PixlBit

This Japanese classic finally comes to America and just in time for holiday get-togethers!

Marooned in Japan for two decades, Nintendo and Square Enix finally have seen it fit to bring the Itadaki Street series to North America in the form of Fortune Street for the Wii. Despite the series piquing my interest after the strong reception of the DS version in Japan, it's largely been a mystery to me. Now that I've had a formal introduction to the series, I can say that it's been well worth the wait. Cozying up more closely to Monopoly than Mario Party, Fortune Street is the perfect game to play with a group of friends and/or family members, even if they're not fans of video games.

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Kids are great when there is field work to be done or raw materials to mine, so why waste their energy on video game busy work?

Its manual claims to be a “fantastic action jump 'n' run game” and there is certainly a lot of jumping. The three playable characters, Pixie, Madboy, and a dog, Rex, can be switched to at the press of the C button. Each has specialized, if minimally effective moves that are required to get through levels which do contain considerable amounts of platforming. But it can be more honestly described as a “plat-borer” because The Kore Gang's 30 levels are a near-nonstop string of menial and utterly pointless fetch quests that will bore players of all ages.

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New controls, new structure, and new enemies help define this series changing game.

“Hey, listen!” Apparently someone at Nintendo got the message. After the release of Twilight Princess, universally, fans were begging for change. While Nintendo seemingly gave their audience everything they ever wanted with the Wii’s first title and the GameCube’s last hurrah, they still weren’t happy. They wanted a reinvention; they wanted something new, something fresh. Well there’s little question about it, Skyward Sword is absolutely the answer to the fans. Though not something wholly new, Link’s latest adventure manages to shake things up enough to make them fresh.

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It's a SNES RPG through and through... now on the DS... in America.

After my five-year-old self was handily beaten down by Dragon Warrior on the NES, I swore off the series -- until recently that is. Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation marks my first true experience with the mega-popular Japanese RPG series. Thankfully my reintroduction has been a smooth one. While I wouldn't consider SNES RPGs a genre in and of itself, games in the genre that debuted on the system all have a similar style and presentation that promoted a far greater degree of accessibility. Being that I first got into the genre here, Dragon Quest VI made me feel right at home.

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