
I've been noodling with my old DS in the last week. Whether it was to celebrate its 20th anniversary, reaffirm it as my favourite system of all time, or simply help me forget that it has been two decades since I first played Nintendogs, I can't be sure. But what I do know, is that I've been having a blast.
Naturally, I went back to a handful of the classics first — there's nothing like a bit of Brain Training to get the blood pumping — but after proving that I had the mind of at least a 50-year-old (win!) and that I could no longer speed round a lap of Yoshi Falls with my eyes closed (lose!), I thought I'd make the most of the DS Lite's GBA cartridge slot and blast through some real nostalgia picks.
To be clear, I'm not talking about booting up The Minish Cap or Pokémon Ruby - who has the time for that nonsense? No, I used that cart port the way God intended: sticking a bulky piece of plastic in there, strapping it to my wrist, and shredding the guitar riff from Vampire Weekend's A-Punk in the least comfortable way imaginable.
This is 2009's Band Hero (or the previous year's Guitar Hero: On Tour, if you squint a little bit), and while it left me with some of the worst hand cramps in years, it's still brilliant. Why? Because it reminded me of just how much fun Nintendo and its third parties used to have with the DS and DS Lite's peculiar peripherals.
To those who didn't play this one 15 years ago and have subsequently avoided a life of carpal tunnel, let me fill you in on Band Hero's beautiful add-on. This is the same guitar grip that you would find on the neck of any Guitar Hero / Rock Band set-up in the arcade (or buried in the back of your wardrobe), only a little bit smaller. And rounded at the end. And attached by a velcro strap which forces you to hold your DS like a discus.
Okay, perhaps it's not exactly the same as the standard setup, but the principle is. Holding the DS on the side — the way reserved for grown-up games like The New York Times Crosswords, Hotel Dusk and... Style Savvy — the 'Left' (upper) screen displays the usual falling notes while the 'Right' (bottom) screen acts as the guitar's body, strummed by the included plectrum-shaped stylus. It's obscenely uncomfortable, but it does do a good job of mimicking the full-guitar experience. Good job, Vicarious Visions.

And I could say the same about the game's additional drum skin. Yep, the late noughties were a crazy time where games could come with two peripherals, all in the name of fun.
This one was slightly less high-tech — a rubber sleeve that fits snugly around the DS Lite's bottom screen — but, again, it transformed what could have been dull button mashing into something which vaguely resembled a tiny drum kit. And it makes your DS look like it's wearing a tiny wetsuit, which made me giggle.
Admittedly, my swift setlist didn't get me quite as pumped about the game as those rockin' teens from the 2009 trailer ("We. Love. Band. Hero."), but it sent me down a rabbit hole of reminiscing about the console's other wacky peripherals, ones that feel like a fever dream when compared to the theme-less hybrid we're faced with today.
On today's edition of 'Things Jim Wishes He Hadn't Thrown Out 10 Years Ago', we have a boatload of DS accessories! Ones which are, on the surface, completely stupid, but ones that stand up for Nintendo at its silliest.
I'm talking about Easy Piano and its 13-key keyboard. Yeah, it was a full octave of piano plugged right into the GBA port in an attempt to take you from rookie to Rachmaninoff over a series of lessons. I distinctly remember learning absolutely nothing from this game, or its peripheral (it turns out that you need a little more than 13 keys to master chord progressions), but there was a Guitar Hero-esque falling notes game mode. Also, who cares that I never became the next Keith Jarrett? I looked awesome with that bulky piece of white plastic hanging off my handheld.
Speaking of which, does anyone else here still suffer from THMT (Tony Hawk's Motion Trauma)? A packed-in, oversized GBA cartridge turned the DS into a motion-controlled handheld, which was awesome... until you had to turn a corner and you couldn't see the screen anymore. Oh, or if you tried to play it in the car. Or in a room with any lights on. Who am I kidding? That one sucked.
You know what didn't suck, though? Learn With Pokémon: Typing Adventure and its wireless keyboard. What kind of game comes bundled with an entire wireless keyboard, you might ask? One that's trying so very hard to help you convince Grandma that the new copy of Pokémon Black and White 2 is, in fact, "educational" and therefore essential for your studies.
I can't claim that my entire typing ability is a product of this peripheral alone, but I'm certainly more comfortable than most when it comes to putting the double letters in Terakkion Terrakkion Terrakion.
And these are just the ones that I had. Japan was treated to a Digital TV Tuner add-on, a 'Slide Controller' that turned the entire DS into a mouse for Slide Adventure MAGKID, a Face Training peripheral camera, and more. Basically, any object that could be shrunk down to the size of the GBA cart and relieve a minor inconvenience, the DS probably had it.

Where has this wackiness gone? Of course, the Switch hasn't been without its fair share of silly peripherals over the last eight years — a whole host of sports equipment plastic replicas exist for the Joy-Con, you can play Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! with a tiny Poké Ball, and Colors Live came with its wired pen — but is anything anywhere near as goofy as an extremely uncomfortable guitar grip? I don't think so. (Okay, the Japanese controller grip for cooking game Tabe-O-Ja is definitely goofy enough, but you get my point).
I'm not saying that I want a whole bunch of weird accessories to make a comeback — god, the Wii gave me enough for a lifetime — but it's nice to remember a time when our handhelds had multiple ports, and Nintendo would license any old wacky item to stick in 'em.
Do you have any fond memories of a weird DS peripheral? You can share your favourite in the following poll, and then take to the comments to highlight any that I was never lucky enough to get my hands on.
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Comments 21
Guitar Hero On Tour was genuinely great.
On a side note, DSi removing the GBA slot was a crime. One of the coolest parts of the DS, not just for backwards compatibility and the weird games that had peripherals that plugged into it but also the GBA game connectivity, be it importing Pokémon from old games or unlocking things for DS games. Getting a Sonic outfit in Feel the Magic because I had Sonic Advance cart blew me away at the time, I had no idea that would happen. Almost proto-amiibo in a way.
Band Hero easily has the best peripheral. I also really enjoyed that Ninja Gaiden game that made you play the DS on its side. That game was a blast!
Loving all the DS nostalgia at the moment. Such an awesome little console
I still have our Guitar Hero grip. It was a lot of fun. But the GBA slot on our NDSL is being used to let me get through Metroid Fusion right now.
As for accessories for Switch, although we didn't pick any up, I thought the Labo Kits were a great idea. If anything I'd say we need more Labo!
I've always wanted the DS version of Arkanoid that came with the paddle controller that plugs into the GBA slot, but it's always so expensive.
I have slide adventure magkid, and the accessory is really damn cool. Same goes for the taito paddle accessory that gives you a dial sticking out of the GBA slot for finer control in games like space invaders extreme.
Bring back weird peripherals!
Didn't have any of these peripherals, the only one I almost had is the Learn With Pokémon Keyboard, but unfortunately when I finally got that the game and/or the keyboard itself didn't work so I had to return them and never got functioning ones!
I’m biased towards the Face Training camera because I have that one. It’s a slick cartridge with a pop out camera lens if you are using it in an old DS. Back when I tested games, Nintendo had a requirement that the games shouldn’t do anything weird if a peripheral or gba cart was inserted that the game wasn’t programmed to recognize. So we ended ip buying all the weird stuff. I actually had some in my collection and just used those for testing
I worked for BNG (NBGA at the time) and we were working on an Ace Combat game, so naturally when I bough Face Training and took it to work, we dubbed it Face Combat.
I didn't have any accessories for DS, but I did have Circle Pad Pro for 3DS. It was pretty cool, although I only used it in like 4-5 games.
The rumble pack with Metroid Prime Hunters, worked also with Metroid prime pinball which I did not have, if I remember well.
I had a Play-Yan at one point, an official japan only MP3/4 player with a series of tiny games you could install and play on it. It made the DS something closer to the PSP.
I still think the GBC had the best dorky peripherals. Whilst the worm light and TV remote cart were all good fun, who can forget the fishing sonar?
I dunno about the digital T.V. tuner. I've never even knew/heard about it. If I did then it's the GameGear accessory I'm thinking since the handheld had one of it's own too.
Still playing on my OG Phat DS & still kicking. Gotta get around playing Trace Memories...
It's really quite surprising no one, especially Nintendo, has made use of the fact you can detach and reattach whatever kind of controller you like to the side of the Switch. I really expected at least some retro controller attachments. I suppose it's not so easy if you want people to play on the TV not just handheld though.
@JimNorman Funny thing about that Pokemon keyboard: Nintendo/TPC evidentially decided that Americans already write English well enough that we didn't need the game/accessory.
There was also an Arkanoid DS paddle controller sold as an optional bundle in Japan. However, since Square-Enix published the game outside Japan as (at least in North America) a budget game we got just the game (having to make do with either button or touch control).
While I do own the Japanese bundled version, I never bothered to find a US cart to test out for science if they still work together.
@larryisaman That was a thing in Feel the Magic? I think I have that and Sonic Advance... I may need to test this.
@KingMike they left compatibility in the localized versions. The paddle is compatible with
Arkanoid
Space Bust A Move
Space Invaders Extreme
Space Invaders Extreme 2
I actually bought easy piano off eBay recently, not that it's got much use lol.
The Pokémon typing game sounded awesome but unfortunately it required you to know lots of Pokémon beyond gen 2 which is basically where my knowledge stopped. I did play up to black and white but I'll be damned if I could name any Pokémon that wasn't originally from red/blue and to an extent gold and silver
But it was a nifty keyboard and I actually ended up buying like 4 of them on clearance and giving a couple away to family members because they worked as Bluetooth keyboards and I used to use mine on my mac
I wish this article mentioned the paddle controller. Space Invaders Extreme and Puzzle Bobble were so fun with it.
There was a wheel for arkanoid that looked pretty cool. I'm thinking that is the paddle people are talking about.
If only the DSi/DSi XL had a SD to GBA adapter. Or SD/IO support like Pocket PCs/PDAs had. Other than that many of these were pretty cool. Heard of all of them though elsewhere.
@HingryHuppo That same program got localized for Europe as one of the VERY few (maybe even only?) DSi Exclusive physical releases in the region.
(that was a very small category, I recall North America got the most with THREE such releases)
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