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Kirby Canvas Curse (DS / E)
Took me five minutes to get over the novelty of the controls and start realizing how shallow the game is; it could probably be beaten in a day (and I don't want to hear that "But it could take weeks to get ALL THE MEDALS" crap. If I can't stand the main game, why would I want to bother with all that optional garbage?). The only remotely interesting design is the third part of 7-3, and right after we get treated to a boring vertical trip up some tower and one of the easiest final bosses ever (especially the second phase). And I guess the graphic artists thought the effect with Harmony of Dissonance's final boss arena looked good, because it's back. At least it's a pastel rainbow instead of neon red and neon green.
Rating: Bad


Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS / T)
Best DS game I've played so far, although it could've easily been done on the GBA. Many puzzles to solve, and a huge cast of colorful characters who keep a game that's 90% text from getting boring. I can't count the number of times I laughed out loud at this game. There's even a Zero Wing reference. What keeps it out of the "Great" ranking is not the lack of replay (something I don't particularly care about), but Episode 5. It has no reason to exist. Not only does its plot feel like the first chapter from the next game, but it's funny how the best use of the DS's capabilities is its graphical capabilities with that polygon movie on the security tape; the "touch screen" features are ridiculous (it's so awesome to tap the screen a bunch of times and blow into the mic! Woo!). It causes the game to go out on an exhaustive note instead of a high one. I also don't care for your new partner who throws the word "scientific" around like a Wii fanboy and "innovative".
Rating: Good


Final Fantasy IV Advance (GBA / E)
I really liked the SNES game. The perfect example of what an RPG should be, with a deep plot, interesting characters, enemies that aren't all defeated by consantly selecting Attack, and a great musical score. But this version has some issues. There's some hideous slowdown in some parts which has actually screwed up some of my choices at times (by reflex I press Up and A to heal Rydia, except the game lags, doesn't register my Up, and heals Cecil instead. The final boss, a time where you REALLY need to be able to heal who needs to be healed, is especially bad about this because of the background), else it just got on my nerves. In fact there was one time it took a cutscene so long to start fading it I thought the game crashed. And I don't know if these are intentional glitches, but there's been many occasions where a character got to attack twice in a row, and there's been times where the game couldn't figure out how to order the characters, and I was waiting for Rosa to come up after her meter had been full for a while, but it kept giving me the characters who had just gotten their meters filled. I'd only recommend picking this up if you can't get the SNES version.
Rating: Decent


Yoshi's Story (N64 / E)
If this game had halfway decent controls a five year old could beat it in twenty minutes. Controls are absolutely ridiculous, as they're either too slippery (landing from a jump), too stiff (air running), or flat-out unresponsive (Ground Pound), and WHY do you have to hold the control stick diagonally to get Yoshi to move at a reasonable pace? The eat-30-pieces-of-fruit thing not only made for a game with awkward pacing but actual game stages with about as much design as the Practice stage (because the goal is to eat thirty pieces of fruit instead of clear the stages, nobody bothered to design any). And the sound honestly made me spaz a few times.
Rating: Garbage