Long the 800-lb gorilla of handheld gaming, the DS is in its twilight, besieged by smartphones and pushed aside by the 3DS. And, yet, you got one, you old softy.
Here are 12 excellent games as a nice reward for showing an old handheld some love.
Making the leap from Game Boy to DS let dev studio Intelligent Systems throw more visual information at players than ever before. Thatâs a great thing since Dual Strike packs in more depth and flexibility than its predecessors, giving you an almost boundless elasticity to thwart the enemy army in this strategy game.
A Good Match for: To beat Watson, or Deep Blue, or HAL 9000. The AI antagonists in this Advance Wars installments are no joke, reading the weaknesses of your defensive strategies and working around your offensive forays. Youâll really have to plumb the depths of human ingenuity to win consistently against the computer opponents.
Not a Good Match For: Those looking for new designs. Lots of the visual elements in Dual Strike seem to be lifted from previous Advance Wars
Watch it in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop
Radiant Historia, a DS game from 2011, wouldnât be out of place on the Super Nintendo in the early 90s. Thatâs part of the charmâthis is an old-school JRPG experience to its core, and although it eschews some antiquated concepts like random battles, Radiant Historia maintains the charm of its Golden Age predecessors. Combine a fun, complicated combat system with an interesting time travel mechanic and youâve got a game that deserves to stand next to Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI
A Good Match For: JRPG fans, or people who want a good place to start becoming JRPG fans.
Not a Good Match For: People who donât like high-falutin fantasy plots or turn-based combat.
Watch it in action.
Purchase from: Amazon
This downloadable DSiWare game hits the sweetest spot possible on the 8-bit nostalgia map by tasking players to recreate the blocky sprites of old-school characters like Mario. The falling blocks title isnât just rosy-eyed memory lane trip, though; itâs also a challenging puzzler that will force you to re-wire your spatial perceptions.
A Good Match for: NES cartridge collectors. If youâve still got a fannish devotion to Nintendoâs old school hardware, then drawing whole scenes from retro Legend of Zelda games will hold a special warmth for you.
Not a Good Match For: Those who want more of the same. Pictobits was an overlooked gem in 2009 and itâs sadly never been followed up with a sequel. Câmon, Nintendo!
Watch it in action.
Purchase from: The Nintendo eShop
For months in 2005, word spread westward from Japan about this crazy male cheerleader/good Samaritan rhythm game called Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan that just had to be experienced to be believed. Import storefronts in the West did a brisk business shuttling Ouendan to foreign shores until developer iNiS and Nintendo re-tooled the concept into a brand new game, as Elite Beat Agents. The main characters were changed into Secret Service-styled operatives but the tap/swirl/slide beat-matching gameplay stayed the same. And, lo, it was good.
A Good Match for: West Side Story fans. Really, any fan of song-and-dance-based storytelling should dig Elite Beat Agents for the wacky situations the operatives help out on and the twists that iNiS put on the rhythm matching genre.
Not a Good Match For: Those who want to keep their hands in one place. Youâll need to tap spots all over the DSâs touchscreen but youâll screw up sometimes because the icons you need to hit pop under the same hand holding the stylus. Itâs the touchscreen equivalent of tripping over your own feet.
Watch it in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | GameStop
There are so many Kirby games that play the same way. The pink puffball Kirby walks from left to right, inhaling enemies, gaining their powers and spitting his unusual form of justice. This game is a little differently and perfectly crafted for the DS. In Canvas Curse, Kirby is but a pink circleâno legsâand the player uses the DS stylus to draw Kirby the pathways he needs to glide through levels, attack enemies, gain powers and spit his unusual form of justice.
A Great Match For: A gaming experimentalist who wants to experience one of the most unusual sidescrollers ever made.
Not a Good Match For: A Kirby purist or anyone who would be uncomfortable playing a game with a stylus.
Watch it in action.
Purchase From: Amazon | Gamestop
A spiritual sequel of sorts to the mega-popular Ace Attorney games, Ghost Trickâs superb animation puts players in the role of a newly-minted ghost named Sissel, who learns from a talking lamp that he can possess inanimate objects and manipulate them. By doing tricks while inside of objects, the player goes about preventing the deaths of other innocents and solving the mystery of Sisselâs own mysterious death.
A Good Match for: Aficionados of classic adventure games. Ghost Trick updates the point-and-click formula to become tap-and-move but, really, itâs got the same kind of one-of-a-kind charm that imbued classics like Grim Fandango and The Secret of Monkey Island
Not a Good Match For: Anyone whoâll want to play it all over again. As fun as it is making Rube Goldberg life-saving machines out of the stuff you possess, thereâs only one chain-reaction solution to each giving you little reason to re-visit Ghost Trick once itâs all said and done.
Read our review of the iOS version.
Watch it in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop
It may seem hard to believe that a game about folding boxes at a factory could be one of the best games on one of the best game platforms of all time. An obvious choice it ainât. Yet try Box Life and you too may discover its irresistible, bizarre charm. Part art-game, part joke-game (we described it as a game about âsmart miseryâ), Box Life is actually a deep, complex and satisfying puzzle game. In the gameâs main mode, players need to cut out sections of a sheet of paper and use the DS stylus to fold them into boxes. Theyâre doing this against a timer, are striving to make the boxes surround bombs before said bombs explode (it makes sense when you play). Ultimately, players can improve their in-game life, as represented by a single box-like diorama on the gameâs title screen.
A Great Match For: People who read the above paragraph without the thought âYou left Bowserâs Inside Story off for that???â popping into their heads. (Hey, thatâs a cool game, too.)
Not a Great Match For: People turned off by so-called art games.
Read our review.
Watch it in action.
Purchase From: The Nintendo eShop
Nine people are told they have nine hours to escape a terrifying facility before they are all unceremoniously murdered in 999, a game thatâs gruesome, chilling, and emotionally engaging. 999 is a visual novel, so it unfolds less like your typical high-octane video game and more like a tense, gripping horror novel, but thatâs part of the appeal. Youâll have to play through 999 at least twice to see the whole story, which is both a key part of the narrative and totally worth your time. (Donât worryâon replays, you can skip through text youâve seen before.)
A Good Match For: Anyone who likes a great story, complete with twists, turns, and lots of murder.
Not a Good Match For: People who donât like to read, or donât have the patience to sit through tons and tons of text.
Watch it in action.
Purchase from: Amazon
The debut of Rockstarâs bawdy, outlaw open-world franchise on a Nintendo system seemed like a sign of the apocalypse when it hit in 2009. But the world didnât end. In fact, it got better as the touchscreen gave Rockstar new ways to implement criminal hi-jinx like lock-picking with the DS stylus.
A Good Match for: GTA addicts. Itâs not the same thing as sitting in front of a console, but much of what fans love about GTAâthe huge world, pedestrian chatter and traffic-filled streetsâis all there in the palm of your hand.
Not a Good Match For: People who want three-dimensional, polygonal GTAâsâyou know, the famous onesâbecause this is strictly old-school, top-down.
Watch it in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop
Drawing on the cartoony style of Wind Waker, this 2009 top-down adventure sets Link on far-ranging journeys for the usual Tri-Force wrangling. In addition to its train focus, Spirit Tracks also diverges by letting you control the seriesâ titular princess, whoâs got loads more charm than olâ Pointy-Ears.
A Good Match for: Locomotive lovers. The trains in Spirit Tracks are more than just ways to get around. Theyâre also manageable resources that let you ferry stuff around and battle enemies in a brand-new way. Bringing supplies from one town to another winds up changing the whole gameworld, making it a worthy successor to any train sets you played with as a child.
Not a Good Match For: Those who want D-pad controls. Most of Spirit Tracksâ play happens via stylus and as it goes on, youâll find yourself testing the limits of your dexterity. Get ready for hand cramps!
Watch it in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
The 3D in this gameâs title has to do with the additional dimension folded into Nintendoâs puzzle-carving franchise. Youâre supposed to chip away at the non-descript grids of blocks presented to you in order to tease out shapes hiding in each. But you only get a specific number of tries to reveal the virtual figures inside each shape. If it sounds maddening, thatâs because it is. If it sounds genius, thatâs because itâs that, too.
A Good Match for: Sculptors. Artists who approach a slab of granite sometimes say that their work already exists in there and is calling to them to carve it out. Picross 3D will make you feel the same way, pulling out at some hidden intuitionâwith the help of some cluesâto see reality differently.
Not a Good Match For: Those who want a solid conceptual footing. Even though the gameâs basics are well explained, thereâs still a high level of abstraction that you have to wade through to get good at Picross 3D. You never quite know when youâre really going to âseeâ the puzzle and that might prove frustrating to some people.
Watch it in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
This portable JRPG differs from its dozens of peers by speaking to the time in which it was made. As opposed to the plucky quasi-medieval lads & lasses of similar games, the heroes and heroines of The World Ends With You could have walked right out of Akihabara and, moreover, come across just as fashion- and culture-obsessed otaku like the many gamers controlling them.
A Good Match for: Multitaskers. TWEWYâs other innovation is in its symbiotic combat system, where two party members share health while fighting enemies. Complicating things even further are the actual inputs, where main character Neku is controlled with the touchscreen and the partner character is controlled with the D-pad. You need to split your focus in a way that few other games demand.
Not a Good Match For: Those who want grown-up protagonists. The characters in this RPG channel the energy and anxiety of teenagers, complete with enemies who represent post-modern anomie. Thereâs angst and self-discovery aplenty, so go the other way if youâre not trying to revisit high school.
Watch it in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop
How has this list changed? Read back through our update history:
12-11-13 Update: With a new design of the Bests, we took the opportunity to shake up our DS list and add some new games. PokĂŠmon Black & White, Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, Contract and Super Scribblenauts clear out to make room for Art Style: Box Life, Radiant Historia, Kirby: Canvas Curse and 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors.
Want more of the best games on each system? Check out our complete directory:
The Best PC Games ⢠The Best PS4 Games ⢠The Best Xbox One Games ⢠The Best Wii U Games ⢠The Best 3DS Games ⢠The Best PS Vita Games ⢠The Best Xbox 360 Games ⢠The Best PS3 Games ⢠The Best Wii Games ⢠The Best iPhone Games ⢠The Best iPad Games ⢠The Best Android Games ⢠The Best PSP Games ⢠The Best Facebook Games ⢠The Best DS Games ⢠The Best Mac Games ⢠The Best Browser Games ⢠The Best PC Mods
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