The Nintendo DS- best handheld ever!

[acatfrommars]

In my opinion, the Nintendo DS is by far the best handheld that has ever been created, and has sold the most units by far! Nintendo hasn't fallen under yet because of the Nintendo Ds and 3DS' success. The key to their success is that they can appeal to both younger and older gamers. This doesn't happen as much anymore but back in the day Nintendo was shooting out games left and right for the Nintendo DS. Not only were a lot of the games good, but there were great games meant for younger audiences (Carnival Games) and there were games meant for older gamers (GT Chinatown Wars, Brain Age) as well!

I believe that the variability of games is what made the Nintendo DS a success. But like the Nintendo Wii, this new innovation started to change gaming. The Nintendo DS was the first major gaming handheld to introduce a touchscreen. This added a new way to play games, no longer were smashing buttons the only option to be good at a game. I felt like Rhythm gaming thrived more on the Nintendo DS because of the touchscreen's ability. Plus, there was pictochat. At the time, 2008 (when I first got a DS), I remember that I was in like 5th. grade and texting wasn't a big thing. So when we went on trips we would always use pictochat to have like a group message and talk to each other. It was literally the coolest thing ever for us; rip pictochat.

So who else loved the Nintendo DS as much as I did. Anyone still play theirs? I do on occasion when I'm home; I'll pop in HeartGold or play Pokemon Rangers or Elite Beat Agents on it when I'm bored. What are some of your favorite games on the handheld?

 

[machomuu]

The World Ends With You is one of my favorite games, Inazuma Eleven 2 is my favorite game from one of my favorite series, and the Ouendan games (EBA included) are some of my favorite Rhythm games. I've got a lot of favorites on the DS.

Say what you will about the DS, but it had one hell of a library. There was just no shortage on solid titles, even among the shovelware (which, at the time, was a major complaint toward the system).

 

[acatfrommars]

The World Ends With You is one of my favorite games, Inazuma Eleven 2 is my favorite game from one of my favorite series, and the Ouendan games (EBA included) are some of my favorite Rhythm games. I've got a lot of favorites on the DS.

Say what you will about the DS, but it had one hell of a library. There was just no shortage on solid titles, even among the shovelware (which, at the time, was a major complaint toward the system).

Been waiting for a sequel (or at least a freakin 3DS remake at this point) since '08. :'(

 

[Satoshi Ookami]

Nice thread name, but PS Vita is written differently :P

 

[Shhwonk]

I have a special love for the DS for sure. It has an amazing catalog of games from all genres and which appeal to gamers of all ages, especially so many great puzzle games and RPGs. It had some of the most memorable Pokémon moments, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest entries, etc.... Just look at this list. All classics. And, looking at the hardware, it really was revolutionary with its touch screen. I wanna say that it influenced the smartphone, but I've got no sauce on that.
The DSi also sort of sparked my dream of music producing and writing with the sound app (whatever it was called). Really crude and limited in that aspect, but as a kid, that thing let me record and dub over it anywhere I wanted.

Nice thread name, but PS Vita is written differently :P

You think? I don't have one, but you think it's that good?

 

[Satoshi Ookami]

You think? I don't have one, but you think it's that good?

Yup =D But obviously most people wouldn't agree, I guess =D

 

[pkmin3033]

I'm inclined to agree with Satoshi - the Vita is by far the superior handheld now, at least for me, and the PSP was much better than the DS as well.

It caters far more to me as a gamer than the DS or 3DS ever have and probably ever will: it gets far more support from the developers I gravitate towards, it's not region locked - which is something I despise about the 3DS - and it has a significantly more impressive and expansive gaming library. That alone puts it ahead of Nintendo's machines by leaps and bounds: have you seen the state of the Nintendo eShop?! It's horrifying just how many crappy second-rate titles get put on it, it's like a miniature version of the Steam store without the gems hidden amongst all the rubbish. The Vita has access to PSP titles and PS1 classics, it's a budding platform for indie developers, and the quality of the titles on it, on the whole, outweighs the negatives. Sure, you get plenty of crap on it too, the PS+ games are usually awful, and Sony aren't even supporting it, but so many other developers are picking up the slack that it doesn't even matter.

Outside of the Nintendo-developed titles, neither the DS nor 3DS have much going for them, either...at least, nothing you won't find on the Vita, in far greater numbers and of better quality. The DS and 3DS have Fire Emblem? So what, the Vita has Disgaea. The DS/3DS have Etrian Odyssey? The Vita has Demon Gaze, Operation Abyss, etc. The 3DS has Monster Hunter? The Vita has Toukiden, Soul Sacrifice Delta, etc. Sure, the DS and 3DS have a lot of good titles...but the Vita ones are better and far greater in number.

Nintendo has always set itself apart by its exclusives, and those exclusives are coming further and further apart these days and they're of waning quality: for every A Link Between Worlds, there is a Triforce Heroes to drag down and disappoint. They're filling in the gaps with crappy free-to-wait titles, or just not bothering at all and going for months without a proper release, whilst the Vita titles are coming in droves from a variety of sources. Nintendo are practically carrying the 3DS by themselves, just as they did with the DS, and there are these godawful periods where there is just nothing to play on it. Last year I barely touched my 3DS, save for a couple of months. I had a new Vita game nearly every month by contrast. Nintendo's major exclusives are still of a ridiculously high standard, but one or two great titles doesn't outweigh the sheer volume of great games on the Vita.

I suppose it all comes down to personal preference; I am very much a JRPG gamer and the Vita is pretty much the home for that genre. I'm not saying the DS/3DS are bad handhelds, by any means. But the greatest? Far, far from it.

 

[Shhwonk]

Yup =D But obviously most people wouldn't agree, I guess =D

What's so good about it? XD I'm honestly curious what you have to think. I've been considering grabbing one.

 

[Starry Windy]

Nintendo DS is one of my favorite handhelds ever, and I have a handful of games that I played. Name Pokémon Platinum, HGSS, Pokémon Ranger series, Black and White and their sequels, PMD Explorers of Sky, Digimon World DS and Dawn/Dusk variant, Megaman Star Force series, and also Kirby Squeak Squad and Kirby Super Star Ultra.

On top of that, I like several imported games as well, like Puyo Pop series (most of these have to be imported, though), All Kamen Rider: Rider Generation series, and last but not least, KORG M01 (the music maker which later gets ported and released overseas in 3DS).

If there is one thing why Nintendo DS is so successful, it's because there are tons of games so that you will not bored every time you play one, and also because you can play imported games in it as well (please note that playing imported games is probably not possible on DSi variants, though). Having the dual screen and touch screen gimmick helps as well.

 

[Satoshi Ookami]

What's so good about it? XD I'm honestly curious what you have to think. I've been considering grabbing one.

Meloetta's post is pretty much everything you need to know =D
For tl;dr version: It's undoubtedly the best JRPG/J-games machine there is. Which is on one hand HUGE advantage, but unfortunately also a big disadvantage and something that puts off many people. It is... literally ONLY J-games machine =D Apart from Japanese games there is almost nothing apart from indies =D

 

[Spinosaurus]

Outside of the Nintendo-developed titles, neither the DS nor 3DS have much going for them, either...at least, nothing you won't find on the Vita, in far greater numbers and of better quality. The DS and 3DS have Fire Emblem? So what, the Vita has Disgaea. The DS/3DS have Etrian Odyssey? The Vita has Demon Gaze, Operation Abyss, etc. The 3DS has Monster Hunter? The Vita has Toukiden, Soul Sacrifice Delta, etc. Sure, the DS and 3DS have a lot of good titles...but the Vita ones are better and far greater in number.

Nintendo has always set itself apart by its exclusives, and those exclusives are coming further and further apart these days and they're of waning quality: for every A Link Between Worlds, there is a Triforce Heroes to drag down and disappoint. They're filling in the gaps with crappy free-to-wait titles, or just not bothering at all and going for months without a proper release, whilst the Vita titles are coming in droves from a variety of sources. Nintendo are practically carrying the 3DS by themselves, just as they did with the DS, and there are these godawful periods where there is just nothing to play on it. Last year I barely touched my 3DS, save for a couple of months. I had a new Vita game nearly every month by contrast. Nintendo's major exclusives are still of a ridiculously high standard, but one or two great titles doesn't outweigh the sheer volume of great games on the Vita.

What are you on about? The DS is constantly being criticized for having a weak output of first party games. You know what carries the DS's libraries? Third parties. So I have no idea where you're getting this. You're right about the 3DS but you couldn't be further off with the DS.

https://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=222049
Loads of amazing DS games here.

The Vita is an amazing novelty system, but its library isn't so hot. You'll be hard pressed finding anything that isn't niche. And even its best games are getting ported to the PS4 or are already available elsewhere - Persona 4, Tearaway, Gravity Rush, Danganronpa, etc. I play more PS1 or PSP games on it than I do Vita games.

 

[machomuu]

You know what, I had a spiel about the Vita, but **** it, I'm machomuu. Just gonna drop a text wall. Don't feel like tl;dring so I won't, but there's something in the vein of one at the bottom. Kinda. To spare everyone's eyes from a burning, horrible death, gonna plop this in a spoiler.

Spoiler:

Vita's pretty good. Shitty support from Sony and those goddamn proprietary storage cards make it a hassle, plus it's not much for variety, but it's a pretty good companion system and has solid ports for some already pretty solid games. Do I think it's the best handheld? No way, and it's such squandered potential on Sony's part. 's not dead, though, and for someone like me the games that are coming out for it and a good deal of them that are out are pretty attractive (though I've since taken to getting games available for PS4 and Vita on the PS4 since for performance and graphical reasons, despite how cozy it can be to lounge with a handheld, and there's quite the sum of these titles- more with this growing Vita to PC trend, which I'm all for). Really, I'd say that there's no reason it shouldn't be better than the PSP considering what it's capable of, but PSP games are what I play on it most, and all of the games I play are, incidentally, Japanese. Grand Knights Historia, Gundam Vs., Tag Force Special, Birth by Sleep, P3P, Type-0, and so on. Games that, in terms of genre, are present on the Vita, but sparsely so (well, not card games, save for Monpiece) or as ports of the PSP games, themselves (usually their first time in English).

And I don't think the PSP is the best handheld console, either. The DS definitely had the bigger library and shared even fewer games with the PSP than the Vita did with the 3DS or any other console, for that matter.

But yeah, I certainly wouldn't call the Vita the best handheld even as someone for whom the games are targeted. It boasts cool features but really doesn't ma-Sony doesn't make the most of them, and they market it like trash. Doesn't help that a lot of its games get ported or cross-released (even on other Sony systems) and it becomes the afterthought. And of course, the third-party's where it shines. The third-party's where the PSP shined, too. And the DS. 3DS' a mixed case, and I'll disagree about this whole idea that the Vita has better games in far greater number as far as third-party goes because if you raise me a Danganronpa, I'll raise you an Ace Attorney and a Professor Layton. If you raise me a Freedom Wars, I'll raise you a Monster Hunter and a Gaist Crusher.

You raise me a Dungeon Travelers 2, I'll ask you where you draw the line on quality titles. Same for Criminal Girls, Mind Zero, and Operation Abyss. Or Lost Dimension. Or Demon Gaze. Sure, I could just throw back Etrian Odyssey or Shin Megami Tensei, but I could also recommend Chronus Arc for $10 or Demon King Box for...what, $3ish? Sakura Samurai, sure. Weapon Shop de Omasse was pretty fun. Crimson Shroud oozed quality. Heck, even Steamworld Heist is looking pretty neat. I'm not saying those are bad games, they could be great. but they don't really strike me as quality titles that showcase the Vita's nature as for a different crowd. Heck, if it weren't for the resolution, I wouldn't be shocked if someone just And by some miracle of a stretch, the 3DS has managed to rival the Vita in terms of waifu games. How even.

I would say that there are larger concentrations of certain types of games and that the experience on the Vita that tries to emulate console-level gameplay are wholly different from those on the 3DS, or even the DS, but I don't think that they're console-like makes them better quality. Well, the textures can be, and the resolution is, but I don't think the Vita inherently lends itself to higher quality titles. And while I won't say where I think it stands in comparison to the 3DS and DS, I don't think it's particularly as strong as the PSP in terms of attractiveness, certainly as far as its library went. The PSP sported many of the same titles and more for the exact same crowds as the Vita (and, hell, it even supported more audiences).

Oh hey, that was a spiel. Whoooooooops. Ah, well. I'm passionate 'cause I care. I do like my Vita after all.

Normally I'd say something like "boy, isn't this DS conversation riveting", but I knew something like this would happen from the moment I read the thread's tagline.

 

[Rune]

Meloetta's post is pretty much everything you need to know =D
For tl;dr version: It's undoubtedly the best JRPG/J-games machine there is. Which is on one hand HUGE advantage, but unfortunately also a big disadvantage and something that puts off many people. It is... literally ONLY J-games machine =D Apart from Japanese games there is almost nothing apart from indies =D

Steam is quickly becoming more and more of a J-games giant. As much as I like the PS Vita, I find more and more previously Vita J-games exclusives being released on steam that now I'm very wary of buying those games on Vita.

That doesn't take away from the Vita much though, because to me, it's still a Project Diva machine and that and PSOne and PSP classics makes it the 'PlayStation Portable' that I had always wanted since childhood. Also, the Vita shares a lot of J-games with the PS4 and just by the virtue that most of them aren't any better (even graphics wise) on the PS4 and that PS TV exists, the Vita comes off as the more superior console to me because the games are portable! I don't know the last time when my PS4 was plugged in because I play most of the games they have on its older brother or PC.

 

[Satoshi Ookami]

Steam is quickly becoming more and more of a J-games giant. As much as I like the PS Vita, I find more and more previously Vita J-games exclusives being released on steam that now I'm very wary of buying those games on Vita.

While it definitely gains many ports in recent years, it's still incomparable to Vita's library =)
I should specify I mean both localized and non-localized one, though.