Comments on: Sega’s DS Surprise: Best-Case Scenario

By: James

James — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 12:05:47 +0000

You’re right, some of the things are very well-suited to team play – you could use the bottom screen as a map and indicate useful items, attack strategies or warnings using the stylus. I think Shining Soul II does very well to avoid grinding in general; Advanced mode is difficult at times but there’s a good selection of sidequests and main areas to visit, so it’s hard to get stuck.

In terms of what RPGs I’d like to see, my heart certainly shouts “a proper Shining Force”! I tried the original Phantasy Star games on the GameBoy Advance but never really got into them – the first one hasn’t aged particularly well, and I wanted to go through them in order. I would be interested in a new one if it took advantage of the advancements in design and user interfaces.

Sega’s recent IP resurrections have been mostly excellent – OutRun 2 and Afterburner Climax are both superb – so I’d be interested to see a very fondly-loved character revived. Kid Chameleon in particular could be excellent!

Thanks for the compliment, Gazz!

By: Phil Newton

Phil Newton — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:26:01 +0000

I think an online version of Shining Soul would be excellent, especially if the design was more casual like yours as opposed to something complex that requires hours of “grinding” time. The DS has plenty of potential for this kind of game, and using the touch screen to draw arrows to important things on a map (or the obligatory magenta penis) could work really well in a team environment.

As for the Sega announcement, I’m not really sure what they will release. I’m going to guess it will be a very old franchise, like Alex Kidd or Kid Chameleon. At least that way if it’s something better I won’t be so disappointed.

By: Gazz

Gazz — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 11:21:18 +0000

I’d be happy for a return to the old style of Phantasy Star, back to the roots like the first master system game. I still have yet to play a better 2D RPG on any platform (from sega at least). I couldnt get into megadrive RPG’s for some reason, they all just didnt have the same level of quality for me that SNES RPG’s had at the time… So, a team-based Phantasy Star 1 remake for DS (looks like FF3 DS but plays like Secret of Mana) well that’d be awesome.

Of course, Shenmue 3 would be the biggest announcement since sliced bread and I’d wet myself at its announcement, but I doubt it’ll be happening. Matrix Online was awesome at the time, but it only held my interest for 2 months or so, before it got very boring and repetative.

Once again a nice article