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I bought a bunch of DS games off eBay...

by binman88

...and decided to share them with you in image-form! (with prices I paid rounded to the nearest £1 attached for the hell of it) So yeah, having barely touched my DS in months since playing Devil Survivor , I decided to add to my collection and buy a whole bunch of games for it over the past month or so. A few of them would be considered "rare" in the sense that you'd find a retailer selling new...

...and decided to share them with you in image-form! (with prices I paid rounded to the nearest £1 attached for the hell of it)

So yeah, having barely touched my DS in months since playing Devil Survivor, I decided to add to my collection and buy a whole bunch of games for it over the past month or so. A few of them would be considered "rare" in the sense that you'd find a retailer selling new copies, a few were just too cheap to pass up. I haven't played all the games yet, but my brief opinions on most of them are below.
 
I had been dying to play the DS Castlevania games for a long time, but couldn't find them in any retail store due to their somewhat limited run, and age. Any smaller dealers on places like the amazon marketplace were selling new copies in excess of 30 or 40 quid, so I was really happy to find them for the price I did (actually have another copy of Dawn of Sorrow arriving next week too, along with a new copy of Order of Ecclesia to round out the DS collection). I finished Dawn of Sorrow and I'm about half way through Portrait of Ruin so far. It's been ages since I played a Metroid style game like these - my last experience was in fact with Metroid II on the original Gameboy. I love that there's loads of replayability with the unlockable modes, though I'll likely take a break from them before diving back in for another play through. 
 
Ace Attorney is fun, though lacking challenge for the most part. As far as I can see, the game is split into three episodes, the third being the longest. I played through the first and second in succession, and got a little worn out from reading all the damn text and tapping the screen to hurry it along to the courtroom. Luckily the drama, although a bit dumb, is entertaining enough to hold my interest through to the end of an episode. I don't know if it's a recurring theme in the later games in the franchise, but I'd love to see less dialogue and outside-of-court puzzle solving, because I find the most fun to be had is in the actual court room, screaming "hold it!" or "objection!" and identifying the flaws in testimonies.
 
Under the Knife also suffers from dialogue-heavy, screen-tapping breaks from gameplay. It's probably the main reason I haven't yet finished the game. The actual gameplay itself is quite challenging, consisting of performing operations with the stylus as fast and as accurate as you can. Some of the actions you need to perform seem to require more precision than the DS touchscreen will allow, causing some frustrating failed attempts, but for the most part it's fine. Kind of disheartening to keep getting C ranks on all my attempts, even when I think I've done it perfectly. I think I only managed to get one A rank so far :( Like I said, it is challenging, and I actually like it for that very reason, it's just a pity there's no "restart" option when you fail a surgery, instead of having to choose to retry and wade through any dialogue preceding the operation before they let you at it again.
 
Rhythm Paradise (Heaven in the US) is awesome. Though I'm stuck at the table-tennis game (because I'm shit at the game), I love the craziness the game offers and the uniqueness of each new game/song. Again, this is another game where the challenge is a major plus. 
 
Ninjatown seems cool, though I've literally only played a couple of minutes of it. The real zoomed in map was kinda fucking with me while I played, but I guess it's something you get used to. 
 
Professor Layton is another awesome game so far. Again I'd personally enjoy it more if it had less dialogue, though admittedly there's not as much as the other games I mentioned. I guess without the dialogue between characters, and Layton and his apprentice, it would just be straightforward puzzle after puzzle gameplay, without much character, which wouldn't be as appealing.
 
I still haven't touched Lunar Knights or Izuna 2. I might actually buy the first Izuna before playing the second, for completeness' sake, so it'll probably be a while before I get around to it.
 
So, that's about it for now! If you have any of these games and agree or disagree with my points please let me know in the comments. Also, if you think there's one game there that I should be devoting most of my time to, let me know as well (for example, should I put all those games on the back burner and jump into Lunar Knights?)
 
Thanks!