Art Style: Boxlife on DSiWare

The biggest handheld gaming news this morning has nothing to do with GTA: Chinatown Wars migrating to PSP; it’s the North American release of Art Style: Boxlife (known as Hacolife in Japan) for DSiWare!

As I’ve previously proclaimed, I believe this addictive puzzler from Skip is the finest DSiWare experience you can purchase today (500 Points), even more so than PiCTOBiTS. Nintendo’s official product description:

“Climb the corporate ladder in the world of Boxlife using your wits and… paper? Use the Nintendo DSi stylus to cut and then manipulate the paper into a box shape. Be careful — if you’re not efficient with your cuts, you’ll waste paper and be penalized.

R&D mode teaches you new patterns and challenges you to complete various ranks, while Factory mode gives you the chance to earn money by making as many boxes as possible from an endless sheet of paper.

Success in each mode brings its own reward: Clear ranks to earn a promotion, change your character’s appearance, and use your earnings to acquire new items for your character’s miniature garden. With this game’s stylish graphics and catchy sounds, thinking inside the box isn’t such a bad thing.”

If you haven’t read it yet, here’s my enthusiastic preview of the game, in which I described Boxlife as “Japan’s interpretation of the American Dream”.

See also: “Hacolife Theme”

tags / art style / boxlife / hacolife / skip / dsiware / ec

The DS games Nintendo didn’t bring to E3

Though Nintendo revealed several U.S.-bound DS titles this past week — Professor Layton and WarioWare D.I.Y. for example — there remains dozens of first-party games for the handheld that haven’t ventured outside of Japan.

I’ve picked out ten particular Japanese releases, games I’d love to see localized but were absent at E3, just to keep them fresh in your memory, lest you forget about the quality titles you’ve never had a chance to play.

1. Art Style: Hacolife (trailer above) - At a glance, this Skip-developed title doesn’t seem special, but it’s a surprisingly addictive puzzler and the most compelling DSiWare download to date for reasons you can read about in detail in my preview.
2. ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat - This turned out to be a mediocre SRPG, but remember the mystery and excitement before anything beyond a few screens was revealed for it? Great concept art! Hironobu Sakaguchi! FMV battles (pre-rendered)! The first game that was so big, it needed a 2 gigabit cart!
3. Daigasso! Band Brothers/DX/Radio - Released as a DS launch title in Japan and announced for the U.S. as Jam With The Band in 2004, this Beatmania-style game and music composition app is nowhere to be found on Nintendo’s North American schedule. Most stateside gamers will never realize what this Barbara the Bat assist tropy in Smash Bros. Brawl is about.

4. Facening de Hyōjō Yutaka ni Inshō Up: Otona no DS Kao Training - Yes, this Face Training title requires the now-leprous GBA slot for its camera accessory to help players prevent wrinkles and look younger, but with the DSi’s built-in camera, I figured this was a shoe-in for an updated edition.
5. Jet Impulse - Another title announced for the U.S. back in the day (as DS Air), this EAD-developed flight sim received solid import impressions, and also features an intriguing Cold War-esque plot that I wish made it to the States.
6. Jump Super Stars/Ultimate Stars (trailer above) - I’m not a huge fan of Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, or One Piece, but with over 300 characters pulled from dozens of manga series, all thrown into hectic 2D Brawl-style arenas (four-player online matches!), it’s difficult to not have fun playing these games. Licensing issues keep it out of the U.S., though.

7. Kousoku Card Battle: Card Hero (trailer above) - Other than Fire Emblem: Fūin no Tsurugi, I believe this is the only handheld Intelligent Systems game that hasn’t released in the U.S. since the Game Boy years. I’m not normally interested in card battle RPGs (especially when they’re in 3D), but import impressions for this were favorable. Plus, Nintendo of America recently trademarked Card Hero, so I was surprised to not see it announced at E3.
8. Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver - It’s understandable why Nintendo hasn’t announced this for the U.S. yet — Pokémon Platinum released less than two months ago, and the company is gearing up to ship Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky this September — but I hope it comes stateside soon, as the idea of including pedometer-based gameplay in software not focused on walking appeals to me for some reason.
9. Wander Donkey - Whatever happened to this mystery adventure game? Included in an official list of planned releases back in 2007, Wander Donkey hasn’t done much to prove that it still exists since. Wikipedia has a crazy description of its intended story and gameplay, but it sounds too wacky to be trusted.
10. Zekkyō Senshi Sakeburein - A four-player brawler in which you control a team of sentai superheroes, yelling moves and special attacks into the mic! Sounds fantastic, right? Too bad it’s exclusive to Club Nintendo members in Japan.

And that’s my list of disappointing first-party no-shows at E3! Were there any titles you hoped to see but didn’t?

tags / ash / e3 2009 / face training / hacolife / jet impulse / jump super stars / jump ultimate stars / card hero / pokemon / wander donkey / zekkyo senshi sakeburein / ec

Tiny Preview: Art Style: HacoLife (and DSiWare to an extent)

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 .

I envy HacoLife’s protagonist.

tags / art style / bit generations / dsiware / ec / hacolife / skip / import