I wasn't wild about the idea of playing Final Fantasy games on the DS. I had tried out Final Fantasy III DS a few months ago and quit after finding it incredibly difficult. I prefer to have my DS experiences tailored to the size of the console and its portable nature.

I recently found myself restless on an airplane. A friend had lent me Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates, so I decided to check it out. I was soon so engrossed in the game that I refused to properly shut it down for landing, and instead just shut my DS. I picked it up a short while later and eagerly finished my level.

Ring of Fates took me completely by surprise. It was remarkably similar to one of my favorite DS games, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. The are several Zelda-inspired puzzles, and much of the gameplay takes place in dungeons. The combat is mostly real-time hack-and-slash with a bit of spell casting, which reminded me of Kingdom Hearts. There was a real sense of adventure and exploration, as I was playing as a small boy out to save the world.

While I have had my fair share of complaints about child characters in video games, Ring of Fates fortunately avoids many of those pitfalls. The child protagonists are cute without being annoying, and I actaully began to like them. There is a natural chemistry between the boy and his twin sister that rides the line between rivalry and friendship.

The art style is well-suited to the DS. Like Final Fantasy III, there are some lovely FMV videos, but most of the game is in a lower resolution 3D style. The avatars are cute in their small scale, and the artists managed to put in large amount detail on many of thier outfits. The medieval setting seemed well-suited to the story and the characters.

Gameplay was enjoyable overall, but I did find a couple of weaknesses. Although the levels were scaled well and had a good sense of pacing, the game is in an isometric perspective. This can get confusing, as the D-pad controls your movement (which doesn't always match up with the perspective) and the maps are also in a square overhead view. It took me a little while to get used to the navigation in the game.

I've really enjoyed playing Ring of Fates. I'd like to see more of it, and I hope that it can be as much fun as Phantom Hourglass. It has certainly shown promise so far, largely due to the fact that the developers understood the scale and potential of the DS.  

I was really excited to check out Hotel Dusk. After watching a friend play it, I was intrigued by the art style. The box described the game as an "interactive mystery novel" and, unfortunately, they take the "novel" part quite seriously.

As an avid RPG fan, I'm no stranger to large blocks of text and dialogue. In fact, narrative is one of my favorite parts of RPGs. However, narrative at the expense of gameplay throws a game far out of balance. Hotel Dusk does just that. The game is weighed down by long conversations that offer only a few choices with seemingly little influence on the world. Most of the gameplay involved clicking through rooms, tedious searching of rooms, and looking for the person that would start my next lengthy dialogue.

On the rare occassion when I got to solve a puzzle, I often had trouble recognizing the situation. I often had to look online for help, as I was completely stuck. How was I to know that a utility closet which was locked the last four times I checked suddenly opened? And how was I supposed to know that there was a tool in that closet that I could use to cut off a length of a coat hanger firmly rooted to my closet? And then I was magically supposed to assume that I could use this to unlock a briefcase. The puzzles are mostly like the one I described - intensely elaborate and complicated. The people around were clueless to my problems and failed to offer any hints. Puzzle solving became a tedious endeavor in which I had to search through every room in the hotel again, engage each person in repetitive dialogues, and wonder why the logical answers never seem to be the right ones.

I really wanted to like this game, as it had a gorgeous art style and an interesting premise. However, this game is much more a novel than a game, and a boring novel at that. If solving mysteries in real life is this tedious, then perhaps it's good I'm not a detective.  

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’m not a huge fan of RTS games, but I had heard good things about Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings. “It’s not exactly an RTS,” my friend said. “It’s fun and I think you’d like it.” After that, it was hard to say no.

I really enjoyed the first few hours of Revenant Wings. I had grown frustrated with its PS2 RPG predecessor but this DS spinoff was something quite different. It was basically a scaled-down RTS with an FFXII theme. The short mission structure was well suited to my sporadic play sessions on the DS. Since it wasn’t a traditional RPG, the characters didn’t have to be as deep and I could overlook my previous disappointments in the character development. They were cute in their small, retro style and managed to look good despite the limited capabilities for in-game graphics. The entire game was simpler, making it more accessible for a portable game. The brief text and simplified menus kept me focused on the solid missions.

The missions were straightforward and fairly simple to complete. I had no trouble getting past most of them on the first or second try, until one ridiculous side mission. I had been doing all the side missions to level up my characters to prepare for the main story missions. The side mission I got stuck on should have been straightforward. Your team is supposed to capture spawn points. Those areas then become spawn points for your team so you can mobilize forces closer to the other team’s base. Then you can then attack the other team’s hero spawn crystal and kill their heroes once and for all.

I had completed missions like this before with minimal trouble. For some odd reason, I kept getting stuck on this one. I would always be able to get up to the other team’s base, but their two spawn points and hero spawn crystal were a tough combination. One of their heroes would fall. One of my heroes would fall. My team would capture a spawn point. While I was attacking another of their heroes, they’d take the spawn point back. It turned into a stalemate where their heroes would respawn and my heroes would respawn. It seemed as if my team was stronger, but the time it took for my fallen heroes to respawn and return to battle was balancing our sides.

I fought and fought, hoping that I could gain an advantage with gutsy moves. This only led to retreats for my side and I made no progress. However, I wasn’t losing much ground so I continued to play. I played one particular battle while I was on the plane, then while waiting in the baggage claim and on the shuttle ride home. I was so engrossed in the same battle that I almost missed my stop. When I got inside my house, I played for a little while longer and then quit. My stubbornness had kept me in a fruitless battle that was impossible to win.

These types of stalemates are one of the reasons why I avoid RTS games. While Revenant Wings may disguise the troops as cute espers, it’s still an RTS at heart. This does not mean that I will give up. I have enjoyed the rest of the game and it deserves another shot. After all, that mission was just a side mission. The main missions can’t be harder than this.  

It’s been a while since I’ve actually finished a game. Given my academic commitments, a game has to be pretty strong for me to play it through. The fact that The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass was on DS made it much more accessible and I finished it within a month.

I had mentioned in my previous post about Phantom Hourglass how it was relatively easy. It got a little bit more difficult toward the end. Unfortunately, one of the points where I got stuck was when I was stuck in real life in an airport. Stranded without the internet, I called a friend for help and soon figured out what I had been doing wrong. So much of the path in Phantom Hourglass is so straightforward that I got tripped up on something stupid. I had to blow a hole in the wall, but the spot to bomb was somewhat ambiguous. In every other area of the game, the spots to bomb were much more obvious.

Despite a few frustrating inconsistencies, most of the game was fun. The path to completion was fairly linear and I enjoyed playing through to the end. Gadgets were acquired one by one. I loved the puzzles that challenged me to use various gadgets, such as the mouse-shaped bombs that followed paths I drew on the screen.

Given the limited resources and space on a DS cartridge, Phantom Hourglass seemed to be a strong portable experience. Despite the linear path, I still felt a sense of exploration as I continued to visit new islands. The puzzles were clever and varied. The NPCs had personality and quirky backgrounds.

Phantom Hourglass was not without a few flaws. My main complaint and chief frustration was the necessity of revisiting the same temple over and over again. While I could skip certain parts of the level, much of it could still be repetitive. I absolutely hate sneaking around in games, and I had to continue redoing parts where I would sneak around. Also, the money and treasure seemed unbalanced. I found a lot of treasure, but I always had too much money so I never had to sell anything. The treasure was relatively pointless. I had often gone through a frustrating and finicky salvaging minigame to find most of that treasure, so I felt much of my effort was wasted. Finally, there was a possibility to upgrade some abilities, such as adding a shock to my sword attacks. I upgraded a couple abilities but it didn’t make a noticeable difference.

I really did enjoy playing this game. Each dungeon took about 10-20 minutes, which was convenient for short sessions. (However, you cannot save once in a dungeon.) The ending itself was strong and suitable for the game’s theme and story. I enjoyed the characters and the fact that I was a hero. I would recommend this game to people who like creative, engaging adventure experiences in portable form.  

I heard wonderful things about Zack and Wiki, most notably in regards to its innovative puzzles and the return to point-and-click adventure mechanics. Since I grew up with a Mac, I missed the boat on many point-and-click adventures, and I hoped this game would be a fun way to educate myself. While I did learn from Zack and Wiki, the lesson that will likely stick is the scar of its intolerable soundtrack.

Zack and Wiki is full of over-the-top cartoon sounds from the very beginning. While I found it hilarious at first, my good humor wore down after only five minutes. Dialogue is not spoken, but is accompanied by annoying, repetitive sounds. My sidekick, Wiki, would make a high-pitched “Oookiki” sound over and over again. It became very condescending when matched with the tutorial text that made me feel stupid for being a beginner.

While I have very little tolerance for games that belittle the player, especially right at the beginning, there was a plethora of other problems that made Zack and Wiki hard to play. First, the colors were excessively vibrant and felt like a children’s show adjusted to maximum brightness. The graphics of the game looked quite poor on an HDTV and the shortcuts taken in the art cheapened the entire visual style. Cutscenes were way too long and there was simply too much text to wade through. Despite all the dialogue I read, the story was sketchy at best.

As for the click interface, I found it quite limiting. I missed the ability to move freely in an environment. The mechanic where you click where you want your character to go feels outdated. The recent adaptation of this mechanic with the touch screen on the DS is a much more organic use of this type of interface. This leads me to believe that this game would likely be more successful as a DS game. The low-quality graphics and simple puzzles would work better on the small screen. I have found the Wiimote pointer to be much less precise than the DS stylus.

After hearing about the innovative puzzles in Zack and Wiki, I was hoping that it would be fun. Unfortunately, the sound and other shortcomings prevented me from enjoying this game. At its core, however, this game did have spunk. Perhaps it can find a better audience someday with a DS version.  

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.  

I knew very little about Rune Factory until my friend Jettoki began playing it. I teased him about the silly sounds and cute anime style, but he insisted on its merits. I picked it up myself and found that it wasn't what I expected.

Check out our thoughts about Rune Factory on our new blog He Games, She Games.

Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon  

The DS has quickly become my favorite console these days, as it bears little resemblance to the larger systems (like the Wii) that I use at work. On the recommendation of a friend, I picked up Final Fantasy III (FFIII) in the hope that it would provide the same rewarding experiences as the RPGs I had played on larger screens. When Puzzle Quest wasn’t satisfying my need for a deep storyline, I finally decided to check out FFIII.

FFIII immediately reminded me of Chocobo Tales. The touch-screen controls and the character designs were very similar to that other game I enjoyed so much. However, the combat system and extensive menus were as advanced as any other Final Fantasy. I felt at home right away; the blue and white dialogue boxes and menus were a pleasantly familiar sight.

FFIII seemed fairly straightforward, but the winding dungeons and caverns soon drove me to the internet to search for a map. Since this was a DS game, I had thought that I wouldn’t need a strategy guide (unlike every other RPG I had played thus far). My friend had warned me that the game could be difficult, so I was definitely afraid of making a mistake. The random battles occur very often, and being lost for just a few moments can mean the difference between life and death.

I doubt that I will purchase a strategy guide for this game, but it has definitely changed the way that I play it. I tried really hard to take the turns that would lead me to treasure chests, but sometimes I would accidentally advance the game and lose access to those items forever. Strategy guides have so often served as my mentors in those games, allowing me to progress efficiently and remain one step ahead of the enemy. In some ways, it was almost a form of companionship.

In my job, there are no strategy guides. You play the game so many times that you probably learn it better than the author of the guide. However, on a first play-through of the game you may miss some things. Just like the platform I missed week after week, certain secrets may remain hidden from even the most competent testers. When I have played new games, especially on overtime shifts, I have found my fellow testers to be incredible resources. If I get stuck in a certain area for more than five minutes, I’m not afraid to ask for help.

Despite my lack of a strategy guide, I have been having fun with FFIII. It seems to be a strong game with nice graphics and a cohesive storyline. It would be nice if the game were a little more forgiving to those of us who have never played it before, but I can always find help online if I get stuck.  

Playing games all day and getting paid for it seems like a dream come true. Working in video game quality assurance, however, is a different matter. While my QA summer job means that I am testing games all day on the Wii, Xbox 360, or PS2, it is not the dream many would imagine. I play one game almost exclusively during my 40-hour week.

While I am not allowed to reveal details about the title I test, I can admit that it can be beaten almost twice in one day. I do enjoy this game, but continually beating it can take some of the fun out of it. Fortunately, I was placed on this title earlier in the testing process so I have been able to watch it improve. One of the most rewarding parts of my job is reporting a bug and seeing it get fixed. In a small way, I can have a direct impact on making the game better.

One of the strangest things about testing is how you can literally do the same thing every day. When I come home, I can list the same accomplishments (beating the game, collecting all the special items, etc.). What separates the days from each other are the experiences that are generated from gameplay, most prominent in multiplayer testing. Even if I find a seemingly fantastic bug one day, I find that nothing compares to the human element in multiplayer testing.

The addition of only one person can make all the difference. The other player can reveal a new play style, making me more aware of the ingrained habits that limit my ability to test the game for the many different types of players who will play the game. It took me over a month before I was shown a small area that I had never known existed. What was common to the other player was a new discovery to me in the game I thought I knew like the back of my own hand.

After being hired as a tester, I began to fear that this job would forever take the fun away from games for me. I once heard an experienced tester explaining how he had crashed nearly every commercial game he had ever played, including Guitar Hero. While my experience as a tester would only last three months, I still feared that I would become bitter toward games, which are inevitably flawed. Like humans, games are never perfect, and the constant pressure of budgets means that many games are released before they are fully ready.

Now that I have spent a few weeks as a tester, I am happy to find that I still love games. Unfortunately, my desire to play console games has diminished greatly, due to my desire to save the strain on my hands and avoid the monotony of doing something that might feel like my job. I get paid to play parts over and over even if they’re frustrating, and I have no desire to experience similar frustrations at home with other games without getting compensated. Fortunately, my DS still feels like an entirely different experience (as it is a portable console) and I have found that I am still excited to play it once in a while. I only hope that I will still feel that way after several more weeks of testing.  

There are few points in a game like Puzzle Quest where you get so frustrated that you stop playing. My experience fighting Dugog was one such occurrence where I took a break from playing. I had to regroup and develop a strategy.

Before Dugog, I had been following the main storyline and paying little attention to the additional side quests and other opportunities to boost my character. I hadn’t developed my citadel, which allows you to learn spells from captured enemies. Certain spells, such as Regeneration, can become invaluable. It allowed me to cure myself with one simple spell that didn’t change the board at all (unlike the previously earned cure spell).

Initially, Dugog seemed unbeatable. The AI seemed to “favor” him, allowing him to get two or three “4 of a Kind” matches as I watched in distress. Some of my friends shared my frustration – the AI enemies did seem unusually lucky.

However, I soon realized that I could gain a much greater advantage by a perfectly honest method – leveling up. At its heart, Puzzle Quest is largely an RPG, so it is only natural that increasing your characters’ abilities is essential to moving ahead. I stopped ignoring the side quests and soon had a much stronger knight. When there were no more side quests to complete, I decided it was time for a rematch.

It still took me a few tries to beat Dugog, but I was much closer to winning each time. Considering the fact that Dugog was the first major boss, it should come as no surprise that he proved a challenge. I was glad that Dugog was difficult, because he taught me to explore the game and enjoy the journey.  

My family was in town this weekend, as my sister was graduating. They love to ask me questions, especially about the game industry. I have a lot of support from them for my chosen profession, but it is interesting to see how my perceptions have been shaped from a very different society.

I grew up in a time when multitasking was incredibly common, if not required. Often when I play games, I do something else at the same time, such as reading a strategy guide, talking to my sister, or even talking on the phone. I always try to show respect towards the people I am talking to when multitasking, and never attempt to play when someone is having a serious conversation with me.

It did not seem unusual to me to bring my DS to the graduation ceremony. I had to be at school at seven in the morning, a full two hours before the ceremony began. I was tired and cranky. I had had little time to play games in the past few days and my family wasn’t talking to me very much. So I pulled out my DS and began playing Puzzle Quest with the sound off.

Puzzle Quest is the type of game that doesn’t require my full attention every second. I find it relaxing to work through a puzzle while doing something else, like talking to people. Also, I have no time limit for my turns in the game, allowing me to respond to the outside world when I want. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem to play, as I felt I would be a more attentive listener later if I had a little time then to enjoy my game.

Unfortunately, playing my DS caused a fuss. Suddenly I became the center of attention, and all my relatives wanted to talk. I would listen and respond like a normal participant in any conversation, but my family kept teasing me about playing games. “We’ll have to take it away from you,” they joked, even though the half-hour marching of the graduates was still a good 20 minutes away.

I grew frustrated with the lack of acceptance for my game at that particular moment and put it away after only 15 minutes. I began to wonder why I was so frustrated. If my family supported my interest in games, why were they offended that I would take a few minutes to play around them?

I soon realized that my relatives weren’t as familiar with the idea of multitasking. While multitasking has become a necessity for me, the idea that I could play a game and still pay attention to my family was foreign to them. They saw me as actively ignoring them and rightfully felt upset. I realized it was probably a mistake to play in front of them.

However, my sister’s boyfriend understood how I felt. He also has Puzzle Quest, but his version is for the PSP. At one point, we left my sister’s graduation party for a few minutes to see if we could play against each other. Unfortunately, the PSP and the DS are not compatible for wireless multiplayer functions. I had no idea the PSP version was set up so differently but, with only one screen and no stylus, it makes sense that it would look like another game.

I did find some time to play Puzzle Quest later, but it was mainly on my own. People like my sister’s boyfriend understand the desire to play, even in the company of others. Yet many people, like my relatives, have not been around games long enough to see how much they have become a part of our culture and a major component of my life. I hope that someday, in the near future, playing games in public will become mainstream and people will understand the how games can help calm and exercise the mind.  

When my sister, who doesn’t play a lot of games, tells me I should get a game, I tend to believe her. She had tried out Puzzle Quest on her boyfriend’s PSP and had fallen in love with it. She told me I would love it because it was like Bejeweled crossed with an RPG. I was sold. I picked up a copy shortly thereafter.

As I have been actively avoiding Chocobo Tales, I needed something new to play, so I finally opened up Puzzle Quest. I wasn’t impressed by the opening credits (in place of fancy cutscenes), but the game itself was incredibly addicting. I was going to play it as I got my lunch ready, which turned into playing during lunch and for most of the afternoon. Surprisingly, one of my most difficult moments was trying to get past the training level, but I shortly developed a strategy for battles and beat it.

Strategy is a large part of the battles, which are basically puzzles like in Bejeweled. You take turns moving pieces in the puzzle, so you always have to think one or two moves ahead. For example, matching three skulls causes damage, so you have to be careful not to create a match that would allow your enemy to match three skulls on his or her next turn.

However, even the most sophisticated battle strategy can be ruined in an instant due to the large influence of chance in any battle. There are a large number of pieces above the board that fall in as other pieces are matched and removed from the game. These can be in any order, and your enemy can suddenly do massive amounts of damage or get three extra turns in a row despite your best intentions. More clever strategists plan with this sense of chance, such as matching pieces only in certain rows where it is highly unlikely for a large number of skulls to fall into place and harm you.

Puzzle Quest is very engaging and seems well-designed. It is a pared-down RPG that makes a great game for a portable system like the PSP and Nintendo DS. I can pick it up for five minutes and solve a puzzle. Unlike normal RPGs where it’s a hack-and-slash battle, the fighting system is good for my brain. I play Puzzle Quest to relax and take a break. I really enjoy it and I’m excited to see how it progresses as I continue to level up.  

Over the past few days, I have been whipping through Chocobo Tales. I sit down to play one or two mini-games and soon discover that I’ve been playing for an hour. I have been moving the story forward without too much difficulty. That is, until I reached the Boy Who Cried Leviathan.

Most of the mini-games are exceptionally well-paced. I generally like to play mini-games no more than four or five times in order to beat them. This had been the case for most of Chocobo Tales. Only rarely did I find myself shouting at the DS, feeling cheated or angry. There is a large number of mini-games, all of which use only touch controls, so some of the games fit the controls better, making them easier. It reminded me of playing Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz on the Wii. Some things work well with unconventional controls and some just don’t.

One game that is very unusual in its control scheme is the Boy Who Cried Leviathan. The point of the game is to get a far as possible through a tunnel without touching the edges or other obstacles. The premise is that your little chocobo is outrunning a leviathan. However, you cannot control the chocobo's speed, only his depth. You can do this by moving the stylus up and down vertically on the lower screen, while watching the chocobo move through the tunnel on the upper screen.

The controls seemed simple enough and I had few problems with the controls themselves. However, the chocobo was supposed to be underwater, and the simulated physics meant that he sunk gradually which was slow enough to be annoying. Most surprising was the fact that I could not get past this level. I tried again and again, losing over ten times. I had worked my way up through the easier levels, but, for whatever reason, I just had a horrible time with that particular level. I grew so angry that I would turn down the volume right after I lost so I wouldn’t have to hear the chocobo theme in minor yet again. I began to feel that there should be some flexibility in the game, such as allowing you one free pass to skip ahead if there was some mini-game that was giving you an awful time. Each player is naturally going find some games more challenging than others, and it’s aggravating to get stuck on such a trivial level.

Finally, I decided to take a break. I came back about an hour later and beat the level after three tries. My final record was 15 losses, one win. (This was displayed, which didn’t help improve my morale earlier.) I was so excited that I continued forward and played a few more mini-games. However, my patience had worn thin from the frustration of continually losing, so I quit shortly after.  

I had heard of Chocobo Tales before, but the good reviews somehow managed to slip under my radar. However, this game is right up my alley. After all, it is cute, clever, and screamed Final Fantasy. After a friend told me of his interest in this game, Chocobo Tales flew to the top of my list of DS games to buy. Fortunately, I received it from a perceptive friend for my birthday.

The opening movie for Chocobo Tales was short and sweet. The chocobo theme blared out of my little DS and the screens flashed bright, happy colors. The story is rather ridiculous: an ancient book comes to life, as it is inhabited by a demon, and captures chocobos on cards. This ancient book wants to rule the world, with the help of a few bumbling henchmen and an evil girl with cones that resemble party hats sticking out of her head.

After the opening movie, you gain control of the chocobo. The controls consist almost entirely of the touch screen. You move the stylus and the chocobo follows your lead like a lost puppy. From the base world, there are several pictures books into which the chocobo will jump, each leading to a mini-game. I have described before how I have low tolerance for mini-games, and over half of this game was the mini-games.

I found the mini-game format of many of these games to be superior to many I have played before, making Chocobo Tales much easier to enjoy. The mini-games are all split into five levels. Level one could often be beaten with your eyes closed, but the levels become more difficult at a rapid rate. Fortunately, the story can be moved forward most of the time by only passing the third level. I found this to be a great system, since at that point you have played the game once or twice before, improving your skills. Instead of being prohibitively difficult, each mini-game will let you work up to levels to match your ability. For example, if I won an easy race very quickly, I could advance to level three or right away.

After conquering a few mini-games, I encountered a masked moogle. This moogle was pretending to be a superhero. I had never seen anything so silly in a Final Fantasy game, but I thought it was fantastic. Not only was the game about chocobos, but my all-time favorite Final Fantasy characters, moogles, also had a place in the game. This particular moogle explained the fighting system. The combat system is based on cards. One of my friends found it to be similar to Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards. I didn’t have much time to explore it yet, but it seems fun.

I have only played Chocobo Tales for a few hours so far, but it is very engaging. The mini-games seem to be very well-designed, systematically as well as artistically. The mini-games are in a 2D style that suits the game very well. The same style carries through into the battles, where characters jump off the cards into the battle. The rest of the game is 3D, in an anime style like the older Final Fantasies. I am really enjoying the game. It is very fast-paced, and I am looking forward to the hours ahead.  

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.  

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 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.