11 Best Nintendo DS Pokemon Games

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team started the series, and it came out in Japan in 2005 alongside a twin on the Game Boy Advance. Blue Rescue Team for Nintendo DS was the one with two screens. Tsunekazu Ishihara had played Torneko's Great Adventure and was impressed with the genre's depth, and he had already worked with Chunsoft, the studio behind it. In each dungeon you go in with a partner, and you can recruit the Pokémon you meet there.

It is the oldest game on this list, and next to the Explorers games that came after, it looks plain. Players keep it on their lists anyway, usually right next to Explorers of Sky. This is where the bond between you and your partner started, and it is a gentle way into the series.

Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia is the second Ranger game. It came out in Japan on March 20, 2008 and in the United States on November 10, 2008. The story moves to a new region called Almia, where a gang called Team Dim Sun is up to no good. Your first mission is to help Top Ranger Sven investigate a Team Dim Sun mining operation in the Chroma Ruins. Later you get the Vatonage Styler, which can capture Team Dim Sun's Pokémon instead of merely releasing them.

The ending is sweet. Peace returns to Almia, and the Go-Rock Quads from the original Pokémon Ranger play the concert everyone was waiting for. If you liked the first game, this is the one to play next, since it keeps the same idea and gives the story more room.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time came out with a twin, Explorers of Darkness. They were released in 2007 in Japan, then worldwide in 2008, and we count them as one game here. Like the rest of the series, it is based on a classic roguelike, so the dungeon is randomly generated each time you walk in. Across all its games, the series has sold over 17.26 million copies.

Explorers of Sky, an enhanced remake, arrived in 2009 and took most of the attention. Players do not fuss much about the difference, though, and plenty of them treat Time, Darkness and Sky as the same game. If you already own Time or Darkness, you have the main story. Sky adds to it, and the next entry on this list is about exactly that.

Pokémon Conquest was released in Japan on March 17, 2012, and in the West later that year. It started with a mutual interest between the creators of Pokémon and Nobunaga's Ambition, and The Pokémon Company president Tsunekazu Ishihara was a big fan of the latter. You play as a Warlord in the Ransei region, and its 17 Kingdoms are each linked to a Pokémon type. Each Pokémon can use only one move, and only 200 of the 649 Pokémon that existed at the time are in the game.

It came out late in the DS's life, and plenty of people missed it. The players who found it describe it as a tactics game, basically Fire Emblem with Pokémon. The localizers kept the Japanese names and terms, because the setting would feel weird without them.

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were the first games in the fourth generation. They were forecast for 2005 but shipped in Japan on September 28, 2006, the 10th anniversary year of the series, and in North America, Australia and Europe in 2007. They added 107 new Pokémon and Internet play over the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. They also changed how moves work. Before them, every Fire-type move was special and every Ground-type move was physical, because the type decided it.

Platinum, a third version, came two years later with additions and refinements, and players rank it well above these two. Most critics still praised the Wi-Fi features and the graphics. The games were remade for the Nintendo Switch as Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl in 2021. If you want Sinnoh on a DS, Platinum is the better pick.

Pokémon Ranger is an action role-playing game made by HAL Laboratory and Creatures Inc., and it was first released in Japan on March 22, 2006. It is set in the Fiore region, and the Pokémon you capture help you on missions. Finish the special Manaphy mission and you get a Manaphy egg that you can send to Diamond and Pearl, Platinum or HeartGold and SoulSilver. It even got its own film, Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea, which premiered on Cartoon Network in 2007.

Reviews were mixed at release. Critics praised the lengthy mission-based plot but did not like the way it uses sounds you make yourself as a mechanic. Players remember it more kindly, and they still point to the Ranger games as ones you can play almost entirely on the touch screen. It was also released on the Wii U Virtual Console in 2016, but that release is now unavailable.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky expands on the plot of Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness. You get turned into a Pokémon as a result of a freak accident, lose your memory, and form a team with a partner of your choosing. Sky adds a new location in town, the Spinda Café. It also has the Sky Jukebox, where you unlock music tracks until you can play the game's entire soundtrack.

Many consider it a cult classic, and it is regarded among the greatest Pokémon games ever made. Players single out its story more than anything else, and some admit it got to them. One player called it a favourite "for making me cry every time I finish it", which is a lot to ask from a game about talking Pokémon.

Pokémon Black Version 2 and White Version 2 are direct sequels to Black and White, the first sequels in the series. They are set two years after the first games, and they were first released in Japan in June 2012, with a worldwide release following in October 2012. They were also the last first-party games for the DS. This time Neo Team Plasma wants to use Kyurem to freeze large portions of Unova. You start in a new city, and a Pokémon Center was added to it, a first for Pokémon games at that time.

The team wanted Black and White players to look at Unova from a different perspective, and starting somewhere new was part of that. Ask fans which Pokémon game is the best and a lot of them name this one. The official soundtrack came out in Japan on July 25, 2012, and its fourth disc even has music from Emerald and Platinum, which had not seen an original soundtrack release before.

Pokémon Platinum is an enhanced version of Diamond and Pearl. It was released in Japan in September 2008 and internationally throughout 2009. The Legendary Pokémon Giratina gets the central role, with a new Origin Form and the Distortion World, an area with altered physics. The designers took inspiration from antimatter and mass-energy equivalence, and Junichi Masuda had to explain both to the team. Platinum also adds the Battle Frontier from Emerald and a detective who goes by Looker.

It was the fastest-selling video game in Japan at the time, and it had sold 7.06 million copies worldwide by March 31, 2010. Critics liked the additions, while some criticized it for being too similar to Diamond and Pearl. Players often name Platinum and HeartGold and SoulSilver in the same breath. Picking between them is the oldest argument in DS Pokémon.

Pokémon Black and White started the fifth generation. They came out in Japan on 18 September 2010 and in Europe, North America and Australia in March 2011. You travel the new Unova region, and none of the older Pokémon can be caught before you finish the main story by defeating Team Plasma. Junichi Masuda directed the games and wrote the music. Before the Japanese release they had 1 million pre-orders, and they became the fastest Nintendo DS games to sell 5 million copies.

Reviewers praised the gameplay, though some felt the games did not innovate as much as expected, and the new designs split people. Time has been kind to it. Players single out the soundtrack, which many call the best in any Pokémon game. The story holds up as well: Ghetsis turns out to have groomed N as a child to be a pawn.

Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver are remakes of Gold and Silver, made for the 10th anniversary of Gold and Silver. The games were released in Japan on September 12, 2009, and were later released in other regions during March 2010. You return to Johto, and the games bring in parts of Crystal as well, such as the added emphasis on Suicune and the Battle Frontier after the ending. They were also the only games in the GB, GBA and NDS era with permanent Running Shoes.

Director Shigeki Morimoto said he wanted "to respect the feelings of those people who'd played Gold and Silver ten years before." He also wanted it to feel like a new game to those that were introduced to the series in more recent years. You can link up with Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum to get Pokémon unavailable in Johto and Kanto. Players recommend it more than twice as often as any other DS Pokémon game.