Nintendo DS/Japan

Nintendo DS

DSiWare

Edutainment

Japan

Homebrew

Japan exclusives

Cover	Title	Genre	Description	Translation	Screenshot
	Cid to Chocobo no Fushigi na Dungeon - Tokiwasure no Meikyuu DS+	RPG / Roguelike	This is a Port of the Wii Game Final Fantasy Fables - Chocobo's Dungeon. The story mode is all in Japanese but you can figure out the story if you play the Wii version. Very cool rougelike dungeon descending game. In the DS version there are some new classes for Chocobo, and each one has unique features and skills. It also has a special dungeon that lets you play as Cid. The best part of this are the bonus missions, which have various restrictions and are quite challenging, requiring some real strategy to finish. Has a partial English patch that translates all the menu and battle text, but not the story. (The WonderSwan and PS1 versions got full fan translations, though.)	Partial
	Coropata	Puzzle	The Incredible Machine featuring a loli. Over 100 different puzzles in which you must provide means for the autonomous Himawari to reach her destination. Entirely in moonspeak, but it's not like the plot is important. Menus are simple to navigate. You can check a trailer here Available on PC and in English as of 2021.	Link
	Cross Treasures	Action / Roguelike	Procedurally generated dungeons, customizable characters and 4 player co-op, Like a sweet, sweet lovechild between Diablo, DQIX and all the retarded monsters you drew when you were 6 years old. Filled to the brim with references to Shonen Jump and arcade games, Put on your maid outfit and grab your christmas tree, we're going to floor 25 to take down a battleship in an 8-bit dungeon. One of the most under-appreciated DS games out there. You can check a trailer here	Link
	Culdcept DS	Board game / RPG	Similar to the Culdcept Saga game for Xbox 360, Culdcept DS is a mixture of Yu-Gi-Oh and Monopoly. Take various 'properties' by putting monsters on them, and raise their levels to increase the tolls your opponent must pay when he lands on them. Monsters can be boosted with items from your hand, and spells can affect a cepter's cards before he even plays them. NOTE: this game WILL make you A) Scream 'Fuck you, game!' and B) Throw your DS. This game is EXCRUCIATINGLY BASTARDESQUE - it will challenge you. Only released in Japan. You can check a trailer here TIP: get cards in multiplayer mode by having the npc win for you.	Link
	Custom Beat Battle Draglade 2	Fighting	Sequel to Draglade. Translation project ongoing, current release translates only the menus and tutorial.	Partial
	Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butoden	Fightan	A heapload of fun fighting game with Dragon Ball Z's storyline (from the Saiyan to Buu arcs), and similar gameplay from the 2D/3D/2.5D/what thefuckever Budokai games. 38 playable characters, cutscenes are done justice to the storyline, graphics are superb and relatable to the manga, and soundtrack is done great for a DS DBZ game; intro theme uses an instrumental of this . Also has a challenge mode, wifi 2 player connectivity, and a TF2 simulator.	Link
	Element Hunters	Action / RPG	Learn chemistry through violence! High speed Monster Hunter. Features awesome giant monsters, but actually allows you to jump on them instead of dodging. The sprites and models on the bosses are surprisingly stylish for a DS game. Fan translation incomplete and basically abandoned.	Partial
	Fire Emblem: Shin Monshō no Nazo ~Hikari to Kage no Eiyū	RPG / Strategy	Did you like Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon? If you did, you probably were very pissed when the developers said that the sequel (Or remake of the sequel) wasn't going to be released outside of Japan, especially considering how much BETTER the second title was going to be. But let me tell you something: FUCK THAT. A bunch of really cool guys translated pretty much the entire game, and now you can actually play this. Your own custom unit, improved art, support conversations, old and new characters to play with: It's all here. Doesn't really require you to play the previous game to enjoy.	Link
	G.G. Series Collection Plus	Compilation	In Japan, there have been a series of games released for DSiWare called G.G. Series. This is a 30-game collection of most of those games plus many new ones. The games include platformers, shmups, puzzle games and other genres. If you have a love for 2D or classic gaming, you really need to check this one out. Note: The games require no knowledge of Japanese, but earning enough GP to unlock games fucking takes FOREVER, so it's highly recommended you use cheats to max out your money & access everything.
	Hokuto no Ken: Hokuto Kami Denshousha no Michi	ATATATATATA simulator	This game presents the story of The Fist of the North Star as manga panels. Whenever a bad guy appears in a panel, targets will appear over him and you'll have a few seconds to ATATATATATA the targets with your stylus. Starts easy, but when the game adds other objectives (numbered targets, paths to follow, go back and forth between two points) it gets really fun.
	Illust Logic DS + Colorful Logic	Puzzle	Picross plus a few more other features where there are also puzzles that use color. You could also solve pieces of a bigger picture somewhat like in Picross 3D. Animations and small minigames are gone though. It's in moonspeak but still playable.
	Jump! Ultimate Stars	Fighting	A Smash-Bros-esque fighter with a fuckton of animu characters (unfortunately, though, only JUMP!-exclusive ones) and cameos. The roster will appeal both to classic animu fans (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Fist of the North Star, Dragon Ball, Kinnikuman, One Piece, etc.) and modern weeaboos (Nayrutoe, Bleach, etc.). Has online play, but everyone uses cheat codes. In addition, the community is filled with petty people who, upon losing, will use a glitch that forces everyone to reset the game. Highly recommended to play with friends. Improved sequel to Jump! Super Stars, also on the DS.	Link
	Kaiju Busters / Kaiju Busters Powered	Action / RPG	The DS version of Monster Hunter. Stays true to the formula of using giant weapons to fight huge monsters, but uses monsters from old Japanese monster movies. The game is entirely in moonspeak, and the chances of a patch are low, but the language barrier isn't overwhelming. Actually has 3 player local co-op. Make sure to use the Universal Child's Play patch.
	Ketsui Death Label	Shoot 'em Up	Boss Rush version of the popular shooter by Cave. Loads of difficulties and a weird ass multiplayer. It's got some weird Japanese humor on it if you can understand moonspeak.
	Loopop Cube: Loop ★ Salad DS	Puzzle	Think Sokoban as a 2D platformer, with a loli on top. Puzzler where you push blocks around to bring them together and make them disappear. Sounds simple and even looks it at first but these are really tough - and there are hundreds of puzzles. Also features the sweetest music ever (subtitled if you care).
	Love Plus	Dating Sim	An extremely popular Dating Sim from Japan, widely considered by some of the Japanese to be the killer app for the Nintendo DS. You get to choose one of three girls to date, you must get the girl to love you and you can kiss her by tapping her lips on the touchscreen. Much, MUCH harder than it seems. Since it is designed with realism and complexity in mind, you have to be careful with your choices. Less kawaiidesu and more "Dating for Dummies". May give you feels by the time the kissing with the stylus time comes on. Has a girl's version with Bishonuen instead of Moe girls which is listed below.	Link
	Mawashite Tsunageru Touch Panic	Puzzle	A pink ball wants to eat all the other balls and reach the goal, but the path is broken into tiles! In this puzzler, you have to rearrange the path so that your pink blob can eat the most balls and get to the goal within the time limit. Gets really intense when you have to eat a minimum of balls to pass the level within an unforgiving time limit. In Japanese, but completely playable even if you don't know the language.
	Nanashi no Game	Adventure / Survival Horror	Developed and published by Square Enix, Nanashi no Geemu or "The Nameless Game" is a survival horror point-and-click adventure. It's a game about a game, a cursed handheld RPG that kills anyone who plays it after a week. You play most of the game in a 3D environment (like Dementium), with sections where you play the "cursed" game itself, playing like an 8-bit RPG. Has a great plot which can give some chills. It has 3D sound, so you should play with headphones. It's been only released in Japan.	Link
	Nodame Cantabile/Nodame Cantabile Tanoshii Ongaku no Jikan desu	Music / Rhythm	The gameplay has an Ouendan feel to it, but replaces the J-pop with classical music. Also has other modes, one of them being a basic Taiko no Tatsujin. In Japanese, but with a little trial and error it should be easy to navigate the menus to the songs. In the story mode just click over every bear and you should be fine unlocking more songs. The sequel drops the Ouendan-like gameplay and replaces it with a mix of DDR and stylus gestures/taps. Still very fun, though.
	Okaeri! Chibi-Robo! Happy Richie Oosouji	Action / Adventure	The "true" sequel to Chibi-Robo (unlike Park Patrol), in that you actually do house-cleaning. It takes place in grown-up Jenny's house. New tools, new locations, same awesome gameplay (but a little bit harder.) You don't need to know Japanese in order to enjoy it. You can check a trailer here.	Link
	One Piece: Gigant Battle! 2 - New World	Fighting	Pretty good One Piece game for the DS, take control of a fuckload of characters from the show and just battle that shit out. The first game came out in Europe but not US.
	Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan / Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2	Music / Rhythm	Same idea and the basis for Elite Beat Agents, except instead of American pop/rock you get J-pop and J-rock instead. Near-Gurren Lagann levels of HOTBLOODEDNESS to be found. The sequel features a second "rival" team that you play half of the songs as. Obviously, Japanese only, but if you played Elite Beat Agents, you won't have a problem. OUEN, DAI SEI KOHHH!
	Puyo Puyo! series (15th Anniversary / 20th Anniversary / Puyo Puyo 7)	Puzzle	Three entries in the long-running, bubble-connecting puzzle series. 15th Anniversary includes classic and fever modes along with a bunch of gimmick ones. A great package unless you really hate the aesthetics of the Fever series. There's online, but it's not very populated these days. 20th Anniversary comes with all-new gimmicks! (spoilers: they're not new.) 7 has a few different characters (more like reskins), a new take on fever mode (Mini/Huge Mode) in favor of gimmicks, and a more active online community. Get your ass beat down by moon people or huge weeaboos. It also continues to include the classic modes.	15th 20th 7
	Puzzle Series (Slitherlink, Hitori, Akari, Nurikabe, Kakuro and Sudoku Master)	Puzzle	The Puzzle Series is a Japanese series of really fun puzzle games designed by Nikoli, only the sudoku one was released in the US as Sudoku Gridmaster (Sudoku Master in EU). Some of the games in the series require you to know Japanese but these ones don't. Since all the instructions are in Japanese, you should check these links if you don't know how to play Slitherlink, Hitori, Akari, Nurikabe or Kakuro. Tip: To save in the middle of a puzzle, press Start, then Y, then A. Works in most the games in this series, except in Hitori, where it's Start > Up > Left > A.
	SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu - Goddess of Destiny	RPG	A remake of the RPG released in the US for the Gameboy as Final Fantasy Legend II. The remake does away with random encounters and replaces them with the system used in later SaGa games, where the monsters appear in the world map; stat growths are now based on the equipment used and there's a new multiplayer boss arena.	Link
	SaGa 3: Jikuu no Hasha - Shadow or Light	RPG	Much like the above, this is a remake of the Gameboy SaGa 3/Final Fantasy Legend III, also adapted to the systems of the later SaGa games.	Link
	Simple DS Series Vol.18 - The Soukou Kihei Gun Ground	Heavy Mecha Run 'n Gun Sidescroller	Basically a successor to the likes of Metal Warriors/Front Mission: Gun Hazard/Assault Suits Series (aka Target Earth/Cybernator etc.), where you basically run around shooting and punching mechs with your customisable mech. Completely in Japanese but you can fudge your way through the language barrier. Arguably one of the best of the Simple DS series of budget titles released in Japan.
	Soma Bringer	RPG	Diablo with animu characters. Very customizable with many options as to how to build your character. Full translation patch (aside from the glossary you'll never use).	Link
	Taiko no Tatsujin DS 1, 2 and 3	Music / Rhythm	IT'S LIKE I'M REALLY A DRUMMER! It's in Japanese. Also check out the sequel for more songs and stuff to do. The second sequel adds a story mode to the mix that plays like a RPG. Really, it even has random encounters where you fight with the power of rhythm.
	Tales of Innocence	RPG	A fully 3D Tales of on the DS, huzzah. The battle system is similar to Abyss', letting you move around freely. The difficulty spike is crushing, but manageable, and the dungeons can be a little on the bland side.	Link
	theta	Puzzle	A simple yet potentially very confusing puzzler. The top screen and the bottom screen have disks with slots for balls. If a ball is above an empty slot it will fall. The balls can fall from the bottom screen to the top screen. Every disk on the bottom screen is conected to another one in the top screen so if you turn a disk with the stylus another one will turn at the top screen. The goal is to get all the colored balls on its correspondingly colored disks. This will be definitively a challenge for your spatial IQ. In Japanese, but it's completely playable even if you don't know the language.
	Tingle's Balloon Fight DS	Platformer	If you've ever played Balloon Fight, you know what to expect. Balloon Fight is Nintendo's version of Joust and is arguably better. This version features backgrounds remind you of Wind Waker, and your main character is of course Tingle. Multiplayer (2-4) in this game is a BLAST, especially if you're just looking to waste some quick time, and Balloon Trip mode is surprisingly addictive. This was only released in Japan for their Club Nintendo, but even so, it's not particularly hard to find.
	Tokimeki Memorial: Girl's Side: 1st Love Plus	Sim / Visual Novel	Female version of the original foreveralone franchise for males. Co-ordinate your outfits! Hit on teachers! Fondle your boyfriend with the Touch Screen! Disarm bombs! Make Valentine's chocolates! Much harder than it appears, since fucking up is VERY easy, and you have no way of knowing a guy completely without FAQs using your little brother to spy on people. Only recommended for girls or the manliest of men. Almost every line of dialogue is fully voiced. If this is too much man for you, try Love Plus, a more basic form of this, but has VERY extensive post-game dating and events.	Link
	Tokimeki Memorial: Girl's Side: 2nd Season	Sim / Visual Novel	You want more bishie boys? Here's more bishie boys. Now with more androgyny and MUCH more fondling. Easier than the original TMGS, so if you're intimidated by that one, go for this. Chocolate making still fucking sucks though.	Link
	Tokimeki Memorial: Girl's Side: 3rd Story	Sim / Visual Novel	The third entry in this sub-series is arguably the most fun, since you can turn two best friends into hardcore bitter rivals as they pine for you.	Link
	Tomodachi Collection	Life simulation	Control a small island that you can populate with a bunch of miis. Watch them build relationships with each other and slowly open up new stores and buildings (it's essentially The Sims, but on LSD). If any of this sounds familiar, it's because this is actually the predecessor to the much more popular 3DS game "Tomodachi Life". But this version isn't really that much different, though.	Link
	Umihara Kawase Shun Second Edition Kanzenban	Platformer / Puzzle	Use a rubbery fishing line to get through physics-based puzzle platforming levels of ball-busting difficulty. Contains both the SNES (which is on the recommended SNES games page) and PS games, brand new levels, an extras gallery and it's not a buggy piece of shit like the PSP port. More importantly, Umihara may be both the cutest and sexiest of any obscure vidya female.
	Utacchi	Music / Rhythm	A really fun Rhythm game made by the Bemani, the developers of Pop'n Music from which Utacchi was inspired. It's full of songs from your favorite anime and other weeaboo-related things. But don't think it's as easy as it is cute, because this game can become tough and unforgiving at later levels, especially with the yellow flick notes. Be sure to get the patch to fix the dead touchscreen issue. Also, there might be a savegame issue with some flashcarts (the game creates a savfile with an all-cap filename but the rom filename is lower-case); if this happens just manually change the savefile filename to match the ROM filename.
	Xenosaga I + II	RPG	A retelling of the first two episodes of the Xenosaga trilogy for the PS2. The Episode II portion of the game, originally told through Jr.'s perspective, now focuses on Shion. Features new content and some parts of the script that were originally cut from Episode II. It should be noted the entire game uses the battle system from Episode I. It was only released in Japan, but there is allegedly a fan translation in the works.
	Yakuman DS	Board game	One of the best mahjong games for the DS (real mahjong, not that solitaire garbage). Featuring Mario and co., this game has lots of optional rules for free matches. You can even do Open Riichis, the most badass move possible in mahjong in case you haven't watched Akagi. In Japanese, but it's easy to follow if you know some mahjong and there's a translation guide available here. If you like mahjong you should also check the Akagi DS game. That one is not as good as Yakuman DS, but it has Washizu Mahjong (you bet your blood and three quarters of the tiles are transparent), which no other DS mahjong game has.