The DS Has Arrived!

Well, as the title states, my DS arrived this week. I got three games for it, and all three are long games for my trip home. Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Zelda: Spirit Tracks, and Pokemon Platinum. Yes, Pokemon. While many people (especially guys) consider Pokemon a “childish” game, I still find it rather enjoyable. While the story and look of the game are elementary, the core fundamentals of the game are rather mature, and very addicting.

In the beginning, the game was fairly straight forward, you play as a male kid who gets his own Pokemon and sets out to discover all 150 types. That basic storyline hasn’t changed since it was first introduced in the US in 1998. But there have been a ton of additions to gameplay throughout the years. They added several new Pokemon types, day/night events, date events, a beauty contest mini-game, berries, and list goes on. There are SO many things to do now that to complete the game would take days. While it’s hard enough just to collect all the types, (493) but add to that all the side quests they’ve added, and you have one deep, deep game.

One of the coolest features is the fact that once you beat the game, you can go back to the Kanto region and collect all 150 original monsters. This gives people who are obsessive about collecting things (myself included) much more to look forward to. And it brings back some memories about your past, when you were a kid on the school bus playing it, just like everyone else.

Another aspect I enjoy is the strategy involved. Sure you can just level up your starting Pokemon and get through the game fairly easily, but that’s not fun to me. I like to get several different types and see what teams work best. I also enjoy seeing all the different moves and evolution types. It’s difficult when you get a monster that really sucks, and grinding to level him to evolve. Not cool. But it’s all part of the game, and as such I sometimes do it to fill out my collection.

With all that said, I plan on playing the pants off the game for the next few weeks, and give a full review when I’m finished. But that’s all I have for now.

-SuperStubbs