Chapter 9: Wait, there were other games?
The remainder of WFC’s life (~21 days) was spent doing stuff with all the other games I talked about. Here are my extended notes on those:
Goldeneye 007: The much-hyped (sort of) 2010 revival of the N64 classic. I had heard there was online multiplayer and that it wasn’t half-bad, so I hopped on to see if anyone was still around. And they were--veterans, mostly. It wasn’t really fun to walk for three seconds and get shot, but eh, that’s kind of true for most FPSs. At least this lives on in the Reloaded version for PS3/360.
Tetris Party Deluxe: There were only one or two people still active here, and they both filled up my field before I knew what was going on. GG.
Wii Music: You can share videos of your performances with friends. Unfortunately I have no friends that have Wii Music, and even if I did, the whole Wii Friends thing was shut down back in June, so.
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass: Completely dead. But at least the DS Download Play is fun.
Mario Kart DS: 4 people in a race, missing a few intense courses, no item dragging, and of course, snaking, but MKDS was still the first WFC game, and so it deserved some play. The snakers got to me before too long, but it was still Mario Kart.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis: The MvsDK series had a pretty big level creation scene. Nintendo put out some official levels, and the community of course uploaded theirs. Unfortunately I received my copy of this from Canada
on the 20th, one day too late to download levels.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Agains!: But I’ve owned this for years! Snatched up all of Nintendo’s levels, plus the 50 highest rated. Good stuff.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-land Mayhem!: Yes, they put three of these out on DS. The level creation was more robust than ever here. Nintendo had their levels as usual, but they also ran weekly challenges, where players were given a level template and a theme. The top 20 levels were put in a collection for everyone to download. These ran for
two years, and didn’t stop until last December. Unfortunately you can only hold 60 challenge levels on one cartridge, so enough for three complete sets of challenges, but eh, that’s all right.
The Mega Man Star Force series: The successor to the Battle Network series featured online play in a big way. No one was playing matches when I checked, but I could at least try to fill out my Brotherbands (think friend lists, but with lots of in-game bonuses). A search revealed
this thread on The Rockman.EXE Zone, which I posted in. Got a good number of Brothers, so I’m happy.
Picross DS: Everyone loves Picross! Over the life of the game, Nintendo put out 10 themes of 10 packs each, which themselves had 10 puzzles each, totalling a massive 1,000 puzzles to download… unfortunately, each cartridge can hold only 100. I wasn’t about to go out and buy 9 more copies, so I perused the selection and ended up going with puzzles from Mario’s Super Picross. The download process wasn’t too bad, though it was pretty annoying that it didn’t show what puzzles I’d already downloaded.
Pokemon Platinum: Platinum added a bunch of features in the Global Terminal, so I checked that out. Uploaded a dress-up photo, box, and Battle Video. Fun stuff.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky/Time: I wanted to do some missions, but it turns out there were basically none to do! Sky had
one mission that was taken. Time had more, but most of them were the legendary dungeon missions. I took the last two, but I found out I saved midway through the Palkia dungeon, so I didn’t get a chance to try them.
WarioWare D.I.Y. (Showcase): WarioWare D.I.Y., as the name might suggest, was all about creating and distributing your own microgames. Nintendo put out a ton of weekly games, and well as number of “big name” games from relatively famous people like Edmund McMillen. You can’t fit all those games on one cart, but luckily you could split them up between the main game and the WiiWare complement, Showcase.
Dr. Mario Online Rx: Dr. Mario, online! There were a couple people playing, most of them too good for me, haha.
Picross 3D: Picross… in THREE-DEE! I’d wanted Picross 3D for a while, so picking this up was a no-brainer. There were 44 puzzle packs put out by Nintendo, and 11 Challenge packs with levels made by the community. To store them all, I’d need to order another cartridge… which I did. Picross is dirt-cheap (like, sub-$5), and it’s a fun game, so that was a no-brainer.
The Professor Layton series: Four games, 33 puzzles each. It’s a very quick download, you basically log in to Wi-FI and it says “Oh, here you go” and unlocks them.
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies: There were a ton of weekly quests that would be leaving with the shutdown, so picking this up wasn’t that hard of a decision. You need to be a decent way into the game to be able to connect to Wi-Fi, so off I set on my first traditional JRPG! And it was fun!
Metroid Prime Hunters: I ordered this to have it as a DS Download Play game, but I briefly checked out the online. Got destroyed, but it was fun.
Tetris DS: Woo, Teris DS! I’d been trying to get this for a nice price so I could have it as another DS Download Play game. After getting my copy, I noticed that the label was a bit odd and that it slid into my DS a little oddly, but the game booted on a 3DS, saved, did DS Download Play, and connected to Wi-Fi, so I dismissed it as nothing.
But after playing an online match (much more fun than Tetris Party, probably because you can’t instantly drop tetrominos), I went back to the menu, closed my DS, and noticed it: Instead of going to sleep, I was hearing the menu theme come out of my speakers in short, glitchy bursts. That sealed it: My copy was a fake. I’d been warned I was going to come across these on eBay, but man, I didn’t know they were this common. And so well made--not only does it play on the scrutinizing 3DS, it plays
online! Luckily this was only a couple days after I bought it, so I went to the seller, explained the situation, and got a full refund--and I didn’t even have to return the game! I know some people sell mass quantities of fakes on eBay, but this felt like an honest mistake (I wouldn’t be surprised--I saw a gray-cartridge copy of Ruby in a GameStop once).
Still, this worried me a bit, so I checked for the signs of fakery and checked over my recent purchases: Professor Layton 1 was a fake, as was Megaman Battle Network 5: Double Team. I expected that from Double Team--the game played fine, but the label was a bit weird and the seller was selling
20 copies, which is a crazy number considering the rarity of this game. But eh, it’s been months since I bought those games, and without a refund I don’t feel inclined to procure myself legitimate copies, as long as they don’t have issues like Tetris DS. I’ll for sure download them on the eShop if Nintendo ever puts them out there.
So in the end I
didn't play all the matches I said I would, but I had my fill regardless.
