“ You don't look back at Gardener. You don't dare risk it. Instead you follow the thread, delicately, carefully, like a diver following their lifeline back to the surface.
The river whirls around you, but it doesn't pull, it isn't jealous. Neither does it understand. It is, after all, just a river. It isn't a person, a flesh and blood person, with wants, with desires, with the capacity for love and hate.

It doesn't understand you, and you don't understand it.

So you don't focus on it, you don't think about it, on what feels like such a long journey back through the dark. You set your mind on eyes instead. On hands. Things you can focus on, hold onto.

And then, after an age of crossing, you are there, settling back into the chair, into a body in a chair, and the overwhelming sensations that come with being a living thing with a rich and detailed sensorium.

For a moment you feel like you have made a terrible mistake. Who would choose this weight? This anxiety? This deep well at the center of existence.

But then you feel it. Riko's hand, gripped hard around yours, trembling a little, sweating a little. Riko's hand with its brittle bones and crumpled skin. Riko's hand.

And in that moment you understand why you made this choice. And then you squeeze Riko's hand, and you wake up.
”
Beautiful game, incredible soundtrack, full of love and humanity in a cold and hopeless world. The ending above made me cry. Cant wait for the sequel

I find it strange how easily dismissed this version of the game is due to the controls. It's true, it's not the same to use the d-pad instead of an analogue stick but after adjusting for a few minutes, maybe a couple of stages, I was playing this game all well and good.

They improved the camera controls, graphics are way more lively with better textures and updated character designs, the extra levels are nice (except for Mario's unlock stage) and switching characters is actually far from annoying thanks to being able to pick up their caps and transform into them, usually near where you need them.

I just had a lot of fun playing this version for the first time even while being very nostalgic for the original. The mix of nostalgia and also surprise at whatever was new makes my brain happy, and even though they could be more distinct, playing as different characters still helps make this game even more lively.

Just as much as this was a technical showcase of the N64, it proves to be a technical showcase of the DS as well. The textures and models are heavily improved, with levels even being given some more detail while at it. I honestly always hated the look of filtered N64 games, even when I was playing them constantly, and luckily this version of the game gives me something my eyes like a lot more despite being on a smaller screen.

I think this is definitely better than the original game and I wish it got a new release, with analogue controls, so more people could come around to it. Sadly, just as with the original I find that the best stages happen early on in the game, with the later ones even often being annoying to play that I just want to tap out. By the time I get to the stages near the infinite staircase I just get tired of going through them, so I'm happy just getting enough stars to beat Bowser and leaving the game there. Personal issue I know, I'd rate this even higher without it though.

One of the earliest third-party games to really make the DS touch screen make sense, this remains one of the most unique, fun and intense games in the DS library.

It does have quite a lot of "first game in the series" stank, though. The game is needlessly picky and precise with certain actions like suturing wounds or bandaging up the patient, the last chapter is complete filler, there's no retry button on the pause menu so if things inevitably go south I hope you like murdering the patient to get it over with...

And, most importantly, the difficulty is completely off-the-rails and tends towards being blatantly unfair. This is one of those games where it lags and slows down constantly, but you'll be thankful for that because it really feels like the only way to deal with some of the shit the game throws at you.

So for those reasons I might recommend the much more polished Wii remake, Second Opinion, instead. But I do prefer controlling this game on DS compared to Wii. 'Tis a conundrum.