I got a 1st Gen 3DS second hand some time ago. What I like:
Pokemon, Zelda, and Animal Crossing.
The 3D effect and dual cameras are neat, though a little gimmicky.
What I don’t like:
The heavy reliance upon internet connectivity. I can’t change the details of the account on it without losing access to the downloaded games. I can’t even change it anyway, because the online store is closed.
The control stick sucks. It’s good for a very flat control stick, but it doesn’t feel nice to use.
Proprietary power connector.
The viewing angle on the screen is pretty shallow.
I have a Steam Deck, and it’s just better in all respects. I get that it’s comparing a very new device against an old device, but I don’t really see a reason to pull out the 3DS when I could have a better experience on the SD.
My hands are pretty medium sized, and I think it’s the most comfortable portable device I have ever had in my hands. It is however a bit heavy. It’s also not a pocket device like the Gameboy was, although most DS are not very pocketable either.
I upgraded to a New 3DS XL for Monster Hunter because I needed the control nub for camera control. The viewing angle with eye tracking is SO MUCH BETTER.
I did rip out the control nub and replace it with a PSP joystick, improving it vastly.
I bought a Steam Deck just to support the most important thing that ever happened to Linux gaming, but mine has actually just been gathering dust. It's far too big to really be a handheld, doesn't fit in my pocket, and does not fill the role that Nintendo's handhelds served for me. The main thing I do end up using it for is taking Deck + dock to FGC events for a portable setup.
Last year I bought a Miyoo Mini Plus, a little emulator handheld, as an impulse buy because it was on sale super cheap. I ended up putting far more time into it than I ever did with the Deck.
My ultimate dream would be to someday get SteamOS running on a DS-sized form factor. Doesn't need to be beefy, just needs to fit in my pocket and run my favorite 2D indie games.
The only memory I have of my 3DS is being really into a game and playing for so long that I was really really hungry. Then I turned on the 3D slider to get motion sick and not hungry anymore to continue playing the game. Perfect problem solving skills here.
The most memorable games of the DS era to me were Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky and Dragon Quest IX as well as Bravely Default and Fantasy Life for 3DS. Mystery Dungeons story almost brought me to tears at the end of the main story and I just love the gameplay. DQ IX felt like I could play with friends/family because you create your party how you want it from scratch instead of picking up story relevant characters. In addition I really like the flexibility of the class system. This resulted in a bow wielding paladin that can obviously protect them, but also restore the mana of others and regain it for himself with bow skills and a priest that could give party wide elemental buffs from the ranger type class. Bravely Default because of the same class shenanigans as Dragon Quest. Here I remember making a vampire priest because the vampire gets the ability to potentially revive at the the end of a turn and the priest is the one responsible for reviving everyone else, so he should not stay dead. Fantasy Life was just a cozy grinding game.
My favorite DS game by far was Lock’s Quest. It was the first game that got me genuinely emotional, I had tears in my eyes during the ending. I remember initially being disappointed, as kid me wanted a strategy game, not something where I still had to run around and repair stuff in real time. But my god, my opinion changed quickly and both the gameplay and the story captured my fully. The music was just the icing on the cake.
My most played game by far was Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades. Shredding Can’t Stop by the Red Hot Chili Peppers while sitting in a restaurant with my parents is one of my favorite memories of that time (with headphones of course). I believe this game single-handedly formed most of my music interests for my teenage years.
Finally, I have to mention Bionicle Heroes. I am a massive Bionicle fan (and currently rediscovering it through finally reading the books). This game is by no means a masterpiece, but it is a surprisingly fun first person shooter with great controls and decent graphics for the time. I adored it because my parents were very strict and didn’t let me play realistic shooters, but this way I could get my fps fix and play in the world of Bionicle at the same time!
My device was a Nintendo DS Lite, White with flame stickers that came with the Guitar Hero game. I loved that machine to bits.
Minecraft probably. I avoid legitimate horror games (and movies) and the fact that you don’t have saves can get a little stressful when you’re down in a cave, don’t know how to find your way back (and thus probably won’t find your body) and then basically get jumpscared by dangerous enemies or holes in the ground.
if you want to know how to get back, pick a side (i chose left) and always put torches on that side going down. to come back up, keep the torches on your right. 🔥
I don’t think it will be as good as the first one. That game had a unique feeling. I spent many hours trying to beat the big storm and had tons of fun. Played it over and over again many times until I finally understood how to get through the storm.
I hope this one is also difficult and rewarding, but I doubt it will be as good as the first one, now that we expect so much from it.
Early in the lifetime of the DS, before the 3ds had even been mentioned, a ton of JRPGs released for the platform seemingly in a bid to become the next earthbound or chrono trigger. Most of them were very mediocre, but to this day Contact (published by atlus) and The World Ends With You (square enix) stand out as stellar titles to me. They represent opposite ends of the jrpg spectrum; contact is a grinding game with a very floaty story, whereas TWEWY has an intricate story and a penalty-free swappable easy difficulty setting to help new players cope with the (initially) awkward combat system. Both of them are stand-out in their own ways, with memorable settings and characters supporting the mechanical depth they offer.
Both of them are games that take advantage of the DS’s unique features, not the microphone but the touchscreen. While Contact is pretty easy on the gimmicks, only requiring you to occasionally peel a sticker or something simple like that, TWEWY’s combat flow has you use buttons to control the top screen while simultaneously doing multiple touch screen gestures, making the game difficult to master on the actual DS and unbelievably hard on an emulator.
TWEWY has since had a remaster and a sequel, but contact is seldom mentioned anywhere when I see the DS talked about. Worth a look!
I was going to mention Contact being a unique game, glad I’m not the only one who remembers it fondly. The reviews upon release where not great but I thought it was a pretty good game.
It’s so hard to describe contact. It’s like a more exploratory Rune Factory with no farming sim element and swappable jobs like the final fantasy MMOs. I feel like the audience for the game wasn’t targeted well, as it fell in that era where “core gamers” stopped being a popular target audience (we hardly use the term at all these days).
I also think that the marketing failed hard. I don’t remember seeing any ads for the game, and the marketing in Japan made it seem like a bait and switch for Mother 3. It also released pretty close to the Japanese mother 3 release as well.
The Cradle level in Thief 3 will forever and always be the scariest experience I’ve ever had in any video game, including horror games. It elevated an otherwise mediocre game to be a worthy entry besides the first two games.
The first Layers of Fear was pretty spooky, very PT inspired. The second one was decent too, but not as scary.
Outlast is the standard I hold walking sim horror games to. I can speedrun through it now since I've played it so much, but the first few times were terrifying.
Some people have mentioned Amnesia, so I'll throw in the recent iteration with Amnesia: The Bunker. It's like Alien: Isolation in a WW1 setting.
Speaking of which, Alien: Isolation is probably no. 1 for me. Between the alien, the androids, and even other people, that game is very stress inducing.
I really liked Outlast when it first released. Outlast 2 was pretty good as well. I think the tricky part is if you die or mess up too many times in horror games, the fear gets dulled.
I don’t recall layers of fear creeping me out much, but I haven’t tried the second yet. Definitely worth a shot
I find Amnesia titles don’t do it for me anymore. I think maybe I played too much and got too familiar with how the AI works. I’ve peeled back the curtain, so to speak and ruined them for myself, aha.
I really liked alien isolation when it first came out. I thought it was a very cool take on horror. The AI seemed super impressive
If it's any consolation, Amnesia: The Bunker has a different AI than the previous iterations. I mentioned it's like Alien: Isolation, and the monster works very similarly, like reacting to how much noise you make and stalking which parts of the bunker you're in. Most items with every run are also randomized, so you can't memorize where to pick up supplies. (You can also customize the difficulty, which I thought was really cool.)
But if you've already tried it, then my point is moot lol.
Yeah, I thought it was pretty okay! I ended up getting about halfway through, I think? I got caught by the monster a couple of times when he randomly decided to pop up, and I somewhat shifted from “this is spooky” to “I’m just avoiding this road block”
It’s super tricky because I don’t know how to keep myself immersed in the experience for a lot of these titles.
I did enjoy the fact that they tried something new with the bunker. I thought it was probably the closest I got to being scared since the Dark Descent, so I think that says something for sure.
I think I’ve been exposed to too much horror, which might have dulled the experience somewhat. I really enjoy hearing about what/why people enjoyed horror games, so I don’t think your point was moot! I think horror is a very unique genre that pushes game design to its extremes in a lot of ways.
I recently got myself an Anbernic, it’s the one which looks like the GBA, see through plastic and all. It’s a surprisingly competent little console. It even comes preloaded with a shed load of retro games. I’ve been enjoying playing games from systems I missed out on growing up.
I got ab RG35XX Plus when it came out. Very nice little Game Boy style handheld. I played a bunch of GBA, GB, and Genesis games on it but it’s capable of a lot more.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne