5 Nintendo DS RPGs You Should Play

Ah the role-playing games. These are my bread and butter when it comes to video games. The Nintendo DS, in its time has a fantastic library of Role-playing games which ranges from classics to sequels to completely stand-alone original games. Here in this post I present 5 RPGs in the Nintendo DS which you should have played, or you should be playing now.

5. Kingdom Hearts: 358/5 Days

Enter Roxas, Sora's Nobody which was created when he shortly lost his heart. 358/5 Days provides us with a back story on Roxas and his days being part of the Organization XIII. The game is an action-rpg divided through quests/missions which the player should do in order to progress to the game.

The Main Attraction - One may find the quests dull and repetitive, but I never found it that way due to the overall emotional content in the package. Roxas is the personification of sadness in the video games. He, Xion, and Axel convey the feeling of despair of how it is to feel when in fact they shouldn't be feeling anything at all since they are not humans anyway. But as the story progresses, I got caught up with Roxas and Xion searching for an identity of their own. And Oh THAT ending which left me wanting more. It's like I never want to see Sora anymore just for Roxas to get the happy ending that he deserves.

4. Nostalgia

Edward Brown is the rich kid who has to embarked on an adventure to search for his father. Little did he know that his search will lead him into the most arduos task of them RPGs - saving the world. :)

I actually don't know why this title get some pretty bad reviews from the press. Hey. The game is good. It has some of the best graphics in the Nintendo DS and I frankly ranked it high when I have to compare it to other DS games out there. The story, well, is not its best part. But it's decent enough and tolerable if you are itching for an RPG.

3.  Final Fantasy IV

Cecil Harvey is the Dark Knight who only wants good for his kingdom, but when he questions the motives of his king, he was banished and went on a quest that encompasses the whole Earth and flying to the moon and back. Final Fantasy IV marked the first time the series become story-driven. And in the Nintendo DS, Cecil and the gang received their defining moment in video games.

I say "defining" because the classic game has received a major overhaul. The SNES game is now in full 3D, with voice-acting, and added bonuses which were not in the original version. I have been completely mesmerized by Final Fantasy IV's story which can be described in one word - epic. It actually ranks high in my list of favorite RPG's though the top position still belongs to Final Fantasy VI.

2. Radiant Historia

Special Intelligence Agent Stock is on a mission that could potentially be the key in his country Allistel winning the war against the rival nation of Granorg in a world that is rapidly being consumed by sand. But when he is about to breath his last after suffering a mortal wound, he is summoned in the land of Historia. And in there, Stocke was instructed to save the world from desertification (albeit destruction) by going back and forth in time.

Radiant Historia is a killer. Just when you thought you've lost faith in Japan's ability to a churn well-thought out JRPG, Atlus gave us Radiant Historia. The concept of time travel has been used by other games of great magnitude (think Chrono Trigger, which will not be in this list since I know most of you have played it) but Atlus' time traveler actually works. I suggest if you still don't have this game yet, give it a try and I can sure you with nothing less than satisfied minds.

1. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

What? There are three Square Enix games in this list? Sorry. :) But you see, most people have been saying that their portable RPGs these days are better compared to their console RPGs (some even suggested that Chaos Rings on the iPhone is more enjoyable than Final Fantasy XIII, but that's their opinion, not mine.) And Dragon Quest IX is their magnum opus in the Nintendo DS.

You are a Celestrian (a winged one which is really like the angels. lol) and you are stripped off that and become just like an ordinary human (still an angel though, just without the wings) after the angels' observatory gets attacked, destroying the angels' realm (this actually sounds like a Coup to me. lol) and your way of going back. In the tradition of the Dragon Quest series, the hero, which is you, must journey to find and solve the mystery of the attack while helping towns along the way. Only at the end you'll find the culprit that I guarantee you will least suspect. xD

Dragon Quest IX is massive for a DS game. In Japan, it was even more massive since, one of the game's key feature - multiplayer is one major factor why you'll find people playing it even on trains. lol. Though the multiplayer is something not really major fact where you are in a place where only a few people play the game (unlike in Japan), the online downloadable quests make up for it. When you complete the game in its entirety, there will be a message from the man Yuri Hojii himself.

So there you have it. 5 Games in this list. What is your favorite Nintendo DS RPG?