We initially dismissed From the Abyss when Famitsu announced the title last October -- partly because it seemed like a drop in the ocean of generic RPGs coming out in Japan, and partly because we saw that the studio developing the game is "Sonic Powered." To be honest, we're not familiar with any of Sonic Powered's previous work, but we took its name as a signal to immediately bail out.
It turns out that Sonic Powered has nothing to do with the hedgehog of the same name, and From the Abyss actually has some interesting merits -- it's a 2D ARPG in the same vein as the Seiken Densetsu (Mana) series, styled to look very much like Children of Mana, though with less polish. After answering a set of questions to create your pseudo-personal character, you'll be able to fight enemies with a variety of weapons/magic and capture their souls to gain their skills. Apparently, some ancient seal has been broken, monsters are now roaming the land, and yadda yadda story.
There's even a two-player cooperative mode, but it's limited to local play, and it appears that you'll be playing in a special dungeon as opposed to the main campaign. Hella lame, we agree. From the Abyss hits Japan early next year on January 17th. You can see the game's boxart and some screenshots in the gallery below.
Each day, between now and the 26th, we're going to look at a different piece of the DS Fanswag End of the Year giveaway as a reminder of exactly why you need to hightail it over there and enter. Today? Random stuff with which you can dress up your DS. About 50% of you should be pleased about the fact that many of the prize packs include skins. Want 'em? Go enter the contest! Remember, you can enter once per day. And if you're having any trouble with the comments, check here for a handy walkthrough.
And while you're blowing out the end of the year and all, don't forget to head over to our two polls and vote for your picks for bestgames of the year.
Hudson hit us up with this new trailer for Bomberman Land Touch! 2 and upon checking it out, we're excited. Hell, of course we're excited, it's frickin' Bomberman here. It's got lots of minigames (including one where Bomberman dances, for some reason) and some multiplayer stuff, but, more importantly, it's got the original Bomberman experience included.
Bomberman Land Touch! 2 is slated for a January 2008 release.
Thursday comes and we find ourselves checking our charge level on our DS. We're going through our game carts right now and picking out what we want to play. So, as you can imagine, we're quite excited to get our game on with you. Head past the break for the details and we'll see you there tonight!
A GoNintendo reader spotted a video on YouTube of what appears to be a version of TrackMania running on the DS. Another reader spotted a mention of the game on TrackMania publisher Focus Home Interactive's Game Connection page. TrackMania is a series of awesome PC racing games, focusing on user-created tracks.
We're calling this a rumor, because it has yet to appear on FHI's actual web page, and a YouTube video out of nowhere is not exactly an official announcement. This could be homebrew, or some other game, or just treachery. It seems like a distinct possibility, though. Focus Home Interactive recently announced another PC to DS port, Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle, for one, and building tracks with the touch screen seems like a natural.
Too bad racing on the DS doesn't seem quite as natural. We're also a little concerned about the possibility of sharing tracks. TrackMania's community is basically the whole reason the games are awesome. If the DS doesn't have a robust system in place for uploading and downloading new tracks, then ... bye, TrackMania DS.
The deluge of pre-Jump Festa info continues, and with it comes a three-page spread on Blue Dragon, complete with new images. Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of blue in the pictures. Who'd have thought?
We've seen and heard a lot of rumblings about whether or not Blue Dragon can make the leap from console to handheld, but it's worked for so many other games and franchises that we don't have any major worries. Certainly it will look good, but after the mediocre reaction to ASH, we've got fingers crossed concerning the game play. We'll have to wait a bit longer to see that, however. For now, you can check out the scans after the break.
While playing Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations, we came across this hilarious scene in which the game pokes fun at the "frothing female masses" devoted to Miles Edgeworth (which, sadly, includes this blogger). We know that they're embarrassing to admit to, since -- as you well know -- video game characters aren't real people. Yet, many of us must concede to having a video game crush at some point in our lives, and it's time to 'fess up and come clean. So, what video game characters have you had (or do you have) a crush on?
The DS Life is a weekly feature in which we scour the known world for narrative images of Nintendo's handhelds and handheld gamers. If you have a photo and a story to match it with, send both to thedslife at dsfanboy dot com.
Hazz: Hey, dude! :) Nelson: Hey, Hazz. How's your DS? Hazz: It's a little bigger than I expected! ^_^ Nelson: *WANG*
Normally, wearing fingerless glove things would make us feel totally tough, like Ryu or something. But with these gloves, the feeling of toughness is short-circuited by the fact that they're crocheted and have mushrooms on them. Being fans of Street Fighter, Mario, and cognitive dissonance, we enjoy the combination.
Craftster forum member mynta made these comfy arm-warmy things (called, logically enough, halfgloves) based on another Craftster's knit version, which are also quite the cute little craft. They add further proof to the idea that if you can wear something, it's fair game to be tied in to video games.
Will Dragon Quest V ever be released outside of Japan? We certainly hope so. As for now, though, we'll just have to look at scans of a game that we very well may never get to play, like kids outside of a candy store. Oh Square Enix, how you can be so cruel to us sometimes.
Quest on past the break to see some scans for the next remake in the series.
GameDaily put up a helpful set of cheap DS gifts, from games to accessories, that can help to take the sting out of shopping this season ... if, that is, you can find any of 'em, and if you want 'em when you find 'em. Example: Namco Museum Remix is on there, as it's priced at a modest $19.99, but if it's anything like the Wii version, you might not want it. Of course, it did receive better scores than its console cousin, so it might be safe. But you also get gems like Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords and the Nerf DS armor, so can you really go wrong? There's a hidden bonus of saving money as well.
Which game series that is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year has the best music? Sorry, about half of our readers, it's not Final Fantasy. But, like, Final Fantasy, it is a near-infinite vortex of remakes and spinoffs: Mega Man. As part of the 20th anniversary festivities for the original Japanese release of Rockman, Capcom is releasing two CDs of new arrangements of classic Rockman music, done by] musicians from the Mega Man Battle Network series, as well as Konami's Beatmania IIDX series.
The Rockman 1-6 Rock Arrange Ver. 2007 came out on the 5th, and the Rockman 1-6 Techno Arrange Ver. 2007 CD is out today. Both focus on the 8-bit Mega Man games, which is fine with us. The discs retail for 3,150 yen each ($28), which is somewhat less fine.
The original soundtracks for Mega Mans (Mega Men?) 7 and 8 will be reissued as well. Samples of all four of these discs are available at the official site, including, yes, both Rock and Techno arrangements of "Dr. Wily's Castle 1" from Mega Man 2.
Be careful with that DS of yours. It may be small and look all cute with its two screens, but that thing is a monster. How else could a system manage an 89,000 boost in hardware sales from last week's already ridiculously high numbers? The DS just continues to blow everything else away, selling 91,000 units more than the competing PSP (which also had a good week in Japan).
As for software sales, however, only three of the system's biggest contenders (Mario Party DS, Professor Layton II, and Dragon Quest IV) managed to make it into the top ten. Not only did these three games do well for the week, but their total sales are pretty outstanding. We wouldn't be surprised to see all of them reach the million mark at some point.
Check after the break to see Japan's hardware and software numbers for the week of 12/10-12/16.
Here's an interesting little nugget we stumbled across: according to a recent study, girls prefer 2D over 3D when it comes to games.
To reach this conclusion, author Tina Ziemek offered a pool of 34 13- and 14-year old students a selection of six Nintendo 64 titles (Yoshi's Story, Bust-A-Move, Mischief Makers,Banjo-Kazooie, Wetrix, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time), and noted down which of the games each subject preferred to spend time with.
As it happens, the females in the group opted to play Yoshi's Story most of the time, while the males chose Zelda. Ziemek also notes that a lot of the kids commented on the easiness and accessibility of the 2D games in interviews, and that the females "disliked the confusion in the 3D video games, whether it was unclear directions, objectives, camera perspectives, or not knowing how to control the character."
Ziemek's final conclusion? That the majority of females would rather play games that are "easy," while the majority of males would rather play games that are "challenging." If Ziemek's findings are correct, this may partly explain why so many females pick up a DS -- after all, which other platform has such a delightfularray of 2D software?
Over at flickr, user yatta has had a most unfortunate incident occur. His DS lite has been busted all to crap. It was only dropped about two feet, he claims, but since it fell right on its hinge, it pretty much exploded. Talk about your weak points for massive damage, eh? Maybe this gentleman could use a handy guide to help him fix it? Or, maybe just the phone number to Nintendo customer service.
Any of you out there have horror stories about broken DSes?
Normally, wearing fingerless glove things would make us feel totally tough, like 
GameDaily put up a helpful set of cheap DS gifts, from games to accessories, that can help to take the sting out of shopping this season ... if, that is, you can find any of 'em, and if you want 'em when you find 'em. Example: Namco Museum Remix is on there, as it's priced at a modest $19.99, but if it's anything like the Wii version, you might not want it. Of course, it did receive better scores than its console cousin, so it might be safe. But you also get gems like 
Here's an interesting little nugget we stumbled across: according to a recent study, girls prefer 2D over 3D when it comes to games.
