CycloDS Evolution Nintendo DS Flashcart
I’ve settled on getting a CycloDS Evolution card for my DS, likely as a birthday gift to myself in Dec. A friend of mine gave me this link and has bought stuff through them without any problems.
[Impressions] Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)
My girlfriend got me Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS) this weekend. So far I’ve only spent about 2 hours playing the game but I’ve really been enjoying the game and can highly recommend it to anyone who owes a DS and enjoys Castlevania games.
The main difference between this Castlevania game and past games is that the game is broken-up into separate areas on a world map instead of the one large castle map. This eliminates the mindless wondering that you sometimes encounter in past games while trying to find where to be next. All the exploration and secrets are still intact, just in manageable chunks.
Weapons are now in the form of “glyphs” that you find from killing monsters and absorb. You can equip and combine glyphs for different heart special attacks.
This is quite a hard Castlevania, but not in the bad way. You will die a lot, but if you save a lot you won’t be too frustrated and just keep trying until you beat the boss or area you were stuck on.
This is easily the best looking 2D Castlevania I’ve played, great animation and sprites. The sound is also impressive, there is even a “surround” option to enable surround sound for headphones.
I can’t wait to play more.
Noobie first impressions with the Korg DS-10 Synthesizer
First I want to be clear that I’m a total noobie to synthesizers and I have very little music background. I just have an ear for music, and enjoy good techno and electronic music. So I’m coming to the Korg DS-10 (for the Nintendo DS) with no prior experience, only a knack for using and learning software.
The interface of small text and lots of little knobs can be slightly daunting to start with, but watching a few videos on YouTube (the official tutorials) and just playing around helped me to quickly feel at home with the interface.
I got comfortable on the couch with my Sony headphones and spent about 2 hours last night literally just playing with the synthesizer to see what everything does. I now have a general understanding of how to work it, but it will take some reading of the manual and perhaps some online synthesizer tutorials for me to understand exactly what every knob does; especially the “Synthesizer Patch Panel” that is used for more advanced tweaking via virtual “routing plugs” (no idea what they are really called).
In my 2 hours of play I managed to create some cool sounds, and could have easily sat there for another 2 hours having fun just playing if wasn’t already time for bed. I wasn’t quite to the point where I felt comfortable attempting to make my noises into a real song, but I have a feeling it will be only a short matter of time. The possibilities are almost endless, and if I ever wanted to do something more advanced I could record my tracks into GarageBand to do mixing and editing.
As a music and synthesizer noobie I don’t regret my purchase one bit, and can’t wait to play with it more. At the very least the Korg DS-10 is a fun “toy” but has the potential to be a full blown instrument. Hopefully I’ll get to the point where I’ll be recording songs on a regular basis.
I suspect the Korg DS-10 might be a bit too hard for some people who aren’t very computer savvy, I think being a geek gives me a bit of an edge. If you are wondering if you should or shouldn’t buy a Korg DS-10, I think you should watch some of the example videos to see if you can even get the slightest grip on what they are doing on screen. If you don’t feel too overwhelmed by the videos and are willing to learn I suggest you give it a try.
Here’s an awesome example video of what can be done with the Korg DS-10.
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS) Video Review
A definite must get for my DS.
More cool Korg DS-10 video links
I’m excited to get my copy in the next few days so I’ve been searching for examples and how-to videos.
- PGTV Korg DS 10 How To A wonderful overview of how to create a track.
- Korg DS-10 Baseflow An impressive song, just wish the audio quality was better in the video.
- MAGIC SAXO BOX with PSP Rhythm 8!!!Korg DS-10!!! An example of a pro using the Korg DS-10 and a PSP as part of his setup.
- KORG DS-10 - Nintendo DS Synthesizer A Japanese musician creates a song from scratch.
- KORG DS-10 004b Movie A nice show of what can be done on the DS-10.
- Korg DS-10 Yet another example of creating a song from scratch, not the greatest sound quality but still cool.
Review: Korg DS-10 (Nintendo DS)
A short and to the point review of the Korg DS-10.
My KORG DS-10 Synthesizer shipped!
At long last Amazon is now shipping the KORG DS-10 Synthesizer.
Nintendo DS "flashcarts"
I’m looking at buying one of these Nintendo DS “flashcarts” for my DS so I can dump some ROMs etc on it. Nintendo hates these because of piracy, however I have no intention of using pirated DS software.
The one linked to above sounds like the most user friendly and well supported, however you can get some really cheap similar products. I haven’t decided what flashcart to get yet, or from where. If anyone has any suggestions please add them to comments.
KORG DS-10 Synthesizer delayed AGAIN?! (Nov 14)
(On Amazon.com) What the heck?!
Last delay (Sep 30th to Oct 10th) was a little disappointing, but only 2 weeks. This is getting to be maddening, a 5 week delay now. Almost a 7 week delay from the original North America release date!
The KORG DS-10 website doesn’t even mention a date. However Best Buy still lists the first date (9/30/08) and “backordered”. My Amazon pre-order still lists Delivery estimate: October 21, 2008, so it may just be Amazon’s version of backordering.
I’ll post updates as I learn more.
UPDATE: It’s official… I just got an email from Amazon about my pre-order.
We have received new release date information related to your pre-ordered video game in the order you placed on September 05 2008 05:42 PDT (Order# *******). The release date for the video game listed below has been changed by the publisher, and we want to provide you with a new delivery estimate based on the new release date:
“KORG DS-10 Synthesizer” [Video Game]
Release date: 11/14/2008
Estimated arrival date: 11/21/2008
UPDATE 2: It now says on Amazon’s product page; “This item will be released on November 4, 2008.” so hopefully they’ll be shipping earlier than suggested above.
