March 12, 2021 Office
In the heading "Direct text" The authors express exclusively their own opinion, which may not coincide with the opinion of the editorial office (or may coincide). They are free to do it as they like and in any format convenient for themselves. Everything is possible here.
Nintendo DS – One of the most successful game consoles in history: by the number of copies sold, it can be carried out with itself PS2. In Russia, however, it was not so popular. We do not even respect Nintendo, and they prefer graphics to original ideas – therefore, it was in use PSP , Contemporary and main competitor DS.
However, DS came out the winner in the console race, not only thanks to a wide audience – among other things, she deserved the love of gamers with the widest library of excellent games. Many of them were innovative: DS possessed two screens, and to control it was possible to use a microphone and touchscreen – and all this long before the paper of smartphones.
In this material (broken into two parts), I want to remember the best of projects for DS. I will immediately note: this is my personal top, and therefore it will not be in it GTA , “Mario”, “Zeldy” and “Pokemon”; If you are fanatic from these series, then in my recommendations you don’t need it. There will be no ports from other consoles in this top: Chrono Trigger Still, not for DS was done. But I will mention several games that have not officially released in the West – but definitely deserve it (and thanks to fans we have the opportunity to play them).
25. Hotel Dusk: Room 215
Let's start with five games that were able to offer something outstanding at one time, but perhaps not too well old. Still, over the past ten years, thousands of mobile projects have been released on the touch management, and it is unlikely to surprise anyone just as 15 years ago. However, do not underestimate how much tactile, intuitive interaction with the game transforms the gained experience. For example, it turned out to be very out of place in Adventure. Point-And-Click Management was extremely clumsy on the consoles, however, the touchscreen with the stylus made a study of locations and collecting key objects convenient. And interaction with objects was implemented using simple mini-games.
Good examples of such adventure – Hotel Dusk: Room 215 And her sequel, Last Window: The Secret of Cape West. These were chamber games: their action was unfolded literally in one building. In Hotel Dusk, we played for a noir detective in a provincial hotel, met guests, collected evidence, conducted an investigation. The game could not boast of an outstanding gameplay or an eventful script: its main advantage was visual design. All portraits of the characters were made in the form of animated pencil sketches, as in the video A-Ha-Take on Me Me. Very beautiful!
24. Warioware: Touched!
The Warioware series began as a collection of not even a mini-, but a microhr: each lasts a few seconds, for which you need to figure out what and when to do it. However, with each next part, she added to the formula a new method of interacting with the game: multiplayer in Mega Party Games, gyroscope in Twisted – And the touchscreen with a microphone in Touched. Warioware is a crazy compilation of short but inventive sketches that brilliantly reveal the potential of Nintendo DS. You can play it to it in one evening, but you will spend this evening with a wide smile on your face.
23. Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box
The first trilogy about the professor of Laton was originally reached DS, but several years ago she was transferred to iOS With Android. Each part of the series Professor Layton from Level-5 – This is a set of hundreds of puzzles connected together by a sweet adventure story, which closer to the end, certainly gives the most idiotic explanation of what is happening of all possible. The characters are quite charismatic, the visual design is pleasant, and the puzzles are diverse and come complete with several levels of tips – from the most transparent to straightforward. This allows you not to get stuck, and not to instill a solution to yourself immediately – it is convenient. Well, the tasks are solved exclusively from the touchscreen.
22. Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2
The phrase "Surgeon Simulator" in the majority will now cause funny juggling of the insides from Surgeon Simulator, However, in the middle of the zero developers of the series Persona made a rather serious statement on this topic. Scenario Trauma Center – This is an anime about surgeons; gameplay – a set of mechanically simple tasks, in fact requiring considerable dexterity. All operations need to be performed by a stylus: choose an antiseptic, apply to the desired area, grab a scalpel, conduct an autopsy, pump out blood, burn with a laser, and darned with a needle. Each action is logical and intuitive, but to perform them in the correct sequence with the desired speed and accuracy is not the task of simple.
It is hardly necessary to clarify separately that anime medicine is even less related to reality than " Dr. House ". The ailments are fictitious here, and the means of combating them are limited by invasive surgery, but therefore only more fun. In the first part, a novice doctor discovers a superpower that allows him to slow down the time during the operation, and uses it to combat international terrorists; in the second – continues this struggle, being distracted by self -digging. Both issues are worthy of attention.
21. Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales
In the zero series Final Fantasy Bled the number of sequels and spin-offs significantly quickly exceeded the number of license plates. Fortunately, the amount has grown into quality – from one and a half dozen branches there were several good. Among them was the fanservice Chocobo Tales. If usually the branches of the “finals” tried to appease the fans with endless return of her beloved heroes, then she went unusual, focusing on the colorful bestiaria.
Chocobo Tales is a cute, kind and funny story about how a coco bird saves her friends, enchanted by an evil book. It has step-by-step battles using cards, which, in turn, are mined in numerous mini-games. And every mini-game is an adaptation of some famous fable, but with the participation of monsters from the finalons. Touching!
20. Metroid Prime Hunters
Metroid -The game, along with Zelda, laid the canons of Action -adventure and gave the name to the whole tanker. Study of locations, searching for improvements, returning to the already passed areas to open new aisles – Metroid embodied all this in 2D, and subsections Metroid Prime Ideally transferred to 3D. But Hunters It turned out to be completely different – it was a first -person multiplayer shooter with seven unique heroes.
Yes, Metroid Prime Hunters is Hero Shooter. With very different characters. With decent graphics. With a bunch of modes. With bots. With local and online multiplayer. With voice chat. He went out in March 2006, a year and a half before Team Fortress 2 , on a tiny portable platform, and thanks to the touchscreen, he was controlled much better than all other portable shooters.
Further, alas, it is impossible without reservation. It was most convenient to play the classic DS in Hunters – hands quickly tired on Lite. A solitary mode in it was clearly made for a box: it was too lines for Metroid and consisted of repetition of the same script, and now there are hardly living people who are ready to get into a multiplayer. However, the ideas in the basis of the game were excellent. It would be better to Nintendo instead Splatoon 3 Give us Metroid Prime Hunters 2.
19. Metroid Prime Pinball
It is unlikely that anyone took this game seriously. You have to invent this – pinball! That's just Metroid, such a change in the genre suits no less than “Sonic”: Samus, a permanent heroine of the series, from the first part can turn into a ball to overcome narrow passages. And, unlike Sonic Spinball, Metroid Prime Pinball – Great game made with great love for both primary sources.
In fact, this is a retelling of Metroid Prime in a Pinball form: you need to go through the same locations and fight enemies, applying all receptions from the arsenal Samus. Almost every route along which you can direct the ball is activating something, whether it be bonuses or new trials. The game is relatively short, but difficult. Although most of the time it is necessary to control only two flippers, here it is necessary to shake the tactics and execution by order.
18. Radiant Historia
Many low -budget JRPGs found the refuge on DS, but most of them came out artless and template. Radiant Historia It looks advantageous against their background: there are very few anime stamps who have lost their sores, and the plot dedicated to time travel is intriguing in earnest. The fact is that he is not linear here, as in Chrono Trigger, but an extensive – the hero rushes through time and space in search of answers and those versions of the future where everything is not so bad. Honest step -by -step fighting is attached.
Radiant Historia also has a reprint on 3DS with a subtitle Perfect Chronology.
17. Soma Bringer
The creators are legendary Xenogears Tetsuya Takahashi and the Saga Saga, after its release, founded their own company – Monolith Soft. Under the auspices Namco The team released the trilogy Xenosaga, But everything quickly went wrong with her: Takahashi and the saga were removed from the development of the sequel, and the third part came out crumpled. The series did not justify the hopes of Namco, and as a result, she sold the Nintendo studio. Magnum Opus Takahashi, created in collaboration with the new publisher, became Xenoblade Chronicles (which I do not get tired of recommending), but few people know about the first game Monolith Soft published by Nintendo – Soma Bringer.
Gameplay is a cooperative Action-RPG-of those that it is customary for us to call "devils". Everything is in classics: six classes, different skills Jackpot Charm Casino and combo, buffs and debuffs, deep pumping system. But the plot is not at all typical of such a genre: it is confused, oversaturated with characters, entities, intrigues – in general, everything was expected from people who gave the Xenogears to the world. Soma Bringer is the last game, the script of which was written by Sorah Saga, and this is already important for fans of "Girsz". One bad thing: officially it was never released in the West (but there is an intelligent fan translation).
16. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates
First Final Fantasy Crystal Chroniclesles was an unusual experiment, an attempt to make an offline mmorpg: the plot in it was criminally few, and this scared many fans of the main series. IN Ring of Fates The developers corrected by adding a single campaign with surprisingly high -quality script. The story turned out to be concise, but at the same time dramatic, intimate and filled with humor. The setting has retained fabulous coziness, but the ENT turned to the multi -senior with his own curious rules. And the characters – even random NPCs – are written so brightly that you can’t confuse them with each other. Localizers tried to fame: both the English text and voice acting in Ring of Fates are beautiful.
The gameplay moved away from the simple beating of enemies and was replenished with a platform with puzzles. The dungeons in Ring of Fates are more reminiscent of “Zelds”, only to solve riddles you need to use the skills of four different heroes, between which you can freely switch. But there is a multiplayer on just four – alas, only offline and without a plot. So it is best to go about the ring of fates twice: first break your head over the dungeons with comrades, and then run the same places alone, enjoying the story. Since there is no need to grind here, and the battles flow very quickly, the game easily passes for nine hours.
Ring of Fates has incorporated the best features Final Fantasy IX, but skillfully went around many of its shortcomings. Let the game and not call a purebred Jrpg, you need to study its fans of the series.
14 and 15. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia
In 1997 with the exit Symphony of the Night series Castlevania Of the linear action-platformers, it was reborn that they soon began to be called "metro-fluids". Despite the success of the Symphony, the two -dimensional issues of the series no longer appeared on home consoles (not counting cooperative Harmony of Despair). But they blossomed on portable platforms – GBA and her heiress ds.
The first release of the series on the two-screen console was the victim of a typical problem of early DS releases: the developers wanted to use the touchscreen too much, and they did not have enough priority to restrain themselves. Dawn of Sorrow Forced to draw pentagrams with the stylus to finish the bosses, and restored the health of opponents in case of failure – this one could greatly spoil the impression of the game.
Fortunately, her followers were more prudent. Portrait of ruin And Order of Ecclesia Favorablely differed from previous games by the variety of skills of heroes and locations – endless castles by that time had already tired a little. Otherwise, they brought to the perfection of mechanics distilled over the ten years past. Both can be considered the pinnacle of the development of portable issues of the series, which then did not need to go to peace at all.
13. Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume
Series Valkyrie Profile – One of the most unusual and outstanding Jrpg genre. In the first part, which was still on PS1 , We played for the Valkyrie, which collected the souls of the dead soldiers and fought with them with the forces of darkness. The script was almost completely consisted of short tragic sketches, always ending with the death of the hero – because in Einheria the living do not take. One of the most touching was the story of a girl who never became a colleague of Valkyrie: she buried all friends and was left alone.
Covenant of the Plume He talks about a person with a similar fate: angry into celestials for taking away his father from him, he concludes a pact with the mistress of hell. From now on, spilled blood gives him the strength with which he hopes to defeat the hated Valkyrie. His country is on the verge of a civil war, so it will not be difficult for him to be stained with a sword.
According to this description, it is easy to conclude that the protagonist Covenant of the Plume is a character at least controversial and, possibly, even unpleasant. But all his future associates to match him. Everyone has their own skeletons in the closet and a burden of guilt behind them – even those who at first glance seem almost a saint.
Just to get to the bottom of the truth, you need to go through the game several times. Like Suikoden III or, for example, " Mor. Utopia", Covenant of the Plume tells the story from different prospects. The full picture can be folded only by getting acquainted with all of them. So repeated passages will not only open new tactical trials, but also allow you to revise the opinion of already familiar characters and events. I would like to recommend the game already for this excellent approach to the narrative – as well as for brilliant localization. Covenant of the Plume is beautiful and rich in English, stylized under Shakespeare; Read it is a pleasure.
On this, the first half of the top is coming to an end; The second you can find here. Are you familiar with some games from this list? Tell us in the comments!