Nintendo DS - Why You Should Be Glad To Own One

The Nintendo DS has been home to many solid and entertaining titles for quite sometime (no, not you Chronicles of Narnia) and continues to show no signs of stopping anytime soon. First quarter of this year has already played host to some great titles.

For action adventure fans there is Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (NG:DS). It is a high quality game that lightly fills in between Ninja Gaiden 1 (xbox) and the upcoming Ninja Gaiden II (360). NG:DS has great graphics for the system, nicely pre-rendered backgrounds and fully 3d boss battles it will definitely give you your NG fix. Those looking for the tough challenge NG is known for will want to try the game again on Hard.

For those looking for other solid exclusive to the system series there are Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (see my review), Professor Layton And the Curious Village, Nanostray 2 for shooter fans, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring Of Fates and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. Last and definitely not least The World Ends With You, I cannot recommend this game enough. I would sing it's praises from the rooftop if it wouldn't land me in the crazy bin.

I myself have already logged over 130 hours in The World Ends With You and still finding more secrets and abilities. The game is incredibly deep. It boasts just about every positive change in RPG gaming, ranging from no random encounters, highly adjustable difficulty which can be changed on the fly, save anywhere, engaging real time combat, customizable battle skills (think materia!) and an innovative battle system which the game carefully eases you into. Square Enix these days seems not to bother doing an ad campaign with game that doesn’t have “Final Fantasy” in the title but you would be cheating yourself not to try this game.

What is usually the “summer drought” for gaming will not effect DS owners especially if you’re a RPG fan. This summer DS owner’s will be enjoying Final Fantasy Tactics A2: The Sealed Grimoire (due out 6/24/08), Final Fantasy IV (7/22/08), Summon Night: Twin Age (6/3/08), Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard (6/17/2008) and Space Invaders Extreme (6/17/2008) (and yes I did just say Space Invaders, this iteration of the game takes on a Meteos/Lumines feel which makes uses of faster paced gameplay and good music. Also coming out at a value price of 20 bucks, unfortunetly it does not include quarters nor a time machine to go back and play it in the brand new totally rad bell bottoms you just bought).

Stay tuned as next time I will go over notable releases coming out after August. Don't cheat yourself and miss out on under the radar hot new releases.