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It’s the wildly popular follow-up to the Gameboy Advance game-Rhythm Tengoku-and is set to hit American soil on April 5th along with Nintendo’s DSi.

And now, apparently Beyonce is getting in on the gaming action.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Beyonce confesses to being a fan of Guitar Hero [who knew?] and that she “make[s] time” for gaming.

No one can deny the “star power” that Beyonce [and her song] brings to the DSi and Rythym Heaven’s US launch and since Rythym Heaven [I keep wanting to type Rythym Nation!] is a very “Japanese” game, maybe the endorsement of sorts will expose a larger market to funky/cool little game.

Then again, I was hooked after watching a couple of Japanese trailers on YouTube.com. Seriosly. Who can’t love the game after watching someone toss some turnips? Love it!

Post from: EveryJoe

Beyonce Lends Street Cred to Rythym Heaven

I always feel bad when a Harvest Moon game lets me down, because I feel like a bitter old bitch. I can feel Natsume frowning at me and saying, “It’s called Island of Happiness. How can you possibly dislike it, you ice-hearted witch? Do you hate happiness?”

And then I have to steel myself and say, “No! They’re wrong, too!” See, I do hate happiness and the laughter of children, but when I put down a game because the graphics are giving me a pounding headache, I think both Natsume and myself are in the wrong.

I own a DS Phat. It’s red. I like it, and I don’t have any special reason to part with it yet. But I’m beginning to wonder if DS games today are developed with the DS Lite in mind. Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness isn’t the first run-in I’ve had with dull colours that blend into a dark grey slurry when the character moves on the screen. This isn’t the first time I’ve stepped away from a DS game with a pounding headache…but it seems to be a more recent occurrence.

I used to play the original Game Boy with no problem. I never owned the original Game Boy Advance, which is my good fortune; I skipped straight to the SP. I wonder if the difference between the DS Phat and the DS Lite is as dramatic as the difference between the original Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Advance SP.

Unfortunately, playing Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness in direct light seems to make things worse. There’s no point in playing a game that makes you headachey, nauseous and cranky. I just can’t do it.

I’VE LOST THE FARM, GRANDPA.

RIP, my chickens: Flagg, Chozo, BigBrd, Keehar.

RIP, my cows: Minos and Zero.

RIP, Efrafa Ranch.

Screw you for rejecting my advances, Cowboy Man. Whatever your name was.

Post from: EveryJoe

Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness is Making Me Unhappy

I’m home from Otakon. My neighbourhood blew up while I was gone, but otherwise it was a non-eventful event.

Here at Handheld Age, I don’t get much of a chance to speak about the forefathers of our favourite bite-sized hobby. Kids today think that anything older than the Gameboy Advance is a boogery pile of boogers, and who can blame them.

But today on the long, long train ride back home, I was astounded to see the boy in the seat next to me playing a Game Boy.

Not a DS.

Not a GBA.

Not a Gameboy Colour.

A Game Boy. The original brick with the green screen.

Train travel means seats strewn with DS’s and PSP’s and Blackberries and iPhones. It was an honour to have their ancestor ride with us.

Same dude also had a tape player instead of an mp3 player. Wow, even CD players seem archaic to me these days.

He seemed like an interesting individual and I wish I’d subscribed to his newsletter.

(Image copyright Nintendo)

Post from: EveryJoe

A Rare Encounter That’s Not a Shiny Pokemon

I warned you I wouldn’t stop jabbering once I got my hands on this game. Say goodbye to Handheld Age and witness the birth of Final Fantasy IV DS Age!

All right, I’m not that crazy. But just you wait.

As of my last bit of adventuring, I iced the Dark Dragon and turned Edward the sissy-boy into Edward the sissy-man. Now he gets to sleep in the beautiful kingdom of Troia while I bust my ass to build a ladder to the moon.

Some fan-types are miffed by the game’s re-translation, citing it as overblown and silly. I say, look at the source material.

Final Fantasy II/IV on the Super Nintendo had a pretty wrecked translation. Not much of anything made sense and the characters came across as fantasy storybook stereotypes.

Over fifteen years later we have Final Fantasy IV DS with a polished translation that makes sense and the characters come across as…fantasy storybook stereotypes.

In other words, it doesn’t bother me that Kain and Cecil talk like flamers. They’ve always been delightfully overblown. Cecil is conflicted about his oh so very dark past and Kain just wants to sleep with his best friend’s girlfriend (possibly he does when Golbez kidnaps her; there are fanfics my friends, oh are there ever fanfics). It doesn’t surprise me that there is a severe allergy to sentence contractions going around in the latest incarnation of Final Fantasy IV.

RPGamer mostly agrees with me:

“The DS translation takes the obnoxiously slangy, five-word-long-sentence filled translation of the GBA version and corrects it to something closer to the quality of Final Fantasy XII or Dragon Quest VIII.“

Whoa! I wouldn’t go that far. DragonQuest VIII’s localisation was pretty brilliant. Final Fantasy IV DS’s translation is certainly competent but no half-drunk king is going to grudgingly praise the heroes for being “duly expedient.”

I admittedly am interested to see where things go with the inevitable Final Fantasy VI remake for the DS or the DS’s future cousin. Woolsey’s initial translation gave the characters life and the Gameboy Advance remake fine-tuned the script. It would not do to have everyone suddenly talking like medieval wankers.

We shall see.

(Image copyright Square-Enix)

Post from: EveryJoe

I Can’t Shut Up About Final Fantasy IV DS: Translation Controversy