Unlike the previous games, you don’t just play as one of SE’s RPG characters. You actually create your own this time allowing you to customise your character’s looks, mainly what costume he/she wears. Coins you earn from playing each map can be used to purchase new costumes parts from the shop but you need to unlock them first. There’s quite a mix including of course Mario’s cap, bunny ears, wigs, horns and piled up Slimes. Just what you need to distinguish your character in Wi-Fi mode!


There’s plenty of items to dress up your character with.

On the presentation side of things, SE has once again shown that they know how to make the best use of a console’s hardware. Right from the moment you moment you enter the gates from the title screen, you know you’re in for a very colourful and vibrant world even though it is a board game. Almost everything is in full 3D with the backgrounds being detailed models of familiar Mario or DQ game environments as mentioned earlier. Beneath the floating board you’re on you can find the Peach Castle from Mario 64, giant piranha plants snapping about on Mario Circuit, boiling lava filled Volcano of Death, or the pastel renditions of Yoshi’s Island.


“Yoshi’s Island” map anyone?

Characters you play against are also in full 3D with changing animated expressions depending on what happens during the game. All the main characters from both series of games are there such as Mario, Luigi, Toad, Princess Peach, Donkey Kong and Wario from the Mario Bros. while on the Dragon Quest side of things we have Slime, Jessica, Bianca, Alena and Prin. All very cute. And as you would have guessed by now, all the BGM and sound effects are from either series of games.


Character expressions and animations are very well done as before.

When choosing a computer game to play, the majority of players will usually go for action or RPGs where there’s a great fantasy world to explore but, sometimes it doesn’t always have to be those kinds of popular genres to have fun. With Itadaki Street DS being such a wonderful adaptation of one of the most popular board games in the world, it’s a great game to enjoy with popular lively game characters, varying maps and enough features to keep you entertained for hours per play. It would have been even better if Wi-Fi allowed you to play with strangers but since you can use Pictochat during games, I guess it was omitted due to safety reasons. Aside from that, Itadaki Street DS is a very fun game to enjoy just like all the recent titles in the series.





It’s very playable at the most basic level but, if you want to employ some strategy such as managing shares and exchanging property then you’ll probably have to put in more effort to figure out the menus. If you do decide to import, make sure to set the dialogue and game speed to super fast under options (the last icon to the right during play) if you don’t want to wait for long.

• Top quality presentation.
  
• Plenty of customisation for your own character.
  
• Competitive AI.
  
• Still a great variety of maps.
  
• Three profiles available.

• Wi-Fi mode is limited to friends only.