My top 25 DS games of all time. (Part 1/3)

I have a gut feeling that one day, in a comment or a podcast, somebody will ask me one of the most terrible questions I can be asked. What is my favorite DS game of all time? Also, to avoid that I make it myself easy, I have decided that I’m not allowed to pick two games from a series on this list. I’m allowed to put a series on one spot though. For the rest, I’ll write this list as usual. Before I start, I want to tell you guys that this is one of the hardest lists I ever put together. Also, there are a lot of DS games I haven’t played yet, so this list might not contain games you truly enjoyed. Please don’t hate or beg to me in the comments why I should play a certain game. I’ll also link when I wrote an article about a certain game in the past. That way you can read a more in depth look on the game. Since I want to avoid that this article becomes too long. As you all know, my favorite gaming system is the Nintendo DS, due to it bringing me the most memories out of all the games I have played in the past. Anyways, this has been a long enough introduction. Let’s start the countdown. Also, feel free to leave a comment with your top best DS games, your opinion on this article and or my selection. 

 #25: Lux Pain

Alright, Lux Pain. A game with a very interesting gameplay. I have beaten this game twice and I still enjoy it. The writing of this game is excellent. You play as a secret agent for a special kind of infection. This infection makes people go crazy and mad, eventually killing themselves.

That’s the plot. But the further I got in the story, the more I got attached to the characters, music, setting and the game.

I didn’t expect the gameplay. It’s hard to explain and best to experienced by yourself. It’s a visual novel with a sort of mini-game. It’s extremely challenging and some “battles” require some practice.

I honestly didn’t research this game at all before I started playing it. I found out about it on a list of visual novels on the DS and I started playing it. After two hours I was drawn into the story and it was the only game I was playing at the time.

Keep in mind though, that I played this game when my parents put me on limited computer time, so I had to find other ways to entertain myself. This game did the trick quite well.

#24: Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

Yes, that’s true. I placed a Golden Sun game at number 24. I know, you might wanted it to be higher. B-but, there are other games I enjoyed more…

Q! Come on, it’s not because you enjoyed the GBA games as much, I have to put the DS game higher on my list…

I know, it’s my list… and that’s ButtonSmashers is yours. But I don’t feel like making this an exclusive article for my personal blog.

True, Golden Sun is amazing and I enjoyed the gameplay quite a lot. But I don’t think it’s the best RPG on the system for me.

More reasons, well, ehrm… It’s the game that started my love for collecting strategy guides. Mind you, I didn’t use my strategy guide while I was playing this game.

Note: Lpgardian (aka Q) didn’t know about this. I wanted to joke around a bit, using the fact that he adores the Golden Sun games on GBA. So, yeah. Creativity ^w^ . 

#23: Mario games – Best one: Super Mario 64 DS

And now, I might piss off a lot of my readers. I place the Mario games on number 23. That includes: Mario Kart, Mario and Luigi, Mario Hoops: 3-on-3 (Which are honorable mentions by the way.)

To have “one” game each number, I decided that I pick my most favorite game out of the series. That has to be Super Mario 64 DS.

This title improved on the game quite a lot. Making it portable and adding new characters. This makes for some interesting gameplay.

And this is the reason why I put this game (series) so low on the list, is that I don’t fully enjoy platformers where the goal is, go from left to right and avoid enemies.

I still remember playing the N64 version when I was on a trip to a theme park in the neighboring country here. It wasn’t my first 3D game, but it was the first time I saw Mario in 3D. So, nostalgia caused my buying this title… And I enjoyed it. (But never beaten it.)

#22: Picross 3D

I love myself some Japanese games. But when I discovered Picross, maybe better known under the name of nonograms, I was hooked. My aunt actually bought my a puzzle book full of them, and I took it everywhere with me.

To this day, I still have that puzzle book. But I haven’t solved a lot of puzzles in it. Since I wanted to keep it as empty as possible so I could remake the puzzles over and over. The reason for that is that here in Belgium, you can’t buy many puzzle books with nanograms in them.

Anyways, when I saw this game on the DS, I doubted a bit. An amazing 2D puzzle, going 3D? That must bring with it a lot of problems!

But I was proven wrong. This game is really challenging and proves why these puzzles are my favorite puzzles ever created. This game even appears on various overlooked DS games lists, so yeah.

#21: Puzzler World series

The Puzzler World series is everything a puzzle game collection needs to be. Portable, enjoyable and fun. And best of all, you can choose which puzzle you want to play and when.

I have seen people calling this game shovelware, but I respectfully disagree. Since this game is well made and produced with a lot of love.

The fact that you have to beat additional puzzles to win hint coins is a nice concept. This makes the hint coins pretty valuable. The early puzzles are pretty easy, but the later puzzles get really crazy and require your puzzle solving skills, to the max.

Before the smart guy or girl comments what my favorite game is of the series, I can’t tell. Since they are all pretty similar. Only the puzzle selection is different.

#20: Nintendogs

Relax please. The cats are added in the 3DS version. For the people who didn’t catch my little joke, my nickname NekoJonez has the Japanese word for cat in it. And since this game is about dogs.

I’m a bit cat fan, but I always dreamed of having a dog and a cat. Sadly enough, due to family allergies and such, we can’t keep a dog. Also, my house isn’t really fitted for having a dog.

So, the best solution was a virtual dog. I still remember how I got my DS before my sister. She was pretty jealous. She wanted to play this game the most. At that moment, I decided to take some of my pocket money and buy it together with her.

This game holds a ton of memories for me. When I first made YouTube video’s, this game was one of the stars of my “show”. I made videos showing off hidden tricks, glitches and my skills with the game. And yes, my English was even more broken then it currently is.

So, I think it’s only fair to put it on my list. But there are games that I ended more then Nintendogs, so let’s take a look at number 19.

End of part 1.

19 – 10 / 9 – 1

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Gaming Nostalgia #4: (3)DS month

Looking to my blog, you might have realized that I review in general handheld games. So, logically, Q didn’t realize that this month was a special month for my blog. I focused only on DS and 3DS games. I wished I could have written more articles about it. Sadly enough, I was able to predict that this month was going to be busy. In general, the amount of articles I write in one month dropped. But hey! Quality over quantity, am I right? Anyways, maybe next month I might write about games that aren’t on handhelds. That will be hard for me for sure. In the future, you might be sure that I’m going to release around 7-10 articles a month. When I do have the time though. I think the best idea is that you follow my twitter. Since I talk about my updates a lot there. Okay, that has been a quick blog update. Now that, that is out of the way, let’s write a new article in the game nostalgia series. A series I wanted to write a new entry for quite a while. I said multiple times on my scheduling Tumblr updates that I was going to write a new one. So, because this month is the special DS and 3DS month, let me tell you a story. A story about how I got the handhelds. Also, feel free to leave me a comment with your thoughts on this article. 

My first DS.

Me and my family were on a trip. It happened on that trip where I was a leader for the first time, remember that story? On that trip, a boy had a black Nintendo DS Lite with him. The game he had on it, was Pokémon Diamond. When I asked kindly if I would be allowed to play on it, he agreed. In exchange, I had to give my GBA to him, because he never played Pokémon Ruby.

It wasn’t until I saw a commercial on TV about the Legend Of Zelda – Phantom Hourglass, I wanted a Nintendo DS. This very commercial. Keep in mind that it’s a Dutch video. So, you won’t be able to understand anything if you aren’t English. The other commercials, I wasn’t able to find. It showed Link following the stylus on a white background.

Then I begged my parents to get me a Nintendo DS. It was around December of 2007. I still remember it quite well, how we went to the game store to buy me one. But, I wasn’t allowed to play on it until New Year’s Eve. A day or two before I was going to get it, I was at my aunt. She was charging it in advance so I could play on it. But I wasn’t allowed it touch it. Not even the box where it was in.

My family surprised me that day. They knew that I was a big Legend Of Zelda fan. When they went to a garage sale with me on our yearly trips to the sea side, I always said to them that they needed to look out for any stuff from the Legend Of Zelda. That day, I got two presents. I was quite confused, what could that second present be? Well, it was the Phantom Hourglass game. Yes, my family bought me Phantom Hourglass on the DS. I was so happy. My first game, a Zelda game. It couldn’t start any better.

On that moment, I was allowed to play on my DS. Apart from eating dinner with my family, I put myself in my grandfather’s office and played the whole night. I even missed the countdown to the new year. 2008 started with something I will never forget. Until this day, the Nintendo DS is the best handheld in my eyes. Without a single doubt in my mind.

Blast From The Past: The Legend Of Zelda – Phantom Hourglass

Official site

I haven’t done this the two previous articles, but this part of the game nostalgia series will be a nice separation for the next part of the story. So, in “blast from the past” I take a look at one of the games that means a lot to me. A game that has a personal story behind it, more then “I simply bought it in a game store.”

You should have seen this one coming from paragraphs away. Get it? Since I mentioned it a few ones ago? Oh, it’s not funny? Ehrm, sorry. I guess.

Anyways, joking aside, this game was the game that gave me the feeling that my family accepted my gaming hobby and my love for the Legend of Zelda. It’s a shame that I haven’t reviewed this game or talked about it. In my review of the follow up, Spirit Tracks, I asked the question which my favorite game of the two would be.

After some careful thought, I think my answer is going to change a little bit. In terms of nostalgia, my favorite game is Phantom Hourglass. But the better game is Spirit Tracks. Since the improvements over Phantom Hourglass makes it a better game.

But this game is on my list to review for such a long time, I might just start writing a review after I finished all the articles I have planned for this month! So, keep an eye out for that.

Getting my 3DS.

I can’t believe that the 3DS is 3 years old this year. The time flies even faster then I thought before. For me, the 3DS has still that “new” feeling. It isn’t old and mostly of all, my library and knowledge isn’t that big about the system.

When I look at the shelf of 3DS games, I think I own around 25 games for it. It’s actually not that strange. Since I got the 3DS, I started to expand my library of other systems as well. So, I’m not focused only on the 3DS.

Anyways, I’m missing the point of this article here. I wanted to talk about the time before I got my 3DS. Since that has a story as well. Back in 2009 – 2010, I saw a trailer of a man holding what looked to be a DSi in front of her. She showed it from side to side. On the screen, there was a 3D game playing. I looked around for this trailer like a mad man, but I wasn’t able to find it. Until now, I found this video back!  Thanks to me looking it up on another search engine.

I was extremely hyped. Since I first thought it was going to be a game. It looked so interesting! But I was afraid that it was going to be a Japanese exclusive. Remember, at that time the video leaked, there wasn’t anything known about the 3DS in my country. And since I only read Dutch news sources, I didn’t know about the 3DS until a year after.

Then the 3DS was announced. I was so jealous of all the journalists that were at E3 of that year. They could have their hands on the system before I was able to get my hands on it. While people started to say that the system had a bad line up for release games, I didn’t care that much actually. It was a new portable system by Nintendo and me being such a big Nintendo handheld fan, I had to get it.

So, I pre-ordered it. The system was going to be 250€. Quite expensive. It’s the most expensive thing I bought in my whole gaming life. When I saw Nintendo was having events at certain cities to be able to play on the device, I was planning to go to them. But in the end, I didn’t went to it. The simple reason is time. I didn’t had the time to go to one.

A few days before the system was released, I was at school. At the afternoon break, we were able to leave the school and go eating in the town. So, I went down to the town with my friends and we ate. When I looked at my mobile phone, I saw I got a text message. My local game store said: “Your pre-order of the Nintendo 3DS Cosmo Black is ready to be picked up at the store.” My mind was blown. I was going to be able to play the system a few days prior to it’s official release?

I called the store, asking when they close the store. After school, I even sprinted to the bus station so I would arrive earlier at the station to take an earlier train. My hype was growing even bigger. When I was home, I emptied my bad, took the money I saved up and jumped on my bike. I think I never rode faster on my bike. I was hyped.

When I arrived at the store, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The system was actually there. They gave me the box, I payed the money. I still remember giving it cash. Because I saved up all that money from jobs I had to do for my family.

I put the box in my bag and I walked out of the store. When I arrived home, I started playing on my 3DS. I still remember opening it in the living room and showing my mom.

I did forget one detail though, I didn’t had any 3DS games. Whoops, totally forgot about that. The same aunt who charged my DS for the first time, was actually so kind to me that when her daughter was going to get a new game, she picked me up and drove with me to another game store. At that game store, I was allowed to pick up my first 3DS game. Because there wasn’t any Zelda game released on the system, I bought myself Nintendogs + Cats.

I could have bought a ton of other games then, but I made up my mind. I wanted this game. Soon after, I bought the remake of the Legend Of Zelda – Ocarina Of Time. But why did I bought Nintendogs + Cats? Well, because there were cats in the game AND the Nintendogs series has a special place in my hart. Why is that? Well, you will have to wait until the finale of special month. I will talk about it in that article!

Closing thoughts

So, that has been a new article in the gaming nostalgia series. In this article I talked about how I got my two most favorite handhelds ever. I still both have my silver DS and my cosmo black 3DS. I play on them nearly every day. Sadly enough, my microphone of my DS recently stopped working. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but I’m talking to my friends over at Gamers’Hive to look for solutions.

Thanks for reading this article, hopefully you enjoyed reading it. What are your stories? Do you have any special story before you bought a certain console? Let me know, with a comment maybe?

Anyways, I think I’m going to end this article here. Until another time on my blog! Thanks for reading.