The DS series was the peak handheld generation for me. I like that the console’s design encouraged creative game mechanics, and it has some of my favourite games of all time. I have a DS Lite, a 3DS and a new 3DS, though I think the original DS line had the better game library compared to the 3DS. The camera and 3D effect were rather gimmicky and didn’t add much value for me.
I think the game that best encapsulates what I love about the DS is The World Ends With You, a JRPG set in modern Tokyo that used both screens at once in its action combat system - to control two different characters. The character on the bottom screen would have you use touch gestures to trigger attacks, while you needed to do button combos to control the character on the top. It was insanely fun!
Other games I liked from the early DS era are Hotel Dusk, a detective game that is played in “vertical mode” so you hold the console like a book - and Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, the original Japanese version of Elite Beat Angels, a rhythm game.
I also played all romance/otome games that were available in English for the DS, my favourite was Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side.
The DS figured out touch-based interactions well better than smartphones which are like the main touch-based “handheld” nowadays. That is because you could dedicate the entire touchscreen to gameplay input, since you still had the top screen to show relevant game information. Smartphones on the other hand need to utilize the entire screen both for input and displaying stuff, which just doesn’t work as well imo.
My first system I could call my own (not sharing with siblings) was the fat Nintendo DS. It will always be my favourite out of nostalgia.
But my primary DS is my New 3DS, does everything want and plays everything.
For me the DS is the Pokemon machine, from the mainline series to the spin offs. Such a good time to be a fan of Pokemon. Even the knockoffs were fun like Fossil fighters.
The DS was also a good rpg power house the first system I beat Chrono Trigger on.
Then there was the slog of platformers, from new Mario bros, to license of game dubious quality, nicktoons unite anyone?
The 3DS was just an overall disappointment in comparison, game selection was limited and 3rd parties just didn’t give it the time of day. Don’t get me wrong love my 2d Zelda and Metroid revivals on it, but outside of Nintendo games, it didn’t offer me anything.
How do you stand image scaling on 3DS? It’s either poststamp sized or horribly mangled by non-integer scaling on a very low res display. It’s the reason I keep DSi along NN3DS.
Early in the lifetime of the DS, before the 3ds had even been mentioned, a ton of JRPGs released for the platform seemingly in a bid to become the next earthbound or chrono trigger. Most of them were very mediocre, but to this day Contact (published by atlus) and The World Ends With You (square enix) stand out as stellar titles to me. They represent opposite ends of the jrpg spectrum; contact is a grinding game with a very floaty story, whereas TWEWY has an intricate story and a penalty-free swappable easy difficulty setting to help new players cope with the (initially) awkward combat system. Both of them are stand-out in their own ways, with memorable settings and characters supporting the mechanical depth they offer.
Both of them are games that take advantage of the DS’s unique features, not the microphone but the touchscreen. While Contact is pretty easy on the gimmicks, only requiring you to occasionally peel a sticker or something simple like that, TWEWY’s combat flow has you use buttons to control the top screen while simultaneously doing multiple touch screen gestures, making the game difficult to master on the actual DS and unbelievably hard on an emulator.
TWEWY has since had a remaster and a sequel, but contact is seldom mentioned anywhere when I see the DS talked about. Worth a look!
I was going to mention Contact being a unique game, glad I’m not the only one who remembers it fondly. The reviews upon release where not great but I thought it was a pretty good game.
It’s so hard to describe contact. It’s like a more exploratory Rune Factory with no farming sim element and swappable jobs like the final fantasy MMOs. I feel like the audience for the game wasn’t targeted well, as it fell in that era where “core gamers” stopped being a popular target audience (we hardly use the term at all these days).
I also think that the marketing failed hard. I don’t remember seeing any ads for the game, and the marketing in Japan made it seem like a bait and switch for Mother 3. It also released pretty close to the Japanese mother 3 release as well.
Maybe the best library of all time, my DS collection is massive.
The one thing that's sad though is how many classics are unlikely to ever see a rerelease. Games that were designed around the hardware just won't be the same on any other platform.
My family had about 5 of these between us by the time we started getting into lites and 3d versions. I had the original chunky boy and a 3ds. We took them on holiday and played the brain training multiplayer games. Great fun, my parents even got into them for a bit and they said off video games a long time beforehand.
I have a bit of an obsession with handheld systems. I’ve always been on the lookout for cool handhelds. Probably started with some leapfrog devices I had when I was a kid.
Some of the more interesting ones include a piboy. A raspberry pi 4 stuffed into a gameboy dmg like shell to emulate games. More recently I’ve been very into my analogue Pocket. I play a ton of stuff on that as it can accurately recreate a ton of older systems. I’m also quite interested in getting a playdate at some point, but have yet to justify it.
I also have some modded GBC and GBA systems. With USB c charging and nicer screens
PT stands on its own in the horror video game genre IMO. Too many games fail to convey one of the elements of horror well, typically overusing shock and disgust as it’s hard to achieve psychological terror when your art medium has the potential for funny things to happen (like physics objects in amnesia deciding to fling themselves all over the room when you let go because they bounced wrong). Really interrupts the flow of the scared juice. The other half of horror games give you enough tools to completely defuse the horror after an initial few encounters (death stranding) or straight up don’t try to scare you situationally, just acting as combat action games with horror themes (later resident evils).
PT remakes for PC are in a good place finally, “P.T. emulation” being a bit closer than unreal PT to the source material as a project. How konami could possibly drop a project with star power like kojima+del toro is beyond me, especially considering reception to the demo was GREAT and it was slated to release while streamers playing horror games was still in vogue. Unbelievable fumbled bag lying there
I recently got myself an Anbernic, it’s the one which looks like the GBA, see through plastic and all. It’s a surprisingly competent little console. It even comes preloaded with a shed load of retro games. I’ve been enjoying playing games from systems I missed out on growing up.
I got ab RG35XX Plus when it came out. Very nice little Game Boy style handheld. I played a bunch of GBA, GB, and Genesis games on it but it’s capable of a lot more.
The first Layers of Fear was pretty spooky, very PT inspired. The second one was decent too, but not as scary.
Outlast is the standard I hold walking sim horror games to. I can speedrun through it now since I've played it so much, but the first few times were terrifying.
Some people have mentioned Amnesia, so I'll throw in the recent iteration with Amnesia: The Bunker. It's like Alien: Isolation in a WW1 setting.
Speaking of which, Alien: Isolation is probably no. 1 for me. Between the alien, the androids, and even other people, that game is very stress inducing.
I really liked Outlast when it first released. Outlast 2 was pretty good as well. I think the tricky part is if you die or mess up too many times in horror games, the fear gets dulled.
I don’t recall layers of fear creeping me out much, but I haven’t tried the second yet. Definitely worth a shot
I find Amnesia titles don’t do it for me anymore. I think maybe I played too much and got too familiar with how the AI works. I’ve peeled back the curtain, so to speak and ruined them for myself, aha.
I really liked alien isolation when it first came out. I thought it was a very cool take on horror. The AI seemed super impressive
I immediately wanted a Playdate when I saw it. It’s a little yellow handheld with a crank designed by Teenage Engineering and made by Panic, who’s also published Firewatch, Untitled Goose Game, and a bunch more games recently.
I’ve had it for a year and still use it daily, the screen works great most places I’m waiting in line and I have a book light for the evenings.
One thing I really like about it is that it’s not an emulation device. It comes with 24 games +2 free on the Catalog and the community has made a ton (over 1000 on itch!). They’re mostly bespoke little titles that aren’t available anywhere else. The Lua and C SDKs are easy to use and encourage homebrew, I’ve got a pomodoro timer launching in the on-device storefront next week and am currently working on a little suika-like. Definitely recommend if you’ve got the spare cash!
I can see why, unfortunately it’s a little over $100 just to make the device so I can’t see it going down much. We can’t really get economies of scale for such a niche product
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