Playing Catching Up With The DS Lite

As I mentioned last week, I recently purchased a DS Lite. (Though I'm still waiting for it to arrive.) I haven't owned a hand held gaming console since the original, bulky, black and white Game Boy (which I still have). So I've been missing out on a world of games for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS.

Last night I ordered Dragon Quest 4 and Castlevania: Circle Of The Moon from Amazon, and a local bookstore has several 6 dollar copies of Golden Sun. One thing I've appreciated from afar about the Game Boy Advance and the Nintendo DS is their natural lack of graphical capability compared to TV consoles. The reason is because the kinds of game play experiences I've enjoyed became altered in ways that were not always beneficial during the transition from 2D to 3D games in the late 90's.

Turn based RPGs became more and more scarce and are considered antiquated now. (Although I still LOVE a good turn based RPG!) And side scrollers are all but extinct on store shelves, finding their home mostly as online downloadable games for consoles today.

Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night is one of my favorite action rpgs, because it gave me the feel of a side-scrolling action game, but with the ability to level-grind my way out of combat that is too difficult for my poor hand-eye coordination skills. The Castlevania games that followed "SotN" were mostly 3D and/or lacking the level-grind option. The Castlevania games I was meant to enjoy were only being made for Nintendo's portable consoles.

So now the flood gates have opened and I've already counted about a dozen games that I will probably play my way through over the next few years. And even some of the rarer gems like Dragon Quest 5 are hovering at around a $50 price point online (equal or less than what I'm used to paying for a 360 game), with most other used games at only $10-$20 or less!

My wife and I seem to travel about two times a year. And with my side job substitute teaching, I also have an hour or so to kill on those days where I can't always work on things related to Spirit Blade Productions.

All that to say that I think I see a whole lot of good gaming going on in my future!