Mmm! My copy just arrived, I'm looking forward to playing it.

The dark spire : the game is insane and pretty hard but I love every minute of it. It makes Legend of Grimrock look like a pre-school game. I love you LoG, but The dark spire is in a complete different league.

I'll have to give that a try. After I play LoG, of course :)

As a rule the DS has some of the hardest RPGs around (not all of them are hard, but if you like really, really brutally hard games you're well served by acquiring a DS).

Ultima Underworld is great but it has an automap so I'm not sure how much use that graph paper will be :P

Being a fan of the Dragon Quest series, I decided to give Dragon Quest Monsters : Joker a try. My very first Pokemon-like game. I love it, but the game is terribly addicting, and I have a hard time to put the DS down. The medias are right, those games are dangerous.

I have been playing Aliens : Infestation and I really like it. It is a 2D sidescroller with a permanent death mechanic. It was developed by WayForward Technologies.

I have to throw in Phoenix Wright series and 999.

Other than that, also DQIX, Shiren the Wanderer (woo roguelikes!), Spider Man: Web of Shadows (no, really, it's an awesome fun Metroidvania type game), Retro Game Challenge (a masterpiece if you can find it), Knights in the Nightmare and Rune Factory 3.

There's a show??

Game Center CX, IIRC.

Arino is the host of the show, hence the plot of the game is him snapping from playing too many hard and/or bad retro games and forcing you to go through what he has to do for the show.

There was also a sequel, but XSEED didn't localize it because the first game bombed in america.
http://hardcoregaming101.net/retrogamechallenge/retrogamechallenge.htm

Yeah, the game is a spinoff of a Japanese TV programme (rather than the other way around as you might assume).
Awful cover art for the English one, but a fantastic game. Pity Shiren DS 2 didn't get translated.

I've got a Ds and a XL for many years, here are my best picks :

- Hotel Dusk and Last Window, part 1 & 2 in this order, great adventures games.
- Ace Attorney series : Phoenix Wright, Appolo, Miles Edgeworth.. Visual novel at its best!
- 999, superb writing and clever game.
- Shantae from DSi shop, best 2D game from the store with metroidvania elements. Also, Monster Tale for 2d is great!
- The Castlevania games, Dawn of Sorrow the most then Ecclesia finally Portrait of Ruin a bit poor with characters style.
- Final Fantasy 3 & 4 remakes, Dragon Quest 9, Golden Sun, Nostlagia.. Good bunch of the best 3d rpg you can get on DS.
- Super Scribblenauts, innovative and smart game.
- Elite Beat Agents, lots of humor, rhythm game.
- Dragonball Z RPG, quite alright!
- Ghost Trick game, much interesting and new concept.

Have a good game!

do some one know how to fix ds top screan??