Underrated Nintendo DS games to revisit
The Nintendo DS revolutionized handheld gaming with its dual-screen design and innovative touch controls, creating a platform unlike anything before it. While everyone remembers the massive hits like Mario Kart DS and Pokémon Diamond/Pearl, the system’s enormous library of over 2,000 games means countless gems slipped through the cracks. These overlooked titles often pushed the hardware in creative ways and delivered experiences you simply couldn’t find anywhere else.
With the DS now firmly in retro territory, it’s the perfect time to rediscover these forgotten classics. Here is a list of 17 underrated Nintendo DS games that deserve a second look.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
This supernatural puzzle adventure follows Sissel, a ghost who must solve the mystery of his own death by manipulating objects in the environment. The game features complex puzzles and time-limited tasks that require strategic thinking and inventive problem-solving. What makes Ghost Trick truly special is its rotoscoped animation that brings characters to life with fluid, dynamic movements. The writing strikes a perfect balance between dark mystery and quirky humor, creating one of the most memorable narratives on the platform.
999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
This visual novel enthralls with a thrilling narrative about nine persons trying to escape a locked ship within nine hours. With suspenseful puzzles and a story that continually morphs based on player decisions, the game’s nonlinear gameplay fuels player involvement. The Zero Escape series starter combines escape room puzzles with a psychological thriller plot that keeps you guessing until the very end. Each playthrough reveals new story elements, making multiple runs essential to understand the full picture.
Contact
This quirky JRPG from Grasshopper Manufacture has very similar vibes to Earthbound. The title is an action RPG full of odd humor, exploration, plenty of collectibles and items, costumes that give you unique abilities, and an excellent real-time combat system. Contact breaks the fourth wall constantly, with the game acknowledging that you’re controlling a character who’s being controlled by someone else. The costume system lets you transform into different professions, each with their own abilities and attack styles, making combat surprisingly varied.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215
This illustrated point-and-click follows an ex-detective, Kyle Hide, who searches for his missing former partner. His investigation brings him to the quaint yet haunting Hotel Dusk. Played with the DS held vertically, Hotel Dusk feels like a virtual book where you read engaging dialogue but can use your stylus to traverse the titular hotel and solve numerous clever puzzles. The game’s unique pencil-sketch art style and film noir atmosphere create an experience that feels more like reading an interactive novel than playing a traditional game.
Infinite Space
This RPG where you manage a fleet of spaceships as you do battle with other armadas in a sci-fi anime setting offers an insane amount of customization. You can customize each of your ships with a variety of different options, and there’s also a large cast of characters you can recruit as crewmates for each vessel. Despite being on a handheld system, Infinite Space delivers one of the most ambitious space exploration experiences ever created. The game spans multiple story arcs and can easily consume 60+ hours of gameplay.
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure
This game cleverly combines 2D platforming with match-three puzzle mechanics. As the player slays enemies on the upper screen, they get down to match-three puzzle games – if not aligned correctly, the bottom screen moves up allowing monsters to come back to the upper screen and hunt you. The Victorian gentleman protagonist and his eccentric personality make every moment entertaining. The difficulty ramps up significantly, but the unique gameplay hook keeps you coming back for more punishment.
The World Ends With You
While not exactly unknown, this Square Enix masterpiece deserves mention for its innovative combat system that uses both DS screens simultaneously. Players find themselves in an alternate version of Tokyo, where they must fight for their lives. The game uses both screens for battles, making it an excellent example of innovation on the Nintendo DS. The modern Tokyo setting, incredible soundtrack, and deep customization systems make this feel like a completely different kind of JRPG.
Dementium: The Ward
This first-person horror game follows William Redmore, a man with amnesia who has awoken in a derelict hospital and must now navigate its eerie corridors to escape. Dementium was hailed as a technical achievement upon its release, pushing the Nintendo DS to its limits. Few developers attempted first-person games on DS, making this atmospheric horror experience even more impressive. The use of the DS microphone for breathing effects and the claustrophobic flashlight mechanic create genuine scares.
Rhythm Heaven
This game delights with simple but addicting minigames requiring precise button presses in sync with various musical beats. The gameplay shines in its ability to squeeze complexity out of simplicity, making each task an entertaining challenge. Each minigame has its own bizarre scenario and catchy tune, from helping a wrestler pose for photos to conducting an invisible choir. The Japanese humor translates surprisingly well, creating moments of pure joy and frustration in equal measure.
Magician’s Quest: Mysterious Times
While Animal Crossing: Wild World was the king of the cozy genre on DS, Magician’s Quest is easily on par with it in terms of quality and fun. You join a wizardry school and are tasked with learning spells by going to lessons. The magic school setting provides a fantastic twist on the life simulation formula. You can choose whether lessons happen during the day or evening to suit your real-world schedule, and the spell-casting mechanics using the stylus feel genuinely magical.
Solatorobo: Red the Hunter
Released late in the Nintendo DS life cycle, Solatorobo is a true hidden gem developed by the legendary CyberConnect2 studio. This action-RPG features an anthropomorphic cast and beautiful hand-drawn artwork. The game takes place in a world of floating islands populated by dog and cat people, with aerial combat sequences that showcase some of the DS’s best 3D graphics. The story spans two acts with a dramatic shift in tone that keeps players engaged throughout.
LostMagic
This game follows a young boy named Isaac who inherits the Wand of Light from his father. To cast magic, you can draw runes using your stylus on the DS’s touchscreen – there are lots of different runes to cast, so you have plenty of options when battling enemies. The rune-drawing mechanic feels intuitive and magical, though mastering all the spell combinations takes serious practice. One of the game’s artists worked for Studio Ghibli, which explains the charming visual style that permeates every screen.
Aliens: Infestation
This action-platformer with horror elements is set in the ‘Aliens’ universe. Players fight aliens and control a team of marines, with death being permanent – if you lose a character, they’re not coming back. The excellent atmosphere and intense gameplay make it one of the best sci-fi games for the Nintendo DS. WayForward’s pixel art brings the Aliens universe to life with incredible detail and atmosphere. The permadeath system creates real tension, making every encounter feel dangerous and meaningful.
Scurge: Hive
This entire game is unashamedly 100% a Metroid rip-off, and somehow manages this incredibly well. Playing as a top-down isometric sci-fi action RPG, you explore an alien planet as a female bounty hunter, Jenosa, tasked with the elimination of a parasitic lifeform known as the ‘Scurge’. While clearly inspired by Metroid, Scurge carves out its own identity with RPG elements and cooperative multiplayer. The isometric perspective gives exploration a different feel from Nintendo’s series while maintaining that sense of isolation and discovery.
Geometry Wars: Galaxies
The game controls have been adapted to the DS’s unique hardware with players using the D-pad or face buttons to move and the stylus to aim and shoot, simulating the dual-stick control scheme of the original. The game also offers the new galaxy mode where players can explore small galaxies each with their own sets of levels. This twin-stick shooter adaptation works surprisingly well on DS hardware, proving that creative control schemes can overcome hardware limitations. The galaxy exploration mode adds structure to the arcade gameplay without losing the frantic action.
Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime
This charming action-adventure game stars a blue slime on a rescue mission to save his fellow slimes. The game features unique tank battles where players load ammunition and fire cannons in real-time combat scenarios. The adorable art style masks surprisingly strategic gameplay, especially during the tank battle sequences that require quick thinking and resource management. The humor and personality packed into this small cartridge rival much larger RPGs.
Pokémon Ranger
This spin-off is one of the most unique in the Pokémon franchise, as it doesn’t rely on RPG elements. Rather, it’s more action-oriented because you play as a Pokémon ranger who takes care of wild Pokémon. Rangers draw circles around afflicted Pokémon using the stylus, making them feel better. The circle-drawing mechanic sounds simple but becomes surprisingly challenging as different Pokémon require different strategies to calm down. This gameplay innovation could only work on the DS, making it feel like a true system exclusive rather than a port.
Rediscovering Portable Innovation
These 17 games represent just a fraction of the Nintendo DS’s incredible library of overlooked titles. Each one demonstrates why the dual-screen handheld was such a special system – not just for its technical innovations, but for how developers used those tools to create entirely new types of gameplay experiences. From ghost detective work to magical rune-drawing, these games pushed boundaries and created memories that remain unique to this day. In an era where most games can be found on multiple platforms, the DS’s library stands as a testament to what happens when hardware limitations spark creative solutions rather than compromise them.
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