I've gone a pretty long time without picking up my DS up until this past Christmas, but it looks like there's a lot of good games released recently that I missed and I'm just starting to work through the backlog. I've been on an old-school kick lately and this system is filling that need nicely.
Dragon Quest V I picked this up last week and am only a few hours into it, but it seems pretty solid. This is only the second DQ game I've played other than the original Dragon Warrior for the NES. I don't really have many expectations for this, but the reviews have been very high and the gameplay seems solid so I think I'll enjoy it.
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer This is a roguelike game, in actuality a remake of an SNES NetHack clone that was only released in Japan. That's not a bad thing at all. The story is very lite but the gameplay is addictive. It certainly fills the Diablo/loot whore niche. It carries on the old traditions of permadeath, but has a couple features to soften the blow. When you die, you lose all your items, revert to level 1, and go back to the starting town. But there are warehouses throughout the game where you can store items for a future run, so you're rarely completely empty-handed. Also there is a rescue feature where you can send out a call for help over WiFi, and either a friend or a just a random stranger can do a corpse run for you. I have yet to use this since I don't know anyone else with this game and not sure if there's still an active community a year after it's release.
For being bitten by the old-school bug, this fills that need nicely. The gameplay is very satisfying and addictive.
Disgaea DS I ordered this from Amazon and should receive it later this week. I've always wanted to try this series but never had a PS2. From the looks if it the game is a direct port of the original, with a couple added characters and a minimap function for the top screen.
Etrian Odyssey II Haven't ordered this one yet but have been looking into it. Another game styled after the old school; this one is a Wizardy clone. The Japanese may hate most Western RPGs, but they love Wizardry for some reason. I may hold out for
The Dark Spire, which is another very similar game soon to be released.
I doubt I'll have time for all of these, especially being in the middle of Star Ocean for the 360. But I'm traveling via plane several times in the upcoming months, so that should give me a chance to catch up. I was thinking about getting the Chrono Trigger remake, but seeing as I've already beaten that game about 13 times (combining the SNES and ROM playthroughs) that I decided to pass.
A link for more RPG goodness:
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3172702