DS Daily: Games you wanted to like, but didn't

by Candace Savino { Jan 26th 2008 at 10:30AM }

We saw this topic on NeoGAF and thought it would be interesting to see what you guys thought, in the context of DS games. So tell us -- what DS titles did you want to like, but just couldn't? Maybe it was a game that you heard people say bad things about, or read negative reviews for, but you stubbornly wanted to like it anyway? Or maybe it was just a game that you wanted to like, but found it to be over-hyped? And, what were the reasons for you not enjoying said game or games?

Share your thoughts, folks. That's what the comments are here for.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Basman @ Jan 26th 2008 10:34AM

All Advance Wars games. They start too easy, then suddenly become really hard. Bad learning curve.

Metal_Link @ Jan 26th 2008 10:42AM

Phantom Hourglass... I really did get bored of the damn Ocean King Temple before I finished the 3rd of 4th normal temples.

1p5v @ Jan 28th 2008 8:59AM

thank god, it's not just me. that was such a cop-out on their part. i can imaging meetings going like this:

"instead of adding more actual design, let's make players do this 823423 TIMES and people will call it revolutionary!"

"GENIUS!! IT PRINTS MONEY ETC. ETC. ETC."

Metal_Link @ Jan 28th 2008 5:06PM

Oh, I also didn't like StarFox Command too much, as I thought I would.

heartich0ke @ Jan 26th 2008 10:52AM

Trauma Center. As much as everybody said how amazing it was, I just found it boring. It couldn't keep my interest at all and got quite difficult for no reason at times.

Kaiser Tia @ Jan 27th 2008 8:39AM

Yup - Trauma Centre has the most irritating difficult curve. A brilliant idea for a game, but the superhuman level you're expected to play at early on is just bad design.

Also:

Another Code: Two Memories (I played this after Hotel Dusk, which was probably a mistake)

Puzzle Quest (Not Puzzle-y or Quest-y enough for my tastes - hypnotically boring)

Brello @ Jan 27th 2008 1:50PM

@Kaiser

Puzzle Quest being hypnotically boring is right. That game put me right to sleep. So stagnant...

FoliathR @ Jan 26th 2008 11:06AM

Children of Mana.

Loved the series but the feel of a huge world is just gone. What's left was just endless random dungeon-exploring and hundreds of monsters with HP so high it's unbalanced.

Very Metal @ Jan 26th 2008 11:07AM

M&L: Partners in Time...I loved the gba version; even played through it twice. The DS version has never fully captured my interest and I can't put my finger on why that is...

chris @ Jan 26th 2008 11:36AM

The game holds your hand too much. You can't figure out anything on your own.

Setai @ Jan 26th 2008 5:44PM

People will probably hate me for this, but for me it was the other way around. I played Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time first, and loved it. Then I played Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and beat it, but I just didn't have as much fun and I didn't think the story was as good.

THe Shit @ Jan 26th 2008 11:22AM

All the mana games. After Legend of Mana on PSX they all turned to fail.

Stephen @ Jan 26th 2008 11:30AM

Defintaly Jump! Ultimate Stars.
I have no idea what it is, But the game doesnt apeal to me.

Filler Doiski @ Feb 3rd 2008 6:17PM

Just becuase you don't know what it is doesn't mean you shouldn't like it. -_-

MrTyzik @ Jan 26th 2008 11:50AM

Dementium - great art, great sound, bad level design and annoying bosses.

Rockel @ Jan 26th 2008 11:54AM

I constantly hear mixed things about that game and still have an insatiable desire to try it.

Nigeria @ Jan 26th 2008 2:51PM

Yeah that game was so overrated. I sold a week after buying it.

So many grey corridors, and even though I was progressing forward the level design was so bland that I felt I was constantly back-tracking.

And it's a real shame because the graphics and sound - of what sound you could hear - were so good.

If you like monotonous asphyxiation you might like Dementium.

Rockel @ Jan 26th 2008 11:52AM

Resident Evil:Deadly Silence. I loved that game on a PS1, and it will always hold a special place in my heart as the game that introduced me to survival horror.

But playing the same game with the same clunky control scheme and the same clunky graphics just felt like a waste of my time.

Also, an honorable mention for Metroid Prime Hunters. I don't know what it was, though.

Lanceh @ Jan 26th 2008 11:53AM

Pokemon Pearl; possibly my fault for anticipating something amazing. Something about it just wasn't right for me; perhaps the new Pokemon, or it didn't compare to the others, or it was too easy to blast through. I'm not sure.

ozroller @ Jan 26th 2008 12:02PM

Elite Beat Agents. Just never got into it the way you guys did.
Oh! And Puzzle Quest.

gevenstaines @ Jan 26th 2008 1:34PM

nooooooooooo best game evar1!!

gevenstaines @ Jan 26th 2008 1:34PM

nooooooooooo best game evar1!!

tamriel @ Jan 26th 2008 11:47PM

I second Elite Beat Agents. The music was grating to me and the gameplay just wasn't so appealing as it had seemed at first glance.

ALH @ Jan 27th 2008 7:34AM

thirding EBA, ouendan was so much better.

foosnark @ Jan 30th 2008 10:45AM

I agree. I really wanted to like it, and the story stuff is amusing... but as rhythm games go it just doesn't have the pull of Frequency/Amplitude or Guitar Hero.

RupeeClock @ Jan 26th 2008 12:04PM

Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time.

The one before it was amazing, but this time around, they just fucked up.
I hated the linear exploration, I mean there's NOTHING else to do, I hated the baby's inclusion, and I especially hated the use of all 4 buttons to control 4 characters, I could NEVER master is and it was just annoying as hell.

I tried to enjoy it, I really did, but at point I just totally stopped playing it, I mean, bah...

Josh @ Jan 26th 2008 12:24PM

Contact. Just plain boring all around.

Setai @ Jan 26th 2008 5:48PM

Amen. That was one of the most confusing and boring games ever.

Crazylink @ Jan 26th 2008 12:33PM

Animal Crossing: I should never have bought it. I played the Gamecube version long enough for it to feel completed, but the Wild World is just the exact same thing to me.

Pokemon Diamond: I really want to like it, but I can only play it once every long period of time.

Star Fox Command: Shit sux

Lunar Knights: Too much action, not enough sneaking like the first Boktai games.

SBK DS: Noses too small.

Covarr @ Jan 26th 2008 12:35PM

I have a reasonably long list:

Children of Mana
Etrian Odyssey
Dementium
Advance Wars Dual Strike (though I'm lovin' Days of Ruin)
Trauma Center
Contact
Metroid Prime: Hunters

I actually really enjoyed Dementium until I realized that I'd spent five minutes going backwards and not realized it due to the repetitive art and map design. Advance Wars was because the new characters sucked and the powers were way unbalanced. Metroid Prime was the same problems as Dementium.

I went into Etrian Odyssey thinking that the cartography aspect would be really fun, and then got pissed when I lost the first battle. Even the original Final Fantasy had a better difficulty curve than that. I hate grinding, but if the game is so unbalanced that I don't even get a chance to do that then there's a problem.

jonnyMAGNUM @ Jan 26th 2008 1:46PM

I forgot all about Metroid Prime: Hunters. I wanted to like everything about that game, but an FPS should not be made on the DS. After playing it for a while, the DS started to dig into my palm and it just wasn't fun anymore.

jimrselleck @ Feb 11th 2008 6:39PM

Yeah, Metroid Prime Hunters was a huge disappointment in my opinion. I think I played the first three levels and never picked it up again.

Justin @ Jan 26th 2008 12:57PM

Spider-Man 3- I don't like the almost entirely touch screen controls. There should be some things that can be left to button mashing. LOZ:PH bucks that reasoning, but they did it well. On the other hand, I love Spider-Man:FoF for the DS, a short game, but I could play it again and again.

MySims- When I started this it felt like more Animal Crossing, I just was not in the mood to build all that up again, so I put this away until I would be. Part of me is still hoping the DS might continue the Sims: Bustin' Out and Urbs feel that the GBA game held. Castaway came close, but I just didn't have the survival skills to last long on that.

Jam Sessions- I pray my brother doesn't see this, I did and still do tout this as something wonderful, I just am rubbish at it. And continue to be, sadly.

raindog @ Jan 26th 2008 1:27PM

If this were over on Wii Fanboy, I'd be dissing Mario Galaxy in this space.

Since this is a DS site, though, I guess I'd have to go with Atari Anthology. Yes, Tempest controls a lot better with the touch screen than with just a D-pad. Yes, they came closer to getting Asteroids right than any previous handheld version.

I also stopped playing Elite Beat Agents after 3 or 4 levels, but I wouldn't quite call it disappointment that made me stop. I was using my DS a lot in doctor and hospital waiting rooms, and EBA with the volume turned down or off just isn't that great.

But it was rushed out, and it showed, and the ghetto skins really detracted more from the gameplay than they added. Wish Taito would get that paddle control out over here and wish Atari (what's left of them) would put out a proper collection that would optionally take use of the paddle, even if they couldn't advertise it that way because the paddle was made by a different software company.

The first Spyro game for the DS would have been at the top of my list, but all the bad advance reviews I saw lowered my expectations quite a bit.

And then there was Yoshi Touch'n'Go. Oh my god, what a ripoff. Yes, there was a chorus of people going, "You should have known it would be a short game going in", but in truth, the screens and stuff I saw showed what looked like a traditional platformer with unique controls and a sort of obstacle course intro sequence, not a game with three brief stretches of different terrains repeated endlessly. At 15 or 20 bucks I wouldn't have complained, but that was a full-priced game at its release.

I had similar complaints about Pac-Pix, but at least when I finished that in 2 days I felt like I'd accomplished something. And it was cheaper to begin with.

So basically, I guess most of my DS disappointments came early in its life. Maybe I'm more inclined to trust online game reviews now, or there are more of them (Nintendo was largely either ignored or reviled in those Gamecube days, don't forget) but I just don't seem to be buying much that disappoints me anymore.... on the DS, anyway.

gevenstaines @ Jan 26th 2008 1:38PM

Phantom Hourglass
Yoshi Touch n Go
Goldeneye - Rogue Agent
Mega Man ZX

The Theory @ Jan 26th 2008 4:04PM

Rogue Agent is pretty much universally hated. Yet I really enjoyed the Gamecube version so I want to pick up the DS one sometime. Not going to pay much for it... but I want to have it none the less.

Fraser @ Jan 26th 2008 2:18PM

The second golden sun. I loved the first one though.

Brello @ Jan 26th 2008 5:45PM

Oh same here, I didn't even get all the way through the second one.

Very Metal @ Jan 26th 2008 8:29PM

Heh, me also...

Nigeria @ Jan 26th 2008 2:55PM

Aside from Dementium, the main game that sticks in my mind is Drawn to Life.

I've never completed a game, got to the end, and realised I wasn't having fun but rather I was waiting for the fun to occur.

It was just so...tedious.

Though the characters you were supposed to save were cute and cool.

nillaP @ Jan 26th 2008 3:32PM

Brothers In Arms looked pretty good and plus i played the earlier versions for xbox, but man it was horrible. The graphics were horrible as well as the gameplayand there was 3 guns. I agree with johnnymagnum there shouldnt be fps games for ds

Brent @ Jan 26th 2008 4:22PM

Brain training games disappoint me. I haven't played one yet that makes me want to pick it up daily and improve my mental prowess.

I was also disappointed in Rune Factory. I'd never played a Harvest Moon game, and maybe it's a matter of me not understanding what I'm supposed to do, but I just couldn't get beyond the 2 hour mark.

If this was an article about what game you thought you WOULDN'T like, but DO, I would say Geometry Wars. Shmups never appealed to me, but I can't put that game down.

jimrselleck @ Feb 18th 2008 5:31PM

I thought the first brain age was good. After a week of owning Brain Age 2, though, I realized I didn't need them both.

Dio @ Jan 26th 2008 4:23PM

Brothers in Arms: Lag, glitches, etc.
Contra 4: The collision detection sucks.
Cooking Mama: I just didn't like it. And I will never eat food served by someone who "learned how to cook" from this game.
Custom Robo: Don't get me wrong, the battle system is wonderful, but the character design and the storyline is just so bland and ugly. The AI isn't very difficult until the end, so you could pretty much use one set up for the majority of the game. At least there's a lot of stuff to do, but not much in terms of content, unless you consider missions.
Daigasso! Band-Brothers: Aaaaaaaaah I don't get it.
Drawn to Life: I LOVED this game when I first started playing it. The thought of designing your own character in a world of cute characters is very fun. And it was a platformer, too. But it got terribly repetitive. Also, don't go into the well until AFTER you beat the game because the developers spoil the ending =_=
Elite Beat Agents: This game is NOTHING compared to Ouendan 1 or 2. Even though the engine was improved from the first game, the sound quality is horrible, and the song choices even worse. We need a real rhythm game with good English songs, not a walk through of Rock and Roll History.
Final Fantasy III: There is no plot. As pretty as this game is, it only events linked with boss battles.
Hoshigami Remix: My fault for not really getting into it. I guess I shouldn't have started with the battle tower and went into the story.
Kirby Squeak Squad: Fun, but too easy.
Mario Party DS: No wifi, really?!? After beating story mode, it wasn't that fun.
Megaman Battle Network 5: Double Team DS: The menu is messed up, saving is tedious, the voice acting is terrible and annoying, and I heard from another MMBN fan that the ending was screwed up. And I had already completely finished the GBA version of Protoman with my time maxed out :D
Pokemon Pearl: It was just boring for me. Some parts were fun though.
Tank Beat: Tried it, didn't interest me at all.
Tetris DS: I made the mistake of not buying this when it first came out(aka the period of time when there really weren't that many good games at the time, improving the quality of this game by comparison) and played it recently. I played it for a few days, had a bit of fun, but it's just boring. I don't really value high scores that much. Except for completion times and item completion.
Touch the Dead: Originally known as Dead'n'Furious, the publisher was too lazy to change the open scream of "DEAD N FURIOUS RAAAAAAH". My guess is the voice actor died or was unavailable. Anyway, this game can be frustrating. I couldn't get past the third boss, because I always ran out of ammo and reloading with the pistol wasn't enough especially with those really tough zombies that climb aboard your hovercraft. I could never understand how to use the crowbar, too. It can be fun when you get past the sharp learning curve. And the background music is really only three seconds long and keeps on repeating D:
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Forgot which one, but I think it was World Championship? Horrible game with no story? Come ON. Stairway to the Destined Duel will always be the Yugi game for me.

Brello @ Jan 26th 2008 5:55PM

Clubhouse Games. The way it has that popup and delay to tell people whose turn it is just ruined the entire game for me. Surely there is a better, non-game interrupting way to show whose turn it is, especially with two screens at their disposal! Playing quick games like hearts resulted in more time looking at the turn indicator than playing, and that's just piss poor design. That, and most of those games could have been done better, I think.

Deozaan @ Jan 26th 2008 6:13PM

Animal Crossing: Wild World - After playing the Gamecube version nearly every day for a year, for some reason I expected the new features of AC:WW to get me excited about the game again. The multiplayer options were lame and I just felt like I had hit the reset button on those many many many many hours of the GCN version. Oh, and the repetitive dialog to get ANYTHING done talking to people is what got me to quit playing the GCN version.

Star Fox Command - Wonky controls. Not really sure what else. Just couldn't get into it. I haven't gotten into a Star Fox game since Star Fox Adventure.

Basically any Mana game since Secret of Mana. Nothing quite captures the fun gameplay of the (US) original.

Mario Kart DS - I just haven't had much fun with Mario Kart since Mario Kart 64.

Lunar: Dragon Song - I loved Lunar 1 & 2 on the Playstation but Dragon Song was one of the most poorly translated games I've personally played. Everything about that game screamed "DON'T PLAY ME!" to me.

Metroid Prime Hunters - It's been a while since I played it so I can't remember exactly what put me off from it. I think the game's difficulty and unclear nature of where to go and what to do. Yeah, I know the other Metroid games are open ended like that, but for some reason it didn't work for me on the handheld.

So, in summary, just about every Nintendo franchise I've loved on a console has been less than stellar for me on the DS.

Magical Starsign is sweet though! And Phantom Hourglass is still holding my attention.

metalmechanica99 @ Jan 26th 2008 6:33PM

"Metroid Prime Hunters - It's been a while since I played it so I can't remember exactly what put me off from it. I think the game's difficulty and unclear nature of where to go and what to do. Yeah, I know the other Metroid games are open ended like that, but for some reason it didn't work for me on the handheld."

Doesn't sound right, I think you've not remembered yet.

metalmechanica99 @ Jan 26th 2008 6:43PM

Not to be rude, of course. Maybe pick it up again. You may fall in love all over again... for the first time.

Very Metal @ Jan 26th 2008 8:35PM

I am finally playing Magical Starsign after trying to get into it for the past year or so. Just trying to get past that character art style...yuck! But now 18 hours in I am really enjoying it, I wish more rpgs used the features of the DS so well.

metalmechanica99 @ Jan 26th 2008 6:22PM

You (Candace) must be proud, coming up with such a good question. I didn't want to comment but I couldn't resist peeking at others' thoughts on the subject.

Metroid Prime: Hunters. I actually had more fun playing [First Hunt]. It does not compare to it's Cube counterparts. Nor are there similarities that aren't skin deep. Though I do like playing at Transfer lock in Bounty mode.

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