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[Uykered]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon trailer





Its main feature is written dialogue.

[Trevor Dunbar]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon trailer





Its main feature is written dialogue.

I liked the part where damage numbers popped out.

[SirNiko]

No pithy comments about the special features that generates a dungeon by pointing the camera at a round object?

[[RM8]]

Oh man, all the TGS trailers. Monster Hunter 4, Bravely Default, Layton 6, Fantasy Life, Layton vs Ace Attorney. Can't get over how awesome MH4 and especially Fantasy Life look.
_____________________

Found Frogger 3D for real cheap, and even after reading almost nothing but negative reviews I decided to buy it. Well, it rocks and belongs at the very least somewhere in my top 10 games on 3DS. It does a great job expanding Frogger's classic arcade gameplay, it's very charming and humorous, has lots of content and it's very challenging. Boss battles have been great so far, too.

Just like with Cave Story 3D, though, Japan got a much nicer box art...

America:


Japan:


Even Europe's is nicer:

[The Monster King]

A

is also making it to the eShop.

wow not only is it on a "not very practical for fightgames" console, but it looks... boring as fuck

[SirNiko]

I still need to play Layton 2 and 3. I love the puzzles, but I wish they'd put more effort into making the puzzles match the story. The final "battle" in Layton 4 did a good job of that, at least.

I don't get the box art thing. I wonder what kind of studies Nintendo does to determine that they should not use the Japanese art? I wouldn't believe they'd remake it in the US if they didn't have some evidence that it doesn't sell as well as a result.

[s0]

i don't think nintendo is responsible for the frogger box art

and yeah im pretty sure this is based on market research indicating that certain imagery sells better in certain regions. i know people like to bitch about bad cover art on gaming forums, but let's not forget that nerds like us aren't the Average Consumer(tm).

for instance, the japanese frogger box art looks very, well, japanese, so that might be a turn off for people in the so-called "west" who arent used to that.

[[RM8]]

Just look at Frogger in the American one. It's a bit endearing that he doesn't look like that at all in-game, reminds me of 90s box art in that sense.

Has anyone downloaded the Denpa Men demo? I personally loved it and will buy the full game (you can even transfer your archive from the demo). Fun, quirky, Dragon Quest-ish RPG. Japan is already going to get the sequel, we'll probably get it at some point too.

[Schoq]

Weird that the american box is the one without explosions.
It does have a tank and attack helicopters though.

[SirNiko]

Explosions are overdone. Showing an explosion only leads to disappointment. By implying the explosions, the viewer can imagine a theoretically perfect explosion that manages to capture their interest in ways no artist could ever replicate.

I played the Denpa Men Demo, and it was fun and cute. I was worried it'd be really stupid because I'd have to wander around outside looking for guys to catch, but just in my living room there were 17 of them flying around. I did like how the ones with more useful powers required a little more effort to catch - they'd dodge unless you waited for them to turn around and hit them from behind.

Leveling up all your Denpa dudes, including the ones you leave in town and not in the dungeon, is a very handy touch and solves perhaps the greatest problem of RPGs that let you swap out your party.

The dungeon was pretty neat, and had a good variety of items to collect (including accessories and clothing). The choices in combat were pretty bare bones (just attack or use one of the three potions you might have stocked) but I imagine this gets better as the game progresses and you get Denpa men with more skills.

I am a little concerned that finding new and better Denpa men is completely up to random chance, and really has nothing to do with how well you play the dungeon portion of the game. I would have much rather had new Denpa men awarded for completing dungeons fast or efficiently, or focus the game on collecting new powerups for an existing party of Denpa men.

I dunno. I might pick this up, I might not. It depends on how the reviews go.

I downloaded the demo of Theatrhythm. It was a little fun up until I played on "Ultimate" difficulty, then it got pretty tricky. I foresee a lot of memorization if you want to complete the higher levels. I dunno if I'm going to pick it up now. Maybe I'll wait a year until the price drops...

Mario 3D land is now at the top of my list of games to get for this thing.

[Richard Kain]

I'd have to say that I prefer the American box-art to the European box-art. In the European box-art the frog illustration is kind of sloppy, and the composition behind the frog is also muddled and indistinct.

In the U.S. version, the overall balance is a bit cluttered, but I like the exaggerated illustration of the frog. I also like the fact that the illustrations behind the frog are all consistent in style. It's primary problem is just that the overall composition is too cluttered. The compositional balance needs work.

I will say that the Japanese box-art is by far my favorite. It has all the stylistic cohesion of the U.S. box art, but with much better use of white space, and an overall stronger compositional balance. They make good use of far more dynamic site lines in this composition. And the frog itself, slightly in silhouette, is a really nice touch. They manage to make it's iconic and immediately recognizable outline stand out clearly without blowing it up to gargantuan proportions. (a pitfall that the U.S. box-art failed to avoid) It manages to imply a feeling of freedom and effort.

[Schoq]

Thank you for providing your expert opinion. I made sure to take notes.

[[RM8]]

Since we're still talking about Frogger. Holy crap, this game is kicking my ass. I love it.

[Glyph]

There wasn't any talk of this, so I'm putting it here.

Anyone playing Paper Mario? Any thoughts?

As for myself, having played all of its predecessors, I think it's pretty good. I can see where the critic gripes are coming from, but when you see money as the infinite resource it has always been, and buy basically whatever stickers you want before each level, it works out. No leveling-up kind of removes the purpose of battles completely, though. That's definitely my biggest problem with it. The Paper Mario series has sort of regressed in strange ways ever since the first, but it's not like any of the permutations were bad, just different. At least it's changing up the formula, which is sadly more than can be said of the original series. Seriously, I didn't even buy NSMB2, because it just seemed like a money-grab (pun intended). But now I'm just rambling.

Also, wanna get Professor Layton. Gah, this is an understandably heavy time of year for game releases.

[Ishi]

I wanna get Paper Mario but it's not out here (Europe) until the 7th December.

Layton is quality! It's the first game in a while to put a bit of 'wow' factor into the 3D. Loads of depth and the scenes look properly lush, and with all the hand-drawn detail there was in the previous games' backdrops.

Fallblox (Crashmo) is out today in Europe. Been excited for it for a while.

[[RM8]]

Pre-ordered Paper Mario at CDUniverse, it still doesn't ship. Seriously, making me wait for my most hyped game of the year is not nice, CDUniverse.

[Tanner]

I want Crashmo so bad, but my 3DS is incompatible with the WiFi at my univeristy.

[Ishi]

Fallblox / Crashmo is awesome. Everything I hoped for, feels like a logical evolution of Pullblox.

[[RM8]]

Paper Mario is glorious. Oh man, I'll play it this weekend non-stop, and then again in Spanish just for the lulzy translation. It's truly GOTY material for me, just like the previous 3 Paper Mario games.

[SirNiko]

I picked up layton 2 and 3 (diabolical box and unwound future) because I'm always behind the curve on these things. Layton 5 sounds great, and Paper Mario does too.

And I kind of like the idea of an RPG that doesn't reward fighting arbitrarily. One of the great tragedies of RPGs is that you're usually rewarded for killing everything you meet without question. It'd be nice if there were more games where evading monsters didn't usually handicap you by causing you to miss out on rewards and treasure.