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"InuYasha" is a manga (and later, anime) series I have enjoyed for years, so I was curious to see how well the adventures of Kagome, InuYasha and friends would do on the Nintendo DS. For those unfamiliar with the world, the game and the instruction booklet give you a quick introduction into this fairytale of feudal Japan. A middle school student, Kagome Higurashi is the reincarnation of a priestess who had charge of a powerful artifact, the Shikon jewel. This priestess, by name of Kikyo, and the half-demon InuYasha fall in love, but through the machinations of another demon, Naraku, they believed that each had betrayed the other. In a final battle, Kikyo binds InuYasha magically before she herself died from wounds inflicted by InuYasha (or so she thought). The Shikon jewel was subsequently destroyed with her in her funeral pyre.

Hundreds of years pass, and in modern-day Tokyo, perky young Kagome manages to cross time and meets with InuYasha, has the Shikon jewel slashed out of her torso (there it is!) and in trying to reclaim it, manages to smash it into thousands of tiny shards, which scatter into the world. The journey begins from there as InuYasha and Kagome form an uneasy alliance (of course — what is a fantastic journey without the tension in the unwilling love interest?) and attempt to find all pieces of the Shikon jewel before they are found and used by demons, and wrest the pieces back from them if they are.

In InuYasha: Secrets of the Divine Jewel, we are introduced to Janis — an American exchange student who had previously lived in Japan (to explain her ability to speak Japanese). When told by the mysterious monk Sen that she had to go through the bone-eater's well at the Higurashi shrine to find Kagome, she does so.

This is Janis' story, and the main characters from InuYasha are the supporting cast. Janis turns out to be the reincarnation of the daughter of Kamui, and the power within her, the Kamuitara — the power of a god — is awakened when she touches a Shikon jewel shard and her body absorbs it. Are you fans horrified yet? The heroes have been delegated to supporting cast! The horror! She meets up with InuYasha, Kagome, Miroku (a lecherous priest with a black hole in his hand), Shippo (a minor fox spirit) and Sango (a huntress of demons with a giant boomerang), and they accompany her on a journey to have this Sikon jewel shard removed from her.

Gameplay is simplistic. You walk around the landscape until you encounter monsters and then you kill them. Items are dropped or bought and can assist in stats and heals. A hermit in the near map makes amulets from items you bring him. All you need to do in this game, really, is to walk across the landscape and pick your weapons or magical skills to use. Unfortunately, neither the game nor instruction booklet informs you what each skill does. Some are party only but never seem to actually do anything. You level so quickly in this game, you have no need for special items — well, except for the items that allowed you to avoid encounters for a short period of time and the amulet that decreased the number of encounters (I bought one for every member of my party).

Combat is turn based. You almost always go first, and the encounter is defeated before the NPCs get their turn at you. The boss encounters were a little tougher as they had more hit points, but that was all there was to it. I hit you; you hit me; whoever hits the hardest wins. It's hard to lose a character, since you have a healer in your party. There are six in your party: Each of them gets a chance at combat; they have some ridiculously powerful AE effects; and healing items are plentiful. Although the Chibi characters were cute, animation is limited and combat animation repetitive. NPCs differed only in color, but the boss mobs were rather detailed to make up for that. The landscape in the cut-scenes, villages and some mountain areas were actually rather pretty, although most of the game is lackluster "field" maps.

The party assist defense and offense system brought a little variety to the combat. When using your basic attack or when defending, the faces of up to three members of the party can flash across the touch screen. Tapping them or pressing the appropriate button(s) will bring them out to assist you in attack or defense (taking damage for you), which is useful in keeping Miroku, your priest, alive as he's almost always targeted.

The novelty of encounters in new areas of the map wore off quickly, since you can't seem to take three steps without running into an encounter. You also get lost easily in some areas and may go round and round seeking that particular point you can get through the landscape, since it all looks the same, gaining many levels before you find your way. Finally, after you've entered an empty glade for about the 10th time, you meet an NPC that will fly you places — provided you bribe him — and travel shortens a bit, but you also find out how small the map is.

Sound and music is repetitive with no voice acting. Although music in the villages could be quite charming, with the numerous encounters, combat music grew annoying quickly. The story is entirely text based. It's almost like reading manga with animated characters, except you have to get through a large number of irritating encounters while trying to find the chapters.

InuYasha: Secret of the Divine Jewel is not a game you consume with many hours of gameplay at a time, since it gets repetitive very quickly. There aren't enough directions given as to what your next step should be besides a vague "Go East." You can't tell if you need levels or time of day to trigger events, so you may wander aimlessly through the landscape, back into villages, bump your head repeatedly against dungeons you can't access. Then you hand your DS to your whiney kid brother, and the next thing you know, he's found an entire vampire village — the same one you entered 20 times before and found nothing in.

According to the game information, there are three "periods" during which you can wander: the modern day, the Sengoku and after an event takes place, the Heian Era. I'm still wandering around in the Sengoku with no idea as to how to get back to the modern day (and don't know if I can) or how to proceed to the Heian. No doubt, I'll hand my DS to my 5-year-old niece one day, and she will stumble onto the secret.