Skies of Arcadia DS?

[Julius Seeker]

Well, not quite, but here is a game that looks highly inspired by it. It is called Nostalgia, a game that looks HEAVILY inspired by Skies of Arcadia, and even a bit of Wild Arms in there.

Unsurprisingly, the company behind the game is Tecmo who has been known to copy numerous Sega titles in the past. Well, if Sega won't do a sequel of a good game, you can bet Tecmo will. The development house is Matrix, who have been closely associated with Square Enix for the past 10 years, and recently with Marvelous/Ignition/XSeed; and well known since the mid-90's for Alundra.

The game takes place on a fictionalized Steampunk Earth in the 1800s. Exploration looks like a fairly big part of it as it shows areas such as South America, Egypt, as well as the western cities of the time. So no flying islands, but aside from that, everything looks very Skies of Arcadia/Wild Arms.

Keep an eye open for its release next month; October 20th.

[Kupek]

Matrix did the FF3 and FF4 DS remakes, so this caught my eye yesterday. But... something about it looks off. I'm being completely prejudiced, but it looks like they're going through the motions of a JRPG, but not getting it right. The battles, for example, look drawn out.

This is, of course, based on just watching their trailers and screen shots. But there's no way I'm picking this up without reading several reviews.

[Mental]

Agh. I need to consider getting a DS. Not just because of this, but because of all sorts of games I've missed over the last five years or so (when did it gcome out?) that I've heard you and others all talking about - Circle of the Moon and the other Castlevania games, Phoenix Wright, the FF remakes, Super Mario DS and others.

This is the thing: I just don't really like portable gaming screens. But, the DS could never be hooked up to a desktop box or TV, and the game library is spectacular. But, I REALLY dislike portable gaming screens and the ergonomics of portables in general. So, what to do.

[Zeus]

At some point, I'd be surprised in Nintendo didn't release a DS player for the Wii or Wii2. They've done it twice already and the Wiimote could easily be used as an alternative for the DS stick (A = tap and hold to go 'across the screen').

DS has an amazing amount of quality titles on it so if you feel that the screen is fine, you'll have a lot to choose from

[Julius Seeker]

Using IR in the place of touching a DS screen may be more difficult than you may think. IR works well for selection, but when it comes to gestures it is a lot less intuitive. It would have a very large learning curve.

If they allowed for the DS to be used as a controller, then I can see it working a lot better. The hardware may be there for it as the DS does have Bluetooth, and it has been used to interact with the Wii in other applications. I could see perhaps a DSi app that would set that up; I wouldn't know for certain if it was possible.

[Kupek]

Huh, despite owning a GBA converter for the GameCube, the idea of a DS converter for the Wii never occurred to me.

I think, though, that the technical problems would get in the way. First, you have to deal with the two screens, and as Seeker pointed out, the stylus-to-pointer conversion may be more difficult than it is on the face of it. I'm sure something would work, but I don't think it would meet Nintendo's quality standards.

The other side of this is even if it worked flawlessly, would Nintendo even want to sell it? While they sold Super GB and GBA converters for the GC, I think their focus is different now. I could be completely wrong, though.

Also, Mental, I wouldn't sweat about missing New SMB. It's solid, but not on par with Mario World or Yoshi's Island. I keep meaning to do a mini-review post on the few DS games I've gotten.

[Zeus]

Nintendo released the Super Gameboy and GB Player at the height of the handhelds' popularity. I assume the idea is to boost sales of the home system using the handhelds' userbase. So once the Wii dips a bit, it wouldn't shock me.

I was thinking about why the point and click/hold A wouldn't work. Let's see how it would work with some of the most difficult games to play due to hand gestures. Of course you would need a point on the screen to know where you're about to "tap"....

Pac Pix you simply hold it down and draw a Pac Man then to draw the lines as necessary. No prob. Elite Beat Agents you point and click on the buttons (or hold for the long ones). Not quite the same but definitely playable and playable well. Kirby's Canvas Curse should be no issue to draw the lines as required. Dawn of Sorrow is just drawing glyphs, doesn't seem to be too tough IMO. Phoenix Wright I can't imagine would be an issue at all. Metroid Prime Hunters? You could just make it so you don't have to click to be pointing, maybe even the opposite?

It won't be perfect but it should be more than fine for the vast, vast majority of games out there. Some may not be playable (ie. Guitar Hero) but those will be relatively few and far between. Sure as hell won't be enough to deter Nintendo from making one

And NSMB is an excellent spiritual successor to SMB3. Definitely worth it if you have a DS. Is it better than the classics like Yoshi's Island? Maybe not, but it's certainly not much worse. And if you have one of the better platformers in a very good series instead of the best ever, is that really a problem?