I plan on picking up Yoshi's Island and FFIII today. The reviews have been mediocre to great on Yoshi's Island, but I loved the original and don't entirely trust EGM's review system.

I share your whitness.
Got the game yesterday and only beat two stages. Nevertheless Elite Beat Agens has something...

BTW I can't use the (US) Pin code. Has anyone an European Pin code for trade?

I have been playing Phoenix Wright, and I enjoy it, but not as much as I thought I would. I find myself knowing what I WANT to do, but the game not letting me do it. It almost seems a little too scripted. Also I read very fast, and I find games with a lot of dialogue start to annoy me when they just won't let me read at my own pace. Stop forcing slow dialogue. I can read those 2 sentences in less than 2 seconds. Let me. Don't force me to wait 10. And enough with the same animations over and over, and the very repetitive dialogue. "That didn't win me any points with the judge." Yes I get it, how about being able to skip some of that stuff? It artificially lengthens the game.

Despite all that I keep playing. I don't know if it's out of a sense of completion, or the fact that I like the story, but I do keep playing. However I would love to have some more freedom in this game.

That's the exact feeling I had with Phoenix Wright. It was ok, but it was too linear, with the paths sometimes not making sense for the way you would have solved things etc. And the slow text and general repetitiveness drove me nuts as well.

No interest in the sequel for me, and I'll probably steer clear of text based adventure games in general. This is one of the highest regarded ones, so I guess they're just not really my bag.

I have a few questions for all of you about RPGs, or rather RPGs in the pipe for the DS. Forgive me if this conversation has been brought up and rehashed.

In the Final Fantasy III review on IGN the reviewer stated: "Within the next year or so, each of the original six Final Fantasy games (spanning the original NES and Super NES) will be playable on either GBA or Nintendo DS..." I know that FF I, II, IV, and V are available on the GBA, and now FF III is out for the DS. But I am interested in missing one, Final Fantasy VI, which was released in the US as Final Fantasy III on the SNES. I did a search on IGN and couldn't find any info, other than what the reviewer said above. Does anyone have any information about a FF VI release/remake?

Other releases/remakes I'd like to see...any rumors out there about these:

Chrono Trigger?
Skies of Arcadia?
Dungeons and Dragons themed RPG? Either of the slash and hack variety like the console Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliances series, or more like the full-on RPG like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series on the PC.

Also a lot of times just by getting a piece of evidence you know how the case is going to unfold, but you have to do it their way. For example:

Final Fantasy VI is coming out for the GBA in the next couple of months.

Has anyone bought and played Final Fantasy III yet? Are the battles as slow and the general difficulty as high as the IGN review suggests? I'm still on the fence with this game, but I sure would like to relive some old-school RPG action.

Also, are there any good brick and mortar prices for this game?

Thanks!!

That's what I had thought as well. I first heard of FF VI Advance last spring, but then I stopped reading anything about it. And kind of forgot about it until reading that blurb in the FFIII review.

Doing some research, the release info I found was:
IGN - US: TBA Japan: December 31, 9999
Gamespot: TBA
Gamespy: TBA
1up.com (EGM): last had new info dated 9-2006 saying it was coming out in Japan at the end of this year, and next for the US.
Square Enix - no mention on their site
Nintendo - no mention on their site

That is why I was wondering if all the confusion and lack of info meant that maybe Square Enix pulled the game back from a GBA release to make it a DS release?

Final Fantasy VI Advance comes out in Japan on November 30th.

Final Fantasy V Advance came out in Japan on October 12th, US on November 6th for reference.

Good question! I was going to pick this up, until I read this review. Now I'm thinking of getting Children of Mana instead. Hmm .... what to do ...

I've got it, and I have no complaints. I've got about 4 hours invested, a good portion of which was spent leveling up. The battles start out with the standard side-view of all the characters and enemies, and changes to an isometric view once you select each character's action. I don't think it's as slow as many people have been led to believe.

Now, the difficulty: it's not too bad, but not exactly easy either. After about an hour of playing I went into a dungeon I wasn't supposed to and got wiped out in about 5 seconds. Once I restarted and found where I was supposed to go it hasn't been so bad. You just have to remember that this is a very old-school Final Fantasy game, meaning lots of leveling up before you can move onto the next area. Otherwise you're going to have a reallly difficult time down the road. Also, if you get annoyed with lots of random battles then this game is definitely not for you. There are tons of random battles - you finish one battle, take maybe 2 steps and you're in another. If you're a fan of the old school FF games like I am, then you'll love this game. Otherwise, I'd recommend trying out FFXII on the PS2.

Mmm.. random battles.. leveling up.. hot.

Mmm.. random battles.. leveling up..

I'll definitely pass as I hated RPGs back in the day. FFIII (VI) was the first I was able to get into.

I enjoyed random battles alot more when I played FF1-6 because those were all on carts and there wasn't the load times of the Playstation FF games.

Amazon has FFIII for $34.82 with free shipping. It will save a few bucks over the GGC on tax for most people. And for me gave me a chance to use a gift card.

There still seems to be a few good GBA coming out.. I think I'm going to pick up these two:

http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/742/742378p1.html
http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/742/742675p1.html

The guys on the 1up retronauts podcast suggest that the game is like the original NES in this respect. They did hint that only old school fans should apply (eg. not me). Apparently the 3d graphics are only a coat of paint, rather than impacting gameplay at all, which I find disappointing.

Super Robot Taisen OG 1 (GBA) is still my number one played portable game for the past month or so... and I just picked up part 2!

I picked up Final Fantasy III tonight, but I may have to hold off on it as I just got in Need For Speed Carbon on DS to review. I might sneak in a little FFIII time just to see how it is.

Those look really cool! Thanks for the heads up. Looks like between the DS (+GBA games) and Wii I have too much stuff to play yet again.

Some new release dates for Nintendo published titles:

12/06/06 - Kirby Squeak Squad (DS)
01/22/07 - Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS)
02/05/07 - Diddy Kong Racing (DS)
02/05/07 - Final Fantasy VI Advance (GBA)
03/05/07 - Wario: Master of Disguise (DS)
03/19/07 - Custom Robo Arena

I'm buying all of those except for Diddy Kong Racing.

I hope that Diddy Kong Racing will be something like Mario Kart without the snaking. That would be a must buy.

I'm hoping Diddy Kong Racing will be just like it was on the N64. I loved racing planes against the other Nintendo characters, so I hope there will be aerial races in the DS version.