DS Adventure games

[Sparky]

I borrowed the first (US released) Phoenix Wright a while ago, and just found a used copy of Touch Detective yesterday. Both are enjoyable if not outstanding titles.

I found Phoenix Wright to be a little inelegant, mostly linear with slightly awkward puzzles. There were many times I knew what the solution to a puzzle was, but found myself going in circles figuring out which dialog choices to pick in order to arrive there. The dialog was a little ham-handed too. The backgrounds were good if uninspired, the character art was stylish but I felt not as well executed as it could have been. Overall I enjoyed the storytelling. The plot is goofy and cliched, but it's presented well enough that I got caught up in the moment  to moment drama of it. There were quite a few satisfying eureka moments. I enjoyed the music as well, it was silly and energetic and fit nicely. Overall it was an enjoyable game with slightly less than optimal execution.

Touch Detective is a very different animal. I've not yet finished playing through, but so far I'm loving it. The stylishness of the presentation deserves mention first. The backgrounds are cartoony with thick outlines and watercolor-style shading. There are huge amounts of tiny details, and the rendering is immaculate. The characters, though prerendered from 3d models, suit the backgrounds fairly well. Their heavy outlines help them blend in, and the character design is in keeping with the background style. I generally prefer hand-drawn characters, but I wasn't at all disappointed. As for gameplay, the game succeeds in entertaining but has shortcomings. There are very few custom responses to clicking on objects, and almost none for using one object on another. On the bright side, the characters are engaging and consistently funny. Almost everyone is quirky in one way or another, and the dialog frequently plays one character against another in fun ways. The humor is mostly lighthearted situational comedy, but there's occasional slapstick and some humor around the world itself, which is downright bizarre (immortal butlers, dream cakes and talking sharks). In all I'm finding it a lovable specimen of the genre. If the dialog were slightly wittier and there was more custom dialog for random actions (use brick on Penelope, etc.) it would be pretty near flawless.

Niche DS titles such as these are getting a decent amout of mass market attention lately. What are your thoughts about the market or platform's effect on the adventure genre? What are your impressions of these or other DS adventure games? Do you have any recommendations?

[scotch]

Objection! ... no actually I agree, Phoenix Wright (both of them, and the GBA ones) suffers from what you said, being little more than a slideshow, and once you realise it the game becomes pretty boring, it's fun until that point, and I can see why it has such a cult status. If I found the characters/art at all interesting it might have more staying power.

I haven't played Touch Detective, didn't look appealing to me, but I might give it a go.

Another Code/Trace Memory was too myst puzzlerish for me to enjoy, and the storyline as far as I played it, quite bland.

Hotel Dusk (recent, from the same developers) has a very different feel to it, and an interesting graphical style. The game is well written, but so far suffers from what seemingly every other DS adventure does, in your face linearity, lack of options, and patronising hints and puzzles. It's easily my favorite of the DS adventure crop so far though.

It's cool that niche games have a home on DS, and that the adventures aren't even really niche games on the system, they're often the ones with a lot of buzz about them, but I think so far they've been a little underwhelming, for someone that's experienced in adventure games.

[Geoff]

I guess I'm the only really big fan of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney here... I love the music, characters, dialogue and visuals... well, everything about them. I've played the first game three times over now. The game that interrupted me replaying the second one was...

Hotel Dusk. It's also fun but I find that there's a lot less action than in the Ace Attorney games. Mostly just dialogue.

[Mr Flibble]

Hold it!

I love the Phoenix Wright games. There was only one puzzle that tripped me up in the last case, otherwise I had lots of fun tinkering around until I worked the solution out. Whilst I'm not usually a fan of the type of game where you essentially just talk to people, I think for an attourney gathering evidence it works really well.

That music is classic too, the objection one in particular.

Anyone play Another Code? It was another DS game, with the sub title Two Memories.. or something, it changed by region. It was somewhat harder, but the puzzles were generally quite fun. The plot was its real strength though, with some very Myst-esque "pick the ending" stuff. I'm still not sure if I made the right choice....

[ManicMatt]

Phoenix Wright (Wright = Right, I bet...) sells pretty well in my shop, so plenty of people do like it! (uk)

What about that "Lost in Blue"? Sounds like that game Helm wanted to make.

[Stuffing]

Lost in Blue isn't really an adventure game... It sort of is... I found it quite boring. It's not incredibly difficult though. I love Phoenix Wright, still haven't gotten the new one (should have imported it months ago, *sighs*, oh well). As for Hotel Dusk, is it worth buying? And does it have really illogical puzzles, sort of like some of the Trace Memory stuff?

[LimpingFish]

Phoenix Wright 1/2.
Hotel Dusk.
Another Code/Trace Memory.
Touch Detective.

In that order.

[Sparky]

It sounds like Hotel Dusk is pretty well appreciated around here. A local friend of mine just got it, and he seems pleased so far. I think I'll give it a try. I'm also looking forward to the new Phoenix Wright.

Scotch: regarding Touch Detective's appeal, I can understand how the art style could be hard to stomach. It's unrepentantly cutesy and weird. I used to hate art like that. If you're OK with the art direction, I feel there's a lot to appreciate. The art is really quite well done and meets its own goals well. I wish the same could be said for the puzzle implementation...

[nulluser]

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[Geoff]

I just beat Hotel Dusk and, while I did like it, I would probably call it an interactive novel with pictures more than a video game. It was about 90% dialogue so don't play it if you don't like reading (although I assume that most adventure game fans do like reading) then don't buy this game. I liked the characters and the story overall and, since that's what the game mostly is, I liked them game. The only thing that really annoyed me was how most of the 10% of the puzzles in the game felt like they were thrown in to make the game longer and some of them don't have anything to do with the story. Also, while some of the puzzles were interesting, none were as clever as the puzzles in Trace Memory, though I did like the story and characters in Hotel Dusk much more.

I find the Phoenix Wright games have a lot more action and thinking involved than Hotel Dusk since most of what you do in that one is read and then tap something with the stylus to continue to read. On that subject... the second Phoenix Wright game is shorter than the first, with only four cases as they decided to not add a fifth case like they did for the first game's remake, but the cases that are there are all quite fun (although quite a few people seem to dislike the third case) and, if you liked the first game, you'll definitely like the second. The annoying thing is how Capcom bases the bringing over of the next games on the sales of each new game... but the second game is selling relatively well, which surprised them, so I'm pretty sure they'll be bringing over the third game. Although I doubt it'll be over here before the fourth game comes out in Japan (in April).

I never played Lost in Blue or Touch Detective, though Touch Detective did catch my eye and I'll most likely play it eventually.

[Vince Twelve]

I loves me some Phoenix Wright.  I'm on the third case of the PW2 right now and enjoying it almost as much as the first.    I know that the puzzles aren't particularly great and sometimes it is frustrating to know the answer but not be able to go all "Objection!" on the prosecution's ass until the game lets you, but I love the game for the funny characters and ridiculous situations.  It plays with cliches, but does so in just the right way.  For me, it's just an undeniably charming series.

I played Trace Memory/Another Code also, and while it had some ingenious puzzles (stamp) and some fun uses of the hardware (stamp), the story and characters were not particularly interesting.  I think the game showed a lot of promise, though.  I liked the interface.

I also bought Hotel Dusk, but it's currently sitting in its original wrapping waiting for me to finish Phoenix 2.

[The Ivy]

Hey Vince, I bet WLBSWHEAC would be freakin' sweet on the DS.

Oh, and Pheonix Wright rocks my socks. I've only played Ace Attorney, but I love the ridiculous situations that Pheonix gets himself into. He's so confident on the stand, yet so awkward in real life...and all the characters have some great expressions to boot. I don't know if they were unique to this game but the "Psyche-locks" were a very cool way to keep you from finding out things about the characters until it made sense.

[LimpingFish]

This isn't the first time (or place) where I've pimped these titles, but...

The DS adventures I've played that deserve an english translation:

Kenshuui Tendo Dokuta: A doctor 'em up! Plays like a cross between Phoenix Wright and Life or Death.

Kenshuui Tendo Dokuta 2: Inochi no Tenbin: Sequel to the above. Even better!

The Kanshikikan - Kinkyuu Shutsudou!! Jiken Genba wo Touch Seyo: CSI meets Phoenix Wright.

Touch de Manzai! Megami no Etsubo DS: The worlds first (to my knowledge) stand-up comedy sim! Guide two comedians to cosmic comedy success! Not an adventure, per se, but close enough.

All these are playable regardless, though a knowledge of Japanese would be, of course, a boon.

SOMEBODY TRANSLATE THESE NOW!

[sergiocornaga]

I've only played Ace Attorney... I don't know if they were unique to this game but the "Psyche-locks" were a very cool way to keep you from finding out things about the characters until it made sense.

Hmm? It sounds like your talking about the second one, Phoenix Wright- Ace Attorney: Justice for all. The first one was called Phoenix Wright- Ace Attorney... In my opinion the first one is better, but I'm hopeful that the third will top them both.

Man, I love those games... best adventure games I've bought in a long time.

[noxis]

Is there a decent Nintendo DS emulator available as such?  I really would like to have a preview of these before I purchased a DS.

[scotch]

Generally speaking no, they have a way to come before you can play commercial games on them. I did try Phoenix Wright 2 (jap/eng version) in the latest iDeaS, and it works, but with impaired graphics, and at about 40% speed (on my athlon xp2600+), also no sound.
So I wouldn't highly recommend that. The text is slow enough in the 100% speed game.

[Helm]

This isn't the first time (or place) where I've pimped these titles, but...

The DS adventures I've played that deserve an english translation:

Kenshuui Tendo Dokuta: A doctor 'em up! Plays like a cross between Phoenix Wright and Life or Death.

oh! a slightly inept but lovable doctor! Can you help him anime his anime without anime anime anime?



I played some Phoenix Wright and it was fun, though every anime anime anime cliche was in there. I suppose similar games could be created about almost any profession.

[LimpingFish]

Don't tell me you don't like anime, Helm?!

Granted, all the games I mentioned have unfortunate anime-esque quirks. In fact The Kanshikikan has a talking cat as your mentor. :

The Tendo Doktura games are slightly more adult, though. You have an alcoholic colleague to deal with in the first one, and a woman who is HIV. The second one features a stint in a poverty stricken town, and climaxes with your boss in a car crash which results in an operation to remove a pen lodged in his heart. Fun stuff!

Like I said, they still have anime-style elements (the little bead of sweat when someone is worried, the giant heads when someone is angry, etc) but, even in japanese, they're still some of the most enjoyable DS games I've played.

I suppose similar games could be created about almost any profession.

You'd be right. Slighty inept stock exchange worker/professional baseball player(sans any actual playing of baseball)/golfer(sans any actual golfing)/jockey/vet/train driver/construction worker, etc have all been games at one time or another since the days of the NES. Most of them conforming to a similar template to those found in these DS games.

[Helm]

Yeah I noticed the talking cat and japanese swordmaster anime anime anime. I really can't take that cookie-cutter stuff.

It takes a special tolerance to enjoy a game though the aesthetics annoy you, I guess you have it, I don't.

[noxis]

Generally speaking no, they have a way to come before you can play commercial games on them. I did try Phoenix Wright 2 (jap/eng version) in the latest iDeaS, and it works, but with impaired graphics, and at about 40% speed (on my athlon xp2600+), also no sound.
So I wouldn't highly recommend that. The text is slow enough in the 100% speed game.

That is what I thought, well it looks I may just have to purchase DS when I can afford one, just for these games.  Hopefully I can find one second hand.