If you spent your childhood playing these Nintendo DS games, you’re an icon now

Nothing hit harder like a day playing your Nintendo DS.

When you first clapped eyes on that little sci-fi clamshell console, you knew your life would never be the same again. So, it was like GameBoy but… with two screens? And one of the screens you could… prod with a stick? Take my bastard coins. And by my coins, I mean my mum’s coins. Because I was nine years old.

It was a cultural reset. I’ll never forget the hallowed final days of year six. Primary school was ending, and everyone could bring games in. Gone were the usual fare of Ker Plunk and Jenga, and in waltzed this husk of plastic everyone was glued to. A Mario Kart tournament full of eight 12-year-old racers gagging for first place. You’ve never seen anything like it.

You’d be hard pressed to find a console with a more iconic catalogue of games. We had virtual dogs. We had turtles in go-karts. We had angry cartoon chefs shouting in our faces, and we had our nans trying desperately to decrease their brain age or else face the wrath of a disappointed mathematician made up of low res polygons.

If you played any of these stone cold DS classics, just rest assured that today, in 2021… you’re an icon.

Nintendogs

Kicking it right off with an essential. Nintendogs is the bread and butter of the Nintendo DS.

Virtual puppies. Any breed you wanted. Dragging your dog along after planning the longest route ever in order to find loads of presents on the floor, but then instantly regretting it after having to chat to in game neighbours and their boring dogs every five minutes.

An endless choice of toys. The burden of deciding whether to part with more in game cash to buy premium dog food and drink or just give your cute bundle of pixels a bowl of any old shite and buy him a little pizza frisbee instead.

And to top it all off? You could pick interior design for your boujee doggy gaff. Very iconic that you could make your house into a beach resort but when you take your dog for a walk your house looks like it’s in the middle of Bolton.

New Super Mario Bros.

In the words of her royal highness Taylor Swift, Mario… you never go out of style.

Timeless. Stunning. Gorgeous. Mario and Luigi too have that James Dean (daydream) look in their eye.

If you played NSMB, you meant business with your Nintendo DS. You wanted to show your dad that you can beat Bowser the way he brags about beating him in the 80s. Icon behaviour.

Mario Kart

Best game on planet earth, end of.

Blood pressure through the roof pegging it round Rainbow Road. Adrenalin overload. Never gets old. Having it handheld AND 3D rather than the 2D shite we’d endured on the Game Boy advance made it more iconic than ever before.

If you raced as Peach, you’re an icon.

WarioWare: Touched!

Very random game. Here we’ve got Wario of Mario fame and a load of nonsensical mini games.

It’s absolute chaos and practically broke your Nintendo DS screen with how hard and fast you scrubbed the touch screen with the stylus, but it was THEE game of games for the edgy teens who were in the know enough to force their Dad to buy it them for Christmas.

Style Boutique

Yes, I am the editor of Vogue.

Running your own boutique and styling customers in clothes that either makes them look like they’re in a 2003 hip hop video or makes them look like a Victorian era goth… heaven.

Cooking Mama

This mama took NO PRISONERS.

You will make the best pork rice of your life, or you will be screamed at. A furious cartoon woman with hell in her eyes. I asked my mate about her favourite DS games and she said she told her mates “I’m the best at Cooking Mama because my ma is a dinner lady” which is an impressive line I desperately wish I came up with myself.

Super Princess Peach

A rare one that only the baddest of bitches laid hands on.

A Mario game where you play as the only woman that matters in the Mushroom Kingdom and save Mario instead? Invented feminism.

Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training

Obsessed with how we all got hooked on a fad to essentially pay 30 quid for more maths homework?

Could show off to your nan that them bloody games you’re glued to actually made you dead clever. Just read that Dr. Kawashima himself didn’t take any royalties from the game’s success and instead built two laboratories. King shit!

Sims 2

What the Hotel Inspector with Alex Polizzi is going on!?

This game just abandoned the core gameplay of The Sims altogether and created this weird little town simulator with full sci-fi plot and made you a hotel manager. It was really iconic and the story was so fun. I could play this again for hours RIGHT NOW.

Animal Crossing: Wild World

The way we all just wasted my entire life from 2006 to 2010 playing Animal Crossing and then never touched it again till lockdown 2020 on Switch?

Wild World was such gorgeous escapism. Catching all the fish, chasing the bugs, making the annoying anthropomorphic frog in your village move out because you didn’t like his ugly house. Bliss.

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