The DS

Not american, try again.

The ergonomics and especially the D-pad are superior on the original. Those are what matter most.

I tried to go back to my ds lite / dsi xl but my battery died and I couldn't find a reliable source for a new one. That's the Achilles heel of all handhelds: eventually your official battery will die and the only replacements you'll be able to buy will be shitty Chinese knockoffs

DS lite is a piece of shit, its a cheaper and stupidly fragile version of a device designed to stand falling and being thrown around advertising it's breakability as "sleek" and "slim" so obvlivious faggots fall in the cashgrab.

also this

Thankfully the PSP can still be used as a regular console.

I actually prefer my DSXL, but yeah, that was a high water mark in portable gaming. You know you had to be good to out-do the GBA:SP.

...

No. That would be a modded PSVita. Or you could get a PSTV and that PSVita converter to make a PSVita XL. I forgot the name of the product, though.

Mine fell apart after 3 years. there are parts of the screen that turn red if you try to turn it on.

I enjoyed it until I got an R4 card and then I found myself not playing any of the games. It was really weird.

the ds lite is not durable at all, the touchscreen gets deadzones immediatly, the hinge breaks very fast from normal use and the buttons start to feel slack very quickly
it did get run over and was fine though, perhaps when designing it they tested for accidents but forgot to stress test normal wear and tear

I loved my DSlite, but it was the first Nintendo product to have a null Nintendium content. It slipped out of my pocket while I was sitting on a bench, and the two foot fall broke the charging port.

desensitization, having everything handed immediately for free turns you into a novelty seeking potato i.e. losing interest and moving on to something that causes greater expectation, this applies for everything.

Choice overload can be crippling, but just focus on games you would actually pay money to play and don't get hung up on missing out on finding something great in a game you really aren't enjoying. I downloaded and archived nearly every Western ds game created, but in the end I've only played through 5 or 6 if them and I probably will only get to maybe 5 to 10 more. I don't assign value to a game that fails to entertain me, so I don't feel like I'm missing anything

...

Best handheld would be the PSP

DS was a fine handheld on its own though

I was a little young for the DS, but my mom bought me a 3ds and its pretty good. I wish it was backwards compatible with GBA games without using an emulator though…

Good God

Are you under 18 or did your parents hate video games? My youngest sibling was 8 when we all got DS's, but he's old enough to post here now. (Thankfully he doesn't.)

The DS was easily the best handheld because of the sheer amount of games, but I think the Vita is tied with it in terms of moddability.

The DS Lite was the most attractive and well designed handheld Nintendo has ever produced.
- clamshell edge closes TIGHT so no dust and shit gets in
- 2 screens don't fuck each other up like the first 3DS did
- glossy top in classy colors, simple raised logo that isn't kiddy
- perfectly rectangular with rounded corners that aren't too round or too sharp
- slide power switch almost impossible to accidentally trigger, volume slider stayed where you put it
- good start/select location
- perfect stylus location and good stylus size
- battery lasted for weeks in standby because it didn't connect to the internet until a game demanded it

The only problem I recall is the shoulder buttons semi-commonly stop working after a while, but I've read it's a corrosion thing due to exposing it to moisture. I never spilled anything on mine or left it in humid places, but it could be hundreds of hours in a sweaty manchild pants pocket that did it.

More of these, please. Specifically a FUCKING LEAF.

almost.

Jesus Christ man no way you're old enough to post here. I'm only 19 and my first handheld was the Gameboy Advance.

I love my DS Lite, I don't think I will ever get as much playtime out of any console or handheld ever. It hit a certain sweet spot where the technology was finally good enough for the games to not get dated, but at the same time still too bad for the modern pozzed games industry.

The only thing I don't like about it is the D-pad. It's OK, but it could have been so much better. The new 2DS looks appealing, but at the D-pad is in such a shit position.

That's American education for you.

...

I saved up enough mpney during uni and decided between the DS and PSP. I liked the games for PSP, specifically MonHun, but concluded that I'd prefer a portable system with good battery life more since I could always play on the PC. So I bought a DS. The amount of games available for it is staggering, and I don't regret buying it.

It is my first portable console.

Good console but this is the superior choice.

You can't even plug headphones onto the damn thing and besides the DS has native GBA support.

Does anyone have a chart with recommended DS games? I have access to the library and have no clue where to start.

Solatorobo, start there.

But sadly not for GB/GBC games (even thou it has all the hardware) and the cartridges stick out of DS Lite body…

The d-pad on the Lite is the objectively worst d-pad on any major gaming system. It's abysmal. And with it being the primary input method, except possibly the buttons (which also are loose and unresponsive), that's a pretty big fucking problem. Anyone who says that the Lite is good is factually clueless. It's like claiming that sewage is good food. As a bonus, it was the first Nintendo handheld that had that retarded glossy outside, making it attract fingerprints the instant you take it out of the box.

DSi and 3DS use pretty much the same d-pads which are infinitely better than the Lite's, even though they unfortunately use the Lite d-pad's tiny design. They're still far inferior to the perfect d-pad on the original DS, though. They're too clicky, to the point where both the d-pad and buttons make a ton of noise. Original DS had responsive buttons and d-pad without making as much noise.

That they released the Lite in the state it was, was proof that Nintendo no longer gave the slightest shit about the quality of their systems. That it actually was praised despite being objectively awful, proves just how fucking clueless the average "gamer" is.

Not a bad game, but not a good place to start.

Can a phat DS be modded to have the supperior nintendo DS lite screen?

Did you play Tail Concerto first?

No, it's clearly the psvita, fuck you.

no games portable

The New 3DS is better
It can play every game from every Nintendo handheld except the Virtual Boy, if you could actually call that a handheld. Then again why there's not a Wario Land 3D port for the 3DS? via emulation (virtual console injects for GBA and Retroarch Gambatte/VC for Gameboy/Color) and Nintendo DS's backwards compatibility.
It also has decent Genesis emulation via Retroarch and pretty good standalone emulators for NES, SNES and PC Engine

A PSVita with Henkaku and SD2Cart memory adapter is one of the best options today, if you want decent emulators, PSP and PS1 games and dungeon lolis. It also has Quake 1 and 2 ports and can stream games from your PC (Nvidia GPUs for now)

Mah nigga

Also you forgot
>Battery will literally last years between uses

Only issue I had with DS Lite is the fragile hinge that commonly broke.

No, I have no interest on it.

I pulled my Lite out because of this thread, last time I used it was shortly after the first 3DS came out.

It still has a bar of battery left.

NIntendo DS and the PSP had a great competition with distinct hardware differences and great titles for each one of them, something that kinda carried over to the 3DS/PSVita era, just not so much. It's great to see handhelds actually trying to compete and doing their own thing, compared to consoles.

Also:
>tfw no good handheld Castlevania game for this generation.

I want to get off this world

plus ds lite hinges are notoriously fragile.

oh boy

I have a CFW 3DS with a DS flashcart, but I still kinda want my DS Lite back

There have been "PSVita 2 leaks" since a couple of years ago at least, but there's been no real news about them. Seeing how Sony killed the Vita in such a shitty way, I kinda doubt they're going to make another handheld again I wish I was wrong, though

One of the nice things about handhelds was that it was perfect for AA companies and smaller divisions of big companies to make games. The Vita kinda crossed into AAA territory with it's hardware, so I think that if Sony's actually making a new handheld, it's aiming to compete with the switch instead of the 3DS again, I wish I was wrong, though

I've got a DSi with an r4 cart I can't use. Would you want that user?

I'm from a South American shithole, but thanks a lot anyway.