Today’s open thread ask is a simple one: What are the most wonderfully unusual (and ideally awesome) games you played on the mega-successful handheld?
Since the article seemed to imply that 3DS games are good to talk about, I’d like to give a shoutout to Attack Of The Friday Monsters, a game I just finished today. Here’s the trailer, though I don’t think it sells the game very well. For a better show-off of the game, check out the opening movie, including a voiced, totally anime title song:
Basically, it’s a walking-around game in a rural Japanese town with a few card battle segments. Which in itself doesn’t sound too exciting, but the coziness of the area and the mystery of the story made me really latch onto it. It’s got hints of Earthbound and Studio Ghibli in equal amounts, and the art style is really wonderful, though it suffers due to the 3DS’ limited pixel resolution.
One thing I found really fascinating about the game is that it really feels like a rumination on the Kaiju film genre, and the rise of ‘hero films’ in the 70s as a sort of reaction to kaiju movies (you might be familiar with Jet Jaguar or Ultraman). It’s really adorable and I found it a nice escape for a few hours.
The entire game can be slammed through in a good 2-3 hours (I beat the main story in about 2.5 hours I think) and it’s only $8 on the Ninty Store, so I recommend it if you’ve got a 3DS. I’ve never really played anything like it.
I’m sure these will be mentioned but two of my faves are:
Retro Game Challenge
Infinite Space
The early DS library is full of super weird games like Feel the Magic: XX/XY, Sprung, and Pac Pix. Pac Pix is a personal favorite, it doesn’t really work and isn’t good but I find it charming nevertheless. Also shoutout to Brain Age and how weirdly fun it actually is
TWEWY is zeta great.
Car battler Joe for the day was fun, that twisted Metal meets rpg.
Super robot wars, was a sweet tactical game with mechanical. Two story modes the specialist team or the let’s make voltron
I think the original post already mentions several titles I would have recommended.
Another Code (Trace Memory) was really cool, albeit pretty short, just to reiterate that.
The original Trauma Center was also really cool and weird. I remember that it got really difficult at some point, though.
Haven’t played it, but I’ve recently heard some talk about how crazy the story in 999 is.
I still have the Japanese only Daigasso! Band Brothers game, which is relatively conventional gameplay wise, but I thought it was really wild music wise at the time.
The Korg DS-10 is not a game, but a really weird piece of DS software (it’s a full-on synthesizer). Fun to play around with, though.
Also: Electroplankton. Still my favorite DS thing. A neat little music toy, beautiful and out there.
CONTACT from Grasshopper was the all time great weird as hell DS game. I’ve never played Flower, Sun, and Rain but from the looks of things a lot of the really great ideas from that game made it into Contact in a slightly more approachable way. Some really clever fourth wall stuff and a super duper sinister atmosphere.
I had totally forgotten about Contact. I distinctly remember playing it now, and spending my time wondering what the hell was going on.
Seconding Infinite Space, Daigasso! Band Brothers, and Retro Game Challenge. All excellent games that really haven’t been done well anywhere else. But as for games that haven’t been mentioned (as of this writing):
Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents/Ouendan 2: A series of crazy-looking rhythm games that play great. I put so much time into Ouendan 1 & 2, especially trying to beat Ready Steady Go on Normal.
Jump Ultimate Stars: Massive manga-based roster, an addictive deck-building component, and well-tuned gameplay. Probably the best mash-up brawler outside of Smash Bros. Heck, it might even exceed Smash in some aspects.
Bangai-O Spirits: Tons of stages. You can transfer created levels via the power of sound!
Solatorobo Red the Hunter: While it is pretty easy/simple, the production values are top-notch. It comes across as one of those games that the designers at Cyber-Connect wanted to make, even if they knew that it wasn’t fated to become popular.
Ditto to all the visual novels/light puzzlers. The DS was a great form factor for playing Another Code, Pheonix Wright, Hotel Dusk etc. The portability is perfect for essentially reading a digital book. I’d hope that the Switch can see some similar love on it.
For the DS these games (including ones in the main post) are all amazing
I really really like the Devil Survivor games. I think they’re personally my favourite form the core Shin Megami Tensei mechanics have taken, and I enjoy the story in both games a lot.
If I had to pick one I’d probably pick DS2, if only because I enjoy having a wider range of party members (in the first game youre pretty much stuck with a core group of four until the game branches into its various endings) and like the wider range of demons being available but they’re both really good.
I owned Feel the Magic: XX/XY when I first got my DS but where I’m from it was called Project Rub, which is a total disaster of a name. I remember that game being pretty cool, though.
I think at this point, I’d be willing to argue that the DS has the best library of games of any platform maybe only second to the PS2… maybe. The fact that the 3DS is even close to having as good of a library, even after all the talk that handheld games were dead, is a god damn miracle.
As for games I recommend, I’ll skip over those that have already been mentioned (cause this list’d be hella long otherwise), but here’s what’s left:
The Sims 2 for DS is still my favorite sims game. Unlike most Sims games where you can build your own house, get your own job, etc, The Sims 2 has you running a hotel. There isn’t as much customization or freedom compared to the PC or console versions, but there are a ton of fun little mini games and weird side stories. It also shares some similarities with the PSP version, except this one has that sick touchscreen action 
The World Ends With You is still such a fun experience, I really credit it along with Wipeout as being really important in developing my sense of aesthetics (somehow?)
I’m glad someone already mentioned Korg DS-10, I used that as a quick creative outlet for several years. (please ignore my shitty old pixel logo)
Did anyone else play Knights in the Nightmare, which was basically real-time anime chess?
Etrian Odyssey IV is hands down one of the best games ever to come out for the 3DS. This is my hill. I will die on it.
Also, it’s a damn tragedy that Trauma Centre never came to the 3DS. The DS games are great, though.
I’ll also back Mike’s piece about Aliens Infestation. Permadeath Aliens-themed metroidvania that gets a lot of mileage out of small bits of characterization for the different marines you can play as. That game deserved way more attention than it got.
Also, Master of Monster Lair is weird/uneven, but it had a lot of weird ideas.
Some guy did a really good piece on this a few years back.
Yep, very The World Ends With You.
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is worth mentioning but also the 3DS port will presumably be coming at some point (only confirmed for Japan so far). I am unsure how useful that information is because… the 3DS is region locked (SJ never came out in Europe but we could all import it because no regions).
Oh hey, while we’re on that topic, Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors was also never released outside of Japan and North America so only because the DS is region free could we play it. (Guess why Europe gets kinda salty about region locking in games.)
