Nintendo DS - imagine figure skater (or Kurukuru princess)

Hi everyone!
As a christmas gift, I got this game on nintendo ds. It's really fun ( a bit childish but I like it )

Actually, this is a figure skating game. You start as a beginner skater and you do many competitions in this order: Town competition > City competition > State Competition > Regional Competition > US Championships > US-China Tournament (like the 4cc) > World Championships.

You can really see that this game was made in Japan, because when you're around christmas in the game, it's the Nationals, and then at the end of February it's the "4CC" and then in march, it's the Worlds Championships.

Also, they are few characters really specials that I appreciate a lot like
(those are the descriptions in the instruction book):

Shelly Aaronson (Shizuka Arakawa): "Last Year's world champion. Shelly is the role model for skaters all around the world. Her best technique is the Ina Bauer".

Molly Austin (Mao Asada): "She won an international tournament while still in junior high and is the idol of the figure skating world." They also mention while my skater watch a TV program about the private life of Molly Austin that she has a toy poodle dog named "Aloé" I think. That's quite funny haha!

Melanie Richards (Miki Ando):"One of the few female skaters that can perform a quadruple, Melanie fell into a slump due to the intense pressure of competition but has recently made a big comback." They also mention during the game that this quadruple jump is a salchow.

During competitions, you do the Short and the long program and they use the new scoring system and the scores are about the same as in reality. For exemple, a 3axel is scoring 7.5 points (well, that was last year). But some jumps are not realistic because I actually performed during the Nationals championships a 4toe-4toe combinaison!! And I earned 18 points just for that :O Hahah! Well, I'm not done yet, I about to do the US-China Competition. I let you know about that.
But of course, this game is the American version of KuruKuru Princess in Japan, Does someone konw what are the names of the characters in japanese (do they call them Mao, Miki and Shizuka ?) and what are the name of the competitions?

Bye!
Bibi

That actually looks like a pretty good FS game! I think Plushy will be quite jealous to see anyone doing a 4T-4T in competition. Wasn't he actually practicing that during the Olys season back in '01-'02?

bibi wrote:

But of course, this game is the American version of KuruKuru Princess in Japan, Does someone konw what are the names of the characters in japanese (do they call them Mao, Miki and Shizuka ?) and what are the name of the competitions?

I don't have the game or the booklet, so I'm navigating through the Japanese site - they only show three characters. ... But then there's a Kurukuru Princess 2, with 4 main characters, so that's confusing the heck out of me.

Well, based on the character descriptions from Kurukuru Princess 2, I'm going to assume:
Mayuri Shiratori = Mao (good at combo jumps)
Rin Shirosaki = Miki (mentions she landed a quad)
Yuuna Yukishiro = Yukari? (talented spinner)
Leia W. Mishima = Shizuka??? (beautiful step sequences)

I can't find any specific names given to the competitions at the website, although it looks like the 2nd version of the game also has a dating sim. feature with one of 4 male skaters, and one of the extra (rival?) female characters looks a lot like Tonya Harding...

I just ended my game, I'm now the world champion ahahahaha!! I landed 4flip-4toe and 4axel :O :D:D:P Hahaha!!

The second game seems more realistic look at this :O The graphics are better :O :
http://video.jeuxvideopc.com/video/iLyROoaftOnH.html

I found that the second game has been in shopping stores since december 13th in Japan, I wonder when it will be available in canada :O ?

Oh I played that game too!!! I especially had fun in planning my programmes (what music to skate to, what outfit to wear, what combos to jump etc~).

I played another figure skating game on my DS too called "Princess on Ice", but Imagine Figure Skater wins over it hands down!

Any videogame with a poodle dog and a 4t-4t combo simultaneously in it deserves an attention I think. Thanks for the review, bibi!

Meanwhile, the prize for the best DS game of 2008 goes to this one - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Ends_With_You
Don't miss!
As well as the video of Utada Hikaru playing Tetris DS:
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=2lQ5smMZOsA
-_-

Does anybody play through wi-fi connection? Tetris DS, Mario Cart DS, whatever? Would be nice to have a little monthly inner competition here. -)

P.s.
http://www.nitrome.com/games/icebreaker/
Try this one!

I forgot to mention that my little girl said that "Molly Austin" had a sister named Mary who figure skated as well!

bibi wrote:

I found that the second game has been in shopping stores since december 13th in Japan, I wonder when it will be available in canada :O ?

I can't wait either. How long did it take for them to get around to translating the first game? I don't care if it's made for the UK,Canada, or the US -as long as I can read it!
Here's my blog on the game...it has screenshots...
http://iceminx.livejournal.com/3039.html

I played this game all the way on the plane trip from Australia to China. It was highly addictive which meant I postively growled at my much younger sisters when they tried to have a go. I convinced myself that it was because I was "testing" out the game for other figure skating fans, rather than because of my immaturity and tendency to revert back to my inner child

I really got into the spirit of competing and choosing the music for my programs and getting dressed up. I was slightly put-off by the fact that all the jumps looked the same (as in, same number of rotations, same take-off etc.) and the step sequences consisted of only a few simple moves. Nevertheless, I was excited to perform the very first 4 Axel - 4 Loop in the history of figure skating

I like the look of the second version of the game!

I am addicted to this game D:I got it for Christmas as well...and
Christmas day I played it literally for 12 hours 37 minutes straight (O_O is that unhealthy?)

But it was really really fun!!

Whoever likes this game should check out the sequel called "Imagine - Ice
Champions" It was just made available in North America about a month
ago and you can get it pretty much anywhere you got Figure Skater.

I got Ice Champions for my birthday in March, and it is even better than
the original! There are a ton of more spins and spirals avaible~ Like
the cross-grab

The graphics are also very much improved and there are more competitions.
It is more like the real senior level circuit because you have a choice
to participate in certain GP events or not, and if you do poorly in the
GP you have to perform at the Japanese Nationals...otherwise you just
get a bye to Worlds.

You also get to pick a boyfriend in this one out of four boys instead of just sticking with the one in Figure Skater.

Andthere are even more references to real skaters. There even is a Mao
counterpart (who resembles Mao, too in a distant sort of way) named Mako Asaka. And it says Mako won the World Championships when she was still just a junior high student~!

The only cons are:
The cover of the game didn't improve much TT__TT
You can't customize clothes as much as you can in Figure Skater (you can't
change the color...but there are more costumes...like the School Girl
costume @__@)

http://www.amazon.com/Imagine-Ice-Champions-Nintendo-DS/dp/B001NESP3Q

Oh THank you!! I'm so going to buy this game yahhh!

bibi wrote:

Oh THank you!! I'm so going to buy this game yahhh!

I bought it

summervie wrote:

Does anybody play through wi-fi connection? Tetris DS, Mario Cart DS, whatever? Would be nice to have a little monthly inner competition here. -)

I play Mario Kart through Wi Fi
I would like to challenge you, someday!!! (in a friendly way!!! xD)

bibi wrote:

I bought it

Good luck with the game!!! It is very very addicting~
The girl I chose to play as first was the one with blue hair, though I forget her name.
Here is the original Japanese game site for Ice Champions just in case you wanted to take a look: http://www.spike.co.jp/kurupri-white/index.html

I chose the pink hair one! I did the first competition and now I'm in the USA for my first Grand Prix event !!

MaoMaoRevolution wrote:

I play Mario Kart through Wi Fi
I would like to challenge you, someday!!! (in a friendly way!!! xD)

Oh, that would be just great! Never have played through Friend Code system before, but here's quite a simple guide for doing that: http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/wfc/en_na/ds/gameSupportMarioKartDS.jsp#how_play_with_friend

So, seems like my Friend Code is:
468346
899986

This game, though, shows itself in the best possible way when being played by 4 players at the same time, so, all local DS owners, please join. After all, this is one of the greatest DS titles - http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ds/mariokartds - and probably the best Wi-Fi game ever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Cart_DS

I have Mariokart on both Wii and DS. I like the Wii version better (because it feels as if you're actually steering the karts).

Hmm...I don't have a Wii, so I would only be able to play on this DS ~~

My friend code is:
103273
990080

I think it would be good to try and pick a time for everyone to get on Wi Fi. That is pretty flexible for me because I am on break now. My time zone is Eastern -5:00 ~

I will add you to my friend code list, though, in case we happen to be just playing at the same time.
My nickname on Mario Kart is ちえ☆みand my icon is an ice skate.

I played it on an emulator in my PC! (LOL it's illegal!)

seems hard to scroll the circles and triangles with the mouse! =D

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