DSiWare Game Reviews
Review Jewel Quest 5 - The Sleepless Star (DSiWare)
Jewel Identity
We often complain about the lack of innovation in today's games industry. Publishers and developers tend to take the safe and easy route, making games that stick closely to a tried-and-tested template with the odd tweak here and there. While there's nothing wrong with making a sequel to a popular game, it's not unreasonable for us...
Review Jewel Quest 4 Heritage (DSiWare)
Losing its shine
It seems like the Match-3 genre never stops growing, with some new form of the popular puzzle games appearing what feels like every other week. It's a genre that has seen hundreds upon hundreds of releases, and there's little sign of it slowing down. If anything, it's baffling that so many of these games are still being made. Very...
Review California Super Sports (DSiWare)
A bad sport
To understand what California Super Sports is, start with Wii Sports. Do you have the handful of mini-games fixed in your mind, complete with simple rules and bobble-headed athletes? Good; now trade in your Wii Remote for a DS stylus. Next, systemically break every intuitive gameplay system and control scheme in sight. Then sabotage the...
Review Publisher Dream (DSiWare)
This game development biz is confusing...
CIRCLE Entertainment has published a good variety of games on DSiWare, covering almost any genre that can feasibly work on the ageing service. Its own take on the sim style began with Bookstore Dream, which while owing much to similar smartphone games was a solid effort. Unlike that book publishing title,...
Review Armageddon Operation Dragon (DSiWare)
Armageddon outta here
The year is 2037 and there's an asteroid as large as the moon headed directly for Earth. Since there is no weapon known to man that is powerful enough to eradicate such a massive rock, salvation can only be achieved by harvesting an all powerful energy that resides outside of the solar system. No need to call Bruce Willis,...
Review Color Commando (DSiWare)
Mini-masterpiece
Quirky, innovative puzzle-platformers are becoming something of a calling card for Goodbye Galaxy Games, and this latest release fits nicely into that oeuvre. The final panel in a DSiWare triptych that includes the Flipper series and Ace Mathician, Color Commando similarly revolves around manipulating the environment — here via...
Review Working Dawgs: Rivet Retriever (DSiWare)
A dog's breakfast
Working Dawgs: Rivet Retriever is a platformer doomed to be forgotten. An uninspired follow-up to puzzle game Working Dawgs: A-maze-ing Pipes, every facet of this downloadable title succumbs to the dark side of video games, thoroughly beating down what simple enjoyment might be found in a side-scroller this basic. If the underlying...
Review Clash of Elementalists (DSiWare)
An Elemental Mistake
If you’ve stumbled onto any footage of Clash of Elementalists, we wouldn’t be surprised if your first impression was a good one. At first glance, the game-play appears reminiscent of SEGA’s Virtual-On series or even the multiplayer aspect of Kid Icarus: Uprising. This is a third-person arena brawler where you’re bestowed...
Review Forgotten Legions (DSiWare)
Tower offence
Forgotten Legions tells the story of a character named Merkhovious, who is apparently a wizard or some other type of magic user. He started using dark magic and was quickly banished from the town of Riverkeep, because the higher-ups there frown upon that sort of thing. Now Merkhovious is back, and he’s brought an army of undead...
You jelly?
Aside offerings such as I Must Run!, there haven't been a huge number of endless runner-style games on DSiWare. CIRCLE Entertainment's latest title, Goony, aims to fill that gap a little, while also proving that you don't necessarily need legs or a baffling amount of stamina to star in the genre – if you're a creature made of jelly, you...
Review Easter Eggztravaganza (DSiWare)
All cracked up
Whenever a major holiday is just around the corner, it’s no surprise that a flood of related products hit the market just in time to grab the attention of consumers. It happens with almost everything, from food to toys to lawn ornaments, and video games are no exception. While it’s not fair to knock a product for being a blatant...
Propellerheads
G-STYLE's latest import from Japan, Moke Moke stars a mysterious race of flying, forest-dwelling fuzzballs known as Moke. Combining the evolutionary advantages of sighted moles with the whimsical utility of those novelty helicopter hats, the Moke spend their time whizzing around the forest in an eternal contest to see who among them...
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
Over the past few years, the DSiWare download service has seen some incredibly strange games with bizarre plots and titles. Ah! Heaven is no exception to this. Simply put, this a vertically scrolling platformer that has you taking control of a spiky haired, sunglasses wearing, nameless soul who just wants to ascend to...
Under pressure
Having covered bullets and time, EnjoyUp's pint-sized yet madly challenging 99 series of score-attackers aligns its focus on the third staple of classic game design: movement and the limitations thereof. Over the dozen or so stages of 99Moves, players are dared to make it to the end of a gauntlet in as many moves or fewer. It doesn't...
Safe, but solid
We've seen a wide variety of shoot 'em ups on the DSiWare service, some obviously better than others. Galaxy Saver is the newest entry and takes quite a few influences from early arcade shooters, while tossing in a few twists in an effort to make the experience stand out. So while there might not be a lot of originality when it comes...
Review Snowboard Xtreme (DSiWare)
Xtremely lacklustre
Sometimes a game company develops a game that doesn’t turn out to be nearly as well received as they expect it to be. After that, the very same game company will sometimes take that sorry excuse for a game, change the theme, fix the controls, re-skin it to look like something different, and then release it as an entirely new...
Review Jump Trials Extreme (DSiWare)
Aiming higher
It's only been a little over a month since G-STYLE's Jump Trials hopped onto the DSiWare service, but its sequel Jump Trials Extreme has already made the long leap over from Japan. Like 10 Second Run, the Jump Trials games are all about performing daring feats of platforming in under 10 seconds. We thought the original was an enjoyable...
Review Goooooal América (DSiWare)
New World, old game
For all the emphatic 'o's in its title's iconic interjection, Goooooal América is not a game about football. Nor is it a foosball game, as you might think. If you happen to have owned a certain toy as a child, however, you'll recognize the game's inspiration right off the bat. It's based on a particular small-scale...
Review Cake Ninja XMAS (DSiWare)
Christmas is cancelled
Long time readers of Nintendo Life will be acutely aware of the fact that we’re not the biggest fans of Cypronia’s Cake Ninja series. The two titles released so far have both received scathing critiques from our staff, which is why we approached this festive edition with a fair degree of trepidation. As the title plainly...
Review Rytmik World Music (DSiWare)
Bring the beat back
Cinemax has cooked up a number of flavours of its Rytmik music production suite, allowing the musically-minded playgrounds with which to explore dance, chip tunes, hip hop, rock and now world music. Rytmik World Music is a fun little musical tool tha
Review Anonymous Notes Chapter 3 - From The Abyss (DSiWare)
Return of the Abyss
Things have been quiet on the Anonymous Notes front — after a year and a half the series returns for a hat trick with Anonymous Notes Chapter 3 - From The Abyss. Not much has changed in that time, really: save for a new protagonist, Chapter 3 is still the same mechanically sound and somewhat aimless dungeon crawler as Chapter 2...
Review Castle Conqueror - Heroes 2 (DSiWare)
Another heroic effort
Just over one year ago CIRCLE released Castle Conqueror - Heroes for DSiWare. We weren't stingy with the praise in our review, awarding it a solid 9 out of 10 and holding it up as the strongest title in a very strong series. Now we've received a sequel, and we couldn't be happier. For those who haven't played the first game,...
There is no eskape
If you haven’t noticed by now, then we’re just going to have to come right out and say it: zombies are popular. There’s no real way to trace the resurgence that zombies have had in popular culture, but it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. That being the case, there have been a whole lot of video games featuring zombies in...
Review Wizard Defenders (DSiWare)
We have but a fool's hope
On the surface, Wizard Defenders seems like a promising blend of match-3 puzzling and tower defence; in its best moments it's a concept that works well. Unfortunately these moments are rare, and despite its budget price this title lacks the magic to make a gamer happy. This is a good example of a reasonable idea being...
Review Chuck E. Cheese's Alien Defense Force (DSiWare)
In space, no one can hear you regret your purchase
Earlier this year, DSiWare had the misfortune of becoming home to Chuck E. Cheese's Arcade Room. A joyless collection of five dull mini-games and additional gimmicks such as achievements and an outfit customisation feature, the game was a disappointment in nearly every possible way. Now we have a...
Review Crystal Adventure (DSiWare)
In which "adventure" is revealed to be a relative term
If there's one thing RPG fans enjoy, it's a good story. The quest should be epic, the characters should be interesting, and there should preferably be a few surprising twists along the way as well. Here is the story of Crystal Adventure: you get bored quickly and delete it. Okay, you caught...
Review Christmas Wonderland 2 (DSiWare)
Roast it on an open fire
A textbook example of a sequel nobody asked for, Christmas Wonderland 2 has graced DSiWare. We guess, however, that we should be somewhat grateful. After all, last year Microvalue released two awful holiday-themed hidden object games: Halloween: Trick or Treat and the first Christmas Wonderland. This year it only left one...
Review Invasion of the Alien Blobs! (DSiWare)
Houston, we have a bloblem
At this point it's unlikely that anybody with a DSi or 3DS is in need of an inexpensive time-waster, but Invasion of the Alien Blobs! is here to provide one more option. And while it's not exactly a great game, it certainly provides some mindless fun along the way. The best thing about Invasion of the Alien Blobs! is its...
Pop it and drop it
Last year the DSiWare service saw the release of Bloons TD. It was an unimpressive but acceptable entry into the overstuffed tower defence genre, and this year we're leaping ahead three sequels to Bloons TD 4. If Bloons TD 4 is at all representative of the course the series has taken, we can safely say we haven't missed much by...
Review Spirit Hunters Inc. Shadow/Light (DSiWare)
Bustin' makes us feel bored
Announced way back in May 2010, Nnooo's Spirit Hunters Inc. — available now in both Light and Shadow flavours — promised, in Nnooo's own words, "a Role Playing Game set in the real world." That's both a tall order and an idea with enormous potential, which is why it's a shame that the finished product mistakes "role...
