Happy 5th Birthday to The 3DS

Yep it's three years old all ready, doesn't time fly.

Anyone got any thoughts on system, and the question I have is should we have a vote.

I think the answer will be no, I did toy with the idea last year but due to quality release after quality release it kept getting put back. We actually did have a poll back then with a majority saying yes, but it never happened. I did have the idea which I've said before of doing it biannual, so if we did do a vote there wouldn't be another 3DS vote in-till it's 5 and then it could of been replaced and be more like the Wii/DS vote but that's a long way off.

Looks like it's a yes and Andy will be doing, so I'll let him decide when a voting thread goes up and his rules of course like is retail and eshop together or separate, just some food for thought from me.

Here's the old thread from 2012: http://forums.computerandvideogames.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=136412

~

I don't remember ever being as excited for a console as I was in the months leading up to the 3DS launch in 2011. I remember taking the day off work so I could head into town for HMV opening and go home to play Super Street Fighter IV 3D, Pro Evo 2011 3D and all the in-built stuff. I think I spent over £300 on the handheld with two games, but it was brilliant. I quickly got Ridge Racer 3D, Pilotwings Resort, Super Monkey Ball 3D and Nintendogs too. Say what you will, but I thought it was one of the best launch line-ups ever.

Good times were had. That said, the initial thrill wore off quite quickly, and it was a really quiet six months between launch and the likes of Mario Kart 7 - I remember a six-week period that summer in which nothing was released, literally nothing. I wish I'd waited for a price drop. It recovered well, but the 3DS was only the second Nintendo console I'd ever thought of trading in. The eShop and Nintendo Video were really rubbish for a while as well - who remembers Oscar's Oasis? Pish.

Now, I've got the much-improved 3DS XL, and a good library of games, including stuff I've yet to even start, like Fire Emblem, Monster Hunter and Castlevania. That's in addition to the games launching this year, and the likes of Pokemon, Zelda and Prof. Layton, which I've still to pick up. I don't know about youse, but I'm sorted with the 3DS for the foreseeable future.

As for a vote, I don't mind. It's been a while since we've had one. The standard has been raised since my 2012 one though.

Going to post my more detailed thoughts on the console later.  For now, I'd be up for another vote: plenty more games since the initial one, including some sparks of utter brilliance.  Whose turn is it?  Or who hasn't done a vote that wants one?  Jaster, Buska and Adnyman spring to mind.

The 3DS came out in my second year of uni and naturally, as a student and then as a graduate who has worked a series of minimum wage jobs (yeah, can you believe that my stint as a Christmas elf was minimum wage? Fuck Santa), I have not been able to buy all the games I want to buy. The main ones I've not gotten the chance to play as of yet are Paper Mario, Dream Team Bros, Kid Icarus and A Link Between Worlds, but there are a few others I don't want to miss out on (Professor Layton, Virtue's Last Reward and Shin Megami Tensei IV if it ever reaches the UK) as well as a few that are coming out soon (PLvAA, Smash Bros).

As for the games I have played, the 3DS has had some phenomenal titles. I thought Pokemon Y, Ocarina of Time, Fire Emblem, New Leaf and Super Mario 3D Land were four of the best games I've ever played; and other games, like MK7, Luigi's Mansion, DKCR3D, Bravely Default and and Tales of the Abyss are all great too. And there are some great titles on the eShop - SteamWorld Dig, Mighty Switch Force, Pullbox, Pokemon Battle: Link!, VVVVVV, Dual Destinies and Picross e have lent me hours of entertainment. But I haven't had the chance to touch other titles, like Fallblox, Mutant Mudds and Nano Assault.

So I suppose in many ways it's a good thing that I haven't had the money to take full advantage of the 3DS. I've been able to play some amazing games but there are still a whole bunch I've yet to catch up on. Balla said elsewhere that it hasn't reached the dizzying heights of the DS, which is true, but I don't mind - there are so many games on the DS I didn't get the chance to play it's tragic.

I would sooner someone else does a vote then myself but more the willing to do it.

As thought's I'm kinda opposite to TCK,

I had mine preordered then I saw the line up which was muh, so I cancelled mine in till I played SFIV on a demo unit. So repreordered went to the midnight launch and getting a Black system, SFIV and Super Monkey Ball as that was on offer.

The thrill (as TCK put it) didn't last long after playing Ocarina of Time it was gone, but then in November we got the 25th Anniversary Zelda system which also came out pretty much the same time as 3D land. So I got one again and it started to have some great titles up in till Kid Icarus Uprising and then there was nothing much I could see coming out I wanted for it. So it was sold, I didn't then pick up a 3DS again (well I did but that was making money) for myself in till GAME had the XL White with Kart 7 or 3D land and Nintendo was giving you a free game as well if you registered it with Club Nintendo for £170. At that price I picked one up, as I knew thing's like Luigi Mansion 2 was coming to it and worth picking one up again.

I've now since got rid of my horrid White XL for my Zelda XL, since last year I've been saying the 3DS is the best current system on market due to it's amazing library it now has and gives me hope that Nintendo can turn around the Wii U like it did with the 3DS.

I'd be well up for running it if everyone wants. I've got a few ideas already!

Okay sorted then Andy it's all yours, edited my 1st post.

TCK wrote:

Nintendo Video were really rubbish for a while as well

Let's be honest it was never any good, total waste of memory & I promptly deleted it.

The_Jaster wrote:

TCK wrote:

Nintendo Video were really rubbish for a while as well

Let's be honest it was never any good, total waste of memory & I promptly deleted it.

Shame though, I don't know why they didn't try to make more of it. If they'd used it as a platform for Nintendo Direct type stuff, trailers and behind-the-scenes looks and the like, it could have been a pretty good app for keeping punters up to speed on Ninty things.

I thought that that was what it was going to be, with some full-length Eurosport and Sky videos. Really disappointing. Those Shaun The Sheep shorts were good, though.

Another memory I have of the 3DS was playing Mario Kart 7, Starfox 64 3D and Super Mario 3D Land for the first time at Reading 2011. I was really impressed with the first two, but it's the SM3DL demo that sticks out in my mind: it was mince. Even NGamer were iffy about it. It was a slower, dumber version of what eventually came out later that year. The game was good in the end, but with that demo I don't think I've ever seen a Mario game in worse shape, particularly so close to release too.

Did the Eurosport app ever do anything? I remember seeing it appear one day and couldn't find a way to delete it so I hid it away in the depths of the menu.

It was just a bunch of short, weekly blooper videos, was all. I was expecting full-length football/tennis/motorsport/etc highlights, and not unreasonably so either. Such a dud.

I just read through that entire thread that Cappa linked to.  Good times, mostly.  Anyone remember when Dusty Knackers posted relatively frequently outside the wrestling thread?  Anyway.


3DS, then.  To say that it had a slow start was an understatement.  There was a point, and quite a long one (so a line I guess), when my favourite "game" on the 3DS was Pokédex 3D.  I was impressed by the console, and especially by the 3D (with the slider right up, Cofagrigus' arm seemed to actually move out of the screen!), but the software line-up was pathetic.  I don't think I bought a single launch game, instead trying to get some enjoyment out of the AR games and Face Raiders.  I only succeeded up to a point.  And as everyone else has already said, the other apps. gave us nothing much.

Was I moaning about how the console was a failure?  Knowing me, probably.  But coming off the back of the DS, my favourite console at the time (hindsight placed it behind the Gamecube), which launched with my favourite game ever REDUX (again, hindsight shines a cruel light on its feeble attempts at analogue control), I'd say there's at least a modicum of fairness there.  Not to mention a complete lack of Wii titles at the time, making the period seem even more barren.


Things were starting to look up by the end of year one, though.  OoT3D in June (THREE MONTHS after release) helped bridge the gap until SM3DL and MK7 at the end of the calendar year, the latter being the first great game I'd played on the console; although I was kinder on the former at the time than I am now.  Then KIU came along and took my breath away.  

The console's never really looked back.  The rest of 2012 was okay for games (although PMSS came along near the end and stunk it up), but 2013 was a blinder.  Luigi's Mansion 2 became the best game I'd played on the device, only to be rudely pushed off its perch at the end of the year by ALBW, while Tom Nook, Phoenix Wright and that annoying dancing child made sure that I wasn't bored in between.  ("2013 - the year in which the new Pokémon games were a stop-gap.")  The eShop has been fairly consistent for me, never really delivering gold but chugging along at an iron standard, with the Picross e series being representative of the whole.


2014 looks like another 2012, sadly.  Not every year can be a 2013, nor should it be expected to be; but based on its current line-up, the 3DS will still be some way behind the DS in my estimation.  I guess it's because the DS had JRPGs, my favourite genre, in abundance, not to mention puzzlers and weird games that defied all expectation.  While Bravely Default nips at the heels of the DS' elite, no other RPG on the console (not even Pokémon X/Y) has gripped me in the way TWEWY or HGSS did.  Several nice-enough eShop puzzlers haven't been able to measure up to Meteos or Picross DS, while nothing apart from maybe KIU has wowed me with its boldness and innovation like Ghost Trick, TWEWY, or even Henry Hatsworth.  (Had I played the Phoenix Wright games when they were released, they'd probably fall in the same bucket.)

Of course, there's still E3 to come, and the 3DS probably has another two years in it.  Despite my last paragraph, I'm rather enamoured with the little handheld: it just had a tough act to follow, is all.  Nothing coming up really thrills me, although MG World Tour still has a chance at it, but hopefully somebody (it needn't be Nintendo, and I'm almost hoping it won't be) will pull a couple of blinders in the console's autumn years.  


Sorry for the tl;dr: it's probably a good thing that I've got a lot to say, but whether it's a good thing that I say it is another matter.  Here's to another year of 3D fun, great games, and the 3DS' software line-up continuing to thump the Vita's into a cocked hat.  Cheers! 

What's REDUX as that's a dreamcast game. Also I think this year the VITA will have the better releases.

It was a word before it was a game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redux_(Literary_term)

Okay but it reads launched with my favourite game ever REDUX.

Capitalised for emphasis. SM64DS - a.k.a. SM64 REDUX.

Rum Rapture wrote:

The_Jaster wrote:

TCK wrote:

Nintendo Video were really rubbish for a while as well

Let's be honest it was never any good, total waste of memory & I promptly deleted it.

Shame though, I don't know why they didn't try to make more of it. If they'd used it as a platform for Nintendo Direct type stuff, trailers and behind-the-scenes looks and the like, it could have been a pretty good app for keeping punters up to speed on Ninty things.

Aye that would've been really good.

Balladeer wrote:

I just read through that entire thread that Cappa linked to.  Good times, mostly.  Anyone remember when Dusty Knackers posted relatively frequently outside the wrestling thread?  Anyway.

Not my fault I have nothing of interest to post these days.

Intially I thought things were going to go t***-up - I'm not really a handheld gamer, and, initially, after a disappointing review of "Pilotwings Lite", I felt that, buying a 3DS, I was, essentially, investing in Nintendo. Having said that, I did get it with OoT3D and Starfox3D (or Lylat Wars 3D, etc.) - which were wonderful, but both N64 updates. I really started to panic. Then came the dire NSMB2. Really started to panic about Nintendo's plans, and the 3D novelty wore off straight away. I spent most of the time fiddling with the Rytmik music software on the eShop.

Then came Late 2012-2013 - Super Mario 3D World; Luigi's Mansion; VVVVVV; Steamworld Dig; A Link Between Worlds; Animal Crossing, ANIMAL CROSSING, ANIMAL CROSSING. The latter of those is helped by, at long last, Nintendo getting the most of the digital download capabilities; it sits on my 3DS, and I boot up every time I switch the thing on. Even though it hardly ever leaves the house, I've got a collection of awesome proper games that don't take up the TV. Now every happy.

(Although I do wish I'd waited until the 3DSXL was out, as it looks so much classier; I'm no Hulk, but my 3DS creaks quite a bit when juggling with the buttons).

Feeling nostalgic and slightly sad (I'll get onto that in a bit) reading everyone's posts, it has been quite a journey the past three years.

I'm glad 3DS has become successful (or as successful as it can be) but it's a shame its floundering and the issues we face right now (software drought ahoy!) are more 3DS being victim of a shifting industry.

The beauty of 3DS is it was a piece of hardware built with little consideration for less welcome industry trends, but it's a shame it was so evidently rushed to launch. I do wonder what things would have been like, particularly western software support (which was always great on DS, particularly with publishers bringing over games from Japan) had Nintendo not fudged up the launch (where loads of games were cancelled).

What-would-have-beens aside, I really like the 3DS, it's a solid, reliable platform with a bunch of quality games, and the heaps of software on my home screen speak volumes as to how great its library has been.

Remember the early days where the possibilities of mass-market 3D and augmented reality had us giddy with excitement? The launch window lineup was probably the last time I truly got the most out of every game I bought -- I really did play Shadow Wars, Pilotwings Resort, Ridge Racer 3D, Nintendogs + Cats and Dead or Alive Dimensions to death, something I probably wouldn't have done had there been a lot of games out there. I almost wish I could go back to that time when all the new features were really exciting and not something we take for granted now. StreetPass has effectively and successfully replaced a bunch of online features DS games might implement, like how Castlevania Order of Eccles Cakes let you trade items with people online.

Bump and slight name change as it's the 3DS's 5th Birthday today in Europe where it failed to take off but thankfully was resurrected by Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7.

A odd console as few years ago it had a excellent year then last year was a bit muh even if we did get a updated version, then this year it looks like it's going to be great starting of with GOTY-teder in Bravely Second and likely rounding the year out with a new Pokemon.

I don't know if were going to a 5th anniversary vote as we have been biannual with them but with the ongoing Zelda vote and upcoming games this year, it might be worth waiting for who ever wants to run.

mas wrote:

......then last year was a bit muh even if we did get a updated version

It had MH4U (probably other great games too) last year so nah.

Okay it was better then 2014 (I think) but I don't think it was a vintage year for the 3DS and the end of year forum votes seemed to sort of match that, yeah it had the run away winner which you bring up MH4U but this year has Generations plus loads of other games.

Aye this year is looking a lot better to be fair.