The NDS is one of my all-time favorite systems and essentially got me through my last couple of years of commuter college. It was also my main method of playing GBA games as I only had an inconvenient nonlit GBA and never picked up a GBA SP back then. I personally find DS games to be among the most aesthetically pleasing to own. Durable carts – my Metroid Pinball cart has dog bite marks on it from when my dog was a chew-happy pup. Very nice color manuals that disappointingly went extinct in the 3DS era. Compact, square cases that are thick and sturdy, which also went away with the succeeding handheld and were replaced by garbage eco cases. Off-topic, but they also have a space inside for a GBA game which is making me contemplate redoing my GBA collection with these cases if I can source them and hi-res cover art. I’m seeing cases online but they look like cheap 3rd party variants with gaps and flimsier plastic…
In the last couple of days, I went on ebay and picked up Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, which I’d never heard of but seems to be great, and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, a game I originally played on PSP but never finished for no good reason as I was genuinely enjoying the heck out of it. Any other recommendations? The games I currently own are listed below.
Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Age of Empires: The Age of Kings
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Asphalt Urban GT
Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
Daigasso! Band Brothers
Diddy Kong Racing DS
Elite Beat Agents
Etrian Odyssey
Final Fantasy IV
Guilty Gear Dust Strikers
Hello Kitty Party
Hotel Dusk: Room 215
Jump Ultimate Stars
Kingdom Hearts Re:coded
Kirby: Canvas Curse
Kung Fu Panda
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Lost in Blue
Madden 2005
Mario Kart DS
Mega Man Zero Collection
Mega Man ZX
Meteos
Metroid Prime Hunters
Metroid Prime Pinball
Mr. Driller: Drill Spirits
Nanostray
New Super Mario Bros.
Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Pokemon Black
Pokemon Diamond
Pokemon SoulSilver
Ridge Racer DS
Sonic Rush
Spider-Man 2
Star Fox Command
Super Mario 64 DS
Super Monkey Ball: Touch & Roll
Tetris DS
Ultimate Spider-Man
Up
Wall-E
The World Ends With You
Dragon Quest 4, 5, 6, 9, also Monsters Joker 2 is really addicting.
If you’re open to Pokemon games try to get a copy of Pokemon Platinum, it’s one of my favorites. There are a bunch of quality of life improvements made vs Diamond/Pearl plus more Pokemon with a better variety in each route.
Picross 3D is a really great number puzzle game; the sequel on 3DS improves some stuff but gets a bit complicated, it really didn’t match the simple pleasure of the original.
And here’s a couple of quick suggestions, based on my tiny collection (doesn’t really compare to yours):
Aliens: Infestation and Contra 4: 2D goodness from WayForward. First one is more slow-paced than Contra, but I loved the level design and the atmosphere in general.
Chronos Twin: kinda gimmcky, at a first glance, but it tuned out to be a pretty solid ‘dual screen’ action/platformer.
Bleach DS: impressive fighting game by Treasure, I enjoyed the combo system quite alot, even in its simplicity.
Oh, and for anyone else into NDS, I totally second your Ghost Trick and Chinatown Wars recommendations. Neat stuff.
Every time a thread like this pops up, I remember that I really need to play more DS games. For whatever reason, I never got that deep into the system’s library.
Last game I played on there was the Umihara Kawase game. That includes the SNES and PS1 games, and has some remixed music. I think there’s some additional levels, too, but I could be wrong. But it’s a good port – they brought back the original designer to make sure everything was right.
My favorite action/adventure game on the DS is Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword. I would lump Dragon Sword with NG and NG II, and not with the ninja dog crap, NG III and NG Z.
I also enjoyed the Sega RPGs; Infinite Space, Phantasy Star 0, Sands of Destruction and Sonic Chronicles.
I found Sonic Team’s Feel the Magic and Rub Rabbits to be really enjoyable and a unique DS gaming experience.
My hidden gems:
Tokyo Beat Down (side scrolling beat-em-up)
Orcs and Elves (old school 3D CRPG dungeon crawler by id Software, similar to the Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder series)
MechAssault: Phantom War (Mech game)
Henry Hatsworth! I sound like a broken record every time recommendations are asked. Great sprite work, addicting gameplay, unique puzzle/platformer, creative bosses and a fantastic soundtrack.
Thanks, everyone for all the cool recommendations. I’m definitely picking up some of these, although several are actually getting a bit up there in price (Aliens, Contra, Metal Slug).
@Galdelico It’s a fun game and has a killer soundtrack. It completely invalidates the silly argument that there aren’t any good post-Genesis Sonic games!
