After a few days with the 3DS (and finally getting a game for it), here are some of my thoughts.
1. I don't like the position of the stylus. It's not as easily accessible as it is on the DSi (I don't have a DS Lite or original DS on me to compare) and this is coming from someone who is left handed. That was a minor inconvenience but I'd take the stylus on the right of the console than behind it.
2. The eShop is kind of slow, but FAR improved over the DSi. More importantly, it's infinitely easier to navigate. I'm glad that it's not as asininely "organized" as DSiWare was. The way the screenshots expand to show you what the games actually look like on both screens is a particularly nice touch.
3. After spending a considerable amount of time with Contra 4, a game that uses both screens on the DS as a single screen, I admit that I DETEST when the screens are combined in that fashion. Take a game as difficult as Contra 4 due to one hit kills and make it 346934289739 times more frustrating due to the gap between the screens. That said, I'm glad 3DS discourages that. However, after spending some time with 3DS, I think it was extremely short sighted of Nintendo to make the screens different sizes, especially now that Nintendo has flat out said that some games may not even use 3D: pretty much any game that uses the touch screen as the main screen. Those games are still possible but the different sized screens are a little off-putting and I doubt Nintendo saved that much on the smaller touch screen.
4. Still not sure what to make of Nintendo's hard-on for non-conventional aspect ratios. Seems unnecessary. What's wrong with 16:9? Don't want developers to port to Vita and smartphones without a little extra work? Classy, Nintendo.
5. I really like the weight of the 3DS. As much as I liked pretty much everything about the DSi across the board, I felt that it was almost too light if that makes sense. 3DS has a decent heft to it without feeling heavy.
6. The slider is definitely better than the PSP's analog nub thing which I didn't even mind as much as other people. However, it's still no where near as useful/comfortable as a regular analog stick. That's to be expected. I presume the inevitable revision will be an evolution of the Wii U tablet controller's sliders.
7. Speaking of the slider, there should be a right one. Inexcusable.
8. The speakers on the DSi seem to be louder than the ones on 3DS though that may depend on the game.
9. Resident Evil: The Mercenaries has loading screens. What the? I thought that was the benefit of a card based system....
10. If I wanted to get a larger capacity SD card, does anyone know how I transfer everything? Do I just move the files onto my computer's hard drive then move it onto the new card?
11. I prefer the front facing camera where it's located on DSi.
12. Not a fan of the placement of Start/Select/Home. On a related note, I'm not a fan of the bottom screen being raised. I presume that's to prevent accidentally touching the screen, but it's also the reason the 2 screens touch when closed.
13. The battery life is 10 kinds of awful though I don't expect to play it too far away from home that often. It takes way longer than it should to charge. /old complaints
As for games, I haven't played my copy of Ocarina of Time yet, but I've spent some time with Resident Evil.
- The game looks damn good. Better than RE4 and pretty close to RE5 though I'm sure the screen size is helping.
- I'm still getting used to the controls. Having to equip the knife makes it borderline useless, I pretty much just shoot boxes/barrels now.
- They got rid of the bending down to pick up items thing. Good choice.
- The action is a little cramped on the screen. I've been blindsided several times because I just can't see who's coming (that's what she...). That rarely happened playing the Mercenaries mode on RE4 and RE5.
- The camera is a little janky. I've been using Jill (surprise, surprise) and when she does her melee moves, the camera doesn't reset as quickly and naturally as it did in RE5 (and to a lesser extent RE4 but I don't recall any of the characters jumping at all or as much as Jill).
- It's a good game with tons of replay value and so far it seems to have a decent amount of content though I probably could have waited for a price drop. I got it on sale so I don't feel too bad about it. I still expect Revelations to have a less robust Mercenaries mode with locales from that game.
Topic: Nintendo 3DS Discussion (Read 551803 times)
