Looking back, Nintendo's first party DS lineup was pretty poor

[CyberCubed]

I was just thinking about this the other day, how outside of the casual games/puzzle games/Pokemon, Nintendo's first party lineup on DS was the worst of all their consoles/handhelds. Many of these games have not aged well at all:


- New Super Mario Bros. DS wound up being the worst of the "New" series. At the time it was released it was exciting to have a new 2D Mario after like 15 years, but the level design was pretty bad in this one. Its hard to go back to this first one now after the recent entries.

- Yoshi's Island DS again is a step down from the SNES original

- Metroid Prime Hunters is the worst Metroid game ever made, its basically a FPS with a Metroid skin and a horrible single player. It's hard to believe this was the only main Metroid game we got in the 7 year span of the DS.

- Zelda Phantom Hourglass and Spirit tracks, while still decent games, are nowhere as good as all the other Zelda's. They're viewed as among the weakest entries in the series.

- Starfox Command is easily the worst Starfox game ever made

- Mario and Luigi Partners in Time is the weakest in the series, and the second weakest Mario RPG overall after Paper Mario Sticker Star.

- Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is the weakest localized Fire Emblem in the U.S. And I'm aware it was a remake.


Honestly, have we ever had this many "duds" from a Nintendo first party lineup before? Most of DS's strong lineup came from JRPG's, casual games, puzzle games, and so forth, but the first party stuff was really lacking.

I already like the 3DS lineup far more than the DS one.

[Peanut]

The staple series haven't aged great for the most part. You're right, but you're overblowing it. Nothing is wrong with NSMB, Spirit Tracks is a good game, Star Fox Command is better than Adventures. And there was still tons of amazing first party DS stuff not from main-line series or different/great takes on established franchises.

Hotel Dusk, Elite Beat Agents, Rhythm Heaven, Canvas Curse, Warioware: Touched, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Mario Kart DS, Advanced Wars, Kirby Mass Attack, and Picross DS all immediately jump to mind.

I do agree that the 3DS has a higher quality library though.

[sdp]

That's definitely a generalization, you could argue that the first party DS lineup hasn't aged very well though. I thought both Advance Wars games were excellent and Peanut mentioned other great first party games many that don't come up often there's others like Metrod Prime Pinball, Super Princess Peach and The Mystery Dungeon PKMN games were all fun. "Casual" games were pretty great as well, Brain Age, Layton, Electroplankton all took hours from me. Now when you compare Mario Kart DS or Animal Crossing to their 3DS versions then yeah they aged but at their time it was great to have a 3D Mario Kart and AC portable.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

- New Super Mario Bros. DS wound up being the worst of the "New" series. At the time it was released it was exciting to have a new 2D Mario after like 15 years, but the level design was pretty bad in this one. Its hard to go back to this first one now after the recent entries.

At the time it was a great game and enjoyed very much, of course with 3 other NSMB games out now the level design doesn't seem as good but when it was released it was definitely a good game and worthy of being a new Mario platformer IIRC.

- Yoshi's Island DS again is a step down from the SNES original

Didn't this game come out before the DS made it's turn around? So not many people played it. I think this game gets a lot of hate because it's called Yoshi's Island and isn't as innovative as the original but I think it's a good game, it basically just similar to a Megaman sequel where it doesn't do a whole lot of different things and because of that some of the charm is gone but I remember enjoying it.

Metroid Prime Hunters is the worst Metroid game ever made, its basically a FPS with a Metroid skin and a horrible single player. It's hard to believe this was the only main Metroid game we got in the 7 year span of the DS.

Well I never played the retail game, but I remember liking the short demo. I thought the DS was a good system for FPS's the graphics were the main problem.

[/QUOTE]- Zelda Phantom Hourglass and Spirit tracks, while still decent games, are nowhere as good as all the other Zelda's. They're viewed as among the weakest entries in the series.[/QUOTE]
I never played these but IIRC when they came out they were fairly well liked, and I remember reading how Spirit tracks fixed all the issues Phantom Hourglass had. Don't know why there was a 180 on them recently online. Can't really comment on them though.

- Starfox Command is easily the worst Starfox game ever made

This game also received praise when it came out and then eventually the whole "SF hasn't been good since 64" became the general consensus. I played it and loved it and all it's crazy endings, it was a good portable Star Fox and liked it more than Assault.

- Mario and Luigi Partners in Time is the weakest in the series, and the second weakest Mario RPG overall after Paper Mario Sticker Star.

I remember this game getting bad reviews but didn't Bowser's Inside Story
get really good reviews?

Originally Posted by Peanut

I do agree that the 3DS has a higher quality library though.

Higher quality first party library right? because the 3DS can't compare to the third party library the DS had.

[Peanut]

Originally Posted by sdp

Higher quality first party library right? because the 3DS can't compare to the third party library the DS had.

Sure. Although I always felt while the DS had an enormous third party offering, none of it was great. Give me some examples though, because I admit I don't really remember much about the DS third party stuff anymore.

[CyberCubed]

Most of the big DS third party games were all those countless JRPG's. Or the Ace Attorney games and Professor Layton games. We also got the Megaman Zero series from Capcom.

Okamiden, the sequel to Okami, was probably one of the DS' best hidden gems because it came out in 2011 after the 3DS had already come out.

[Peanut]

Yeah, Okamiden was fantastic. Also, Retro Game Challenge. There's a game that will never EVER get its due.

In regards to all the JRPG's, I'd probably end up choosing Bravely Default over them anyhow. Cause I know there was some Square stuff, like The World Ends With You, that I found pretty unplayable.

[sdp]

I got back into video games because of the DS, the DS had a wide variety of genres and niches so maybe these are not the most critically acclaimed titles by gamers but I loved them, they include Ace Attorney, Trauma Center, Feel the Magic, Trauma Center, Another Code, Cooking Mama, they were all fun interesting franchises that made me remember why I used to like games, from there I was able to jump back again to more traditional games. But yeah looking back it has quite an extensive library even if they're not my cup of tea, tons of RPGs, Metroidvanias, etc.

When the DS came out I thought Nintendo had really lost it since the PSP looked like what I would've wanted had I still played games and only a year or so later it was that system that made me realize games can still be fun even if I'd grown tired of the more traditional games.

[CyberCubed]

Contra 4 was my favorite third party DS game for a while, it was one of the best modern 2D shooters.

[Netkeeper]

My entire DS library consists of nothing but Animal Crossing, Pokémon, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, Ace Attorney, and Professor Layton. I almost never played anything else on it.

I still took my DS with me everywhere and played the first two DSes I owned so much I ran the battery down.

[Powder]

I never played any of the Kirby games for DS, which should I start with (SNES remake/port/whatever aside)?

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Powder

I never played any of the Kirby games for DS, which should I start with (SNES remake/port/whatever aside)?

Kirby Canvas Curse and Kirby Mass Attack are amazing.

Superstar Ultra is a remake of the SNES game, and Squeak Squad is just an average game. Canvas Curse and Mass Attack are fantastic and use the stylus.