{"id":19327,"date":"2019-08-23T00:01:24","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T00:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=19327"},"modified":"2019-08-05T04:42:33","modified_gmt":"2019-08-05T04:42:33","slug":"three-cheers-for-the-3ds-part-1-downloadable-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/23\/three-cheers-for-the-3ds-part-1-downloadable-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Cheers for the 3DS! Part 1: Downloadable Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Can you believe the Nintendo 3DS was released 8 years ago in 2011?\u00a0 I don\u2019t like calling a game system \u2018dead,\u2019 because I feel a game console in only dead if you don\u2019t play it.\u00a0 But the 3DS is certainly at the end of its retail life cycle, as Nintendo isn\u2019t making any more games for it, focusing solely on the Switch now.\u00a0 So when a game console or handheld reaches that point in its life, I like to write a blog or two highlighting the best games for it (or at least the ones I really liked).\u00a0 So here are some blogs about the best games on the 3DS!\u00a0 There were SO many that I had to split it into two parts.\u00a0 The first part we\u2019re going to go over my favorite downloadable games, along with some other features of the 3DS I really liked.<\/p>\n

First of all, one neat thing about the 3DS was the main menu and UI.\u00a0 It was even better than the Switch\u2019s UI!\u00a0 There were icons for various applications, and right off the bat you got a couple of free games.\u00a0 One was a shooter where you took pictures of someone\u2019s face and then shot at them in a game called Face Raiders.\u00a0 You had a great activity log where you could see every game you played and exactly how long you played it, something the Switch doesn\u2019t even do.\u00a0 This activity log even helped me write this blog!\u00a0 The game also came with cards and you could use them to play AR games in another menu icon.\u00a0 For a while lots of other games would come with cards, too, and I thought that was neat.\u00a0 I even ordered a giant AR card from when Club Nintendo was cool so I could take pictures of a life sized Mario!\u00a0 So yeah, lots of fun stuff right off the bat just at the menu, and you didn\u2019t even have to pay for a game!<\/p>\n

But I think my favorite original feature of the 3DS was StreetPass.\u00a0 If you left your 3DS on and walked around, you would ping other people with a 3DS and these pings could let you do things with them in a game, and they even made StreetPass games based on this!\u00a0 The ones I\u2019m sure most people played were the first free ones.\u00a0 Collecting puzzle pieces to make pictures was fun, and I\u2019m proud to say I got them all!\u00a0 Find Mii was like a little RPG where your characters would take turns fighting monsters, and I beat both the first game and its sequel.\u00a0 You could also buy new StreetPass mini-games, and I enjoyed the StreetPass stuff so much that I got them all!\u00a0 My favorites were unexpectedly the garden game (where people would give you seeds to grow different plants) or the fishing game (where they would give you bait to fish).\u00a0 Back in the day, my friends and I would even arrange meetups and announce them on Facebook for people to come together and do StreetPass stuff. \u00a0Going to conventions was also a lot of fun.\u00a0 I remember going to E3 and StreetPassing Reggie from Nintendo and Yuji Naka at the SEGA booth!<\/p>\n

So before we got started with the games, I wanted to mourn a couple of 3DS games we never got.\u00a0 One was Japan only, and one was cancelled entirely, and I was excited so much for both of them!\u00a0 The one that stayed in Japan was a sequel to Rocket Slime.\u00a0 This was a Dragon Quest spin off where you got to play as a slime in a top down Zelda like adventure.\u00a0 The highlight of this game was the giant tank battles between you and a boss or other player.\u00a0 The 3DS sequel replaced the tanks with pirate ship battles, and I hate it that we never got it.\u00a0 The other game was from Capcom and was cancelled entirely.\u00a0 And that game was Mega Man Legends 3. \u00a0I\u2019m a big fan of that series, and I was SO sad when it got cancelled, as it was one of the biggest games I was looking forward to on the 3DS.\u00a0 Hopefully someday we\u2019ll get it in another form or fashion.\u00a0 OK now let\u2019s talk about the downloadable only 3DS games that I really liked.<\/p>\n

Phoenix Wright series<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Phoenix Wright games were my favorite series on the original DS, and we got a few new ones on the 3DS.\u00a0 Unfortunately, you couldn\u2019t get cartridge versions of them in the US, as they weren\u2019t bestsellers.\u00a0 But at least we got them in some form or fashion.\u00a0 Dual Destinies brought back Phoenix as the main character, and Spirit of Justice continued that.\u00a0 There was one game that did get a cartridge, because it was published by Nintendo.\u00a0 And that was Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright, which mixed both game styles in an interesting game.<\/p>\n

Chibi Robo! Photo Finder<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was SUCH a creative game.\u00a0 You were tasked with building a museum by taking pictures with the 3DS camera of real life things with certain shapes, like an outlet plug or vending machine, and then the game would put them into a museum for Chibi-Robo to take care of!\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised this idea was never made into a mobile game.\u00a0 Or maybe it was and I didn\u2019t know it.<\/p>\n

Gurumin 3D: A Monstrous Adventure<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of my favorite PSP games was Gurumin.\u00a0 It was made by Falcom, and was like a cross between Ys and Mr. Driller and was a fun and colorful 3D action adventure game.\u00a0 It\u2019s a shame that it didn\u2019t have a cartridge version on the 3DS (you\u2019ll hear that here a lot), but it was still a fun game from an earlier time where DLC didn\u2019t run rampant.<\/p>\n

BoxBoy series<\/strong><\/p>\n

HAL, maker of games like Kirby, Smash Bros., and Adventures of Lolo, made this minimalist puzzle game series where you were a box with eyes and could create blocks to use as steps or shields.\u00a0 There were so many cool ways to use these blocks, and I\u2019m glad HAL has continued this series on the Switch.<\/p>\n

Picross 3-D Round 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking of HAL, they also made Picross 3D on the DS.\u00a0 The sequel had a cartridge in Japan, but not in the US.\u00a0 This puzzle game was so addicting that it was one of the few times I let my 3DS battery run out while playing it!<\/p>\n

Pocket Card Jockey<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was such a weird game that combined solitaire with\u2026horse racing?\u00a0 Even more surprising was that it was done by GameFreak, makers of Pok\u00e9mon.\u00a0 Because of this, sometimes the horses in the game would have funny names like Bulba Soarer or Volt Tackle.\u00a0 This was such an addicting game, though, and I\u2019m surprised it never made it to mobile, as it seems perfect for that format.<\/p>\n

Gotta Protectors<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the Xbox 360\u2019s indie game section, there was a really fun game called Protect Me Knight.\u00a0 It was made by Ancient, headed by Yuzo Koshiro who also did the music.\u00a0 It was an 8 bit styled action game with tower defense elements, and Gotta Protectors is the sequel to that.\u00a0 Both games are so much fun!<\/p>\n

Rhythm Heaven Megamix<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Rhythm Heaven games are made by the same folks who did WarioWare, and it shows.\u00a0 They\u2019re like a cross between WarioWare and a music game.\u00a0 This is like a \u2018best of\u2019 collection, and I do wish it got a cartridge version in the US.\u00a0 But it was still good.<\/p>\n

Pushmo Series<\/strong><\/p>\n

There were three games in this puzzle platformer series on the 3DS: Pushmo, Crashmo, and Stretchmo.\u00a0 You played as a little marshmallow sumo guy named Mallow and you could pull blocks to make platforms to climb on to make it to the top of the structures.\u00a0 Crashmo added gravity and blocks would fall if there was nothing under them.\u00a0 In Stretchmo you could move blocks all around and even stretch them out.\u00a0 I hope they can continue this series on the Switch.\u00a0 It had some catchy music, NES levels, and you could design your own stages, too!<\/p>\n

Attack of the Friday Monsters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Level 5 made some really creative downloadable games on the 3DS.\u00a0 In this one, you play as a boy who lives in a suburb of Tokyo in the 1970\u2019s. \u00a0Nearby is a TV station that films a popular Kaiju show.\u00a0 Crazy events lead the boy to believe that there is a real Kaiju, and it just goes on from there.\u00a0 Most of the game you just walk around your town talking to people, but you can also collect cards and play a game with your friends with them, too.\u00a0 It\u2019s just such an interesting and quirky title.<\/p>\n

Weapon Shop de Omasse<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another Level 5 oddity.\u00a0 It\u2019s a music game where you pound steel to make weapons at a blacksmith, and then sell those weapons to RPG heroes.\u00a0 You can view Twitter-like text that tell you how well they did with your weapon, and how far they got.\u00a0 It\u2019s not perfect, but I thought it was interesting.<\/p>\n

Yumi\u2019s Odd Odyssey<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a series of games called Umihari Kawase that\u2019s been around since the SNES days, but has never come to the US until Natsume put the 3DS version on the eShop under the name Yumi\u2019s Odd Odyssey.\u00a0 You play as a cute lady who uses a fishing rod to swing around like Bionic Commando.\u00a0 It\u2019s really hard, but also pretty intriguing.<\/p>\n

Pok\u00e9mon Shuffle<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s just a free-to-play match 3 puzzle game with Pok\u00e9mon characters, but I enjoyed it for quite a while.<\/p>\n

Nintendo Badge Arcade<\/strong><\/p>\n

Later on in one of the updates, Nintendo let you put virtual stickers on the 3DS main menu, and you got those stickers by playing this free-to-play crane game.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t really use the stickers much, but I still had fun seeing what Nintendo characters I could get in my daily free chances.\u00a0 I wish there was a REAL Nintendo Badge Arcade!<\/p>\n

And those are all the downloadable games I liked on the 3DS.\u00a0 Next time we\u2019ll look at the physical cartridge games I enjoyed.\u00a0 One last thing, though.\u00a0 Nintendo made a lot of different 3DS versions, like the 3DS XL, 2DS, and New 3DS.\u00a0 Well I never got any of those, I still used my regular one.\u00a0 I would\u2019ve liked to have the bigger screen, but I didn\u2019t want to pay more money for it.\u00a0 But my regular 3DS lasted a very long time.\u00a0 Only recently did the battery go out, but I just ordered a new one from Nintendo rather than buy a whole new system.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not bad for a handheld lasting eight years!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can you believe the Nintendo 3DS was released 8 years ago in 2011?\u00a0 I don\u2019t like calling a game system \u2018dead,\u2019 because I feel a game console in only dead if you don\u2019t play it.\u00a0 But the 3DS is certainly at the end of its retail life cycle, as Nintendo isn\u2019t making any more games […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19327"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19329,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19327\/revisions\/19329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}