Kolzig

Nintendo 3DS

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Alright. I've had this bad boy (an XL) for about a week now.  Here's my thoughts so far.

 

The 3DS XL:

It's great! I haven't tried the normal version but this feels like the right size for my hands. The system software is a bit sluggish.. I don't know how they'd do it better, but after having a multitasking phone in my pocket for years now, it just feels dated.  The 3D effect is neat! Had to turn it half-way down so as to not feel like I'm straining my eyes, but the effect works great!  Don't know how much value I'd put in it, though, having only played Super Mario 3D Land.  It's a neat gimmick but doesn't add squat to the gameplay.

 

I love how the system rewards me for walking around with it. It results in me putting it in my pocket every time I leave the house, on the off chance that I'll Pass some random person (which has so far only happened once...)

 

I don't know if I need the touch screen. If it's going to be sort of subpar why have it? Everything's tuned to it now, obviously, but would one miss it if the navigation were tied to thumbstick instead?

 

Super Mario 3D Land:

 

Amazing! Underwhelming at first, but got into its rhythm quickly. Slightly too easy for the first playthrough and then IT BLOWS ME AWAY with the Special world afterwards! So many great courses, with awesome twists. Wish it had gotten to those earlier in the game.

 

I still make weird mistakes every now and then due to not trusting the camera angle..  It's like I'm never sure if left on the stick results in going in a straight line over a passage, because the angle of the camera is slightly tilted to the side and whatnot. It's hard! And the 3D effect doesn't help. I'm going to try turning it off tonight just to see if it's easier or harder, but I can't say it makes judging jumps any easier.  I like the feel of the thumbstick, but I constantly make tiny errors on it that result in me flying off in directions I don't intend to.

 

But it's Mario and I love Mario and this is as good as Mario gets pretty much! And playing a Nintendo game again is just so much fun! So much polish.

 

All in all, I sort of wish Nintendo would just make a handheld without all the 3D and extra touchscreen and instead just focus on one good screen and the great games they already make.. But I'm still happy with the 3DS.

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It's incredible how fast 3D as a feature has turned over. Nintendo is even treating it in first-party games at a similar level to Sony with Sixaxis in in the PS3. The industry at large doesn't seem to care about 3D anymore, with Sony basically not giving it the time of day in the PS4 conference after producing a Sony monitor to be used specifically with the PS3 that supported 120hz and came bundled with Motorstorm Apocalypse with 3D support and a pair of 3D goggles.

 

Anyways, the 3DS will succeed nonetheless. I'm glad to own one if only because it seemed like the hardware upgrade the DS deserved. While the DS had some great games, it seemed like little more than a second screen on the GBA as far as technology is concerned (evidenced by the weird DSi upgrade which was barely a half-step between the DS and 3DS).

 

I just picked up Kid Icarus and am eager to play it, though I find it odd that I've spent more time playing DS Pokemon games on my 3DS than all the 3DS games I've played so far combined.

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I found 3D Land very hard to play with the stereoscopy off, i was missing jumps constantly. (I refuse to call it 3D, games are already 3D.) With it on, i was just nailing everything. It made me appreciate what the effect can bring to a game, i felt the added depth perception made jumps easier to gauge and therefore made it a demonstrably better and more playable game.

Most other games, it can be varying degrees of distracting or superfluous. Less successful implementations tend to almost entirely be because of poorly handled hud elements, surprisingly. (Or massive technical problems, some games have poorer framerates with the stereoscopy enabled.)

Ultimately, the degree to which a person enjoys or even just tolerates the stereoscopy on the 3DS seems to be a fairly personal thing that varies significantly from individual to individual, but i've personally grown to like it quite a lot even just as an aesthetic. I like the subtle rolling hills it brings out in Fire Emblem: Awakening, for example, a game where the terrain appears otherwise very flat. It's even been used to great effect in a number of purely 2D games, particularly Mighty Switch Force and Mutant Mudds.

With the passing "3D" craze being such a total ill-advised disaster for a multitude of implementation and business reasons, the 3DS stands as pretty much the singular example of the technology that i'm personally willing to live with. It doesn't give me a headache, it doesn't make me wear glasses, it's completely optional and even adjustable, and some games have been using it quite well.

Also: I'll just throw this out there - If you're low on battery, in addition to disabling the wi-fi and some of the other obvious things, turning off the stereoscopy can help. (the stereoscopy actually doubles the brightness of the screen since it's projecting two images in two different directions.)

As for the Streetpass thing, i haven't quite given up on it, i still take my 3DS along with me sometimes, but i definitely only get a couple hits every now and then. One of those things that probably works in Japan because of the population density, but not really anywhere else. (A big game like Animal Crossing: New Leaf or the inevitable 3DS Smash game could probably have a lot of people itching to Streetpass again.)

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I'm glad that the 3D has now been relegated to "subtle effect to promote roominess". It's not worth making a console around but it definitely adds to the game when used right and the most recent set of games have sure used it right.

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I'm still getting a lot of mileage out of the Streetpassing, but unless you live in Japan or go to multiple conventions all over the globe a month, you're never going to get all of the achievements for streetpassing.

I was lucky enough in the past to have people I work with that regularly brought their 3DS, but now it's down to one guy, so getting puzzle pieces and completing Find Mii 2 is slow going. I also have enough fodder to just hire former streetpasses for Find Mii regularly so everytime I walk 1000 steps I reset the system clock. I always have the wrong time and day because of it though. Not sure why Nintendo felt any need to give that stupid limit.

The pink puzzle piece part has got me stumped. Fortunately a friend's girlfriend has nearly all pink puzzle pieces but I'm not around her often enough to collect them all. She's the source for most of mine though. So because of this I carry my 3DS everywhere no matter what, hoping I can get a streetpass even though it's getting kind of chipped and battered at this point.

Would be nice if somehow the streetpass opened up to my online friends instead of randomly moving around the city. I wonder if anyone at Nintendo realizes that their streetpass system requirements are really only best suited to Japan.

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The streetpass stuff is actually just about right for me. There's a small group of people at work who bring their 3DSes, and some of them stop by every day to collect streetpasses. I'm progressing through puzzles and Find Mii hats at a pretty good pace now. The pink puzzle pieces are tough, but recently one guy went to an anime convention or something and got all the pink Fire Emblem pieces in one go, so now those are slowly propagating around the office. It's cool because it sort of forces those of us with 3DSes to interact socially for a few minutes every day while we wait for the streets to pass.

 

Then again, I work at a video game company. Before that happened, I'd got approximately one streetpass tag ever apart from the time I went to a Zelda symphony.

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With the limited amount of StreetPasses I get, I treasure each and every one of them.

 

The thrill of that little green light when I take my 3DS out of my bag is still there.

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I've found that every EB Games or similar store has either an employee or a demo unit somewhere that has every Puzzle Swap piece so far. It's the reason why I go to the mall every weekend. It's probably good for their business, too.

 

Also, I like the 3D feature. I feel like Nintendo are the only ones who really thought to use it as a subtle addition rather than a major feature, though they certainly tried to advertise it as a major feature at first. If there's a feature of the 3DS that they've completely swept under the rug, it's the Augmented Reality stuff. It's probably for the best since the cameras on the system make it really janky and finnicky, but I have a big thing for AR so I'm kind of disappointed that I don't get to use it more often.

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Oh, there's almost always guaranteed to be a nerdy store clerk at any electronics store that will have a 3DS on standby to streetpass with customers that come through.

Also: Mirror of Fate demo is on the eShop.

I'm kind of digging it, i don't think it's bad. I was quite worried about this game, but it seems cool, i am tentatively on board.

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StreetPassing is probably my favorite 3DS game, as silly as that is.

Would it work as well if 3DSes were as popular as, say, iPhones? Or if it were an iOS app?

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StreetPass is pretty rad. It'd be more rad if 3DS's were as popular as iPhones! I finally started carrying it around with me during the day, and I only get maybe eight a day, max. Even when I clear it out mid-day. In San Francisco. And I work at a decently-sized gaming company.

 

A friend of mine who lives in Japan once told me he got dozens a day.

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I'd appreciate more games using StreetPassing mechanics like DragonQuest IX did, but not as absurd as having to keep the game on in a specific sleep mode, then passing people with theirs in the same state.  I can't even imagine that worked well in Japan with way more people playing DragonQuest. If they'd invested more heavily in bizarre handheld tech like StreetPass instead of the 3D craze, I think the system would be much more interesting.

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I'd appreciate more games using StreetPassing mechanics like DragonQuest IX did, but not as absurd as having to keep the game on in a specific sleep mode, then passing people with theirs in the same state.  I can't even imagine that worked well in Japan with way more people playing DragonQuest. If they'd invested more heavily in bizarre handheld tech like StreetPass instead of the 3D craze, I think the system would be much more interesting.

What did DQ IX do, exactly?

Man, there were a lot of DS games that had weird proto-Streetpass modes though, it was definitely something Nintendo had been experimenting with for a while. Just the impracticality of requiring you with your specific game in a specific sleep mode to stumble into somebody else with that same game in the same sleep mode made it totally untenable outside of Japan though. Streetpass, to its credit, at least kinda works.

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Well, in Japan, everyone plays Dragon Quest. Like, everyone. Again, sourced from my friend who lives in Japan.

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In DQ you'd essentially get other people's characters in your game's Inn rooms. The more people, the more stuff is unlocked, including item recipes you have no other way of getting. 

 

I don't doubt that it works great in Japan, but you have to walk to a specific place in the game world to put it in sleep mode, then it's just sitting there draining battery and you can't play it on public transport while that's happening. I'd imagine the hordes of people playing DQ in Japan actually play DQ, and don't use that weird sleep mode. With real StreetPass, you could exchange characters in that program, then the info could be relayed to the actual game without the very specific situational requirements.

 

I also feel like StreetPass seems so amazing only because it's placed in the context of a system with very lacking online features, but that's another can of worms.

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The World Ends With You had a Streetpass-esque feature that was required to 100% the game. Fortunately it's a little forgiving and gives you a few ways to cheese the system, but it was really annoying as hell. I really appreciate how much simpler that is with Streetpass.

 

I can't wait to see a big, ubiquitous game use it. Specifically, I want to see what Pokémon inevitably does with Streetpass.

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Pokemon maybe, but probably also Animal Crossing: New Leaf or that in-development 3DS Smash Bros game.

In DQ you'd essentially get other people's characters in your game's Inn rooms. The more people, the more stuff is unlocked, including item recipes you have no other way of getting.

Well, there's certainly already games on the 3DS that do things even more ambitious. Fire Emblem: Awakening lets you set up a team that will be streetpassed out to other players who can then buy items from your characters or fight your team for a chance to recruit your custom avatar into their army.

I also feel like StreetPass seems so amazing only because it's placed in the context of a system with very lacking online features, but that's another can of worms.

I don't know if that's necessarily true, Streetpass has a fairly distinct charm that doesn't really exist anywhere else.

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Animal Crossing: New Leaf

 

This actually has one of the most interesting implementations of Streetpass out of the 3DS' library. You set up a "model home" that you want to show other people, and when you Streetpass, that home and your character are sent to the Streetpass Plaza for the other player to check out at their leisure.

 

Streetpass in and of itself is awesome, and I applaud Nintendo for making an all-in-one solution to the problems the previously mentioned DS games had, but I live in Iowa. I've met one other person who owns a 3DS since I bought mine almost a year ago. Not being able to take part in some of the features is pretty lame, but a lot of them are superfluous.

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So has anybody else tried the Etrian Odyssey IV demo? I'm mentioning it again because it really, really seems like a very cool game, and that demo offers up a giant chunk of the game. (The first overworld area of the game, multiple dungeons, multiple quests, tons of classes, weapons, and skills. It's a seemingly uninhibited look at the first part of the game.)

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I have it downloaded, but still haven't gotten around to playing it. I feel guilty, because Nich Maragos hid my name (along with a bunch of other forum buddies) in most of the trailers. I'm the Fortress!

 

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I think i've seen your name in a bunch of the promotional material for the game, or just screenshots too, at least. I am amused at this revelation, heh.

Anyways, i decided i wanted to play this game, and to my surprise it actually just let me import my save from the demo and keep playing from where i left off.

I've also realized that there's no offset between the perspectives for the stereoscopy in Etrian Odyssey IV.

The result is that the stereoscopy in the game has all these layers in its UI elements, but when it comes to the actual 3D space of the game, it's completely flat. There's no depth because the two images it's trying to shoot out at you are of the same point in space.

One of the weirdest things i've see on the 3DS, and kind of hilarious to then see some reviews praising the game for its 3D effect.

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Haven't played the demo yet, but I've just started played the third game, The Drowned City. I didn't take to the first game, but I was decided to give this one a proper chance. And ten hours in, it turns out I'm really enjoying it! So, there's that. I might grow to like this series after all.

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