Sunday, August 16, 2009

From the DS to the Retro Gen

I have decided that my Mario Edition DS is a waste of time for me, the games are expensive to a degree and I find myself not enjoying the DS style of play with the stylus at all. Also, my DS sits for a week or two at a time on my desk, that isn't right considering I have other things I want, that need money I don't have.

Since it looks like my DS will sell for what I want I decided to think over why I am more excited for the Retro Gen than I am for the DS I currently have.

1. Gameplay. It took me a while to realize why I didn't play my Gameboy Color anymore, and why my DS sits around for a good length of time. The casual gameplay of the DS numbs me to the point I don't play anymore. I want the portability for games in a decent package, and the Retro Gen lets me play ANY Genesis game, even region locked games on the go. There's no compromise in gameplay and it would be sick to play Ghostbusters on the Retro Gen.

2. Value. I spent 120 dollars on this DS and have no wish to buy anymore games for it because I need money as it is, the games are expensive at 23 to 30 bucks a piece, and I have too much junk as it is in my gaming collection I haven't touched. It'd be better to put my money I invested in the DS market to better use such as NES games or to fix my Sega Genesis which I have to have regardless if I get the Retrogen. And I want the Retrogen regardless what happened with my DS, two handheld systems is going to be too much to deal with. And I start college in two weeks so the DS is the easier thing to let go for me.

3. Features. The DS wireless play and the double screen stylus techniques were a nice idea, but I don't like the latter and so it bores me whenever I can't mash buttons in my games. What the Retro Gen has like its predecessor it's emulating (Sega Nomad) is the TV out function that lets me play off the handheld as the controller on a big tv. That is pretty cool, and also the Retro Gen has 6 buttons, 3 of them are turbo buttons.

4. Games. DS games really killed it for me, some of them are good like most of the ones I have. But in a large amount of the games they either are ridiculous titles like cooking games, use the stylus for almost the whole game which annoys me, or the fact that I can't get games for less than 23 dollars in good condition. The Retro Gen allows me to use FULL Genesis cartridges which cost as little as 5 bucks a game on Ebay. And these games are console ports which means they are a richer experience for me being games that weren't held back by the gap between handheld and console game designs.

So that's why I am changing my preferences in the handheld gaming world, I am not into casual gaming but I prefer to have the portability. The Sega Nomad had its critically acclaimed Genesis library on a handheld, which I wish others could do today. I actually miss the Cartridge era, and the fact that the DS games are so dang small drives me insane that they need big cases and cost 30 bucks.

I'm sorry, the DS is great but it just numbs me to the point that its not worth having if its not enjoyable as I thought it would be. At least when the DS sells I can preorder my Retrogen and get it delivered straightaway upon release.

My Style

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After

1 comment:

  1. I still think you're crazy for doing this. The games are not any richer because they're a console experience... plenty of DS games have much more content than any genesis game ever did.

    You have to remember, the genesis is an old console... so they had limitations back then on what they could do, MORE limitations that the people currently making DS games have.

    The value part is true, you can get a lot of Genesis games for cheaper than 30 bucks. However, none of these games are new, and a lot of them you've probobly played before. The ones you haven't played are probobly just mediocre to bad. Sure, you might find a gem in there every now and then, and the classics are classics, but can that REALLY hold your interest for that long?? more-so than new games? I'd gladly buy a new DS game for 30 bucks over an old Genesis game for 5 bucks.

    As for DS games being a casual experience... I just think you're playing the wrong games. There's tons of "core" games out there for the DS, Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, both of the Advance Wars games, all three of the Castelvania games, plenty of RPGs such as Contact, Final Fantasy III or IV, and Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime.

    You even had some good games in your collection, Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Sonic Rush Adventure, and Professor Layton. I will admit that Professor Layton can get a bit casual and just like the Wii, Nintendo lets almost ANY game come onto the console, weather it be extremely casual or not. However, saying that the gameplay on the DS as a whole is casual is just crazy talk!

    Really, this is just my opinion, so do what you want. But I still just think it's crazy to PREFER old over new. The old stuff is great, yeah, but the new stuff has a lot of great stuff as well.

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