Nanostray 2 (Nintendo DS)

I'm not usually all that keen on playing sequels before I've played the original... I like to have that comparison to draw on. But I saw Nanostray 2 for less than a fiver, and figured it would be rude to leave it sitting there. Besides, I do like a good shoot 'em up, and there aren't many that I know of on the DS, so it had to be worth a blast.

Nanostray 2 seems to combine elements from Gradius V and R-Type Final. Wait a minute... what? That must make this the most awesome shoot 'em up ever! Well, just hold your horses there while I expand on things a bit.


There's not much that'll stand up to a two-pronged lightning attack.

The game has a fairly substantial menu, but the areas you'll find of most interest are Adventure mode and Arcade mode. Adventure sees you attempting to play right the way through the game from the beginning. You get five ships to see you through, although more can be picked up through the game, if you're lucky. You also get two continues, should those ships not prove to be enough.

As you might expect from a modern shooter, Nanostray 2 features a narrative, and you as the heroic pilot. You have to pick your way through fairly cramped levels, avoiding and blasting waves of small craft, before tackling a boss at the end of the level. Shooting entire waves of enemies releases coins to pick up, some of which will give you orbs that float around your ship and fire when you do. These orbs can be repositioned around your ship for strategic purposees, which comes in handy at various points throughout levels. You also have a secondary weapon which is more powerful, but is also limited in use. Probably best to keep it for the bosses, then.


No, that's not my score. Maybe if you knock a zero off the end.

The Arcade mode functions a bit more like a Score Attack, with you selecting a level and then going on to score as highly as possible on it. Sadly, you can only pick levels that you've unlocked in the Adventure mode... and as that is pretty difficult, you might not be using the Arcade mode much, at least for a while. That said, the Adventure mode is nicely structured, in that once you've got past the first level you've got a choice of two for your next, so this branching pathway enables you to do the unlocking a bit more quickly, if you're any good at the game.

I'm not, so I haven't unlocked much yet. I imagine that one of the reasons there aren't many games like this on the DS is because they don't control well with the D-pad. Nanostray 2 certainly isn't unplayable, just... challenging. It's quite good fun despite the D-pad thing, it looks nice, and it's certainly not a walk in the park. It's not really suitable for short games, at least not in Adventure mode, and long games give me cramp, but despite all this, Nanostray 2 is a decent addition to the collection.

The Legend of Kage 2 (Nintendo DS)

So, this is why I played The Legend of Kage yesterday. Almost 25 years later, it gets a sequel! Although to be honest, I'm not sure why they (Square Enix this time around) classed it as a sequel... in this age of the reboot, they could quite easily have gone without the "2" in the title.

Having picked it up for the ridiculous price of £4.95 from ShopTo.net, which, frankly, it would have been rude not to, I thought I'd give it a crack right away. And it was interesting to note that it doesn't have to be The Legend of Kage... if you don't want it to be.

That's right. This game gives you a choice of two characters... the titular Kage, or Chihiro, a spiky young girl. Your choice affects the storyline to a degree... as Kage, the visitor to the village at the beginning of the game is a childhood friend. As Chihiro, the visitor is the same person, but there's a different kind of connection... the game kind of implies an almost sexual, lesbian connection, which is weird. I'm sure it plays out differently once you get far enough... maybe one day I'll find out.


Ninjas are red, ninjas are blue, if you don't watch it, they will slice you.

As you would expect, this game takes elements of the original but adds more depth. The storyline is obviously one thing, and the choice of characters is another. But as you progress, you learn new skills that come in handy in combat, and you can collect orbs that you can use for creating powerful magic. These things are essential, because the game quickly becomes quite tricky.

The Legend of Kage 2 is a very nice update of an old game, and a pretty decent little game in its own right. There's plenty of hacking, slashing, jumping through trees and slightly iffy dialogue, which would probably be quite satisfying if you'd bought it for twenty quid, but for a fiver I reckon it's a bit of a steal.

Big Bang Mini (Nintendo DS)

I've played a couple of fireworks-related games in the past: Fantavision (which I liked), and Boom Boom Rocket (which I didn't, although to be fair, I only played the demo which was far too hard).

Big Bang Mini promised to be different, though... in a spectacularly obvious move, you get to use fireworks to blow stuff up. Yes, Big Bang Mini is a shoot 'em up. And that's good! I haven't played one in a while, and I haven't played a good one in even longer. So it was about time I blasted some stuff.

I don't know if the game's quite like I expected it to be, though. The fireworks are maybe not used to their full explosive potential. But on the other hand, the game mechanic forces you to be more accurate with your shooting. Every time you miss your shot, the firweork explodes, and the debris falls back down. And being debris from fireworks, they'll cause you damage if they hit you.


Oooh, it's like Chinese New Year.

Of course, this being a DS game, you use the stylus to fling your fireworks skywards. It takes a while to get used to this... you think you're moving your stylus in the right direction, only to be surprised to see it go the other way. It's all your own fault when that happens, though! Strangely, you ship is only on the screen as something to be hit. It doesn't fire the fireworks, it's just there for you to drag around out of harm's way.

It's fun enough, if not quite as frantic as I'd hoped for. And there are plenty of stages to unlock and play. The biggest disappointment to me is that there's no scoring, just the completion of stages. And for a shoot 'em up, that's pretty close to unacceptable. It takes the gloss of a decent little game, for me, but it can be found cheap enough to make it more than worthwhile.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Nintendo DS)

Today wasn't a good day for starting up a new game: I had the Newcastle vs Sunderland match to contend with, for one thing (thankfully, we managed not to lose). Then it was off to my parents' for dinner, which took away several hours of potential gaming time.

Or so I thought... my dad recently bought himself a PS2 "for when the grandkids visit". Yeah right, dad. Anyway, I helped him set that up, and that resulted in quite a long session on World Championship Snooker 2007. And it's quite good. I thought of writing about that today, and then changed my mind.

I changed my mind because I really want to play some of my unopened games. Phoenix Wright is a game I bought on the DS for my wife, a long time ago. And then neither of us played it. But, seeing as it's so highly thought of, I've always meant to get around to it, and now seemed as good a time as any.

The thing is, though... Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney isn't really a game. There's not a lot of "playing" involved. In fact, it made me think back to those books you used to read as a kid, where you'd read a few pages, and then something would happen which would prompt you to turn to one of two pages to continue the story, depending on how you wanted it to turn out.

Phoenix Wright has a LOT of reading. It's quite entertaining reading, but it's not what you really want to be doing with a small screen. Every once in a while you get to choose an answer, and then we're off again as the story moves in the appropriate direction for your choice, and you wait for the opportunity to actually do something again. I can see the appeal, but it's not something I'm overly enamoured with, and I probably won't rush back to this one.