Underrated Nintendo DS Games

We all know of sites like Gamespot and IGN when searching for game quite a bit. The downside is, though, that you miss out on so many other games that you would have otherwise never known about, and often the top games pages are filled with unreleased games with high expectations. Here, I will show you some of the best underrated DS games, personally tested.

One of the more recent games that I have tried is called Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll. This is an old game, but a fairly unheard of one. If you have ever played any of the other Super Monkey Ball games, you know what you're going to get with this, it doesn't expand much on the gameplay (for those that don't know, you roll a monkey in a ball through maze-like maps collecting bananas). But, for what it lacks in originality, it makes up for in quality. Everything in the game is in 3D, and the backgrounds are simply amazing. The controls offer both touch control, and D-Pad control, which is nice, and the game has fun, albeit somewhat non-responsive, mini-games, and even gives you some during the credits, which unfortunately appear after each level. In the main game, the only downside is that it is at times difficult, which is to be expected in buying a game, and is a nice change from some of the other DS games (*cough* Super Princess Peach *cough*).

Next comes a game with a familiar, yet none-the-less creepy character and name: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland. If you don't know who Tingle is, either type it into the image section of your favorite search engine, or play some Legend of Zelda games, he's the guy in the green costume selling things at outrageous prices. This is Tingle's first game, and sadly, it was never released in North America, forcing us to import it from Europe or pirate it (I do not condone the latter). This game provides us with some background knowledge about our favorite little creep, and why he charges at such outrageous prices! The game does, in fact, have a combat system, but it is very rudimentary, walking up to an enemy and letting the game fight for you. Basically, you do a bunch of silly quests, or spend your entire time fighting, in order to gain rupees in order to gain access to rupeeland, being forced to pay tolls to do certain things, such as enter a new city. Another creative system it has is a pot in which you can practice alchemy to sell things with, and a computer with a somehow skinny girl (sadly in the same costume) sitting on the other end all day. Overall, the game is definitely worth a play, but it's not the type of game where you pound through it in a big gaming session.

The next game involves our favorite little pink blob, Kirby, in his first true Kirby-style DS game, Kirby: Squeak Squad. Typically, this game is never rated too low, but it still deserves a mention because of how few people play it. If you've played any of the other Kirby games, especially the ones on the GBA, you know what you're getting from this. You walk around a magical land, sucking things to make the bad guys go away. Ok, that is over simplified for comedy, but it is true, the game doesn't really add anything special to the Kirby franchise, and the entire story is pretty much explained in the first 10 minutes, so there's no real incentive in finishing. The only downside that I could see is that to get to the last couple worlds in the game, it is mandatory to go through each and every level, in each and every world, and collect each and every treasure chest (1-3 per level). On the other hand, it is a fun experience for veterans and newcomers alike, and takes quite a while to complete so you do get your money's worth!

Have you ever wanted to be bald, wear masks, and blow bubbles with magical fairies inside? Well now is your chance with a game called Soul Bubbles! Depending on how you see it, it's unfortunate that our new hero is bald, as in the Japanese version he had a full head of purple hair...somehow he relates better bald, I guess. Now, this game comes up a lot in underrated lists, mainly because no one ever takes this game seriously, being a Toys 'R Us exclusive game. For those that just read it, yes, you can only buy it from Toys 'R Us. But don't fret, just buy it on eBay, or buy it online, or take the neighbor's kid with you and say it's for him. In this game, you have three masks, while you wear one, you can cut and uncut bubbles, another lets you draw bubbles, and the last lets you deflate, or shrink, a bubble. The point of the game is to get the spirits in the bubble to the end of the game, and free them, but to really beat the game, you have to go through the maze-like levels to find fruit for an old man. Normally, this would be no problem, except that the levels are full of spikes and enemies and environment that can keep you puzzled, and you sometimes can't do much about. I praise the game on it's unique gameplay, and puzzles, as well as it's style of using touch as a main control, and the D-Pad as supporting as a nice change of pace.

For the '80s kids in all of us, hanging out at the arcade throwing away quarters, we have a fun game called Geometry Wars: Galaxies. If you've never played Geometry Wars, it's basically an arcade shoot-'em-up game where all you really do is shoot for the highest score, there's not much more to it than that. The DS adaptation of the game does add some new things though, thankfully. First off, the controls are slightly different. Naturally, you move with the D-Pad, but to shoot you touch a spot on the touch screen and you fire in that direction on the top screen. Next, you have little 'probes' that you can have circle around your ship and aid you. There are many of these, and they all do different things, so it will take some experimentation to find the one that suits you best, especially since they don't do too much until you get them experience to level them up, by beating (not just playing) the levels. Besides that, it's just your typical arcade game, but it is extremely addictive, and a great addition to any collection.

Although short, hopefully this article helped you in deciding what games to choose as well as realizing that some of the best games aren't always rated the highest. Also, when reviewing games, I advise you not to directly insult the game, regardless of how bad it is. So many people work very hard on it, most notably (although most certainly not only) programmers work for up to a few years on games, and it's just not fair to say it's just "Bad." or "I hate it."

Fossil Fighters Review

The newest rip-off of a rip-off of Nintendo's Pokémon by Nintendo has finally arrived: Fossil Fighters! This game is a blatant rip-off of Disney's Spectrobes (and, naturally, Spectrobes 2: Beyond the Portal), the concept of both games being to dig up and revive fossils, just to make them fight.

First off, the story is nearly non-existant, and it doesn't happen very fast when you do see it. Occasionally you do something that will throw the main story forward, but it's not all that common after the prologue.

The aformentioned combat is not as fun as it sounds - it's actually quite as bad as it can get, but it's spiced up with different spots on the board. It's played like a board game, you have four spots where you can move your vivosaurs (basically just dinosaurs...), one main spot, two support spots, and a retreating spot. At the beginning of a turn your player is given a certain amount of points, and each attack costs a certain number of points. The main vivosaur can attack any enemy in the enemy's line-up, but while in the support spots you can only attack the other player's main vivosaur. Other than that it's just tapping choices on the touch screen, there's not much else to it - even the rock-paper-scissors scheme found in pokémon is non-existant.

Although combat is a major theme in most games, and it certainly is in this one, the main point is to revive fossils. This consists of going out to parks, using a radar to find rocks or fossils, digging, and going back to the city to clean them off. Let's start off with the radar part - it's not very great. Every so often you will find a rock in the ground, which doesn't do much but provide some annoyance. The digging consists of pressing the 'a' button every once in a while, at a certain spot. Next, you go to the fossil center and try to clean it off. Needless to say, that wasn't very fun either. You have two useful tools - a hammer and a drill. You also have an x-ray tool, but it doesn't really do anything useful. The hammer does too much damage, and the drill does almost none. It's a very insensitive process, especially for something made by Nintendo.

The graphics can be hit and miss. In the battle sequences, it's reminiscent of Playstation X games, in fact - it all is. The battle sequences are quite beautiful, actually, although it's not very seamless. The walking around parts of the game are pretty much the opposite - it all flows very well, but everything looks stupid. Nintendo seems to have forgotten that we have joints in our elbows and knees, and that our necks can move.

I haven't noticed it too much, but the sound is pretty good. The fact that it's not very noticeable is probably a good thing, actually, but it also doesn't stand out in the way it did in games such as The World Ends With You.

All in all, I would not buy this game. It's pretty clunky, the controls are somewhat non-responsive, and it's just not very fun. If you want a fun fossil-digging game, go with Spectrobes - it does everything this game does and more, but better.