My Nintendo DS games

• Club House Games* (=it's new to me)
  It has backgammon and Klondike. Way too easy, I can beat the chess and checkers games. (Update: Turns out you can unlock harder versions of these games, as well as droll features like the "Paper" backgammon board. Backgammon does support Doubles (and the Crawford Rule) if you turn on the multi-game series feature. If there's a version of Go on here, I haven't found it yet. The "Connect Five" game is actually Go Moku, a Japanese kid's game played on a standard Go board with black and white stones.)
  

  Kanji Sonomama DS Rakubiki Jiten

  A Japanese-English dictionary with character recognition (very touchy about stroke order). If you need to use this, you'll also need to buy a second Nintendo DS Lite for casual play.
  

  Metroid Prime Pinball

  There aren't many pinball games for the Nintendo DS, but this one is good. The theme is Metroid Prime, an annoyingly difficult First Person Shooter which runs on Gamecube.
  

  My Spanish Coach*

  Don't pay more than $29.99 msrp for this, but as a drill-and-review toy for Spanish language acquisition it's pretty cool.
  

  Revenant Wings (Final Fantasy XII)

  I'm stuck on (and intensely annoyed by) the last level. Sort of like Final Fantasy Tactics, but with Vaan and Penelo. Be warned, RW has a bad "well, that sucks" letdown in the storyline. Just when you get involved in the outcast viera story, the authors run all those rabbits through Hamlet's Last Act — "peurile and underdramatized," as Wednesday would say. Awful. (But who knows? Beat the last boss and maybe they'll all come back from the dead?)
  

  Space Invaders Extreme*

  Nice retro game with postmodern "eXtreme" touches. I've been looking for a playable version of this game for decades.
  

  Umezawa Yukari no Yasashii Igo

  Go, as in Baduk or Weiqi. Yukari Umezawa-sensei's Easy Go, i.e., "easy" only in the sense that single-CPU go opponents were still pretty weak in 2008. Umezawa-sensei's go puzzles, which require human thought but not computer A.I., are graded from easy to quite hard.

That's all, I'm not really into the DS a lot (the format is too small, until there's a good reason.)

Nihon Ki-in's Own!

From the March 10th AGA E-Journal, volume 9, #12, a review by Justin Carmical 14k:

"Umezawa Yukari no Yasashii Igo" (Yukari Umezawa's Easy Go) is, as far as I know, the first licensed Nihon Ki'in Igo/Go game for the Nintendo DS. The impressive point about this fine little piece of software is that after you play a certain mode it will rank you and then give you a password to apply for an official Nihon Ki'in rank from 10 kyu to Shodan.

Too often, computer go games are just that... computer-looking. Dull. But this one begins with a small caricature of Yukari Umezawa (consultant for the Hikaru no Go series). This inclusion of a professional player is very nice, as well as her actual voice saying "Good luck" and "Thank you for the game".

The buttons are large and the typeface is easy to read (well, for those who read Japanese). The touch controls are superb in that to place a stone onto the digital Goban, you need to touch that place twice. This makes for fewer mistakes, and is also a great learning feature as the first touch places a red dot.

What really made this title shine for me, however, was the ability for the computer to resign. A good chunk into my first 19x19 game (about 180-190 stones in) the computer took its time accessing the board and resigned. This was a first for me for computer go games as usually the computer will play to the very end no matter the situation.

It also boasts a study area with over 1300 life and death, joseki, and fuseki problems of varying difficulty levels to keep you occupied and discussing with friends for quite some time.

It's always nicer to play against a human opponent, but while humans may miss a crucial mistake, a computer opponent most will likely not. This ruthlessness aids beginners and novices in their play, allowing for learning and growth, which is the sole purpose of "Umezawa Yukari no Yasashii Igo." For a Nintendo DS game to take with you on the go, this is a wonderful little title to add to your collection.

Now I really want it!

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[Update 2008/3/14 - Ordered March 13 from Play-Asia.com. I'll keep you posted.]
[Update 2008/3/20 - Shipped (& Invoiced) March 20 from Play-Asia.com.]
[Update 2008/4/1 - Got mine! Arrived from Hong Kong via U.S.P.S., air mail bubble pack as advertised.]

Playing Go on the Nintendo DS

A note on playing strength For all practical purposes, these Nintendo DS offerings probably achieve no more than 10 kyu, if that — on the amateur martial arts scale from 1 to 30 kyu, where 1 kyu is great (for an amateur) and 30 kyu is absolute novice. On the other hand, maybe the availability of programs such as these are what helps Japanese kids achieve single-digit levels quickly!

CAUTION! All of these game cartridges are in Japanese language ONLY.

Translator's note Igo, written as two characters, is the Japanese word for Go, the ancient 19x19 board game played with black & white stones. I try to use Igo in Japanese contexts, and Go in English.

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[I WANT! I WANT!! I WANT!!!]
Umezawa Yukari's Easy Go
Umezawa-san, a 5-dan professional, is well-known for her beginner's Go lessons at the end of Hikaru no Go episodes.
Link.
Unfortunately, this game seems to be popular in a pirate edition. Some dual screen caps (a password dialog, some Go problems) may be found here.

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[HMMM. CHO CHIKUN... OK!]
Cho Chikun's Go Problems
Simple for Everybody
Technically, tsumego means "life & death problems" although the term is not used exclusively. Most American Go players simply adopt the word into English. I say they're Go problems. Aimed at the mid-kyu amateur, too easy for strong players.
Another link.

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[HMMM. DAVID FOTLAND... YEAH.]
AI Igo DS
Play Go Anytime, Anywhere
Sensei's Library asserts AI Igo is based on David Fotland's Many Faces of Go. One presumes any comparison between Fotland's ginormous (and venerable) old Windows XP program and its Nintendo DS derivative would be a bit like Horton Hears A Who. Note that the title is not "Dekiru Igo," which means (Someone) can (play) Go. The stuff in front of dekiru Igo is a subordinate clause: Anytime, anywhere. You unwind Japanese sentences and clauses in proper SOV order, newbie.

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[I WANT! I WANT! I WANT!]
Ginsei Igo
Get strong at Go with Ginsei Igo!! Ginsei means "Silver Star"; you may see both or either listed by vendors or reviewers. The Japanese home page is here — if your web browser supports the Flash demo, check out the neat Go clock this thing can turn into!

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[I NOT WANT!]
Gensen Table Game DS
Wi-Fi Ready
Deeply discounted at Play-Asia.com
Sorry, I don't know much about this one, except that it's an anthology of board games, one of which is Go. And Sensei's Library found the gameplay a bit braindead, "regularly adding useless stones to dead groups, failing to respond well to ko fights, and making unreasonable attacks."

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[WTF!!? ENGLISH LANGUAGE! BUT... NOT YET RELEASED ... MAYBE HAS GO]
Ultimate Brain Games DS
Judging by box art, this DS version of the old GBA anthology seems to include some sort of Go, but details are sketchy. It hasn't been released yet, and the product description posted at Amazon.com was just copied verbatim from the GBA puff — it doesn't mention Go at all!

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Please note I don't necessarily endorse or recommend Play-Asia.com as the sole vendor of these games in North America. I plead ignorance, and would personally welcome learning where else to buy these and similar Go games for the Nintendo DS — cheaper, if possible.