It's Critter Time!

-=The Nintendo DS=-

Nintendo's experimental dual-screen handheld from 2004. It features a clamshell design with a standard LCD on top and a resistive touchscreen below. It also has two slots for games, one for DS game cards, and the other for GBA game paks. It's more or less a direct upgrade of the GBA, with the addition of accelerated 3D graphics, Wi-Fi, a microphone, and multi-channel audio.

When Nintendo released it, they stated that it would be a "third pillar" next to the Gamecube and Game Boy; They unveiled the Game Boy Micro at the same time. However, the DS was so successful they never made another Game Boy (aside from upgrading the screen on the Game Boy SP).


Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The original DS was succeeded by the DS Lite, which had all the same capabilities in a smaller shell, with brighter screens. The GBA slot was more shallow, so GBA game packs stuck out of the shell by a couple of centimeters. It came with a dummy game pack that sat flush. There were also accessories that were offered to fit either version of the handheld - more on that later.

The DS Lite in turn was followed by the DSi, which omitted the GBA slot, and added an SD Card slot and front-and-back cameras. It also had higher resolution screens It introduced DSiWare, which were exclusive games you could download to the SD Card. It looked identical to the DS Lite at first glance. The DSi later introduced the "XL" version, a tradition which would be carried forward to Nintendo's later handhelds.

-=The Games=-

A lot of Nintendo DS games focused on the new interaction capabilities offered by the touch screen. Among the launch titles was Feel the Magic XY/XX and WarioWare: Touched!, which were microgame collections heavily driven by touch and the microphone. Some games used the touch screen for analog input (the original DS came with a lanyard that had a plastic nub you could attach around your thumb - it approximated an analog stick, though naturally it couldn't self-center). Other games provided a more traditional handheld experience and used the 2nd screen to show maps or display information. Nintendo's main franchises found a home in the DS, as well as a large number of experimental titles that kicked off new series' of their own.

-=Some Good Games for the DS=-

• Super Mario 64 DS - An enhanced port of Super Mario 64, this added a lot of new characters and levels.
• Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan - A rhythm game that heavily used the touch screen and featured Japanese pop music. It got a sequel and a western localization called Elite Beat Agents. Today there is a free game engine called osu! that lets you download and create custom levels to play on PC.
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - A legendary series of adventure games now, it got its start on the DS.
• Brain Age - A "game" for all ages that purported to help train your memory and intelligence.
• Trauma Center: Under the Knife - A fast action surgery simulator.
• New Super Mario Bros. - A 2.5D update to the Super Mario Bros. concept.
• The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - A 3D continuation of the handheld-style Zeldas that used touch input to good effect.
• Final Fantasy IV - This remake of the SNES classic featured all new 3D graphics and voice acted cutscenes.
• Pokémon Diamond/Pearl - The 4th generation Pokémon game, it brought in 2.5D graphics, the Pokétch PDA, online battles and trading through the GTS, and connectivity with Pokémon Coliseum on the Nintendo Wii. Notably, it could read save data from the GBA slot, so you could transfer Pokémon from FireRed, LeafGreen, Ruby, Sapphire etc. through the Pal Park.
• Etrian Odyssey - First of a long series of dungeon RPGs, this let you use the touchscreen to draw your own maps.
• Guitar Hero: On Tour - This came with a Slot 2 accessory that gave you a grip with buttons so you could kinda sorta play like the full size Guitar Hero games. You could order a DS Lite sized version of the accessory if you wanted.
• Animal Crossing: Wild World - This sequel to Animal Crossing introduced Wi-Fi multiplayer and online capabilities that really elevated the game.
• Pokémon SoulSilver/HeartGold - Enhanced remakes of Pokémon Silver and Gold, these brought the games forward to Gen 4. They also came with the Pokéwalker, a device that would wirelessly download one of your Pokémon so you could carry it with you like Nintendo's previous Pokémon Pikachu device.

The DS also had a large number of remakes and downgraded ports of titles from the big home consoles. The DS was a lot less powerful than the PSP, so ports and spinoffs had to make quite a lot of compromises. They tried though!

So! Post about your favorite Nintendo DS games and experiences here.

I'm not sure about pricing now but a year or two ago you could still get japanese model DSis for like, $20-40 shipped. DSis can be softmodded very easily and you can load games off of an SD card. And the DSi has clicky buttons, like the original DS, unlike the DS lite.

Because the DS sidesteps a lot of the extra steps normally needed to play old consoles like say, finding out how to display it well on a modern TV, I think it's by far and away the best deal for anyone wanting to play old games on the cheap. And of course the library is HUGE with tons of great games. I've not dug that deep into it, but here's a few other pretty popular ones.

Hotel Dusk - Tap and tap adventure mystery game, super good. A must play for anyone with a DS.
Tetris DS - I think one of the first if not the first "modern" Tetris game? Very Nintendo themed, surprisingly difficult AI if you're not a Tetris pro. Also supports "Download Play" where you can do local multiplayer with only one copy of the game.
Retro Game Challenge - The localization of the first GameCenter CX DS game, still very cute and very fun.

As an actual portable "I bring this around with me" console, being able to shut the lid to immediately pause a game is a huge plus that I feel like got completely neglected with newer "portable" consoles. You can be playing a game and if someone walks up to you and starts talking you just, shut it and put it in your pocket. No waiting to save or pause or whatever just put it away. And of course it actually fits in the average pocket.

I loved the games that toyed with the console's presentation, such as its dual-screen or the capacity for it to detect when you closed its lid so it would enter sleep mode, though it's always a bit of a spoiler to mention exactly which ones these were. I'm also a little sad that the little thumb-cover-strap-thing didn't survive many iterations of the dual-screen handhelds, even if I think I only ever really used it for Super Mario 64 DS personally.

Oh yeah, Kirby Superstar Ultra had a fun take on Download Play where you could play 2-player, but you had to share the same screen.

There's also Metroid Prime Pinball, which came with a Rumble Pak for Slot 2.

Also I have a fair bit of knowledge about hacking/programming on the DS, but I'm not sure how to organize it.

Remember Hotel Dusk that shit ruled. The DS was so cool, truly the New GBA

The DS is one of my favorite consoles. I owned an original DS and a DSi, and right now I'm playing games on a modded DSi. I've been playing Wild World daily since November, and I'm going through PMD:Blue Rescue Team, Pokemon Black 2, and Phantom Hourglass. I also finished Pokemon Platinum. I still regularly play DS games online too, it's super fun. The DS never supported WPA wifi so I never got to when it was still officially online

One thing about the DS that I like to think about is how it was really the first touch screen device in our homes. PDAs weren't ubiquitous, and the iPhone was still a few years away. Another cool thing was Flipnote on the DSi. I spent a lot of time using the comment sections as a chat on it.

DS had tons of homebrew released for it while the console was still the newest Nintendo handheld, from new games to tech demos to emulators to applications (music players, animation and drawing tools, IRC clients, organizers, etc.) and more, and it was clear people were having fun with the opportunity to play with programming for a touch screen for the first time. It was cool to have a little portable computer in my pocket that could play the newest handheld Nintendo games but also go on IRC, play videos and music, and type notes, long before smartphones were everywhere (and definitely long before I had one). I try to carry forward that "let's have fun making a cool free game that does something neat with this cool hardware" energy when I make stuff for other consoles.

I spent a lot of time in Animal Crossing: Wild World as a kid, and I kinda treated it as a virtual hangout thing with siblings. I miss DS Download Play and me and other people getting out DSs in some location and playing a thing together with one card. I wish I had Mario Party DS back then because it lets you do the full Mario Party gameplay with one cart, but there there was some DS Download Play happening with New Super Mario Bros minigames, Meteos, and Mario Kart DS.

Mausu wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2025 1:28 am The DS never supported WPA wifi

I thought some games did, like it was a software specific implementation rather than a hardware or OS limitation? Let me go look that up.

ok 30 seconds of research says that DSi stuff can support WPA and WPA2, which checks out because I recall it being one of the later pokemon games. But yeah for most people they have to set up a whole separate wifi network just for it because WEP.

I remember buying the little USB dongle for it back in the day.

Yo, I used to have that original bulky DS. One of my younger siblings fucked it up by using a screwdriver as a stylus though lol

I loved using the DS so much, it really was one of the very first consoles (for me) that actually felt like a giant leap into the future, ESPECIALLY after flashcarts came onto the scene. I used that thing as a portable emulation machine, and to browse the web, so often. It really felt like a forebearer for what smartphones eventually became.
It was truly an incredible time for portables.

It'd be funny to someday actually make some DS homebrew. It is a shame the line essentially died with the 3DS, the dual-screen one-touchscreen approach made for some insanely cool games.

I picked up a fat DS when a kid at school was looking to sell one after getting a DS Lite. I got it mostly for Pokemon Diamond/Pearl knowing I'd be able to trade and battle friends I made online so it wouldn't matter if nobody else was playing locally.

My first job out of high school was working night shift at a bakery where I'd often get extra long breaks depending on when the next batch of dough was ready and played a ton then. Pokemon, Dawn of Sorrow, Mario Kart, New Super Mario Bros. and its many mini games were staples. I had the clock set to be 12 hours off so I could play Animal Crossing at 1am effectively. I remember my LiveJournal profile had a big table of game box art and friend codes! What an awful system.

I was already a furry before Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Expolorers of Time/Darkness, but boy if I wasn't, it would have made me one. I never cried playing a game before.

Eventually got a Cyclo DS flashcart and being young not working at the best paying job, started pirating a bunch of stuff. System was even better when I had access to like 25 games on an SD card and not having to bring other carts to work. That got me through the Ace Attorney trilogy + Apollo Justice, Heart Gold/Soul Silver, Black/White. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon...

It was pretty solid for a lot of NES and GB(C) roms too! I remember at one point playing Link's Awakening at work on the 3DS and then on days off taking the SD card and putting it into a softmodded Wii and using the same save to play there. The Switch experience a decade early lmao.

With a hacked 3DS, all this stuff is just as easy to play, and I find myself playing DS games more than 3DS. I got into Picross playing the Game Boy rom and then played through all of Picross DS. Eventually decided to finally listen to all the folks telling me to "Play Ghost Trick" and did that in 2020. At the start of this year I revisited Etrian Odyssey after bouncing off it back in the day and you know what, that one is kinda weird, but I'm glad I played through it (and did not play the postgame dungeon).

I think it's just got a huge number of really impressive games compared to other systems of the era IMO. Even writing this stream of conscious post I kept having to go back and add more games I'd suddenly remembered.

Like the folks saying Hotel Dusk. I gotta replay that one because I remember really enjoying it, but at this point I remember nothing about it.

Fuck this forum can we all move onto Pictochat?

Beancatte wrote: Tue Jul 29, 2025 8:29 am Fuck this forum can we all move onto Pictochat?

We're gonna need a butt-ton of WiFi extenders.

god, the DS Castlevania and Mega Man games were my jam back in the day! I'm still waiting for a Mega Man Star Force collection so all of them would be available on modern hardware again!
I remember spending so much goddamn time on Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin in particular....

good times, good times.

I also really liked Mario & Luigi Partners in Time & Bowser's Inside Story!

NovaSquirrel wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2025 4:00 am homebrew

i still insist that one of the best games on the DS was "Warcraft 3 Tower Defense", a homebrew tower defense game that used graphics and maps from Warcraft 3. It was really, shockingly, incredibly good.

Would 3DS discussion go here too?

Cuz it's surprisingly easy to mod your 3DS-

Sure why not, a separate thread would be excessive & it’s backwards compatible.

I love my 3DS. It's the best way to play the original OutRun. The handheld's 3D effect is very good with super scaler games.

I feel like Super Mario 3D Land was really rad and it's easy to forget that. They gave Luigi a Kitsune suit

EdenCoven wrote: Mon Aug 04, 2025 10:28 pm I feel like Super Mario 3D Land was really rad and it's easy to forget that. They gave Luigi a Kitsune suit

I *loved* Mario 3D Land!
In fact, I think at the time, I actually preferred it over 3D World on the Wii U. It took me until the Switch version of 3D World to properly appreciate it. and it also helps that they generally increased the speed of every character in the Switch version. I think Switch!Peach is about as fast as Wii U!Toad? Something like that.

as for the 3DS itself, I find it pretty uncomfortable to play for extended periods of time now, tbh. But man, the games they released for it were (for the most part) *really* good. I spend *a lot* of time with Kid Icarus Uprising, Zelda A Link Between Worlds, Pokemon and Metroid: Samus Returns.

also, I got a *fuckton* of the Virtual Console games they released for it. I replayed the Gameboy Zelda games (as in, Link's Awakening and Oracle of Seasons & Ages) *a lot* on it, for instance.

Mario 3D Land is probably my 3rd favorite Mario game after SMW and 3D World. An excellent game and IMO essential if you have access to a 3DS.

I really liked Kirby: Planet Robobot and got a ton of enjoyment out of Animal Crossing: New Leaf - coming back to New Leaf after playing New Horizons really thoroughly was kind of surprising with just how good it is and how much character it has. And it was amazing to get a portable Smash game for the first time that didn't even really feel compromised (aside from losing Ice Climbers.) I managed to go to high school and college at the right time where I could actually StreetPass people very easily and experience it as intended; sometimes I do still bring my 3DS somewhere just in case (and I have gotten surprised before, but usually I get nothing.)

oh man, Kirby Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot were also *extremely* good games!
honestly, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that they might get rereleases at some point, because they're honestly some of Kirby's best games, imo

Missing out on Street Pass is what makes me the most sad about being a very late adopter. I always have the secret hope that a new Switch will have the functionality.