Feel the Magic XY/XX Updated Impressions

As next week's Nintendo DS launch nears, retail games for the fledgling system are starting to ship to stores. One of the first out of the gate is Sega's Feel the Magic XY/XX, a bizarre but promising collection of minigames from Sonic Team. We got our hands on the final retail version of the game today and immediately set out to woo our faceless in-game lady friend.

Our experience with Feel the Magic hasn't been too different from our recent look at a work-in-progress version of the game a few weeks ago. The main difference is that some of the options we saw in that version of the game needed to be unlocked by playing through it. Our initial adventures took us through some of the games we've already covered--goldfish and candles, for example--but we've now checked out quite a few more of the games and are pleased by what we're seeing. True, the game is quirky, but Sega's Sonic Team is one of the few developers that can deftly turn something quirky into something playable.

For describing a game like Feel the Magic XY/XX, pictures are worth a thousand words, so we'll just offer a quick run-through of the games we've seen and send you off to some direct-feed movies of the game to help your brain process it all.

Parachute has you entering numbers on a keypad displayed on the touch screen to trigger the parachutes on skydivers. Cart has you clearing the road of debris to make room for carts coming down one of three lanes. Bus stop has you bowling with live pedestrians waiting for a bus. Ant lion has you encouraging people to climb out of an ant lion's trap. Painter has you filling in an outline with paint while avoiding falling people. Well, we're not exactly sure whether they're people or Hindu gods (we swear we see Vishnu in there), so let's just say "debris." Monocycle charges you with guiding a--wait for it--monocycle across a treacherous path. Hands requires you to continue holding hands with your lady in the face of grave danger--in this case, an onslaught of bees. Drive has you racing to save her from a portly rival in a car armed with a people-launching catapault. Bonfire has you juggling the sexy task of helping your lady out of her wet clothes with maintaining an enormous bonfire. Finally, dance offers a bit of a retro moment to fans of Sega's Space Channel 5 franchise with a rhythm action game.

Curious? Confused? Don't be. Head over to the direct-feed movies on Feel the Magic's media page and it will all make sense.