Are there any DS games you would recommend?
Im not sure I would be able to play a PC game on an emulated DS, that sounds like it would get annoying very fast.
There's a couple more decent games I've found, but I can only play the same game for so long before I get bored of it.
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Hoplite is honestly worth a check. I do get bored rapidly of stuff on my phone, but I do believe that that is not the fault of Hoplite in this case.
DS Recommendations:
Air Traffic Chaos - This is a plate spinning game, essentially. If you've played "Air Traffic Control" style games on your phone in the past, dump the concept from your brain because this is completely different. I'll try to give a quick breakdown: You have planes coming in and taking off from your airport, you need to manage them so they don't crash into each other, but you can only communicate with one plane at a time on any given particular channel (Approach, Departure, Ground) and the pilots have to relay lots of information to you, so it generally takes 10-15 seconds to talk to them each time you do. It basically means you need to be thinking ahead about who's landing or taking off, on what runway and where. Pilots will also get stressed out if you don't give them orders or they have to wait too long before they're allowed to do what they need to do. I found this game so addicting when I first played it, though I do largely think the 3DS games are better, specifically: I am an Air Traffic Controller: Airport Hero Hawaii, yes that is the actual name. There is nothing else like this series and I completely love it. There is a PC version of this game that is newer and I know has lots of mods, but I haven't been able to get into it in the same way I got into the DS and 3DS versions.
Orcs & Elves: Programmed by none other than the John Carmack, this is a first person dungeon crawler. The story isn't complex or interesting, but combat is fun enough and it's really cool to explore the dungeons, feeling very reminiscent of classic PC dungeon crawlers like Wizardry or Might & Magic, except you're the only party member.
Warlock of Firetop Mountain: I've spent about 10-12 hours with this one and I need to spend more. It's a bit janky, but another first person dungeon crawler, but this time not tile based. It's very expansive for a DS game and extremely challenging as well.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars: I'm sure you've heard of this one, as it's widely available these days, but there's not a ton to say. If you like GTA and in particular Classic GTA, as done by DMA design, this is what you want. A very expansive world, decent story, fun gameplay and the drug minigame is great fun; it's impressive they managed to fit all this onto a DS cart.
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer: Not too much to say about this one, but it's a classic Roguelike. Explore a "dungeon" (forest in this case), pick up strange items that might be helpful or might curse you, you never know until you try them out. Die, rinse, repeat. There are plenty of other Shiren games, but I feel like this one strikes the best balance of the ones I've played in terms of being relatively simple and straightforward, versus adding a whole ton of extra mechanics to get your brain around.
Dragon Quest 4/5/6/9: Not sure if you're a Dragon Quest fan, I am. Not a rabid manic, but where I strongly dislike JRPGs that are very self serious, Dragon Quest very much isn't that and you have some of the best of the series in 4/5 (haven't played 5) on the system. 9 is currently on my roster to finish after I'm done playing 3 on my Gameboy Color.
Etrian Odyssey 3: Admittedly, I haven't played this one yet, but I put heaps of time into 4 on my 3DS and it's a great series. Make a party, draw the map to a dungeon, recreate your party as new classes, but with bonuses depending on how far you leveled them prior. Admittedly, I think this is the kind of series you play one of and then don't bother with the others; you're not here for a story, this is pretty much pure gameplay and they generally don't differ too much from one another, though at some point I want to try Nexus on my 3DS.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (And it's sequel, Last Window): My favorite ******* thing ever on DS and possibly one of my favorite games in general. It's basically an adventure game where you're limited to one particular building (A Hotel), where you talk to all the residents, solve puzzles and figure out the mystery behind the place you're in and the people in it. Novel for the fact that you hold the DS sideways like a book. Absolutely adore this series and it's sucks that it's confined to the DS. Not sure how emulation would work for it, but I assume something like Drastic has the ability to turn the screens sideways. That said, I wouldn't want to play this on a PC, because to me it's a game I laid in bed and played through.
Retro Game Challenge (2 also has an English translation patch): This one is just great. Essentially, the developers created a bunch of games based on old NES games, like Ninja Gaiden, Dragon Quest and the like, in which you complete little mini challenges in them, like Get to the 5th Level and so on. But what's neat is that they've created this entire world around it, so you can go read magazines that come in every so often and the magazines have hints, tips and cheats, so say you are doing that challenge to get to level 5, you can maybe find a cheat in a magazine to put you on level 4 so that you can can complete it much faster. The second game has even more variety and includes games that ape stuff from the SNES, Gameboy, Famicom Disk System, etc and the game genres in that one are a little more varied, which isn't to say you shouldn't bother with the first, because it's still probably the better one.
There's tons of other weird **** on the DS, stuff like Panzer General and even other Slitherine WW2 games, visual novels, detective stories, weird RPGs. Lots of tradional style games on there as well, if you're looking for something like that. Aliens: Infestation is neat, though didn't hold my attention super long, The Dark Spire, more dungeon crawling, Advance Wars is always nice (much prefer it over Fire Emblem by the same company), just absolutely tons of strange things that are absolutely worth playing and that haven't appeared on any other system.
I know you're probably going to prefer emulation here, but I might recommend picking up a DSi on eBay. The regular sized DSi's sell for about $50 and the XL's for $100 and they're extremely easy to hack. Throw a 16gb SD card in there and you could have the entire library of DS games on there. But, I'm a sucker for handhelds, so maybe that's just me. I have em coming out of my ears I own so many of the things.