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The Castlevania Domina collection just cemented something that's been creeping in my head ever since I picked up my PSP again earlier this year: The DS library's highlights looks better today than the PSP's highlights. Back in the 00's, the PSP's graphics were a huge selling point, offering games close to console quality over a decade before the Switch. But despite a strong launch, most gamers were shocked at how it merely carved a niche while the DS took over the world. Yet one thing that the PSP had in its favor at all time were its graphics. Games looked better. 

At least at the time. Today, the PSP's gravitation towards 7th gen trends works against so many of its games. Meanwhile, DS games initiated Nintendo's current trends of letting artstyle and aesthetics take prominence over technical prowess allows many of its games to still pop. Perfect example would be Advance Wars: Dual Strike versus the PSP's answer Field Commander:

AW's artstyle and colors allow everything to pop, while all units and locations are visually distinct. Field Commander, meanwhile offers more muted colors with difficulty telling exactly what a unit does. I can't tell what the use of any of its units do versus Advance Wars where infantry, mech, recon, and anti-air all give distinct clues as to how they'd perform against other units. But let's look at Days of Ruin, the follow up which focused more on a very brown post-apocalyptic world

The reddish brown tint and murky water create a distinct artstyle rather than a muted one. Despite its environments using fewer colors than Field Commander. The goal was to make everything pop and despite giving in to the browns and greys common in 2008, Days of Ruin's still a good looking game in 2024.

The Castlevania games are an even starker contrast. Once again, Portrait of Ruin's arstyle and focus on sprites can make a even a dull brown room look more exciting and interesting than Dracula X Chronicles, a polygonal remake of Rondo of Blood:

The PSP seemed to go all in on many 7th gen graphical trends, trends which have no aged well in hindsight. Once stunning games visually like Killzone 2 and Gears of War now look drab and bland. And without their technical prowess, the PSP has been hit even worse. Not to say I think Dracula X Chronicles is a bad looking game, it looks far better than Field Commander. But it doesn't pop like the DS Castlevanias. 

But okay, you say, I'm cherry picking sprite games versus polygonal games. We all had that hindsight when indie games rose that sprite games we snobbed our nose at in the late 90's/early 00's actually look gorgeous today, much better than the polygonal games of their era. So fine, I'm gonna compare two 3D games, both considered graphical showcases at the time: Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword and God of War: Chains of Olympus

Character models absolutely look better in God of War. But not by that much when you consider the reputation these two had graphically in their hayday. And the environments in Ninja Gaiden have more inspired art. Granted these are pre-rendered backgrounds versus full polygonal backgrounds. But regardless of why the environments pop more, they are most of the game's visuals. And being able to do more with the art design goes a long way in Ninja Gaiden looking more distinct and interesting despite clearly being tecnhically inferior. But this could just be one example, so let's try their kart racing games, Mario Kart DS and Modnation Racers. And this time I'll also throw in Wipeout to see if it's one distinct PSP game or a few.

Funnily enough, of these, Airship Fortress in Mario Kart DS looks worst. And Wipeout Pulse looks the best. Why did I pick them? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose? Simply put, to hammer in my point, art direction mattered most in making these games look good. Modnation Racers and Airship Fortress both look worse than Waluigi Pinball and Wipeout Pulse. The latter two have more inspired art directions, creating more visually interesting worlds. And in the year 2024, that's what mattered more between these two handhelds than which was more powerful. 

And I also used Wipeout Pulse to show that this does not apply to every game. PSP had some absolutely gorgeous games while DS had some hideous games. But for every Locoroco or Patapon, there was quite a few Killzone Liberations, Syphon Filters, or console ports not playing to the handheld's strengths. While the DS' bland looking games like Nintendogs or Dementium were overshadowed by a slew of sprite-based eye candy and artistic polygonal games playing to the hardware's strength.

And keep in mind that none of these games I mentioned are bad. All are worth returning to nowadays. Because DS is host to tons of very ugly games, some of the ugliest to ever exist. Yet those are not games worth returning to. And if I were going to recommend PSP games, I might throw in a disclaimer that some of these were a lot more impressive when they were new. But gamers returning to DS games might be surprised how good some of them still look today. Hell, 2011 had two DS games not only impress me more than anything on the PSP, they impressed me more than 99% of games on the 3DS with Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective and Pokemon Black/White. And that's the magic of a great artstyle.