New 3DS StreetPass Games: Mii Trek
The final new StreetPass game we’ll look at is Mii Trek. You are a brave explorer looking for treasures, and you’re guided by a talking toucan with a British accent. Almost expected him to say, “Follow your nose, it always knows!” Will kids today get that? Anyway, each StreetPass tagged friend acts as a travel companion, and the game reads how many steps they’ve taken with their 3DS. The more steps you have, the farther you can go on the map.
You’ll be able to choose different paths on the map. Some may lead to treasure, like useful items to help you out like a compass to point you in the right direction, or tranquilizer darts for ferocious animals. Sometimes you’ll run into traps or obstacles that’ll run down your steps you can take. Other times you might play a mini-game, like a photo shoot to take a picture of a wild animal. If you do run into a wild animal and have tranquilizer darts, you can play an aiming mini-game to shoot them and run by without losing steps. Once you nab the main treasure, you’ll be able to go onto the next map.
The game has many problems. While the talking toucan explains some things in the tutorial, he doesn’t explain others, so you may run into a mini-game you’re not sure how to play at first. Also, it can be really easy to select the wrong path and go backwards, so you have to be careful. Plus, if you make it to the end treasure and have steps leftover, you can’t carry them over to the next map. Which can be frustrating if you have a bunch of steps collected. But most of all, this isn’t really an interesting game. I think this and Market Crashers are my least favorite of this batch of StreetPass titles.
The other problems I have are common in all the new StreetPass games. I don’t know if they’ll hold my attention as long as some of the other ones did. I unlocked everything in Find Mii and its sequel. I played through the flower game and grew all the breeds (but I did stop when they challenged me to grow all the colors in all the breeds). And I’m still enjoying the fishing game. But I don’t think these new titles have staying power. Also, I think they released these a little too late as well, because now that the Nintendo Switch is on its way and can be a portable game system, too, it makes me wonder how long of a life the 3DS has left? Better enjoy it while I can, I guess.
Kid Factor:
The StreetPass games are rated E to E-10. In Mii Trek you do shoot tranquilizer darts at animals, and use a gun sight scope to do so. At first I thought it was a regular gun, so I was like, “Whoa, Nintendo!” But they are just tranquilized and it’s just still photos of animals anyway. Reading skill is needed for the text, also.
February 24th, 2017 at 9:12 pm
Kids today might still know Toucan Sam. There are a lot of old cartoon characters that get used in cereal ads YEARS after the first wave of ads come out. I think The Flinstones are still the face of Fruity and Cocoa pebbles. It’s because the parents are the ones actually buying the cereal. Some ads are made in order to get the non-buying party to nag the buying party about it, not to sell directly to the people who will actually use the product. There’s a gendered version of this type of marketing as well, but I don’t want to bore you with a lecture from one of my classes.
Anyway, this looks boring.