The Professor’s Trunk (the main game menu) used to hold two mini games in the first Layton game: the inn and painting games. In Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box there are four mini games: old diary, unique camera, hamster and tea set. Solving puzzles in the game will sometimes give the player components for the mini games; keys for the locked diary, parts for the camera, toys for the hamster and ingredients for the tea set. When the camera is completed, the player can take pictures (when prompted by the game) and play another mini game; this time a spot-the-difference challenge. Likewise, when the hamster is fit enough, he will begin to sniff out hint coins.

There are many hidden puzzles (frankly I haven’t even found all of them yet), but it is possible to finish the game without completing everything. When I checked the secret mode after I finished the game, I found the option to get weekly downloadable puzzles, a puzzle index of all the puzzles I’d come across, extra puzzles, and a bonus section featuring a sampling of game trivia/data (character profiles, game scenes, audio clips, films and soundtracks). There’s also a password-locked section that asks for codes from the first and third games. I can only assume that more rewards lie within.

Having played the first Layton game before this one, I have to say that Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box does deliver. It is a great game with an entertaining mystery to solve, and puzzles that can be surprisingly easy or frustratingly difficult. The story is involving and as creative as the first Layton game’s mystery, and is fleshed out well. The game even starts before the actual investigation and has four definitive areas to explore (an upgrade from the last game!). And with the addition of more mini games, the game play is now more varied and less repetitive than the first Layton game. There are also more puzzle groups here (puzzles that are similar in nature and tend to be numbered in order of difficulty; an example would be the chess puzzles or the sliding puzzles). I personally feel more satisfaction whenever I solve something that I know is more difficult than the last similar puzzle I got through. My only gripe is that it’s such a short game.

I’m going to give this game a 9.5/10. The Layton series is probably the best adventure/puzzle DS series out there.

Originally posted on my blog [http://miaowow.blogspot.com/2009/10/professor-layton-and-diabolical-box-ds_13.html] and
gamespot [http://www.gamespot.com/ds/rpg/laytonkyoujutoakumanohako/player_review.html?id=686422].

Final Fantasy III of NDS revolves around four orphans who were chosen by the crystals to bring light into their world. Final Fantasy III offers the classic turn by turn battles just like the other Final Fantasy. The game also offers some features similar to that of Final Fantasy Tactics wherein you can assign a specific job for your characters. Some jobs found in the game ranges from the ever famous Black Mage who cast deadly spells to the White Mages who focus on restorative aspects. What good is a Final Fantasy without the ever famous and known CHOCOBO. Chocobo are some kind of transportation known in every Final Fantasy game and without them, you can never say that the game is Final Fantasy.

Graphics offered by Final Fantasy III are still the same quality offered by other Final Fantasy games. They also have some movie scenes where you can enjoy the one of a kind artistic style of SquareEnix. Their in game graphics will never leave you bored to death.

Game play however disappoints me since it is on DS I kind of expected a unique game play offered by the NDS Touch Screen. The game can be played by either with the press of the button or using the stylus. You can use your stylus to pinpoint where you want your characters to go and have them open up treasure chests or talk to people just by tapping the screen with the use of the stylus.

The usual leveling applies to this Final Fantasy since every time you encounter some enemies and defeat them you gain a specific amount of experience which will help your character grow as the game progresses. Different monsters can be encountered either outside the world map or a normal dungeon.

BGM is one of Final Fantasy’s never changing features. They offer BGMs that will be suited in the area or scene where you are playing. Maganda naman ung BGMs nila kaso nakakasawa ng pakinggan kapag nagtagal.

Why would you keep playing this game you asked? First of all using your stylus to kick some monsters behind is quite cool enough. In addition to that, there are a wide variety of jobs you can try out for each character. Try to explore the potentials of every job and make your team a devastating force to reckon with. Wouldn’t it be fun to use/try on every job and defeat those pesky enemies of yours over and over again? If you are looking for a classic Final Fantasy game with some twist, then this game is for you.

Credits: Francis Salenga – writer

Ninja Town is a game to be played with an open mind. It involves strategy, quick thinking and a lot of patience. The game’s concept is unique in a sense. You need to build huts that contain unique types of ninjas to protect either an artifact or an entrance to another area. Strategy is involved since you have lots of choices in the game for instance, what to put in a particular area a building – that adds damage to ninja hits, or an actually ninja hut. Even then the decisions don’t end, what type of ninja hut will you put there? And to make matters worse, there are flying enemies, tough enemies, fast enemies and even enemies that have “skillz”. So you better know what to put where.

The game is played like a real time strategy game that only involves defense. No attacking ninjas here, which is quite an oxymoron – defensive ninja. Gagawin mo lang, anticipate the enemy, and place your defenses factoring in anything and everything that could go wrong. You get “powers” too. You get to use the DS’s microphone to blow enemies away by aaahhh… blowing on the microphone! Kala nga ng kapatid ko nililinisan ko screen ng DS ko kasi ihip ako ng ihip.

The graphics are cartoony, silly and sooooo adorable! Never have I found killing machines soo cute! The art design of the game is simplistic and yet still conveys the said deep gameplay and fluid game mechanics. At first it may seem that the art design would hinder the strategies involved in the game but it doesnt.

Ninja Town has, as you can expect, cartoony sound effects and a nicely upbeat musical score. Although one enemy type produces a gutural sound that kind of reminds me of the Grudge films.

There is a multiplayer option to the game where you and a friend can share in the mayhem adding to the game’s replay value. There are so many ways to defend a ninja town that you will want to replay the game to try out new techniques.

All in all, Ninja Town is a solid title no DS owner should be without.

Pinoy Gaming Rate

First off, NGDS’s story is pretty much standard in most adventure games. You are Ryu Hayabusa, Master Ninja of the Dragon Clan and inheritor of the Dragon Lineage. The enemy has kidnapped your probable love interest in order to take from you your Dragonsword. The enemy – demons from another dimension called Fiends – is gathering powerful artifacts called dragonstones and the dragonsword and use them to destroy mankind and take over the world.

NGDS’s graphic/art style is simply impressive. It stretches the handheld’s limits and there are no visible drops in frame rate. Team Ninja has found the perfect balance in motion fluidity, polygon count and effects that delivers NGDS’s truly spectacular visuals.

I was pleasantly surprised with NGDS’s sound design. The sound effects are crisp and immensely satisfying. Each slash of Ryu’s sword delivers the umph one would seek as metal meets flesh, anime style. Each clang of metal as two swords meet enrages you to make another strike, and another and another. As Ryu casts ninpu magic spells, fireballs, lightning strikes and magic tornadoes enhances the feeling that you truly are a ninja.

NGDS is played fully with the stylus, with the exception of pushing any button to block blows. I won’t hesitate to say that Team Ninja has created the best stylus based controls with the best response to commands compared to any game previously released on the handheld. Moving is as simply as pointing and holding the stylus in place. Throwing and projectile weapons are controlled by tapping on the enemy you want to hit and sword slashes and combos are controlled by just slashing through the enemy with the stylus. I can hit the enemy, toss him in the air, follow him and drop him to the ground headfirst with just 3 gestures on the stylus.

NGDS has a bit to catch up on in replay value though. The only reason to replay the game is to collect wooden amulets that let you unlock additional content in a gallery called “Muramasa’s Prizes”. However, if you like going over the game for the satisfaction of slashing through waves of foes, this game is definitely for you.

Pinoy Gaming Rate

You are Coraline, the eternally curious girl who discovers a mysterious door in the drawing room of your old house. Beyond the door is a world very much similar to your own, almost exactly the same except for some creepy and peculiar details. The game immerses you to the world and “other world” of Coraline where you get to explore, collect items, solve mini puzzles and games and ultimately save the day from the evil powers that be. As an added bonus, the game features a virtual closet where you can change Coraline’s outfit from her yellow coat, her blue Wellington boots to her button hairpin. You can also go back to previously completed mini-games through the Collection Room.

On the Nintendo DS, the stylus provides a “hands-on” feel to the story, elevating the element of interactivity. Plus try playing the game with your headphones on and it transports you to place of eeriness and lurid images. Graphics is pretty decent with screenshots of the upcoming movie. As for replay value, yes you can go back and play the mini games from time to time but to go through the story again, would mean that you must be a fan of genre seemingly for kids but actually contain nightmarish characters and themes that are only talked about it abnormal psychology classes.

Pinoy Gaming Rate

The premise is pretty simple. You are Professor Layton a very well known scholar in London. You take a trip to a village with your apprentice Luke only to find out there is a foul plot afoot. You wade your way through puzzles and mini games until you lift the hood and see exactly what’s going on.

This is where the simplicity ends. The puzzles? They range from easy to “HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO SOLVE THIS?”. Not to worry, you can purchase tips and hints with coins you find lying around the village. If you are a gamer who loves to find solutions to many a problem, this is the game for you. You will be overwhelmed by the sheer number of puzzles and mini games in this title, you’ll be frozen on your DS for a long long time.

Professor Layton introduces its world to the gamer in a slow but sure fashion. First delivering a brain teaser or two then slowly ramping up. This ensures you don’t get stuck on a puzzle longer than you should be. Also, there is a feature called a riddleshack. Here you will be able to go back to the puzzles you haven’t solved yet.

The bonus features also contains what we at Pinoygaming love most about the game, weekly online puzzle downloads. There is no end to the puzzle solving!

The world of Professor Layton is presented with sprites with talk bubbles and the occasional superbly animated cutscenes. On top of that it features superb sound quality and minimal yet convincing voice acting.

All in all, this is a DS game every puzzle solving nut should own.

Pinoy Gaming Rate

Standing through the Challenge of Time

Final Fantasy IV is filled with impressive scene sequences – and I dare you not to skip the cut scenes! – which introduces and at the same time fills you in about the plot and the characters. While the slightly polygonal graphics may prove to be a letdown for some, the musical score effectively balances everything out.

Final Fantasy IV is about Cecil Harvey, a Dark Knight, the conflicted hero who shares his epic adventure of love, betrayal and redemption with many other characters in a quest to stop the wicked Golbez from usurping the power of the stolen crystals. You can only play with, at most, five characters at a time. The members of your party varies depending on the story’s push. But, even if you do not have the freedom to control the party lineup, the Final Fantasy IV remake allows you the use of Augments. Augments can be found or collected throughout the game and can be used to add unique abilities to other characters.

Cecil - Dark Knight

A remarkable addition is the quest line of Namingway, a moogle-like wanderer, in which he tries to rename himself as he tries out a variety of professions. This unlocks more game features such as the Bestiary, which archives information about monsters you’ve encountered or killed, a collection of cut scenes (so you can watch them again just in case you skipped one or two) and music tracks.

Conversing with Fat Chocobo allows you to customize Rydia’s Eidolon, Whyt. Through the big bird, you can customize Whyt’s appearance, assign him an assortment of attacks, level up his stats by playing unlocked mini games and even battle other Eidolons through local DS wireless. Other than Whyt’s minigames, there isn’t much use for the stylus.

There is also a customizable Auto-Battle feature in the menu system, allowing you to place specific skills or abilities to be used automatically in battle by pressing X – which is great, because it speeds up random battles. With the Active Time Battle system option, where you can input orders for the characters in real time, one has to combine tactics and urgency and execute them properly for the general difficulty of the game seemed to have gone up a notch compared to its predecessors.

When not in battle, the bottom map is occupied by an area map that completes as you explore the whole dungeon. One of the innovative additions to Final Fantasy IV is the reward that you get whenever you complete a map area. When the indicator at the lower-right corner of the screen reaches 100%, you can receive useful items such as potions, ether, etc.

Classic with Class

The over-all visual feel of the setting gives Final Fantasy IV vivid depth(especially in dungeons) and imagery. The 3D rendition of the maps might bring nostalgia to those familiar to the game. The character sprites have better personalities because of the impressive way they are able to convey emotions. Most important cut scenes are voice-acted and, while the voice-acting oftentimes appear to be too melodramatic, the overall fluidity of the way the story is presented impeccable.

Cecil walking through Kaipo

The controls are pretty much standard. The use of the stylus isn’t needed – except for minigames. You can easily navigate using the control pad as much as using the stylus on the touch screen to move about. Since you’re either running around or battling when you are not watching a cutscene, the touchscreen usually displays your party’s status or the map of your current location. A quicksave feature allows you to save your game anywhere, although the temporary save file is deleted once you resume the game, load your save file, or start a new game.

Although Final Fantasy IV had been released several times throughout the years, this remake for the DS is certainly the most impressive so far. The characters, villains, and basic gameplay are memorable for the old players and easily recognizable for the new. Matrix Software (same team who did the Final Fantasy III remake) and Square Enix had done a good job in reviving and refreshing an old game and bringing it back to life. Whether you’re a hardcore Final Fantasy series fan or you’re just looking for a good game to enjoy, Final Fantasy IV is an NDS title worth owning.

Graphics 9

With impressive visuals and CG cutscenes, Final Fantasy IV takes advantage of the graphical capabilities of the DS. The overall design is faithful to the original. Anime-like expressive faces maximizes the characters’ personalities. But, the graphic style of some of the characters seem to be a bit edgy and could’ve been more polished.

Sound 8

Final Fantasy IV has some of the best soundtracks of the Final Fantasy series. The soundtrack arrangements are simply wonderful. The music complements the mood of the game. Voice-acting was decent, if not intolerable, at times.

Gameplay 9

While most rules of play are largely unchanged, Final Fantasy IV is significantly better because of the major additions and alterations. Even if the line-up is pre-determined and restrictive, the new Augment feature allows players customization. Since the gameplay had been rebalanced, the contemporary improvements gave the game a change for the better.

Longevity 10

First developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) in 1991, Final Fantasy IV had been ported from the SNES, to the PlayStation, to the GameBoy Advance consoles. Without a doubt, Final Fantasy IV is able to stand up to the challenge of time and modernization.

Overall Score 9