The Lowdown: The classic rhythm game is back with four-player action for the Nintendo Wii. Hottest Party 2 has an all-new songlist featuring more Bemani artists and revamps the hand gesture system to allow for better gameplay. Hottest Training mode lets DDR newbies get up to speed, and learn how to do real dance steps. Unlock new stages to dance in, new outfits for new characters, and new Gimmicks for multiplayer battles.
The Hype: The original Hottest Party left a lot of room for improvement, and Hottest Party 2 seems poised to be a much better game.
The Snark: Wish you'd known that before you bought the original, huh?
Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party 2
The Lowdown: In the latest DS Castlevania adventure, play as heroine Shanoa and use the power of Glyphs to defeat the forces of Dracula. Combine Glyphs to deadly effect with combos and potent magic spells. Follow the storyline or diverge into sidequests to collect new power-ups for your heroine. This time the action sprawls through all of Eastern Europe, allowing for forest and ocean levels, and there are multiple endings to discover. Compete with other players online via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, or buy and sell items you've found in-game.
The Hype: For the first time in basically forever, it looks like Konami's sprite artists have knuckled under and redrawn pretty much everything short of the bats. The result is the most completely gorgeous Castlevania seen in years, full of huge, mobile, and exceptionally detailed sprites.
The Snark: The Wi-Fi stuff is probably lame, aside from the item trading, but who cares?
Some deliciously wonderful 2D goodness in the screens behind the cut.
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
The Lowdown: Pick from one of fourteen of Castlevania's most beloved good and bad guys and fight it out in gleefully nonsensical 3D duels. Run through 3D recreations of classic Castlevania levels, collect items, and use your special abilities to defeat your enemy. Simple Wii Remote and Nunchuk controls make the game easy to play, and the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection lets you take the battle online.
The Hype: It's the first Castlevania game for the Nintendo Wii!
The Snark: God, where to begin...
New screenshots behind the cut. The Obata designs actually look better in-engine than they do as lineart, but, uh...
Castlevania Judgment
The Lowdown: King of Clubs is a miniature golf game for the Wii with simple, intuitive controls and surprisingly challenging courses. Despite the wacky trailer trash look of the game's characters, it takes precise timing to get through courses under par. Special clubs and trick balls make the experience even more over-the-top, and there's plenty of stuff to unlock if you want lots of replay value.
The Hype: I can't think of any other mini-golf games for the Wii just offhand, so this may be a family-friendly idea whose time has come. The controls held up well over the course of a five-minute demo session, though I wonder how they'd stand up to hours of play.
The Snark: If the controls don't hold up well to hours of play, this game isn't going to be worth the plastic they made the disc from.
Some trailer trashtastic screens awaiting after the cut. I appreciate the caveman's high tops.
The Lowdown: Another game for designed with very young players in mind, Defendin' De Penguin is a simple RTS for kids that replaces the usual mouse functions with the Wii Remote's cursor. Maneuver your penguin, Little Blue, and use his own abilities and defensive structures like towers to defend your penguin village from predators. The predators want to steal fish from your village, but if you successfully defeat one before he escapes, Little Blue can take the fish back.
The Hype: Not any, really, but the Wii has been mysteriously devoid of RTS titles despite having a pretty good interface for it. A simple one for kids is a start.
The Snark: Much like Hamtaro, this seems to be a game with a limited kid-friendly shelf life. I'd be willing to bet anyone out of third grade wouldn't be caught dead playing it, because it depicts polar bears and penguins sharing environment and omg that is scientifically inaccurate!!
Anyway, some extremely blue screenshots waiting behind the cut.
The Lowdown: Rune Factory 2 picks up where the first fantasy Harvest Moon left off, letting you play out the story of a hero who needs to go on quests to wipe out monsters while also growing a decent-sized farm. First play through the story as the default hero, as he finds a wife and makes a good home, and then pick up on the second half of the epic story by playing as his son or daughter. Forge weapons, defeat or befriend monsters, and trade items via the Wi-Fi Connection.
The Hype: Rune Factory was a surprisingly popular game, as its dungeon-crawling elements added some much-needed spice to the stale Harvest Moon formula. Rune Factory 2 is even more ambitious, taking advance of Harvest Moon's emphasis on home-building to let you play out a saga that spans generations.
The Snark: The original Rune Factory was at points a buggy, poorly translated mess. Let's hope for a more polished localization this go-round, and hopefully less broken item trading.
Some fantastic (har har!) screens and art behind the cut. Hey, do we get to tame dragons this go-round?
The Lowdown: Games for girls grow slowly but surely less crappy, and Natsume is doing its part with Princess Debut, an adventure RPG about dancing perfect for tweens, or anyone who can enjoy the poetic beauty of a magic witch ballroom dancing with a rabbit-man in a tuxedo. Princess Debut gives you 30 days to master all of a Princess's necessary skill, find the perfect outfit, and meet the Prince of your dreams. Succeed, and at the end of the month you'll find true love. Fail, and you... get to unlock one of the game's 14 endings before you try again next time. With 20 outfits to unlock and 18 types of dance to master, Princess Debut offers plenty of things to do.
The Hype: A game for girls that might not suck?! And the dancing looks very good, apparently based on mo-cap data taken from professional dancers.
The Snark: Ha ha! Everyone knows girls don't play video games!
Some incredibly pink, magical, and girly screens and art after the cut.
The Lowdown: One of the few games at this year's show explicitly designed for very young players, Ham-Ham Challenge is designed to let parents monitor their children's progress through the game. The adorable Hamtaro characters take a child through twelve mini-games, adjusting difficulty based on his or her performance so things are never too frustrating or too easy.
The Hype: There's not much, but there are very few DS games designed for the ever-younger kids being allowed to have them. Of the few kids' games out there, only a handful offer parent features while also not being terrible. This game is certainly not terrible, just not for players who want to do more than color in pictures of flowers with the stylus.
The Snark: The fact sheet lists it as a game for elementary school kids, but that strikes me as a bit old. The kind of games in Ham-Ham Challenge really strike me as more appropriate to the 4-6 year old bracket. Even kids in 2nd grade may turn their noses up at this for being too babyish.
Prepare yourself for some tooth-rottingly cute art and screens behind the cut.
The Lowdown: Well over a year in the making, Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility may be the biggest and best Harvest Moon title to date. While you build up your farm and pursue a marriage partner, you also have to unravel the mystery surrounding the death and possible resurrection of the ancient Mother Tree. Use motion controls or button input from the Nintendo Wii Remote to control your tools, while you plant more types of crops and raise more types of animals than ever before. You can even take a part-time job, and use your money to invest in land and upgrades for your farm.
The Hype: It's a toss-up between Island of Happiness and Tree of Tranquility for biggest and most robust Harvest Moon game ever. Tree of Tranquility edges ahead on graphics, presenting the sharpest 3D visuals of any Harvest Moon game, and possibly the best storyline.
The Snark: I honestly can't think of anything-- Tree of Tranquility is really extraordinary. At worst, folks burned on earlier, crappier Harvest Moon console entries might not give it a chance, but their loss.
Art and screens behind the cut.
Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility
The Lowdown: Using the first engine coded specifically for the Nintendo DS, Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness takes players on a sprawling adventure that may take upwards of three in-game years to complete. Begin with an abandoned farm on a deserted island, and use your skill to improve your farm and creating a bustling town on the island. Get married, compete in tournaments, hunt for secrets, and do everything else a Harvest Moon fan could want.
The Hype: Island of Happiness is a much bigger game than any previous DS Harvest Moon, with better graphics and more bang for your buck. This is, in short, the game you actually wanted to play the first time you dropped $40 on a DS Harvest Moon title.
The Snark: It's really hard to keep Harvest Moon games from feeling similar, no matter how many new features show up, and someone burned by earlier, lousier games may not feel like coming back.
Enjoy some achingly cute screens and art behind the cut.
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