10 Best Nintendo DS Fighting Games

The one wrestling game on the list came out on the DS on the same day as the home console versions, which was a big deal for a handheld. Its own blurb promised the most authentic simulation of WWE programming to date, which is a lot to ask of a cartridge. TOSE made the DS version, and it was the last SmackDown vs. Raw on the handheld.

It still packs a lot in. The create-a-finisher mode came to the DS for the first time, and the Ambulance match made its debut here. There are 14 backstage areas to brawl through, although there is no online play. It was also the third and final game to feature the ECW brand, so it is a little time capsule of 2009 wrestling.

Draglade is a fighting game with music and role-playing elements, made by Dimps and brought to the US by Atlus. Its fighters swing weapons called Glades in a sport called Grapping, and every hit makes a sound, so a good fight turns into a song.

Special moves do not need long button inputs. Instead, you collect Bullets and fire them off with the touch screen, so even newcomers can pull off big moves straight away. There are four heroes with their own stories, including Daichi, who comes from a village where people can talk to animals. It is a charming, very DS idea, and it deserves a lot more players than it got.

One Piece: Gigant Battle! covers the story from the Sabaody Archipelago Arc to the Marineford Arc, with characters from earlier arcs mixed in. Bandai published it in September 2010, and it plays a lot like Jump Ultimate Stars, which is about the best compliment a DS brawler can get.

An English version only came out in the UK, so most players outside Japan never saw it on a shelf. A Japan-only sequel, Gigant Battle! 2 New World, followed in 2011. If you love One Piece, it is still one of the best ways to brawl as the Straw Hat crew on a handheld.

Guilty Gear Dust Strikers was the first versus fighting game on the DS to be released outside Japan. Instead of the series' usual technical one-on-one fights, it goes the Jump Super Stars and Smash Bros. route: up to four players battle on several levels spread across both screens, with all 21 Guilty Gear characters on board.

The graphics are surprisingly good, with characters that look close to their PS2 versions, but on those small screens it is easy to lose track of your own fighter. There are mini-games too, from Billiards to Arm-Wrestling, and winning them unlocks new moves for Robo-Ky. For a while it was probably the best fighter on the DS, mostly because there was so little competition.

Treasure made this one for Sega, and it was the first Bleach game on the DS. Battles have two to four fighters in any mix of teams and enemies, and like Treasure's earlier anime fighter, Yū Yū Hakusho Makyō Tōitsusen, the arena has two planes you can jump between. You fight with the D-pad and buttons, while the touch screen handles special attacks and status cards.

The Western release even fixed some balance issues and added an anti-air system, so attacks from the ground cannot be blocked in mid-air. Critics loved it, and it scored 83 on Metacritic. Its story follows Ichigo's mission to save Rukia Kuchiki, who is about to be executed for giving him her Soul Reaper powers, and a sequel, Bleach: Dark Souls, followed.

A red Nintendo DS launched alongside Jump Super Stars in Japan on August 8, 2005. Ganbarion built it for Nintendo, and it brings characters from 27 Weekly Shōnen Jump series together in one four-player brawler. It was a hit with importers, too, thanks to how popular those series are around the world.

It plays a lot like Smash Bros., but the bottom screen is where it gets special. You collect manga panels and arrange them on a grid to build your deck, which decides who fights and who helps. Since everyone's bottom screen is private, nobody knows what your deck holds until you use it. It is the first draft of the game at the top of this list, and the sequel came only fifteen months later.

Supersonic Warriors 2 is the DS sequel to a Game Boy Advance fighting game, with one-on-one battles between over 30 characters. Every fighter from the first game returns, joined by Cooler and Broly from the movies, and you can unlock support characters who jump in with a special move or revive you.

Its story mode follows Toriyama's story for every character, with other paths played out as "what if?" scenarios, so the story can go somewhere new. Atari published it, and it was the second and last game in the series. It edges out Jump Super Stars for fourth place, which says a lot about how much players love it.

Ultimate Butōden was released only in Japan, on February 3, 2011, as the first Butōden game since 1995 and the first based on Dragon Ball Kai. Special moves can be done with button combinations or with a tap on the touch screen, so it is easy to get into.

Its story mode runs from the start of the Saiyan arc to the end of the Majin Buu arc, with what-if scenarios along the way, even though Kai had not reached the Buu arc on TV yet. It sold 31,108 copies in its first week in Japan. Players call it the best fighting game on the DS, and they rank it well above Supersonic Warriors 2.

Custom Robo Arena is an action RPG made by Noise and published by Nintendo, and it was the first Custom Robo game to come out in Europe. You fight in tournaments, earn money and spend it on parts for your robo, and every battle is about knocking the other robo from 1000 energy points down to zero with guns, bombs and pods.

The story takes you to Midheart, where your father works for a robo research company, and it ends with a terrorist group trying to use robo technology to take over the world. It is also the only DS game with a two-player Wi-Fi mode that includes voice chat. The real hook is the customisation, though. Players praise how far you can customise the robots, and that is what keeps every fight fresh.

Jump Ultimate Stars came out in Japan on November 23, 2006, and it is one of the biggest crossovers ever made: 305 characters from 41 Shōnen manga series, with 56 of them fully playable. You build a deck of manga panels on a four by five grid, and the panels decide who fights and who helps.

It is more than an expansion of Jump Super Stars. Most characters only got small tweaks, but you can now evolve panels into stronger versions, and online play built a real fighting game community around it, hackers and all. Every fighter belongs to one of three natures that beat each other like rock, paper, scissors, and the arenas are drawn like pages of a manga, with walls and floors you can smash. Players describe it as Smash Bros. with manga characters, and they recommend it even to people who don't watch anime.