Kefka

It's not really a question of "can the DS do 3D" - of course it can, many games have done it before. It's a question of "can the DS do 3D well enough to make a modern-GTA-style game look decent and play well"... which I don't think it could.

GTA games can get hectic, they can be fast, they have large environments, and nobody likes load times... If Rockstar was to try to make a "proper" GTA3 style engine for the DS, I assure you it would look terrible in order to squeeze out an average frame rate, and even then have high amounts of fogging. Better to stick to the isometric style they've chosen and focus on making a more solid engine overall and better gameplay to boot.

I'm not saying it looks great, but people who were expecting a scaled down GTA3 on the DS need to wake up.

Anyhow, like most other people: Skeptical.

Shmeh, I'm not too impressed... The sprites, animations and backgrounds were all butt ugly. Special mention to the way too animated idling animations. It's like they're all trying to dance without moving their feet.

But apart from that, the gameplay looks like it largely runs itself while you occasionally poke it in the right direction - I can see it appealing to the Japanese market, but personally - meh.

I can see why people might expect Trackmania DS to use the stylus - it's the closest to an analogue controller possible on the system, and Trackmania is a game which requires some very precise and subtle steering to master.

That said, the entirety of the time I've played Trackmania has been using a PC keyboard, and it definitely works well enough.

Good to see the lightning fast gameplay that made the Sonic series great hasn't been forgotten.



Nah, I'm just messin' with ya - I'm sure this game will be great. Unlike the last 10 Sonic games. ;)

Ooh, good idea - Worms: Open Warfare 2 does that, and it works well. Perhaps the bottom screen could show characters as icons as it does in Mario Kart DS rather than tiny little versions of the sprites/models...

Would be good enough to get an idea of where everyone is and what they're doing (little animations or effects on the sprites to indicate getting hit, attacking, etc)

The zooming/camera focus requirements on a DS version of Smash Brothers is completely different, as you've only got one person playing per DS rather than 4 people playing a single console.

So while it would be nice if the game DID zoom to always show all characters, it would work well enough if it remains at a fixed distance following your character...

(apologies if this is what you were saying)


Come to think of it, that does away with one of the significant graphical hurdles of Smash Brothers on the DS - Not having the resolution to show big stages and discernible content at long range.

Yeah, I'm with everyone else who gets a bad taste in their mouth when seeing the same 2 or 3 character designs Akira Toriyama seems to be capable of repeated over and over.

FMVs of Chrono Trigger just remind me of the fact that he had a hand in it - something which the original sprites happily let me forget while playing :P

Yeah, that's true. At least he seems to have spent a decent amount of time so far just making shiny menus, so chances are we wont have time to see too much of the gameplay potential realised before it gets nuked.

Hmm, looking at the press release, it's still a bit grey as to how much of an overhaul the graphics will get.

Squeenix didn't mention that it would be all 3D like the FF remakes, but they didn't say it wouldn't be:

"Taking advantage of the Nintendo DS hardware, CHRONO TRIGGER makes its way onto the portable platform with all-new dual screen presentation and Touch-Screen functionality"

However, given that they usually like to whet our appetites by showing off how pretty it will look, and that it already seems quite close to release, I'm leaning towards it not being fully remade in 3D.

If that's the case, then personally I think it's a shame... The original game looked great, but Squeenix have shown they're more than capable of making something 3D and keeping the old school charm.

The jerkiness is a bit sickening (in a literal sense), and wow... It looks like pure distilled generic FPS. That's not a bad thing in itself if it plays well, but the environments look pretty forgettable and I swear most of them are stapled together from the boring bits of games like SS2, HL, Far Cry (the indoor bits), Doom...