So... what is Nintendo up to with the 3DS? - Page 8

I take back what I said about Sacred Stones: it is easier than other Fire Emblem games, but damn, it is still a Fire Emblem game. Some of these chapters made me tear my hair out.

I was thinking the other day... whenever Nintendo makes the 3DS Lite, or whatever they decide to call it, they should really put a vibrate function in it. I don't even necessarily mean for gaming/rumble pak type features, but with all the StreetPass and SpotPass stuff it's a shame that the system can't notify you by vibrating like a cell phone does. Sure, it's got the notification light, but that doesn't help if you've got the system in a pocket or something.

Agreed. I think Swapnote is a pretty nice app...the kind of social networking-lite surprise that the 3DS needs to continue to engage. I find it far more entertaining than I anticipated (especially when I got some swapnotes from some of my friends list out of the blue).

Demos on 3DS start today! I'm pretty excited to try out the new Resident Evil.

I've downloaded it, but I won't have a chance to play the demo until I ride the train home tonight. It's big, something like 1700 blocks.

Interesting thing to note: under the icon (with a blinking 3D eyeball in classic RE gory style) it says: USES REMAINING: 30. Interesting.

*Sigh* Seriously Nintendo, what is the point of that. That doesn't even make sense on the level they intend it to--who plays a demo 30 times?

I probably played the Jumping Flash demo at least that much, but that was about 16 years ago.

Metal Gear Solid 3DS demo is now up (though I couldn't care less), and the original Super Mario Bros is available on the VC for $5, making it the first "Ambassador" game released to the general public. Since it's a full release now, ambassadors can download a free update that adds save states. Not bad.

I wonder how many times a person can buy SMB1 in their lifetime.

Well that's cool. Fingers crossed for Metroid Fusion.

I am hoping and praying for another 3DS model and on the limb to purchase one... No good deals lately, which is sad!

Not a lot of 3DS talk on here lately...just wanted to throw out a quick recommendation for Pushmo, my first eShop purchase since Link's Awakening. Smart, satisfying puzzling plus a tiny bit of platforming, with subtle but effective 3D. I am enjoying the crap out of it. It's the perfect thing to play on my commute. Well worth the $7.

I haven't touched mine in 2 months, and I've had it since xmas. Mind you I only have Mario 3d and Kart, and Zelda so far....

I remain pretty addicted to Mii Streetpass. I carry it with me every day so as to get pedometer coins and new Miis for Find Mii II. I continue to see a slow but steady increase in the number of Miis I get just walking around--it's unusual if I go more than a day without getting at least one, and have a lot more repeat Streetpasses now. A few Miis I've met five times now, which remains vaguely creepy knowing they're likely somewhere on the train/platform right next to me during my daily commute but not knowing what they look like.

That said, I probably wouldn't bother at all if I didn't live in a big city.

Yeah streetpass kind of sucks outside big areas. I live in the suburban sprawl capital of the country, so I don't even consider going out with the 3ds. Also I've got my wallet keys and phone to bring along already. It was great when I was in NY and DC, I'd go to all the crowded tourist spots and get some hits.

Haven't touched my 3DS since the Vita came out.

I use my 3DS every day during my train commute. Kid Icarus is, IMHO, one of the best games Nintendo has released in the last five years, let alone one of the best 3DS games. Dillon's Rolling Western is a lot of fun, even if I have a few quibbles with it. Pushmo is on my list of games to get.

Resident Evil: Revelations is great: the only reason I haven't played it more is Kid Icarus AND I keep waiting for Gamestop to get in more circle-pad controllers...which apparently Capcom massively underestimated the demand for and won't get another shipment until May for.

By contrast, my wife is playing DragonQuest Monsters: Joker 2 on hers, which would be great except she's not in 3DS sleep mode, which is costing me Street Pass tags (which in Kid Icarus translates to extra weapons, in particular).

As of this point, I have tagged about 168 people with 3DSes.

Do you find the ground missions in Kid Icarus as insufferable as some have described? I waffled on picking it up when it was on sale for $30 at Best Buy, but ultimately decided not to since I can get pretty frustrated with subpar controls real quick.

Similarly, I sort of want RE Revelations since I'm a big fan of the series, but I'm not sure that's the type of game I feel like playing on my morning commute. RE games are meant to be played alone, in the dark, on a big screen, you know?


Ha, that's the exact reason I am extremely reluctant to play any DS or Virtual Console games on my 3DS. I'm pretty obsessive about it. I very occasionally even get a tag while in my apartment (probably because I live right next to a subway entrance), so not even home is "safe."

The controls can occasionally be annoying, but methinks they protest too much. You can customize them, which I did when I found rotation was too sensitive for my tastes. I don't dislike the ground missions like some folks seem to; that may be a question of what they wanted out of the game versus what the game actually is. I've heard some people hated the dialogue in the game, but I think it's very funny and hits exactly the right tone.

Do I think the controls are perfect? No, they could do with some improvement....and dual analogs would be much better than the controls used here. But they work fine. I've played the game for about 30 hours and the only time the controls feel like they could be better is when I'm playing online and then it's more the camera that bugs me when trying to circle around enemies and such.


Oh, I dig. I've played a few hours on it (waiting for the circle pad to arrive), but I think you'll dig it. It's a full-blown RE game, not a 'portable' version. It's not as desperate as earlier RE's, but more like somewhere between them and RE4. I HAVE had '****! No Ammo! No Herbs!' moments, but not on the level of RE2, for example. I certainly could understand not wanting to play it on your commute.

I ended up picking up Kid Icarus and it's not nearly as uncomfortable as I was expecting. No worse than Metroid Prime Hunters on the DS for example.

Also, just saying, but this StreetPass Plaza Puzzle Swap is getting ridiculous. It's hard enough in the US to get StreetPass connections with anyone, now they're making puzzles in that that are up to 40 pieces each, plus with sections of pink that you can only get via StreetPass. Besides that, even when you buy puzzle pieces for the 2 coins each, you're not guaranteed to get a new puzzle piece. I just spent 100 coins for 50 pieces, and only increased from 70 pieces (out of 385) to 95 pieces. It's not really a big deal because I don't care THAT much about the puzzles, but in my mind the feature clearly needs some tweaking to make it easier in the US.

I bet the current method works great in Japan, but it's just too difficult in the US. And yes I realize it's not supposed to be an instant gratification thing, but there's a difference between instant gratification and being so hard to complete a puzzle that it just gets annoying.

Agreed. I actually get a lot of puzzle pieces from tags due to my commute and working in the city, but it's pretty annoying to buy puzzle pieces and get bupkiss. I would mind less if you could earn more coins in a day.

I do like that you can use coins in Kid Icarus...I just wish I could convert them to hearts. I'm about 92% complete in the game (mostly just unlocking stuff in the treasure hunt panels).

I enjoy Streetpass due to living in an urban area as well, but the various ways they have to screw you out of coins get to be too much sometimes. Find Mii 2's secret quest is basically an excuse to screw you out of coins at every turn. It sucks total ass when I spend 7 coins on a Lvl 5 Mii only to have him give up and go home immediately just because he was in front of the two blue Miis needed to get rid of the fire in the room, instead of behind them.

I agree that at the very least the daily coin limit needs to be raised. I earn most of my 10 daily coins merely on the five-minute walk to the subway station. Why not significantly raise the limit and encourage people to walk more than 500 feet a day?

As for puzzles, my strategy is to focus on one puzzle at a time (except for special pink pieces), and then only buy new pieces when I've recently completed a puzzle and all the remaining ones are fairly empty. I'm pretty sure that completing a puzzle takes those pieces out of the "new piece" pool forever, so this maximizes chances of getting a new piece.

As far as I can tell, once a piece is completed, it takes it out of the pool...but getting those exclusive pieces can be a PITA. And yes, that 'mummy scares you off' and 'you were jinxed' bits are really annoying. I'm lucky that my wife has a 3DS, so I'm guaranteed one to two tags a day from her alone, so I always get at least one Level 7 person a day.

Of course, it was funny when I chewed out my one friend who came over Saturday without his 3DS and my wife and I were like "WTF? I need weapon gems, you SOB! Next time, bring your damn 3DS!" He was totally ignorant of the whole thing.

I've had really good luck in getting the exclusive pieces from Streetpassers. Even when the Kid Icarus puzzle had just come out, I kept running into people who had already almost completed the whole damn thing. I think there's one of those 3DS Streetpass clubs or something that congregates near my place of work, which I guess makes sense since I'm not too far from Nintendo World.

I have been unsuccessful in getting anyone I know to buy a 3DS. Have to say, though I get frequent Streetpasses, typically the only people I see actually playing the thing in public tend to be young kids.

This would help, as would a number picker type control, so that I can say buy xxx puzzle pieces or x number of Find Mii people, rather than saying "You can buy 1 for 2 coins, would you like to buy one?" a million times.

Today's folder update is very much appreciated, but I really wish it would show more than just the first letter on the icon, so I could differentiate between "Demos" and "DSiware".

Also, it's kind of BS that I can't move the System Settings icon (which I only use for updates) into a folder. I can understand that they did that for the shop (which I'm fine with), but it's dumb for settings.

Yeah, what would be great is if they'd give us icons to slap on the folders (SNES logo, etc.). At the very least let us use three-letter abbreviations. I only created folders for "Demos," "Virtual Console" and "eShop Originals" so it's not a big deal for me, but the way the current system's setup it seems like they expected us only to create neatly alphabetized or numbered folders.

In other news, New Super Mario Bros 2 for 3DS is going to be released both physically and as a digital download when it's out in August, which is a pretty surprising instance of Nintendo catching up on something they're not that far behind on. There was some confusing language in the article I read about how brick and mortar stores will sell download codes for the downloadable versions, initially priced the same as on-cart versions, but retailers are free to set their own price on the codes. I take this to mean you might see say, sales at Gamestop on download codes, but still never see discounts on the eShop itself.

This news isn't that big a deal to me since I'm more of a physical-copy guy for big releases (as I like to sell or trade used games), but downloadable versions are ideal for something like Animal Crossing. And regardless, it's nice to see Nintendo taking steps to make good on their promises to finally stop being a decade behind technologically.

Yeah, I separated it out a little further than that just because of all the Ambassador games, so I have "NES", "Gameboy", "DSiware", "Demos", "3D", and "System".

Kingdom Hearts 3d Trailer

New Black and White 2 trailer. Fully animated with a rather brutal battle aboard a ship...

I can't link to it due to Nintendo taking them down within hours of their uploads. Makes me wish the anime was like this.

This one?

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