DS will make you cry 99 Tears

Namco Bandai announced recently what is possibly the strangest game we've ever heard of for DS. And that's some achievement when you consider the likes of Doki Doki Majo Shinpan, a Japanese game that has you stroking young girls to find out if they're witches.

The game is called 99 no Namida, which translates as 99 Tears. It's an apt title, because the point of the game (although it's actually not much of a game, more a collection of stories) is to make you cry.

The theory is that being moved to tears can have a relaxing effect on people so this will relieve you of stress. From our experience, we'd argue that being made to cry after a hard day's work is actually more likely to drive us to suicidal thoughts.

For those that disagree, 99 no Namida contains 200 stories and players are recommended to read one of the 15-minute tear-inducing efforts a day. To ensure the desired outcome is achieved, at the start of the game players complete a type of personality test to determine which stories are likely to make them weep the hardest.

They're then given 99 stories to get through. That's over three months of enforced depression – which is longer than you were probably down about Take That breaking up/England failing to qualify for Euro 2008 (delete as applicable).

It's due out in Japan shortly and we're pretty confident it'll never see a western release. Still, we figured we'd bring you another example of the versatility of DS. Or the uniqueness of certain elements of Japanese development. Whichever way you prefer to look at it, really.