Given Ninja Gaiden is a spectacular game, this game is, by far, the best game I've played in years! Collecting outfits, food items to boost stats, fusing with your partner for stronger attacks. This game gives you a feeling of total interaction with your characters, with the added bonus of being able to play through each day in the order of your choosing, as much as you want, once you beat the game. The characters are great too (okay, Shiki is a little annoying, but I forgave that by the end). Beat is by far the funniest, the token idiot whose street slang and invented vocabulary adds a lot of laughs to a somewhat morbid game. I think of this game as a cross between GantZ and Battle Royale without the mature ratings. The battle can be adjusted to be as hard or as easy as you want it to be, with of course extra rewards for taking the time to challenge yourself. The collecting of items and building of stats is usually on the annoying time-consuming end in most games, but with so much to do, I kind of catch myself jumping around my goals and meeting them quickly enough to keep from getting bored. Oh, and the fighting system is genius! You can basically sculpt Neku's attacks to your own style of play and even decide whether you want to control your partner or let them do their thing. This game was made with all types of gamers in mind, leaving no one out. The only thing that brings this game short of a perfect ten rating is... well, I would've liked to see their costumes altered by what you equip. I realize that that kind of thing would be time consuming and the DS most likely can't hold that much info, but if there is a sequel (and I hope there are many!), maybe on PS3, those kinds of details could be fully explored. Otherwise, I enjoyed the game immensely and recommend it to everyone!