Nintendo didn’t produce one of their hardest challenges in game form, they just marketed it like one: The Quest to Find DS Games, starring about 400,000,000 North Americans in the English-language version, with extra levels of difficulty when the Western world develops a huge crush on Nintendogs and stuff. Released about two-and-a-half years ago now, the game, set at Christmastime, followed main protagonists Mom and Dad on their trips to every retailer in a 30 kilometre radius as they tried to procure one hen’s tooth, a.k.a. a DS game, while closely monitoring each store’s Supply meter (which always was exceeded by the Demand meter). An elusive cast of antagonists, including near no-shows Trauma Center: Under the Knife and Lost in Blue, foiled many attempts at getting the perfect gift under the tree, and many foiled shoppers have never deigned take up the challenge again.

Which is a shame, because I’m sure some people forgot the games they never had. By a happy marketing coincidence, some of them turned out to be more fun to find than to play. But not this one: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I understand completely that you didn’t want to pay 80 dollars on eBay for this game back when the profiteers were having their way. I understand it is still hard to find all three games of the trilogy, and now that the fourth, brand-new game is out, it seems too late. I realize that the girl on the cover looks like she’s contracted some kind of oral disease. But if you do anything with your DS (and you should be playing games on it, you perv), this is the ONE game worth tracking down.

Seriously, first the worst? Not true, not at all.

Posted on February 21st, 2008 by katie