Happy Birthday to the DS
On November 21, 2004 the Nintendo DS launched in North America and at the time I didn’t think the weird-toy-like handheld was going to change the way I thought about gaming. It wasn’t until the Christmas of 2006 with the DS Lite version that I get my hands on the handheld. The DS wasn’t my first handheld consoles though, I rocked a Game Gear in the beginning and even added an original Game Boy later on. I would bring those two handhelds (along with every accessory I could find) on every trip. I would look like a little nerdy business man with two briefcase looked game cases full of battery packs, games, and plastic peripherals slung over my shoulders. Over the years a Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and Game Boy Advance SP would grace my gaming lifestyle. Although I have at least one or two fond memories with each of those system I never really considered myself a mobile/handheld gamer; I was mainly about the consoles.
Even at the beginning with the DS Lite my collection of games was small with New Super Mario Bros. and Castlevania Portrait of Ruin. It wasn’t until my last year of college and a little game called Dragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime did I really sink my teeth into the double screen system. A few changes in my lifestyle would also help push my love for portable gaming: 1) When I went from working one to three nights a week doing security. 2) Staying the weekends over at my girlfriend’s/future wife’s house. 3) Discovering the joy of playing Brain Age with my girlfriend/future wife. We should spends hours testing our brain’s ages and then going to battle with each other over Virus (the Dr. Mario clone at the end of the game). My wife still has her pink DS I bought for her for Christmas in 09 and will bring it along on trips to this day.
Even though my white DS Lite doesn’t get as much play time as I used to and has been long since replaced by the 3DS and more recently the Nintendo Switch. I still have an overwhelming fondness for that little handheld. My backlog of games is still pretty high and I find myself trying to tackle at least on game a year but now I’m playing the games on my 2DS XL. I still find myself at used game stores looking first in the DS area to find little hidden gems I missed over the years.
Over the past couple years I feel my time gaming is moving more towards consoles again and I’m okay with that; I even play my Switch docked mostly. I’m not traveling as much and no longer need a time killer working long nights as a security guard. It’s nice though to look back at a time when things were a bit different in my life and I had this little portable console in my pocket that I could game and connect to the work with. It definitely shows in the early years of the comic that Nintendo DS was on of the forefront of our idea generating. We didn’t have a lot of modern day console to glean material from but I’m happy to have had the DS around.
Here is Side Quest Comic’s top 5 comics featuring the Nintendo DS
5. Stay Frosty
2. Scribblist
1. New Hotness
-Travis