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[Camjo-Z]

I already own Yumi (I can testify to its awesomeness, BTW) but I'll enter this anyway since talking about random handheld games is fun, and I'm sure my brother would love a free copy if I won it. So here I will shill one of my favorite DS games, Prey the Stars! (Or Gabu Gabu Planet in Japan.)

The only reason I've even heard of it is because Koei promoted the shit out of it in Nintendo Power, usually in double ads alongside some other game. (Pop Cutie: Street Fashion Simulation, I believe. Never tried that one... and I doubt I ever will.) Weirdly enough the ads focused more on the fact that some figure designer named Touma designed the characters than the actual game itself. Considering the majority of players would have no clue who Touma is or why they should care that he's involved, I'm not sure why they did this...

Anyways, on to the actual game. You can choose between 4 wacky dog-like aliens with the ability to bite, lick, and suck objects. These objects are scattered around flat grids, and you have to run around trying to eat as many as possible. However, they all have different elements, so there's a bit of strategy with what buttons you mash. An electric object is painful to bite, so try sucking it, while a watery object would require licking.

All of these elements correspond to various powers you can get, like an electric ball, a metal blade, a gust of wind, etc. that can be used to attack opponents. Sometimes if you eat three of the same element in a row, you can turn into a giant monster that speedily devours objects and foes without a second thought. It can get pretty wild. In addition, eating certain "POW" objects fills your belly meter, which makes you get grow in size. The larger you are, the bigger the objects you can eat, and you can even squish opponents beneath your feet if you're bigger than them.

Although it's clearly designed around multiplayer since you're always going up against an opponent, there's also a fun single-player mode where you... um... well, I don't really know what you do since the cutscenes don't make any sense. You go around eating things to free spirits from the Earth or something, and once liberated they engage in some bizarre one-sided dialogue with your chosen monster between levels. Here's one such example of this masterful storytelling:

Hi! You can really wolf it down, can't you?

Hm? What's wrong? Why the long face?

You're wondering where everything you eat goes? The scientific explanation has a lot to do with the action of your stomach. It's called the "guniguni" action...

If you want to know what "guniguni" means, look it up in a dictionary.

...But you will find nothing!

You shouldn't be worrying about these things anyway!

Besides all this, there's also a ton of skins to unlock that not only change your look, but also alter your stats in various ways. They've got a bit of a loot aspect to them since there are a lot of different stat modifiers, and you can find multiple versions of the same skin with randomized stats (though you can only keep one at a time). You get these by doing various challenges like eating X amount of objects or hitting X opponents with a power. Later on it starts getting kind of cheap since they'll hide the objective with question marks (Use ????? on opponents ?? times) but it's not too annoying since they're fairly easy to guess and the levels aren't that long anyway.

In terms of graphics, it's pretty barebones, but it gets the job done. The music is nothing to write home about either, although the Mega Center theme sounds pretty nice, and the way the menu music slightly changes depending on what selection you're making is cool. I've only ever seen that done in a few other games, like Mario Kart Wii and Ridge Racer 3D.

Overall, it's not the most amazing hidden gem ever, but I really liked it! Surprisingly enough for a niche game like this, it even supported Wi-Fi multiplayer (not that I ever found anybody online to play with, of course).

 

[Killer Yakuza B]

I usually do some Miiverse doodles of the games I've been playing recently and I thought I'd post the four corresponding to games I posted about here:

 

[Hero of Legend]

I already own Yumi (I can testify to its awesomeness, BTW) but I'll enter this anyway since talking about random handheld games is fun, and I'm sure my brother would love a free copy if I won it. So here I will shill one of my favorite DS games, Prey the Stars! (Or Gabu Gabu Planet in Japan.)



The only reason I've even heard of it is because Koei promoted the shit out of it in Nintendo Power, usually in double ads alongside some other game. (Pop Cutie: Street Fashion Simulation, I believe. Never tried that one... and I doubt I ever will.) Weirdly enough the ads focused more on the fact that some figure designer named Touma designed the characters than the actual game itself. Considering the majority of players would have no clue who Touma is or why they should care that he's involved, I'm not sure why they did this...

Anyways, on to the actual game. You can choose between 4 wacky dog-like aliens with the ability to bite, lick, and suck objects. These objects are scattered around flat grids, and you have to run around trying to eat as many as possible. However, they all have different elements, so there's a bit of strategy with what buttons you mash. An electric object is painful to bite, so try sucking it, while a watery object would require licking.

All of these elements correspond to various powers you can get, like an electric ball, a metal blade, a gust of wind, etc. that can be used to attack opponents. Sometimes if you eat three of the same element in a row, you can turn into a giant monster that speedily devours objects and foes without a second thought. It can get pretty wild. In addition, eating certain "POW" objects fills your belly meter, which makes you get grow in size. The larger you are, the bigger the objects you can eat, and you can even squish opponents beneath your feet if you're bigger than them.

Although it's clearly designed around multiplayer since you're always going up against an opponent, there's also a fun single-player mode where you... um... well, I don't really know what you do since the cutscenes don't make any sense. You go around eating things to free spirits from the Earth or something, and once liberated they engage in some bizarre one-sided dialogue with your chosen monster between levels. Here's one such example of this masterful storytelling:



Besides all this, there's also a ton of skins to unlock that not only change your look, but also alter your stats in various ways. They've got a bit of a loot aspect to them since there are a lot of different stat modifiers, and you can find multiple versions of the same skin with randomized stats (though you can only keep one at a time). You get these by doing various challenges like eating X amount of objects or hitting X opponents with a power. Later on it starts getting kind of cheap since they'll hide the objective with question marks (Use ????? on opponents ?? times) but it's not too annoying since they're fairly easy to guess and the levels aren't that long anyway.

In terms of graphics, it's pretty barebones, but it gets the job done. The music is nothing to write home about either, although the Mega Center theme sounds pretty nice, and the way the menu music slightly changes depending on what selection you're making is cool. I've only ever seen that done in a few other games, like Mario Kart Wii and Ridge Racer 3D.

Overall, it's not the most amazing hidden gem ever, but I really liked it! Surprisingly enough for a niche game like this, it even supported Wi-Fi multiplayer (not that I ever found anybody online to play with, of course).

YES! I bought it at like $5 and really liked it! Hard to believe it came from a Canadian team! It looks legit Japanese!

 

[Azure Dream]

Awesome topic, and giveaway. I don't have time to do this properly, but I might as well mention:

Super Princess Peach

This was an oddly-timed release, coming out just a few months before New Super Mario Bros, which severely overshadowed it. The thing is, though, that while very easy, this was the more creative of the two games, with nice 2D artwork compared to New SMB's... serviceable graphics. It was also the first brand new return to dedicated Mario platforming in almost four years, which itself was the only real Mario platformer since 1996's Super Mario 64. (Wario games were just too different for my taste, although to be fair, Wario World came close.) The point is I was starved for a new, interesting Mario platformer. SPP was a strange game, but enjoyable.

The game's central gimmick were the "Vibes", which meant you could tap the four corners of the touch screen to quickly switch between Calm, Gloom, Rage, and Joy, to that effect. All four handled differently: Gloom Peach ran around quickly while tears fountained from her eyes (interacting with the environment like watering plants or causing ice to form), Rage Peach stomped around, visibly slamming the screen, Joy Peach floated upward and twirled around, and Calm Peach attacked with her umbrella, which was actually a boy transformed, named Perry, that she's trying to restore. (Oddly enough, she never actually accomplishes this by the end of the game.)

It's an easy enough game to breeze through the game, but it's a fun experience, that shows off its TOSE roots more than once (even a Stafy cameo!). Probably the most surprising thing to me was when I beat the game the first time, and

Spoiler

unlocked a brand new move for Peach that changed how she attacked to be MUCH faster

. I found it completely unexpected, and a nice bonus to revisiting areas for the last few collectables.

This writeup hasn't done the game justice, but I thought I should offer it up anyway.

Weird factoid: Originally the Koopalings were supposed to serve as bosses in the game, and their sprites still reside in the game, although they were replaced with completely different boss fights like Petey and Gooper Blooper. This was a big deal back then, since the Koopalings were almost entirely missing from the franchise at that point, save for brief, silent appearances in Superstar Saga for the GBA.

 

[CloakBass]

Weird factoid: Originally the Koopalings were supposed to serve as bosses in the game, and their sprites still reside in the game, although they were replaced with completely different boss fights like Petey and Gooper Blooper. This was a big deal back then, since the Koopalings were almost entirely missing from the franchise at that point, save for brief, silent appearances in Superstar Saga for the GBA.

I remember being upset about this at the time. How the tables have turned!

 

[daydream]

I just ordered my fourth copy of Roger Rabbit. The first three sellers had to cancel on me, lol.

 

[@MUWANdo]

I don't have time to drop the big dumb post I'd originally planned (mostly because I forgot about it until now!) but here are a few old GB/GBC games that I feel are worth mentioning:

Blade (Game Boy Color) - yeah, it's a licensed brawler based on the Wesley Snipes movie and a companion to a terrible PSX game, but it's really not too bad! It was developed by a bunch of ex-Technos dudes (Double Dragon, River City Ransom, etc) and you can recognise a lot of those familiar moves and animations in Blade's moveset, so just hitting dudes feels great. There are also a few crosshair shooting sections (think Cabal but fixed-screen) as well as some sword-based combat against bosses, and the levels themselves have some fairly minor adventure elements, too. It's not a brilliant game or anything--big sprites mean there are only ever a couple enemies on screen at once, and there just aren't enough different mooks to use all your cool moves on--but for something that should be absolute trash it's actually fairly well-done. Take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bsGZWpys5c


Bubble Ghost (Game Boy) - I always thought this was a Game Boy original, but it turns out it's a Japanese-made conversion of a French PC game. Anyway, it's a simple arcade-style action game that requires you to move a bubble through a bunch of hazard-filled single-screen stages, but rather than directly controlling the bubble, you control a ghost that can hover around the bubble and blow from different directions, or move independently of the bubble to interact with objects and stage hazards. The PC versions used the mouse to directly control the ghost, but the GB version's controls are more than adequate: the ghost will "snap" to the bubble when in range, allowing you to quickly strafe around to different angles from which to blow, but once you're decoupled from the bubble you can move with regular d-pad controls. The one big problem with this game is that it's really, really short--there are 35 single-screen rooms to clear, and once you've got 'em all sussed you can clear the game in about ten minutes--but if you're into games like Balloon Trip or Kuru Kuru Kururin you'll dig it while it lasts. Lookee here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRrKsgZDzxw

(if any of that sounds familiar to you, it's probably because you played or heard about Soul Bubbles for DS, a game that borrows that same bubble-blowing mechanic but takes it in a whole other direction and is fun in a different way. Check that game out, too, if you haven't already.)


Samurai Kid (Game Boy Color, Japan-only) - I came across this game fairly recently and was pleasantly surprised; it's a sidescrolling action game with puzzle elements where you play as a samurai that has to switch between three different weapons to attack/manipulate enemies and navigate each level. The best comparison would probably be something like Mighty Switch Force--beating the stages isn't too tough and the puzzles aren't especially puzzle-y, but the fun comes from replaying the stages to improve your time/rank, and there are also hidden collectibles and upgrades that add an exploration element and unlock a couple little bonuses, as well as some fun boss fights. It was released very late in the GBC's life so it looks and sounds great, and while there aren't a ton of stages (10 standard levels plus a few bonuses, IIRC) they're all quite large and made to be replayed, so if you're into this sort of game you'll have a lot of fun with it, and if this game had been released internationally people would probably talk about it in the same breath as games like Toki Tori or Shantae. Here's the first stage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZI5VM58YIk

(The developer of this game was a company called Biox, the same one that made the infamously bad Mega Man II for GB, but you'd never know it from playing Samurai Kid.)


Super Robot Pinball (Game Boy Color, Japan-only) - Remember Pokemon Pinball? Like big robots? Cool, here's Pokemon Pinball with big robots! I guess you could call this game a "spiritual sequel" to Pokemon Pinball, but it's so similar you'd think it was a straight reskin at first glance--same devs, same engine, very similar physics, similar collectathon aspect, even the first table is pretty much lifted from Pokemon Pinball--but the robot battling element is somewhat different: instead of just whacking a robot a few times to add it to your not-pokedex, you'll be transported to a mini-table arena where you can choose between a random selection of bots to participate in a battle with a boss, and by doing loops or hitting targets you can make your robot attack, dodge, charge a special attack, etc. It's all fairly simple but still fun, and there are a lot of robots to collect/battle (around 100, I think) and because the robots are all takes from famous franchises, you get to hear 8-bit renditions of a ton of big robot theme songs while they battle. Personally, I know almost nothing about big robots so the fanservice element is totally lost on me, but I loved Pokemon Pinball and I think I love this game a little more. Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAiJh9nb4pg

(I had to post a longplay as it's the only footage I could find that includes the second table. Sorry!.)

 

[Celine]

LILO & STITCH FOR THE GBA aka the most ambitious licensed game ever?

developed by digital eclipse, this game is actually a 2D platformer/shooter. Treasure-like. where you can aim your shots up, down, diagonally, etc

Bubble Ghost (Game Boy) - I always thought this was a Game Boy original, but it turns out it's a Japanese-made conversion of a French PC game. Anyway, it's a simple arcade-style action game that requires you to move a bubble through a bunch of hazard-filled single-screen stages, but rather than directly controlling the bubble, you control a ghost that can hover around the bubble and blow from different directions, or move independently of the bubble to interact with objects and stage hazards. The PC versions used the mouse to directly control the ghost, but the GB version's controls are more than adequate: the ghost will "snap" to the bubble when in range, allowing you to quickly strafe around to different angles from which to blow, but once you're decoupled from the bubble you can move with regular d-pad controls. The one big problem with this game is that it's really, really short--there are 35 single-screen rooms to clear, and once you've got 'em all sussed you can clear the game in about ten minutes--but if you're into games like Balloon Trip or Kuru Kuru Kururin you'll dig it while it lasts. Lookee here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRrKsgZDzxw

(if any of that sounds familiar to you, it's probably because you played or heard about Soul Bubbles for DS, a game that borrows that same bubble-blowing mechanic but takes it in a whole other direction and is fun in a different way. Check that game out, too, if you haven't already.)


Samurai Kid (Game Boy Color, Japan-only) - I came across this game fairly recently and was pleasantly surprised; it's a sidescrolling action game with puzzle elements where you play as a samurai that has to switch between three different weapons to attack/manipulate enemies and navigate each level. The best comparison would probably be something like Mighty Switch Force--beating the stages isn't too tough and the puzzles aren't especially puzzle-y, but the fun comes from replaying the stages to improve your time/rank, and there are also hidden collectibles and upgrades that add an exploration element and unlock a couple little bonuses, as well as some fun boss fights. It was released very late in the GBC's life so it looks and sounds great, and while there aren't a ton of stages (10 standard levels plus a few bonuses, IIRC) they're all quite large and made to be replayed, so if you're into this sort of game you'll have a lot of fun with it, and if this game had been released internationally people would probably talk about it in the same breath as games like Toki Tori or Shantae. Here's the first stage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZI5VM58YIk

(The developer of this game was a company called Biox, the same one that made the infamously bad Mega Man II for GB, but you'd never know it from playing Samurai Kid.)


Super Robot Pinball (Game Boy Color, Japan-only) - Remember Pokemon Pinball? Like big robots? Cool, here's Pokemon Pinball with big robots! I guess you could call this game a "spiritual sequel" to Pokemon Pinball, but it's so similar you'd think it was a straight reskin at first glance--same devs, same engine, very similar physics, similar collectathon aspect, even the first table is pretty much lifted from Pokemon Pinball--but the robot battling element is somewhat different: instead of just whacking a robot a few times to add it to your not-pokedex, you'll be transported to a mini-table arena where you can choose between a random selection of bots to participate in a battle with a boss, and by doing loops or hitting targets you can make your robot attack, dodge, charge a special attack, etc. It's all fairly simple but still fun, and there are a lot of robots to collect/battle (around 100, I think) and because the robots are all takes from famous franchises, you get to hear 8-bit renditions of a ton of big robot theme songs while they battle. Personally, I know almost nothing about big robots so the fanservice element is totally lost on me, but I loved Pokemon Pinball and I think I love this game a little more. Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAiJh9nb4pg

(I had to post a longplay as it's the only footage I could find that includes the second table. Sorry!.)

Didn't know these 4, thanks for posting.

 

[Killer Yakuza B]

I just ordered my fourth copy of Roger Rabbit. The first three sellers had to cancel on me, lol.

Nice! I hope this order actually goes through and that you enjoy it!

 

[Celine]

Klonoa games for GBA were excellent puzzle platformer with a tight level design and colorful graphics.
However the first Klonoa spinoff for handheld which incorporated the more "puzzle oriented" direction was released well before GBA was even available.
In 1999 in fact Namco released Kaze no Klonoa: Moonlight Museum exclusively for Bandai WonderSwan a few months after the handheld launch.
The game sports some nice graphics (unfortunately only monochromatic) and tunes but what really grips the player is the phenomenal sense of progression.
Every stage introduce new mechanics very well and merge them with past ones.

Klonoa for WS lack polish, for example there are no idle animation except the usual "flowing ears", no animation when the protagonist push a block and also there are no bosses.
Despite that it's a really fun game and a must for Klonoa fans or gamers who like puzzle-centric platform games.

Images:

 

[daydream]

Nice! I hope this order actually goes through and that you enjoy it!

Thanks. I'm enjoying Trax in the meantime!

 

[maxcriden]

In the process of choosing winners right now and having an extraordinarily hard time. So many good entries. Stay tuned.

 

[Killer Yakuza B]

Thanks. I'm enjoying Trax in the meantime!

Awesome! Glad to see my recommendations were of use to someone!

In the process of choosing winners right now and having an extraordinarily hard time. So many good entries. Stay tuned.

Fingers crossed. Big time. Several of them.

 

[Salsa]

I got the needz to swing

 

[maxcriden]

I absolutely love Metroid II and this write-up brought back lots of warm feelings from experiencing the game for the first time, last year.

Existential crises are not necessarily the territory of nine year-olds, but suddenly I realized that a world without an unbeaten Garamoth is not one I totally understood. Mind you, I was nine, so I got over it pretty quickly. But you never forget that first real battle with a game that only belongs to you, even if it takes a year of sitting in a car and many, many batteries.

I loved reading the epic tale of how you conquered your first existential crisis. Thank you for writing this up.

oh damnnnnnnn I want this so bad

and I totes have the game

motherfucking GO GO BECKHAM ADVENTURE ON SOCCER ISLAND for the Gameboy Advance (2D platformer)

Salsa Shark. This is ridiculous. I need to play this game and your write-up was hilarious.

Okay, these are our winners. digita1alchemy, CloakBass, nynt9, and SOLDIER, I wish I had prizes for you guys, too. There were a lot of really great other write-ups as well. It's tough picking just three winners!

Thanks to all for participating and I'll see you in a few days for *another* giveaway!

 

[Killer Yakuza B]

Oh wow I won! This is amazing. Thanks so much for organizing this giveaway, Max! And congrats to all the other winners, of course. There were lots of good games I had no idea existed before. This ended up being a really good thread, amazing giveaway aside.

Again, thank you so much! I'm gonna play the heck out of this game.

 

[Salsa]

thanks a lot max. honestly this thread was great regardless of competition so nice going!

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Thanks, Max! Much appreciated!

 

[MissileTrick]

Congrats to the winners! I think this one has been my favorite so far. So many cool interesting games have pop up on my radar now . As usual I will await for the next.

 

[maxcriden]

Congrats to the winners! I think this one has been my favorite so far. So many cool interesting games have pop up on my radar now . As usual I will await for the next.

There is another one coming up very soon, for sure. Hopefully third time will be the charm for you! (And I'm glad you enjoyed participating regardless!)

 

[Baust]

Congrats to the winners!

There's a lot of good write-ups in here.

 

[Lord British]

Congrats to the winners, it's a fantastic game.

This thread has been fascinating and could easily spin-off into a long-runner. "Recommend an obscure game (with pictures!)"

 

[maxcriden]

Congrats to the winners, it's a fantastic game.

This thread has been fascinating and could easily spin-off into a long-runner. "Recommend an obscure game (with pictures!)"

Great idea. Have at it!

 

[CloakBass]

Congrats to the winners! And thanks Max for starting this thread. So many games I need to check out now! I enjoyed the original Umihara Kawase (and the Game Center CX episode) so I'm definitely going to pick up Yumi's Odd Oddysey when it's on sale. There are a few other titles I had in mind - I'll save them for the new thread

Bubble Ghost (Game Boy) - I always thought this was a Game Boy original, but it turns out it's a Japanese-made conversion of a French PC game. Anyway, it's a simple arcade-style action game that requires you to move a bubble through a bunch of hazard-filled single-screen stages, but rather than directly controlling the bubble, you control a ghost that can hover around the bubble and blow from different directions, or move independently of the bubble to interact with objects and stage hazards. The PC versions used the mouse to directly control the ghost, but the GB version's controls are more than adequate: the ghost will "snap" to the bubble when in range, allowing you to quickly strafe around to different angles from which to blow, but once you're decoupled from the bubble you can move with regular d-pad controls. The one big problem with this game is that it's really, really short--there are 35 single-screen rooms to clear, and once you've got 'em all sussed you can clear the game in about ten minutes--but if you're into games like Balloon Trip or Kuru Kuru Kururin you'll dig it while it lasts. Lookee here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRrKsgZDzxw

This was another game I remember fondly from an ancient multicart. I clearly have a weakness for catchy level music.

 

[Radnom]

Grats to the winners, and it was a fantastic competition idea, I really enjoyed reading this thread! I hope we can get a sequel topic!

 

[maxcriden]

Grats to the winners, and it was a fantastic competition idea, I really enjoyed reading this thread! I hope we can get a sequel topic!

There's one up right now! I made it earlier today. Can't link as I'm on mobile and totally inept, but if you go in my profile and click "threads started by" it should be there.

 

[gingerbeardman]

If that's the case, I don't need to worry about making sure my entry in a platformer!

One of my favourite games for the GBA and one that I keep coming back to year-over-year is Kururin Paradise!

It's a spinning stick game where you don't want to let it hit the walls. That pretty much it.

I just need to chime in and say "Yes!" to the Kururin mentions. I played through both GBA games on a week long holiday to the Greek island of Corfu. Didn't see much of the beach or my girlfriend (now my wife), but buy did I have a good time with those two gems. Two of my favourites of all time. I wonder why Eighting never did any more twitch action puzzlers like this?

My suggestion (and I know the prize has been given out) is MaBoShi

WiiWare

DS download version

my full review with bonuses can be accessed here: http://dreampast.tumblr.com/post/1342575347/maboshi

pasted here for your pleasure

Three games for the price of one in the innovative WiiWare title. Six if you count the fact that you can download a version of the game over Wi-Fi to your Nintendo DS to play on the move.

WiiWare is the downloadable game service on Nintendo’s Wii home console. It lets you download smaller sized and lower priced games direct to your console, and offers a distinctly different range of games than you can pick up through more traditional retail outlets. The channel showcases game concepts that may not have been profitable to release elsewhere. It’s astonishing that without WiiWare, MaBoShi may never have seen the light of day. Each of its three game concepts are so unconventional and slight that I think most gamers might not give them a second glance, even at this very affordable price.

MaBoShi takes advantage of few of the Wii’s features but still delivers a solid and innovative experience. It allows players to use their Miis as avatars in the game, send replays to other players via WiiConnect24, and also has the previously mentioned Wi-Fi download to Nintendo DS. But there is no sign of motion control. In fact, whilst the wii remote is used as a pointer for the game menu, MaBoShi is firmly a one button game. Or perhaps that be three one button games, as there are actually three main game modes: Circle, Bar and Square. Each mode is played differently, but with the same objective - to score one million points. In the Wii version there are three game panels on screen, allowing simultaneous multi-player.

With multiple players the game adds an extra feature into the mix, known simply as the Effect System. Destroying an enemy will cause a bubble to appear. This bubble moves across the screen and over other game panels where it can affect other games in progress. This means that players managing their own separate games may be influenced by these effects eminating from other game panels, and players may therefore choose whether they wish to help or hinder their fellow players. It’s not often you get to choose whether to play cooperatively or competitively, and I really like this aspect of the gameplay.

Circle mode - my personal favourite - finds you in control of a constantly rotating circle, able to switch the direction in which it is spinning by pressing the A button. By controlling the speed and momentum of the circle, you must guide it around the screen. You can use the variety of dynamic obstacles that appear on screen as a means to achieving the precise movement required to collide with the enemies and collect bonus multipliers. The aim of each round is to collide with all enemies as they appear onscreen, before they move off the game area. It is game over as soon as one enemy leaves the play field. The depth of control in this game mode is simply astonishing, and infrequent taps of the A button allow almost analog control of speed and momentum. Special mention must also go to the level design in this game, as it is balanced to perfection. In fact, if you’re good enough to score a million you will most likely do so near the end of all available 40 levels.

Bar mode sees you manoeuvring a rotating bar through a vertically scrolling level. The bar rotates around a core, which only moves using the momentum created by the bar and only when the A button is held. The bar can be used to defeat enemies and smash blocks, but if the core touches an enemy or a block the game ends. There are also pinballs, powerups and much more to contend with. I find this game the most difficult of the three.

Square mode sees the player controlling a single block that leaves a trail of fire behind. This trail of fire can burn obstacles, and can even set other parts of the trail alight. You must navigate around the screen, at your own pace, setting fire to all the obstacles with the help of the occasional bomb, whilst keeping an eye out for bonus multipliers. The screen scrolls when the player moves, and if an obstacle or part of the trail of fire hits the bottom of the screen, the game ends.

Created by Japanese pinball experts Mindware Corp, MaBoShi is a triumph of game design and deserves your attention. If you fancy a challenge I can heartily recommend trying to reach one million points in one or all of the game modes (I’ve only managed to do it myself in circle mode on the DS download version) - the game has a lot to offer if you’re willing to give it a try. Nintendo seem to be of the same mind, as they recently released an updated and expanded version of the Square game for their DSiWare download service under the name of Flametail.

 

[@MUWANdo]

MaBoShi s a neat little game and Mickey G. Albert from Mindware is someone I have a lot of respect for. He put out a PC game not too long ago, a widescreen sorta-shooter called Super Chain Crusher Horizon, check it out: http://store.steampowered.com/app/262920

I just need to chime in and say "Yes!" to the Kururin mentions. I played through both GBA games on a week long holiday to the Greek island of Corfu. Didn't see much of the beach or my girlfriend (now my wife), but buy did I have a good time with those two gems. Two of my favourites of all time. I wonder why Eighting never did any more twitch action puzzlers like this?

You know there are three Kururin games, right? They made one for Gamecube, too. Kururin Squash!

 

[gingerbeardman]

MaBoShi s a neat little game and Mickey G. Albert from Mindware is someone I have a lot of respect for. He put out a PC game not too long ago, a widescreen sorta-shooter called Super Chain Crusher Horizon, check it out: http://store.steampowered.com/app/262920

Mickey is great. Part of my funding for the Untold History of Japanese Game Developers book was so he could be interviewed.

You know there are three Kururin games, right? They made one for Gamecube, too. Kururin Squash!

Yes. Embarassingly enough I own Squash but am yet to play it.

 

[Starwolf_UK]

My suggestion (and I know the prize has been given out) is MaBoShi

Goodness I had totally forgot about this game. I never did reach 1,000,000 points in any mode but I put a fair few hours into it. Flametail is a pretty good take on Snake.

Games being broken up onto DSiWare, hmm. Spin Six is another hidden gen in that respect. It takes the best mode of GBA game Nonono Puzzle Chai-Rian (aka nonono puzzle chailien); guru guru spin and expands it slightly. As for the GBA game, who can say no to this boxart:

 

[gingerbeardman]

Spin Six, I will try! Thanks