Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture
Publisher: TBD / TBD
Release: TBD / TBD
The DS boasts an enviable spread of adventure games, and 2008 promises much for the genre. Courtesy of Grasshopper Manufacture, both
Flower, Sun and Rain and
The Silver Case will be appearing on the handheld in the coming months, and it's fair to say that both reek of
awesomeness.
Flower, Sun and Rain puts the player in the shoes of Sumio Mondo, an assassin tasked with defusing a time bomb planted on a plane. Sumio initially fails his mission, only to wake the next morning and find that the explosion has yet to happen. Presented with a second chance to save the stricken plane and redeem himself, Sumio again fails, but wakes the next morning to find himself living the same day over and over, his hotel room becoming more and more warped as he slowly begins to lose his mind from the repetition.
Comparatively little has been revealed about the DS version of
The Silver Case, a murder mystery title that originally appeared on the PlayStation back in 1999. Centered around a series of grisly murders, the game is played from two perspectives: that of a leading detective, and of a freelance writer investigating the affair. In the PlayStation original, the story was narrated entirely through a montage of 2D illustrations, 3D CG, live-action images, and motion graphics, but it's not yet known whether the DS version will adopt the same techniques (the presence of two screens would seem like the perfect excuse to mimic this, however).
While both titles are wildly inventive, we feel we should also contribute part of this preview to the man behind them. Here in the DS Fanboy dungeon, our admiration and respect for Goichi Suda knows no end. As the name behind the likes of
Killer 7 and
No More Heroes, Suda has proven time and again that the punk spirit is alive and well in videogames, and that there remains a place in gaming for the unconventional and the plain bizarre.
As much as it saddens us, Suda won't be making games forever, but we like to think that his eventual successor will keep the punk flame alive in game development by following:
DO feel free to compare the process of making your games to
defecating.
DO pile on the geeks and freaks. Suda is an expert at this, as
Flower, Sun and Rain looks set to
demonstrate.
DO try and avoid selling very many copies of your game, even if it's completely awesome. Selling games in any great quantity is for those Establishment suckers at EA and Ubisoft. Stick it to The Man through your own low sales!
DO come across as an obnoxious, uncooperative ass in interviews -- think The Sex Pistols and Bill Grundy in 1976 (in a very
unpunk fashion, we should warn you that that last link is
NSFW). In truth, Suda actually
fails to follow this particular rule, as he consistently comes across as the kind of affable, fun-loving fellow you'd quite like to go for a drink with, or at least become friends with over the internet, which could perhaps lead to you both becoming
BFF IRL.
AND ON THAT SUBJECT, GOICHI, WHY DO YOU NEVER ANSWER MY EMAILS?
DO NOT follow rules or guides -- they just, like, totally pigeonhole you. Except, y'know, this one.
If you find yourself importing 
We don't want it to seem as though we're making excuses for the game, but we've genuinely warmed to Flower, Sun and Rain's slightly crude visuals. Those giant slabs of color and craggy polygons exude a certain charm of their own.
The 3D art in the DS remake of Suda 51's PS2 adventure game 
These new screens from Suda 51's 
Flower, Sun, and Rain, an adventure game released in 2001 for the Playstation 2, is being remade for the DS, according to the latest Famitsu. It's one of the earlier works of Grasshopper Manufacture, headed by Suda 51, and has a lot in common with later works.
