I feel that I’ve been living a bit of a dual life lately – Professor Layton and the Curious Village is my faithful companion that I bring with me, and Mass Effect is my passionate affair in the evening. I tend to play Professor Layton before class and Mass Effect when I have some time to really sit down and enjoy it.

I recently finished Professor Layton after two months of frequent puzzle-solving. I spent nearly 12 hours on it, solving every puzzle (including bonus and downloadable weekly puzzles). I admit to looking up help and using hints on rare occasions, but, for the most part, I solved the 144 puzzles on my own.

Professor Layton is a perfect match of game and platform. The DS is perfect for its point-and-click interface. I had suggested how well this interface would work for a portable game after my experience with Zack and Wiki, and it was fun to see it realized.

The gameplay was flexible enough to allow me to feel satisfied with a play session of three minutes or three hours. I found that most puzzles were relatively short, but for those that required more thought, I could continue thinking about them after I turned off the DS. I would never lose my progress because the game allows you to quit out of any puzzle very easily and to save at almost any point in the game. This made Professor Layton the perfect game to travel with, since I would never get stuck in the middle of something. This also encouraged me to play it more than other DS games because I never had to worry about losing my work.

The game was packed with content that made it really fun for me. There were collectible items that often unlocked more puzzles, such as the inn and painting scraps. The puzzles gave out picarats as a score (and sometimes the collectible pieces as well). The picarats seemed to have little significance other than indicating the difficulty of a puzzle. However, some puzzles with a higher picarat value were easy for me (such as spatial slide puzzles), while others were harder for me (such as some geometry-based puzzles). I found that, if a puzzle was harder for me, an indication of its difficulty would be how many hint coins I had to spend to solve it. Hint coins were another fun collectible item that rewarded me for clicking in many random locations on the screen. I loved the collectible items that encouraged me to fully explore the game.

Aside from the optional collectibles and the short puzzle structure, I found that this game also catered to the portable platform with its audio. The game didn’t require sound to be enjoyed and had subtitles over all the movies. While I am a firm believer in sound enhancing a game experience, a portable game should be designed to be enjoyed with or without sound. When I could have sound, I really enjoyed the music and sound effects, even if some of the characters’ voices were cheesy and had silly accents.

The story of this game was well-paced. Important plot elements were revealed in evenly spaced chapters. The game would give a brief summary of the current events when you loaded a save to get you up to speed. The story was light but engaging because of the many mysteries. I could tell when I was getting close to the end because mysteries kept getting solved. One of the methods of storytelling was short animated movies. They were done in a 2-D animation style that suited the game and its aesthetic quite well. All the movies were short and to the point, so I never felt like I was taken out of the action.

I found very few flaws with this game. I could claim that certain picarat values seemed too high or too low, but a puzzle’s difficulty can be very subjective depending on a person’s intellectual strengths. Another subjective issue I noticed with this game was my dislike of certain character drawings. The character designs looked a little strange to me, but it was all very stylized. After playing more of the game, I got used to it and minded it less. Also, toward the end of the game, the story helps explain some of the characters’ odd appearances.

I was excited to finish Professor Layton, but now I think that I will miss it. I have had some great experiences on the DS, including Elite Beat Agents and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Now I guess I will be searching for the next great DS game, at least until the next Professor Layton game is released.  

I’ve been a huge fan of the DS ever since I discovered Elite Beat Agents. The compact size means I have the ability to game between classes, when I’m in line, and when I generally am stuck waiting. It’s fantastic to be able to whip out my DS on a moment's notice and suddenly become immersed in a great game.

Most of the games I’ve played on DS so far have been strong, well-constructed games. Fortunately, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is no exception. I was surprised by its simplicity, as it has a pared down item and inventory system, especially compared to the complicated DS version of the RPG Final Fantasy III. The game moves quickly, as most dungeons can easily be beaten in half an hour or less.

Phantom Hourglass’s simplicity should not be mistaken for that of a children’s game. While it is relatively easy in terms of difficulty, it is a very clever, well-designed experience. Objects such as bombs hardly harm you when you accidentally set them off and deadly falls only remove a small portion of your health. This friendly system encourages exploration and doesn’t punish you for mistakes. The controls are primarily based on touch with the stylus, and with the small screen, this makes it easier to mess up than with a console.

Although I am not opposed to difficult games, the ease of Phantom Hourglass makes it a lot of fun for a more casual, portable experience. Its GameCube predecessor, The Wind Waker, had more complicated puzzles and levels, and I sometimes found myself frustrated. I have only been stumped on a couple of occasions in Phantom Hourglass, and most of that was realizing that I had to interact with my DS in an unconventional way (i.e. blowing into the DS microphone to blow out a candle in the game).

For a DS game, Phantom Hourglass is incredibly immersive. The tasks are given out quickly and there is little lag. I feel as if I am part of the story from the very beginning and that I am actively influencing the world. The game lets you do most of the work on your own. Also, the fact that the default name for the main character is my name (the game takes it from your DS) makes it all the more personal. Suddenly, it’s me who’s saving the day, not a group of heroes like in the RPGs I often play.

I have very few complaints about this game, as I feel that the simplicity and stylized drawings create a charming Zelda interpretation. However, my main complaint would be the simplicity of the combat system. There are two basic attacks, made with a stylus slash and a stylus circle. I rarely use the slash, as I have had a hard time making Link slash the enemy instead of running into its attacks. The circle attack is fairly effective, but doing it too many times in a row makes him dizzy (while cute, it limits this attack).

The touch controls can also be a little bit impractical in one other feature: the map-drawing feature. I find it very handy how you can draw and make notes on your map with the touch screen. Unfortunately, many of these maps are very small on the DS screen, so it becomes hard to write anything legibly. I have resorted to little dots and lines mostly, as anything else is pointless. The game is fairly forgiving in terms of marking things, so it is never a huge problem; it’s just slightly inconvenient not to be able to make intelligible notes.

Overall, I fell that Phantom Hourglass is a very strong game. The simple design makes it accessible, even when I could only play it for two minutes at a time. While the touch controls can be a little bit limiting, the idea of making notes on a map is a nice innovation. I have enjoyed the levels I have played so far and look forward to playing it again soon.  

The arrival of Eternal Sonata has meant the end of a phase for me. I played Eternal Sonata for a few hours, and the next day I found that feeling that I had missed so much: video game craving. Just as I had hoped, this game was turning into the type of experience I had been wanting since I finished Okami and Elite Beat Agents earlier this year.

I understand that Eternal Sonata isn’t the type of game that everyone wants to play. For me, it is finally a world that I want to escape to in my free time; unlike the horrific environment of Bioshock or the dangerous Halo, Eternal Sonata makes everything lovely. When I have a stressful school life, I want to spend my free time in a glittering dungeon or a majestic forest. It’s relaxing for me to escape into a world more beautiful than my own.

The combat system in Eternal Sonata appeals to me much more than many other games due its turn-based roots. While there is still a battle timer, the game still gives you time to think through the moves you want each character to use. I enjoy games that give me a little time to strategize. That way, it’s more like a puzzle and less like a test of gut reactions.

I was hoping that Eternal Sonata would be more like an adventure game, with a straightforward plot and puzzles that don’t require too much time. Unfortunately, my friend and I spent a ridiculous amount of time on a puzzle that was almost entirely based on trial and error. Like previous RPGs, I decided to purchase a strategy guide, as the game is full of ridiculously winding pathways and has some tricky puzzles.

I was a little bit upset when, after purchasing a guide with adequate pictures, my friend and I still got lost in a level. The official guide is poorly worded in some parts, and for someone as literal as I am, it can be an issue. I began to realize that part of the reason I enjoyed games like Final Fantasy VIII was the fact that I had a solid guide to help me through it, like a mentor that helped me make the best decisions. I was able to complete many RPGs with strong characters and little frustration due to the help of many well-written guides.

While I still think that I will enjoy playing Eternal Sonata, I am still slightly disappointed in the puzzles. However, most RPGs have some sort of ridiculous puzzle that, in the words of my friend Jettoki, “is made to be so difficult that you have to buy a strategy guide.” I hope that Eternal Sonata can continue to be a relaxing experience for me and that the rest of the game turns out to be as fantastic as its visual design.  

I was crazy about Osu! Tatake! Ouendan! and tore my way through it like it was the wrapping paper over a Christmas present. I spent relatively few hours beating most of the levels, but when I got to the final level, I just had no motivation to beat it. I consider myself a methodical person, so what happened?

When I got to the final level, it was a step up in difficulty from the previous levels. I knew it would take me the better part of an hour to beat it, so I was avoiding what would seem like a chore. On top of that, there were no real incentives. There are 15 levels in Ouendan, as opposed to the 19 in Elite Beat Agents (EBA). This means there are no bonus levels to unlock. There are also no other rewards for completing the game or achieving certain ranks, other than unlocking the rest of the difficulty levels (and the female cheerleaders). There is no “bonus character” to unlock like Commander Khan in EBA.

With this lack of incentives, I now had two reasons to avoid playing: (1) it was likely to have to repeat the final level over and over, unable to skip half the introduction and (2) once the game was beaten, my little obsession would be over. As for the first reason, this was only partially true. The first time I sat down to beat it, I attempted the level about five times before my hands ached so badly that I physically couldn’t play anymore. I had spent relatively little time with the game, but it was so intense that it was almost entirely a twich level. The second half of the introduction couldn’t be skipped (which was changed for EBA), and it was longer than usual, meaning that I would sometimes spend more time watching the introduction than playing.

As for the second reason, there would be no real motivation for me to return to Ouendan. I had nothing more to unlock, and the levels were so easy for me at that point that I didn’t care about getting higher scores. The stories had less meaning for me because I couldn't understand them as well, so there was less of a personal connection to the game.

In the end, I did return to Ouendan a couple days after my first honest attempt to beat it. Once my hands had recovered, I managed to beat it on the third try, without warming up on an easier level. Once it was beaten, it felt so anticlimactic that I put the game down and haven’t touched it in days. I may still have a soft spot for EBA and Ouendan in my heart, but until the Ouendan sequel comes out, there won’t be a lot of iNiS games in my DS.  

My friend with a DS stuck around for a while after we played Elite Beat Agents. We had the chance to check out a few other DS games on multiplayer, including Super Mario Bros.

It should come as no surprise that I failed pretty miserably at this, especially considering that I’ve never made it far enough to save. My friend has been a Mario fan for quite some time, so he had an enormous advantage. The premise of the multiplayer is to get as many stars as possible (up to a certain number you set). You play as either Luigi or Mario and you can make the other character drop their stars in a number of ways, some of which are jumping on them, hitting them with fireballs, or smacking into them when you have a turtle shell power-up.

I spent most of the game trying to avoid losing my stars, as I was in no position to go on the offense. I ran around the tiny level with wild abandon and killed myself more times than I’d like to admit. However, I did accidentally stumble upon one surprising moment of offensiveness. This occurred when I got my first turtle power-up. I never thought much of power-ups at that point since seemed to get hit or die so quickly that I lost them in a matter of seconds. By this time, I had been playing for several minutes and managed to stay alive long enough to ask my friend how to turn into a turtle. I figured it out, and soon I was sliding back and forth in a lowered area.

My friend, playing as Mario, soon tried to pass through this area but I, as a turtle, was simply too fast for him. I was able to hold him off for a bit, sliding back and forth and hitting him over and over again. He dropped quite a few stars, but he was more agile that I was and so he got most of them back. Soon, he came back with his own turtle power-up and the game was over before long.

I really enjoyed playing Super Mario Bros. with my friend. It was one of those instances where you get really engrossed in a game, simply because you believe you must survive. Even if my Mario skills were lacking, I went on the defense and did my best to keep on going. My friend did go easy on me, certainly helping to stretch the game out, but I have to admit it certainly made the game more fun. I really love playing with someone else because you can create such original experiences. It was much more fun for me to tackle my friend when I was a turtle than to kill some mindless enemy, knowing that my friend had been beating me by quite a large margin for most of the game. Maybe the game does not matter. In this case, it was my fellow player who made it fun.  

I was really excited when I finally got together with a friend who had a DS. I’d heard about the wireless capabilities and how you could play games together, but I never was able to experience it until recently. I have to admit it was even more fun than I expected.

I was most eagerly anticipating the chance to test out the Elite Beat Agents multiplayer mode. I had tried playing in versus ghost mode, where you play against your saved replay of the same level. It was frustrating when you did worse than the replay, because your buttons would shrink and you screen would shake to make it more difficult. This concept seemed odd to me; the game didn’t seem to follow a “beat you when you’re down” philosophy in the story mode. While this feature was the same in the two-player versus mode, it was not nearly as fun as when I was playing with someone else.

Most of my gaming is an independent experience, so I’m sure that the rare opportunity to play a traditionally single-player game with someone else made me like it from the start. I had forgotten what it was like to be able to share my triumphs and defeats with someone. When you scream, “Oh crap! I missed one!” someone actually reacts to you. It’s no longer just about you; it’s a friendly competition where you have to pay attention to the other person.

While it was somewhat amusing to hear “Oh no! I keep missing a bunch in a row because my buttons keep getting small,” I do like my friend and felt bad that he had spent less time with the game. This meant that, while some competitions were close, he had more small button occurrences than I did. Instead of allowing us to have a fun, close match, it would keep him behind if he slipped back a bit. The same happened to me on a couple occasions and I remember feeling like a sore loser because the game seemed to hold me behind.

After both of us grew somewhat frustrated by this situation, we switched to co-op mode. The two players mostly take turns on the level, with a couple instances where you play simultaneously. It was so much more fun. We could laugh about our bright moments and not so bright moments at the end when the score screen showed each of our health graphs. I really enjoy co-op games in general because it brings both people together. You cheer for each other and focus on what they do right, rather than hoping they’ll do something wrong.

I was really satisfied with the Elite Beat Agents multiplayer mode. While it is not something that I could play for hours, it is certainly a fun new way to play the game. I especially enjoyed playing with a friend who was close to my skill level, making the co-op mode a more balanced experience. I hope I can play it more in the future.  

When I discovered that I was sick this weekend, it was not necessarily the end of the world. After all, “taking it easy” meant that I could game for hours on end. That sounds great, right? Unfortunately, the games I’ve been playing recently (with the exception of Elite Beat Agents and Ouendan) haven’t been able to grab me. I’m still searching for the next Okami, Final Fantasy VIII or original Kingdom Hearts. I want a game I can really sink my teeth into for 50+ hours and make it my own. While I really love the DS, I haven’t found a game yet that can provide that type of immersive experience.

I like to think I'm a forgiving person when it comes to games, and I really wanted to give Final Fantasy XII another shot. I had similarly hated the constant movies in Final Fantasy X, but after playing past the ten-hour mark, it got better. It may have just been that I was finally used to the characters and had enough invested in the game at that point that I grew to like it. However, I hope that wasn’t the case and ended up playing FFXII for several hours, hoping it, too, would get better.

I was at a point in the game where I could run around and fight for several hours. I fought monster after monster, getting battle chains of 36 enemies or more so I thought I would get some great items. I then went to sell my items at a shop (since that’s how you make a large portion of your money, as enemies don’t drop much money). I was so excited because I had fought for nearly two hours straight and had leveled up my characters to the point where they finally surpassed the level of my guest character. I was so happy because I finally had enough money to upgrade my weapons.

I was able to afford new weapons for most characters…except one. I then discovered that, not only did I not have enough to upgrade everyone’s weapons, but I also had forgotten about armor upgrades and regular items. Even when I sold my old weapons I barely had enough and then there were still some vital spells I had to buy. Once again, I was back where I started. I needed money but there was no fast way to get it. Even fighting didn’t help that much, because you spend so much time fighting that your stats seem to increase before you could buy a weapon that would do the same thing. I wouldn’t be so upset if I wasn’t so frugal with my money. I hardly ever use items if I can help it, to the point where I consistenyl endanger my party due to low MP. Yet I still never seem to have enough money.

To make it worse, I’m not too happy with the license board character improvement system. I wasn’t fond of Final Fantasy X’s sphere grid, but at least characters would be on certain tracks that would turn them into more of a healer or a warrior or a black mage. With this game, I have to spend a ridiculous amount of time peering at tiny print in my strategy guide's license board, trying to figure out who should learn what. I think this is a case when there are just too many choices. Every character can learn everything and I really don’t think that should be the case. When you have six characters, it makes sense that they should specialize. So why aren’t there more licenses in the magic section that increase MP or evasion? Why is it that you can have everyone as a melee fighter and a ranged fighter? This method is very expensive, as you have to keep so many types of weapons on hand. It just takes way too much effort to try to outfit everyone so they are balanced fighters and mages. I really get frustrated with this system, as I feel I have too little direction.

Finally, I was aggravated to unlock new “quickenings” (like limit breaks in previous final fantasies) and discover no help at all in how to use them. I skimmed through the section in my strategy guide before the boss fight and it seems like something terribly complicated with buttons and timing. All the game needs is a mini interactive tutorial on quickenings. It would take two minutes of our time and yet the game just leaves you hanging.

I think it’s time to take another break from FFXII. Between the stupid movies (where they say phrases such as “manufacted nethicite” in every other sentence) and the frustrations in the economy and leveling system, there is little to enjoy. I have a couple of the older final fantasies, and it may be time that I replayed them to rediscover my love of RPGs. I really miss that case of game addiction. I just can’t stand the thought of playing FFXII again, only to discover more and more issues that make it feel like I’m wasting my time for nothing.  

I have already proclaimed my unabashed love for Elite Beat Agents (EBA), so it should come as no surprise that Osu! Tatake! Ouendan! found its way into my mailbox. As the original Japanese game that inspired EBA, Ouendan has been critically acclaimed and developed a large fan base, both in its native Japan and foreign countries. I couldn’t wait to try it out.

When I began on the easiest level, I was a little surprised. Like EBA, it was hard when it was too slow (you have to concentrate to hit the sparse buttons, a drastic change from the more constant buttons that practically keep the tempo of the later levels). However, the overall pacing of the difficulties was much, much better. Levels progressed at an accelerated rate to that of the Westernized EBA. While it may be challenging for the new player, I felt that there was less of a plateau in difficulty among the levels. While in EBA there would seem to be a couple easy songs and many harder songs (in each of the four difficulty levels), Ouendan provided levels that progressed more steadily. As a player (and an EBA veteran), I felt respected. The game adjusts to the player’s rising skill, making it more fun.

Also high on the fun factor were the charts themselves. By charts, I mean the layout and pacing of the touch buttons and other devices during the songs. They were laid out in such a way so that they were not frustrating (such as not placing buttons all the way across the screen so you have to rush over to that spot) but high on the fun factor (such as laying out a string of buttons for a fun little drum solo). Perhaps it was the songs themselves, as many felt more like dance songs than those in EBA. Overall, there were fewer tricky rhythms to stumble over (like triplets in even time signatures) and the beat patterns fit the songs really well.

One you get past the fantastic gameplay, the main difference between EBA and Ouendan is the language. Ouendan is in Japanese. While I know some Japanese, I cannot read most of this game. The stories are still fairly easy to figure out from the pictures alone, but it appears the there are some stories that I may not understand due to language and/or cultural barriers. Keiichi Yano described how he changed the stories entriely for EBA because some problems just don’t suit Western audiences, such as the student having trouble focusing to study for an important exam. I have to admit, I found the stories for EBA to be much easier to relate to, perhaps because I’d seen stories like them so many times (the oil tycoon falls from power, the stealthy ninja steals secret plans, the lost puppy must find his way home).

Considering that I skip past most of the story animation after watching it once or twice, I really believe that the gameplay is the most important aspect of these iNiS games. If I had to pick between the two, I’d say Ouendan is definitely the more solid of the two and more fun in terms of gameplay. However, I’d definitely recommend Elite Beat Agents to most of my friends first since it is much more accessible. I am really glad that I played EBA first because it seems less difficult in general, making Ouendan quite a treat.  

I have the privilege of living in university-owned housing, meaning we have a ridiculous amount of fire drills. From smoking in the stairwell to hanging coat hangers on sprinkler heads, the silliest actions can cause everyone to evacuate the building at odd hours of the day. So I thought it was no big deal when the fire alarm scared me half to death last Sunday afternoon. I grabbed my DS Lite and a handful of games, heading out for what I hoped would be a normal 20-minute exercise in patience.

I wasn’t able to touch my DS for the first 20 minutes I spent outside. My mother called on my cell phone and I felt slightly disappointed, as homework awaited me inside. However, we did not get let back in after 20 minutes. I started up the DS and played a little Mario Kart. I really wanted to play Elite Beat Agents, but I didn’t want to disturb the other residents nearby with some of the mediocre covers of decent songs.

Unfortunately, Mario Kart was a lot less fun outside. I was doing okay for a while, but the bright California sun was washing out my screen, even on the brightest setting. I think part of it was due to the relatively low contrast of the game, since most of the colors are equally bright. It got practically unplayable when I was racing in Luigi’s Mansion. I couldn’t tell a shadowed door from a solid wall, getting me turned around entirely and causing me to come in at 5th place.

At this point, I was slightly miffed because I was in first place for the cup before. I still did win the cup (as it was on one of the easiest difficulties), but decided it was time to switch games. I played Super Mario Bros. for a grand total of seven minutes. That was the amount of time it took for me to get a game over and accept that, despite my ineptitude with Mario, it was really hard to see because of the low contrast issue.

I then moved on to Brain Age. I’ve been playing that game for a while and I really enjoy using it to take short study breaks. I love listening to the happy music and solving puzzles. I never really understood Sudoku before playing it in this game but I now it's one of my favorite puzzles. However, my mother called back in the middle of my play session and I turned it off, as you can’t really pause easily in that game.

I was getting pretty anxious now, as we had been outside for nearly an hour and I was getting cold. Also, people had begun sneaking back in the building at this point so there weren’t that many of us left outside, preferring not to commit a federal crime by re-entering the building. I turned to Elite Beat Agents, hoping that my recent favorite would help me feel better. Unfortunately, this was also a bit hard to see and I was self-conscious about the music. Finally, I turned off the DS and stood around like everyone else.

While my DS did help to stave off my boredom for a while, I felt that my anxiousness regarding the fire drill prevented me from truly appreciating any of the games. Also, the sun made it difficult to see many of the bright, happy games (like the Mario games). I have certainly played my DS for an hour at a time, but I find that many of the games lend themselves to shorter play sessions. If I learned anything that day, it’s that the DS may not perform the best outside, but it is certainly handy when you’re stuck outside your building.  

My Grandma loves to ask questions. When I saw her over spring break, she asked me all about games. I happily told her all about the industry, the many different consoles, and how I hope to produce games. She was a very good listener, but she also loves it when I can show her what I’m doing. So it only seemed natural that I should show her my DS.

I first showed my grandparents Elite Beat Agents because I had been telling them how much I enjoyed it. I felt that this game would be a good way to demonstrate the touch screen capabilities of the DS. Also, my grandparents hadn’t seen many rhythm games. They thought Elite Beat Agents was really neat. They were impressed by how far the technology has come and the tiny size of the cartridges. However, they didn’t show any interest in playing.

Fortunately, my grandma is a huge fan of Sudoku. She’s been doing those puzzles for over a year – she’ll get books of them or print them off the internet. I brought Brain Age with me and have really enjoyed playing the virtual Sudoku. I thought my grandma might like to see it since it has a lot of neat features, such as writing in possible numbers and being able to erase them just as if you had a pencil.

My grandma got very engrossed in Sudoku on my DS. She was a little confused at first since it would sometimes misread her numbers. Once she understood how to make her numbers easily readable by the touch screen, she was totally focused. The woman who had once been leading the conversation dropped out entirely, only making comments like “Oh no! I lost!” She is a good Sudoku player, but she made more mistakes than usual due to the DS misreading her handwritten numbers.

It was pretty amusing to watch my grandma play the DS. She looked incredibly distraught when she lost. Although the game would play happy music, she was upset because “It says I failed in those big black letters!” However, this did not stop her from trying again and she quickly beat a level.

One puzzle was enough for my grandma, but I was really glad that she took the time to sit down with a new piece of technology. She wants to be a part of my life, and I really appreciate how she put a real effort into learning about new types of games. She is pretty tech-savvy for a grandma and I hope she will continue playing games to stay sharp.  

I finally beat Elite Beat Agents (EBA) today. Last night, I played the second stage of the final level (set to "Jumpin’ Jack Flash") for about an hour before I beat it. This morning, I unlocked the final bonus level and beat it on all four difficulties.

What does it mean to beat a game? In many of the games I beat, you get a nice little movie and that ties up the story. EBA had a small movie where the agents helped save the world and everyone was happy. It sounds typical enough, but EBA is very different from a game with a more linear narrative.

EBA rewards players in a different way – it has unlockables that are present in so few games that I’ve beaten. I have to admit, it’s very satisfying to mark your progress in an episodic game with milestones such as increasing rand and new difficulty levels. Although this game took relatively little time to beat, I found my confidence increasing and I felt like an Elite Beat Diva by the end.

After finishing EBA, I wondered how much more I would play it. I did go back to increase my score and unlock the final bonus level. I after beating every level on every difficulty, I also got access to the character Commander Kahn. I really love this game and I will happily share it with others, but I don’t know if I will have nearly the same devotion to it in the future that I did while I was beating it. I have unlocked most of what I want, and the only way to get points now is to beat my near-perfect scores. That is no small feat, and I have endured much frustration due to the repetition involved getting those scores in the first place.

While some may want to play the game until they have perfect score in everything, I don’t think I’m that type of player. Going back to Richard Bartle’s player types, I think I am an achiever but not in the extreme. I am driven to beat a game I enjoy, but I don’t want to spend hours on perfection. After all, the frustration I would find through going through these levels over and over again just to get a certain score do not make it worth my time.

However, I would highly recommend this game to almost anyone who owns a DS. I really enjoyed its originality and excellent understanding of design for a portable console. I love it so much, in fact, that I am considering getting the imported original version. Perhaps I’ll have it finished by the time the newly-announced sequel is released.  

I have never owned a Nintendo console until I purchased my Wii last December. I feel a little bit embarrassed to admit it, especially when many of my gamer classmates all have fond memories of Mario and Zelda. They can go on and on for hours, talking about their favorite Super Smash Bros. tournaments or nodding knowingly at someone’s Mario shirt. I wondered about this secret club of Children Who Grew Up with Nintendo and hoped to someday understand.

Perhaps that was why I decided to try playing the old-school Super Mario Bros. I loaded the game up and pressed all the buttons, trying to figure out what to do. I figured out how to move forward and jump, and did okay for a little bit. Then I found a nice chasm and seemed to have a magnetic attraction to it. If falling off a cliff didn’t killed me, I seemed to accidentally hit some random googly-eyed enemy within seconds. I had to admit the hopeless truth: I was a Mario Moron. I couldn’t even make it past the first level.

I quit the Super Nintendo game in frustration, hoping that failing at Mario didn’t mean that I was a failure as a gamer. I hoped to someday conquer it, but I didn’t try again until recently, with the New Super Mario Bros. for DS. I had originally seen this game last May while I was in Japan. The DS Lite had just been released there, and I would often see the commercial for New Super Mario Bros. on the train. It showed a young Japanese woman sitting on her bed at home, talking to the game as she played. I thought it was neat that they showed a girl playing, but it didn’t make me want a DS. I thought they were nice, but why would I want something so small? I changed my mind recently and haven’t regretted my choice.

New Super Mario Bros. was the second game I got for the DS. I had heard great things about it, and I was excited to play. I started the game and soon had difficulty getting past the first level. Again. I now owned the game, and I didn’t want to give up so easily. I took my DS with me later that day when I my sister and I were getting haircuts. After I had my hair done, I sat by the front desk, playing Mario with ridiculously good-looking hair. One of the other stylists sat near me and snuck a few peeks at my game. I’m sure he must’ve thought I was a little odd.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get very far in the game, but I did get past the first level. I figured out a few things, like when to jump to kill enemies and how the physics change when you grow or shrink. I made it past the first two or three levels, but that wasn’t enough to save. I was frustrated because I couldn’t save after each level. I should probably just read the manual, but I still don’t know how to save. I’m hoping that, when I get better, I will earn the privilege to save.

I haven’t played Mario much since that day at the salon. After becoming obsessed with Elite Beat Agents, I think it will be hard for me to play much else until I’ve completed that game. The only reason I brought Mario to the salon instead of Elite Beat Agents was the fact that Mario didn't need any sound to succeed. I think it just requires more patience and perseverance on my part. I hoping that, if I stick with Mario a little longer, someday I will no longer be a Mario Moron.  

After playing Elite Beat Agents at D.I.C.E., I decided that it was finally time to buy myself a Nintendo DS. Of course, I tried out my DS with that very game. Since the day I got my DS, I’ve suffered from a case of Elite Beat Addiction.

I’ve never had a handheld console (unless you count those silly one-game devices from the early 1990’s). I thought that they weren’t as good as “real” consoles because the games were often less serious and much shorter. Fortunately, I was wrong. The DS has a wide variety of games that I am very excited to play. It is highly portable as well, meaning I can game on the go. It has also drastically changed my gaming habits in the last week.

One of the greatest advantages of the DS Lite is its size. I cautiously stuck it in my school bag a couple of days ago and found myself pulling it out to play between classes. This method of breaking up my play sessions was very helpful for beating the Elite Beat Agents on the first difficulty level. It took me several tries, but the shorter sessions were much easier on my brain and hands.

Part of the charm of Elite Beat Agents is in the songs. They’re really catchy and most of them are very fun to play. I was playing a punk song on the second difficulty level and it was so fast that I couldn’t think. I just had to go with the rhythm. Experiences like that allow me to internalize the music and make the game my own. I will never hear those songs again without thinking of Elite Beat Agents.

You know you’re addicted to a game when it begins creeping into other areas of your life. I find myself singing the songs from the game as I get ready in the morning. Then I listen to those songs on my way to class. When I am in class, I sit there, thinking, “I’d really like an Elite Beat Agents break right now.” It is now one of the first things I do when I come home.

After so many disappointments in games lately, it has been great to find a new game to obsess over. I used to come home and play RPGs for an hour or two. Now, Elite Beat Agents has helped me rediscover the joy of daily gaming. Even if I don’t have a large block of time, I can still play my DS.  

I had the privilege of going to the D.I.C.E. Summit this year. (It’s basically a video game conference and awards show hosted by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.) I helped out behind the scenes as an intern and got to see a lot of cool things. One of them was the game Elite Beat Agents, developed by iNiS.

I had never heard much about Elite Beat Agents or iNiS before D.I.C.E. What I did know was that there was a speaker from Japan. He had made a game I had heard of (Guitaroo Man) and this other game, Elite Beat Agents. I didn’t really know what Elite Beat Agents was about, but one of the other interns at D.I.C.E. had a DS and let me play their copy.

I wasn’t expecting much, but I really liked this game. It was a rhythm game, which is one of my favorite genres. Unlike tradition rhythm games, however, you got to touch the screen in the right place at the right time (instead of just hitting the right button at the right time). It was interactive in a new way, and had fun extras like spinning wheels and good stories.

I was really impressed by the stories, especially since each was very short and very simple. Regular problems, such as a lost puppy or putting kids to sleep, were shown in cute little manga-style sequences. The sounds were great and the scenes were short and sweet. There was a good bit of creativity involved as well, such as having animals or former enemies dancing with the protagonists of the stories. After talking again and again about cutscenes in my classes, I was very impressed by the concise stories in this game. They were simple, fun, and, most importantly, could be skipped easily (a great feature when replaying levels).

Fortunately, I was able to sit in on Keiichi Yano’s speech. He feels that music and games are naturally suited to each other. His presentation emphasized the idea that harmonies and dissonances in music can easily accompany tension and release in stories. He was a charismatic speak with simple but effective ideas. I really enjoyed his presentation.

After the session was over, I had the opportunity to talk to Keiichi Yano. I told him how much I enjoyed his game. I also explained how refreshing it was to play a game with such simple, effective stories. My fellow intern and fan of Elite Beat Agents got his copy of the game signed. Keiichi Yano seemed like a really neat person, and I was so grateful that I had been able to play Elite Beat Agents earlier. If not, I would have missed out on something really special.