I picked up a DS this past Black Friday, and a bunch of games (almost all RPGs) for it. So far, my main experience has been playing Radiant Historia, it just turned out to be such an amazingly good RPG that I was playing it exclusively. Good plot, music was enjoyable despite the small size of the track list, lovely graphics... The battle system wasn't terribly complicated, but I *like* the old turn-based setup, and RH implements enough new features (extremely liberal turn order switching; moving enemies all around into the same spot to affect them all with a powerful spell/attack; building up the combo meter for bonus xp/gold) to keep it entertaining. Oh, and no random encounters! The use of time travel was brilliant, it not only lets you, but outright encourages/requires you to mess up on decisions and try out different things, then go back and try things differently, a process which avoids becoming monotonous or annoying thanks to very easy skip and fast forward options for dialogue/cutscenes.
Now I'm on Suikoden Tierkreis, which is actually the reason I got the DS to begin with. Suikoden is my favorite game series, and I was determined to pick this game up and play it, even though all have said it is not nearly as good as the "main storyline" Suikoden titles. Which is true, sadly. On the plus side, a bad Suikoden game is like a small lottery payout. You wish it was more, but you're still getting something. I don't know how far through I am, but I'm guessing about half-way. I love the music, the graphics look good for DS (a bit below RH's level, but RH is also newer) aside from the super deformed character models, which was just a bad decision. The plot is awful/simplistic compared to other Suikodens but on par with most other RPGs, I think, and while "Calvanism is stupid, lol!" *is* a simple premise, I'm a sucker for camp and jokes, and the game certainly has a lot of fun pointing out just HOW stupid pre-determinism is. The "war battles" are just a (tiny) series of forced regular battles now, which is a huge disappointment, as is the new magic and weapon/equipment system, and the voice acting for the main character and some other primary people is awful, though it is fine to good for a lot of the lesser ones. The money-making system is interesting, they went for "realism." You get no money from fights at all, just trade goods like animal pelts, or possibly some equipment if fighting enemies with gear. To make money, you need to sell this stuff at trading posts, along w/ buying and selling on your own. Since you can buy from a place and sell it right back for the same amount and prices for a town never change (aside from the occasional trade event, like food prices spiking in one town for a short while), it's pretty risk-free, and allows you to accumulate massive wealth without needing to grind fights. But...it turns wealth generation into a sort of fetch quest, which may be even less appealing than grinding (I think it's a bit less annoying, myself). You still have the headquarters and unite attacks like other Suikodens, and the 108 Stars of Destiny Starbearers. Thus far, definitely seems like a fine game, just not an amazing one.
I have played the DS re-released Chrono Trigger for all of 5-10 minutes so far. Can't comment too much on it other than to say the DS control scheme seems REALLY awkward: the top screen shows a room in full detail, but you need to use the touch screen to move around with the stylus, and the touch screen only shows the room as a tiny geometric shape with maybe some black outlining barriers/objects in the room. Also, Crono looks like he's either 25 years old or on steroids (both) in the manual art and new opening movie. Which is all the more striking because his childhood friend Lucca still actually looks like she should for her age.
Other DS games I've yet to even really touch but I now own: FF Tactics A2 (I played FF Tactics, never played FFT Advance, did not like at all the things I heard about it); Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (I have never played any prior Golden Sun game). Plus some other games for my wife I never plan on playing.
