Yes, it is true that Xenoblade Chronicles 3D doesn’t fit onto the internal SD card. But memory is pretty cheap these days. I bought a 64GB card for just $10 on Amazon. I’ll admit that it was kind of annoying that I had to unscrew the back plate in order to insert the new card. But I won’t have to open it again; so it is not such a big deal.
I have now spent more than a month with my New 3DS XL. Actually, Nintendo sent it to my nine year old son. He’s part of their “Kid Reviewers” program so he gets lots of free stuff: games, toys, hardware. I stole the New 3DS before he noticed. That’s okay, all his favorite games are already downloaded onto his old one. He doesn’t need the new one until there are many more games with amiibo support.
Besides, I let him use the New 3DS whenever he wants. Ironically, no matter how many times I tell him (or his seven year old brother) that the stable 3D works shockingly well, they both refuse to turn it on. The old 3DS conditioned them to keep the 3D off. “It hurts my eyes. And it’s annoying,” my nine year old says. I’m sure they’ll both give it another try soon. It really is awesome. Little kids are not impressed with terms like “eye-tracking.” But I am. And the new portable console’s new technology finally delivers on the 3D promise Nintendo made with the original.
At first I didn’t believe the 3D was worth it. Like my children, I’ve also been conditioned just to turn it off. But recently, on a long airline flight, I discovered just how well the stable 3D works. I was flying to Dubai, 13 hours during which I doze in and out of sleep. It demands a game with short chapters, so I chose a classic: Pushmo. Despite all the rave reviews, I had never actually played the game. It seemed like a perfect way to test out the 3D: a simple, casual puzzler that is enhanced by 3D but really doesn’t require it. I wondered, stuck on Qatar Airways for more than half a day, would I keep 3D on or turn it off? I kept it on.
Originally, I had planned to play Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars on the plane. When Nintendo sent me a download code for that game a week before I left, I was excited. It is a perfect airplane game. But it is also perfect for so many other occasions when I only had a few minutes to kill. The game was just too enjoyable: charming, engaging, and exciting in a laid back kind of way. I played through the whole thing in a couple of days before I even left the country. I took turns with my seven year old. He said it reminded him of a “super awesome game like Where’s My Water? But better!”
He doesn’t know much about game genres, but he still gets it intuitively. Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars is a “casual game.” It is the kind of experience we find more often on a tablet or a smartphone than a full on game console. Each time Nintendo makes one of these casual puzzlers, I’m reminded just how much better they are at making games than everyone else. Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars is fun and simple. It perfectly balances the degree of challenge with the degree of ease. It incrementally introduces new elements with perfect pacing. And new abilities compound atop old ones, creating ever more intricate puzzles. Each level forced me to play about 30 seconds longer than I really had time for—not so much that I ever got frustrated or irritated, just enough that I stayed engaged, anxious, and on the edge of my seat.
Nintendo did the same thing with Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. Toad was the protagonist of a perfect 3D puzzle platformer. The only problem was that it tethered me to the Wii U. I wanted to take that game with me—on train rides and in waiting rooms. They should have made it for the 3DS, especially a 3DS with stable 3D.
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Original URL: article on forbes >>
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Original Author Name: Jordan Shapiro, Contributor
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