December 06, 2004 - Nintendo's only offered up one first-party game for launch with the Nintendo DS, but in Japan, the company's backed its system with a whopping four titles. Along with the Japanese version of Super Mario 64 DS, the company has also shipped Wario Ware DS and the music game Band Brothers. And for the first time in, like, ever, Nintendo has offered up a Pokemon branded title for a system launch: Pokemon Dash, a spin-off franchise that won't exactly light the world afire with its design, but it will at least give Pokemon freaks something to do on their Nintendo DS until Pokemon Pearl and Pokemon Diamond hit the system...sometime in the future.
Obviously Pokemon Dash isn't the next generation Pokemon adventure, nor is it meant to be the pinnacle of the series for Nintendo DS gamers. It's a new idea that attempts to put the system's touch screen to use in a fresh new way, as well as offer up a neat, if just a little basic, idea in utilizing collected GBA Pokemon creatures in a new game.
Pokemon Dash, is, at its core, a basic relay racing game where players run through different course layouts to beat other Pokemon to the finish line. Each course has a specific layout with checkpoints, and it's up to players to figure out the best route to go from Point A to Point B, to Point C, to Point D...all the way to the last point in the course. The first Pokemon to the finish line wins -- but the game's laid out in GP fashion, with each position netting a point structure. So even if you come in fourth in one race, you can make it all up by beating the pack in the other races to come out on top.
Controlling your Pokemon is a simple matter of sliding the stylus in the direction you want your creature to go. There's a maximum speed for your creature, but you'll have to keep shoving that stylus in that direction to keep his speed up. The trick is to keep him on the best path possible; cobblestone paths are the best for running, and forests, beaches, water, swamp, and even lava pools will only slow your Pokemon down. Luckily, there are special power-ups in strategic locations that will make your creature 'immune' to the effects of specific terrain and keep his speed as high as possible.
But it's not all about running on the ground. Players can pick up balloons that will send their Pokemon high up in the sky to get a birds-eye view of the map. Up in the air, you lose the ability to know exactly where the next checkpoint is; the only hint you get is a visual clue on the upper screen where you'll have to compare the map version of the checkpoint with the sky view of it on the lower screen.
Descending back down to the race is a skill in itself. Players must make sure their Pokemon lands in a safe area, otherwise they're penalized. Pokemon cannot land in deep water or forests, for example, and if they do, they're sent right back up to the sky for a second try at the landing. Players can speed up the descent by popping one or both of the balloons, but if their Pokemon lands too hard to the ground, they'll be stunned for a few seconds...which may lose you the upper hand depending on the skills of the other racers.
Courses are laid out in a fashion that's meant to make you think about the direction you'll need to go. A water-surrounded checkpoint, for example, might be easy to land from the sky, but how do you get off the island once you're there? This isn't a clearly defined set of race courses, and it'll take a few trial-and-error shots to figure out the best route to take.
We got the Japanese version on Friday, and pretty much finished the main race on Saturday. Luckily once it's over several other modes open up, including much, much, MUCH harder versions of the original 25 races. And once the game's completed, the ability to 'import' Pokemon into the game becomes available. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean you can use these Pokemon to race -- sadly, the races are limited to only about a dozen different Pokemon creatures. No, the importing Pokemon feature literally turns your current team of Pokemon into a 'Special Cup' of race tracks, and the higher the level you've raised your Pokemon, the more time you have to complete the Cup. Each Pokemon is literally converted into a giant map, and players move from one map to the next to try and find the randomly placed checkpoints in the given time. These courses can be sent to other owners of Pokemon Dash, and yes, US versions of FireRed, LeafGreen, Sapphire and Ruby will work in this Japanese version. The Pokemon names will be truncated to five text characters, but they'll be fully imported and saved to DS cartridge. You can import five different Pokemon teams to the DS cart.
Don't expect to be floored by the graphics in Pokemon Dash, since the game's racing engine is relegated to the Nintendo DS' sprite-handling abilities. The introduction utilizes a fully 3D Pikachu to tweak and cuddle, evolved from the Pikachu Demo shown at E3 earlier this year. But the rest of the game takes place in a top-down, Mode 7 style environment. And since players control Pikachu for pretty much the game's entirety, you better get used to his adorable 'Pika!' squeaks...that's all you'll hear during the races.
Nintendo revealed earlier last month that a US version of Pokemon Dash will hit shelves on March 14, 2005. Admittedly the game has its cute charm, enhanced with a clever stylus-only control scheme and a surprisingly deep strategy element in the course designs. The import version has a lot of Japanese text to wade through, but the learning curve is on the low side...after the first five races it's easy to grasp Pokemon Dash's concept.
-- Craig Harris |
|小黑屋|手机版|Archiver|Nw壬天堂世界
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发表于 2004-12-8 04:21:43
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