The Top 5 Most Under-Appreciated and Disappointing Games on the Nintendo DS
The DS library wasn’t all sunshine and rainbow paintbrushes; there were plenty of games that failed to live up to expectations. When you jump aboard the hype train there’s always a chance that it might be brought to a sudden stop, but in the case of these disappointments the train missed the station completely, coming to a crashing halt and killing several people in the process. So let’s take a moment to become Negative Nancies in going through what you guys voted as the five most disappointing Nintendo DS games.
#5. Mario Party DS
Patrick: It’s hard to think of a single game genre that was more prevalent on the DS than collections of minigames. The market was absolutely saturated with “party” games, and there was an expectation that Mario, the original master of parties would rise above them and star in a console-defining classic. He didn’t, really; Mario Party DS is totally just a Mario Party game. Though the game offered download play with just a single cartridge, it still required a bunch of other players with consoles nearby to actually have fun with it. And of course there wasn’t any online play.
#4. Yoshi’s Island DS
Patrick: Yoshi’s Island on the Super Nintendo is still held up by plenty of people as one of the best platformers of all time, myself included. So did this sequel live up to the original? Well I never played it so I’ve got no idea, but judging by the fact that it took out fourth place on the list I’m going to say it failed to meet expectations big time. The game’s art might have made interesting use of the two screens but was a pretty poor imitation of the crayon visuals of the original – just look at poor Bowser up there! Similarly, the soundtrack just wasn’t up there with Koji Kondo’s original compositions. The level design was also criticized, particularly the inclusion of a bunch of infants for Yoshi to ferry around. A brief reprieve from Baby Mario’s screaming might have been welcome, but juggling more infants than a circus performer in a maternity ward doesn’t exactly make for a fun platformer. Yoshi’s other DS excursion, the actually-pretty-decent-but-not-for-forty-dollars Yoshi Touch & Go, also netted a handful of votes, securing Yoshi’s position as the most disappointing dinosaur.
#3. Wario: Master of Disguise
Patrick Like Yoshi, Wario had the pressure of living up to the excellent Wario Land games, which pretty much set the bar for platformers on Nintendo’s handheld consoles. Unfortunately Wario’s return to the world of 2D platforming had all the impact of a muted fart. And not like one of Wario’s instant-death fully-charged farts from Smash Bros., just a kind of silent waft that unleashed the stench of failure. The main criticism was the tacked-on touch controls, which required players to constantly draw on the lower screen to swap Wario’s outfit.
#2. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Patrick: Phantom Hourglass has to be the most divisive entry in the Zelda series. What was praised by some was declared a disappointment by others, and I have a feeling it might be due to the game’s structure. Like Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass gives Link dozens of tropical islands to sail to and explore, but if you want the ocean charts to actually access them you’ll need to take several outings through the Temple of the Ocean King. This massive dungeon mixes stealth segments, time limits, backtracking, fiddly touch controls and all-around bad ideas, making the prospect of constantly revisiting the structure a daunting one. Granted, there’s more to the game than the temple, but it’s a nasty bit of padding that puts a disappointing damper on the whole experience.
#1. Scribblenauts
Patrick: When Scribblenauts was first shown in a playable form at E3 2009, several major gaming outlets declared it to be game of the show, a rarity for a handheld title. There was a lot of potential in this hot new IP from an up-and-coming developer, and the prospect of a game where you could “write anything” and “solve everything” seemed too good to be true. And it kind of wasn’t. Not that the base puzzle-solving gameplay was lacking (even if most scenarios could be solved with a jetpack and rope), but the original Scribblenauts required using some truly awful touch controls to move protagonist Maxwell around. Before the series had formed a concrete identity, the game was split between puzzling challenges and more action-oriented platforming levels, the latter being borderline unplayable thanks to the controls. Thankfully, this major design flaw was thankfully fixed in its sequel and future installments, with developer 5th Cell sticking to the matra of “if first you don’t succeed, try again. And try again after that one but add Batman this time.”
Next up, we’ll be concluding this series of features with the straight-up best games on the console. Did your favourites make the cut? Stay tuned to find out.
