While rumour of Nintendo discontinuing its production of the Nintendo DS has been denied, it’s a good time to look back on this beast of a handheld and how it affected gaming. It has sold a staggering 153.87 million units worldwide with total software sales reaching 933.69 million units worldwide. While many may argue that handheld gaming steals consumers and products from consoles gaming, the Nintendo DS still fed consumers what they wanted. Many games were created for the system. Here, we’re looking at the 5 best games that were released for the Nintendo DS that everyone should have played
5) Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver
Pokemon games are easily addicting to fans of the series. Collecting Pokemon to utilise in battle is always fun. Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver also featured what was called a Pokewalker accessory that helped you level up your Pokemon monsters by walking around. Yes, a game rewarded you for exercising. A great feature to accompany a portable handheld game (this wouldn’t work on consoles). The gameplay structure is still similar to other Pokemon games, but to some that’s a good thing. Don’t fix what isn’t broken.
4) Mario Kart DS
Mario Kart has been another Nintendo staple series for a number of years. This version however featured the first time online play was implemented into the series. Playing multiplayer is always fun, and local multiplayer is still there and indeed doable when even only one person has the game. The single-player aspect has loads of content too, so the overall package is very good. While the gameplay might annoy racing purists, the fun factor is there and that alone is still important.
3) Radiant Historia
We start entering game titles that have a more story-centric approach in-game. Radiant Historia is one of those games with a memorable story featuring a unique time-travel concept. Time-travel is always hard to pull off well, and this game does a great job. It’s not all about the story though, there’s still a good gameplay system here. Combat is a mix of action and strategy and flows well throughout the game. There isn’t much room for exploration, but there are some puzzles too that help break up the monotony of constant battles. The interesting story holds up through the whole game and is a major reason people should play the game.
2) Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
This is a text-driven game that features a captivating story that starts out with 9 people who are captured and placed on a ship. They are forced to partake in a deadly game if they hope to escape their imprisonment alive. The gameplay itself is reminiscent of point and click adventure games and will definitely appeal to fans of the genre and to people who like to be drawn into good storytelling. All the story is told through text without voice acting, but that’s isn’t a detriment and while that means you spend a lot of time clicking through text, the game does a decent job of making it flow at a good pace.
1) The World Ends With You
Here is another game that mixes both great storytelling and great combat. TWEWY is an RPG game for the Nintendo DS that utilises a lot of the DS’s unique features. There are still the trademark RPG mechanics in the game like a party battle system and plenty of customization, but TWEWY still manages to forge its own identity. Part of that is down to the setting of the game in Tokyo. A more realistic setting allows for gamers to feel more empathy for the characters in the game and their troubles. Overall, TWEWY is one of the best games out there, let alone on the DS. There is a big call to a sequel of some sort to the game, and when fans ask for sequels, you know you’ve done something right.
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