Most of the DSiWare has been crap, or rehashes, or rehashes of crap.  The Art Style Series shows lots of promise though.  An extension of the BIT Generations Series from the GBA days, Nintendo is bringing interesting, seemingly-casual games at a low price.

The recent release of PiCOPiCT was the best so far.  It’s a colorful game that has you making groups of colored blocks and as you get rid of blocks, they shoot up to the top screen to form a picture.  Decked out with Famicom-styled art and 8-bit music, it’s a retro-lover’s wet dream.  As you collect coins, you can use the in-game currency to purchase level music, and bonus ‘URA’ versions of each levels.  The URA levels are remixed versions with a steeper difficulty level.  

After spending a few days with PiCOPiCT, I’ve become addicted.  Even though I’m playing through Chrono Trigger right now, I find myself forsaking that to play this retro-fied puzzler.  After level 5 or so, you start seeing how clever the game is.  you start getting larger shapes, and you get layers upon layers of different colors, sometimes trapped inside frames of other colors.  You have to start planning out your attack.  You have to set up multiple sets of different colors on the bottom, and chip away at blocks from the sides as the blocks are falling.  Should you find yourself getting behind however, you’ll quickly find yourself restarting the level, as it’s extremely tricky to battle your way back.  After a couple tries, you’ll probably figure out your strategy.  It typically didn’t take me very long to clear a level.

In the end, the visual and aural experience you get for 500 yen is a tremendous bang for your buck, and gets the ECONOMY stamp of approval, and is truly deserving of the Art Style Series moniker.

去年からずっと良いノートブックのアプリを探していた。でも、何を使っても満足していなかった。けれども、この間は帰りの電車ですごく良いのを見つけた。このアプリはNotebooksだという。品質にビックリした。はじめはデザインが格好いい。iPhoneのメモのアプリはよく醜いので美しくデザインされたのを見つけると珍しい。

アプリを起動してから本当のノートみたい画面が現れる。そのノートを開いていろいろなノートとメモが見える。ノートみたいだけど単にフォルダー管理システムだ。簡単にノートとメモを移動させる。

特徴

• アプリ内でコーピとペースが出来る
• SyncDocsを使えば同期化が出来る
• .txt/html　ファイルを読める
• アプリ内で検索が出来る

でも、ちょっと問題がある。まだ日本語を対応してない。英語の説明は不明かもしれないけど、みんなさんが多分すこし使ってみるとすぐ機能の使い方が分かる。それ以外、文句はない。是非、試してください。600円でバーゲンです。

Nintendo is pushing crap for Respect for the Elderly Day again this year.

]]> http://brandonpittman.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/i-dont-believe-this-was-taken-on-an-iphone/feed/ 0 brandonpittman http://brandonpittman.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/iphone-test/ http://brandonpittman.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/iphone-test/#comments Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:11:09 +0000 Brandon http://brandonpittman.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/iphone-test/ ]]> Testing.

One SB shop in Kamimaezu, on the other hand, at least offered reservations for the next batch. Apparently, I was like two people too late to get one there. (Of course they only had white left!)

They didn’t sell out on the first day last time, so I gotta say I’m disappointed in Apple for not supplying enough of these things over here.

Perfect for my new Super Famicom Classic Controller!