I believe everyone was a little surprised the first time they opened that foldable console. Two LCD screens lined up, top and bottom, each displaying with a separate role. I still vividly remember how this structure gave the Nintendo DS hardware a powerful impression that said, “This is something different,” rather than just the impression of “just a successor model.” Unlike the traditional console feeling of “concentrating on one screen,” the immersion deepens as the gaze is dispersed. For example, the style of checking the action on the top and the map on the bottom must have become a major benchmark for subsequent portable game design.

And another innovation was the touch screen. When first using the control method of directly tracing the screen with a stylus pen, I believe many people felt like it was “a game from the future.” The experience of “touching,” which could not be tasted just by pressing buttons, fundamentally changed the game interface. In software like “nintendogs,” where you interact with dogs, it even created the feeling of petting a pet, and in the surgical scenes in “Kenshuui Tendo Dokuta (Resident Tendo Dokuta),” you could truly experience the sensation that your hand movements were directly linked to the game. This intuitive way of playing through touch operation was the driving force that attracted even those who had not been interested in games until then.

I believe the true greatness of the Nintendo DS lies in becoming “an existence beyond a game.” Practical software rapidly expanded, beginning with “Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!” and including “DS Rakubiki Jiten (DS Easy Reference Dictionary)” which could be used as a dictionary, and “Shaberu! DS Oryouri Navi (Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat?)” which guides cooking procedures. People who were outside the context of gaming—the elderly, housewives, and parents of elementary school students—picked it up because they felt, “This is useful.” As a result, the Nintendo DS naturally entered people’s lives as “a part of life”—in commuter bags, in a corner of the kitchen, or in a school backpack.

The “Nintendo DS Lite,” which appeared in 2006, further fueled the DS boom. The Lite model, which evolved to be smarter and more stylish, succeeded in appealing to an even wider range of people through its feel and portability, while its performance remained unchanged. The extreme popularity led to persistent shortages, and the sentiment that “it’s sold out everywhere” was a phenomenon unique to this period. The fact that a mere game console was positioned at the center of trends as “something everyone wanted” seems quite rare even in retrospect.

The Nintendo DS subtly yet surely overturned the perception that games were “something to play alone.” The built-in wireless communication feature allowed users to play against or cooperate with nearby friends without a cable, and there was also a system where software could be shared even if only one person owned the game. The experience of communicating not just with text but also with drawings, via the simple yet groundbreaking PictoChat application, enriched the “little fun” in everyday life. This enjoyment of “connecting” must have further spread the boom by involving schools, events, and even workplaces.

The gaming experience that spread with the fun of touching! This is nostalgic~! Here are some Nintendo DS software titles inscribed as masterpieces of retro games!