DSiWare

[miffy495]

Ok, so I know from the fact that I have it in front of me that I have a DSi. I know from the podcast that Jake has a DSi. I know from talking to him that toblix has a DSi. That seems like enough of a community to at least start a discussion of DSiWare to me. So: What have people bought, and what are you still playing?

Myself, I used my 1000 free points to get WarioWare and Aquia, both of which I played around with for a bit, but then kind of forgot about. Aquia was good, but just not really different enough for it to grab me. WarioWare was fun for a minute but quickly became dull.

So I waited a while, and eventually PictoBits came out. This one has already got some love from Jake, but I'll also state that after picking it up on launch day, it's probably the most played portable game that I have. It's pretty much awesome. If you have a DSi and not this, get it. Dammit, get it. The game part is addictive and can be really difficult. The music is fantastic and the sound test mode keeps playing when you shut your system, meaning you can have it in your pocket with headphones and use it as a portable soundtrack player. I've beaten 22 of the 30 levels included now, stuck on the dark version of world 8. There are 15 levels, and then each level has a dark version as well. The dark version of world 1 is harder than the normal version of world 15, so it's a good idea to do the first 15 and then loop back around for the dark ones. I've also bought every track from the sound test mode except for the plus version of the end credits music. The end credits music, I must add, is worth buying the game for alone. Shit. Just buy this game already. If you're in the market for a DS and are trying to decide which version to get, this game alone would be as persuasive an argument as anyone should need for a DSi.

I also got Mario vs Donkey Kong Minis March Again when it came out on Monday. I've always enjoyed the series, as Nintendo's watered-down answer to Lemmings. It's well made, charming, and overall pretty fun. Not amazingly deep or anything like that, and it's essentially what on any other system would be a DLC pack for Mario vs Donkey Kong 2 from a couple of years ago, but as a game I can jump straight into after booting up my DS, it's nice to have around. It's got about 50 levels in it, and while none of them are particularly challenging, (he says after completing the first 30...) that's a pretty respectable amount for $8.

Finally, I picked up Dr. Mario a few weeks ago. It's fun, but nothing that really bears mentioning as it's still just another version of a game you already know.

So what's the word on some other ones? Who has any of these, or what of other releases like Mighty Flip Champs? Have heard good things about that one, but have yet to try it myself. Now that the system's been out for a couple of months, let's get some talk going on it's exclusives.

[toblix]

I bought PictoBits on your recommendation, and it was pretty awesome. I haven't played it much yet, but I aim to soon.

[shammack]

I guess nobody has a DSi? Well, I'm going to participate in this thread anyway.

It's not really a game, but Flipnote Studio is pretty great. It's a surprisingly full-featured animation studio, and it's free, so there's no reason not to download it if that sounds even remotely interesting. You can upload your animations to the web straight from the DS. Some people have made some pretty impressive stuff with it.

I also just downloaded Art Style: Boxlife the other day and am terrible at it, but it's quite fun.

[Korax]

PictoBits and BoxLife are pretty fun. Doing some of the R&D levels helps to show you all the different shapes that you might not realize will work. Mighty Flip Champs is a cool concept, but I haven't played it enough to see how the game turns out. It could just as easily be an exercise in frustration as a clever puzzle platformer.

I'm on the edge of wishing I hadn't spent the money on it. I have both an original DS and a DS Lite and decided that the DSiWare would be worthwhile enough to justify it, but all the "Express" games and themed clocks have made for a very poor software library.

[miffy495]

I have all of the artsyle games. They're pretty much universally rad, with the only halfway disappointing one being Zengage. Flip Champs kept me interested for a bit, but I stopped playing and haven't felt the urge to go back yet. I really wish they'd put some classic GB games on there already. What they have so far is not a bad catalogue for how long the platform has been around, but with the platform there, why the shit aren't I playing Wario Land 3 yet?

[Korax]

The hope of some sort of "Virtual Handheld" is pretty much the thing that keeps me holding on. The GameBoy was the first real video game system I owned, and it would be awesome to revisit all my old favorites.

[Moelman]

The hope of some sort of "Virtual Handheld" is pretty much the thing that keeps me holding on. The GameBoy was the first real video game system I owned, and it would be awesome to revisit all my old favorites.

This is what I had been hoping for as well, but I feel like it's not going to happen at this point. I know Reggie has said stuff about "we only want games on the DS that take advantage of it's unique features" (or something).

I still have not redeemed my free 1,000 points. I had heard all the Art Style ones were good, but wasn't sure which would be the best so never went for any of them. I'll probably get PictoBits at your recommendation now, and dunno what else but might as well use my points as I've had one since nearly launch.

Overall though, I think it's been an incredibly weak offering on DSiWare. Of course Nintendo likes to think they don't compete with Apple and the App store but people compare the two and even if there is a bunch of crap to sort through in the App store before you find the good stuff, there is such a better catalog of games. And now Sony is going to have the Minis which sounds like a similar service. So Nintendo better get their act together as DSiWare is by far the most disappointing thing about the system when it should have been it's best feature.

[miffy495]

If you have 1000 points to spare, PictoBits and Boxlife are easily the best two things on there. Get them, be happy. Base 10 is also pretty good, but those two are the reason I have some faith in the service to provide awesome things. I think I spent a month doing nothing but play PictoBits, it's that good. Boxlife is just addictive as hell as well. If you already have a DSi, get 'em.

[Fuzzy Lobster]

This might be a dismally stupid question, but how do you redeem your points? I don't see anything in my DSi box that has any details about it.

[miffy495]

I think all you need to do is log on to the store for the first time.

Pro tip for DSi owners. My R button stopped working this evening. I then made a seal around it with my mouth and blew into it like an NES cartridge. The R button now works again. I checked online, and apparently this is the best way to dust it. Nintendo has really gone nuts with the throwbacks lately, and I guess tech fixes were just a continuation of that. All the stuff I found for this online was for the Lite as well, so apparently it's just a thing with DSes. Weird. Still can't believe it worked.

[eljay]

Oh man! I wish I had known that when I had my DS, I thought I had raped the shoulder from excessive jumping in mario kart!

Unofrtunately the DS was later stolen when my house was broken into last year so..... irrelevant now ;;

[Tanukitsune]

*dusts off thread*

Well, since the 3DS eShop is finally online, there are lots of people new to DSiWare, so I thought we should resurrect this thread, so the newcomers can talk about what they've found and liked and so the DSi owners can remember what they liked too!

I already talked about Might Milk Way a bit on the completed games thread, but I'll talk about it a bit more here.

This game if from WayForward, the people how made Shantae and Mighty Flip Champs (which I haven't played yet) and it's about a space girl called Luna who speaks French for some reason? She also is being chased by a cyber space dino that wants to kill her with lasers!

The game has 40 levels, four worlds and 10 stages in each world, the final level being a laser dino level. Your goal is to reach the black hole at the end of the level to escape. Luna can jump from planet to planet, but the planet explodes if you jump on it twice. Bigger planets have higher gravity, so you can only escape from them if you make them explode.

You can also create planets if you pick up candy and as you progress you'll find warp holes, enemies that run around the planets heat seeking enemies and of course, the laser dino levels, which are considered to be the boss levels of the game. These are the most challenging levels since the dino shoots lasers at the planets which makes them explode a few seconds later.

So, what have you guys discovered? Has anybody played Mighty Flip Champs?

[miffy495]

I played a bunch of Mighty Flip Champs when it came out, but like a lot of puzzle-platformers I got frustrated about half way through. My brain just isn't good at wrapping itself around these things, so why I keep buying them I'm not sure. That said, what I did play I enjoyed quite a lot, and if you're looking for something new to download and try on your 3DS, I would recommend it. It's actually the only Way Forward game that I've played, so I can't say how it compares to their other stuff, but it's good.

[Sno]

Metal Torrent and X-scape are two games i would strongly endorse.

Metal Torrent is just a really tightly designed bullet hell game with randomized levels.

X-scape is kind of this incredible, gorgeously stylized open-world Battlezone-style tank game. (It's a sequel to a gameboy game that was never released in America, that is probably best known for the awesome tunes it has representing in the Smash games.)

[Tanukitsune]

Metal Torrent and X-scape are two games i would strongly endorse.

Metal Torrent is just a really tightly designed bullet hell game with randomized levels.

X-scape is kind of this incredible, gorgeously stylized open-world Battlezone-style tank game. (It's a sequel to a gameboy game that was never released in America, that is probably best known for the awesome tunes it has representing in the Smash games.)

Wait, are you talking about that "X" vector game from the people who are making the Pixel Junk games? I didn't know they still made games for Nintendo!

Oh, I should mention the only game I can't really recommend, Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ. It's more of a personal thing, but I hate that the game touts it's awesome powerups, but they are so rare, have almost no ammo and they seem to be almost useless on enemies that are actually a threat to you. The health drops are equally rare that if you combine it with the lack of checkpoints makes this a more frustrating that fun game. The game would be more bearable if it only let me use the power ups more than once in a blue moon.

[miffy495]

Oh yeah, actually that reminds me of another really good one, also from the guys who make the Pixel Junk games (so yeah, they still make things for Nintendo). It's called Trajectile and is crazy good. It's sort of like a combination of arkanoid and puzzle bobble, where you need to properly aim a shot in order to bounce it into certain target bricks and break them. It can get really hard, but is a lot of fun. It's the same kind of addictive as Angry Birds, which I'm just realizing as I'm writing this, but came out earlier. Look into it.

[Sno]

Wait, are you talking about that "X" vector game from the people who are making the Pixel Junk games? I didn't know they still made games for Nintendo!

Yeah, it's from them, Q Games. (Not to be confused with Q Entertainment, another Japanese developer of cool niche games.)

Here's a trailer for X-Scape, since you really kind of need to see it to understand. The visuals are incredibly striking.

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Edit: Since i'm at it, here's Metal Torrent too.

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[Tanukitsune]

It's a good thing we resurrected the thread, since it looks like we're getting nothing new this week (we're only getting Donkey Kong 98' on Virtual Console), so we might as well catch up with what we've missed!

By they way, I've noticed that the DSiWare store has the old Game & Watch games for 2€ each, which is as cheap as a DSiWare title can get?

[miffy495]

Which one is Donkey Kong 98? Is that Donkey Kong Land, or the arcade game?

[Tanukitsune]

It's a Game Boy only game, I think it's the first game in which Mario can triple jump? It's like a sequel to the arcade game, and the first "Super Game Boy" game.

If don't have it I'd recommend it!

I've heard the US has more than this, is this true? It would suck if Europe got the shaft so soon! Either way, it doesn't bode well to only see one Game Boy game released this week.

[Sno]

Which one is Donkey Kong 98? Is that Donkey Kong Land, or the arcade game?

It's Donkey Kong 94, it's a derivative of the original arcade game and pretty much the best classic Donkey Kong game Nintendo has made. It's really a phenomenal puzzle platformer, and i would also really recommend it.

Edited June 16, 2011 by Sno

[miffy495]

Hey, they've got a long way to go with this. You wouldn't expect them to put out Metroid 2, Super Mario Land 2, the Zelda Oracle Games, Pokemon, and whatever else people are holding their breath for in the first month. That said, I'd love it if they would and sometimes the waits can be ridiculous (where the hell is Yoshi's Island on Wii VC?), but I'm willing to be patient for a while. Donkey Kong isn't a bad start, I guess, and I'll probably pick it up when I get my home wifi set up on Monday.

[syntheticgerbil]

It's Donkey Kong 94, it's a derivative of the original arcade game and pretty much the best classic Donkey Kong game Nintendo has made. It's really a phenomenal puzzle platformer, and i would also really recommend it.

I beat that last year, it's a ton of fun. I imagine many were confused when it was first released (and now) thinking it was just a Game Boy version of the original arcade. While that's in there, it's immensely expanded upon, and a game with completely different Mario physics and puzzle solving that isn't too hard and a lot of fun to play.

Does the 3DS finally correctly emulate Super Game Boy? That's the way I played it and I was mimic yelling those annoying "help" enhanced sounds effects from Mario's-other-lover for weeks.

[Sno]

I beat that last year, it's a ton of fun. I imagine many were confused when it was first released (and now) thinking it was just a Game Boy version of the original arcade. While that's in there, it's immensely expanded upon, and a game with completely different Mario physics and puzzle solving that isn't too hard and a lot of fun to play.

I've never played it, but Mario vs Donkey Kong on the GBA is also supposed to be very much in the same vein as Donkey Kong 94, a puzzle platformer that greatly expands on the original Donkey Kong concepts.

Mario vs Donkey Kong 2 is where it sort of flies off the rails and becomes a disappointing Lemmings knock-off. It still more or less retains a lot of recognizable elements, but you indirectly control a small army of mechanical toy Marios instead of playing as Mario himself. (Also, a third Mario vs Donkey Kong game that has you indirectly controlling the mini-Marios again is available on DSi Ware.)

Does the 3DS finally correctly emulate Super Game Boy? That's the way I played it and I was mimic yelling those annoying "help" enhanced sounds effects from Mario's-other-lover for weeks.

That's a good question, can anybody answer that?

Edited June 17, 2011 by Sno

[miffy495]

It is vanilla (black and white) game boy version only, no Super Game Boy or GBC functionality. I played a few minutes of it today and it seems like it could be a pretty fun little game. I played a bunch of Mario vs DK 2 on DS when it came out, and the DSiWare one was one of my favourite early DSiWare releases, so this is quite a welcome surprise considering that I didn't know it existed. I'll be happy to kill time on bus rides thwarting DK's attempts to capture poor Pauline.