I'm buying my first DS (a DSI -- if I'm lucky enough to find one in the store) this week, what games should I get or what games do you think are the best ones on the system?

doesn't the dsi just play DS games except the dsi has digital distribution games?

Yeah, you can get any DS game...

But pick up Mario & Luigi RPG 3, it looks like a nice game.

Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass, New Super Mario Bros, Animal Crossing: Wild World, DK: Jungle Climber, Yoshi's Island DS, Kirby Power Paintbrush (may have a different name), WarioWare Touched are all dam fine games worth the money. If you like tactics/strategy then try Fire Emblem & Advance Wars too. Don't be afraid to give the Touch Generations games a try too (Brain Training, Clubhouse Games, Nintendogs). If you can get your DSi online then try out some of the DSWare stuff as well.

@sponnyroad

     It only plays DS and DS Ware games.  I have a GBA SP NES Classic Edition in good shape and a Gameboy Player on my Gamecube, so I don't really need the gb functionality unless there's some cool peripheral I don't know about and would be missing out on..  If something happened to my GBA SP then I would probably look to get a cheap DS or GBA from a game store or ebay later on.

I don't have a wireless router, so I don't think I can get it online. I'm interested in all the usual favorites plus I'm interested in adventures like Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice, Professor Layton, and Henry Hatsworth.

Grand Theft Auto, Zelda, Chrono Trigger, The World Ends with You. There are tons of them.

first off, I'd suggest getting a wireless router, then...

grab:

- Mario kart ds

- Metroid prime:hunters

- Castlevania: dawn of sorrow or portrait of ruin

- New Super Mario bros

- Final Fantasy 3

- Zelda PH

The list really is limitless tbh. Best thing would be to draw up a shortlist for yourself and work through that because there are dozens and dozens of games worth buying.

Yeah, having tons of great games can be a problem cause you don't want to miss any but don't have enough money to catch them all.

Right now, I'm looking at trying to get five games to start with:

New Super Mario
GTA: Chinatown
An Rpg
One of the Adventures
Elite Beat Agents
Maybe one of the Castlevanias