Yet another DS recommend on thread (Read before posting!)

[Sipex]

With the release of the 3DS the DS is coming to the end of it's life and as such, games are going to start getting rarer. I want to make sure I pick up all the must have games before they're impossible to find. My current collection looks like this:

- Ace Attorney Series (#1-3, Apollo Justice and Miles Edgeworth)
- Chrono Trigger DS
- Dragon Quest IV
- Dragon Quest IX
- Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime
- FFIII DS
- FFIV DS
- FFCC: Ring of Fates (sold it after though, I thought it was horrible. Damn useless AI)
- Golden Sun DS
- Lock's Quest
- Kingdom Hearts 348(?) 1/2 days
- Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
- Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
- New Super Mario Bros
- Pokemon Pearl (No diamond please, I just play for the campaign)
- Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
- Professor Layton (Curious Village/Diabolical Box/Unwound Future)
- Puzzle Quest 2
- Scribblenauts
- The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass
- The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
- The Legendary Starfy (didn't really enjoy it though)
- The World Ends With You
- Yoshi's Island 2

Have at it! Suggest anything and everything. Additional information is appreciated.

[Gaelbert]

I particularly enjoyed Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings. It's a RTS with a fairly small army and the unit training is incredibly streamlined. The population cap is pretty low, so it focuses on tactics instead of swarming with massive armies. Your main units level up and gain skills, meaning that if you ever have a hard time with a level you can grind your soldiers up to speed.

I also enjoyed Panzer Tactics DS. It's a turn based WWII strategy game, bordering on simulation. Keep in mind though, it's hard. Very hard. It's also pretty rare to find already, I finally found my copy in a used game store. If you're not interested in military tactics, then this isn't for you. It's pretty hardcore.

[Comet]

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor.

The forces of law and chaos, Heaven and Hell, fight it out in the quarantined city of modern-day Tokyo. A handful of young heroes are given the technology to make the various demons, deities and monsters that roam the city their own and use them to survive the fall of civilization and eventually decide the fate of Tokyo and the world at large.

Turn based combat on tactical fields. In between battles you proceed through the story by reading through dialogue and making decisions that allow you to influence events both big and small, eventually culminating in a set of philosophical dilemmas that will change the face of the earth forever (or not, if you decide that way).

The big thing about this game, and Shin Megami Tensei in general, is the large cast of demons (meaning here any kind of monster, deity or hero of legend) that you can acquire and use on the field of battle. You can train these demons by traditional XP, but true advancement is achieved by fusing two or more demons together and creating something that is greater than the sum of its parts.
The vast majority of the mythology behind these monsters and the apocalypse at hand are very faithful to their original source material, which has been gathered from around the world. This creates an unique blend of occult creatures and religious imagery clashing together on an epic scale.

In a nutshell: What if Pikachu was the devil and your quest to catch 'em all was only a means to an end, the end here being the salvation or end of mankind. One of the very best JRPGs on the DS.

[Sipex]

I particularly enjoyed Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings. It's a RTS with a fairly small army and the unit training is incredibly streamlined. The population cap is pretty low, so it focuses on tactics instead of swarming with massive armies. Your main units level up and gain skills, meaning that if you ever have a hard time with a level you can grind your soldiers up to speed.

I also enjoyed Panzer Tactics DS. It's a turn based WWII strategy game, bordering on simulation. Keep in mind though, it's hard. Very hard. It's also pretty rare to find already, I finally found my copy in a used game store. If you're not interested in military tactics, then this isn't for you. It's pretty hardcore.

Turn based tactics are fine, I'm just a poor RTS player. Also, is revnant wings anything like FF Tactics? (Fyi, FF Tactics DS is on my list to get)

[BlackSheep]

Elite Beat Agents is already hard to find, but should be included in top DS games.

Revenant Wings is an RTS. FF Tactics is a TBS, no?

If you like turn based games, the Advance Wars series is good. And while it has TBS roots, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is more of a puzzle game, and is also good.

[Sipex]

Oh right, I missed the whole 'RTS' thing. Interesting.

So far it sounds like I have a good start, keep them coming!

Thanks everyone.

[Zevox]

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor.

This, definitely. Alongside The World Ends With You (which you said already have, I know) it's my top recommendation.

If you wind up liking the SMT series, there's also Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. I only recently finished it myself. It's not as good as Devil Survivor, but it's still fun. A couple of things to mention about it though: first, it's a much more conventional title in the series than Devil Survivor, which means a less interesting story. Second, it is hard. It does not screw around with you, ever. Just as an example, I had to grind a good five or six levels and specially train a team of powerful demons to fight the final boss after my first match with her, using information I found on her online to plan my team, and I still took three or four tries to finally beat her. If you're not one for a challenge like that, it probably isn't the game for you.

If you like the Dragon Quest games, see if you can pick up DQ 5. It's one of my personal favorites of the series. I haven't played 6 yet, but I can confidently say it is better than 9. There's also DQ 4, which is still good (I'd also say better than 9), if not quite that good.

If you don't have them on their original systems, the DS remakes of Disgaea and Chrono Trigger are well worth getting, assuming you like their respective genres (and you seem to like JRPGs, so Chrono Trigger should fit).

The two Advance Wars games (Dual Strike and Days of Ruin) are great if you like turn-based strategy. Both can be pretty different though - Days of Ruin has a better story and more balanced gameplay, but Dual Strike is probably my favorite, with more over-the-top abilities and goofy characters. Dual Strike also takes better advantage of the two-screen nature of the DS.

If you like Mega Man and didn't get the games on the GBA, the Mega Man Zero Collection is great too. Four games starring Zero (from the Mega Man X games), with some great old-school platforming and difficulty.

I somewhat hesitate to recommend a game I haven't finished yet (or indeed may not even be very far into), but I've been impressed with it so far, so I can't not mention it either. A potentially excellent JRPG is the recently released Radiant Historia. It's made by the same guys as the Shin Megami Tensei games, but it's an original title not related to those. The story is set in a world where the land is rapidly being turned into a desert, and the nations of the continent are at war over the dwindling arable land. A major factor of the game is time-travel - you acquire a magic book very early that allows you to travel to particular points in time where you were present at a point that could change the course of history. The first such point splits history into two different timelines, which you must then move back and forth between in order to advance history and try to save the world from both the war and the mysterious advance of the desert.

It also has a rather unique combat system, wherein enemies appear on a 3x3 grid, and you are given powers that can knock them around to different spaces. Force enemies into the same space and, if your allies act immediately after you, they can strike all the enemies in that space at once. Plus your time-travel powers also allows you limited control of your turn order. Any time it's one of your characters' turns, they can change places in the turn order with any ally or enemy, though they then suffer a state where they take increased damage until their next turn, so there is a risk when you're not just switching places with an ally who acts before any more enemies do. There's more to it too, but this explanation is getting long enough already. Suffice to say I've been quite happy with the game so far, and would recommend at least trying it out if you like JRPGs, as you seem to.

Zevox

[Sipex]

I have DQ 4 (misposted, DQ 6 isn't out yet) but I am actively looking for DQ 5, it's just really hard to find. I updated my list so Chrono Trigger is on it as well as I have that one too.

I'm liking the idea of Advance Wars more and more and I'm a huge RPG fan so there's a lot for me to look into here.

[Comet]

Gah, how could I have forgotten about Radiant Historia? I'm very near to the end and it is indeed right up there on my list of, say, top three favourite games of all time on the DS.

Great gameplay, interesting story, fun side quests and a brilliant soundtrack to top it all off. It was made by a whole lot of renowned professionals and the results are as awesome as one would think when looking at the names in the credits.

[Zevox]

I have DQ 4 (misposted, DQ 6 isn't out yet)

Actually, it is (unless you live in Europe or Australia or something and don't want to import the US version I suppose). Just came out in February. I have it, but simply haven't gotten to it yet.

Zevox

[Sipex]

Really? Damn, I'm behind on my gaming news.

That's why this thread is here.

Thanks! I'll definitely look into Radiant Historia, with two glowing reviews it must be worth a look up at the very least.

[Lord Seth]

Elite Beat Agents is already hard to find, but should be included in top DS games.

It doesn't seem hard to find at all, Amazon.com has new copies in stock, and for pretty cheap at that.

Both Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Advance Wars: Days of Ruin are worth a look. I think the first is the better of the two, though.

Trauma Center: Under the Knife 1 & 2 are also good games.

[Cogwheel]

Pick up Etrian Odyssey 3. Fantastic, if brutal dungeon crawl.

[Fri]

You don't have EBA yet. Dang, man. That game alone might justify buying a whole DS for me.

You also don't have any of the DS Castlevania games. They're all top notch for me.

And talking about platformer, I also really enjoy Henry Hartsworth. It's a dastardly combination of puzzle on the touch screen and platformer on the top screen, starring a dapper english gentleman that can turn into robot after drinking tea!

If you're not into platformer, I recently tried the DS' Trauma Center game. It took me by surprise, and before I knew it, I spent my whole vacation playing it at my brother's DS. It might be too short though, if you're only thinking of playing through the campaign once.

[Cespenar]

I'll recommend Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, a title that I recommended in a previous such thread. It's basically a point and click adventure made by the creator of the Ace Attorney series. It's about a amnesiac ghost who is trying to find out his identity and the truth behind his death, but the story branches a lot after that. There are lots of twists and turns, and IMHO, a hilarious ending. Definitely a "must try".

[Comet]

Another one that I forgot until now:

999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors.

It's a visual novel, meaning you'll be spending the majority of your time reading prose and dialogue. In between you'll solve puzzles and make decisions on how to proceed through the story.

It's sort of a murder mystery combined with some really interesting sci-fi elements and peppered with loads of neat trivia of both the realistic and occult variety. The characters are all great and have surprising depth and the way everyone's story comes together is really clever.

As is usual for the genre, you're expected to make wrong decisions and die horribly every now and then. Luckily, there's a handy skip option for the bits of text you've already read, so getting back to where you died last time and making use of your new knowledge of how not to die is easy and fast paced.
As there is a lot of dying and drama, the game can get pretty dark and violent at times, but the sense of triumph as you manage to right all wrongs and eventually find your way through this web of madness more than makes up for it.

The best part is, though, how the game incorporates the visual novel tradition of "die, do over again" into the narrative in a way that not only makes sense, but makes use of the capabilities of the Nintendo DS so that the story, as it is, would be impossible to tell on any other system. When you get to the end, your mind will be blown.

[Sipex]

Interesting recommendations so far, thanks a lot guys.

Also, I am a huge fan of the Trauma center games and I've got them on the Wii already. I heard the DS versions are the exact same games except on DS instead, does anyone know if this is true?

[Lord Seth]

Interesting recommendations so far, thanks a lot guys.

Also, I am a huge fan of the Trauma center games and I've got them on the Wii already. I heard the DS versions are the exact same games except on DS instead, does anyone know if this is true?

Trauma Center: Second Opinion is strongly based on Trauma Center: Under the Knife, but I know there are some differences, so I wouldn't call them the "exact same." Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2, as far as I know, has no equivalent on the Wii.