Once announced for the DS, Europa Universalis II (EU2) created by Paradox Interactive quickly disappeared from the DS map. What was supposed to an immense strategy giant, just like it's PC counterpart, vanished into the thin air. The PC version, although old and graphic-wise outdated, had other qualities. Such as an unparallelled historical accuracy, an accurate difficulty level, and the steepest learning curve known to man, and (most importantly) a shit load of playable nations from 1419 to 1819, basically all relevant independent (and some not so independent) countries during that period, as well as the ability to release a-historical vasalls. The opportunities to reshape the world was endless. EU2 was basically a more developed version of EU1, and far more complete. There's no point in revisiting EU1 once you've played EU2, so porting EU2 to Nintendo DS made sense, as it's 2D graphics was possible on the DS, unlike the sequel Europa Universalis III which was made in 3D and demanded a lot better graphics card. Also, the dual screens was ideal for EU2 consider it was very menu heavy, a small single screen like the PSP would not have sufficed. There's very few screens of the DS version, and the developer refuses to even speak about it nowadays, not even saying why they dropped it which is a bit sad. There's no official info, only what games magazines back in the days wrote about it. This is probably my holy grail, one that I'll probably never see. The PC version: Cover PC version:
RUMOR #5: Europa Universalis II, Spyro: A Hero's Tail, the Hulk, and Escape from Monkey Island are all coming to the Nintendo DS. Source: An announcement by Europa-mongers Paradox Interactive and posts on the Gaming Age and GameSpot Forums. The official story: "Nintendo does not comment on rumors or speculation."--the same Nintendo of America representative. What we heard: The past week saw speculation about several game franchises making their way to Nintendo's dual-screen machine. The most surprising was Europa Universalis II, the complex PC strategy game from Paradox Interactive. However unlikely it sounds, an official announcement from the Swedish developer says that it is "working with Pocket PC Studios to adapt the critically acclaimed title to handheld platforms like Palm OS, Nintendo DS and Windows CE." Though the inclusion of the word "like" leaves some lingering doubt, the announcement was a lot more official than the speculation about the other titles. While the GameSpot forum thread about Monkey Island had several sketchy-looking screenshots, the only real proof of the existence of any of the other titles is a Wal-Mart.com product page for Spyro DS. Bogus or not bogus?: Europa Universalis II and Spyro DS: apparently not bogus. The others: time will tell. http://www.gamespot.com/ds/strategy/europauniversalis2/news/6118885/rumor-control-the-no-comment-edition?tag=newsfeatures%3Btitle%3B2 Apparently, the studio that helped them port EU2 was "Pocket PC Studios", which seems to be defunct. That could be good news for obtaining a beta, but their former web page now refers to what appears to be an online Russian novel...
