If Dawn of Sorrow didn't have the soul system then I'd give the edge to Portrait of Ruin because of the mini quests in PoR. But DoS does have the soul system, and catching all the souls is a quest in itself (though not everyone thinks it's fun). I had a blast playing both games and can't recommend one over the other. Buy both. :)

Konami has dropped the price of Dawn of Sorrow to US$19.99, so don't pay more if you're in the US. What an awesome deal. Before the re-release and price drop all the stores around here were selling it for $30 *used*.

If you don't have wireless internet at home you can take your DS to anyplace that offers free wifi access, like a coffee shop or the public library.

As for multi-player games, look at the icons on the back of the box. They will tell you if the game offers wifi play, and it'll also say if it's is a multi-player game and if it requires 2 carts to access multi-player or just 1.

If you only need 1 cart then the 2nd DS downloads info from the cart in the 1st DS, and you play the game in multi-player mode together (and of course it loses that info when it's turned off).

Be aware that not all games have great multi-player features, some are watered down versions of the real game or even entirely different in a bad way. Reading reviews will help you figure out if the game is worth buying two of just to access multi-player. I like metacritic.com because it compiles reviews from many different online sources. Or you can just ask here, "What's the multi-player game like in Game X?" and people will fill ya in.

Girl friends always bang on how sad and nerdy it is to play games...Pixelgen

The only girls who do that are insecure, the same way that only insecure guys are obsessed over whether or not their friend thinks they're playing a "girl's game." No question.

Think about it. Some guys are really hung up on only doing things that other guys approve of them doing. They don't want to be seen as weird/different. A lot of girls (usually young, but not always) are also hung up on their idea of being seen as a "real" girl/woman, and they don't see video games as being feminine. So they're going to bag on the games in an effort to make it clear they are NOT boys, they are NOT masculine, they are ALL GIRL. Guys do the same thing about being ALL BOY.

Thankfully most people grow out of that insecurity by the time they're in their 20s and they do whatever they feel like doing -- and tell their friends to grow up if they give them a hard time about it.

My Hori screen protectors arrived today and wow, they're great! I feel better knowing that the screen won't get scratched when I let a friend play with it. I only paid 70 cents for them too haha. OK, I also paid $5.25 shipping. Be careful about counterfeits though, they're still on ebay. See photos of the fakes here:

http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2006/06/28/counterfeit-hori-screen-protectors-on-ebay/

I bought mine from ebay seller gamezforless (http://myworld.ebay.com/gamezforless) and they look like the real thing in the new American packaging. The above article is from last June and it doesn't have those photos, but you can see an example of the new stickers on the real Hori protectors here: http://img328.imageshack.us/img328/4539/contqe6.jpg -- that's what I got. They charge too much for s&h though so factor that into your bid. 

Do you want to spend around 45 hours on FF III (which is how long it'll take you to finish it) if you're bored after only 3 hours?

Personally I'm kinda bored playing Phoenix Wright I, and I really wanted to like it, so I'm glad I got it on sale. The only reason I plan to finish it is because I heard the 5th case is different and it's worth slogging through the first 4 (we'll see, I just finished case 3). We all like different things.

Thanks for the photos, those are very helpful.

I received a counterfeit Fire Emblem GBA game via ebay and it really pissed me off, mainly because it cost me almost $20 w/ s&h, and I don't know when the battery is going to die. I now know how to spot bad GBA game auctions, but I wasn't sure what to look for in counterfeit DS games, so I appreciate the time you spent putting that together!