Konami recently held a hands on event in NYC for some of their upcoming games. And to my surprise and many others, there was the latest installment to the Suikoden series. And it wasn’t for the PS3, Wii or Xbox360, it was on that little beast of a system the Nintendo DS. After waiting for what seemed like hours to finally get my hands on Suikoden:Tierkreis, I immediately turned the DS off then back on. Call me a freak but i wanted to see this game right from the beginning, opening logo credits and all. Once the credits were finished your treated to a nearly 2 min anime intro with an excellent score to back it up. Now I don’t know about you guys but it still amazes me to this day how much video plus the full game these guys manage to squeeze onto them little ds carts. Especially when the videos aren’t compressed to high hell.

After the intro is done and you input your desired name the game starts you out (or atleast in this demo) as the main character in a hut talking with your friend at which you’ll notice is fully voiced over with crystal clear sound. The characters are 3d polygon models layered on top of 2d hand drawn backgrounds, a technique not uncommon with rpgs. These backgrounds are beautifully drawn and detailed as hell. So far what I’m seeing I’m liking, good job Konami! You can control movement of the main character by either using the d-pad or stylus. Both control well and will just be a matter of user preference.

Now on to the nitty gritty of every rpg, the battle mode. Just like traditional rpg’s you don’t see the enemies on screen instead as you walk about the environments you’ll encounter random battles at which the screen will flash a bright white light and then the battle screen would show. Your parties level, HP and MP stats are conveniently displayed on the top screen of the ds. On the bottom half you’ll have the choice of using your stylus or d-pad to enter your commands. Which at first seems like a lot of inputs. Thankfully there’s an auto fight button you can press which will help speed up those fights when grinding for higher levels. The character models during the battles are on point and the animations are tight. From some hands on time with this demo it looks like Konami is in the right direction for delivering another solid rpg to the Nintendo DS. And it also got me thinking about something, why is the ds getting all these good rpgs? This system has more rpg’s on it than all the bigger consoles have combined. Not that i’m hating on the DS or anything, i just thought it was worth mentioning. Anyways will keep you posted on the latest info for Suikoden:Tierkreis.

Here listed below is a run down of what this little beauty has to offer and with a US price tag of ruffly $189 you can’t beat that, below are the specs

Screen Size
DSi: 3.25 inch
DS Lite: 3.0 inch

Screen
Both TFT LCD with 260,000 colors

System Size
DSi: 137 x 74.9 x 18.9mm
DS Lite: 133 x 73.9 x 21.5mm

Touch pen
DSi: 92mm length
DS Lite: 87.5mm length

Power source
DSi: DSi AC adapter and special battery pack
DS Lite: DS Lite AC adapter and special battery pack

Weight
DSi: 214g (battery pack and touch pen included)
DS Lite: 218g (battery pack, touch pen, GBA connector cover included)

Charge time
DSi: 2 hours 30 minutes
DS Lite: 3 hours

Battery life

** listed by screen brightness, lowest to highest

DSi: 9-14 hours, 8-12, 6-9, 4-6, 3-4
DS Lite: 15-19 hours, 10-15, 7-11, 5-8

Compatible software
DSi: DS software, DSi software
DS Lite: Game Boy Advance software, DS software

Input method
DSi: DS card slot, SD memory card slot, AC adapter connector, stereo head phone/mic connector
DSLite: DS card slot, GBA card slot, AC adapter connector, stereo head phone/mic connector

This is how the ds should have been made in the first place nintendo is slowly but surely catching up with the other contenders in terms of system designs. Sony is going in the same direction with their new PSP 3000 unfortunately it isn’t nowhere near as good as what the DSI is offering.

Some bad news for people in the USA this new DS will not be available until spring of next year, nintendo feels that this new design is nothing for them to rush out being that the NDS is still selling like hot cakes. But hey thanks to certain gaming stores online we can import this little work of art!

WOW is there anything that little DS system can’t do?! Since the release of the DS there has been many software made for it that necessarily isn’t a videogame. You have full cooking recipes, museum guided tours, Disney theme park guides, weight watching assistants and now a fully functional synthesized beat making machine. And as you’ll hear from the video below, this thing is hella impressive!

Simply known as Korg DS-10, this software application literally turns your DS into a mini beat making studio. Now granted these are dance/techno tracks, the level at which you can create some sick beats is ridiculous! You could spend hours on this thing! And the audio quality is no slouch either. Just peep the video and see for your self. Currently Korg DS-10 is only out in Japan (yeah they get all the cool stuff!) but soon it’ll be available this October courtesy of XSEED. You can check out more info and specs at the official website. Peep this sick demonstration video below and be amazed at what developers are doing with Nintendo’s little handheld. Now can someone make a Hip-Hop beat making application? Thanks!

Unit out…