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QuickJump Quickpeek special edition: The Nintendo DS 2007 Year in Review

Posted Dec 31, 2007 at 4:09AM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Nintendo DS Tags: Nintendo EAD, Pokemon, Sonic, Sony, Zelda

From what we've seen in the year 2007, Nintendo's still got a better grasp of the handheld gaming scene over Sony's multimedia powerhouse. While most explosive titles that received the most attention were on consoles, the DS packed enough firepower to give both casuals and the hardcore something to hang onto outside their gaming rooms.

Early on, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl were unleashed into the wild and made a point - even if the Nintendo Wii is taking up plenty of Ninty's creative juices, the touch screen is getting its fair share. Developer BioWare is also pitching in its efforts to complete that Sonic RPG which announcement left everyone in shock.

With Nintendo's white hot console taking all the glory, the DS may have been overshadowed, but its steady stream of game releases proved that good things are going for the handheld. On the negative end of things, however, former Nintendo of America marketing folks had to leave the company. Let's take a look at the year's highs and lows.

Events

The entire industry went ga-ga every time a next-gen title surfaced, but gems on the DS quietly garnered interest and eventually sold thousands without too much hype. That said, nothing groundbreaking happened for the DS to speak of. Back in March, one notable event was when director Eiji Aonuma admitted that Zelda almost died after Wind Waker. Fortunately, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass would later breathe new life into the series.

In June, a month before E3, several commotions generated some buzz. For one, Nintendo moved its sales and marketing branch from Redmond, Washington to San Francisco and New York, leaving a handful of executives behind. PR senior director Beth Llewelyn, marketing VP Perrin Kaplan, and senior marketing VP George Harrison all chose not to relocate.

A few days after the cutbacks, BioWare brightened the mood by announcing a collaboration with Sega to develop a role-playing game featuring a blue hedgehog. With Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and the recent Mass Effect under the developer's banner, the world can only imagine what Sonic is in for.

The next big event that highlighted what the handheld has to offer would have to be E3 2007. The Electronic Entertainment Expo wasn't as spectacular as it used to be, but playable demos of Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker, Sonic Rush Adventure, and others gathered up crowds around their respective booths.

Good things just piled up and led to Nintendo's record-breaking sales in North America after getting 653,000 DS units off shelves in a single week of November. It's comprehensible, considering how many great titles were already available at the time and the fact that it was Thanksgiving. Apparently, when you have attractive games, people just keep coming. This brings us to the question: what made 2007 hot for the DS? Read on.

Games

Though they don't get as much attention and screen time as high-budget console titles, there's no denying games on the DS remain more than competent. This year's roster in particular is jam-packed with quality, and we hand-picked some off the best.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215
A huge leap from its previous DS title Trace Memory, developer Cing pushed the visuals up a notch in Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and added depth to each carefully crafted character. The premise is simple: you're just a former cop looking for his buddy by asking around in a mysterious hotel, but how the story unfolds is what brings the hotel its twilight. Interacting with the hotel's inhabitants is always interesting since every person is hiding something, and making them give you the information you need is the peak of it all.

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl
Saying the fourth generation of Pokemon is more of the same seems like the understatement of the year, because wireless play doesn't even begin to scratch what's deep inside Game Freak's hottest pair. Playing with friends online sure is fun for something like Pokemon, but beyond that, all the elements behind Pokemon's earlier installments that made us grow to love Nintendo's lighthearted RPG were polished to near perfection.

Sonic Rush Adventure
Good Sonic games these days are far in between, and Sonic Rush Adventure is among the handful that stand out. As if it pushed the DS to its limits, levels in the blue hedgehog's second coming to dual screens not only looked great, but are also packed with so many hazards and obstacles to overcome that saved the game from being linear - something side-scrollers suffer from.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Nintendo released a full-blown entry in the Legend of Zelda series, and it's difficult not to brand it as this year's biggest hit for the DS. For the first time, an action game controlled completely by the stylus worked wonders. What came out of Nintendo EAD's new control scheme for Zelda is a fully intuitive newbie-friendly adventure with everything a long-time fan can ask for.

Bleach: The Blade of Fate
Amazing fighting games on the DS? Sega did it, and used Bleach's popular anime and manga license to boot. The Blade of Fate is nothing deep or worth setting up grand tournaments for, but its simplicity coupled with an array of special cards used in battle should attract anyone who's remotely fond of the genre. Bonus features like four-player mode and online play helped convince us that this is the year's premiere fighter for the DS.

Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations
No objections here. A fair number of DS owners grabbed a unit just to play Ace Attorney, and Capcom lived up to their expectations with this latest installment. Gameplay remained mostly unchanged, and the story didn't break the series' formula, composed of interesting personalities and mind-boggling incidents. What we can't complain about is ample amount of fanservice - playing as Miles Edgeworth was sweet.

Dementium: The Ward
Admittedly, Renegade Kid's trailers to fuel The Ward's hype train were a wee bit over the top. Blood and gore never really worked with Nintendo's family-friendly DS, but this first-person hair-raiser broke that tradition. The actual game? Played better than other FPS games on the handheld, and pushed the hardware to the limits (made apparent by occasional framerate drops). Puzzling stages filled with strange critters and a variety of weapons to decapitate them with should keep you occupied for hours.

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker
If Pokemon proved how a lighthearted RPG can work, Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker showed how Pokemon for the hardcore is not a bad idea either. From Square Enix' established Dragon Quest franchise comes a huge monster-catching title with creatures taken from DQ's lengthy history. With perfect execution, Square Enix managed to create an epic bite-sized adventure.

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings
After directing Final Fantasy X-2, the first ever direct-sequel in the Final Fantasy's core series, Motomu Toriyama rolled up his sleeves to spearhead another FF sequel's development. Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings came into fruition, and a very accessible real-time strategy game was born on the DS. Simple gameplay and a less convoluted storyline gave FFXII's follow-up its own identity, yet it remained faithful to being a part of the Ivalice Alliance - fun, immersive, and impressive.

Big Movers

Eiji Aonuma - At the helm of the trend-setting The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass' development is this veteran who touched the legendary Ocarina of Time as an assistant director, and since then brought us countless hours of adventure in the shoes of Link. After Phantom Hourglass, other developers will most definitely pick up the button-free control scheme. We can credit future gems on the handheld to Aonuma and his team.

Akihiro Hino - You probably haven't heard of his name, but if we're going to point out personalities crucial to the DS' success this year, we can't miss Level-5's do-it-all president/game designer/director/producer Akihiro Hino, who made Professor Layton possible. While not yet available outside Japan, Professor Layton and Pandora's Box launched late 2007 with stellar day one sales and continues to widen its reach. The first in what's planned to be a trilogy, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, is going to be released in North America on February 10th, 2008.

What's next?

The Nintendo DS is still going strong in terms of sales and its growing library of software. It's difficult to imagine the handheld getting replaced anytime soon, or at least, too many good things are set for 2008 that lead us to believe it will be another great year.

Square Enix still has a trifecta of Dragon Quest remakes to complete, though no confirmation has been made if they'll appear stateside. Of course, there's also the Final Fantasy IV remake which we're hoping to see in the west next year, and it doesn't seem unlikely to find Final Fantasy V's reiteration after. We also have tabs on Tetsuya Nomura's funky The World Ends With You and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.

Ninty's family-friendly platform is undoubtedly associated with puzzle games, and we don't expect smaller game developers to stop from churning out budget brain twisters. Beyond Brain Age's many rip-offs, our money is also on Nintendo pulling out a surprise around Q3 2008. No Nostradamus here - just a bunch of gamers who want something big for next Christmas.

Need we name more titles to get you excited? Tomonobu Itagaki's touted Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword, the first Ace Attorney made for the DS, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, the much awaited Fire Emblem DS and Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin are just among the few that we can't wait to get our hands on. Did we mention BioWare is making a Sonic RPG, too?

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