As much of a hater as I was when I first saw it, I’ve subsequently been convinced that the Nintendo DS is hot shit. The only problem that I see with it is that it’s bulky and friggin’ ugly. Thus, Nintendo’s announcement of the imminent availability for the DS Lite here in the United States was met with much excitement from me. I pre-ordered one back on the 7th, and now I am patiently waiting for one month. In the mean time, I have begun researching which games are must-haves right now, and what I need to go pre-order (Final Fantasy III comes to mind immediately).

In no particular order, here are the games I’ll be picking up next month:

Final Fantasy III and Children of Mana are obvious candidates once they’re released, as is the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles game that is forthcoming. One thing that surprises me about the DS is the dearth of quality RPGs available for the platform at present. I would’ve expected there to be more available at this point. Oh well, 2006 looks like it’ll be good to the DS in this field, and I can exercise some patience, especially since I’ll be wasting away tons of time on the aforementioned games already. Good times.