What about this Etrian Odyssey thing?
You'll have to wait for #6 to get the full review, but suffice to say that it is one of the very best - and hardest - games I've played this year. The 'meta-score' average tells you it is 'average' at ~75. It is wrong - perhaps for the mass public, but for hardcore RPG-ers it is much better.
Hey Mike, which handheld has the best strategy/tactics games? And which has the best RPG games? I think you did an overview of each platform in your first article, but I can't find it. Thanks!
Yeah, I did the initial articles over at the Dot, but those were at the end of '05 and so are quite out of date.
At that time there wasn't a whole heck of a lot, but since then there have been some decent additions. Here is a quick view:
Strategy / Tactics:
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DS: Advance Wars DS, Age of Empire: Age of Kings, Battles of Prince of Persia, Sim City DS, Mage Knight: Destiny Soldier, and others - with The Settlers, Anno 1701, Warlords, Disciples II and others on the way.
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PSP: Field Commander, LotR Tactics, Generation of Chaos I & II, and upcoming D&D Tactics on the way.
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Comments - the two best current handheld strategy games are on the DS. Field Commander is a pale rip-off of Advance Wars DS 'for grown ups', LotR Tactics is crap, and while Generation of Chaos 2 is decent, it is not in the same league as the DS games.
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Winner: DS
RPG:
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DS: Lunar Knights, Etrian Odyssey, Izuna, Final Fantasy III, Lost Magic, and the upcoming Final Fantasy XII game and Dragon Quest IX.
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PSP: Valkyrie Profile Lenneth, Dungeon Siege PSP, Gurumin, Untold Legends I & II, Legend of Heroes I, II, III. Silverfall and Final Fantasy I and II are upcoming.
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Comments - At the end of '05 I called this for the PSP. At the End of '06 I would have done the same. But with the upcoming games (FF and DQ and Heroes of Mana) and the three games mentioned - Lunar, Etrian and Izuna - the DS is now delivering truly deep and challenging games all over the map of RPG's. The PSP is largely delivering 'diablo clones' and PS2 ports.
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Winner: DS ... by a tight margin.
These 'declare a winner' things are as useless as 'top 10 lists' of course, because either platform can provide more solid gaming experiences than you can play in a reasonable time! The PSP is a great system, but the developer presence is lagging significantly - the DS is now everyone's fave. In '05 everyone was thinking about the PSP ad leaving the DS for traditional GBA stuff, but it has really hit its' stride now.