A second wave of addiction!
The benfits of the DS port are obvious: The ability to take the game everywhere! Recently, I had to take a friend to the hospital (for a nonmortal ailment!), and as I was waiting for the medicos to patch him back up, I was fishing! Sounds cold, I know. But there we are. Another benefit is the ability to take advantage of wireless networks. Go, have a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and visit your British friend's town in one fell swoop. Now, the GameCube has online ability, so I wonder again why the sequel is not on that system. The last advantage is the touch screen. This ability makes selling and writing letters extremely easy. The interface was a little clumsy in the first version, making letter-writing into a bit of a chore.
The shortfalls are there, yet not so obvious. The first shortfall is that without the ability to link to a Gameboy, there is no island. Granted, it wasn't that large of an island, and not really important to the game, but it was a nice touch. Also, it allowed for another house in which to store hard-won treasures. Another disadvantage is that the towns themselves are now much smaller, as the DS cartridge doesn't give you a whole lot of room for code. Figure that the town is about 2/3 of the size of the original.
These disadvantages are really nitpicking, and Nintendo has answered some of them in interesting ways. Instead of a second house on the island, your home in the town will now have up to 3 additional rooms for it. In the original, you only had 3 floors to play with, including a roomy basement. Obviously, multiple rooms will give you plenty of room to display those theme rooms people are so fond of. "Join me in the Space Parlor, won't you?"
With the town being smaller, it actually becomes easier to manage. No more searching through a 5 by 5 square grid to make sure that all the weeds have been pulled. Wild World actually uses a scrolling world rather than the grid system in the original. It makes for smoother strolling about town. Sometimes that can make finding people out walking a little more difficult, but again, with a smaller town, the search takes less time.
Most of the activites are the same as in the original. Fishing, catching bugs, beachcombing, and landscaping are still part of your duties. Of course, you also still have to pay off that house from that crook Nook, who charges criminal rates for renovations, but the cash reward for selling items seems to have increased. Simply cleaning the beach of shells can usually net you at least 500 bells or so. Also, individual items seem to have gone done in price, with a shovel costing a mere 500 bells. Like I said, the only major expense is the house. Are these renovations Union-certified?
A new twist to the game involves the wireless ability of the DS. Now, instead of just sending letters to townspeople and other memory cards in your 'Cube, you can write messages in a bottle, that will end up somewhere completely random. I personally haven't received any (c'mon people, they only cost 200 bells!), but I can see this as a very interesting feature. You can include gifts in these bottles, and hopefully people won't just send things like old boots and tires. Personally, I send fruit, so someone else may get that last kind of fruit tree that they are missing. But that's just me. You could always send me bells, of course!
Something else that is enabled with the wireless system is that almost anyone can visit your town. In fact, one of Nook the Crook's expansions is dependent on someone else from a different town purchasing something from his store. In a way, this almost forces the player to find a friend or two, but realistically, all that opens up is a hair salon, so if you don't want to open your gates to outsiders, you aren't missing a huge part of the game. Don't worry that someone could come into your town and start a lumber mill, as you actually have to be playing for someone to visit, as well as provide a "friend code", AND opening your gates. But why wouldn't you want to visit other towns? Other towns give opportunities, like gathering other types of fruit you may not have, or purchasing furniture or items that you can't get at "home".
And yes, there is a TON of stuff to get in this game as well. I just recently perused the FAQ on furniture, and it's huge! Expect to see familiar themes like Space and Ranch, as well as new ones like Beige colored items the Fantasy setup. You still have the ability to place different floor and wall schemes, and yes, there is a Room Board that will rate your setup.
Beyond the furniture, there are also more fossils, fish, and insects to collect. Convientiently, Blathers the Owl can now identify fossils on the spot, versus the old system where you had to mail it out and wait for a return letter. Far less annoying! Fishing is the exact same, with the fish still doing the "I see your bait, but I'd rather hide out near this rock you can't get near" thing again. I guess this is to make fishing a little more difficult, because otherwise, it's a two button press process. Yes, you will still get boots, tires and cans from the river too! Who's putting this junk there?
This version is also time specific. That is, on certain holidays and seasons, the enviroment will change, and you might even get a present or two! Personally, I don't get to play until later in the evening, and the game is shown as being at night. My friend plays during the day, and his screen is brightly lit with noonday sun. It's touches like these that make this game so neat. You can only get specific species of "catchables" during certain times of the day, which CAN be annoying, unless you use the glitch countless others have used: time travel. Basically setting your system time to a different setting will affect the game. Personally, I don't recommend it, though I have done it! LOL
All in all, I look forward to the many hours of my life that I will lose trying to find that last breed of perch or butterfly. I look forward to finally completing the King Tut theme of furniture, and finally paying that house off. If you liked the previous version of this game, you should definetely give this one a try. And come visit the town of E-ville. It's swank.
Oh, and to explain the low scores in graphics and sound: Realistically, this game isn't going to blow you away visually. The fun lies in the collecting, maintaining, and trading aspects. Please don't let those low scores dissuade you, I am just being honest.