Nintendo DS: The Greatest Video Game System (by Carl B.)
February 17, 2011, by Carl B. - As the final months of the Nintendo DS have come and gone, I've found myself reminiscing on all the great times I have had with the system over the course of its lifespan. Upon the release of the DS on November 21, 2004, my most played game wasn't Super Mario 64 DS - the remake of the N64 classic - but the demo of Metroid Prime: Hunters. Not having to use link cables with a group of friends was amazing in 2004, not to mention the great visuals and touch screen the system boasted. The first few months of the DS were rather mundane, with the best titles releasing being WarioWare: Touched and Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. 2005 finally rolled along and saw the release of several great games including Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Nintendogs, and the Wi-Fi enabled Mario Kart DS. This was a precursor of things to come as the handheld's library of great games grew over the years, housing such big name franchises as Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy, along with original new IPs like Scribblenauts and 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors. After a near seven years on the market I can say with full confidence that the Nintendo DS is the greatest gaming system of all time. This takes into account the likes of the Super NES, PlayStation 2, and even the PC.
Nintendo could have easily stayed the course with the successor to the ultra-popular Game Boy Advance. The company would be getting some stiff competition from Sony, but Nintendo had dominated competitors in the handheld market in the past, so it's understandable if they didn't sense immediate danger from the PSP like they have recently with Apple. Still, Nintendo upped the ante by adding a touch-responsive screen, which became one of the handheld's main selling points and allowed for truly unique games.
When discussing what the greatest video game system of all time is, we have to throw the sales argument out of the window. It's true that the DS is the second highest selling game system overall -- right behind the PlayStation 2 -- but a high number of sales are not always indicative of quality. We've seen incredibly mediocre Madden titles sell millions of copies every year, while unique games like Psychonauts barely manage to scrape 100,000 units sold. With that in mind, only the quantity of truly high-quality, must-own games will be considered when evaluating the Nintendo DS as the greatest system of all time in comparison with other popular choices.
The Super NES is often considered the greatest of all time by older gamers due to it being part of the "Golden Age" of gaming, where beautiful 16-bit visuals and amazing musical scores dominated the industry. The SNES was home to many of the big franchises that are still around today, with 16-bit installments of Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Final Fantasy exclusive to the console. Fantastic RPGs weren't lacking, either, as games like Chrono Trigger, EarthBound, and Breath of Fire II were also SNES exclusives. Rare was actually a high quality developer during the SNES era, too, with the Donkey Kong Country trilogy dominating platformers alongside Mario. The best part about games on the SNES wasn't just the high quality of most, but the genuine feeling of authenticity each possessed that very few titles today have.
The best selling game console of all time, Sony's PlayStation 2, is also adored by fans. Even if its high number of sales is disregarded in this conversation, the PS2 still played a big part in making the gaming industry more mainstream with its inclusion of a built in DVD player. Big hits such as the original Guitar Hero were born on the PS2, along with the God of War and Sly Cooper games. Sony's second home console even contributed to the end of the Dreamcast and Sega's unfortunate exit from the console manufacturing business. Team Ico, easily Sony's best second party developer, also emerged on the PS2 with Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, both fantastic games.
Whether or not the PC is considered an actual game console is irrelevant in this discussion because no matter what consensus is reached, the platform still has a plethora of top-tier titles. The days of PC exclusive games have dwindled -- a perfect example of this being the feature-rich PS3 version of Portal 2 -- and even though a high end computer is required to play the most graphically intense games, its library is still vast. One of my favorite games of all time, Half-Life, is often considered the greatest first-person shooter ever created. World of Warcraft took the best aspects of past MMORPGs and combined them to create an incredibly large world and engrossing gaming experience. The Elder Scrolls series originated on the PC, and while the series is no longer exclusive to the platform, the PC versions of Oblivion and Morrowind are far superior to their home console counterparts. The PC is also home to many great strategy titles that can only be fully enjoyed with a mouse and keyboard, including the StarCraft series and EA's The Sims.
The Nintendo DS' library shares many similarities to that of the Super NES, PS2, and PC, and ultimately is superior to that of the "competition." The DS features RPGs that are equally as fantastic as the ones found on the SNES and even features a better version of Chrono Trigger and remakes of Dragon Quest titles that never made it out of Japan. The handheld boasts very impressive original RPGs, including the likes of The World Ends With You, Radiant Historia, Etrian Odyssey, and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. DS is also home to three generations of Nintendo's behemoth RPG series, Pokemon. Two titles from the critically acclaimed Zelda series are on DS, and for fans that preferred the Zelda-clone Okami on PS2 and Wii, a sequel titled Okamiden is exclusive to DS and has received stellar initial reviews (34/40 from Famitsu Weekly and 8.75/10 from GameInformer Magazine). The Advance Wars series is absolutely fantastic on DS, and while Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon isn't as great as the other Fire Emblem games, it still provides more than enough strategy action with the intuitive touch screen. The DS library even has appeal to more "mature" gamers, as the portable has three Castlevania games and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. When compared to the PC the only titles the DS really lacks are those from the first-person shooter genre, but even then, games like Metroid Prime: Hunters, Moon, and Dementium II are all fantastic in their own right.
What truly sets the DS library apart from all others is the amount of unique, fun, and innovative games. Scribblenauts and Super Scribblenauts are perfect examples of this observation; to solve the many puzzles in each game, players can spawn any item in a vast dictionary of over 22,000 words. Just messing around with what is available to spawn is half the fun of these two games -- I once spawned a wormhole in Super Scribblenauts and a Cthulhu came out of it and killed my character. Capcom's Phoenix Wright series, although no longer exclusive, has established itself on the Nintendo DS and is highly addicting and rewarding. The legal process is condensed in such a way that it's easy for players to understand the game's rules while still maintaining a high level of fun. Level-5's Professor Layton series is a fantastic puzzle solver that forces players to think outside the box frequently.
When the Nintendo 3DS releases in North America on March 27, 2011, the remarkable life of the Nintendo DS will finally come to an end but its legacy will carry on indefinitely. Nintendo's handheld system of the seventh generation contains every aspect required to make it the current greatest video game system of all time: innovative mechanics with the touch screen, fantastic first party games, great third party support, tons of big-name franchises, variety, and incredibly unique games, but the best part of it all is that these great games can be played anywhere at any time.
