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S.Peelman on 10 January 2017
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The DS came out during the period I was turned off from Nintendo and console gaming and I didn't really want it at first. I didn't think there would be things that would interest me, and I didn't really pay attention to it for the first couple of years. Until 2007, when we were on a holiday in France (staying in an old castle, that was cool) and I figured I'd bring my GameBoy Advance and three of the five games I ever got for it. Twilight Princess on GameCube half a year earlier had reignited a small flame inside me again when it released the christmas before, so why wouldn't I? My mother asked me what I was still doing with the old GBA, and if it wasn't time I got the new handheld. So I figured why not, and there in France we went to a store and I got my DSlite with Mario Kart DS. It turned out to be a cool system, and I had a lot of fun with it. For a while I even got back the old local-multiplayer fun I had with my cousins during the NES, SNES and N64 days with my younger niece who was now old enough to play these games in a fairly serious manner and was given her own DS. My favorite games were;

Professor Layton & Pandora's Box
Mario Kart DS
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Super Mario 64 DS
Anno 1701

So I powered it up for the first time and started Mario Kart DS. Having been playing Super Circuit the day before, it was a huge difference. Mario Kart was good again! It would stay one of my most played games throughout the remainder of the generation and I'd have a lot of multiplayer fun with my niece. The game's played a big part in getting me back into console gaming and Nintendo, with the others that deserve credit being Wii Sports and Uncharted on PS3.

My DS ended up being the system with the biggest library I owned since the N64, and among them were a few you could technically consider shovelware. One of them being Anno 1701. It was the cash-in accompanying the real game on PC. It was a bit different than that version, but the DS version was actually a lot of fun in it's own right. The touchscreen added a lot of simplicity to it's control-scheme and was intuitive to use. The touchscreen as a whole grew on me quickly and I liked it's workings in many games. Including the system's Zelda games. Though Phantom Hourglass felt a bit like an experiment, Spirit Tracks was a great game. For a long time I found it was superior to the Gamecube's Wind Waker. It had a fun story, cool dungeons with some clever puzzles and it's control-scheme was great. By this time, combined with simultaneous experiences on Wii, faith in Nintendo was restored. Another great surprise was Professor Layton. The first one I played was Pandora's Box, the second game, and I was completely hooked, playing for long stretches of time. It was new, it was challenging, engaging. Just addicting.

Finally, as one of the last games I ever got for the system, I got the remake Super Mario 64, when I remembered it was one of my favorite games ever made. Probably like 8 years after it released, still for full price. The game was just as grand as it ever was and the new levels were welcomed. I was back.