Best Nintendo DS RPGs

You guys forgot the Inazuma Eleven games

HeartGold and SoulSilver are still the best Pokemon games imo!

Happy to see Sonic Chronicles in here. It's very popular to hate on the game - and with the common consensus on modern Sonic, the meme-worthy music, and cheaper aspects of the title, I can see why. But it's still a great time and a solid title for anyone curious to see what a Sonic RPG would be like. Plus I found the touch controls to make the battles quite engaging.

A lot of good games on here. Recently purchased EO3 for around $80. Even purchased a DS because I hate playing DS games on the 3DS. Definitely worth the plunge. Great experience and it opened up access to my DS games again.

I played :
1. Final Fantasy III
2. Final Fantasy IV
3. Kurikin: Nano Island Story
4. Zettai Onkan Otoda Master
5. Pokemon Black 2 & White 2
6. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

I'm sorry you LIKED Sonic Chronicles?

Not even getting into stuff like the godawful OST its story is super paper thin with an incredibly flat antagonist and the battle system's overreliance on touch inputs and how easy they were to screw up due to how quick in succession they came broke the pacing of battles significantly

Also the Mass Effect-like dialogue tree is leagues below anything else BioWare has done and doesn't feel like it has long term consequences for your actions compared to those other games

Have not played Sonic Chronicles, how is it?
Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon and Nostalgia were kinda meh
The rest of the list I am happy with
Don't know what else to add
Edit: I just remember Magical Starsign was awesome! @Damien McFerran
Edit 2: Someone mentioned DQ 4-6 are missing
So many great games on this little handheld!

Ah yes, TWEWY. Loved that game to death back in middle school. Still my favorite game of that era.

Sitting here being reminded I need to play my copy of Sonic Chronicles. I got the game as a gift years ago, played for a bit, and it's been sitting in my backlog since. Other games I was playing at the time got in the way.

Lmao those prices tho. Thank you emulation

And i enjoyed sonic chronicles for what it was. It was just as fun to me as the Mario and Luigi games, especially when it came to exploring the overworld. But i don't think it has any business being in a best ds RPGs list tbh

I’m in the middle of a playthrough of Glory of Heracles on DS. It’s not the best RPG, but its doing some interesting stuff in the plot and I do like its “Front Line/Back Line” battle system.

I know it's hard to encompass everything with lists like these, but while skipping both Project X Zone games on 3DS was an oof enough in itself, colour my obnoxious fan butt truly triggered now. A "best NDS RPG" list and not a single Rune Factory???

That's a pretty bad list. Too many great games left out:
Radiant Historia
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey
SMT Devil Survivor 1 & 2
Dragon Quest V (One of the best in the series)

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time
The World Ends With You
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story

Money well spent for me back in the day.

Please stop. These lists are terrible

I really like this look back on the DS.

If anyone is interested in playing these on the original hardware, as opposed to playing on the 3DS ( imho- DS games on the DS is the way to go), you can get a decent deal on refurbished units on ebay. I've gotten a couple and in my experience they are terrific. Just be sure to check the seller's reviews before purchasing.

Heh, still bummed that I waited too long to get the DQIX DLC. I’ll never finish that one now.

You can never really claim someone else's preferences are wrong. I'd have stuck with more turn-based combat games, than many of the action games listed that have some rpg-elements or just a story portion and anime characters, like Solatorobo (great game though), Kingdom Hearts etc.

Also Dragon Quest IV, V and VI would have been there instead of games like Infinite Space and Nostalgia had I made the list.

I question the basis for the claim that "the system wasn't flooded with quality titles" which the article states in the beginning. I simply disagree and the DS has lots of quality titles, and not just in the RPG department.

@tabris95

You're not wrong, i dig razorxkenshin's list, but it's cool to see articles about old systems.

You included every Pokemon game except Platinum? Yeah no, Platinum is definitely better than Diamond/Pearl and Black/White. Diamond/Pearl was good, but had poor dex variety (no Fire types except Infernape and Rapidash stings badly), and Black/White was the start of a lot of the problems people had with modern Pokemon games like linearity and handholding. And it did a very poor job of being a "fresh start" when so many of the new Pokemon they shoved down our throat were similar to old Pokemon (Woobat and Roggenrola are pretty much Not Zubat and Not Geodude for example). I would rank the DS titles like this:

Platinum
HGSS
BW2
DP
BW

@tabris95 Maybe tell them what's so terrible with this list instead of just saying it's terrible?

The 2 greatest dungeon crawlers ever made are Diablo and Phantasy Star Online.

The only portable Diablo is on Switch.

The only good PSO sequel since the GameCube is Phantasy Star Zero on the DS.

Thus it should be on the list.

While some will praise Thousand Year Door as the pinnacle of a Mario RPG game... to me, it's Bowser's Inside Story. The narrative is so well-told. The idea of Bowser becoming a sort of incompetent middle manager with a really compelling personality flourished in this title. It remains one of the most hilarious games I've ever played. Controlling him was also a blast (literally). This is to say nothing of the immaculate pacing of the game. It was a TIGHT 20 hours where each hour built to a crescendo in the final battle. AlphaDream never ascended to such heights again. The pity is that with the studio's demise, we'll never see them have the chance to try to get there again. 😢

OK, c'mon, Strange Journey and both Devil Survivors were ripe picks for this list. They're better than 90% of this list, even putting aside the baffling inclusion of Sonic Chronicles.

I wish I'd picked up Solatorobo when I first heard about it.

At least EO3 is on here. Considering it's the only DS EO game without a 3DS remake, I'm super glad I own a complete copy of it. Those prices are bananas.

ok, the appearance of sonic chronicles took me by surprise, but to be fair the aesthetic and setting for the game is neat and some of the best writing the franchise has had.
doesn't mean I'll overlook the gameplay, graphical quality and horrendous music, but there was a lot of potential in this game.

too bad we will never see these ideas or characters ever return, thanks Ken Penders 😒

Sonic Brotherhood has no business on this list. I love the idea of a Sonic RPG but it just didn't work. Dark Dawn was okay, I guess. Shadow Dragon's placement i understandable. I would personally rank Covenant of the Plume a little higher. Radiant Historia being absent seems strange, but I assume the 3DS remake knocked it out of the rankings. Haven't played Partners in Time but I heard it' s infamously bad and never hear any praise for it. I still need to play Bowser's Inside Story, what little I played of it was pretty cool. Not sure why Chrono Trigger DS is so low. Decent list overall though, some of the entries were a bit odd though and I'm surprised there's no SMT entries like Devil Survivor or Strange Journey, but those have remakes on 3DS anyway.

I was about to say that if you included Partners in Time without including Bowser's Inside Story, you were crazy. Personally I think Partners in Time is the worst Mario and Luigi game (but it's still pretty good).

Glad to see Contact on this list. Really great game that did some unique things! I wasn’t aware some publications trashed it when released. Who’s that referring to?

@Xenomorth Yeah that's a fair point. I had to leave for work so I just left it at a "this is terrible" which is a bit unfair. I will give them some big points for including Sands Of Destruction and Infinite Space as they're real gems but other games like Sonic Chronicles and Kingdom Hearts Pretentious Random Name Generator have no business being here. What's worse, and this is true about all of these lists so far, is that with every bad game on these lists, they've excluded a game that really deserved to be here. No Devil Survivor 1 or 2 on BOTH the DS and 3DS list is a crime

For shame not including the criminally overlooked Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans.

Also, Sonic Chronicles? One of the best DS RPGs? Why would you say something so foolish yet so brave?

1) Dragon Quest IX (the only excellent RPG on the DS!)
2) Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
3) Final Fantasy IV (best version of this game!)
4) Final Fantasy III (but the PSP version is slightly better)
5) Nostalgia
6) Glory of Heracles: Soul Proof

These are the only good RPGs on the DS. In fact, they're the only RPGs on the system. The other games you think are RPGs are actually just visual novels (Chrono Trigger) and strategy RPGs (Luminous Arc).

When I say "visual novel", I mean a game that requires almost no input on the part of the player. You're just reading a picture book, and a very poorly-written one at that. Radiant Historia is another good example. They are 95% story and 5% game.

Love this system so much, one of all time greats.

Here's some of my favorites: I included games from all genres since most my favorites are RPGs anyway so a non-rpg list would be kind of tiny on its own:
-Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Jouney
-Dark Spire
-Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon
-Advance Wars Days of Ruin
-Devil Survivor
-Dragon Quest 4
-Pokemon Black/White
-All 3 Castlevania games (Order of Ecclesia being the biggest standout)
-All 3 Etrian Odyssey games (of which 3 is the standout)
-999, one of the best Visual novels ever made...
-Retro Game Challenge

There's Chrono Trigger too though I personally don't really associate that with the DS.

It's just a really kickass system all around, the only problem is that its a handheld one, I'd love to play a lot of these games on the big screen instead.

I absolutely disagree on Sonic. That game was as mediocre as a JRPG can be.

And Sands of Destruction, while being interesting, has a Battle system and a overall balance that are a complete mess.

Nostalgia has a great idea, but the game itself is the epitome of everything that is generic in a JRPG.

Was not expecting Luninous Arc 2 tough. Glad to see it on the list.

If sonic chronicles had a good OST, I would be fine with its placement on the list, but the awful OST brings it down so much. I hope someone eventually does a hack with remastered music.

I'm so glad to see Infinite Space on this list. Such a fantastic hidden gem that could always use a little more attention.

Its a slow start, but once you have a fleet of ships the battles feel so much more rewarding to play. Not to mention the gut punch that the story deals you in the 2nd act. Love it all.

Another favorite gem of mine that didn't make the list was Avalon Code. It came out fairly late in the DS life cycle, so its just a few polygons shy of being mistaken for a 3DS title. Loved the customizable battle system.

You must be really brave, if you're making a best of guide and you're leaving out DQ IV&V (among the best in the series), yet you put in the travesty that is Sonic Chronicles.

I mean I always knew NL isn't the place for incredibly thought out deep dives cause you have different priorities as a site, but geez this really makes it hard to take you seriously to be honest.

Yesterday, on the 3DS list, I commented on how that portable console was in the top 3 of best RPG catalogues. The DS is not far behind; it could be the 4th or 5th, next to the PS2.
Of the 30 games mentioned in this list I have all the Pokémon ones (and I also think Platinum should have been included instead of Diamond/Pearl, as it is superior in every way: plot changes, bigger Dex, post-game etc.), Chrono Trigger, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and The World Ends With You.
By the way, HeartGold/SoulSilver is the pinnacle of the series, and one of the best remakes ever.

Ok, I saw Sonic Chronicles on the thumbnail and was, “No, they wouldn’t have”

Sonic Chronicles and best don’t deserve to be in the same sentence. Are you guys nuts?! Not only is the game not good but this is considered the start of Archies Sonic comics downfall as Penders thought he owned the rights to all echidna characters.

Okay but you forgot Radiant Historia and that is unforgivable. If you only play one RPG on the DS play Radiant Historia. It really is that good

Lunar Knights anyone?

Golden Sun Dark Dawn was a real snooze fest. Your party characters talked WAY too much while actually saying very little and there was zero challenge to any of the battles.

@coleman83 If it helps, Radiant Historia Perfect Chronology got a spot in their 3DS list earlier

Unpopular opinion: TWEWY is vastly overrated. The controls are terrible and the story is obtuse gibberish.

These lists are always clogged with Pokemon. I'm thinking that franchise has to be something you had to get into as a kid to appreciate as an adult. I bought Black on the DS as my first (and thus far only) Pokemon game. It was... fine. I enjoyed it somewhat, but if I ranked my DS RPG's best to worst, it would be dead last. The gameplay was fun, but not amazing, and the story was mind numbing.

What major upgrade were people hoping for with Golden Sun: Dark Dawn? I was hoping for more of the same! I got just that, no need to fix a formula that was already perfected

I used to hate it whenever the Nintendo DS tried to use 3D graphics, they looked BAD :')

Dragon Quest IX is screaming for a Switch remake.

So, where in Arceus' name is Radiant Stories?

Loved FF:CC Ring of Fates! I never got around to the other one though.

If you want a cheaper way to play Chrono Trigger on DS, it's worth picking up a Japanese copy. The game has a full English translation on the cart, it's region free, and it goes for a heck of a lot cheaper than the Western release.

No Devil Survivor on either ds list eh? That's super interesting...

@dluxxx SMT got some love on the 3DS list, but none on this one. I played Devil Survivor 2 and really liked it, but Strange Journey... I just about doused my trousers from how amazing that game was!

@TheFox I couldn't agree more, I love Strange Journey!

Excuse me, but where is Suikoden Tierkreis? That's my favourite RPG on the system

@Bolt_Strike Sorry, BW was linear and Diamond/Pearl/Platinum was not?
I can remember getting stopped on Pearl somewhere.
It was probably one of those moments like "just go do the Gym because you can't find anything else to do and watch story magically happen afterwards".
At least if you're going to make me do a Gym for plot progression, at least time me you're doing it with even the most paper-thin reasoning.

I had so much with infinite space! The DS transformers game also felt like an RPG.

Strange Journey was one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played. The combination of SMT with last ditch military operation storyline was fantastic.

Sure there were some obvious ones left off the list such as SMT but I loved reading through this as most of these games I haven’t played and a few I never knew about

Um strange journey is probably the best RPG on the console and smt devil survivor is just as good so... I guess it makes sense as these aren't household names but isn't it not doing the article justice to have two contenders for first depending on who you ask off the list entirely... While sonic dark brother whatever is there a just decent game.

DQ IX is REALLY good!

@KingMike DP had some linear moments, but much less than BW onward. There were a lot more optional paths and areas, there were more instances of backtracking, and you could even choose whether to visit Veilstone or Pastoria first. BW though? Rigidly linear from start to finish, the whole region was basically a straight line, you couldn't move onto the next gym before finishing the current one, very few instances of backtracking or revisiting areas, and no optional paths, just the occasional side dungeon. There is a very tangible difference between DP and BW in linearity, and it stuck with the series from then until Legends Arceus (and that's something that a lot of fans have hated about modern Pokemon games).

Golden Sun 1 and 2 are such masterpieces, one of the finest games that i have played on the GBA. I cant say the same about Dark Dawn, what a wasted potential, that game was hot garbage, i couldnt get into it, i tried like 4 times to like the game but everytime i ended not playing it. Such a shame because Golden Sun is one of my favourite RPG'S.

From the intro: “ As you can see, the system wasn't flooded with quality titles...”

That explains the Sonic RPG getting into the top 30 then.

(Doesn’t explain the absence of SMT titles, Dragon Quest IV-VI and Magical Starsign, but hey - it’s almost like this list was generated to provoke debate.)

Avalon Code should have been on there, I believe it's way too underrated. I, myself, ignored it when it came out, then I got it offered to me for one of my birthdays, and absolutely loved it.

In that game you can add stuff you encounter to your magic book to capture their essence. Those can be people, places, plants, weapons, etc. Then you combine them to create new things that you can use in combat. It's made by Matrix Software, the same people you owe the DS Final Fantasy games, so you know it's made by good devs that knew the DS inside and out, especially by that time.

And then like many said, the Nintendo DS Dragon Quest games were amazing, especially the remakes of IV-VI, I think they hold up better visually than even IX on the same platform. Radiant Historia is easily my favourite RPG on the system and it didn't make the list either (though it DID make the 3DS list, so that's "something").

Finally I don't see anyone mentioning Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals in the comments section OR the article. Gotta give it some love! I also quite enjoyed Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier for the big boobed ladies in combat ^^. OK I'm done now.

Super Robot Taisen was pretty awesome for the Cowboy Bebop/Outlaw Star style narrative. Good choice.

Outside of Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, there personally hasn't been any DS RPGs I enjoyed as many of the ones I played just didn't deliver to me.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow was good, but the whole thing played too safe after Aria of Sorrow.

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time felt too incredibly rushed and barebones, especially compared to its GBA predecessor Superstar Saga.

Pokémon Diamond/Pearl was simply nothing special and felt like a copypaste port of Ruby/Sapphire with a tacked-on second screen.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story was a mixed bag that suffered too much from gimmicks and Bowser being too OP'd, even by a Mario RPG standpoint.

Lol what a crappy list they missed the best JRPG and probably the best NDS game : Ni No Kuni: Shikkoku no Madoushi (Dominion of the Dark Djinn)

A role call of many of my favourite games there. All of the Pokémon ones, Fire Emblem, Golden Sun, The World Ends With You and Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift.

I also play GBA games on my DS and with my flash card: ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, NES, SNES, Mega Drive and GameBoy.

I had a better time with Magical Starsign, an exclusion, than I did with Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. The sluggish battles pretty much ruined Generation IV for me until I got Heartgold. Black/White, I don't care how linear they are, the pace of battling probably got perfected with Gen. V and made that generation a significant improvement over IV. I would also say Magical Starsign is a better time than Nostalgia and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn currently.

I'm about a third of the way through my first playthrough of Dark Dawn, and there have been times when I'm just not into the game's narrative structure. The main story quest is to go across the continent in search of a special feather, and that has been out shined by pretty much every subplot I've experienced in the game. Its narrative is out of order in my opinion. Currently, I'm in a sweet spot in the game where I'm not being reminded of the reason the adventure began in the first place. Tyrell also is the first time I think a single character has caused me to lose interest/dislike a game. Thankfully I can swap him out for battles at least now that I have 5 party members.

Magical Starsign has a comparable cast in terms of age; however, its adventure begins over a missing person significant to the cast not over a rare feather to fix a machine broken by an annoying character. Its narrative is driven on something that actually feels significant and I think the game gained range by having a serious situation, a missing person, paired with a very young main cast. From there, no matter how silly or dark the game decided to go, Magical Starsign's narrative always felt like it fit the whole.

McFerran, please don't pretend like Sonic Chronicles is good.

wow, many game i don't know. Now i have many titles to try. Thank NintendoLife

@StephenYap3 Maybe Diamond/Pearl wasn't the biggest step forward in graphics fidelity but it added perhaps one of the single most important balance-fixing game mechanics: Called the "Physical/Special split", allowing moves to be individually defined as Physical attacks or Special attacks. aka how my Magneton became 400% better learning an attack move only 10 BP higher.
No more is high Attack power a waste of stats on a Water Pokemon.

Oh, and also adding online battling/trading to the franchise for the first time was probably a little important (even though I personally didn't play online much).

• Pokemon DP: It's more of the same graphics of the GBA, so I like it, I never got used to B&W's half-3D visuals, so this is like the last true 2D game, even though it still had 3D elements.
• TWEWY: it's a masterpiece.
• KH 358/2 Days: KHII gameplay on your DS, what's not to like?
• FFIV: If I didn't prefer sprite art, this would be the best way to experience the greatness of IV.
• FE ShadowDragon: Best way to play FE1, visually it's a stepdown from the GBA titles, but it's a million times better than playing the Famicom, or the shortened SNES version.
• Sonic: Well, it's Sonic so how could I decline? I always enjoy when they find a way to make good use of the large cast of characters, unfortunately I couldn't get into this one as much as I did Sonic Battle (Not an RPG but had a lengthy story and RPG elements.)

Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier is missing. Love this game.

@TheWingedAvenger Strategy RPGs are a legitimate sub-genre of RPGs, and you're still leaving out a whole bunch of good DS RPGs that are neither SRPGs nor as you say "visual novels" like the Pokémon games.

@coleman83 I think they purposely ignored "Radiant Historia" due to already including the superior remake on the 3DS list. Thus its spot in such a guide was better left to something else to highlight assuming that most people would rather get the 3DS version instead.

@Bolt_Strike To be fair, the way the Pokémon series is designed, they never needed optional paths before the Pokémon League, and only in the 1st generation (and the post-game Kanto area of the 2nd generation) is there any choice in the order you can challenge some gyms, anyway. That kind of stuff is best saved for the post-game. Modern Pokémon games do have some issues, but linearity before the post-game isn't really one of them.

Besides, Black/White actually does have one large optional area before the post-game, and it even requires backtracking to reach it as well: The two water routes (17 & 18) to the west of Nuvema Town.

How on earth is Dragon Quest V not on this list!? It's better than at least half of the games listed here.

@BulbasaurusRex Pokemon is an adventure RPG where exploring the overworld is a major gameplay component. Linearity hinders that.

@BulbasaurusRex
Pokemon is its own genre. A turn-based RPG in which you collect monsters and make them fight each other. You can't put these games in the same category as Dragon Quest and Phantasy Star. Very different gameplay.

A lot of these games were just mediocre RPGs back in the day. Knights in the Nightmare was added to my wishlist though. So thanks for that.

@Bolt_Strike No, it isn't! It's about collecting and battling monsters and doing so to become Champion and defeat the evil team. Exploration only matters in the postgame. Alternate routes and extra areas add nothing to the enjoyment of main series Pokémon games during the main story!

Besides, none of the games are truly linear anyway, since they all add extra areas to explore after you learn Cut, Surf, Strength, Waterfall, etc. (or the equivalent abilities in Gen 7+).

@TheWingedAvenger Wow, you are so wrong it's not even funny! Pokémon and other collection-based examples are just as much RPGs as any others!

Pokémon is only a small mechanical difference away from being just as much of a traditional turn-based JRPG as "Dragon Quest" or any others! The only differences are that you capture your party members and don't directly fight yourself, instead of gaining predefined party members through story events.

Besides, Pokémon is only one example of all the great RPGs you left of your list that are neither "visual novels" nor SRPGs, while you're still ignoring the fact that SRPGs are a legitimate sub-genre that need to be included in any RPG list.

@BulbasaurusRex Exploration is a major part of it. You adventure and explore to reach the cities where gyms are, and you explore to find the Pokemon. That's where the exploration comes into play, it makes it more rewarding to find a new area with new Pokemon to catch or new trainers to battle instead of everything just being handed to you. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not part of the formula or doesn't add anything.

@BulbasaurusRex
I agree that the Pokemon games are RPGs, but I consider them a sub-genre, and therefore a different genre. The collecting monsters is a huge difference in the gameplay - I can't just lump these games in with Dragon Quest and Phantasy Star.