February 24, 2015
The eShop is updated once a week with all the latest downloads, it always has been, since way back in 2008 when it was known as the DSiWare and WiiWare shop. As you can probably imagine, many games get hidden behind layers and layers of new downloads and promptly forgotten about. Well I’ve been buying games on the service for a long time now and have found some really intresting games hidden behind the mountains of showelware such as OMG I LOVE MY BABY SIMULATOR. (probably)
Here’s 5 of my favourites, and best of all, they all cost less than a fiver!
Dark Spirits
Part of the “GO – Series” of DSiWare games, this is a short game but one that will keep you coming back for more. I was pleasently surprised when I downloaded this, as it was only 200 points (about £1.50?) It’s quite a deep shooting game with lots of different power up options and some cool level design, It’s not the hardest or best game of the genre but for £1.50 you can’t go wrong! I did a video of it back in 2011 so take a look and see what you think.
Theres lots of other GO series games on the store as well, just do a search in the eshop and they should all come up. Think of them as lengthy mini games and you’re sure to have fun with whichever one you pick, and they are super cheap too so maybe you can get a few of them.
Aura-Aura Climber
The only game on this list which is actually made by Nintendo. This game sees you controlling a small ball of energy as it makes its way up through the clouds, you have to swing off pegs in the sky to get higher and higher, avoiding traps and collecting power ups as you go. It’s a lot of fun and great for short bursts of high score chasing gameplay.
Gaia’s Moon
This plays kind of like that old green helicopter game everyone used to play in school on Newgrounds when they were supposed to be making boring Excel documents… (Everyone did that right??) Well anyway, this game plays kind of like that, or more recently, kind of like Flappy Bird. The diffrence here is that the obstacles and enemies move as well, they are not fixed in one place, which make this game feel much more action oriented. It plays a lot like the barrel sections of the new Donkey Kong game.
The game is simple but fun and has some great pixel art graphics. The fact that the game plays out on a round level instead of a straight line might be a bit off-putting at first but you quickly get used to it.
Soul Of Darkness
DSiWare’s answer to Castlevania. Created by Gameloft, the makers of many, many clone games for old mobiles. Back when they had adverts to send a text and download a game for JAVA…
This game is a surprisingly good clone, and well worth the small price to pretty much have a brand new Castlevania experience on the DS. Of course, its not a patch on the actual Castlevania games but seriously, I would recommend this over the huge disappointment that was Castlevania Morror of Fate on the 3DS… Terrible game. I’m still really upset about the new direction the Castlevania series has taken, but thats for another time, maybe.
Legend of Dark Witch -Chronicle 2D Act-
The final game on the list, and the only one that’s an exclusive to the 3DS. I found this by accident just the other day after finiding out I still had £10 of eShop credit! (Yay!) The first thing that drew me to the game was the lovely sprite work in the screenshots and trailer. At first the game seems very much like a simple version of an original megaman game, this isn’t exactly what it’s like though, it really feels more like one of the old Wonder Boy (The Adventure Island ones at least) games, mixed with Gradius and a bit of Touhou. That might sound like a strange combination, and it is.
You begin by choosing which level you want to play first by choosing the boss you want to fight (Mega Man) Then you begin the level with only a basic shot and you move very slowly, as you begin to kill enemies you build up your power meter which you can use to choose a power-up once it gets to a certain point (Gradius). You continue running forwards and shooting at enemies, as you get more and more powerful and faster the game almost turns into a kind of platforming shooting game (Wonder Boy / Adventure Island) Once you finally get to the boss fight, you have to fight hard to keep all your power-ups because you can only take 4 hits before being totally reset and loosing everything! So be careful! Once you kill the boss you gain their weapon to use in the next stage. (Also Mega Man…) The bosses are all girls and like to have random conversations before you start (Touhou)
The game is quite challenging and not the most polished game ever, but its full of charm and the gameplay is great. Definitely worth a play!
Thanks for reading.