Topic: Rate your DSiWare collection

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I can't rate any of these by number, but I'll try to describe as much as I can think of. Usully if it's 2am and I have an urge to play a certain genre game, I'll download it off of DSiWare and haven't really had any regrets yet.

Aquia

• I'd only recommend this if you're not a puzzle fanatic, but somehow want an alright traditional puzzle game anyway.
• Three shapes offer different challenges: Classic (vertical), easy (horizontal), and one for thinking (square). I always pick horizontal.
• Aquarium is just there for the sake of having something to unlock. But I like it.
• Like learning to ride a bike. If you don't put in the effort it'll suck, but once you get the hang of it you'll be good at it forever.
• Timed mode is about three minutes, but for quickplay I prefer to see how long it takes me to get to level 11 in endless (about 10-15 minutes.) Good way to clear your head.
• Great pace, you'll be making a carefully chosen move every second. And you use mini-combos to maneuver pieces into the formation you require. People who comment that button mashing is an actual strategy are wrong; in endless this shall only delay the inevitable (the game lets you delay death a long time to prevent frustration.)

Base 10

• It's a small Art Style game. Well done and fun to play, but nothing else outstanding about it. It never really kicks it up to a high enough level.
• Puzzle mode is hard to get used to, but actually pretty fun when you're in the flow of it. But once you get used to it, it becomes short.
• The vs DS Download play would probably be really fun!

Digidrive

• I think of this as an action game with a puzzle theme. If that interests you, you might want to consider this game.
• Gameplay is simply choosing which of the four lanes to put each car into.
• Lots of action, or at least testing your reaction time.
• Strategy is more important in the long run.
• Tons of variety and changes in pace to keep attention.
• Very forgiving, if you screw up you can easily make a comeback from scratch.
• Endless mode is a great challenge, but once you complete the medals you'll likely be burned out on it.
• VS mode is exceptional and the AI is definitely good enough for tons of replay.
• Unlocking and using themes is excellent.
• Music selection, but unfortunately none of the music is mind-blowing.
• Clock in the menu, so you can check the time every couple minutes between rounds for pick up and play.

Dragon Quest Wars

• Slime chess. A lot of the game design here is excellent, but there's just not enough offensive options for me. Slimes are dull, and Draky and Healslime are best as support or niche characters. That's three out of six that aren't interesting to get in slugfests with.
• Fun to watch and take bets on the AI killing each other in a couple simulations, especially in 4-team survival.
• Wifi activity is hard to guess, I'd call it inactive.
• Requires thinking up high level strategies in one minute rounds, not very casual.
• No story mode.
• Options are great even in offline vs mode.

Dragon's Lair

• If you saw the arcade version, but didn't have enough quarters, here's your chance.
• Challenging game.
• Number of options is respectable.
• True to the original.
• Fifteen minutes of gameplay, but replayable.
• Memorization is the only gameplay, but the game is one of a kind so that's forgivable.

Glow Artisan

• A respectable logic puzzle game. But I've also heard great things about Trajectile so you may want to check that out. Or maybe Mario vs DK?
• Excellent variety of difficulty.
• Various medals to encourage you to keep improving on each of the 100+ levels.
• Randomizer and time trial for infinite replay.
• Image editor included (haven't tried it, but heard it has usable and unique features.)

Number Battle

• This is my favourite designed DSiWare. I'm a sucker for randomness, numbers, luck, bluffing, and strategy.
• Unfortunately the wifi community is inactive.
• Gameplay design and features are excellent.
• Except for once you complete the story mode. (For example, the only 4-player map loads the credits when you win, and you can't skip them.)
• History feature to record wifi games is nice.

Oregon Trail

• An alright game, but it's a bunch of basic point and click mini-games, not what you'd expect from the name. Fun, but the idea is tedious, and not for the reasons that made the original great.
• It's too easy. There's not much strategizing to do. I think I could beat it on the hardest difficulty everytime just by telling the wagon to walk slow most of the time. I never use rest. This might be because I don't care if a couple passengers die though.
• Overall, the game itself isn't impressive, but does give me hope that Gameloft can make some good games.

Paper Airplane Chase

• A small step up from all the side scrolling obstacle course flash games that are out there. But not a very exciting game at all...
• The balance of challenge is great. I keep thinking I'll break my record each time, and enjoy failing miserably each time.
• Controls are awkward at first, but turn out to be really good.
• Dodging the walls is fun.
• Good time killer for a 15 minute break at work.

Pictobits

• Innovative but one-dimensional idea. Alright for playing once through but I don't know about replay.
• Gameplay is basically double tapping the screen to match your available pieces with the falling pieces.
• Music player by itself already makes the game worth it for me.
• Controls aren't perfect because the bits are so small and fast.
• Annoying when your bits merge into a falling piece, instead of deleting it.
• After getting the first 12 dark stars, the game became frustratingly hard for me. But I might go back and replay the easier levels someday.

Picturebook Games: The Royal Bluff

• An interesting game that was absolutely worth it to learn, but I only play it rarely now.
• A bluffing game, wouldn't really call it a card game at all. The counters are the main pieces.
• If you're a card shark then this is a unique game to learn. Probably a must-have if you have lots of nintendo points and know someone to play download play against.
• AI is great.
• Story mode is great.
• Too small of a game to make you want to keep playing though. You won't really notice, but it's missing that something special.

Pinball Pulse

• It's everything you can ask for of a traditional single table 500 point DSiWare pinball.
• Tons of great quests and features.
• Pandora's Box never gets old.
• Touch screen to tilt goes from being annoying to use, to an interesting feature, to being a rarely used afterthought. Wish it was more useful, but otherwise I'm glad they did it this way.
• Great variety of challenge.
• So heartbreaking when you lose.
• Daily challenge keeps me coming back.
• It's pretty cool how early on it's easy to earn credits. So when you're learning the game you can play forever until you unlock Pandora's box. But once your high scores start going up, getting a high score in god mode is pretty hard because of how long it takes to play and earn credits.
• imo digital pinball should let you advance levels (tables) and when you die you go back down only one table, instead of game over.
• I've played over 100 hours, and still don't know all the rules. That's a bit frustrating.

Pop+ Solo

• This is a massive game if you're a hardcore fan, but kind of a miss if you're not.
• Huge variety of ratings, options, modes, gameplay, everything.
• Didn't like how the higher levels require less popping and more shaking and combos, et cetera. Should've focused on popping, and made other techniques only usable every X minutes.
• I mainly only play the chill mode, which lets you advance without worrying about timers and stuff. And don't really bother coming back to it anymore.

SUDOKU

• It's Sudoku, I'd say it's well-done, has good controls and has all the helpful features you would expect. 200 points and it's sudoku so you're guaranteed to get at least an hour out of it.
• Has all the flaws inherent with Sudoku.
• The only challenging puzzles are on the insane level. Puzzles seem to have been chosen based on quantity over quality. Techniques required are either too easy and tedious, or inhumanly impossible.
• Lets you input your own puzzles.
• Can automatically save at any time and come back to it.