The New Nintendo 3DS made its public debut at the Tokyo Game Show this year thanks to some behind the scenes work with Nintendo and the Japanese wing of Capcom. Monster Hunter 4G, better known in the West as Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, may be the sole title showing off the new hardware on the floor, but the chance gave us a great opportunity to get a look at the system in action.

I had a chance to try out the smaller size New Nintendo 3DS with the latest Japanese Monster Hunter demo. The first thing that I immediately noticed was how much the stereoscopic 3D has been enhanced. Just as promised in the Nintendo Direct a few weeks ago, the viewing angles are quite a bit wider than they have ever been, making it even more difficult to “lose” the 3D effect. I did experience a few occasions in the Monster Hunter demo where the game seemed to be glitching out in 3D, however, it was inconsistent and was seemingly something that was only popping up in the demo build rather than being hardware related.

The C-stick is a strange, yet welcome addition to the New Nintendo 3DS. The Circle Pad Pro was a half step in the right direction to address better in-game camera control, but the New 3DS takes it another step forward with this second stick designed directly onto the hardware. Touching the C-stick feels very similar to the old mouse nub that you might have found on laptops back in the day. It can come across as feeling a bit stiff when not actually using it in gameplay. However, while playing through the demo, I found the stick to be quite useful to help me keep track of the crazy tough monsters and to just check out the scenery. Not being accustomed to the placement of the stick, after resting my right thumb on the it, I would sometimes find myself trying to press the C-stick in place of the X-button. Like any control set-up, this is something that could take some getting used to over time.

After playing the Japanese version on the New 3DS and the English version of the same game on a 3DS XL, it was clear to me that the New 3DS really does pack some more power. Visuals looked crisper, the engine ran more smoothly and the experience was just better overall. I wanted to take a closer look at how the system performed, for example, by trying to see how quickly I could switch between the game the Home Menu, but the rep at my demo station seemed to be keeping a pretty keen eye on things. Despite not knowing that little snippet of information, the New 3DS is a great enhancement to an already awesome system. It’s only a few weeks away from releasing here in Japan, and you will definitely be able to read more about both the hardware shortly after they release.