I’m looking to expand my library because I have a ton of business trips to take this summer, which means a lot of waiting around, and a lot planes. Usually, I go into coma mode (especially during the hot summer), but just in case, I figure I’ll get re-acquainted with my DS. I have Super Mario World and Brain Age. What are the best games out there. Lately, I’ve been playing Halo2 (in anticipation for Halo3), Resident Evil, Gears of War, Civilization, and World Poker Tour. Thanks for any ideas.
Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! (import), Elite Beat Agents, Phoenix Wright, and Puzzle Quest are all excellent games.
Metroid Prime Hunters works REALLY well, but unless theres someone nearby with a ds so you can deathmatch, the single player game doesnt last all that long.
Picross DS is an excellent puzzle game, although the touch-screen controls are better left switched off in favour of regular controls.
Advance Wars DS; YOU WILL NEVER STOP PLAYING THIS GAME. Advance wars is CRACK for your DS. Kiss your life goodbye.
For casual playing in an airport or while waiting, I highly recommend Planet Puzzle League. Best puzzle game ever. Better than Tetris. You can play short 2-minute games, play against others over wi-fi, play several different types of layouts and puzzles, and it’s very satisfying and addictive.
Another game along those lines is Club House Games - a large collection of puzzles, card games, mini action games like bowling, etc. You can play against others over wi-fi, so you can pick up a game of hearts with people from around the world, or bowl against three others. Or you can play them solo. Great fun.
I love not working on business trips. I’ve vaguely heard this mentioned in this forum. What’s this about really? I can’t get a feel for the game from the IGN reviews. Is this menu fighting like Final Fantasy? I really don’t like that, but if it’s like Ogre Battle, then, I’m all for it. However, while I do acknowledge that there is a FF game for the gameboy advance that is like Ogre Battle, I, for some reason, don’t like it either. I think it’s because I don’t really like FF for some reason. Re-reading what I just wrote, doesn’t make much sense to me, but that’s the only way I can explain it right now. Thanks everyone for the other suggestions.
Advance Wars is a military tactics game. It’s not realistic at all, but units generally have some intuitive facts about them: tanks are great against infantry (but not bazooka infantry), and are terrible against aircraft, for instance. It’s not menu-based fighting at all. The plot’s kind of meh, but the various CO powers, variety of units, and long campaign make it a great game.
Oh, and the upcoming Luminous Arc is a Tactics Ogre-like game. It comes out in August.
Sonic Rush has taken over my life for the last few weeks–the levels are exactly long enough for the free time I have to play a DS game.
Advance wars is also one of my favorites. And I’m not at all into the number/stat heavy RPGs so I guess it’s not really like those.
It’s more of a turn based tactics game played on a grid. Each piece you have has different abilities at to what type of terrain it can cross, how many spaces it can move in a turn, how many spaces away can it strike at, how powerful is it’s offensive strike on other pieces, how strong of a defense does it have, etc.
You start with basic battles of troop units, tanks, and artillery and most game objectives are either destroy all enemies or capture their base.
As you progress in the game more pieces are introduced from aircraft (helicopters, bombers, jets), to seacraft (subs, battleships, cruisers) and other variables come into play (snow, fog, allied armies, etc.).
You basically play through the levels and if you get stuck on one you just replay it over and over till you beat it to advance to the next game level.
Just one mention of Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney so far? I strongly recommend this game. The the game play is fun, cases are interesting and the characters are great. I just got the second game, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Justice For All and haven’t started it yet because I’m in the middle of a couple of other games but I can’t wait to get to it.
I just want to third Phoenix Wright - I liked it so much I bought the soundtrack, and the soundtrack played by a classical orchestra (apparently someone in Japan liked the game equally well). Also, there’s this: Objection!
Really Phoenix Wright? I can show that off to my other attorney friends. My boss will like it, she likes things legal related. I heard about this game, but I wasn’t sure about it. Advanced Wars is damn hard to find. I am looking for something different.
The first three are all lots of fun (though I’m a little curious as to how they localized the second one, since it contained a lot of Japan-specific elements). The fourth one is still a lot of fun, but is quite different and contains some annoying new “features”.
Here’s a few smaller titles that I think are among the best for the system:
Hotel Dusk - a 1970’s noir story that finds you playing an ex-detective holed up in a remote hotel where some weird stuff is going on. A great “interactive novel” and one of the most underrated games for the system.
Sprung - one of the first releases for the system that was really unfairly panned by a lot of critics who just didn’t get it. It’s a classic-styled adventure game mixed with a sort of dating simulator wrapped up in an 1980’s-style sex comedy. It’s actually very fun and very funny.
Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime - unfortunately eschews the touch screen and microphone, but the actual game mechanic - hold a button to anchor your character in place, then stretch and fire him rubber band-style at the enemies - is incredibly fun.
Somehow, I could never get into Hotel Dusk - it seemed to start off incredibly slow, and after about 1 hour of tedious gameplay it painstakingly took half an hour to recap what had happened so far. But if you say it picks up later, I might try it again…
I’m just playing Phoenix Wright: Justice for all, and I am not quite sure if I like it as much as the first one, I have to get used to the new “feature” they implemented (the “mind block” or whatever it is called). Then again, the first one also really got interesting with the later cases.
Also, a honorary mention goes to Actionloop, which makes me lose whole evenings; but then again, I had to ban myself from the Zuma online game, which is basically the same thing.