[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.