I’m here to convince you one thing, and one thing only: The DS had an incredible library.
If you don’t already believe this, I ought to provide you with a ton of examples of incredible games this system has. However, I’m a bit drunk and very lazy, and since after nearly a year we don’t have a DS OT at all I’m instead going to give you a photo of my shelf very full of games, a few photos of DS systems, and encourage you to check www.pricecharting.com and ebay for recent DS game prices so that you don’t sleep on one of the best 2D / low-poly 3D systems ever made.
I love this system! Recently picked up Tetris DS which is a Nintendo fan service version of Tetris w an amazing soundtrack Also having my first real DS XL experience after picking one up at the thrift store - these games look great on those screens!!
Can I ask about flash carts in this thread? I’d be interested in the best solution - digital makes more sense to me on a portable I guess. Thanks for the thread!
Sure as long as you want to not talk about piracy. Personally I have several DS flash cartridges and most recently got a R4i 3DS Gold + in part to mod a bunch of 3DSes but also to replace my DSTwo which causes an excess of battery use.
Also wanted to note that I recently bought about 1/3 of the games I posted in the OT as well as got a 2nd DSi XL/LL from an Amazon 3rd party seller with my yellow DSi XL:
Nice to see a thread celebrating the mighty DS. And it comes with good timing - I’ve recently been revisiting and uncovering more of the DS’s library this year, given the Switch is more of a portable home console than a traditional handheld. Handhelds were always defined and survived by their unique libraries of bespoke games, after all, and DS was a product of its time in all those respects.
Here are all the games I discovered this year, which I previously passed on back in the day:
Last Window: Secret of Cape West
Pac-Pix
Etrian Odyssey III
Legend of Kage 2
Uttachi (Bemani Konami rhythm game)
Puyo Puyo 7
Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land
Meteos
Knights in the Nightmare
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
Valkyrie Profile: CotP
Contact
Resident Evil: Deadly Silence
Electroplankton
Polarium
DK: Jungle Climber
Mawashite Koron
Bomberman 2
Taito Paddle Controller with Space Invaders Extreme, Extreme 2, Arkanoid DS and Puzzle Bobble Galaxy
Theta
Such a wide range of great games, all with different ideas (mostly well executed, Mawashite Koron really should have been made after the Taito Paddle Controller released). Nintendo’s partnerships of the era with developers like Sandlot, CiNG, iNiS, Paon and Eighting gave us some great games too.
I hope to write more about those games individually. But really, there’s a lot to be said about the DS - that the early wave of software from Japan and Nintendo managed to eventually capture the imagination of developers worldwide is probably the best thing about it. I was surprised that even a tech-demo like game such as Pac-Pix felt fresh and fully formed thirteen years after release, and because a lot of games relied on 2D graphics they look glorious.
The DSi XL is an underrated piece of kit, and probably ahead of its time given the shift to larger displays today. At the time of its release Sony was making the PSP smaller, after all. The DSi XL has two, beautiful IPS panels with superb viewing angles, and a wider colour gamut than any 3DS model released to date.
That Yellow DSi XL is making me want to pick one up, it’s far sexier than the burgundy one I have.
Also, one day I hope the machine gets a tv output mod which seems like it would be pointless but could be worth it for those single screen/non-touch focused games.
I wish I had yellow. Blue is nice, but not quite as striking.
Used to have a burgundy one (bought preowned) but I returned it because it was in horrible condition. Dark brown looks nicer I think - picked one up boxed earlier in the year to revisit the library. I think overall I prefer the launch colours though (Japan also had white) - according to the hardware design team they were picked because they look great placed on furniture, and the upper glossy lid was designed to simulate a bowl of still water such that picking it up would become irresistible:
As for rare games, based on prices off the top of my head I think it’s stuff like:
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
Knights in the Nightmare
Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier
Bomberman 2 (Japan and Europe only, usual tiny Konami print run)
CastleVania: Order of Ecclesia
Suidoken: Tierkreis
Dragon Quest V/VI (at least in Europe, Square Enix didn’t print many copies)
One of the rarest for it nowadays is a complete us copy of Solatorobo. It can run almost $200. The Pokemon gold and silver remakes are getting really up there too.
Nintendo of Europe published Solatorobo in Europe where it’s a fair bit cheaper probably because it got a bigger print run. Might be worth picking up a European copy if anyone is interesting. But I guess the DSi-enhancements would mean you need a European DSi or 3DS to play it…
That said, it’s only ~10 quests and at that point I was burnt out on the game, so youre probably better off saving the money on a eu version unless you really care.
I did just that a while back. The yellow one is an astonishing thing.
The DS is a heck of a machine with a heck of a library. My favourite version is the white DSlite, which I keep as a dedicated MaBoShi console - I extracted the DS ROM of the Wii game and modified it so that my flash cart on the DSlite boots straight into the game.
I recently bought Pac-Pix, as I only ever tried it briefly back in the day. And I also re-bought Touch Golf to play that again. My list of games is at RFG.
I also recommend Pang DS (see above photo) to anybody with even a passing interest in the series. For me it’s one of the greatest games of all time. It takes everything that defines the series and dials it up to 11, over two screens.
It also hosts my favourite Hanafuda Koi-Koi game, 1500 DS Spirits Vol 5: Hanafuda.
Polarium is another Mitchell Corp classic, but I prefer recommending the superior GBA version.
Also:
Yoshi! Touch & Go - for its dynamic difficulty curve
Great thread. I think DS is my next major collecting area when that part of my brain activates again (always goes in cycles). I have stalled out on my main focus, NES, and the other systems I collect for are either expensive (SNES) or just not my passion (Genesis, PS1/2).
DS is just awesome, though. It sits in sweet spot for both modern and retro gaming. I also just bought a N3DS and so I’m looking for both DS and 3DS stuff to play. Recently I got Tetris DS and, yeah, it’s great.
Ouendan/EBA is one of the GOATs in my opinion. We should all pull out the DS and play the Earth, Wind and Fire level later this month on September 21…
Magical Michael PANG is amazing. Really glad I randomly took a punt on it back in 2011.
DS got some pretty great support from now-defunct PANG developer Mitchell Corp. Sujin Taisen: Number Battles is an excellent competitive puzzle-board game where you place number tiles in different ways to try and rack up a score (and lower your opponents). I spent about 40 hours playing online on that! The Japanese version was a boxed physical release, while the global release was an improved version on DSiWare.
Mitchell also made Polarium (a DS launch game), Wakugumi (DSiWare puzzler) and a version of Actionloop for Nintendo.
Matt - you just reminded me that I visited Yoshi Touch & Go one day this year. Small but perfectly formed game. Returning to it on a DSi XL was rather glorious - the visuals really sing on those high quality displays. It’s a shame Nintendo hasn’t really put out anything as inspired starring Yoshi since.
We have a pretty extensive collection of DS games. One that I think is tremendous that I did import is Mr. Driller Drill Spirits. I think that was the only thing I ended up buying from Japan for the system, but it was totally worth it.
There is so much great stuff on that system. I still have a sealed Chrono Trigger I plan to bust open when I’m ready to play that. Order of Ecclesia is aces too. I have a blue DS Phat at home and that thing is so pretty.
Drill Spirits is great, though the irrational side of me somehow prefers Mr Driller Ace on GBA. Probably something to do with the presentation.
It’s a good thing you got the Japanese version of Drill Spirits - I read somewhere that the American version was rushed out in time for DS launch and thus is missing a lot of content that was released in the later Japanese and European versions.
That’s why I imported. I read all about it at the time it shipped and how they took stuff out of the US version. I also got a neat Mr. Driller pouch to carry my DS in!
The DSi XL has two IPS screens?! Fuck, now I want one even thought I have a perfectly good DS Lite (two actually, bought a pink one for my daughter but she doesn’t seem too interested in video games yet).
The DSi doesn’t have the GBA slot though, right? So, I’ll need a DSi XL and now an ags-101 gba, gotta love this hobby, lol. Likely I’ll just stick to my DS Lite.
I come back to the Castlevania games a lot. OoE is an amazing game but I wish it was one main castle instead of the separate levels. It’s a nice change of pace from the others, but I didn’t know how much I would miss exploring a castle. It would be great to have OoE difficulty in SotN. OoE is difficult at times, giant enemy crab anyone?
