As expected by the most optimistic people amongst you, the Nintendo DS’ (japanese) line-up is indeed filling up with a bunch of unique titles which give a fresh look at videogames, their quality notwithstanding. As another example, check out the newly released Touhoku Daigaku Mirai Kagakugijutsu Kyoudoukenkyuu Center: Kahashima Ryuuta Kyouju no Nou o Kitaeru Otona DS Training, which translates as Touhoku University’s Future Technology Collaborative Research Centre’s Professor Ryuuta Kawashima presents: DS Brain Training for Adults. The game finished second in the weekly charts with 43,000 units sold, albeit against admittedly tepid competition. JohnnyRam posted a bunch of interesting impressions on the GA-F.

About a month before the release of Ys : The Oath in Felghana, Falcom finally released a convincing trailer for their upcoming game which seems to mix YS VI’s gameplay with the setting of the lackluster yet musicly-inspired Ys III.

Seems that the recent Down Town Nekketsu Monogatari EX was successful enough for Atlus, as they now have plans to re-release the whole Kunio-kun game series for the GBA in 2-in-1 volumes. The first one (scheduled for August) will include Nekketsu Koukou Dodge Ball Bu and Nekketsu! Street Basket ~Ganbare Dunk Heroes~, the second volume, Down Town Nekketsu Koushinkyoku: Soreyuke Daiundoukai and Nekketsu Koukou Dodge Ball Bu: Soccer Hen, while the third one will include Down Town Special: Kunio-kun no Jidaigeki Dayo Zenin Shuugou and Ike-Ike! Nekketsu Hockey Bu ~Subette Koronde Dairantou~.

Roni has been mysteriously missing in action for a few months now, thus his great doujin news website hasn’t been updated even once since the new year (actually if anyone has news, some of us wouldn’t mind hearing that nothing bad has happened to him). Fortunately, there’s still some activity on the Doujinaroni Forums (mainly thanks to moderator Basara), and a lazy newswriter could easily go catch a glimpse of the interesting doujin material that came out in the last month, then shamelessly post about it here :

Project YNP released a trial version of their racing game Shinseiki Cyber Formula SIN Cyber Grand Prix 2, based on the Cyber Formula animated series and toy license.

SRO Softwares has a new shooter in development, Touhou Rokumangi ~Border of Past & Present~. Cute girls, horizontal bullet hell, most of you know the drill. If SRO doesn’t ring a bell, they’re the guys behind Maria-Sama ga Gyakuten, that incredibly cool Gyakuten Saiban parody back when it wasn’t known as “Phoenix Wright” yet.

First Step has a similar horizontal shooting project in the works, Tobi Tsukuhime, with gameplay videos avaiable for download. And if that guy really has something to do with the game’s development, then I am already sold.

This is partly off-topic, but Spike has made a fun shockwave minigame based on their upcoming epic bosozoku adventure Kenka Bancho.

The excellent folks from Easy Game Station (Duo Princess, Dash de Rei Rei) are working on a doujin brawler based on the R.O.D. series. The game’s name is – watch out for slippery puns – ElePaper Action. There’s a two stage long 23meg trial version avaiable here or there. Also, a picture from the website fooled some people where I got the news from, so I am warning you guys: unlike what this might indicate to non-japanese speakers, there’s no PSP version in the works as of yet (and it’s basically what’s written in red font on the picture).

Finally, one of the guys from the Doujinaroni forums called Psykobee is working on a flash-based shooter which goes by the name Seizon Kyôsô (although the homepage actually writes it Saizon… oh well). The game is still in early stages and the guy is looking for sprite makers, but you can already give it a try. The first red link is to play online, the second one is to download.

The forthcoming 2D action game from Taito has finally a proper website. Game system, characters and screens are available.