Dogasu
3rd November 2004, 04:42 AM
Today, November 3rd, 2004, Nintendo held a Nintendo DS event in Nagoya, Japan. The event, called the Nintendo World Touch! DS (http://touch-ds.jp/fla.html), was held to basically show off the Nintendo DS, as well as the new games that are coming out for the GameCube and Game Boy Advance. There were dozens of booths open to allow people to play these games first-hand, and one of the games happened to be Pokemon Dash. There were maybe eight Pokemon Dash booths, and there were tons of kids lined up to play the first DS Pokemon game.
I got a chance to go to this event, and Pokemon Dash was the first game I played. After waiting in line for about 20 minutes, I was able to play a demo of the game for five minutes, which allowed me to go through about two levels. After being forced to pick Pikachu and a rather generic field (that's all that was available in the demo), it was time to start the game. The first level was nothing more than a simple race. Using the stylus, I controlled Pikachu around the course, racing through a number of checkpoints before reaching the final goal. The race was exteremely simple, and my guess is that it was an introductory level to allow players to get a feel for controlling the characters with the touch screen. The second level was a bit more stimulating. In this level, you ran around from island to island, occasionally taking to the skies to get to the next island. You see, once you got to a certain point, you would hook up to a bunch of balloons and rise high above the race field (this was accomplished by touching the "Rise" icons that would appear on the sides of the screen). This is where things got interesting--players were presented with a zoomed-in portion of the map on the top screen, and the goal was to find the area of the race field that was the same shape on the bottom screen. Once you did that, you had to line up your shadow to the bullseye at the bottom, and once that was done, you released your Pikachu from the balloons (you did this by touching the "Dive" icons on the side of the screen). If you lined your pokemon up correctly, Pikachu would land on the checkpoint and get extra points. If not, your pokemon would be stunned for a moment, allowing the other characters to race ahead of you. The level repeated this a few times--you would take to the skies, find whatever area is presented on the top screen, and then try your best to land your Pikachu on the target. I saw some players miss and accidentally send their Pikachu plummeting into the water, so it's not quite as easy as it may seem.
While I was forced to play as Pikachu in the demo, other playable characters seemed to be Torchic, Teddiursa, Meowth, Bulbasaur, and Munchlax.
The controls for the game were easy enough. The game didn't use any of the buttons on the DS at all...everything, from selecting your course on the main menu to running on the field, was controlled using the stylus on the touch screen. Overall, it worked pretty well, and it didn't take long for me to get the hang of the controls. Graphics-wise, the game was alright. Nothing too special, but nothing about the game looked bad either. Of all the games I played at the event, Pokemon Dash was the only one that had me looking at both the screens. Sound-wise, I couldn't hear too much because of all the noise in the convention center, but I did hear Ikue Ohtani voicing Pikachu. I also think that the music in the game was a weird mix of the ending theme to the Deoxys movie, but I'm not too sure about that.
And before anyone asks, there was nothing at the DS event about Diamond/Pearl. Ah well.
All in all, it looked like a fun game to kill an hour or so, but, like Pokemon Snap, I can't imagine this game having too much of a replay value.
I'll have pictures up soon.
I got a chance to go to this event, and Pokemon Dash was the first game I played. After waiting in line for about 20 minutes, I was able to play a demo of the game for five minutes, which allowed me to go through about two levels. After being forced to pick Pikachu and a rather generic field (that's all that was available in the demo), it was time to start the game. The first level was nothing more than a simple race. Using the stylus, I controlled Pikachu around the course, racing through a number of checkpoints before reaching the final goal. The race was exteremely simple, and my guess is that it was an introductory level to allow players to get a feel for controlling the characters with the touch screen. The second level was a bit more stimulating. In this level, you ran around from island to island, occasionally taking to the skies to get to the next island. You see, once you got to a certain point, you would hook up to a bunch of balloons and rise high above the race field (this was accomplished by touching the "Rise" icons that would appear on the sides of the screen). This is where things got interesting--players were presented with a zoomed-in portion of the map on the top screen, and the goal was to find the area of the race field that was the same shape on the bottom screen. Once you did that, you had to line up your shadow to the bullseye at the bottom, and once that was done, you released your Pikachu from the balloons (you did this by touching the "Dive" icons on the side of the screen). If you lined your pokemon up correctly, Pikachu would land on the checkpoint and get extra points. If not, your pokemon would be stunned for a moment, allowing the other characters to race ahead of you. The level repeated this a few times--you would take to the skies, find whatever area is presented on the top screen, and then try your best to land your Pikachu on the target. I saw some players miss and accidentally send their Pikachu plummeting into the water, so it's not quite as easy as it may seem.
While I was forced to play as Pikachu in the demo, other playable characters seemed to be Torchic, Teddiursa, Meowth, Bulbasaur, and Munchlax.
The controls for the game were easy enough. The game didn't use any of the buttons on the DS at all...everything, from selecting your course on the main menu to running on the field, was controlled using the stylus on the touch screen. Overall, it worked pretty well, and it didn't take long for me to get the hang of the controls. Graphics-wise, the game was alright. Nothing too special, but nothing about the game looked bad either. Of all the games I played at the event, Pokemon Dash was the only one that had me looking at both the screens. Sound-wise, I couldn't hear too much because of all the noise in the convention center, but I did hear Ikue Ohtani voicing Pikachu. I also think that the music in the game was a weird mix of the ending theme to the Deoxys movie, but I'm not too sure about that.
And before anyone asks, there was nothing at the DS event about Diamond/Pearl. Ah well.
All in all, it looked like a fun game to kill an hour or so, but, like Pokemon Snap, I can't imagine this game having too much of a replay value.
I'll have pictures up soon.