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The most overlooked games on the DS

Today i will be talking about two of my favorie games on the DS;Hotel Dusk Room 215 and Last Window The Secret of Cape West.

Hotel Dusk and Last Window are point and click visual novel games released for the DS on january 22 2007 and january 12 2010 respectevly. Devoloped by the defucnt stuido CING and is probably their most well known game other than Another Code. The two things that make the "Kyle Hydology" stand out from other adventure games, or just other games in general is that to play the game you must turn the ds sideways and hold it like a book, which might be a turn off to some people but starts to becomes more natural the more you play. And the second this is the games art style with it using a black and white scetchy rotoscope style, which really works for a detective point and click style game like this, there is actually a video explaining how they made this style for the second game which you can watch here.

So, Hotel Dusk Room 215 takes place in the outskirts of Calafornia in 1979 with you playing as Kyle Hyde an ex N.Y.P.D detective now working as an employe for a company called Red Crown. Before the events of the game Kyle had killed his former partner Brian Bradley for betraying the force and soon left the police to work for red crown to search for Bradley leading him to Hotel Dusk, But as Kyle is driving there he see's a young girl in a white dress on the side of the raod who will be majorly important later in the game. The games story gets a litle more complicated so I wont be talking about it much and i don't want to spoil the story for anyone who hasn't played the game.

So most of the stuff you'll be doing in the game is talking to the quirky and charming guest of the hotel to chip away their outer shells and the find out the truth of why they've even came here in the first place, Becuase everyone in the hotel is linked together in some even if they themselves didn't realise it. So like I stated earlier most of the gameplay is exploring the hotel and questining the other guest for clues about Bradley's wherabouts, And while talking to the other guest you'll relize that the localization and writing in this game is actually really good, Each charecter has unique manerisims when they talk and distinct personality's like the hotel manager Dunning Smith who has a no nonsense style of personality and Louis DeNonno who has a very comedic personality and who used to know Kyle When he was in the force.

So like i said earlier you play the game by holding the DS sideways like a book so when talking one screen is Kyle and the other is the other charecter your talking to, And when you're exploring the hotel one screen is a top down 2D perspecitve while the other is a 3D first person perspective, And in this mode you can click on certain objects in the room to more closley examine them with Kyle giving his thoughts on it. And in this mode you will be solving the games puzzles witch usually have you doing something whith the touchscreen like unlocking a suitcase with a coathanger or decorating a christmas tree.

Now before I talk about Last Window I want to talk about how this game and the sequel both hav really good sountracks both being composed by Satoshi Okubo, With both having a nice balance of calming jazz and somber piano pieces, which you can listen to the first games soundtrack here. And the second ones here.

So with the first game getting mostley favorable reviews and being well liked, four years later a sequel would br released

Last Window The Secret of Cape West is the last game in the "Kyle Hydology" with the game still being on the DS and still having you hold the DS sideways. This game takes place one year after the first one During December 1980 in L.A Calafornia in the Cape West apartments where Kyle lives. Now this game dosen't really have anything to do with the Brian Bradley plot of the last game and more focuses on Kyle's family life and mainly his father and mother, And not many charecters from the first game come back with only 3 charecters makeing reapearences.

So just like I said earlier this game takes place on year after the first game and is about Kyle getting fiered from Red Crown for laziness and returning to the Cape West apartments where he lives, With him getting a strange letter in the mail telling him to find the "Scarlet Star" if he wants answers, but the apartment complex will be torn down in only a week. With this it send Kyle down a rabbit hole that ties into the aprtments and it owners past, The residents tightley kepts secrets, And the mystery of how Kyle's father died.

This game is kinda like DOOM 2 in that its like the first game but but with some new fetures like havng a bigger map, new charecters and having a "combine item" feture witch in my opinion isn't used that much in the game but is still cool nontheles, This game is basically a BIGGER and BETTER version of the first game and their is a reason for that. This game was the last game the studio CING ever made and soon after its release they went bankrupt and is actually the reason the game was never realeased in North America. CING was a fairly promising studio who mainly made adventure styles games like Another Code and Glass Rose, I wonder what games they would've made if they never went bankrupt, So it kinda makes sense why they went all out on this game since it was basically there swan song.

Even though there were only two games in the series the "Kyle Hydology" there still some of my favorite games on the DS and kina in general, I don't think there should be a third game since i think Last Window was a good sendoff to Kyle's story but a third game where you play as mila(a charecter from both games)would be pretty cool. Even though there were only two games in the series I will never forget the adventures of Kyle Hyde(hopefully he's found some place to live by now)