The first half of this track is typical “Zelda remix” fare, but at around the 3:00 mark, YMCK turns it into something magical. Seriously, they totally killed this PiCTOBiTS/PiCOPiCT remix.
By now, you should have realized that I did not exaggerate about Art Style: PiCTOBiTS’ greatness. If you’ve yet to appreciate this essential truth, then either:
You haven’t purchased the DSiWare game yet, or
You don’t have any damn sense about
I know last week was expensive for Nintendo nerds, what with Punch-Out!! and Boom Blox: Bash Party out at stores, and Majora’s Mask on VC, but if you haven’t picked up PiCTOBiTS yet, you’re really missing out! And if you’re one of those forum/blogger dudes who refuses to buy the game but loves carping on the internet about DSiWare’s selection, basically you’re a dick.
The second-best DSiWare game, Art Style: PiCOPiCT (right under Art Style: Hacolife), is finally available in North America as PiCTOBiTS. It is imperative that you purchase this addictive puzzler, if nothing more than for its YMCK remixes of classic NES/Famicom songs:
As exciting as the idea of Fire Emblem developer Intelligent Systems teaming up with Square Enix to create a strategy game for DSiWare sounds, these screenshots make the 3D game look like total Buttsville, a town widely known for its population of butts.
Dragon Quest Wars will release in Japan this June for 500 Nintendo Points, and will allow up to four players to battle online with Dragon Quest monsters.
I never would have guessed it, but Aquia is the puzzle horror game that Joshikousei Nigeru wished it could be:
“Aquatic stages, as a rule, are stressful experiences, whether its the frantic search for air bubbles in Sonic the Hedgehog’s Labyrinth Zone, or the timed underwater bomb-defusion in the original TMNT.
Art Style: Aquia, though not a platformer or action game like those two, captures that same sense of aquatic anxiety, that dizzy madness you see in a deep sea diver’s eyes, through the iron gate of his rusty helmet, as he realizes that his air line has been cut, and that he has descended much too far to be saved.”
If you don’t want to wait for PiCOPiCT or HacoLife to spend your free Nintendo Points on, grab Aquia — it’s the best DSiWare release of the bunch, for really reals. WarioWare: Snapped is a headache.
DSiWare is enabling Nintendo to not only live up to the brilliant legacy left by bit Generations, but even surpass the acclaimed GBA series with its Art Style line.
Though Art Style titles have appeared on WiiWare, it’s on the DSi where Skip Ltd. reached for the stars and captured in its grip that same magic that compels those distant, fixed points of light in the sky to twinkle on clear nights.
Art Style: HacoLife (BoxLife) is more than just a puzzle game about cutting and folding boxes; it’s Japan’s interpretation of the American Dream; it’s the unrealistic but fulfilled promise of prosperity after a life of noble labor; it’s an alternate history in which Bart Simpson never ditched his school field trip to the box factory, and was inspired to pursue a career in the cardboard industry.
While the bit Generations games were praised for championing simple fun through spartan graphics and controls, Art Style’s DSiWare games continue that tradition and add an extra addictive quality — in PiCOPiCT, it was the coin system that tied into unlocking YMCK remixes of classic Nintendo songs, accessing difficult mirror levels, and buying POW power-ups during hectic stages.
In HacoLife, the player character is represented by a winsome, ambitious blue collar worker who can choose to either refine his trade in Training mode, or jump into the real Factory mode and start collecting his cash.
Without any prior practice or real familiarity with the box-folding system, though, mistakes will be plenty on the factory line, and he’ll only scrounge a few thousand yen with each playthrough, if he’s lucky.
If he wants to earn a liveable wage, he has to take 14 Training classes, not just learning the different ways one can cut a box, but picking up the methods needed to quickly and efficiently break down a sheet into 3-5 boxes without wasting a single square. Similar to Fay’s Puzzle in Shiren the Wanderer, he must master these lessons to really survive in the game.
And by taking these classes, the young worker has more opportunities to climb the ladder, going beyond a “Part-Time” position and taking on the role of “Craftstman.” And with his successes at the workplace, the hero can rise from poverty and own the things he dreamt of one day having — a nice house, a healthy puppy, a Vespa with a full tank of gas — these simple wonders begin to populate the game’s title screen .
Lots of readers enjoyed the last PiCOPiCT song we posted, so here’s another track from the throwback DSiWare puzzle game. This medley has bits of Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and other classic NES titles — all remixed by Japanese chiptune group YMCK.
I mentioned before that unlocking this song in PiCOPiCT’s Sound System mode costs 500 coins (playing through a mid-game stage earns around 30-50 coins), but that’s actually just for the track’s first half. The second half is priced at 1000 coins! Fortunately, I had nothing better to do than grind for coins while waiting for my wife and her friend to get ready to go out last night.
This entire track cost me hella coins to purchase in PiCOPiCT’s Sound System mode — most of the game’s songs are broken into several segments, with later portions priced higher than earlier scraps.
One of the YMCK tracks (there are 17 in all) costs a ridonkulous 500 coins to unlock, the equivalent of 10 playthroughs of a mid-game puzzle. Tigga, please.
You might need to turn your volume up to hear the above tune, a remix of Super Mario Bros.’s dreadful Castle theme; I’m not the most technically minded guy, so you can assume that the most ghetto of setups was used to transcribe this song’s bits onto my hard drive. Imagine a Fisher Price microphone paired with a funnel, and you will have a romanticized idea of my recording setup.
Nintendo of Japan announced several new games and applications coming to its digital download service for the Nintendo DSi this Wednesday (January 28th), including several “excerpts” from existing puzzle titles and two new Art Style releases.
Art Style: PiCOPiCT (500 Nintendo Points) combines Picross with falling blocks and Nintendo franchises. It also features chiptune tracks from YMCK!:
Art Style: Somnium (500 NP) features slide puzzles:
Chotto Panel de Pon (500 NP): Panel de Pon, or Planet Puzzle League, without multiplayer support.
Chotto Suujin Taisen (500 NP): Based on a Mitchell Corp.-developed puzzle-battle game that never made it to the States, but received positive import impressions. Includes WiFi support for up to four players.
Chotto Asobi Taizen: Jikuri Trump (500 NP): Bits from Clubhouse Games, including Blackjack, Poker, and more. Features local multiplayer, but no online.
Hobonichi Rosenzu (500 NP): Map application for train/metro routes in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Fukuoka, Nagoya and Sapporo. Users can search for stations and routes, as well as add bookmarks, notes, and photos to the map.
DSi Solitare (200 NP): Solitaire, Klondike, and Spider with cat shapes on the cards!
DSi Clock: Slide Show Type (200 NP): A clock using photos taken with the DSi. Also has alarm/sleep functions — you can even record your own alarm sounds! This is the first in a series of planned downloadable Clock apps.
