I'm getting a Nintendo DS. What games should I get?

[BurningDoom]

-Castlevania: Order of Ecclessia, Dawn of Sorrow, and Portrait of Ruin - 3 great Castlevania games with Metroidvania gameplay, fantastic music, and gothic settings that most of us have grown to love!

-Chrono Trigger - The timeless RPG classic, portable.

-Contra 4 - Classic 2D Contra run-n-gun gameplay with crisp modern graphics in an all-new game!

-Elements of Destruction - Not some great epic, but rather a great game for short bursts of gameplay. And it's a bargain bin game. I think I paid $3.99 for it at GameStop, and that was a couple years ago when DS was still somewhat current. Basically you control natural disasters and you have various destructive goals on an unsuspecting city. As the game goes on, the goals get harder or time limits shorter; and the towns start to build defenses against you. It's just fun to destroy some stuff for a few minutes.

-The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - A great Zelda adventure with all the Nintendo polish and shine that you'd expect. And another game that manages to really make great use of the touch controls.

-Mega Man Zero Collection - A collection of all the GBA Mega Man Zero games. Great 2D action-platformers, but also tough-as-nails. Not for the easily discouraged, but great for die-hard fans.

-New Super Mario Bros. - The best Mario game since Super Mario World, IMO. The return of the classic 2D Mario platforming that made him a superstar with great new graphics and some new power-ups and other tricks.

-Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword - Fantastic action game that actually makes great use of the touch controls, no joke.

-Resident Evil: Deadly Silence - Resident Evil, the original game, portable. If you like the game, and want a portable version, then get it. If that's not what you're looking for, then pass.

-Sonic Rush & Rush Adventure - Great 2D Sonic the Hedgehog gameplay. Still not as good as the the Genesis classics or Sonic Advance, IMO. But definetly worth checking out if you're a fan of Sonic games.

-Super Scribblenauts - If you have an active imagination, you'll fall in love with this game. You can create objects, people, tools, and creatures in the game just by thinking of words and descriptions. You can spend hours just on the title screen, which is basically an aimless toybox creator. Or go for specific missions in the "levels".

[prfsnl_gmr]

There are some great suggestions here, but I am ashamed that no one has mentioned:

Elite Beat Agents.

It is great.

[Cronozilla]

Elite Beat Agents is a blast!

How about some Glory Days 2.


The Phoenix Wright games are fantastic. Miles Edgeworth Investigations, just dropped in price back to the $20 mark ... it was floating around $50-$60 new for quite awhile.


Ghost Trick is great.


Retro Game Challenge.

[Sarge]

From some previous suggestions:

Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled is a good game, but the first ten hours are pretty terribly paced. Give it some time. Balance is seriously messed up, it goes from insanely difficult to cakewalk by the end.

Any of the Castlevania games are worth your time.

I like Contra 4 more than I do Contra III. Just don't expect anything resembling easy. It's a tough, tough game, and I find it harder overall than Contra III on normal difficulty.

All of the Dragon Quest remakes are really good. Everyone gravitates towards DQV as the best, but the other two are nothing to sneeze at, and DQVI has a huge amount of content. I have mixed feelings on DQIX, it's good, but I just didn't like it as much as the much more focused remakes. I suspect it's the addition of MMO-style elements that turned me off somewhat. It's still good, though!

I didn't enjoy Golden Sun: Dark Dawn as much as the previous two, but by no means is it bad.

Great Giana Sisters is one of those games that just really surprised me. A nice, fun platformer that somehow addicted me the whole way.

Kirby: Canvas Curse may take the cake for creative, off-beat Kirby games. An early DS title, but still a wonderful one. The platformers on the system are good, too, but probably not as good as this. Also take a look at Kirby: Mass Attack!

Lunar Knights lost the solar sensor, for better or for worse. I enjoyed it a lot, nonetheless.

Once you get past the clear graphical downgrade, Okamiden may actually be better than its predecessor in a few areas. Definitely a great game.

Radiant Historia proves a thoughtful, mature RPG that recreates some of the best of the 16-bit era. I don't think I put it up with the tip-top of that era (Chrono Trigger, FFVI, Lufia II), but it's darn close.

Retro Game Challenge is awesome. Play it. Play it now. Some games are duds, in my mind, but the whole package is impressive. The "Guadia Quest" RPG is excellent, and "Haggleman 3" reminds me of TMNT III for Game Boy.

Sands of Destruction seems to get overlooked. It feels like a game dropped out of the PSX era. The balance is all sorts of wonky, it's pretty easy the whole way through with the right linking skills, but for some reason, it still held appeal for me.

Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals was an action-RPG remake of Lufia II. If you're willing to accept this, and a few technical foibles, you could do much worse for action-RPGs on the system. I bought it full price and didn't regret it.

The Final Fantasy remakes are a lot of fun. FFIII was one of my favorite Famicom games, and the DS version pretty much captures all of the original magic. FFIV is slightly more divisive, as the pacing is slower than the original game, and it's a bit harder, to boot. For my money, however, it's such a polished product that I can't hold anything against it.

If no one has mentioned Bowser's Inside Story... then I'm mentioning it. Absolutely phenomenal. Can't miss. Cream of the crop. I think it handily beats all the other Mario & Luigi games, not that those are slouches. So don't be afraid to try Partners in Time.

Also, anyone mention Zelda? If not, they're a little divisive, partly from the purely touch-driven controls and partly from design decisions (timed stealth dungeons in Phantom Hourglass, a literally on-rails overworld in Spirit Tracks), but they're still excellent games.

I hear Soma Bringer is excellent, and there's a translation patch out there for it.

I think I'll stop there...

[brainerdrainer]

awesome thanks for the input you guys!

[GSZX1337]

-Sonic Rush & Rush Adventure - Great 2D Sonic the Hedgehog gameplay. Still not as good as the the Genesis classics or Sonic Advance, IMO. But definetly worth checking out if you're a fan of Sonic games.

Just thought I'd mention that Sonic Colors for the DS is basically Sonic Rush 3. So if you're going to try those two games, definitely look into Sonic Colors.

[brainerdrainer]

Ketsui: Death Label looks so sickkkk! I must get it!

[GirlGamer55]

No one's brought up Super Mario 64 DS? I mean I know it's a port but hey it's pretty good...

Also I happened to pick this one up randomly in a yard sale: Broken sword shadow of the templars director's cut

So far it's pretty good if you like point and click mystery's.

I'm trying to find some good games myself after everyone on here basicly told me that the DS isn't just for kids. But it's hard when it was marketed at children. All I find are crappy kid games. I mean today I lucked out and found Mario Kart DS for like...3 bucks (no case), but that was really just pure luck.