…it’s not exactly shouting creativity or wild fun.  The cover suggests either “a games for the girls” or a perverted dress-up game.  But I was dead wrong.  What “Feel the Magic: XY/XX” is is a clever, funny, romantic compilation of exciting minigames complete with some the greatest abstract humor, I have ever seen.

You play as a silent protagonist in a bicycle helmet, who sees the girl of his dreams, and with the help of an army of men in Playboy bunny ears known as the “Rub Rabbits,” decides to win her love.  How do you go about getting the girl.  You have to rescue her and impress her in every way – which involves riding unicycles across skyscrapers, fighting bulls, sky diving, forcing a man to vomit fish, drying clothes, and using a laser powered Mohawk.  Every minigame, is fast-paced and a surprising amount of fun, and are perfected by solid stylus controls, which are both simple and easy to learn.  Aside from a few other wonderful games, I have never seen the DS controls used so adeptly.

The first major thing you might notice, picking up “Feel the Magic,” is the art style, which is beautiful.  Fully aware of the NDS’s graphical limitations Sonic Team used very simple character designs, while still keeping them in 3D.  Everyone is a black silhouette, with the the occasional distinguishing article of clothes.  And because this is a stream of minigames instead of a standard, linear game, you’ll get to see these characters do a large number of insane activities which you would never have done in a traditional game.  That’s another place where the art shines, by juxtaposing black silhouetted characters with brightly colored locations and ridiculous situations.

The story is a standard romance, boy sees girl and wants to be with her, which is a sweet story, but I can’t help feeling that the bare bones “Mario-esque” narrative leaves something to be desired.  Essentially, the girl is just a prize, and while I commend the art style, her lack of any genuine features (aside from a hefty bust and blue dress) make it hard to find her appealing as a character.  Fortunately, there’s not a lot of time to think about this while the game is throwing exciting minigames at you left and right, and do to some very cute set pieces you’re heart does warm up to her.

The last items of note are a clothing editor only for the girl and a frankly tasteless “cleaning” gaming, where you rub dirt off of the girl and she makes disturbingly erotic sounds.  These sexploitive tricks seem to belittle the genuine nature of the game, but looking past them isn’t hard to do.  Just ignore the clothing editor, because it’s silly.  And try not to feel to uncomfortable while wiping your loved one off, and don’t leave the sound on while other’s are around.

In the end it’s a funny and cute experience.  It’s a little short, but at this point it’s a two-dollar bargain bin game, so why not get a copy from your local used game’s shop.  It’ll be well worth it.

I never played a Dragon Quest game until I came across this 2005 spin-off.  That’s a half-truth, I did play the first five minutes of the original Dragon Quest, but that hardly counts.  But unlike all the other games, this one was a real time, action, platforming, adventure game where you play as an ooze with its very own giant tank, saving others slimes from evil platypuses (JAPAN!).  Just the concept alone makes me happy.

DQH: Rocket Slime is broken into two major sections, Zelda-like adventure and strategic tank battles.  Most of the time you will play through a variety of areas, like mountains, beaches, forests, as a slime.  In these parts you use your ability to stretch and throw things as you weapons.  Pulling taut and launching at enemies.  You can throw anything you can hit, which can turn every item or almost every enemy into a weapon.  The major goals in each level are to find and rescue the other slimes, to find tank battles, and to defeat an end-boss for each area.  Rescuing slimes is as easy as loading them onto mining carts, literally.  But there’s an added emphasis on loading enemies and items onto carts as well, which removes them from the area and gives you bonus weapons for tank combat.

The tank battles are where the game really shines.  These are one on one fights between two giant cannons.  Before battles it’s wise to make sure the tank is loaded with the most powerful missiles you can find.  Then once you enter combat it usually comes down to launching weapons at the enemy while your allies sabotage, or sabotaging the enemy tank while your ally’s fire the cannons.  Personally infiltrating is often the better strategy, as you have an easier time keeping the baddies from launching missiles than your team does.  However, due to a ridiculous difficulty spike at the end of the game, this tactic will eventually be useless.  Just always keep your tank well armed.

DQH: Rocket Slime is a pretty strong game.  It has a few balance flaws in the later half, but the overall experience is a lot of adorable fun.  By combining two kinds of gameplay it manages to keep a retro charm while not becoming generic or too repetitive.  If you can find a copy, I definitely recommend snatching it up.

I wrote a review for The World Ends With You a while back, and as you know, I loved it. One of my favorite parts about this game is how the music quickly goes from grating, offensive, and against the norm, to catchy, fun, and empowering. Here’s Shibuya, one of the most common tracks in the game. Enjoy! This particular track has an almost Jet Set Radio feel to it. Very scratchy, very awesome.

Square-Enix – The World Ends With You – Shibuya

Well… I just got done playing some Geometry Wars on my computer and while I love its simple, retro charm, sometimes I’m just in the mood for a portable RPG with an incredible amount of style. With one of the best explanations for the title, a memorable quote that will stick with you through the very end of the game, The World Ends With You is not your typical run-of-the-mill RPG.
As stylish as you can get without being a trendy Abercrombie shirt or something.. this game has got a very Japanese/Graffiti-driven art design. An amazing blend of hard spray paint and anime goodness. Character models are well defined, the environments scream of unique traits, the unconventional menu’s make you long for the days when game systems weren’t plagued with the ever-present shovelware epidemic. True… shovelware has always been on game systems, dating back to even the Atari 2600, but today finding an original title is amazingly difficult, if not impossible.

The battle system is very unique, boasting both top and bottom screen battles at the same time. You control the top screen battles with the D-Pad, and the bottom screen battles with gesture-based stylus attacks. This can be overwhelming at the start of the game, but luckily this is a game you can play any way you want, but we’ll get into that later. When you get into a zen of attacking with the top screen while dodging with the bottom, then switching offense and defense, then back again, you become completely involved in the experience. Its like finding that sweet spot in Gradius or Geometry Wars, you just feel it. The game becomes an experience, a feeling, a fleeting moment of being one with the game. Unfortunately, you have to play quite a bit to experience that feeling. One thing that really helps connect you is the music.

With a song library that rivals Jet Grind Radio in terms of catchy-ness, song quality, and number of tracks. Its hip-hop, rock, classical, and very Japanese. Almost pretentious in the way the music of the game starts out, you’ll be off put by the tunes when you first turn on the game. I really didn’t care much for the soundtrack until about 15 minutes into the game. Then… just like any good video game soundtrack, it’ll be rocking in your head for the rest of the day. This game takes the music very seriously. You can even walk into stores to buy certain songs that can be played by touching them in your inventory screen. One song in particular: Hybrid, is particularly catchy. I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for a good soundtrack, I don’t believe a game can do a good job of involving you in an experience without one, but this is my favorite portable soundtrack thus far.

But what’s an RPG without story? While I won’t delve into spoilers, the story starts out as one of the most bland, generic pieces of shit I’ve ever experience. Besides the graphical quality, I hated this game for the first 15 minutes I played. Neku is emo, “Doesn’t get people…”, refuses to cooperate on any human level, and is completely down on the world. Fuck. How lame can you get? Luckily, the character grows on you and he doesn’t stay in this awkward middle-school phase for long. Insert uber-cutesy Japanese love interest. Again, stereotypical, squeaky voice. Blah, blah, blah. OH FUCK AMNESIA STORY INSERT! Yea.. that old card again. The story start off terribly, an epic fail in the world of RPG’s. But! If you stick with it, through this awkward, semi-retarded stage, it starts to open up and show you one of the most unique worlds I’ve ever experienced in an RPG. Trust me, it’s worth your time.
While we usually stick to classics at this site, we can’t just ignore the world around us either. Try this one out, I’m sure you’ll like it.

By the way: Thanks IGN for the screenies, kinda hard to take DS screenies with a college budget.

Amazon.com – The World Ends With You (No Rom here, just a link to go buy it)

Yep, that special time of the week has come early. Tons of random gaming chatter in here, so hit it up:

72 Pin Connector Podcast: Episode 013 – Portable Games and Random Gaming Chatter