The Nintendo Lineage 9: 3DS Family
Join me in this penultimate entry as I look back on the Nintendo 3DS
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Thank you.
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I still distinctly remember getting my Nintendo 3DS.
A cousin I hadn’t seen in a long time came to visit with one; I still had my original DS Lite, I’d heard in the news that the 3DS caused migraines, was bad for young children etc. the UK media was in a fresh bout of anti-gaming seethe at the time. Lo and behold, I tried the 3DS and no brain tumours, no migraines, no conjunctivitis, no brain-eating amoeba; just good, clean fun and smiles all around. Naturally, I then wanted one myself but my local GAME outlet (think of Gamestop but with aggressive, Byzantine-purple branding) was being stingy and wouldn’t accept my DS Lite for trade-in due to a single dead pixel in the top right corner of the touchscreen so my aunt kindly chipped in the difference once they’d taken my games.
But was the 3DS any good? Did it live up to its predecessor? Well, let’s find out.
Hardware *** 3 Stars
Nintendo were back to their funny tricks again with the 3DS and New 3DS Family of handhelds; in the era of peak Nintendo hubris and stagnancy, the hardware followed suit and was always one step forward and 2 steps sideways with a pulled calf muscle.
The original 3DS model closely follows the road already walked by the earlier DS Lite but with a few key differences. Of course, the console is quite a bit more powerful and has all the new-fangled 3D features but the biggest difference in terms of day to day use is that they finally added an analogue stick! An analogue stick! Just one! This is a debate that has been done to death and overemphasised but for the record, I think the 3DS should have had 2 analogue sticks from the get-go, not to compete with the PlayStation Vita (because there isn’t a single outcome where Sony would have beaten Nintendo in the handheld market) but because it launched in 2011, not 1998. Another issue with the original 3DS model is that the Start, Select and Home buttons are just mushy and unpleasant to press, they are physically almost an extension of the touch screen which doesn’t make for easy access and they are completely flat with little texture.
The 2DS model: what I’ve always thought looked like a door wedge or a block of cheese, arrived later as a budget alternative, stripping away the 3D features and clamshell design but fixing those button issues. Unfortunately, I’ve never used this model so I can’t vouch for it much but from what I can tell, it’s a bit of a marmite handheld; you either love it or you hate it. The form-factor looks fine to me but the loss of 3D is a damn shame and I’m not sure why scrapping the clamshell was necessary since the thing looks impossible to fit into a pocket. To this day, I can actually find boxed versions of this handheld on Amazon for the original RRP so if you’re lucky, you still might be able to get one even now, after the 3DS family has become quite expensive.
Finally we come to the new 3DS and its variants. Premium 3D with eye tracking, exclusive games, powerful hardware and it even included ‘the nipple': a second analogue stick that feels and acts like the rubber on the end of a pencil. If you’re looking for a definitive version of the console then this is it, more specifically, the New 3DS XL which has the nipple analogue, an extra large screen and plays all the New 3DS games.
This whole line-up is just a jumbled mess. 3DS, 2DS, New 3DS, XL versions, I can’t tell you how many non-Nintendo people I’ve spoken to who though the 2DS was a variant of the original Nintendo DS, or didn’t know what the New 3DS does and if it plays old 3DS games, to top it off, the handheld was still much less powerful than the competitor. Not great.
Software: *** 3 Stars
The Nintendo 3DS has lots of excellent games and is a library well-worth playing today.
On one hand you have some fantastic ports of Wii era games like Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, the absolutely bonkers wonderport that is Xenoblade Chronicles 3D and Kirby’s Epic Yarn; there are some non-Nintendo ports too like the excellent 3DS version of Metal Gear Solid 3, where you could take pictures to use as in-game camouflage. And on the other hand the 3DS had some big ticket remakes like Star Fox 64 3D (what a mouthful) and the 3D versions of Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask which some consider to be the definitive versions of those games, though not me personally. On top of this, the 3DS has its own set of exclusives that were just fantastic, games like Kid Icarus: Uprising, Luigi’s Mansion 2, Super Mario 3D Land, A Link Between Worlds and what many would argue were the final Monster Hunter games before that series changed fundamentally.
You’ll notice though I have only awarded this library 3 stars and that’s for 2 key reasons: the lack of an iconic system-seller and the sharp decline in the Pokémon franchise.
The Wii had Wii Sports, the original DS had Nintendogs and Brain Training, the Switch had Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey but what comes to mind when you think of the 3DS? There are excellent and well-liked games for the 3DS but there were never any must-haves in my opinion, the handheld lacked a killer app that really made waves culturally and financially, outside of the guaranteed money-spinner that is Pokémon.
On the topic of Pokémon… this is where things really started to go south for the series in my opinion. Although Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby were well-received remakes, absolutely nobody talks about Pokémon Sun and Moon today or their sequels, as well as that, Pokémon X and Pokémon Y: what should have been a colossal leap forward for the handheld and the franchise, have lived on as the most disliked entries in the mainline series.
Impact: *** 3 Stars
I’ve always felt the 3DS and its variants didn’t hold much cultural cachet in their time but over the years, they have kind of superseded the Wii-U’s legacy.
The Wii-U’s best games were all ported to the Switch years ago, in fact, the best-selling Nintendo Switch game: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a Wii-U game, a knock-on effect of this is that nobody has had time to become nostalgic for the Wii-U library or had reason to seek out the console (unless you’re a stickler for original hardware like me.) You want to play the best of the Wii-U? Well, boot up your Switch and it’s there and usually better. Another big factor in this legacy of course is that the 3DS just sold much better than the Wii-U. The kids who grew up playing the 3DS are now finding the disposable income (and the device at the bottom of the sock drawer) to be able to revisit that library. On top of this, while some variants like the New 3DS XL can set you back a couple of hundred pounds, you can generally get a 2DS or 3DS much cheaper today than the price of a Wii-U, which has cheap games but expensive hardware.
The point I’m trying to make is that in my opinion, the Nintendo 3DS, in my eyes, was the' ‘real’ main Nintendo console of the early-2010’s and I don’t think I’m alone in seeing it that way.
Sentiment: *** 3 Stars
The 3DS is absolutely fine.
I must admit, I’ve found it difficult to write about this handheld because it doesn’t do anything particularly well or particularly wrong, it’s just… good, but not brilliant. If I had to make a scale or a ranking system of the 10 Nintendo consoles featured in this series, the 3DS would absolutely go in number 5; it’s the best of the worst, the worst of the best, worth owning but I’d never pick it over a SNES or an N64.
Its games are still fun to play and generally don’t break the bank, the console isn’t hard to find, cheaper variants are available and most of them aren’t banged up enough to require restoration work, the 3DS E-Shop shutdown is a serious pain as the ability to play retro games on the device was awesome but, as always there are methods to subvert this too.
I really like the 3DS but it’s not a console I’m going to either gush about or grill over hot coals.
Final Score: 12/20
Handheld Wall of Fame and Shame
Since this is the penultimate episode and the final one to include a Nintendo handheld, I’m going to end by picking both my favourite and least favourite of the bunch.
Winner of Best Handheld Award: Nintendo DS Lite
Worst Handheld: Original Gameboy
The final episode will cover the Wii-U and will be released on the 1st of June.
If you’ve enjoyed this series don’t forget to drop me a like or say hi in the comments, The Nintendo Lineage has really put me on the map as far as Substack goes and it’s been a pleasure writing these articles and engaging with you all over the past couple of months.
Dude, you mentioned hardware, but where's the mention for streetpass??? Genuinely, Streetpass was amazing and the thing I miss most about my 3DS. Passing by other 3DS owners like ships in the night, only finding out it happened because their mii arrived to help me out in Find Mii. The fact that Nintendo is STILL not bringing it back for the Switch 2 is honestly kinda lame, because it's part of what made the 3DS feel personal in ways the Switch sorta doesn't.
If you were to ask me what games I think of, though, I would immediately say Fire Emblem Awakening, the game that got me into the series. Die hard FE fans will insist that Nintendo sold the soul of the franchise, and that the Tellius games are objectively better, but that's 124% cope. FE:A was such a good game, and I'm so glad I had the chance to play it. (Can't wait to see what FE games come out for the Switch 2).
Also also, you simply can not tie a console's performance to how well the zeitgeist treats its Pokemon generation. Pokemon fans are FICKLE and you can tell how old the dominating demographic is by which gen is currently in vogue and which one is the worst. I've seen this cycle play out again and again, and I bet you that it's only a matter of time before X and Y are the new popular underrated gems. I give it five years, just wait and see.
The 3DS' killer app was StreetPass. It may sound lame when you read about it these days, and it is extremely hard to explain just how rad it was if you didn't live it, but it was super cool and made having a 3DS feel like you were part of a community.
It was always a small buzz to see the indicator light change colour to let you know a new Mii had arrived on your device and a fellow 3DS gamer was in the vicinity. Then seeing their character show up in games was just such a neat touch.
Sadly there's no real way to truly experience it today.