Nintendo DS

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (Nintendo DS) Review

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It’s time to wave goodbye to the “Metroidvania” style Castlevania games as we look at Order of Ecclesia, essentially the swan song of the original timeline/run of games, minus a few multiplayer and phone things anyway. It ends the series with a bang though, not just presentation-wise or gameplay-wise but also a “bang” in the sense of knocking into something hard as the game is really challenging, to put it politely. They knew the people playing at this point would be veterans rather than newcomers, I guess. Well, let’s take a look then, and bring an end to this particular brand of Castlevania on this site (I will get round to the classic and 3D games one day, I’m sure…)

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Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (Nintendo DS) Review

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Continuing with my playthrough of the DS Castlevania games thanks to the Dominus Collection we have “Portrait of Ruin”. Thankfully the game pulls all the way back on the touch screen stuff and it adds some fun new gameplay elements, but it also doubles-down on the lighter tone and anime aesthetics and makes some not-so-fun gameplay decisions! A mixed bag indeed… Let’s take a look!

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Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (Nintendo DS) Review

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It’s time for the next stop on my first play through of the Kingdom Hearts series, and it’s the DS game “358/2 Days”, pronounced “Three-Five-Eight Days over Two” which means really it should’ve been stylised “358 Days/2” but… whatever. Also I was following the main menu of the “Story So Far” PS4 game so played this next (by buying a physical copy! Who’d of thought I’d be buying a DS game in 2024…) then later found out it was released AFTER Kingdom Hearts 2 in order to fill in some gaps. Did it matter? No, in fact I really enjoyed myself here, seeing it as a sequel to Chain of Memories that fleshes out the Organisation plus sets up the prologue of KH2 to boot. I guess I’ll just have a different experience with the series than people who played it at the time! Let’s take a look anyway.

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Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (Nintendo DS) Review

David HoganLeave a comment

Well, given I have a couple of other on-and-off game review series going I wasn’t planning on starting another one, but while I knew it was always in the cards the sudden release of the Castlevania: Dominus Collection has shifted my priorities a bit as I’ve been waiting to play these games with a comfortable controller and on a big screen for many years. Sadly I’ll have to say that “Dawn of Sorrow” isn’t the massive hit I was expecting, in fact I think its prequel “Aria of Sorrow” was far better, that doesn’t mean this is bad by any means, just not up to that standard. Intrigued? Read on!

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Mario Kart DS (Nintendo DS) Review

David HoganLeave a comment

As Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s fifth wave of DLC arrives so does a review of a previous entry! Mario Kart DS was easily the DS game I played the most thanks to my friend having a copy and bringing his DS round so we could play multiplayer. Playing it now I still have to applaud both the level design and graphics for the handheld, plus the amount of modes on offer. It was certainly no throw away effort, that’s for sure! Let’s take a look…

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Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy (DS) Review

David HoganLeave a comment

It’s time for the only DS game on this list (plus the first DS game review on this blog!) and the only anime-based game (though I admit I was tempted to include Dragon Ball: Advance Adventure, but that’s still more of an action platformer in my eyes…) Fullmetal Alchemist: Duel Sympathy, which has to be one of the worst attempts to get a “DS” subtitle ever, is a decent scrolling beat ‘em up, but it is somewhat drowned by text boxes and mini-games… Let’s take a look!

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