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4. The Final Fantasy franchise (PS2, PS3, PSP, GBA, DS, GameCube, Wii, 360, mobile)

Once, this series would have ranked right at the top of my list; that was back in the previous decade, the 1990s, when Square was arguably at the top of their game. However, the turn of the century saw a marked drop-off in production, as well as some stagnation, to be frank.

The proper installments that actually were released in the past decade include Final Fantasy IX on PSone in 2000, Final Fantasy X on PS2 in 2001, and the MMO-RPG, Final Fantasy XI on multiple platforms in 2002. Then there was the long silence before, late in the life of the PS2, Square released the long-awaited Final Fantasy XII in 2006… and it was almost overshadowed by the release of the PS3.

Japan already saw the release of Final Fantasy XIII in 2009, but it will be a new decade by the time the title hits US shores, so it just doesn’t count.

Still, each Final Fantasy installment was beautiful for its time; FFIX was a wonderful swan song for the PSone platform, FFX was a platform-defining game for the PS2, a model which all other PS2-era RPGs paid homage to, and FFXII was a glorious swan song on PS2 that made some people wonder why a new generation of hardware was even necessary.

The only real stinker in the series proper was the MMO-RPG, FFXI, which has seen regular updates and is due to be replaced sometime early in the new decade (2010 or 2011) by Final Fantasy XIV. Still, for series purists like me, FFXI doesn’t count and should never have been made part of the main series’ numbering, but the launch of a new online-only series that could have been called Final Fantasy Online or something like that.

Sure, like a lot of people, I didn’t care for the sit-n-watch combat system of FFXII; but at least it saved me loads of joint pain from all that button-mashing hitting the X button tends to inspire in other Final Fantasy titles.

Be that as it may, and despite all the missteps and delays this decade, the wonderful gaming memories I’ve enjoyed at the hands of FFIX, FFX and FFXII still rank this RPG as an all-time favorite series… in this past decade or any other it has been part of.

5. The Disgaea franchise (PS2, PS3, PSP, DS)

Officially, there are only three chapters in the Disgaea franchise: Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, and Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice. However, the first two titles, originally for the PS2, have been remixed and re-released on the Sony PSP platform as Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness and Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days. Also, the original Disgaea has been remixed even further for an appearance on the Nintendo DS in Disgaea DS.

While Atlus makes many fine Tactics-style RPGs, none carries quite the depth of entertainment value as does their Disgaea series, which held up well when moving to the PS3 platform with Absence of Justice. Focusing on the struggles of the young son of an overlord of Hell to take his father’s mantle despite a desperate power struggle to wrest it from him, the series is full-on Japanese anime goodness with plenty of comedy.

Although not as mainstream as, say, Super Mario Galaxy or Legend of Zelda, I’ll take the gameplay of a Disgaea trouble over that juvenile, overrated stuff any day!

7. Prince of Persia (PS2, Xbox, PS3, Xbox 360, PSP, DS)

I almost ranked this series higher, but the top of the list is going to be crowded with great, great franchises, so it was just about impossible to bump it any higher. All the free medical travel in the world isn’t worth as much to me as one good Prince of Persia title.

Now, I’m a bit of a late-comer to the franchise. When the PS2/Xbox trilogy was being published, I was not big on action-adventure-platformers and viewed the the Sands of Time, Warrior Within and The Two Thrones with some suspicion; I figured it was a “me-too” title in the Tomb Raider mode.

How wrong I was, but I didn’t discover that until I picked up the game on a whim in its first PS3 appearance. A franchise reboot, the PS3/360-era Prince of Persia, which came out in 2008 originally, was full of cell-shaded beauty and HD eye candy. Plus, it was addictively fun to play! It’s one of the first games I had played all the way through in years, and boy was it worth it; I’ve almost completed my second go-round on it, and even coughed up for the add-on adventure through the PSN Store.

With a major motion picture on the way and the first PS3/360-era sequel coming this spring, namely Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, it’s a great time to like this franchise. But the series makes my list because I’ve gone back and purchased all three of the PS2 Prince of Persia titles and found them quite good for the era in which they were made, but also they are evidence of how dramatically the franchise has grown and matured over the past decade.

Of course, the game goes back quite a bit longer than the last decade, with roots in many 1989-era home PCs, Macs, Commodores and home videogame systems. It is a concept that has weathered… the sands of time!

8. The Sims franchise (PC, PS2, Mac, DS, PSP, iPhone, mobile platforms)

First unleased in January 2000, The Sims is a “life simulator” that allows you to control electronic people from the comfort of your real-world TV. Just entering its third official iteration, The Sims 3, the series has been a huge and consistent seller for publisher EA Games, even though they never really put it on a discounted sale.

That’s because the game itself is just loads of fun; too many people get sadistic pleasure, for example, out of forcing a sim to pee itself, or leading it into a room, then removing all the doors and windows and sources of food, water or cleansing and watching the little thing go ape until it “died.”

Once EA realized this, they of course nurtured it by offering even more amusing “torture your sim” animations and scenarios. Sure, plenty of folks play the game more straight-up, but that’s the beauty of the franchise; there’s no “wrong” way to play it.

13. The Final Fantasy Tactics sequels (GBA, DS, PSP)

OK, so the original Final Fantasy Tactics title on the original PlayStation came out in 1997. Got it. But the game’s impact wasn’t really felt until this past decade. Overshadowed and nearly overlooked as a result of Square releasing Final Fantasy VII the same year, many gamers initially derided FFT as being too throwback and retro in approach.

However, the game, which had predecessors in the Ogre Tactics titles on SNES, ultimately won hardcore gamers over with its sometimes-insanely-difficult battles, some of which could last over an hour and still result in a loss! That was bold even in 1997, and the resultant button-pushing was a real muscle builder for thumbs everywhere.

Yet the game’s popularity was vastly helped in 2001 when Square re-released it as a PlayStation Classic, even though the game never reached the magic 1 million units sold bar established for most games to become PlayStation Classics.

That helped launch the game into popularization. By the time PlayStation 2 came out, entire companies were dedicated to the new subgenre of “Tactics-style RPGs,” which was a direct reference to Final Fantasy Tactics’ approach to RPG gaming.

By 2003, a new title in the series, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, was licensed by Nintendo to help launch their new GameBoy Advance platform, and quickly became the defining title of the GBA platform.

2007 saw a remake of the PlayStation original arrive on Sony’s portable platform, the PSP. Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions delivered the greatness of the original with plenty of new content and a fresh, more understandable translation.

And in 2008, Final Fantasy A2: Grimoire of the Rift delivered a Nintendo DS-era sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

The groundbreaking nature of the series gave birth to much of Atlus’ game catalog, as well as opening the door for NIS America to bring much of its catalog to North America. In an era where RPGs are now done as big-budget productions often perceived of as “too easy to win” by hardcore gamers, the popularity of the Tactics-style RPG is in its retro approach, greater difficulty level, and most importantly, it’s considerable length.

Tactics-style titles often involve hundreds of hours of gameplay to complete successfully, and that makes them perfect candidates for on-the-go platforms like GBA, DS and PSP. By staying retro, Final Fantasy Tactics has delivered the perfect style of RPG for handheld systems, and the influence of that 1997 title was felt most profoundly only in the past decade.

16. Trauma Center: Under the Knife (Nintendo DS, Wii)

Appearing initially on Nintendo’s touch-screen handheld platform, and then later on its motion-senative-based Wii system, Trauma Center: Under the Knife (not so much its sequel) gets credit for being one of the first games to fully leverage Nintendo’s touch-screen controller on the DS. It also adapted itself well to the Wii’s then-unique control scheme. All it lacked as a solid remote backup service to make sure you never lose your saves.

Developed by Atlus for the DS, Trauma Center is a bit like the old Operation! board game, in that touch-screen controls put you in control of the hands of a surgeon for life-saving surgical procedures. However, the game, while one of the first surgery sims of its kind, is still a fantasy RPG and so it’s not quite photo-realistic and not quite strictly limited to pure real-world medicine as the use of magical healing gels and special surgical abilities do become a core component of game play after a while.

However, for pure edge-of-your-seat tension, there are few games that build it as well as Trauma Center: Under the Knife; that it appeared on the DS system within the launch window and is still one of the most highly-regarded games on a system filled with bloatware says a lot about the game’s unique concept, design and execution.

Some may label it a niche game; but virtually no other game kept me interested in owning my DS for as long as I did. While I recently finally did sell off my DS, I would have done it ages ago if not for Trauma Center.

18. The Madden NFL series. (Just about every platform, period)

Love it or hate it, there is no sports videogame that rivals it. Arguing against it is like arguing against using floor tiles in a kitchen: pointless. Hands down, it is the biggest money-making sports videogame in the world.

The biggest bump in the road came a few years ago, when EA announced it had secured exclusive rights to the NFL, NFLPA and NFLCA licensing. This, in effect, drove alternate NFL games like Sega/2K Games’ football game pretty much out of the running.

The big argument has been that without competitors, EA would slack on game innovation. That has not been the case, and in fact Madden NFL ‘10 has seen a changing of the guard on the development team, including a re-emphasis on producing a serious, realistic simulation of football, rather than a pinball scoring-machine style of play where the game has typically fallen down, due to the inclusion of so-called “magic plays” that almost always work.

With plenty of innovation each year, the Madden franchise has proven that their biggest competition is… every other videogame out there vying for gamers’ hard-earned dollars in a down economy. People are buying fewer videogames now than they were at the start of the decade; but most are still keeping Madden at the top of their list every August.

Tonight, my wife and I bid farewell to our Nintendo DS units and all our DS games. My wife selflessly gave up her PSP a few months ago for some trade-in credit toward a new Xbox 360 unit, because her PSP was broke anyway. We both prefer the PSP library of games and finally decided to bite the bullet and give up our DS habit to get her back in a PSP.

Sure, we didn’t have the extra-fancy Nintendo DSi to trade in with all the bells and whistles and rackmount LCD. But with a chubby DS, a DS Lite and about 16 games, as well as a PS3 game we didn’t care for tossed in for good measure, I hoped we’d at least have enough to get her a PSP Slim.

Well, not only did we get her a PSP Slim for about $110, but we had enough left over to pick up Dragon Age: Origins for the PS3, as well as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona for the PSP, as well! Talk about a nice deal? For me, Dragon Age: Origins is enough to make me forget all about those DS games… Phoenix Wright who? I’m playing BioWare’s latest and greatest, baby!

I know young gamers love it, but as far as I’m concerned, the Nintendo DS is a desert when it comes to great games that I want to play. Sure, I love the Phoenix Wright series. And nothing beats a good Trauma Center game for taking advantage of the touch-screen.

But the hits, I’m afraid, are too few and too far between.

I know it goes against conventional thinking and industry bias, but I’d trade all the ephedrine I’ve ever owned (not a lot, BTW) for a PSP over a DSi any day of the week.

And twice on Sundays.

Here’re VideogameVagabond’s ultra-discerning picks for the month of November 2008, the last great games month of the year, for games worth getting on the Nintendo DS, which is a list far more reliable than a random car insurance quote.

TecmoBowl: Kickoff

It’s been over 15 years, but Tecmo Bowl non-licensed football has returned, this time on Nintendo DS. Worth owning for nostalgia alone.

Chrono Trigger

The classic SquareEnix game that started a worldwide obsession that’s outlasted two successive hardware generations and counting is back, this time on the DS. A must-have for SquareEnix fans.

That’s it! But what fun you’ll have.

You may need contact lenses to see our list of the top Nintendo DS games for October 2008… it’s not very long.

In fact, it’s completely empty, and considering there are over 50 titles releasing next month for Nintendo DS, that’s saying something. Sure, there’s a couple titles by SquareEnix, but they’re not RPGs and SquareEnix never does well at non-RPGs.

And then there’s one RPG, but it’s by Disney Interactive and is a sequel to boot. It just doesn’t capture my interest; sorry. And then there’s a Fantasy Harvest Moon title, but it’s a sequel that doesn’t look to bring much new to the table.

So let it be said this way: there are well over 50 DS titles coming next month, but not one of them are anything I’d spend my money on, so I’m not going to suggest anyone else does, either.

It wasn’t long ago that the videogame world had never even heard of an attorney simulation game, at least in the US market, but it hasn’t taken Capcom’s little series long to catch on and become a popular series on the Nintendo DS. Filled with all the intrigue of a mystery novel come to life, the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games did well initially in Japan, where they appeared on the GameBoy Advance, before making their way to the US market via the DS.

The previous three games, Ace Attorney, Justice for All and Trials and Tribulations, all featured Phoenix Wright as the series’ main protagonist; Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney introduces an all-new protagonist and Phoenix Wright appears as a defendant accused of murder in the opening case of the new game.

Graphically, the game hasn’t changed much from its GBA origins. About the only improvements in the way the game looks is a mildly richer color palette and some smoother-looking textures; other than that, the signature art style of the series is largely unchanged. While the game looks fine by DS standards, however, it doesn’t look quite as nice as the Harvey Birdman attorney sim Capcom recently released on Sony’s PSP platform.

While the opening sequence that places rookie attorney Apollo Justice on the defense for Phoenix Wright is a shocker, the biggest changes to the series come in how one interacts with the game. Like the notorious fifth case on the first Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney game, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney was built specifically for the Nintendo DS platform, rather than being ported up from GBA. As such, all the exciting investigative tools so enjoyed in that fifth case are now present and accounted for in all four cases that comprise the Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney game.

That means the game takes full advantage of the DS’ microphone and touchscreen; you can once again rotate items via touchscreen to uncover concealed clues, or use the microphone to shout “Objection!” during the course of a trial. AJ:AA also features several new features.

One is the perceive system, which helps Apollo pinpoint nervous body language that helps him identify when a witness is being deceptive. A crime recreation mode is also introduced for the first time, and is utilized to help pinpoint new evidence. With all these new DeWalt tools in his arsenal, one might think it would be a snap for Apollo Justice (and gamers) to solve the four cases in front of them. However, it’s not quite so easy and gamers will need all these tools to get to the truth of the matter, since the Capcom scribes behind this game are quite good at plot twists, rabbit trails and big reveals, to keep things interesting.

As before, each case grows increasingly challenging, making solving the final case a significant achievement. More of an interactive novel than a true videogame, Apollo Justice may feature a brand new main character, but everything DS fans enjoyed about earlier Phoenix Wright games has returned – in spades.

The release of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney catches the US market up with the Japanese market. The future looks bright for the series, however. It is well-known that Capcom announced the fifth game in the series about a year ago, in May 2007; that game is expected to release next fall. Also, in February 2008, a spinoff title featuring life on the prosecution’s side of the courtroom, featuring Miles Edgeworth and Dick Gumshoe, was announced as under development by Capcom, so with at least two more games on the way, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is definitely a new beginning not a final swan song, for games of this genre.