Topic: Best of the 3DS eShop: 2012 Releases (Part 2)

[Khushrenada]

The Usual Preamble

With the 3DS pretty much winding down and a lack of upcoming releases we have now arrived at the life cycle of a system where users start looking back in the catalogue of available games that were released and that they missed or forgot about when games were coming out regularly. For myself, I know that I didn't always pay as close attention to the eShop and its releases as I did physical releases. And while I have accumulated a few titles from it, I feel there are probably more I should take advantage of especially since Nintendo hasn't created any other source to purchase many of these titles.

While I could I slowly go through each title and try to track down reviews, I'd rather get the opinions of the NWR Forum users whose gaming tastes I trust a bit more. Plus, I figured this would be a chance to engage in our favorite practice of reminiscing about games we loved playing (and arguing about the worth / rank of a game.

The main goal is simple. If you have personally played any of these titles, post which ones you have and which ones you highly recommend others should have on their 3DS, which ones might be recommended for Kairon (or a deeper cut for a certain type of fan) and what you think should be skipped. (And sure, even if you haven't played them and have an opinion, I'm not going to argue against you from posting it). I've also included a poll for people to vote on the games being discusses that they think a person should acquire for their 3DS.



What Is Being Discussed?

As mentioned before, I am trying to go through the eShop exclusives in chronological order. I'm currently basing it on the order games were reviewed in Nintendo Power although sometimes they reviewed a game that was delayed and released later. Nintendo's website only goes back to the last months of 2012 when it comes to listing eShop games. Since Nintendo Power ends in 2012, once that overlap occurs, I'll be going by the release dates on Nintendo's website.

There are about 65 games or so that came out for the eShop in 2012 if you are not including VC releases or applications like YouTube. While I could create a mega poll for them all, I'll be dividing up the 2012 releases in 3 parts to let them breath a bit and perhaps bring focus to a few titles that could be overlooked in a large list. I've already listed Part 1 earlier and this is now Part 2 of those 2012 releases.

Thus, the list of titles up for discussion this time around is:


Dot Runner: Complete Edition
Family Tennis 3D
The Phantom Thief Stina and 30 Jewels
Planet Crashers
Sweet Memories: Black Jack
Akiri by Nikoli 
Masyu by Nikoli
3D Solitaire
Crazy Chicken: Pirates 3D
Outdoors Unleashed: Africa 3D
SpeedX 3D
Touch Battle Tank 3D
Vectorracing 
Cave Story
Balloon Pop Remix
The Denpa Men: They Came By Wave
Fractured Soul
Heavy Fire: Special Operations 3D
Pokemon Dream Radar
Rising Board 3D
Samurai G
Hitori by Nikoli
Heyawake by Nikoli


Which games do you think are worthy of being added to one's collection and played? Are there any overlooked gems you might be aware of?

[pokepal148]

I cannot condone giving Nicalis money, even if Cave Story is a fun game, and everything else on here is stuff that I'd consider unessential.

[M.K.Ultra]

I have not heard of any of these except Cave Story. I am noticing several with 3D in the title which is expected. I think the best title award should go to "Crazy Chicken: Pirates 3D".

[ejamer]

I understand that Nicalis is controversial as a publisher, and that will affect the choice about buying Cave Story for some. But it's a pretty solid game. My only complaint is that some of the secret stuff probably isn't anything you'd just figure out - you'll almost certainly need to look it up online, which feels kind of lame. Still, well worth playing at least once if you haven't on some other platform.

Rising Board 3D is a game I purchased because we had a lot of fun with the Pop Island series of multiplayer "capture the flag" games on DSiWare. Sadly, those games were quite a bit more engaging than Rising Board ended up being... but this is still a pretty neat little game. Graphically it's simple but nice, and the controls are tight enough that you can pull out some really cool tricks once you have a feel for everything. There are plenty of things to unlock, and it's generally a fun little experience that only takes a couple minutes at a time to enjoy. In the end, I think this high-score chasing game accomplishes everything it wanted to do - but that it will still only appeal to a small number of people.


Very curious if people have comments about Denpa Men. That series of games always intrigued me, but I never actually committed to playing them.

[nickmitch]

I think I only played Pokemon Dream Radar.  It was the only way to get a particular form of regional legendaries at the time, iirc.  Not sure I recommend unless you're on some quest to capture Pokemon in every obscure way imaginable.

[pokepal148]

Dream Radar is a slightly more fleshed out version of Face Raiders with a really tedious grind to stretch out barely any content.

It is one of the few pieces of 3DS software that can interact with DS software though. If you have one of the DS games in the card slot you can get that version's mascot legendary with their hidden ability.

[Mop it up]

I haven't played any of these, with the exception of a demo for Cave Story. I didn't like it, mainly because I'm not into retro games. Most of these titles sound like junk.

I think the best title award should go to "Crazy Chicken: Pirates 3D".

That's certainly a goodie, but "Sweet Memories: Black Jack" is also a contender. So much random stuff here!

[Order.RSS]

Fractured Soul has a demo, for those interested. It's one of those puzzle-platformer games where you control 2 characters existing in separate dimensions, and switch dimensions with a button press.

Basically you push ahead with 1 robot until you reach a gate, then switch to the other to reach a switch that opens it, etc. Some of the platforming is more involved, where you switch dimensions mid-jump, and such.

It's tough to recommend and I'm not voting for it, but I believe it had both characters on a screen of their own which isn't the worst idea.

[Khushrenada]

Already a year in and the 3DS eShop does look like it is starting to resemble mobile game apps.

That said, there are titles here that I'm now curious about possible trying out. There were a bunch of these Nikoli games released in 2012. I paid no attention to the titles because they made no sense to me and told me nothing about what they are. When I was deciding if I wanted to also do a Best of the 3DS Physical Releases, I came across this game called Nikoli's Pencil Puzzle. I was like, "Wait a minute! I recognize that Nikoli name from all the 3DS eShop games I've been having to mention in this series." Moreover, from the screens of the game, I realized that some of these puzzles were the same as the DLC Bonus puzzles I'd downloaded when playing through Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask last year. The game really didn't make any waves when it launched and I do not recall ever knowing it even existed before. It didn't get many reviews and even Hudson's webpage for the game barely even seems to care about promoting it. I wondered if this was a case like Nintendo dividing Electroplankton's various modes and all these Nikoli games were now divided from this Pencil Puzzle game but that is not the case as a lot of these puzzle types were not on that game cartridge. There were only four puzzle types on it. So, now I'm considering whether I want to try more of these puzzle games. I'm still playing Crosswords 3DS and Picross puzzles so having some more puzzle variety would be alright with me. Plus, the music from Nikoli's Pencil Puzzle got at least one shout-out:

Now BnM can groove as well


As for some of these other titles, like Solitaire 3D or Black Jack, I've got nothing against games like that. I've played plenty of card games on a PC or gaming device before (hello Clubhouse Games DS) but the problem is that I'm indifferent to paying to play these games for 3DS when I've got other options to play them nor do I feel like buying them piece-meal.

When I released this list of games, there were only two titles that stood out to me because they did get a lot of coverage at the time: Cave Story and Denpa Men. Cave Story is apparently different from the Cave Story physical release which is why I listed it here. Denpa Men got a couple sequels so that suggests there was at least some popularity there with the title. If I had to select one title to buy from this list, I'd go with Denpa Men because it always seemed like a weirder game but weird doesn't always mean fun or good. Like ejamer, I'd like to hear other user impressions about it but so far it seems that none of the regulars tried it out either since no one's said anything about it yet.

Congrats to ejamer though for being able to say something about Rising Board 3D which might be the deepest cut eShop review so far. When listing a lot of these titles, my assumption is most users probably skipped all but the ones with bigger media coverage so congrats on being able to comment on a game I forgot was even listed as a title here.

[Lemonade]

I think the only game on this list I have played is Fractured Soul. But I wouldnt recommend it.

[Khushrenada]

More NWR reviews!!! The people, they can't get enough!

Dot Runner: Complete Edition is unrated.
Family Tennis 3D gets an 8.
The Phantom Thief Stina and 30 Jewels is unrated.
Planet Crashers 3D gets a 7.5.
Sweet Memories: Black Jack gets a sad trombone 2.
Akiri by Nikoli is unrated.
Masyu by Nikoli is unrated.
3D Solitaire gets a 6.
Crazy Chicken: Pirates 3D gets a 3.
Outdoors Unleashed: Africa 3D gets a 5.
SpeedX 3D gets a 5.
Touch Battle Tank 3D is unrated.
Vectorracing gets a 6.
Cave Story gets a 9.5.
Balloon Pop Remix gets a 7.
The Denpa Men: They Came By Wave gets a 6.5.
Fractured Soul gets an 8.5.
Heavy Fire: Special Operations 3D gets a 6.
Pokemon Dream Radar gets a 6.
Rising Board 3D gets a 7.5.
Samurai G gets a 7.
Hitori by Nikoli is unrated.
Heyawake by Nikoli is unrated.


Top rated games by review score in this batch consist of Cave Story, Family Tennis 3D and Fractured Soul. Compared to Part 1 and Part 3, this is definitely a weaker batch of games to select from.

[BeautifulShy]

Fractured Soul has a demo, for those interested. It's one of those puzzle-platformer games where you control 2 characters existing in separate dimensions, and switch dimensions with a button press.

Basically you push ahead with 1 robot until you reach a gate, then switch to the other to reach a switch that opens it, etc. Some of the platforming is more involved, where you switch dimensions mid-jump, and such.

It's tough to recommend and I'm not voting for it, but I believe it had both characters on a screen of their own which isn't the worst idea.

I completely forgot about this game. Goes to put this on my wishlist