Personal Gaming with XSeed for Your Nintendo DS
Okay, Iʻm going to admit a dirty little secret here — Iʻm not a gamer at all. I play Rock Band and thatʻs about it. However, I got completely sucked into the joys of a Nintendo DS a couple of years ago on a long flight to Hong Kong. It turns out there are all kinds of fun games that donʻt require the same kind of 17-button mashing sequences that are necessary to play (most) console or PC games. There’s a considerable variety of games to choose from, and a few that feel more like iPhone applications than games. Of course the quality can vary wildly, even within a single game company. I tried out a couple of games this time around from X Seed, one new one, and re-visit to a game Truly Obscure tried out last year.
First up is the Korg DS10 Plus, which has a few updates from the original game we tested out. Included in the new version are 12-voice polyphony, 4 tracks for the analog synthesizer simulator, and 2 drum machines. Changes to the original game are song mid-playback editing track and mute feature in song mode. This game got passed around the office a bit; I asked our resident digital music maker try it out, and he enjoyed it. He said it was a lot like the VSTi he has with his Korg Legacy synthesizer. As someone who knows his way around a Korg he had a lot of fun playing with it and said he’d absolutely keep using it.
I’ve got a music background, so a lot of the fundamentals of the program make sense to me, but I fumbled some with the controls. Ultimately I was able to make music with it, but not without a bit of headache. Lastly we gave it to a gamer with little musical experience, and he stood by his original review that it’s a powerful program that is a bit limited by the sounds the DS can make. There is a feature for the DSi that isn’t available for the DS, a function that makes two effects layers available, essentially giving users the functionality of two original KORG DS-10’s.
In an entirely different genre I tried out Ragnarok DS. This game is a scaled-back version of a hack and slash style MMORPG based on a relatively obscure series of manga drawn by Myoujin Lee. Part of why gamers like the original version of this game is that it’s a massively multi-player game, and that part isn’t possible when put to a personal game system like the DS.
Up to three players can play at the same time in several different dungeons, which is better than being on your own entirely, but a lot of the community that gamers appreciate about MMORPGs just isn’t there. Honestly, I was unimpressed. I think there’s probably a good story in there somewhere, but it ended up being a lot of level-grinding, and visiting the same places over and over again. If you’re a big fan of anime style games, and don’t mind the tedious nature of this type of RPG you’ll likely enjoy it just fine.
Korg DS10 Plus and Ragnarok DS are available now, ranging in price from $30-$40. Look for them at game stores, and online both from X-Seed and Amazon.
