This one's for GoldfishX. ;)  I tried out the Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword demo (nice to see the "DS" naming convention still alive and kickin', by the way), and I'm pretty impressed.  The first thing that strikes you is the graphics; they look damned good for the DS, and clearly on par with Team Ninja's high standards.  The game moves at an equally impressive 60fps -- and on the bottom screen to boot.

The game is played by holding the DS in the vertical book orientation style, a la Brain Age and Meteos.  The controls function a lot like other stylus-specific DS titles like Chocobo Tales and Phantom Hourglass, which means you're using the styus exclusively to move and direct Ryu around.  Holding the stylus in place near Ryu's front allows him to stalk slowly in that direction, while placing it further lets him sprint.  Attacks are handled by vertical or horizonal slashes at the enemy, while throwing shurikens is accomplished by tapping the screen.  You can also leap by sliding the stylus up on Ryu, and a second slide while in midair allows a double jump.  The most advanced techniques in the demo include the Izuna Drop, which can be pulled off by doing a down, up, up pattern near the enemy -- and the Ninpo, which is done by tracing a huge Sanskrit letter that appears on the screen for a massive fireball attack.   You can also guard enemy attacks by holding either direction on the d-pad or any of the face buttons. (You'll use the d-pad if you're right-handed, and the face button configuration if you're left-handed.)  The demo does a pretty good job at walking you through the many various techniques you try.

The demo itself gives you around six or seven batches of enemies to fight through, and a huge red dragon as a boss.  It's over all too quick, but it does give you a good idea at what kind of game this is.  I'm sure Itagaki would crucify me for making the comparison, but it's feels very much in the vein of Devil May Cry or God of War, but outfitted for the DS. 

Actually, perhaps I could say it feels like Onimusha more than anything else.

Team Ninja working on a new game? Why didn't anyone tell me hell froze over.

Uhh... wasn't there also the announcement of a new console sequel a while back?

Yes, Ninja Gaiden 2 is coming to X360 next year.

Also, Angela, thanks for the hands-on impressions.  I have no idea what game stores around my area actually have the DS demo stations and I'm rather looking forward to Ninja Gaiden DS since I hear it may actually be beatable by normal folk (read: not insanely difficult).

Thanks! It looks like one of those games it's hard to get a feel for by just watching it, so the hands-on was a big help. It looks like it has potential, although when I hear "tracing", I think Lost Magic and getting mauled by a legion of guys in the middle of the sign. But fast slashes for attack/jump should work and the Izuna Drop almost sounds like Blitz-inputting. Which is a good thing.

There's something like five Gamestops around where I live and I've never seen a DS demo station in any of them...

Well, the way the tracing works is, you hit a button to activate the Ninpo.  This pauses the action just long enough for you to make the trace uninterrupted.  They seem to be pretty generous when it comes to replicating the character, too - you need only tap in what feels like "pieces" of the character to successfully accomplish the trace.

A common misconception is that the demo stations can be physically seen, but that's not the case.  More often than not (and especially in Gamestops), they have the DS-loaded demo in the back of the store; you need only turn on your DS within the store to capture the Wi-Fi signal.  Heck, you can even conceivably download from OUTSIDE the store, depending on the range of the signal.

Well, I finally bothered to take my DS to my GameStop to download the Ninja Gaiden demo.  I'm impressed.  Even though what's here is incredibly short, it's got potential.  Barring any massively negative reviews, I'll probably get it.

Negative reviews?  None that are appearing on the horizon, sir:

Gamespot: 8.5
IGN: 8.6
Gametrailers.com: 8.8
1up.com: A-

Game hits this week.  Definitely looking forward to it!

Good enough for me.  My pre-order should be waiting for me to pick up tomorrow.

I went to Nintendo World and saw the game for sale.  $39.99?  First, Square Enix sells some of its titles for $39.99 and now a non-Square Enix game does it.

Wow.  So that'll mean Gamestop -- with their lovely $5 markup -- will be hawking it for $44.99.  That's some crazy money!

... But, at least by comparison, Dragon Sword can arguably justify that price more than most Square-Enix DS games.

Nope; it's going for $34.99.

Looks like Nintendo is charging some weird premium.  I went to a local Gamestop and it's $34.99.

It's too bad that inflation is rising on games.