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Joystiq presents

DS Daily: Gems on a whim

Sometimes, you pick up a game just for the hell of it. Maybe you think it looks funny or like a good time waster, or maybe you're dedicated to a certain franchise or genre so much that a few poor reviews aren't going to stop you. You buy it anyway, and it ends up being just great -- for you, at least. It's even better when you find a game that didn't do so well at a bargain price, take a chance on it, and find out you love it like you've loved no game in recent memory.

These are always our favorites. It's an easy thing to buy a game that everyone seems to like or that gets great reviews. It just seems more satisfying when you happen across something and pick it up on a whim.

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1. To be honest, I should mention Megaman Battlenetwork 4 here ^^ I traded it from my friend with no expectations. But nowadays I play Megaman Starforce ^^. This was such a key moment for me.

Posted at 9:19AM on Sep 3rd 2007 by pas

2. I bought Sigma Star Saga for no real reason. I'm glad I did; although I think I should have waited for the price to drop to $10.

Posted at 9:43AM on Sep 3rd 2007 by Crazylink

3. I bought Fire Emblem 2 on sale for around $11, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I *love* turn-based strategy games. That led me to FFTA, which is now my favorite game.

I bought Megaman Battle Network 6 for $5 at a Best Buy clearance sale. I had zero expectations, I liked the price and the salesguy assured me it was worth it. If you scan the reviews online you'll think it's just a so-so game. The main reason the scores are so low is that the critics dinged the game for being the same as MMBN #1-5, with a different storyline. Well if you haven't played #1-5 then #6 is totally fresh and you won't feel like you've played the same game over and over. I for one loved #6 and ended up buying #3, 4, and 5 too. :) The battle system is unique and a lot of fun. I think the battle system alone makes the game worth playing, but I also enjoyed solving the puzzles and mini-quests and following the storylines. The graphics are great for a GBA game too, very clean.

Posted at 1:20PM on Sep 3rd 2007 by Kristi

4. I tried to buy Ace Attourney 3 on Gamestop's online store on a whim, but they seem to be having trouble with my CC...

Posted at 1:59PM on Sep 3rd 2007 by Nushio

5. I've rarely done anything like this. I'm very careful (read: cheap) with my money, so I try to read reviews and find out a lot about a game before I decide to buy it. There was one time, however, when my friend needed money so he sold some games to me for cheap. Trauma Center:Under the Knife, Phoenix Wright:Ace Attourney, and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. Right about the time people were starting to pay a lot for Phoenix Wright, too, because it looked like it was out of production. Needless to say, I liked Trauma Center, loved Phoenix Wright, and fell back in love with the Castlevania series. I was pretty proud of myself after buying those.

Posted at 3:17PM on Sep 3rd 2007 by Archibold

6. This wasn't a DS game, but I picked up FFVII: Dirge of Cerberus during a sale, and I can say that I liked it a lot more than most reviews would lead me to believe. It was a nice break from the ultra-hardcore shooters that are often too hard to be fun, and I was able to beat it with very little frustration. I also got really sucked into the nostalgia and awesome cutscenes, and a story in a shooter was nice for a change.

Posted at 3:38PM on Sep 3rd 2007 by greatslack

7. I forget exactly why I had a very negative stigmatism against the zelda series when I was about 10 years old, but I eventually found myself with a copy, and that's when I realized that I was about ten times better off for playing it.

Same thing for Goldeneye, only I won that in a Nintendo Power Sweepstakes. Hell yes.

Posted at 5:19PM on Sep 3rd 2007 by Croove55

8. Hm, sticking to DS games I know this happened to me with Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime. An obscure retail store I visited on occasion had apparently decided to get rid of their electronics department, and all games were 75% off, even new releases. Unfortunately the sale had happened about a week before I went there, so most of anything good was gone. All they had left for the DS were crap games like Sprung and True Swing Golf, but, glancing again, I saw they had one copy of DQH:RS hidden behind the other games. Having heard good things about it, I snapped it up, played it as soon as I got home, and didn't put it down until I had done absolutely everything there was to do in the game. I kid you not--the Tank Battles in the game make better use of the dual screens than any other game I've ever played. The whole game was a stroke of brilliance, from the charming levels to the addictive alchemy system. I regretted hearing after I played it that it sold poorly--I suppose that means that there's no chance of the first Slime Mori Mori ever making it to the English-speaking world...argh.

As a side note, that store had some REALLY old games. I picked up a sealed copy of KISS: Psycho Circus for the Dreamcast there, and a few sealed launch titles for the PS2 that were $5 each. I remember them having a couple of SNES games still on the shelf as late as 2003. Garbage, though. Don't worry--I didn't pass up a sealed copy of Earthbound or anything.

Posted at 10:56PM on Sep 3rd 2007 by Orville the Unfathomable Time Walrus

9. I grabbed Gunstar Heroes for the GBA for $3.90 the other day at TRU. That's a nice chunk of gaming for the price. Very proud to be a CAG (CheapAssGamer)!

Posted at 12:04PM on Sep 4th 2007 by michaelb3600

10. I love a deal. I had been looking for a copy of the first Phoenix Wright for quite awhile, but had only been able to find the second. Then in the bin at Gamestop was like 20 of them, new for $10 a piece. That was a nice day.

Posted at 2:27PM on Sep 4th 2007 by Ryan

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