As with other games in the Guitar Hero series, the player is challenged to play through the lead or bass guitar portions of rock songs by matching colored notes that scroll on screen towards the player in time with physical actions to score points and keep the virtual crowd pleased.

Each game features more than 25 songs, with some variation in track lists depending on the region of release, and multiple single-player modes.

The player holds the unit in a vertical book orientation (similar to Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword or Hotel Dusk: Room 215), and uses a special guitar pick-shaped stylus to strum on the touchscreen of the DS with their free hand.

[4] After the player has successfully hit a selected series of notes, he or she will gain "Star Power" which doubles their score until the meter has run out.

[5][6] Work on a Nintendo DS version of Guitar Hero started in early 2007 according to Vicarious Visions CEO, Karthik Bala.

[10] According to lead designer Jeremy Russo, the team had the largest number of playtesters brought in for any Vicarious Vision project in order to refine the touchscreen "strumming" action, using a range of testers, including those that had never played a Guitar Hero game, the "'DragonForce' Expert" players, and real guitar players.

[10] In addition, the team wanted to expand the "Guitar Duel" mode to include several DS-specific mini-games that could not be recreated on other consoles, but found themselves running out of time.

[1] Vicarious Visions developed a method to overcome the 2,000-polygon drawing limit imposed by the Nintendo DS hardware in order to allow the characters, each composed of about 2,000 polygons, to be recognizable.

[11] Much of the core aspects of the On Tour series will be reused in the DS version of Band Hero, also being developed in part by Vicarious Visions; the game will reutilize the "Guitar Grip" while adding drumming support through a "drum skin" and vocals through the DS' microphone, and support for four player localized play has been included.

Also at the event, anyone who attended received a free Guitar Hero sticker, a temporary tattoo, and a special dog tag.

[23] The engine of the game has no major changes, but Vicarious Visions stated that it has continued to work on strum detection on the DS touchpad to meet a wide range of playstyles.

[11] The developers also noted that the Fan Requests helped to tap into the way that players had previously played games in the series, setting their own personal goals for certain songs.

In general, critics felt the game captured the majority of the elements of the Guitar Hero series,[28] and IGN commented that the note tracks were well done as to provide "a great challenge with a solid difficulty curve".

[29][30] The Grip was also reported to seat poorly in the GBA slot and came out of the unit at times, which caused the game to stop unexpectedly, requiring a restart of the system due to its inability to support hot swapping.

[29][30][32] Reviews reported difficulty in keeping the DS unit steady while playing with the Grip, making it difficult to follow the note patterns on the screen.

[4][28] Reviewers found the set list to be both short and somewhat skewed towards recent music,[29] and some commented that the sound quality of the tracks was poor.

[43] In July and August 2008, it sold an additional 309,700 and 110,000 units in North America, respectively, placing on NPD's top ten game sales for both months.

[46] The bundled version of Guitar Hero: On Tour is the 19th best-selling Nintendo DS game in the United States, selling 1.1 million copies as of November 2008.

[51][52] Critics noted that there was no change in the hardware design and the gameplay mechanics, such that the same issues with hand-cramping and the inability to keep the DS steady while playing still persisted in Decades.

[50][52] Reviewers did praise the compatibility with the previous On Tour title, the improved touch screen interface, and the ability to play competitively with other users regardless of which version of the game they possessed.

[51] Hyper's Tracey Lien commends the game for "staying as true to Guitar Hero as the DS can possibly allow" but criticises it for "major hand cramps, poor song selection, and too few tracks!