People have been calling Solatorobo: Red the Hunter the swan song of the Nintendo DS. This is perhaps the fourth or fifth game to get that designation, and I have a feeling there’ll be four or five more. A more accurate way to label this game is as an adventure featuring a talking dog/fox thing who rides around on the back of a robot that likes to throw stuff.

With The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky coming out March 29, 2011, you’d think it a bit late for a pre-order promotion. But here it is, at the last second. XSEED has a deal ready and waiting for anyone who’s placed a pre-order for the forthcoming PSP, or who’s even thinking about pre-ordering before March 10, 2011. Of course, you already know about all this if you’ve signed up for XSEED’s email newsletter…

Ju-On: The Grudge is faulty on many levels but I’m willing to forgive many of them because of the subtitle “Haunted House Simulator” thrown across the box.

Have you been to any of the haunted houses that spring up in wooded areas and old schoolhouses at this time of the year? Ju-On gave me more scares than they do, so I at least have to give it credit for that.

What do you get when you combine the action and puzzles of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Zelda, with the collection elements of Pokemon and the socializing from Harvest Moon or Persona 4? Avalon Code. And that isn’t even mentioning all of the mini-game aspects.

Matrix Software, Marvelous Entertainment and XSEED have really stumbled onto something special with Avalon Code. The game uses some familiar game devices, but feels like something fresh and new. The story is unusual, the way you progress through the game is inspired. It’s a joy to play. Even though some of the NPCs are stereotypical characters, the fact that you can “fix” the heroes and heroines revitalizes them as well.

If you are old enough to remember the excitement of each and every new NES game being released, no matter how insignificant, then Retro Game Challenge will certainly be a positively nostalgic experience for you.

Comprised of faux Famicom games, Retro Game features a crazed, Max Headroom-esque game master who tasks you with several silly challenges for each game as you thumb through humorously era-appropriate fan mags. It’s silly, it’s appropriately nostalgic and enticing enough to keep even current gen gamers interested.

Click through for, like, the total review…

There’s an influx of DS RPGs coming. It started this month with Blue Dragon Plus and Dragon Quest V, and is going to continue throughout the next few months. The next game in the surge is the March 10, 2009 release Avalon Code, from Matrix Software, Marvelous Entertainment and XSEED Games.

Avalon Code is an action RPG requiring players to smack important items with a book so when the world ends, those items can be saved/restored. Sounds unusual, and possibly a bit difficult to picture, right? Don’t worry – you don’t have to imagine what it’s like any longer. A free, brief demo is now available on the Nintendo Channel.

So you’ve got a Wii and a DS, you could be enjoying a preview of the Avalon Code goodness right now. In case you don’t have access to the Avalon Code demo, Gamertell’s here to tell you all about it…

A while back in Japan, a truly awesome DS game was released. It was called Game Center CX, and was inspired by a Japanese tv show of the same name. It involved fake NES (Famicom) games that players would have to reach certain goals in. After you achieved those goals, you could play full versions of those games, or read in-game magazines to find secrets about those games.

Now, Marvelous and Entertainment and XSEED have announced that they will be bringing this intriguing game to the DS as Retro Game Challenge It will be in stores before the end of 2008. So this holiday season, you’ll be able to play a bunch of great, retro games that never really existed. Among the games are shoot’em ups, an RPG, action games and a racing game.

A very promising partnership has just been formed between Marvelous Entertainment and XSEED Games. The two companies have decided to band together to bring more of Marvelous’ amazing games to North America.

The first game that will come from this partnership is the PSP game Valhalla Knights 2. It is the sequel to the first Valhalla Knights, which XSEED brought to North America in April 2007, and should be in stores before the end of fall 2008. Valhalla Knights 2 will feature plenty of new enemies, items, jobs, races and spells, as well as 2 player ad hoc co-op and versus multiplayer modes.

XSEED Games announced Tuesday (July 31, 2007), that it will be bringing anime-style boxing game Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting Revolution to North American Wiis Fall 2007l with the title Victorious Boxers: Revolution. The game features 25 playable characters with special moves and Wii Boxing-inspired gameplay using three control options.

Players can duck and sway out of harms way and throw jabs, hooks and uppercuts using one of three control schemes: either a Wii-Boxing-esque Wiimote/nunchuck option, a Wii-mote only pointer mode or the classic controller.

What really separates Revolution from Wii Sports is …