Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand

A beacon of innovation to be held aloft for others to follow in its ideals. But the trouble is it doesn't always shine (the game or the weather) and the result is a rather limited and gimmicky appeal.

It exposes what a chronically under-explored medium portable gaming really is, and demonstrates the potential that exists when a creator is given some space to indulge his vision. Sure, it's unbalanced and at times inconvenient, but I'll take Boktai and games like it over Super Nintendo Entertainment System ports any day.

How ironic: without the solar sensor, Boktai would be much more enjoyable... but then again, without the solar sensor Boktai wouldn't even exist in the first place.

Boktai may not usher in a whole new genre of environmentally powered games, but it is a very cool merging of technology and gameplay in one sweet package.

A fairly standard action/puzzle game. The environments are very detailed -- albeit with the minor visual hiccups endemic to the isometric perspective. The sunlight adds an unusual strategic challenge, but players must resign themselves to sometimes having to wait for the break of dawn to resume gameplay.

The puzzles are easy, the game gives you more health power-ups than you will ever use, and there isn't a single enemy that's remotely challenging after you pick up the second gun frame in the Prologue. All the "innovation" that this game was supposed to entail amounts to nothing but a big pile of Company Dinner-Fed, Marketing Grade manure.