Gaming DS Games That Surprised You?

[ShadowXP]

Custom Robo Arena
Crash Of The Titans
Children Of Mana
Deep Labyrinth
Diddy Kong Racing
Trace Memory
Yoshi's Island 2
Front Mission
Bomberman Story DS
Bomberman Land Touch!
Lego Star Wars - The Complete Saga
Magical Starsign
Black Jack - Hi No Tori Hen
PRISM Light the Way
Tingle's Balloon Flight
Pac'n Roll
Point Blank DS

 

[Torte]

People: at least tell us WHY they surprised you.

For me it would be:

Pokemon Ranger - drawing loops WAS fun, believe it or not
Bomberman Land Touch - splendid minigames
Dementium - incredible atmosphere
Ouendan - I imported this after hearing all the jazz about it in 2005... worth every dollar
Garfield's two DS games - both are great platformers
Hotel Dusk - wonderful vivid art style
Imagine Babies - not half bad for a baby sim
Trauma Center - so damn addictive despite inaccuracies
LifeSigns - never thought I'd see a game so full of medical jargon
Orcs and Elves - looks old, but plays brilliantly, though short
Tingle Rupee etc. - I both love and hate this one
Yoshi's Island 2 - lives up to the original's great gameplay

Off-topic, but Crisis Core for the PSP really surprised me, too. Incredible production values for a portable and it's actually a very good RPG - not seen since FFX-2 imo. It'll probably get a PS2 release soon enough...

 

[ZPE]

Phoenix Wright 3. I thought point and click adventure games were dead and buried but how wrong was I.

 

[BakuFunn]

imagine babies? wow, i might try that. well, for me it is geometry wars. I never played a geo wars before. heard about it, but the name sounded kinda gay.

 

[JKR Firefox]

One of the biggest surprises so far on the DS for me was Chibi Robo: Park Patrol. I'd heard about Chibi Robo before the DS game was announced but was pretty "meh" about the whole thing. I never thought I would become addicted to growing flowers before but I guess I am now!

Also, as an afterthought, the Phoenix Wright series was pretty damn good as well althought I initially thought it would never work out.

- Fitzy

 

[DarkAura]

Elite Beat Agents. I thought it was a little boring version of DDR but it's a lot better than that. Better put that back on my EZF now, I wanna tap (my screen) to The Anthem now.

 

[PanzerWF]

Chibi Robo for me. Sounded like a game intended only for young people but I found it fun (for a while, got a little repetitive) and unique. That was surprising to me.

 

[wiithepeople]

Geometry Wars. I saw the release topic, and everyone was...well...freaking out about it. So, I decided to give it a try even though the title sounded really nerdy

and now, it's one of my favorite DS games, and by far the most addicting

 

[SaltyDog]

1. Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland: I didn't tink controlling a borderline tinkerbell would have ever been this much fun (shh! don't tell anyone)
2. Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings: RTS on the DS works well and is quite fun
3. My favorite: Dementium. This was spooky sounding and looking.
I bought the second two cuz they deserved the moola. If Ninty gives us Americans Tingle, I will gladly buy (then resell it

)

 

[disc0]

Lost in Blue. I don't see why it had such bad reviews, really. If you like survival shows, or camping, or The Sims, there's something in it for you. I thought it was excellent, even if I'm a bit out of the target audience.

And another vote for Geometry Wars. I thought the controls would be crap and the action would be cramped, but it's really an excellent game even on a handheld.

 

[Seven]

Hotel Dusk - The ending was pretty great
Phoenix Wright - Really didn't see it coming. Really.
Tales of Innocence - A real step up from the Tempest failure.

 

[Duke_Jay]

Hotel Dusk - Great Story
Phoenix Wright - I want to be a lawyer myself after playing this game.

 

[the_watcher87]

Has to be Elite Beat Agents in my book, I also really enjoyed Pac-Pix

 

[leetdude_007]

WordJong. All of the multiplayer features you would expect (Wifi, download single, local multiplayer, etc) are all there. WordJong allows you to Jong anywhere.

 

[CannonBallZ]

FXII revenant wings suprised, i expected something as crap as heroes of mana was but its not bad
Phantom hourglass, it felt like an epic console experience, it really took me aback, most of the ds games now lacks lustre to me

 

[Neko]

Custom robo area.

I decided to try it a some days ago seeing as I hadn't got any good games to play by then.
And I was suprised!
A Story Mode and you can even run through the city and talk to a lot of people and stuff.

That game really is good ,although some of the opponents are very hard to beat with my style of fighting. Oo

 

[Deleted User]

Phoenix Wright REALLY surprised me. I knew beforehand that it was text-based, so I thought it would be boring. But, it is probably IMO the best series of games on the DS.

 

[Psyfira]

Nervous Brickdown: I was expecting a raw breakout clone, the innovative gameplay completely blew me away. It's awesome

I thought controlling a bat with the stylus would be awful, but your hand doesn't get in the way as much as I expected.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: It sounded like it'd be rubbish without Wifi, but I've been addicted for 2 months.

And finally the opposite: I was a bit disappointed with Warioware Touched. I loved the two on GBA, but the DS one was too repetitive and recycled a lot of their content. The microphone minigames were a joke, using the mic is a nice idea but they're just too easy. And the storylines were beyond awful, they were not bizarre, absurd, funny or just plain daft as we've come to expect from the series. Which is sad

 

[VBKirby]

Games I found surprisingly good were

Magical StarSign.
I wanted the game, but I wasn't sure if I'd like it. Turned out to be the second best RPG I'd ever played. (Golden Sun being the best)

Pokemon Ranger
I was skeptical due to the past three Pokemon DS spin offs sucking. (though Mystery Dungeon wasn't too terrible) To my utmost surprise, it has turned out to be the greatest Pokemon game I've played! (which is almost all of them)

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime
Was a surprisingly great game.

Touch Detective
I always wanted to buy it, but couldn't make myself spend the money since I was so unsure I'd like it. I got the R4 Revolution for christmas, so I tried the game out, and it became one of my favourite DS titles. It's a very fun game, with brilliant writing in the humour department. I highly suggest this game, and it's sequel, Touch Detective 2 1/2

Tetris DS
I'm super loyal to Tetris, so I've bought pretty much each Nintendo released one. (I never ask my mom to buy me another Tetris game) By the time the Gameboy advance came along, I was thinking "why the heck am I doing this? They all stink recently!" Tetris DS was the pay off for my stubborn loyalty. I love it. (though once again, Kirby was left out of this type of tribute thing or event.) I have no reason to ever buy another Tetris game now, since it will never get any better.

 

[cupajoe]

I feel like I'm advertising because I talk so much about this game, but Dragon Quest IV was a huge suprise for me. you should go try it.