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how cool are these?


i think in some way they stand out more as a work of art than as a amazing video games, but they look pretty awesome.


been playing Dotstream for a bit now, and it's an incredibly fun pick up and play game...more fun than most racers on the GBA, actually.


I also played Soundvoyager in the store, and although I most likely won't buy it (I have an SP and no headphone adapter), the experience was really cool. It's a couple of mini-games based around following sounds.

In fact, all of the games have really great designs, interweaving visuals, music, and sound effects in a pretty interesting way.


Orbital looks amazing.

Coloris looks pretty great too.

Dialhex seems pretty tough to master from what I can tell...but I love puzzle games, so I can see myself getting into it (it took me a while to get the hang of Panel De Pon after so much Puyo Puyo).

Boundish is glorified Pong. I wouldn't pay ￥2000 for it.

And I have no idea if Digidrive will actually be fun or not...who knows.


So I'm buying at least 3 of these, possibly more...what a nice surprise at the end of the GBA's life!



EDIT: they're going to be called "Digistylish" for the North American release...don't know why they would change it, perhaps it's due to copywrites or something...
 
DOT STREAM is a great buy for under 2000yen!

Not only does it scream classic 8-bit aethetics, but it's also reminiscent of the challenge level of older games. The only truly easy track was the first one, every other one upped the challenge and complexity significantly, and the Formation mode where you have to figure out how to use a set of commands to gracefully drive 4, 5, 6 lines is really a pleasant and enjoyable headache.

It may look graphically simply, but the controls are tight, and the gameplay and design just addictive. Classic gaming lives on!
 
The way DOT STREAM is played:

Regular Racing:

You don't have an accelerate button, your speed is automatic and affected by only two external forces. One, when you hit the R-should and get a dash boost, and two, when you hit speed pads or slow-down pads on the track.

You are represented by a colored line, termed PC-line, 5 other lines race against you, they are NPC-lines. The bulk of gameplay is using up and down on the D-pad to maneuver your line around obstacles or the track itself. It's simple when the track is uncluttered, but the game becomes very twitchy when the tracks start to get complex. Very twitchy indeed.

You have a life counter that starts at 2, you lose one everytime you run into a solid wall (ie. part of the track) or object, or if you use a dash boost by hitting R-shoulder. If you crash into a solid object at zero life, you RETIRE!

F-Zero GX rules!

So why is this game fun/challenging? Everytime you maneuver your line, it starts to cut a diagonal/curve on the track, and this means that you are not going as fast as a straight line, so the fundamental objective is to run the track with as little "maneuvering" as possible. The closer you shave the corners, the faster your time.

The tracks are not just corners to shave though, many obstacles can hinder or help you, and you can even get items that will slow down NPC-lines, destroy moving obstructions, or even let you go through solid objects temporarily.
 
thanks for breaking it down so i don't have to attempt to read the instructions (although i will at some point anyway)...


anything else i should know, especially when it comes to gaining speed, etc?
 
Yeah, definitly one of the best series to hit the GBA in a while in terms of creativity. If and when they hit the US I plan to probably get ahold of all of them.
 
i read the instructions after getting bored on the train today and figured a little more out...this game gets REALLY tough though!


i don't know if you'd want to get all of them...I feel like Boundish would literally get boring after an hour...it's nothing more than slight variations of Pong with an extra box juggling game...it also lacks the design that makes the other games so great...
 
Even though I'm sure they're fun, I can't imagine spending $20 each on these dinky little games. It's like paying $20 for Scramble.
Hopefully they'll put them all in one cartridge for a US release.
 
[quote name='Ace Harding: Private Eye']Even though I'm sure they're fun, I can't imagine spending $20 each on these dinky little games. It's like paying $20 for Scramble.
Hopefully they'll put them all in one cartridge for a US release.[/quote]


the audio is fairly uncompressed and there's a LOT of it in some of the games, so it's not likely.


you should try playing them though...dotStream is definitely worth the $18...it's one of the best racers i've played in a while to be honest
 
Yeah, I'm with Ace. $20 for each of these is way too much. Since the games are already in full English, Nintendo of America should just squeeze 'em onto a single cartridge. It can't be that hard, considering both Aria of Sorrow and Harmony of Dissonance fit on a single cart.
 
[quote name='Kawnhr']Yeah, I'm with Ace. $20 for each of these is way too much. Since the games are already in full English, Nintendo of America should just squeeze 'em onto a single cartridge. It can't be that hard, considering both Aria of Sorrow and Harmony of Dissonance fit on a single cart.[/quote]


how do you know it's way too much when you haven't played them yet?


i don't think they can fit them onto a single cart without either using a giant, expensive cart, or compressing the sound to hell...i doubt they'd want to do either...
 
It's way too much because the videos make them look like a simple mini-game or something. It hardly looks like any of them are worth $20 each, except maybe Orbital.. though I could just go play We Love Katamari's space level and save myself $20.

If they can't fit all 7 on a single cart, then they could release a single cart per series. That can't be too hard.
 
sound voyager was weird when i played the demo a while ago, but i tried it again and it's pretty fucking fantastic. i've never played a game that puts you in such a state of mind really...it's 7 minigames where you have to listen in headphones to where sounds are...one game you have to shoot sounds that come at you from 360 degrees, some of them you have to find the sounds, some you have to avoid or slalom between sounds, and then there's two games where you have to avoid cars on the road, one where you have to chase another car (of course you can only hear them!).

orbital was a really cool concept, but kind of weird...you only use two buttons, one to attract yourself to objects with higher gravitational pull, and one to repel you from them. there's no steering otherwise, except for falling into orbit of larger objects and slingshotting yourself from the orbit at the right time. you have to collect smaller objects until you grow large enough to pull the "winning" objects into your gravitational field.

digidrive was fun, but i didn't understand it at all. there's loads of different combos you can do, i had no idea when i should do what. i bet it's pretty fun once one can figure it out, though.

coloris is f ucking awesome. i ended up buying this. i can't stop playing it. it's great. so simple, but so well done.
 
I like dotstream, but the gameplay isn't as good as the sound. IMO it gets kind of boring because winning is about memorizing what comes next on the track. So far, the main thing that's making me play the game is unlocking other tracks so I can hear those songs.
 
Bit Generations is a simply cool idea and I hope Nintendo does more stuff like this in the future.
As for games, when/if they come out in the US, I'm definately picking up Dotstream ($15 after GGC sounds great for this game), and maybe Sound Voyager or Orbital.
 
[quote name='nakedsushi']I like dotstream, but the gameplay isn't as good as the sound. IMO it gets kind of boring because winning is about memorizing what comes next on the track. So far, the main thing that's making me play the game is unlocking other tracks so I can hear those songs.[/quote]


i dunno, i think my favorite thing about dotstream is that you have to adopt different strategies not only on different tracks, but also when you're in different positions on the same track.


i've unlocked all of them but haven't beaten the last couple of gp's yet...
 
I've played Dotstream, Dialhex and Boundish. All of them kind of lost their appeal on me pretty quickly. I know they are going for a minimalist design structure but it just comes off as cheap and I think 20 bucks a pop is a bit too much. They should come in sets of three or come up with something a little more visually insteresting. As is, they aren't much better than the standard flash game fair you can find on teh intarweb for free. I think Dialhex has the most potential (That is the puzzle one, right?) It has a lot of depth in how you can play it, but man is it ever boring to look at. I'm pretty sure GBA can handle more than like 5 or 6 colors. I'm not saying make these games all graphically glorified, but at least give us some textures that aren't flat colors. I don't want to play a Mondrian painting.

Found these reviews, they seem pretty spot-on:
http://www.britishgaming.co.uk/?p=1064#more-1064
 
man, that reviewer missed the point completely...it's people like that which limit these releases in japan.


people here seem to get it; lots of stores have sold out of dotstream and dialhex!
 
[quote name='Concealed Identity']man, that reviewer missed the point completely...it's people like that which limit these releases in japan.


people here seem to get it; lots of stores have sold out of dotstream and dialhex![/quote]

What point is missed? The reviewer gets the point. Gameplay over graphics.

Instead of focussing on looking or sounding great, wowing you with amazing plot or anything that gives these games more than what seems like 1 month of development time – they are based around game play, with a simple style to focus on the idea of the game, and the fun of that.
Click to expand...

I'd say the reviewer has nothing against the idea of the games, he just doesn't seem to think they are successful in reaching their goal and I'd have to agree that Dotstream is interesting but gets boring quickly and Boundish sucks immediately and Dialhex is pretty damn good.
 
I would say "gameplay over graphics" oversimplifies the point quite a bit, thus missing it.

Dotstream hasn't stopped being fun over here, and Coloris is the most addictive game I've played in ages
 
[quote name='Concealed Identity']I would say "gameplay over graphics" oversimplifies the point quite a bit, thus missing it.

Dotstream hasn't stopped being fun over here, and Coloris is the most addictive game I've played in ages[/quote]

I haven't gotten a chance to play the second set of bitgenerations yet :cry:
 
[quote name='mattstockton12']I haven't gotten a chance to play the second set of bitgenerations yet :cry:[/quote]


coloris is great, and the others are at least pretty damn interesting.


soundvoyager is simple, but it's really a completely different gaming experience than anything else i've played. orbital is frustrating for me, but i can see some people really liking it. the concept is really interesting, i just like steering better than using controls based on the gravity of surrounding objects. i'm sure digidrive can be fun if you know how to play it effectively...
 
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