Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Most Overlooked DS Games - Part Two

It's been a couple of months since we last looked at the DS's wide collection of overlooked games. It's time to induct a new class into the most overlooked DS games, so let's hop on to it! Perhaps this list will get you interested in a game you didn't even know you wanted!

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure


Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure is a platformer with a twist. As you defeat enemies and play the game normally, the bottom screen fills up with puzzle pieces. If the puzzle blocks rise up to the top screen, they'll start attacking poor old Henry. There's a way to combat this, however. By clearing the blocks, Henry will gain more energy to take out foes and baddies alike as well as solve the occasional platforming puzzle with aid of his blocks. It's also quite a difficult game, and did I mention it was made by one of EA's studios? Yeah. I was surprised, too. These blocks definitely rocked my socks.


Crosswords DS

Sure, you can buy one of those pulp books for $1, but Crosswords DS (or is it CrossworDS) is the perfect game for pick and play antics. Included with the already exhaustive amount of puzzles are novice, intermediate, and expert puzzles as well as word search and anagram word play games. All this for twenty bucks, and this is a game that everyone in the family can enjoy, a statement that goes for a lot of the game mentioned.



Planet Puzzle League


The goal of this puzzle game is the same as Tetris Attack: match up three same-colored blocks in a row, vertically or horizontally, by switching the location of two side-by-side blocks. Unlike past versions of Tetris Attack, Planet Puzzle League did not have a well-recognized IP attached to it like Yoshi's Island or Pokemon from past games. Perhaps that's a reason this game went under the radar, but no matter what the game's called, Planet Puzzle League is addicting as all get out, and that hasn't changed with this DS version.



Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times

This title takes obvious inspiration from Animal Crossing: Wild World, but that's all right. Wild World didn't let you dress up in a magician robe and learn spells. Each week a new downloadable quest is added for players to enjoy. That's 52 weekly quests to participate in! Add in some entertaining writing, and you have a Wild World clone that shouldn't be missed.


Elebits: The Adventures of Kai and Zero

The Wii version of Elebits was another overlooked game, so it's no question that the DS version would also be overlooked. No marketing, niche concept, whatever you want to explain it as. The goal of Elebits is similar to Katamari. The more you suck up, the more energy your "vaccuum" will have. The more power it has, the more areas you can reach. The DS version was much more adventure-like with exploration as key and big bad bosses to beat down.


3 comments:

Dopple Boppler said...

The DS has so many overlooked great games and I'm sure this feature is going to be going on for a while, but we need some Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime love in here asap; hands down my absolute favorite DS game, even more so than the sublime Soul Bubbles.

Trang Pham said...

Overlooked? Well not by me. I have Henry & Elebits. They are definitely the best games on the DS. They're challenging and not repetitive. I like them more than pokemon, animal crossing and harvest moon ds put together!

Unknown said...

Henry Hatsworth was probably the most talked about DS game this year next to Professor Layton. How was that overlooked?