Nintendo DS

[ArcturusXIV]

Thinking about getting one on the basis of hearsay. Supposedly lots of good rpg dungeon crawls and tbs.

Games look fucking weeaboo. However, there's a few I want.

Dark Spire
Etrian Odyssey 3 (Besides pokemonsters.)
SMT: Strange Journey

Was the Jagged Alliance remake any good?

 

[KalosKagathos]

Try Devil Survivor and Radiant Historia. These are more story-heavy, but there's good gameplay underneath.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Radiant Historia is booooooooooring.

Devil Survivor is a must, though.
World Ends With You is good if you like that kind of gameplay (and can stand the art style).
Knights in the Nightmare is a cool SRPG.

Dark Spire

 

[felicity]

The Mystery Dungeon series

 

[lightbane]

Ghost Trick is fun if you like puzzle games.

 

[felipepepe]

I really love Tactical RPGs, and Devil Survivor is really good, the second one is comming soon. Strange Journey uses the same mosnters / fusioning powers, but in a Dungeon Crawling style. I liked both! :D

Knights in the Nigtmare is very cool, and Disgaea is possibly the best Tactical RPG ever made, both story and gameplay-wise, together with Tactics Ogre. Is you missed it on the PS2, you really should try the DS edition. Thousand times better than Devil Survivor (with is still great).

I found Etrian Odissey 2 to be better than the 3rd, but maybe is just cause the boat parts are kind of annoying.

Dark Spire is a Dungeon Crawler wet dream. There's also Infinite Space, lot's of people here like it, but I find the spaceships battle kind of bad...

 

[Kawaii Theurgist]

@ ArcturusXIV

For a quite morbid and very atmospheric adventure game with dungeon crawly elements give Theresia a try. It's quite fun.

 

[Bee-chan]

Theresia in indeed p. good. Seconded.

 

[anus_pounder]

If I'm not mistaken, doesn't the most recent version of Desmume emulator run most NDS games? At the very least, Devil Survivor works perfectly.

 

[ArcturusXIV]

Danke!

 

[anus_pounder]

Well shit. There doesn't seem to be any list of (latest) Desmume compatible DS games. I'll download Dark Spire and ETIII later and check if they work.

 

[Catalina]

The nice thing about having a DS is that you can buy a flash cart and quite easily try games before you buy.

Out of the games recommended, I've personally enjoyed:
*SMT: Strange Journey (this is the only RPG I've ever played where I can say I genuinely loved the combat)
*Radiant Historia.

Radiant Historia is booooooooooring.

Get out. :godimsomadtheyremovedthissmiley:
Seriously, the atmosphere and storytelling are a bit low-key, but I quite enjoy the game.

*The World Ends With You. At first glance, it seriously looks like it's going to be a complete textbook case of everything wrong with JRPG's, but somehow it manages to overcome its disabilities and become amazing.

Well shit. There doesn't seem to be any list of (latest) Desmume compatible DS games. I'll download Dark Spire and ETIII later and check if they work.

If a game doesn't work well in Desmume, it's worth trying it with the emulator No$GBA with the Zoomer upgrade.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Well shit. There doesn't seem to be any list of (latest) Desmume compatible DS games. I'll download Dark Spire and ETIII later and check if they work.

They totally do.

Radiant Historia is booooooooooring.

Get out. :godimsomadtheyremovedthissmiley:

No u.
The time travel mechanics is retarded and hand-holding, even the slightest hint of challenge is removed, you always know just where to travel next. Battles look nice at first but get monotonous fast. The story, characters, writing are generic, boring, watered-down, neutralized, averaged, etc. God knows how I managed to suffer through the first 25 or so hours of the game. This kind of game coming from the creators of SMT!? Kill it with fire.

 

[Phage]

I had fun with Advance Wars DS (not days of ruin so much). Nothing very deep, but an interesting distraction.

 

[ArcturusXIV]

Was considering Advance Wars DS, graphics are kiddie, but supposedly required play. Theresia looks awesome btw, thanks!

Also, considering Dementium ?

 

[Konjad]

+1 to The Worlds Ends With You.
+1 to The Dark Spire


Also if you like GTA games try GTA Chinatown Wars.
Probably Knights in the Nightmare is great too, but I haven't played it much yet.

 

[lightbane]

Was considering Advance Wars DS, graphics are kiddie, but supposedly required play. Theresia looks awesome btw, thanks!

Also, considering Dementium ?

Please do. Dementium is a sort of Silent Hill-like FPS and a quite good one at that, especially the 2nd one. Frankly, Dementium 1-2 and Moon (uses the same graphic engine I believe) are probably the only remaining FPS games where the protagonist can carry more than 2 weapons at once.
Oh, and Advance Wars Days of Ruin is more grimdark.

The time travel mechanics is retarded and hand-holding, even the slightest hint of challenge is removed, you always know just where to travel next. Battles look nice at first but get monotonous fast. The story, characters, writing are generic, boring, watered-down, neutralized, averaged, etc. God knows how I managed to suffer through the first 25 or so hours of the game. This kind of game coming from the creators of SMT!? Kill it with fire.

Aren't you being too harsh? Granted, it still suffers from some jprg clichés, the story takes a while to become interesting, the time-travel mechanics could be better (and they're quite blunt when they're telling you some hints, but they're not telling "press A to make something awesome"), plus the sprite number is quite limited, but it stills tries to do something different: As far as I recall the characters are not completely generic (tell me a jrpg where one of your companions is a midget that uses potions in combat or one where there's a princess that uses a gun instead of a staff to channel her magic), the main character actually has personality (and is even able to do rational thinking, something EXTREMELY rare these days, both in jrpgs and wrpgs), the combat is pretty fun and finally, none of the player characters use oversized/inane weapons.

Besides, it may (and surely will, outside of indie games and possibly the release of Devil survivor 2) be the ONLY turn-based rpg of this year.

 

[Phage]

To shed more light on the Advance Wars, the first DS one (Dual Strike) is very energetic in its presentation. The available units/strategies are much more powerful, and the two COs/double battlefieldis a pretty cool concept. Some people feel that it's too over the top compared to its predecessors, but overall it's pretty fun.

Days of Ruin on the otherhand tried to be realistic... with a "mature" story and weaker units/strategies. At the end of the day, Dual Strike simply leaves a longer lasting impression, and is frankly funner. I guess if you wanted to play this game competitively with friends (and I'm guessing you're not), I can see the appeal of DoR over DS.

 

[spekkio]

Besides, it may (and surely will, outside of indie games and possibly the release of Devil survivor 2) be the ONLY turn-based rpg of this year.

OLOLO go back to Gamefags, consolefag.
The PC master race prefers REAL RPGs like Ass Effect 3, Dragon Gay 3 etc.

After all what's important is gameplay not graphics.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Days of Ruin got released in europe as Dark Conflict, with a different translation. One of them was apparently less srz bzns and more "lively" in general, but I can't find the quote at tvtropes saying which is which.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

Besides, it may (and surely will, outside of indie games and possibly the release of Devil survivor 2) be the ONLY turn-based rpg of this year.

OLOLO go back to Gamefags, consolefag.
The PC master race prefers REAL RPGs like Wizardry 7-8, Fallout 1-2, RoA etc.

After all what's important is gameplay and also graphics.

Fixed that for ya.

Anyway, guize, give me an honest answer - how good are the supposedly old school rpgs on NDS? Are they on the level of the Wizardry spin-offs for PS2 or recently translated one for PS3? Better/worse?

By unfortunately direct exposure I already established that so called console tactical rpgs are mostly braindead grindfest as tactical as a random encounter with my grandmother (with notable exeception of perhaps Valkyrie Chronicles) so despite feeling the urge of getting an nds and experiencing actual tb games made post 2001 I have this feeling that it might turn out to be a complete disaster akin to Disgaea, Vandal Hearts etc.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Well, Dark Spire is totally, extremely excellent. The puzzles are really challenging if you don't follow a walkthrough, which you definitely shouldn't. One of my favourite blob crawlers ever, and I've played qute a few. Make of that what you will, or better yet, just give it a try in Desmume.

 

[spekkio]

The PC master race prefers REAL RPGs like Wizardry 7-8, Fallout 1-2, RoA etc.

You forgot Arcanum, bro. And missed the point (new / upcoming games). The nineties were nice, indeed. There were some good games released on PC back then. And stuffies.

 

[Zeus]

I use my DS as a handheld laptop. In other words, I stocked up on ports of old PC games and the like.

Civilization Revolution for DS is great for portable 4X goodness. It's a little streamlined, sped up and aggressive for my tastes, but that's sort of the idea with a portable game -- it makes sure lots of stuff happens in the short time you play.

Orcs & Elves is a fun little dungeon crawl from id Software. The best part is, oddly enough, the characters. The dungeon itself is populated by the ghosts of dwarves, some of them intoxicated, others not convinced they're actually dead. There's some fun conversations to read.

I also bought Rebelstar Tactical Command, (edit) a GBA game. (DS Lite is for real men, as it can play awesome GBA games, as opposed to stupid DSi downloadable games, or the 3DS, which can play N64 games.) RTC was made by Julian Gollop -- the Julian Gollop, of XCom fame. It's got all the turn-based tactics you'd expect, though sadly without the creative guidance of Microprose, there's no "world strategy" layer to the game, just tactical battles. (Same as all of Julian's post-Microprose games.)

 

[ZbojLamignat]

No I didn't, Arcanum is meh. And the point was wrongly made since DAs and MEs are of course console games with PC ports made just to earn some extra $.

Crooked Bee - yes, from what I gather Dark Spire looks the best out of all those games. It still seems to me that all of those are more or less similar to japanese wizardries - which means pretty ok and good for a dungeon crawl fix in the dark times we live in. I'm kind of worried about the lack of any variety though as those games do tend to get boring after a while.

 

[20 Eyes]

The Nintendo DS is the best system this gen, including PC. /v/'s Recommended Games does a pretty good job listing most of the more interesting ones:

http://vsrecommendedgames.wikia.com/wiki/Nintendo_DS