Monster Tale Review

One of the best parts of owning a successful console is that erratic trickle of easily overlooked gems you see at the very tail end of its life. Games like Drill Dozer, Arc the Lad Collection, and Persona 4, for example: latecomers whose task was to turn over the chairs, switch off the lights, and send home the lonely stragglers determined to see those systems through to the end. Now the DS can lay claim to its own swan song, too, thanks to DreamRift's Monster Tale.

Monster Tale may or may not be the last interesting DS game we'll ever see in the U.S. -- maybe E3 2011 will surprise us! -- but there's no question that it's worth playing. A follow-up of sorts to 2009's platform/puzzler Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, Monster Tale is one part portable Castlevania, one part Pok�mon. It's a somewhat non-linear adventure where you collect different powers to unlock previously inaccessible areas, very much in the vein of the recent Shantae: Risky's Revenge. What sets it apart from its peers is that your little heroine, Ellie, is only one half of the power-up equation. The other half -- the lion's share, really -- is invested in her companion, Chomp, the game's eponymous monster.

Nelly Furtado Leeann Tweeden Bali Rodriguez Izabella Miko Cameron Diaz