The Undeniable Impact of the Nintendo DS
Lately I’ve been playing a lot on my DS, and it’s just got me thinking about the impact this little system had both on me, and video games as a whole. There’s not many video game consoles that are so unique that the very nature of porting games off of them is extremely difficult.
I think there was an excitement for the DS that was rare; it was an excitement both on the part of the players and on the developers. Nintendo sometimes even referred to the DS name as standing for “Developers System” because the two screens would allow for completely new game ideas. There was so much hype to launch this thing that Nintendo did something that no hardware manufacturer would dream of doing nowadays (unless we’re talking about smartphones); Nintendo basically cut the lifespan of their own Game Boy Avdance incredibly short. The GameBoy Advance only had 3 years of being the main Nintendo handheld. Luckily, in a very rare pro-consumer move for Nintendo, they threw in a GBA slot on the DS, allowing people to play both.
I got my DS on Christmas of 2004. It was the fat red one. I was looking at a list of launch games, and I must’ve gotten it with Spider-man 2, since the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies were my absolute favorite films as a kid. I went through a lot of DS’ actually. I eventually broke my red one and was gifted a white DS Lite. I just have to say- the DS Lite might be the greatest console redesign ever (maybe next to the PS2 slim). Instead of just looking like an SP with wings, the DS Lite was slick.
The DS was a sort of revolution for kids around my age. This was back in the days where eight year olds didn’t have smartphones. Kids in my class didn’t have a way to text one another. But bringing our DS’ within proximity of one another allowed us to communicate via PictoChat. While it is a bit goofy to hype up texting that requires you to be around the other person (defeating the purpose of texting at all); it gave us a way to draw funny illustrations or text the “grown-up jokes” that would get us in trouble with the nearby adults. I’ll never forget the sleepovers I had with my friends speaking via PictoChat so their parents couldn’t tell us to quiet down and get to sleep.
I also can’t understate the Download Play function. This allowed people to play certain games together even if you only had one copy of the game available. So if only one person in your friend group had Mario Kart DS, it didn’t matter! You could still play with your friends. We still see certain games today trying to chase that trend like Split Fiction!
As for the touchscreen itself, I never really was too fond when games were too reliant on it (like the two Zelda titles on DS). I preferred it as a secondary display for useful data. Games like the phenomenal Castlevania DS trilogy made it easy to view maps and stats on the bottom screen. Compare that to the also fantastic Castlevania GBA trilogy where you have to pause every time you want to see that data. It’s not game changing in any way, but it helps the game flow more naturally. The touchscreen was also a great way to get more casual gamers into the DS ecosystem. Your grandmother might say “What the hell is Solotorobo?!”, but she’ll definitely know what sudoku is!
Originally my current DS obsession started as a way for me to play through a reproduction copy of Pokemon Emerald I bought, but through the unbelievable generosity of my friend- I was gifted a copy of Pokémon Soulsilver, and I’ve been slowly making my way through it again for the first time in over a decade. The DS era was arguably the greatest time for Pokémon fans; Platinum and HG/SS often considered two of the best games in the series. And when you look at where the series is at now…it’s hard to argue with that. Mind you, Nintendo handhelds and Pokémon are pretty much synonymous. After playing Sword and Shield it has been pretty mind-blowing to go back to these older high quality titles.
Handhelds have changed ever since the original Switch launched. If a handheld doesn’t connect to your television it is seen as a huge downgrade. There’s something kind of novel about the old days of handhelds. When entire worlds were restricted to a one and a half inch screen and your pockets. And for that old era of handheld gaming the DS may be unbeaten.
