It's a late review, but considering it's only two weeks or so until Ocarina of Time 3D is released, I thought this a good time to buy and review the 3DS console.
In general, it was about what I expected, a fairly good Nintendo console that doesn't currently have a lot more than tech to keep its audience interested, but one with plenty of potential. Enjoy the review!
First of all, a few thoughts on common criticisms…
Battery life seems fairly low, but I've only played it twice as of this review, once straight from the box, and once after charging, and it's a commonly known fact companies never give you enough battery life in a machine when it's used for the first time. Time will tell if this becomes a problem.
Price is irrelevant. Yes, some people in Japan said it was stopping them buying the console... but you can get the damn thing for about £150-170 if you buy a game with it, and if you don't particularly like said game, just return it to a second store for cash/credit. It does seem a bit odd how so many bargains exist only for when you get a game with the 3DS though, you'd have thought they'd be losing a lot of money with these 'deals'. Still, you probably won't have too much more trouble affording the 3DS as you did the original DS console.
Other criticisms people have raised about the console don't seem like they matter. Weight is something I've never noticed, it feels just a tiny bit bulkier than a DSLite. The 3D effect isn't something that should cause too much 'sickness', my use of the console for about four or five times longer than supposed to had no worse effect than my browsing the internet at about 3 in the morning. Meh, I've experienced far worse.
However, backwards compatibility is something I have to take issue with here... sure, it plays DS games, but in many cases, the controls are just made incredibly awkward by the bizarre placement of the D Pad and buttons. It's nice to know that in theory the circle pad works for DS games as well, but in practice... the device is really only best with 3D games (aka games with 3D gameplay, not the 3D graphics).
I saw this when I played Yoshi's Island DS on the 3DS, to test backwards compatibility. It was not a fun experience, the D Pad was placed in an extremely awkward place, and it actually made even running and jumping in said game (you have to hold a button to run, as well as move the D Pad) nearly impossible to any precise degree. Okay, I also tried the circle pad, but that was even worse, due to the fact it was trying to map D Pad controls onto what's basically an analogue stick. Stick to 3DS exclusive games in general if you have a 3DS.
But what of the features that come built in? Well, the Mii option was okay, although the camera to Mii feature didn't really have any good degree of accuracy. Slow too, and the pointless animation of the Mii rotating a cube with your photo on it where his head should be was plain annoying after a short while.
On the bright side however, the Mii maker did seem to have more options for faces and such like than the Wii's version did, so you could easily correct the Mii and make it look fairly much like who it's supposed to resemble.
Note: Unfortunately, this mode still comes with no option for dungarees, Mario/Luigi style. I'd have thought Nintendo would have added that first.
Cannot comment much on Mii Plaza, with the console only having been bought today, there wasn't exactly much opportunity to use StreetPass as of this review, and hence most of these modes are entirely useless as of now. Was slightly amusing that they called you 'King [name]' in StreetPass Quest, and the cut scene where they kidnap your Mii is always a tad amusing.
Note: Those ghosts look way too much like Boos from the Mario series.
Face Raiders on the other hand, I do have some experience of. It's a neat little distraction, a sort of tech demo of the 3DS, but no way can it be compared to Wii Sports.
In other words, it's fun, but it won't sell 3DS consoles. Nintendo marketing really set the expectations for this game too high.
Note: It does have the world's creepiest unintentional evil laugh on the 3DS menu though. Yeah, it's a motor sound, but it sounds far too much like manic laughter.
The AR games were pretty fun, although not much more than minor distractions. The biggest thing that takes the entertainment value out of it for me is that you seemingly can't fail at playing them, you never 'die', you don't have a 'health bar', and beinghit in the few games where it occurs is just being temporarily stunned. This means that apart from looking cool, thegames don't have a lot of replay value, nor a lot of challenge.
Nintendo 3DS Sound is useless to any real degree. The recordings seem to be limited to about ten seconds, which is barely enough to get in a sentence, let alone anything worth recording. So if you don't have an SD card to PC connector, it's practically worthless, while if you do, it's just a fairly stylish looking media player. Not exactly the most exciting feature.
The camera is okay. It can take 3D pictures, which is fairly neat, and you can edit them as well, but the system itself seems to be quite similar to those you can get for free on mobile phones (the image editing 'suite'). At least, the graffiti part is pretty much like one of millions of others found for free.
In general though, it seems a pretty good console, with quite a few interesting features. Yes,the technical stuff won't exactly hold your interest for long, but it's definitely a console worth buying now for all the excellent games coming out soon, because otherwise increased demand and consoles being sold out will make it all too easy to not be able to get hold of the device before OOT 3D/PaperMario/Mario Kart/Super Mario 3DS/Kid Icarus, and I presume most of the good bargains will be gone.
In general, it was about what I expected, a fairly good Nintendo console that doesn't currently have a lot more than tech to keep its audience interested, but one with plenty of potential. Enjoy the review!
First of all, a few thoughts on common criticisms…
Battery life seems fairly low, but I've only played it twice as of this review, once straight from the box, and once after charging, and it's a commonly known fact companies never give you enough battery life in a machine when it's used for the first time. Time will tell if this becomes a problem.
Price is irrelevant. Yes, some people in Japan said it was stopping them buying the console... but you can get the damn thing for about £150-170 if you buy a game with it, and if you don't particularly like said game, just return it to a second store for cash/credit. It does seem a bit odd how so many bargains exist only for when you get a game with the 3DS though, you'd have thought they'd be losing a lot of money with these 'deals'. Still, you probably won't have too much more trouble affording the 3DS as you did the original DS console.
Other criticisms people have raised about the console don't seem like they matter. Weight is something I've never noticed, it feels just a tiny bit bulkier than a DSLite. The 3D effect isn't something that should cause too much 'sickness', my use of the console for about four or five times longer than supposed to had no worse effect than my browsing the internet at about 3 in the morning. Meh, I've experienced far worse.
However, backwards compatibility is something I have to take issue with here... sure, it plays DS games, but in many cases, the controls are just made incredibly awkward by the bizarre placement of the D Pad and buttons. It's nice to know that in theory the circle pad works for DS games as well, but in practice... the device is really only best with 3D games (aka games with 3D gameplay, not the 3D graphics).
I saw this when I played Yoshi's Island DS on the 3DS, to test backwards compatibility. It was not a fun experience, the D Pad was placed in an extremely awkward place, and it actually made even running and jumping in said game (you have to hold a button to run, as well as move the D Pad) nearly impossible to any precise degree. Okay, I also tried the circle pad, but that was even worse, due to the fact it was trying to map D Pad controls onto what's basically an analogue stick. Stick to 3DS exclusive games in general if you have a 3DS.
But what of the features that come built in? Well, the Mii option was okay, although the camera to Mii feature didn't really have any good degree of accuracy. Slow too, and the pointless animation of the Mii rotating a cube with your photo on it where his head should be was plain annoying after a short while.
On the bright side however, the Mii maker did seem to have more options for faces and such like than the Wii's version did, so you could easily correct the Mii and make it look fairly much like who it's supposed to resemble.
Note: Unfortunately, this mode still comes with no option for dungarees, Mario/Luigi style. I'd have thought Nintendo would have added that first.
Cannot comment much on Mii Plaza, with the console only having been bought today, there wasn't exactly much opportunity to use StreetPass as of this review, and hence most of these modes are entirely useless as of now. Was slightly amusing that they called you 'King [name]' in StreetPass Quest, and the cut scene where they kidnap your Mii is always a tad amusing.
Note: Those ghosts look way too much like Boos from the Mario series.
Face Raiders on the other hand, I do have some experience of. It's a neat little distraction, a sort of tech demo of the 3DS, but no way can it be compared to Wii Sports.
In other words, it's fun, but it won't sell 3DS consoles. Nintendo marketing really set the expectations for this game too high.
Note: It does have the world's creepiest unintentional evil laugh on the 3DS menu though. Yeah, it's a motor sound, but it sounds far too much like manic laughter.
The AR games were pretty fun, although not much more than minor distractions. The biggest thing that takes the entertainment value out of it for me is that you seemingly can't fail at playing them, you never 'die', you don't have a 'health bar', and beinghit in the few games where it occurs is just being temporarily stunned. This means that apart from looking cool, thegames don't have a lot of replay value, nor a lot of challenge.
Nintendo 3DS Sound is useless to any real degree. The recordings seem to be limited to about ten seconds, which is barely enough to get in a sentence, let alone anything worth recording. So if you don't have an SD card to PC connector, it's practically worthless, while if you do, it's just a fairly stylish looking media player. Not exactly the most exciting feature.
The camera is okay. It can take 3D pictures, which is fairly neat, and you can edit them as well, but the system itself seems to be quite similar to those you can get for free on mobile phones (the image editing 'suite'). At least, the graffiti part is pretty much like one of millions of others found for free.
In general though, it seems a pretty good console, with quite a few interesting features. Yes,the technical stuff won't exactly hold your interest for long, but it's definitely a console worth buying now for all the excellent games coming out soon, because otherwise increased demand and consoles being sold out will make it all too easy to not be able to get hold of the device before OOT 3D/PaperMario/Mario Kart/Super Mario 3DS/Kid Icarus, and I presume most of the good bargains will be gone.
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