An interesting week for releases around the globe, though the news will, of course, be dwarfed in the wake of all things DSi. Among this week's noteworthy titles are Prey the Stars (at last!), and Korg DS-10 for Europe.
The most recent Japanese charts showed us that musical instruments have more legs than horses, as Band Brothers DX jumped up into the first place spot. Meanwhie, Nanashi no Game made its debut in the top ten, but only sold a total of 30,000 copies.
Hardware sales were also interesting, as the DS stubbornly held onto the second spot:
PSP: 56,439 (2,442)
Nintendo DS: 47,455 (1,429)
Wii: 44,525 (3,955)
PlayStation 3: 14,359 (3,614)
PlayStation 2: 11,768 ( 4,095)
Xbox 360: 4,776 (328)
With the Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G craze finally starting to quiet a bit, we don't think it will be too long before the PSP dips closer to DS sales (as long as Nintendo's handheld can maintain its own momentum). Enough about the future, though -- it's all about the now. So, go on and see how software fared last week in Japan by clicking past the break.
Bleach is cool. It's like the cool kid in a playground of anime, and the fansubbers go mental at the slightest hint of a burnt DVD collection. Hey, nothing wrong with that, it's just some bloggers feel left out, having not caught a single episode in their life. So, it's no surprise that the latest trailers for Bleach: The Third Phantom have already been downloaded thousands of times.
The above video is the opening cinematic, which is pretty low-budget and lame. It's a DS game, but maybe the tiniest bit of animation wouldn't go astray. Either way, the trailer after the break shows the real meat-and-potatoes of Bleach, and you can check out the unexpected strategy gameplay in action. Fighting game, schmighting game -- this has evil flying clown things.
Today's cheap deals post is brought to you buy the letter "o," and, uh, the word "costc." Get it? Costco?
Now that we've sufficiently subjected you to the horrors of our evening humor (or lack thereof), those of you who are Costco shoppers might be interested in some of the games the retailer is offering for $10.99 thru 6/22:
Puzzle Quest
Sonic Rush
Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime
The New York Times Crosswords
Disney Meteos
Namco Museum DS
Cooking Mama
This sale is somewhat "your mileage may vary," since the listed games are not necessarily going to be in stock at your local Costco. These are just some games that we've decided to highlight, though. Check after the break for the full list, as compiled by CAGgers.
For those of you still waiting to get your hands on Bleach: Dark Souls (we realize a great deal of you imported it because you show up at Game Night), check out our gallery below. We just updated it with a bunch of new images from the game. Hopefully, it'll help you with that wait.
We know many of you enjoy the Bleach. Whether it's the anime, manga, or very capable fighting game on the DS (and, we suppose, on some smaller level, the cleaning product), you folks are fans. In fact, you all just might convert us!
And with the Japanese sequel finally making its way to North America, we're pretty close to taking the plunge and checking out what you all have been going on about. In the meantime, we'll have to settle for the new Bleach: Dark Souls screens in our gallery. Give them a look yourself, then tell us why we need to be as excited about this game as you are!
Those of you who've been anxiously awaiting the follow-up to Bleach: The Blade of Fate, know that the wait is finally over. That's right, folks, we now have the boxart for the game. And even though it shows a surprising similarity to the Japanese boxart, we still love it all the same. Oh, you were waiting to play the game? Dude, it's all about the boxart now, nobody plays games anymore.
Horrible attempts at humor aside, this has to be one of the most anticipated DS games right now. A good 2D fighter on the DS that works over Wi-Fi?! You better believe it!
Sega may be releasing Bleach: Dark Souls stateside this summer, but that doesn't mean you should pass up on this $18.99 Amazon deal for the original fighter, Bleach: The Blade of Fate. Really, the discounted title shares the same selling points as its sequel:
The only advantages Dark Souls seems to have over The Blade of Fate are its new story and its expanded roster of 44 playable characters. Who actually needs that many characters?!
We don't have to tell you that we've liked the look and turn-based gameplay of Bleach: The Third Phantom. Don't get us wrong, we like fighting games as much as the next person, but we always appreciate a franchise trying to stay fresh. It looks like Bleach: The Third Phantom might just do that.
If you're looking for a fresh fix, Gemaga has some new screens up for perusal. They show off some of the in-game menus, as well as a couple battles. Anyone interested in this installment in the franchise, or do you like your Bleach to be strictly in fighting game form?
Since we first heard about it, Bleach: The Third Phantom has lived up to its name, with Sega offering little in the way of news or screens. The official site is now full of great-looking screens of the Bleach game that somehow is a sequel to, but is not itself a Treasure fighting game. In addition to the screens, which we have collected as a gallery, the website features short animations of the combat, which still looks pretty fighting-game-like despite being turn-based. If the animations aren't animated enough for you, the "System" area of the website features a large collection of Flash animations which illustrate the game in action.
The Third Phantom is scheduled for a June 26th release in Japan, and we wouldn't be too surprised to see it follow its more action-orientedpredecessors in localization.
We haven't seen a lot of custom skins made by our readers, so we were pretty excited when That Girl sent in pictures of her skin, adapted from a wallpaper. The colors and design really suit her DS Lite perfectly, and it's always nice to see someone tastefully customizing their handheld while giving a nod to another fandom. It's not just the outside that's prettified, either; hit the jump to see the inside of the DS.
Have you made a custom skin or anything else Nintendo-related? We'd love to know about it! Show us what you've got and we'll tell the world -- just take a few pictures, scribble a few lines, and send it all to showmeit [at] dsfanboy [dot] com. We'll take care of the rest.
Likely surprising no one considering the popularity of the Bleach manga/anime series, Sega announced its plans to publish Bleach: Dark Souls (or Bleach DS: 2nd Kokui Hirameku Requiem, as it's known in Japan), the follow-up to Bleach: The Blade of Fate, this summer in North America.
The Treasure-developed 2D fighter features a number of improvements on the original:
an exclusive storyline that takes place in between the series's first and second season
44 playable characters (The Blade of Fate has 26)
30 new Power-up Cards and Power Crystals
Bleach encyclopedia containing "fun and interesting facts about the entire Bleach universe"
All that comes on top of the game's four-player online battles and multi-plane stages. Hit the gallery below for English-translated screenshots from Dark Souls, or check past the break for a two-minute trailer from the Japanese release.
2007 is almost over, and the end of the year brings joyous tidings of List Season. It's the time for taking stock of the last 12 months of gaming, and trying to make sense of it by putting things in numerical order. Join DS Fanboy for our best-ofs, worst-ofs, and other categories-ofs.
When determining the best games of the year, it's a good idea to go at it from different angles: by referencing our own history of reviews, obviously, but we must also look to the wider journalism community. Our reviews, while insightful and entertaining, were not comprehensive. We just didn't play everything. In addition, one reviewer's opinion is simply not sufficient data to make definitive conclusions, even if that one reviewer is me.
So we turned to everyone else in aggregate to see what they thought of this year's releases. We've gathered the top 10 DS games of 2007 according to their Metacritic ranking. Keep in mind that many of these games tied in Metascore, meaning that if we were to rank the games, there would be fewer than ten positions. It's still sequential, but with a lot of tie scores.
We then carefully applied science to these games in order to convert the Metacritic numbers into a rubric we feel more accurately conveys the quality of these games. Head past the post break for Metacritic's top ten DS games of 2007, graded on a scale from adorable kitten video to unbelievably adorable kitten video.
It was a good year for games with titles beginning with the letter "P" -- at least, according to you guys. When asked, you didn't hesitate to rattle off some of your favorite titles of the year, from Phantom Hourglass to Puzzle Quest, and now the time has come to crown the winner. Just to make things interesting, we're allowing you to choose more than one game -- and to vote more than once (though only once per day). So get in there and duke it out, DS fans. There's a title at stake.
Tomorrow, we'll take a look at some of the year's other great games, those selections that didn't receive quite as much attention when we asked you to name your favorites, but all the same, games that are deserving of a little extra time in the spotlight.
NeoGAF's wonderful neo2046 has extracted all of the delicious DS essence from within the pages of the latest V-Jump. Thanks to his largesse, we can gawk at some new images of upcoming Japanese games, including both Square Enix remakes of fourth entries in famous RPG series.
In addition to Dragon Quest IV and Final Fantasy IV (above) you'll find Tales of Innocence, Bleach: The 3rd Phantom, which stubbornly continues not to be a Treasure fighting game, and Digimon Championship 2008. Enjoy looking at some incomprehensible magazine pages! And check out the Bleach game in particular, since this is the first good look we've had.
An interesting week for releases around the globe, though the news will, of course, be dwarfed in the wake of all things DSi. Among this week's noteworthy titles are Prey the Stars (at last!), and Korg DS-10 for Europe.
The most recent Japanese charts showed us that musical instruments have more legs than horses, as Band Brothers DX jumped up into the first place spot. Meanwhie, Nanashi no Game made its debut in the top ten, but only sold a total of 30,000 copies.
2,442)
4,095)
Today's cheap deals post is brought to you buy the letter "o," and, uh, the word "costc." Get it? Costco?
We know many of you enjoy the Bleach. Whether it's the anime, manga, or very capable fighting game on the DS (and, we suppose, on some smaller level, the cleaning product), you folks are fans. In fact, you all just might convert us!
Sega may be releasing Bleach: Dark Souls stateside this summer, but that doesn't mean you should pass up on this $18.99 Amazon deal for the original fighter, Bleach: The Blade of Fate. Really, the discounted title shares the same selling points as its sequel:
We don't have to tell you that we've liked the look and turn-based gameplay of Bleach: The Third Phantom. Don't get us wrong, we like fighting games as much as the next person, but we always appreciate a franchise trying to stay fresh. It looks like Bleach: The Third Phantom might just do that.
Since we first heard about it, Bleach: The Third Phantom has lived up to its name, with Sega offering little in the way of news or screens. The official site is now full of great-looking screens of the Bleach game that somehow is a sequel to, but is not itself a Treasure fighting game. In addition to the screens, which we have collected as a gallery, the website features short animations of the combat, which still looks pretty fighting-game-like despite being turn-based. If the animations aren't animated enough for you, the "System" area of the website features a large collection of Flash animations which illustrate the game in action.
