[Sangokushi Taisen DS] Fun with the Elephants

So for the first few weeks, I really couldn't figure out a good way of using the elephants. That changed when I discovered this card.

This card has a skill that costs only 3 morale units. The speed and attack will increase dramatically when this skill is used. But it will only move in a straight line and is uncontrollable for a moment.

So what's the use? Now you put this card close to your castle wall horizontally in battle. When there is enemy units crawling near your wall, deploy the skill of this card and sit back and relax. The elephant will push the enemies away from the wall. It will sweep across your wall area and when it reaches one end, it will go back and charge towards the other end. If you place the card near the one end when you use this skill, you can at least swap the wall area three times for the duration of it. And since the attack of the card is also significantly increased, it can really hold its own ground while clearing the enemies off the gate. And since the card can be positioned close to your own wall, you can thus recover its hit point fairly easily. It is a great and fun way for defense.

[Populous DS] Back of the Game Box

This is the back of the Game Box.



The official release date is this Friday. Enjoy!!

DS Game Sales Data in Japan

According to Famitsu, the 5th best selling game in Japan from 2/4/2008 to 2/10/2008 is "Mario and Sonics at the Olympic Games" with over 24,000 copies sold during that period. The accumulated sales number over 200,000.

A new adventure game called "L the Prologue to Death Note Rasen No Wana" came in at 7th. In case you don't know, "Death Note" is a very popular comic in Japan. It talks about a notebook dropped by demon. The owner of the notebook can write any person's name on it and that person will die. One of the most outstanding characters is "L". He is a genius detective who vows to find out the killer behind the large amount of unknown deaths of criminals. And the real killer is actually the owner of the "Death Note". "L" wins over many comic fans with his genius way of solving problems and eccentric behavior. This game is actually about a side story centered around him and it has no relationship with "Death Note" at all.

Mario Party DS came in at ninth. It is going strong and had sold 1.5 million copies already in Japan.

In this reported week, 3 game from DS is in the top 10 spots. 11 of the top 30 game sales spots belong to DS games while 7 belong to Wii games.

[Populous DS] More Details

There are more details revealed from the site.

There will be 5 gods for the player to choose. Each of them is represented by one of the 5 elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Wind & Wood. Each elemental god can perform a miracle that can be game changing when done at the right time. The following links contain movies of the animation of the miracle performed by the gods.

- Earth

- Wind

- Water

- Fire

- Wood

At the end of the battle, the player can wage war against his enemy with his whole population. This is called the "Armageddon" and the outcome will be determined by the prosperity of the populations.

On each map, there will also be an "Opportunity Egg". Upon finding this egg, various miracles or monsters can appear. The weaker players can turn things around when they touch this egg.

There are a number of different game modes available. Challenge mode is actually the story of the game and the player must play many stages to clear this mode and view the whole story. Free play mode allows player to use the unlocked god and different settings to play a game. The gallery will contain information about the gods and the demons in the game. There will also be a VS mode in which 4 persons can play against each other through the wireless connection. There will also be a mini-game called "Find the Warrior" inside a specific map when the player is using a specific population.

There are a tons of maps for the players to play on - grassland, snow, near a volcano. There are also a bunch of funky maps like, horrow show, Mars, hanging garden, as well. Check it out here.

[Mushishi] Video Clip

Some Translations:

- You can choose to be a boy or girl

- You can collect Mushi(s)

- You can increase experience points by recording the Mushi

- There are more than 100 different Mushi(s)

- You can create your own name as your emblem

- You can challenge the original story

- The main character, Ginko & Tanyu, will be in the game

- There are many information collected from the comics for your viewing pleasure.

[Hokuto no Ken] Details on the Special Edition Keychain

I actually bought the special edition of the game and it comes with a special gift. I talked about this gift before and you can look up the details here. But check out the actual size of this thing. It is huge and thick! Probably too large as a keychain. But may be good as an ornament on your bag.


Also there is a demo version of the game. Here is the link.

[Houkago Shounen] Introduction

This is an adventure game from Konami. The game web site is here.

The game is set in 1970s in a small city block in Japan. The main character's name is Osamu. He is going to move to a new school in a month. Each day he needs to go to school and he has to go back home at night. And the game play is centered around his adventure after school for this last month. He can visit places, interact with other characters and play mini-games.

The one thing that immediately gets my attention is the music. It is so nostalgic. You can hear the theme song from the game web site.

Here is a video clip of the game.

DS Game Sales Data in Japan

According to Famitsu, the 9th best selling game in Japan from 1/28/2008 to 2/3/2008 is "Mario and Sonics at the Olympic Games" with over 30,000 copies sold during that period. The accumulated sales number over 170,000.

Mario Party DS came in fourteen. It is going strong and had sold 1.5 million copies already in Japan.

In this reported week, the top spots all belong to Sony and Microsoft games. Super Smash Bros for Wii did come in first and Wii Fit came in fifth. Only 1 game from DS is in the top 10 spots. 11 of the top 30 game sales spots belong to DS games while 8 belong to Wii games.

A real hidden gem is "Houkago Shounen". It came in at number 22. There is a lot of praise for this game.

[Hokuto no Ken] First Impressions

I actually got this game while travelling in Hong Kong on 02/10. A whole four days before its official release (02/14). I asked the salesman and they said the shipment is always made much earlier than the official release date and they really don't bother to keep the official relase date from the publisher.

Anyway, this game is quite awesome. It follows the story of the comic in the most faithful way. I finished the first two episodes already. The first one is about the introduction of Ken Shio and the second is about his encounter with King. I found that you have to follow the story very closely because the tapping can really happen at any time. And some of the tapping can be quite tricky. However, it does merge faithfully with the story and the kungfu style of the comic.

There is another mode in which the player can use the wireless connection to play some tapping challenges against another player. Also there are character info and famous dialogs to unlock as well.

The only problem I have is that the first two episodes are quite easy. I hope the pace will pick up a little bit more in the later episodes. Another problem is that blood and violence are really the trademark of this comic. And this game is really trying to block them all out. I know that it might not be too good for some of the kids to see all these violent behaviors but still it is like chicken noodle soup without the noodle.

[Sangokushi Taisen DS] Sangokushi Taisen 3 !!!

The latest version of the popular Sangokushi Taisen game is out on arcade in Japan. You can check out the web site here. The game play of Sangokushi Taisen 3 is basically the same. But a new type of card called the "Strategist Card" is added. Also all the cards will be regrouped into just 4 factions: Wei, Shu, Wu and Other. Finally the cards will have a new attribute that can change the power of the strategy that you choose at the beginning of each battle.

The records and the weapons you collected in Sangokushi Taisen 2 can be reused. Also you can reuse some of the cards in the previous version as well. I hope I can see a DS version soon within this year. But currently there is nothing yet confirmed on the NDS platform.

DS Game Sales Data in Japan

According to Famitsu, the 2nd best selling game in Japan from 1/14/2008 to 1/20/2008 is "Mario and Sonics at the Olympic Games" with over 90,000 copies sold during that period.

Mario Party DS came in third. It is going strong and had sold 1.5 million copies already in Japan.

"Layton Kyouju to Akuma no Hako" came in 7th. I have a brief game guide here. There is a link to the web trial version of the game as well.

15 of the top 30 game sales spots belong to DS games while 6 belong to Wii games. 9 of the top 10 games belong to Nintendo platforms.

[Populous DS] Highly Anticipated!!

Populous is very influential strategy game in the 90s. In this game, the player played as a god and the goal is to grow a civilization with divine intervention and manipulation. The objective is to conquer another civilization controlled by the enemy god.

The game will be published by EA in Japan on 02/21/2008. The official game site is here. You can find some screen shots here. There is also a promotional movie here

In this game, you can choose to be one of the five elemental gods (wind, wood, water, fire, earth) before each stage. Each element is strong against one other element and weak against another element. Each elemental gods can also perform different miracles during the game. According to the site, the game supports up to 4 players through download play. But unfortunately there will be no wifi play. Check out some of the screen shots here.

[Nodame Cantabile] A Decent Rhythm Game

This game is based on a popular manga about a talented guy dreaming of becoming a conductor and a weird girl crazy about playing the piano. The manga is so popular that they made a TV drama out of it as well. You can find the DVD box set of whole 11 episodes of the TV drama here

Here is how the game box looks like:

The game is basically a music rhythm game. The player is presented with a map that he can tap on. Tapping on a "Bear" icon will go into a rhythm game. Tapping on other icons will unlock new songs or other hidden items like character info, song info and composer info. There are also a number of mini-games that are related to the story of the manga.

The game official web site is here. There is also a trial version of the game on Yahoo! Japan. It can be found here.

The game is awfully short and the game play is not as sharp and accurate as other music rhythm games you can find on NDS. Only the die-hard fans of the manga will truly enjoy this title.