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[SirUltimos]

10 years, huh? Time sure does fly. The DS is easily my favourite gaming system ever. One hell of a library that just kept delivering the hits, both popular and obscure, and managed to keep it up for years.

 

[Taco_Human]

I still have my box with the copy of Metroid prime Hunters First Hunt. I wonder if any collectors are into boxes like that?

 

[Colonel Mustard]

Does anyone still have their mannequin hand sent out by Club Nintendo?

Such a weird advertising initiative.

 

[Rhomega Beta]

My all-time favorite system. Bought it in 2005 with Super Mario 64 DS and Polarium. Collection includes:

-All 5 Ace Attorney games
-All 3 Castlevania games
-Chrono Trigger
-Clubhouse Games
-Dragon Quest V and IX
-Elite Beat Agents
-Final Fantasy IV
-Guitar Hero: On Tour+Decades
-Kirby Super Star Ultra
-Both Zelda games
-Magnetica
-Mario Kart DS
-Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team DS, both ZXs, and all 3 Star Force games
-Metroid Prime Pinball
-Nervous Brickdown
-New Super Mario Bros.
-Nostalgia
-Both Ouendan games
-Planet Puzzle League
-Pokemon Diamond, SoulSilver, and Black 2
-Space Invaders Extreme
-Super Princess Peach
-WarioWare Touched!

I've played other games I've sold but enjoyed like Hotel Dusk: Room 215, Tetris DS, and Animal Crossing: Wild World.

 

[Chopper]

The DSi XL is singlehandedly the most incredible piece of handheld hardware in the history of the world. The bar has been set, and these new 3DSs will have a hard time standing up to it. Bring it on.

 

[themagicalkitsune]

Congrats you POS that broke on the hinges 3 months after I got it!

I am now going through the DS library on the 3DS so all is good.

I still miss pictochat however.

Oh my god pictochat.

Funny story; there used to be a kid in my class that changed his DS username to gibberish because, according to him, he spent an entire afternoon sending vulgar drawings and words via pictochat and he was afraid they'd find him.

Of course he didn't know how to connect so he sent all his shit to himself and probably never realized that.

 

[TheLastCandle]

Such a wonderful device, and one that pissed in the face of all of it's doubters.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Still has one of the most amazing game libraries of all time. The amount of quality games is staggering. Quantity = quality for this little machine.

I remember not being TOO impressed with it when it first came out, although 64 DS was amazing. It really snowballed into something impressive over the next few years, and by the time it was done, it had cemented itself as one of the best systems of all time. I still think it had the overall best library of that generation.

 

[Caramello]

Original DS was an okay system.

DS Lite serious contender for GOAT handheld. What a machine.

New 3DS XL definitely beats it, it's the best handheld Nintendo have produced.

I still have my launch DS, I love that system so much. I don't see ugliness when I look at it, only the massive amount of fun it provided me.

 

[Wreck-It Ralph]

Honestly, I'm pretty much the opposite of many people in this thread. I was really hyped for it, but I wound up being pretty disappointed in its library by the end.

The only games that stand out for me are:

- Metroid Prime Hunters
- Castlevania DoS and PoR (didn't like OoE)
- Spider-Man Web of Shadows and Shattered Dimensions
- Henry Hatsworth (though I never beat it because of how frustratingly difficult it got later on)
- Elite Beat Agents

And while I liked these games, I didn't LOVE any of them. None of these handful of games I enjoyed are anywhere near my top 10, or even top 20 games.

 

[cantona222]

2004 was one of the best years for gaming in general. The DS was a great little machine but I'm glad the DSi came out as the OG one was awful looking to be honest.

I think you meant the DS lite.
DS to DSL Huge improvement
DSL to DSi was not that huge of a jump.

 

[Rhomega Beta]

Anyone?

I owe quite a bit to Decades, considering it helped me discover Journey, my second favorite band, as well as other songs.

 

[Fularu]

Was there day 1

Got Mario 64 DS, Feel the Magic XX/XY and Ridge Racer DS

It was oh so amazing.

I still have my :

- Phat DS
- DS Lite
- DSi XL

And over 150 games for it!

 

[daydream]

Anyone?

Really fun but my hand couldn't take longer sessions of it.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

I rode an OG DS phat til the hinge busted clean off about 4 years ago, then I got myself used blck onyx DS lite on the cheap. Having owned a GB pocket, GBC, and a GBA before, I put more hours into DS games than I think in all my other portables combined. Such a breadth and depth of library not seen since the SNES days. And even better when you got the homebrew emulation scene going on it. I could fit the entire history of nintendo's handheld output on a micro SD card and play it all flawlessly on the sleekest system they've ever designed. What a machine.

I remember the first time I saw SM64DS. 3D graphics on a handheld was mindblowing.

 

[maxcriden]

Really fun but my hand couldn't take longer sessions of it.

Same here. It cramped something fierce. And people saw Kid Icarus is rough to play! Whew. This was much more painful. Fun, and creative, though!

 

[Angry Guy]

Best handheld ever.

Well, it's at least fistfighting the GBA for the crown.

DS was like a second coming of the SNES golden era of JRPGs. So much fantastic material.

 

[LeleSocho]

What a great great console it is... I think it actually be my favorite of all time.
DS Phat ergonomics + DSi aesthetics = Best handheld console ever.

It feels like the SNES' son.

 

[Tokklyym]

The DS Lite was the best hardware revision ever and the DSi was a step backwards losing the GBA Slot.

I might have played more Nintendo DS than anything else in the last ten years.

 

[HardRojo]

Didn't like the OG DS as much. I had a DS lite and got a DSi when Pokémon HG/SS came out.
The DS family had great titles, I'd even go as far as saying they had the best portable catalogue.

Anyone?

Played the heck out of On Tour, Decades and Modern Hits.

 

[Eddie Bax]

Still rocking my OG phat that I picked up launch week...

...as an alarm clock. Never have to worry about the power going out (a common problem around here, thanks Pepco) and only need to rejuice it once every month or so.

 

[Magwik]

I'm really finding it hard to believe it was that long ago, but it is. I was 8 years old when it came out. Never really seemed like it either.

 

[whitehawk]

Still have my OG DS. Only one I ever owned.

I got it launch day with Super Mario 64DS. It blew my mind to be playing a 3D game like that portably. There were no smartphones so this was the most advanced portable gaming system at the time. Then I got a PSP next march and was blown away again with games like Ridge Racer which blew the DS out of the water.

Crazy it's been 10 years. I was 12 years old when it came out.

edit: oh man, just remembered feel the magic xx/xy. Such a weird game.

 

[mrmickfran]

10 years since Super Mario 64 DS released.

Fuck.

And its still full price.

I still have yet to play the Professor Layton games.

 

[Bending_Unit_22]

10 years ago I was a college student working as a night auditor at a hotel talking to my now wife on the phone about why I thought the DS would struggle initially against the PSP but would after the first year or so run away. I didn't get one at launch because there was a Mario 64 port and nothing. It's been my most played system since 2000 definitely, I often yell at my 3DS asking why it isn't more like the DS.

 

[SolidChamp]

Didn't the DS Lite launch with New Super Mario Bros.?

 

[ASTROID2]

It blew my mind when I first played Super Mario 64 on the DS.

 

[Marvie_3]

Hard to believe it's already been 10 years. The original DS was uncomfortable to hold for me but I still had a blast playing it.

 

[cooljeanius]

Let's see, this thread is making me realize I don't actually remember when exactly it was I got my DS Lite... I remember getting my DSi pretty clearly, because it was the fall of 2009, which was my freshman year of college, and I had left my DS Lite at home to try to help me focus on my studies, but then began to miss it too much, so I just blindly followed Google Maps to the nearest GameStop, which was my first experience noticing where the de facto racial segregation lines in DC were at the time... My DS Lite, on the other hand... I know it was some time after my sophomore spring in high school (i.e. 2007), because I remember watching some guys play Mario Kart DS on their DS Phats on a bus trip and wishing I had a DS at that point... On the other hand, it had to be before the 2008 election, because the Obama/Biden'08 campaign sticker from that election that I put on its lid is still on there... So I'm guessing I probably got my DS Lite the fall of 2007 then? The first game I got for it was Kirby: Squeak Squad... My current DS game collection is:

* Chrono Trigger
* Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
* Okamiden
* The Game & Watch Collection from Club Nintendo
* New Super Mario Bros.
* Super Mario 64 DS
* Wario Ware D.I.Y.
* Scribblenauts and Super Scribblenauts
* Picross 3D (I made the GAF OT for this one.)
* Henry Hatsworth
* Monster Tale
* All 4 Ace Attorney games, plus Investigations
* Ghost Trick
* Mario Party DS
* Kirby Squeak Squad (as mentioned above)

And those are just the ones on physical carts that could still be played on the original DS whose anniversary this thread is observing; I left out the DSiWare ones...

Also, all the Rocket Slime posts are reminding me I need to steal my friend's copy of that game some time and finish the save file I had been playing on it (assuming he didn't delete it)...

 

[Mozz-eyes]

I didn't really get into the DS until the DSi. I had a launch model but the PSP loomed large on the horizon AMD, honestly, had a much better launch than the DS.

Liberty City Stories, to me at the time, blew anything on the DS totally out of the water.

I think in the end I had about 30-40 PSP games and half that number on DS.

Dat launch drought absolutely killed me. The first title I bought after Mario 64 was Yoshi Touch and Go. Holy mother of fuck I was so angry when I realised it was just a damned high score game.

I.spent those first couple of months just replaying GBA games I could actually see until the PSP came out.

However a lot of the early DS library contained genres I didn't have a huge amount of interest in, whereas the PSP's PRESS X TO AWESOME action library appealed a lot more to a 13 year old.

 

[maxcriden]

Does anyone still have their mannequin hand sent out by Club Nintendo?

Such a weird advertising initiative.

That made for a hilarious conversation piece, especially since IIRC it came with no return address or Nintendo label inside.

 

[Forkball]

The PS2 of handhelds. There was such a huge variety of games of high quality. Even today there are still many DS games I am eager to try. I think the 3DS is an excellent successor and I can't go back to a mono-screen experience for handhelds.

 

[The Technomancer]

So many good games. God my DS library is huge, I don't even know if I could inventory it, its just scattered across various drawers back home. Definite shout out to Knights in the Nightmare for being one of the weirdest experiences on the system and probably the most atmospheric: I refused to play through that game in any way other then with headphones in a dark room

 

[Mecca]

I bought the DSLite bundled with Phantom Hourglass. Never owned the original DS. I still have the little feather stylus that Nintendo sent out for people who registered Phantom Hourglass early. Phantom Hourglass was the first Zelda game I ever played. I loved the touch screen and how you could use it to make notes. I got some good use out of my DS while taking the bus to and from work. I don't use it much any more since the 3DS is backwards compatible, but it definitely was a great handheld at the time.

This thread reminds me that I have to finish Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland. I bought a copy from Amazon a few years ago, played it for about 5 minutes and never went back to it. Such a weird DS game that I am determined to finish at some point.

 

[NEO0MJ]

Pretty awesome system. I know most prefer the lite but I felt that the original felt better in my hand and had a better D-pad. Plus, it was more resilient to damage.

Bought it just to play this:

This was my first game! Never played the earlier ones but I had so much fun with this game.

 

[WickedCobra03]

I got the DS and PSP at launch, and thought the PSP would run away with the handheld game that generation. I would even say the PSP is still one of my favorite handhelds.

I dunno what happened though, the PSP was.still coming out with great games and in 2004, it was still before the who smart phone crazy, so it was pretty nuts that it had games, audio and video all in one portable device.

The first DS really sucked though. Terrible lighting, small screens and just super fat. I bought the DSi at some point for like 120$ and that was way better.

 

[Dr. Feel Good]

GBA releases kept early DS fro, being a pointless system. First nine months were hard as the only notable games worth playing were Super Mario 64 DS, Feel the Magic, Yoshi Touch n Go, Meteos, and Kirby Canvas Curse. Arguably Wario Ware Touched, but it's by far the worst in the series. Things took off in August 2005 though with Advance Wars, Nintendogs, Castlevania, which lead into Mario Kart and Animal Crossing. It never looked back. But in those early months PSP was beating it in sales almost every month.

Also I remember how much shit the system got for GBA up ports for DS version to pad the release schedule. Now people praise these stupid cross gen games. How far we've come.

 

[faridmon]

Best system Ever.
I had like 40+ games for that system and the RPGs were amazing.

My favourite games were TWEWY, Phoenix Wright games and Ghost Trick.

I absolutely loved FF XII Revanant Wings as well.

 

[Oracle Dragon]

Loved this system. Still have a launch fatty version going strong, seeing 3+ days a week of use by the kids... and I used it up until last year where I finally replaced it with a 3DSXL.

 

[inner-G]

Best system ever for western Dragon Quest fans.

IV
V
VI
IX
Monsters: Joker 1 + 2
Rocket Slime

Got dayum.



Such a shame about VII 3DS T_T

 

[Sakujou]

third pillar was a lie

yeah, that was the joke... third pillar my ass... the ds killed the gameboy.

but yeah the ds became the best handheld ever made. holy shit.... i have more than 60 games for it and i wasnt even interested in the beginning... but when mario kart ds was released the meltdown began and the best 1st and 3rd party support of all time happened... it was pretty much the ps2 in the field of handhelds. every genre got covered on the ds. i doubt this can be done on the 3ds ... and i dont have that much fun on my ipad or vita.... unbelievable 3rd pillar.

 

[FyreWulff]

Hard to believe we're now farther removed from Super Mario 64 DS than Super Mario 64 DS was to Super Mario 64 when it came out.

 

[fushi]

Ooh good choices Goemon is really fun on on the DS it's sad that Konami stopped making Goemon games the DS version was the last one they ever did. Coropata is another really good one however that game is now pretty expensive if you want a new copy it will cost you well over £200+ a used copy is a lot cheaper it goes for about £40

Other import recommendations are

Nanashi no game
Nanashi no game me
Keroro RPG
Came center CX 1 & 2
Minna no conveni
All 3 taiko no tatsujin games
Okaeri chibi robo
Ninokuni shikoku no madoushi
Blazer drive
Kochikame

Depends on your Japanese ability weither you could manage those on the list but they are all ones i really enjoyed, I seek out the weirder games the DS library has some amazing ones.

Hey, thanks! Half of those are unfamiliar to me, so I'll dig up some info on those.

 

[Bulbasaur]

I remember I got an og black one from Singapore with that Star Wars game with the Twilek bounty hunter, it's was so bad yet so good.

Too many fun games to count.

 

[Lyte Edge]

Oh the memories!

This pretty much sums up the DS' first few months for me. I remember getting one and being incredibly disappointed with the clunky, ugly system design and launch line up. Imported Wario Ware for it, beat the game, and then happily traded it towards a Japanese PSP.

The DS definitely got better later on and the Lite was an amazing upgrade, but I never liked the system as much as I did the GB and GBA. Favorites were the Ace Attorney games, Castlevania games, Tetris DS, Meteos, and Panel De Pon.

 

[Percy]

Man, that OG DS was such a badly designed piece of crap in hindsight.

Slim version was great though.