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3DS

3DS Through the Ages

August 2012 to December 2012

by Neal Ronaghan - July 18, 2017, 6:41 pm EDT

The 3DS XL and New Super Mario Bros. 2 headlines a holiday affected by the Wii U.

August 2012 kicked off with the first of many 3DS revisions: the 3DS XL. In the same concept as the DSi XL, this extra-large system increased the size of the original 3DS, generally making for a far superior system. With the launch of this new version came New Super Mario Bros. 2, the first of two New Super Mario Bros. games in 2012 (and an unfortunate victim of there being two New Super Mario Bros. games in 2012).

The descent to fall that year didn’t feel like it was the second holiday of a thriving system. Nintendo’s lineup seemed more akin to that of a late-era system, as the marquee releases for the rest of the year were Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask, and um, FreakyForms Deluxe? Style Savvy? Crosswords Plus? Art Academy? Man, holiday 2012 was a weird year. What was on Nintendo’s other systems that...oh it’s when the Wii U came out.

After New Super Mario Bros. 2, no other internally developed game hit 3DS, likely because most of their teams were busy on the Wii U. But while the fall was light, it still had a steady supply of games.

Nintendo once again supported the eShop at the close of the year with Crashmo out in November and Fluidity: Spin Cycle in December. With the launch of New Super Mario Bros. 2, retail games came to the eShop as well, and while it took some time for all retail releases to come out day and date, it eventually mostly happened. The first third-party day-and-date retail release was Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion this November.

The Guild01 games debuted on the eShop in North America following a Nintendo Direct in October, first with Liberation Maiden, then Aero Porter and Crimson Shroud. Other notable eShop releases were Genius Sonority’s weird AR game The Denpa Men, Nnooo’s escapeVektor, and Nicalis’ release of NightSky.

Third parties are 3DS seemingly still weren’t bringing their total A-game yet (maybe because the usual suspects were still clearing out their late-gen DS games?), but late 2012 saw the launch of Code of Princess from Atlus (the developer of which is making Blade Strangers for Switch with Nicalis), Virtue’s Last Reward (even if the Vita version might be better), and Rayman Origins, the latter proving that Ubisoft just seems to have to release a multiple dated Rayman ports on every Nintendo system ever.

In retrospect, it’s weird how unmemorable the majority of the second holiday for the 3DS was. Maybe I was distracted by the promise and hope of the Wii U to really notice just how weak the 3DS was for this fall.

Worth Revisiting?

Most people wrote it off, but I still think New Super Mario Bros. 2 is a good game. It’s actually the only New Super Mario Bros. game I 100%-ed. Speaking to the relative ambivalence of this era, I find it hard to recommend a lot of these with gusto. Code of Princess is a good brawler with some RPG elements that is likely worth going back to if you’re okay with some busty and scantily clad character models. Liberation Maiden is a somewhat unremarkable shooter by Grasshopper Manufacture with an absolutely bonkers plot setup: you’re a high school girl who becomes the President of New Japan and pilots a mech. It’s probably worth the few bucks and hour or two of your life just to say you played that batshit crazy game.

Aero Porter, from the same Guild01 compilation as Liberation Maiden, is a weird baggage sorting game from Odama developer Yoot Saito (also he more relevantly made SimTower and Seaman). It’s neat but short-lived. I might actually hop on a soap box for Crimson Shroud, the last Guild01 release this year. It’s a story-driven RPG from Final Fantasy Tactics/Final Fantasy XII director Yasumi Matsuno that enchanted me back in 2012. The localization is rather good and outside of a cheap random drop issue midway through, it’s a neat and tidy sub-10-hour RPG experience.

I still routinely pick up Crosswords Plus when I’m on a plane ride and want to zone out. It’s not the gaming salve that Picross is for me, but it’s nice interface for some crossword puzzles. Crashmo and Fluidity: Spin Cycle are both fun and polished eShop games. Crashmo might be my favorite of the “-mo” series as it’s the most focused, and I vastly prefer the WiiWare predecessor to Fluidity, but Spin Cycle is still good.

Lastly, I want to give a shout-out to Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion. I had a lot of issues with this game and wished it could have lived up to what I hoped it might be, but much like the Epic Mickey games it comes from, it didn’t do that. Still, it’s the last known game from Dreamrift, who were supposedly working on a Monster Tale 3DS release. Dreamrift - if you are out there, I miss you. Please come home. Maybe you can get a Switch dev kit and work on Monster Tale for that? I want to play more weird platformers that are fused with other genres. It’s one of my favorite highly specific sub-genres.

Neal’s Top 15 3DS Games

  1. Super Mario 3D Land (November 2011)
  2. Kid Icarus: Uprising (March 2012)
  3. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (June 2011)
  4. Pushmo (December 2011)
  5. Mutant Mudds (January 2012)
  6. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy (July 2012)
  7. Crashmo (November 2012)
  8. VVVVVV (December 2011)
  9. Mario Kart 7 (December 2011)
  10. Mighty Switch Force! (December 2011)
  11. New Super Mario Bros. 2 (August 2012)
  12. Star Fox 64 3D (September 2011)
  13. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask (October 2012)
  14. Pilotwings Resort (March 2011)
  15. Crimson Shroud (December 2012)

Talkback

oohhboyHong Hang Ho, Staff AlumnusJuly 14, 2017

Shadow Wars was great - while it lasted.

Once you completed it there is no new game plus or post story content, that's it. You can go back and play previous missions but you were locked into whatever skill choice you made at the time which meant you couldn't bring those awesome end game skills that barely got much use.

It's a bit of a shame it never got a sequel as the gameplay was solid, controlled well, looked good enough and the Tom Clancy multi-verse would always have another excuse plot to go shooting.

KhushrenadaJuly 16, 2017

No mention of SwapNote in the system's first year? How can you chronicle the 3DS's lifespan and not talk about it?  :'(

That strange little app kept me checking in with my 3DS a lot during the sparse opening year to see what new messages people were sending me. Plus, stationary was a big thing with people trading Friend Codes just so that someone would send them a message with that stationary so that they could save it in their system to use. Nikki was the newest Nintendo waifu to be launched on the masses and that was her peak time of popularity.

There was also the odd Nintendo Video service with Dinosaur Office and other 3D shorts. There were even 3D Movie trailers put on the system which was quite unusual to see on a Nintendo system. Speaking of E3, I also appreciated being able to download the trailers for upcoming 3DS games like Paper Mario: Sticker Star and Luigi's Mansion 2 and watch what they looked like in actual 3D action. Nintendo doesn't do that as much anymore but the latest Metroid 2: Samus Returns trailer reminds me of that early time on the 3DS.

LemonadeJuly 16, 2017

I bought a 3DS at launch with Street Fighter and Lego Star Wars 3. I wish I had never sold that 3DS when I got an XL, I really liked the original design.

I played Steel Diver once at a 3DS preview event a few weeks before it came out. It didnt seem very good.
I was never interested in Pilotwings Resort until recently. I will buy it if I see it cheap somewhere.

I was pretty happy with the ambassador program. I got my favourite GBA game, Minish Cap and a bunch of other cool stuff.

I really liked Mario 3D Land, but I thought it was too long. Maybe this is a slight spoiler, but I didnt play the second half of the game. I got to what I thought was the end, then saw there were another 8 worlds (or however many, I cant remember), played a bit and then stopped.

KhushrenadaJuly 17, 2017

I was kind of disappointed with the 2nd half of Mario 3D Land. I had heard people saying great things about it and new there was this other section of the game after beating the first 8 so my mind thrilled at the possibility of these extra levels. When playing the game, I found out that a lot of those levels were ones I had already played in the first 8 worlds but with a twist to them to make them harder. I did enjoy the challenge factor and overall still thought it was the best Mario game I had played since Sunshine but was bummed at the time that it wasn't a lot of new level content. It's one of the things I dislike about Super Mario Galaxy. It has a lot of repetitious elements and level portions it will have you replay over and over. (Although I'd later play Super Mario Galaxy 2 and that would become my most favorite Mario game since Sunshine so who cares about 3D Land.  ;) ;D )

The Ambassador program was a pretty sweet deal. The NES games I never really cared about but the GBA games were an awesome bonus (although we had to wait until the end of the year for them IIRC). It is amazing that we never got GBA games on the 3DS eShop. We all expected it but it never came and they were released on the Wii U itself. It was either Chozo Ghost or TJ Spyke who would always post comments when people speculated about GBA games coming for the 3DS that Nintendo had made no such announcement and that a person was wrong to expect them. Well, it looks like he may be proven right all along in raining on everyone's parade but 6 years later and the possibility of GBA games on the system continues to fade.

The launch game I got for the 3DS was Rayman 3D. I'd always heard it was supposed to be a good game although Ubisoft had re-released it a lot. However, I thought the 3D effect in it was great and was the game I used to show people what the 3D effect was like on the system to try and hype it to others. I still love the 3D effect to this day and am disappointed that it has been treated indifferently by so many other gamers to the point that even Nintendo is releasing a 2DS with no 3D display after the NEW 3DS came out with it's better 3D capabilities. Of course, if I waited, I could have got Rayman 3D for dirt cheap but that was the case with pretty much all the 3DS launch software.

I later acquired Pilotwings for half off and I did enjoy it. Again, I liked flying in the 3D and it made me wish we could have had a Rogue Squadron type game on the 3DS. Even a port of one of the early RS games would have been great. The only problem with Pilotwings is that you just have Wuhu Island to explore and after you've searched it all through then the locale can be a bit boring. The hardest thing about missions is just getting a perfect landing most of the time as well. I beat it thoroughly despite its limitations and enjoyed playing it through a mission at a time though some craft were more fun to fly than others. I think it is worth taking for a spin and playing but it is limited in how much it has to offer.

I have Steel Diver and have heard some positive impressions about it since it's status as a launch title. I've meant to play it from time to time but still haven't gotten around to it. One of these days. From what I've seen and know of it, I think it might have gone over better if it had been an eShop exclusive like Pushmo or Ketzel's Corridors. But as a $35.00 (?) launch title, there wasn't enough there to keep players satisfied very long (unlike, say, Breath of the Wild on Switch). When Steel Divers 2 was released on the eShop, it seems like Nintendo seemed to realize this as well.

Really, aside from SwapNote, Videos, and Rayman 3D, the other couple things that define my first year with the 3DS was streetpassing to complete the Black and White Pokedex and the launch of the eShop Virtual Console and playing Link's Awakening for the first time. Now when I think of the 3DS, most of that stuff is kind of forgotten and I think of other games and titles to define it. That first year, though, was all about older games and odd applications.

oohhboyHong Hang Ho, Staff AlumnusJuly 17, 2017

Steel Diver was a mess. I think it was Nintendo's first entry into micro transactions of sorts. One of the problems I had with it other than the MT is that tutorial is not gameplay and make fore a terrible demo.

It didn't help the game was very shallow even compared to a PSX game Submarine Commander or the PS2 epic Warship Gunner/Navel Ops 2. That game had you getting new subs and weapons including surface attack, anti-air, homing, noise makers, etc. It had noise detection modelling which required you to have a targeting solution, limited ammo, tubes you needed to load before hand. Yet this game was an arcadey game but without all the hardcore sim like Silent service.

I was very surprised that Nintendo allowed this to get a release as it just wasn't a good game and there was no way they didn't know this. Sure they needed something to release for launch but it did no favours.

KhushrenadaJuly 17, 2017

Steel Diver had micro transactions? How? Nintendo's online for the 3DS wasn't really running until a few months after launch when they released the eShop. Are you sure you aren't confusing Steel Diver 2: Sub Wars which came a few years later with the first Steel Diver that was released at launch?

oohhboyHong Hang Ho, Staff AlumnusJuly 17, 2017

I did a check and it's classed as free to play with a one time $10 unlock for more subs and single maps. So it is not quite demo or MT. It wasn't a good game in the first place so whatever economic system it was under is moot.

The poor reception soured Nintendo on MT for a while but after an experiment or two through street pass they came back full force with that item drop arcade where that blasted rabbit kept begging you to buy expensive things that should have been like .10 cents at the most. Played it for two weeks, got some stickers I wanted for free and literally forgot about it.

I tried the other offerings but found all of them empty and shallow lacking that Nintendo quality as they are phone games at heart.

pokepal148Spencer Johnson, Contributing WriterJuly 17, 2017

Dead or Alive Dimensions deserves a mention in the March-May timeframe. I'd also say Steel Diver is worth going back to just because of how easy it is to find that game for an extremely low price.

Quote from: oohhboy

Steel Diver was a mess. I think it was Nintendo's first entry into micro transactions of sorts. One of the problems I had with it other than the MT is that tutorial is not gameplay and make fore a terrible demo.

It didn't help the game was very shallow even compared to a PSX game Submarine Commander or the PS2 epic Warship Gunner/Navel Ops 2. That game had you getting new subs and weapons including surface attack, anti-air, homing, noise makers, etc. It had noise detection modelling which required you to have a targeting solution, limited ammo, tubes you needed to load before hand. Yet this game was an arcadey game but without all the hardcore sim like Silent service.

I was very surprised that Nintendo allowed this to get a release as it just wasn't a good game and there was no way they didn't know this. Sure they needed something to release for launch but it did no favours.

You're thinking of the sequel: Steel Diver: Sub Wars.

The original Steel Diver was basically a DS tech demo with a rather impressive stereoscopic 3D effect and no online functionality whatsoever. If you're looking for a more laid back and relaxing experience that still requires some attention it's a really good pick, especially since you can get that game for really cheap now as a physical copy (By cheap I mean I got a copy for $2 that included the original case.)

If I recall correctly Mario Kart 7 was the official launch title for the Nintendo Network branding.

Mop it upJuly 17, 2017

This article is just reminding me how terrible was the first year of the 3DS. It's pretty amazing it managed to survive.

I'll note that I'm probably going to skip over some games I'm not as familiar with. I actually had DoA Dimensions on my notes for the March-May 2011 article but I only ever played it briefly at a demo event and would have nothing to say other than "it exists." I'm not promising anything (because this is a way bigger undertaking than I expected), but I might try to get some other staffers together for a podcast of some sort to go touch on things I missed and also their own 3DS memories/experiences/favorites.

And Swapnote was a total miss on my part. Once again though, all I'd have to say about it is "I used it for a few days and then it got shut down two years later for some reason." As I get deeper into the life of the 3DS, the focus is going to be a lot more on the games and less on the noise around it (unless it's like a new model or sales issues).

I'm having a blast looking back on the 3DS though, so thanks for reading! I have a fondness for that first year of the 3DS, but it's a sad state of affairs until 3D Land/Kart...and then outside of some third parties, even 2012 ain't great.

KhushrenadaAugust 12, 2017

Is this feature going to continue? I know there hasn't been much posting on it lately but I've been enjoying every installment and am disappointed that it's been stalled at just over the halfway mark.

redfieldjamesAugust 21, 2017

Agreed. I was enjoying this feature.

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