Lately due to waiting on anticipated titles and completing a majority of the game on my R4, I stumbled upon these series of rather fun games that I tried out.

1500 DS Spirits is a series of relatively cheap Japanese games that the Tasuke company released some years ago. Each game in the series focuses on a board or card game. Some games are titles of their own such as Block Kuzushi which is basically a modernized version of Pong. The games are listed as volumes like a series of books. The games are as follows:

Vol. 1 Mahjong
Vol. 2 Shogi
Vol. 3 Block Kuzushi
Vol. 4 Reversi (Othello)
Vol. 5 Hanafuda (Flower Cards)
Vol. 6 Trump (4-5 card games)
Vol. 7 Chess
Vol. 8 Darts
Vol. 9 2 Nin-Uchi Mahjong
Vol. 10 Igo (More commonly known as Go)

There were also 2 additional games called Shogi V & Mahjong V which are enhanced ports of the first two volumes. They really aren't much different except multiplayer capabilities were enhanced.

My two personal favorites are Block Kuzushi & Hanafuda because these games are to me, the easiest of the two. Most of the games don't require much of the language to know because they are simple to get around in terms of the menu. In other words, the menu system is identical for all the games. The games also have tutorials to help you with the game in general but you may need to learn Japanese to read the tutorials. Also, if you don't understand the rules to all the games, Google & Wikipedia is your friend.

I wish Tasuke would continue to make awesome games like this but the DS market is a niche area for them considering most of their products and services are for phones and other mobile devices. All in all, these games are good on a budget and offer hours on top of hours of fun. Especially if you're like me waiting on the next great game like Pokemon.