pinata242

Let me save you some time.

UncleGramps

The quick version of Ninjatown: cute tower defense game.

xmiyux

This.

It is like Desktop Tower Defense (which you can play for free online) but setup in a very cute manner with a quirky kind of funny story.

It is also a great game if you are going to play for 5 or 10 minutes here and there.

LorenzoL

I finally found Chrono Trigger DS at Wal-Mart and Future Shop (B&M) for $39.99 Canadian.

Superboy

Been out of the loop for a while now, but I am picking up a ton of games almost every day. TRU and Best Buys in my area are discounting the oldies I missed the first time around. I can't believe how many good games are on this system...

I just picked up Chrono Trigger despite promising myself to play through my other games first. This game rules like no other game has ruled before or since. I still remember staying up a whole weekend with my friends to beat it in one session. Amazing...

gimmepilotwings

Anyone have the My Japanese Coach game?

PixyJunket

I got to demo it some time back. It seems like it would be an awesome package for the price but it's not going to be a complete learning tool. I do think it would make an amazing companion for a proper class though.

xmiyux

What Pixy said. I would have loved to have had the game when i was taking Japanese in college since it would have given me a chance to review some vocabulary in a fun fashion. I borrowed it from a friend a few months back and thought it was neat but it is not a standalone course.

I play the Spanish one every so often as a way to slowly brush up and expand my Spanish vocab.

I do have one issue with the games. They take a translation approach to language (eg. giving a word in the target language and then defining it in the native language) and this method is one of the worst possible ways to learn a language and gain any kind of fluency. But that is just my teacher pet peeve about the game.

Unclegramps on this board has played the Japanese one a good bit iirc.

Trevor

Soul Bubbles in essentially free at Toys R Us today only.

On sale for $9.99, comes with a $10 gift card (good till 1/31/09).

Found on CAG, reported to be a decent game.

gimmepilotwings

I purchased this as a X-Mas gift for myself. BB has a $10 GC so I figured what the hell. I am also doing Pimsleur's audio books right now. I also have a torrent of Rosetta stone, but I'm actually not digging it too much. I don't think the torrent has everything it is supposed to.

I'm not going to take a class per se, but the audio books, the Rosetta Stone and the My Japanese Coach will go a long way.

PixyJunket

By the way, the game I hinted at (and was writing a nice long article about) before I took my forum break is getting a US release in three weeks. It's going to be called Retro Game Challenge over here and it's basically a collection of eight BRAND NEW 8-Bit NES games wrapped around a sweet meta-game of growing up in that era.

For instance, the game takes place in different years of the NES/Famicom's lifespan and each new game is representative of what was out at that time, starting with a simple arcade style Galaxian clone in 1983 to full blown Mega Man/Ninja Gaiden style games in 1988. You also have a subscription to gaming magazine and the magazines have previews of upcoming games, cheat codes for the games you already have and interviews with the games pretend creators and companies.

You progress in the game by completing a series of challenges for each game. For instance, it could be simply "Pass Stage 5" or "Make it to Stage 2 Without Getting Hit" or "Reach 100,000 Points" (sort of like achievement, hur). Once a set number of challenges are completed, you're warped to the next year with a new game (and you can access any previous games and play them whenever you want).

The top screen is the game screen, all of the game (as far as I could tell) adhere very strictly to the graphical and audio limitations of the NES/Famicom other than using the DS screen resolution. The bottom screen has your character and their friend (the child version of the host of the game show this game was based off of) actually playing the game. If you do cool things in the game, your friend will cheer or make comments or he'll make fun of you for sucking, etc.

Michael Corvin

That definitely sounds unique. I was down for MM9, so I'll be down for this.

UncleGramps

I just read an article about Retro Game Challenge and I'm really excited for it. I believe it comes out in January, right?

Also, on the topic of Dragon Quest IV - does it require a lot of grinding? I'm slowly getting back in to JRPGs thanks to the Mother 3 fan translation, but I'm still not a fan of games that require a lot of level grinding. I know people rave about DQ4 and 5, and I've never played a DQ game (other than the offshoot Rocket Slime game) so I was wondering if 4 is a good starting point.

PixyJunket

Yes, Nintendo's big list indicates January 6th.

I have to unload my import quickly now to offset the hate.

Dragon Quest IV is a great starting point. I don't THINK the game requires any grinding, but I actually love that part of RPGs so I may not be the best to gauge that aspect (everything else I've read on it indicates a no if that helps). Even with all the extra grinding I do, I beat the main game at 20 hours, so it's short, regardless.

UncleGramps

Looks like the Keep It price for DQ4 at Gamefly is only $25, so I'll try and rent it from there and keep it if I like it.

xmiyux

Speaking of JRPGs, i am playing Crono Trigger for the first time now on the DS. I'm pretty impressed so far.

PixyJunket

No, I can't be bothered to save the world right now, I'm too busy breeding a cat army.

UncleGramps

That was one of my favorite games back in the day. I still have the instruction manual, but sadly not the cardboard box. I can't bring myself to re-buy essentially the same game on DS, but all the Crono Trigger talk of late is making me want to play through it again on the SNES.

fumanstan

Same, especially since it's $40 on the DS. If it was closer to $25 it would be an easy purchase for me.

jdpatri

I keep waiting for a Chrono Trigger discount, but it ain't havin any of that nonsense. I might just cave and pick it up at Best Buy tomorrow before the holiday travel season begins.

PixyJunket

I got mine for Christmas!

steebo777

Still waiting for my Chrono Trigger Christmas gift

spainlinx0

I have Chrono Trigger for my SNES still. I'll just break that out when I feel the urge again.

Jamieson22

Didn't see any mention of it in the store but I bought Simpson's Game and Star Wars Force Unleashed as gifts at CostCo (Chicago) today and at the register it took $5 off Simpsons and $10 off Star Wars.

Ended up paying $10.99 for Simpsons and $21.99 for Star Wars. Not even sure how good of prices those are but seemed good enough to me!

LorenzoL

Even though I told myself that I wasn't going to buy Final Fantasy Tactics A2 since I was put off by the first one and it judges card gameplay, I found the game at a great deal that I couldn't pass up.