late in the game’s hard mode, provide wholly unique experiences. the problem was that the game’s “difficulty” started to become a distraction. it seems that other reviewers have also noted the game’s difficulty, and although it can’t help but sound a bit whiny to complain about it, in the final levels the speed at which you have to perform starts to erode at the game’s fun. the mental act of making chains (and getting higher scores) is already satisfying enough, so an option to choose a playing speed would have been welcome. if this had been a full retail title the inclusion of a vs. mode might have allowed for the single player mode to be a bit less obnoxious, so maybe we’ll see a better balance if there’s ever a sequel. in any case, although the game just barely missed a spot on my “greatest games of all time” list, i’m definitely hoping that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of this gem of a puzzle game.

check out these stylish art style: pictobits links:
– page at nintendo.com
– craig harris’s review for IGN. i absolutely agree with his comment that it’s “an extremely unique action puzzle game that could only work on a system with precise, pinpoint controls like the Nintendo DS and its stylus driven touch screen”.
– entry at mariowiki.com
– video of all of the completed pixel art
– entry at wikipedia

pared-down party with tetris party live

continuing my streak of only playing handheld games, i spent some time with the random copy of tetris party live for DSiware (released in november of 2010) that i had. the game is apparently a very pared-down version of the wiiware release (which came out two years earlier) and the retail releases for wii and DS. although the game is no longer available for download on the 3DS or DSi (apparently due to the publisher’s license expiring), the wiiware version is still available and used copies of the wii and DS versions seem readily available as well.

the main draw to all the games that preceded the DSiware version, aside from the core classic tetris gameplay, seems to have been the additional modes, which are described in the entry on wikipedia and include an intriguing version featuring the wii balance board. this version, however, feels extremely basic. there’s the typical # of lines to clear mode (in this case 150), a marathon mode, and vs. CPU modes (which feature a much more superhuman AI than is found in other games), and although the game controls perfectly well, the presentation lacks character and doesn’t leave much of an impression other than being serviceable, with the exception of a cameo appearance of milon from milon’s secret castle as a selectable icon (the games were developed by hudson).

the game also includes two wi-fi vs. modes with friends or strangers. these provide the package with the only variations to the standard gameplay. one of the vs. modes features items that hinder your opponents such as not letting them rotate their pieces, while the other is the “Duel Space challenge where you try to drop down blocks in an effort to take up the most area on the playing field”. i didn’t get to try out the latter b/c no one online seemed to want to play that mode, but i was able to get paired up with three other players for the regular 4-player vs. mode pretty quickly.

all in all a fairly disposable rendition of a classic game, and one that doesn’t offer as much variety as nintendo’s own release for DS or even its sibling games. i’m intrigued enough by the descriptions of the other modes to give them a try, especially considering that there were no other versions of the game released for wii, but if you were curious about what you missed out on with the DSiware release, the answer is pretty clearly: not a thing.

party with these tetris party live links:
– review at nintendolife.com
– official site for this series of games
– in case you haven’t already seen it, video of human tetris