Mailbag - Issue 1

The first issue of our revived mailbag has arrived. The bag has been emptied and the questions got themselves an answer.

Back in the early days of DS-x2, the site knew a mailbag. Readers could submit their questions about the site and the Game Boy Advance, and we would try to give the answer. These glorious days have returned with the first edition of the revived mailbag. Not bad for a start, we've come up with an answer to 7 questions asked.

The DS does seem to be getting a lot of high-budget titles at the moment. Quality Nintendo DS games have been going at a steady pace, and with the help of Metroid Prime Hunters and Animal Crossing: Wild World, things can only get better. Of course we have much more to look forward to. For example: New Super Mario Bros, Tales of the Tempest, Pokémon Diamond & Pearl and the remake of Final Fantasy III. Of course thats only a small selection of the highly anticipated games coming soon for the DS.

In answer to your last question, we have absolutely no idea. Better ask Reggie himself!

Budgets don't have much to do with the increase in quality of DS games, but projects have definitely been getting a tad bigger then they were at launch since most of the games we got when the DS launched were simply upgraded GBA games. However when you're talking specifically about games like Animal Crossing: Wild World & Metroid Prime Hunters, which are heavily polished DS games and likely do have a higher budget than normal, you're talking about rare cases when it comes to Nintendo DS games when developers do spend much more time developing them then normal, and while there are quite a few more games just as big coming to the DS in the future, I definitely do not think they will be the only quality titles to be released. For instance, Tetris DS definitely isn't a high budget title and likely did not take much time to develop either, but I don't think that will hamper on the quality of the game in any way. So in other words, no I do not think time and budgets alone are what is causing the upward surge in quality with Nintendo DS games, but rather the fact that more developers are now getting used to the hardware and are now able to make quality games for it using the time and budget provided to them.

The truth is sadly that many companies have not taken the NDS seriously thus far, despite its major commercial success. Because the PSP is capable of handling similar power to the PS2, it is quite simple for developers to easily port their PS2 titles to the PSP with very little extra work required. On the other hand, with the DS it is an entirely different matter. The system cannot possibly handle games that would normally be found on a home console, and so a unique version of the game must be developed to suit the DS. Unfortunately, companies do not generally have the resources necessary to develop for three separate handhelds (don't forget the GBA here), and so they generally end up porting their GBA version of the game (with only a few minor updates) to the DS. Sad, but true. It is for the above reasons that the majority (though not all) of high quality DS titles are produced by 1st and 2nd party developers (Nintendo and its sub-companies).

As for the cost involved in the development of Hunters, I can't even begin to speculate.

At the time of Gamecubes showing, Rareware (as far was known) was working on Donkey Kong Racing. Unfortunately, late in its development (after Starfox Adventures), Rareware was bought by Microsoft, thus cancelling development. This doesn't entirely mean that we can't expect a Donkey Kong racing game, since Nintendo owns the rights to Donkey Kong, but it's very unlikely Nintendo will.

This was due almost entirely to Microsoft's purchase of Rare, and the fact that Rare owned the rights to a great deal of the Donkey Kong characters as well as the Banjo-Kazooie and Conker personages, who were to be featured in the game.

After speaking to Konami Europe the answer is quite simple really, a GBA version was never ordered but it is possible the powers that be deemed the subject matter too 'English' for a worldwide audience. Given that the movie under performed in the US they may have been correct. The British animators haven't been overlooked completely though and their next full-length feature, Flushed Away, which is due this autumn will be released on both the DS and GBA thanks to Activision.

You can find out more about the movie (including a 'making of' clip) by visiting the official site.

First of all, thank you for the compliment Steven.

DS-x2's roots lie somewhere in 2001, when Dennis decided to learn himself HTML for university. As one of his closest friends, Tim Symons, ran one of Europe's largest independant Nintendo 64 fansites (N64Europe), Dennis decided to start a little Game Boy Advance website hosted on Geocities called "GBAWorld". As GBAWorld grew slowly over time, Tim Symons decided to create a small subdomain on the N64Europe servers: gba.n64europe.com. The latter continued to grow despite many people complaining about the domainname.

Until 2004 the site remained more-or-less a one-man project. In time, Andrew Blanchard joined gba.n64europe.com and enhanced the site with his weekly reviews. Over time, more people joined (and left) and the site detached from the N64Europe servers and took its current form: DS-x2.

At the moment around 10 people are voluntarily working on DS-x2. Some as newsposters, some as reviewers (mainly Andrew and Caleb) and some as moderators on the forum. As of today, we also added four new people to this list, so expect even better coverage in the near future!

I honestly have no idea. At some point Nintendo of America and Europe did put the title on their releaselists but never announced any firm date. I believe it's very safe to assume that the game will never be localized for Europe or the US (nor Australia)

It has turned into vapourware unfortunately. There has been absolutely no information on it since sometime last year, our last hope is that the title suddenly reappears again at E3 or it might've been secretly cancelled. :(

You probably mean Tales of the Tempest. Many of the Tales-series were never released outside of Asia and I do question a possible release of this new title for the Nintendo DS. However, it does appear that more and more Japanese titles are set for a European release. Think of Atlus working on a localized version of Contact and Rising Star Games taking care of Harvest Moon DS. The lack of firm statements is against us at the time, but we can always hope.

I do expect to see more about the remake of Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS during the upcoming E3 event (late May). Stay tuned for that one!

Tales of the Tempest has no release date outside of Japan right now, though like Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Symphonia I'm sure Nintendo release the game in the regions Namco does not wish to. However, the game is not even out in Japan yet, so don't start looking for any announcements of localization at least until the game comes out in Japan on June 8th (or if you're lucky it'll appear at E3). As for FFIII, I wouldn't expect to see it anytime this year, in English at least. There isn't even a Japanese release date for the game yet so I expect that we are in for quite a wait for FFIII.

Yes, you can. The Nintendo DS is region-free, which means you can play games from all over the world in your Nintendo DS. Japanese game, European games, Australian games, American games... Every single one of them should function properly on your own Australian DS. The Wi-Fi Connection service is similar. There are no region lockouts, but there can be a few disadvantages. For example, the Japanese version of Animal Crossing: Wild World is not able to communicate with its US counterpart. People who imported the Japanese version can play over the Wi-Fi Connection but can only visit the towns of other people also playing with the Japanese version.

Mario Kart DS on the other hand has no problems at all relating to the different regions. However, the game does show a tiny difference when you're comparing the European and American versions: where the American version allows you to pick 'regional' competitors, the European version has the 'national' option. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I do expect that a European gamer playing a US Mario Kart DS in 'regional'-mode will only encounter other American gamers, resulting in slightly higher lags (delays when playing the game, which can actually affect gameplay).

So there it is. You can import Metroid Prime Hunters from America and play it online as well. However, there is the slight possibility that there might be some problems when trying to link up with friends who own the Australian version later on (even though I doubt it will).

We'd like to thank everyone who submitted their question(s) and hope we've answered your question(s) well. Of course everybody is allowed to send in their own questions for next week's mailbag through our contact-form.

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Comments

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  ...I definately have to rethink the layout of this type of article :-/

  Dennis, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
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  gud job dennis

  spikeyjac, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
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  Expect to see Donkey Kong Racing in quite a different form at this E3...on Xbox 360 and with some Banjo characters.

  Malte DS-x2, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
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  I doubt it. MS seems to have Rare work on licensed franchises (Viva Pinata) or franchises that cater to an older audience (Conker, Perfect Dark). That said, I think people should be reminded that this is ds-x2.com, not revo.ds-x2.com, so plesae make your questions about the DS or GBA rather than the Gamecube. Thanks.

  Jay, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
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  reminder to myself: ask a question to the staff

  ctkxtreme, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
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  I have to change my name, xD

  steve, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
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  lots of you steve guys.

  darkshadow61, 30-11--0001 at 00:00