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Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - A Black Falcon - 1st May 2022
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Nintendo 3DS and New Nintendo 3DS
List of Summaries in the Series
The Summaries: #-A: Games Beginning with Numbers and A
My Favorite and Least Favorite Games In This Update
Introduction
This is the first part of what will be an ongoing series. In this first part I will have the full list of titles that will be covered, talk a bit about the system, discuss my goals with this article, and cover the first part of the list, games with names that start with a number or the letter A. I have 210 digital games for the Nintendo 3DS, so there are a lot of games to cover. Additionally, I have 19 -- yes, only 19 -- digital DSiWare games that I also have on my 3DS, since you can also buy DSiWare games on the 3DS eshop. They may have released before most of these games, but I will cover those separately. I'll get to those later, this list is for 3DS games.
This list was inspired by the upcoming shutdown of the 3DS and Wii U eshops, phasing in over the next year. I am trying to write SHORT opinion summaries this time, more like my early summaries than my recent ones, I have other things I want to do on this site this year other than just this. We'll see how that goes... Heh.
Please note, these games are almost all digital-only releases on the 3DS. I buy 3DS games that have a physical release on cartridge, and I am not going to review those now. So, don't expect coverage of most of the better-known 3DS games; I'm mostly talking about more obscure low-budget stuff in this list, since I have very few digital 3DS games with a physical release. Some cart games are must-buy games now if they have DLC, probably most notably the Fire Emblem games, but for anything else, only buy them now if you really want to play them; those carts aren't going anywhere and will still be around after the store is shut down. These games will not, unless you mod your system. Which, after the shutdown happens, would be a reasonable thing to do.
Please note, some of these games probably have been delisted, that happens all the time. I'm covering everything I own either way.
Additionally, remember that every 3DS eshop game has a digital manual. Not all of the manuals are very helpful, but they should at least list the controls. This is very helpful and it's quite annoying that with the Switch Nintendo dropped the manual requirement; not all games bother to tell you all of their controls in the game, and paper manuals aren't a thing anymore. The 3DS had a better solution that this industry should have stuck with.
A final note: I put this list, as usual for my lists, in alphabetical order... except that I put series in order, and all together, regardless of each games' name. This rarely changes things but occasionally does, as you will almost immediately see in the list.
The Nintendo 3DS and New 3DS
The 3DS released in 2011. As with the Nintendo DS before it, the 3DS is a clamshell-style console with two screens inside. The upper one is a 16:9 widescreen screen with impressive glasses-free stereoscopic 3d technology, while the lower screen is more 4:3 and is a touchscreen. The system has ABXY buttons and shoulder buttons, along with Start, Select, and a home menu button. The DS's rarely-useful little microphone also returns, and this system has a tilt sensor as well for motion controls. The later, enhanced New 3DS system adds a second analog stick, via a horrible, hard to use, tiny little right analog nub, and a second pair of shoulder buttons. Fortunately, few games outside of Monster Hunter and such make heavy use of that second analog stick. A few things do make use of the New 3DS's added controls though.
The system can save games to Micro SD card storage. Be warned though, regardless of the size of your SD card you can only install a maximum of 300 3DS games to a single micro SD card. Games you own on physical cart do not count towards this total, but all digital games and demos do. Thanks to installing 210 games plus a lot of demos, I hit this limit recently and had to delete a bunch of demos in order to buy any more 3DS games despite having a lot of free space on my 64GB micro SD card. I really don't like having to do that, it's poor design. This is an incredibly obnoxious limitation! I think you can get around it if you homebrew-mod your console, but not otherwise. DSiWare has an even stricter game limit of only a couple of dozen games accessible on the system's internal memory, but at least with those the 3DS allows you to store DSiWare games on your micro SD card, and play them if you copy them back to the system. With digital 3DS games you get no such options and have to use multiple micro SD cards for more than 300 titles. It's pretty lame. Other than that I absolutely love this system.
The 3DS ended up being Nintendo's final line of dedicated handhelds, before they switched over to a hybrid model with the Switch. I really love the 3DS, but did not buy one when it was new. In fact, I've never owned an original 3DS. Instead, I waited until after its enhanced successor model, the New 3DS, was released, and bought a New 3DS XL in 2016. It's still the only 3DS I own, so all titles here are reviews of the games as played on a New 3DS. Some games have better performance on a New 3DS than the original system since it has additional hardware power. I don't know how big the difference is myself, though, of course; again, I've never had an original 3DS.
Regardless, I really love my (New) 3DS, and still play it almost every day. I particularly like this system for games that benefit from stylus-based touch controls, because I greatly dislike capacitive touch, either with a finger or a capacitive stylus, for videogames; reactive touchscreens with a plastic stylus are far, far better for gaming. You get dramatically better precision, accuracy impossible with a capacitive screen. This is why, say, the Switch Picross games are so uninteresting to me; why would I want to play those, with their button or inaccurate capacitive screen controls, when I can play the amazing 3DS Picross games? I wouldn't, so I don't. I stick to the 3DS games.
With that said, while I use my 3DS almost every day, most of that time is spent playing various puzzle games for a few minutes here and there. This list, of course, covers far more than that. So far, I have finished the summaries for games that start with #s or A, and those summaries are below in this update. I have also gotten the summaries for B and C pretty far along, that update will be done next month for sure. I haven't started the ones after that yet though. Hopefully I will keep this moving.
Games Covered
In this update
2 Fast 4 Gnomz
Geki Yaba Runner Deluxe
36 Fragments of Midnight
3D After Burner II [Arcade]
3D Ecco the Dolphin [Genesis]
3D Fantasy Zone [Arcade]
3D Gunstar Heroes [Genesis]
3D MahJongg
3D Retro Dungeon Puzzle Challenge
3D Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [Genesis]
3D Space Harrier [Arcade]
3D Streets of Rage [Genesis]
3D Streets of Rage 2 [Genesis]
3D Super Hang-On [Arcade]
80's OVERDRIVE
Adventure Bar Story
Adventure Labyrinth Story
AeternoBlade
AiRace Speed
AiRace Xeno
Alchemic Dungeons
Ambition of the Slimes
Angry Bunnies
Art of Balance TOUCH!
Azure Striker: Gunvolt
Azure Striker: Gunvolt 2
In update two
Balloon Pop Remix
Bit Boy!! Arcade
Bit Dungeon Plus
Blaster Master Zero
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon
BoxBoxBoy!
BoxBoy!
Brave Dungeon
Brave Tank Hero
Bubble Pop World
Bye-Bye Boxboy!
Candy, Please!
Castle Conqueror EX
Castle Conqueror: Defender
Cazzarion
Chicken Wiggle
Collide-a-Ball
Color Zen
Conveni Dream
Crashmo
Crimson Shroud
CRYGHT
Cube Tactics
In update three
Dangerous Road
Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe
Defend Your Crypt
Demon King Box
Digger Dan DX
Dillon's Rolling Western
Dillon's Rolling Western: The Last Ranger
Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure
Drancia Saga
Drone Fight
EDGE
escapeVektor
European Conqueror 3D
Excave
Excave II
Excave III
Fairune
Fairune 2
Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright (DLC version)
Fun! Fun! Minigolf Touch
Gal Galaxy Pain
Glory of Generals
Go! Go! Kokopolo 3D
Gotcha Racing
Gourmet Dream
Gunman Clive
Gunman Clive 2
Gurumin 3D
Harold's Walk
Hazumi
Hyperlight EX
Ikachan
Infinite Golf
Iron Combat: War in the Air
Jett Rocket II
Jewel Match 3
Jewel Quest 6: The Sapphire Dragon
Jewel Quest IV: Heritage
Kami
Karous: The Beast of Re-Eden
Keep, The
Kid Tripp
Kingdom's Item Shop
Kirby Fighters Deluxe
Kirby's Blowout Blast
League of Heroes
Legend of Dark Witch 2, The
Legend of Dark Witch III: Wisdom and Lunacy, The
Legend of Dark Witch, The
Legend of Kusakari, The
Liberation Maiden
Lifespeed
Link-A-Pix Color
Lionel City Builder 3D: Rise of the Rails
Love Hero
Luxor
Mario and Donkey Kong; Minis on the Move
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars
Mega Man IV (Game Boy Virtual Console)
Mercenaries Saga 2
Mercenaries Saga 3
Mia's Picnic
Mighty Gunvolt
Mighty Gunvolt Burst
Mighty Switch Force
Mighty Switch Force 2
Mini Golf Resort
Mini Sports Collection
Mom Hid My Game!
Mutant Mudds Deluxe
Mutant Mudds Super Challenge
My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess
Nano Assault EX
Ninja Battle Heroes
Noah's Cradle
Of Mice and Sand
Ohno Odyssey
Parascientific Escape: Crossing at the Farthest Horizon
Parascientific Escape: Cruise in the Distant Seas
Parascientific Escape: Gear Detective
Pazuru
Phasmophobia: Hall of Specters 3D
Phil's Epic FIll-a-Pix Adventure
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice
Pic-a-Pix Color
Picross 3D Round 2
Picross e
Picross e2
Picross e3
Picross e4
Picross e5
PICROSS e6
Picross e7
Picross e8
Ping Pong Trick Shot
Ping Pong Trick Shot 2
Pirate Pop Plus
Pocket Card Jockey
Psycho Pigs
Puzzle Labyrinth
PUZZLEBOX setup
Queen TV-Game 2, The
Quell: Memento
Quell: Reflect
Quest of Dungeons
Quiet, Please!
Retro City Rampage: DX
Robot Rescue 3D
Runbow Pocket
Runny Egg
RV-7 My Drone
Samurai Defender
Samurai Sword Destiny
Sanrio characters Picross
SEGA 3D Classics Series -- OutRun
Senran Kagura Burst
Severed
Shantae [GBC Virtual Console]
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse
Shift DX
Siesta Fiesta
Silver Falls - 3 Down Stars
Silver Falls - Undertakers
Slime Slayer
Snow Moto Racing 3D
Space Defender - Battle Infinity
SpeedX 3D: Hyper Edition
Sssnakes
Stack 'em High
SteamWorld Dig
SteamWorld Dig 2
SteamWorld Heist
Steel Empire [Genesis remake]
Strike Force Foxx
SubaraCity
Summer Carnival '92 RECCA [NES Virtual Console]
Super Destronaut 3D
Super Strike Beach Volleyball
Sweet Memories: Blackjack
Sword of Hope II, The (Game Boy Virtual Console)
Tappingo
Thorium Wars: Attack of the Skyfighter
Touch Battle Tank - Tag Combat
Toy Defense
Tumble Pop
Turkey, Please!
Turtle Tale
VectorRacing
Wakedas
Witch & Hero
Witch & Hero II
Witch & Hero III
Worcle Words
WordHerd
World Conqueror 3D
Zen Pinball 3D
Zombie Incident
Zombie Panic in Wonderland DX
The Summaries, # & A:
2 Fast 4 Gnomz - published by QubicGames in 2012. This game is an endless runner 2d platformer. You play as a gnome, and automatically run forward, very fast. The A button jumps, up on the dpad uses a parachute to slow your descent while in the air, and down on the pad does a charge move to break obstacles. That may sound simple enough, but it's not, at all, as this game is HARD. Your little gnome character moves so fast that it's almost impossible to see what's coming at you until you die at that obstacle, maybe several times. This makes the game very heavily memorization-centric, which gets quite frustrating in a hurry. The game has decent 2d sprite graphics and level designs are fine enough, and once you have a level fully memorized going through it without messing up can be satisfying, but I don't know if it is really worth the hassle. The game rates you with mobile game style three star ratings in two categories per level, in how many times you died -- die few times to get a higher rating here -- and in how many of the pickups, which are loose socks, you got. Why socks? I have no idea. The game's trying to be funny, but it didn't really work for me, it's more just weird. And frustrating, thanks to the insane speed of your movement. Only get this if you're into this kind of thing. Also released on Wii WiiWare, though obviously you can't buy that version anymore. No big loss, endless runners aren't that great anyway.
Geki Yaba Runner Deluxe - published by QubicGames in 2016. This game is the sequel to 2 Fast 4 Gnomz. For some reason they went with the Japanese title of the franchise here, GekiYaba Runner. I don't know why. This game is basically an evolution of its predecessor. It has all new levels, but the exact same story and graphics as the first one. And I mean the EXACT same, it looks identical and the intro cutscene is completely unchanged. The level layouts aren't identical, though, and most importantly, the crazy speed has been toned down -- you move maybe half as fast in this game as you do in the first one. That makes this game much, much easier to play and progress through, you can actually avoid things as they come at you. The game also ditches the star ratings for a meter which fills up depending on how many of a level's socks you collected. If you get enough to reach two marks on the meter, you get a silver or gold medal. The game doesn't keep track of your deaths in levels either, though you'll not be dying nearly as much this time so that's fine. This game is okay but a bit boring. Overall the two games are probably about even in quality, as one's too hard and the other a bit bland. Either way, my main takeaway is that I strongly prefer platformers where you can control your movement over endless runners. This kind of game doesn't hold my interest for long. Also on Vita and Switch.
36 Fragments of Midnight - by Petite Games, 2017. This very small indie platformer won't take you long to beat at all. The other two 'Midnight' games were kind of neat, but this one is much less interesting. Essentially, this game is a one-level platformer with very simple graphics, gameplay, and controls. The game randomly generates the level so it's different each time, but it doesn't change the game much. Once you get all 36 objects in the stage you win, game over. There's maybe a half hour of gameplay here at most, and I saw no reason to go back just because the stage will be slightly differently laid out each time. It's okay but probably isn't worth getting. Also released on PC, Mac, and Linux (Steam), Playstation Vita, Playstation 4, and Nintendo Switch. The ports don't seem to change the game much from this release, so don't buy it on those systems either.
3D After Burner II [Arcade] - ported by M2 and published by Sega in 2015. Sega made quite a few 3D ports of classic arcade and Sega Genesis games to the 3DS, all ported by then always good retro conversion team M2. All of these games are great ports of the games in question with the same, standardized menu system. You get one savestate and there are some audio options, along with some options specific to each game. In this case, there is a level select in the menu system and you unlock the ability to start from any level you have reached, which is great.
After Burner is a super scaler rail shooter from the '80s. You're in a fighter jet, shooting down waves of enemy planes with your machine gun and auto-targeting missiles. One button shoots your gun, the other fires missiles once the auto-lockon indicator appears. You also can go faster or slower with the shoulder buttons. This very fast-paced game is one of the games that best shows off the 3d hardware of the 3DS, everything comes at you in a much more realistic way than on any hardware that doesn't have stereoscopic 3d! It looks awesome. Unfortunately, After Burner is a very hard game and that is no different here. This game is extremely fast and on any format, I find it very hard to actually feel like I'm in control. Instead, it feels like I just fly forward until some random missile or such hits me and I blow up. I'm sure there are some people actually good enough to be able to tell when you're about to be hit, but I am rarely that person. After Burner is a rush and a thrill ride, but it's one that constantly ends in your burning wreckage littering the ground from unfair, random deaths. Thank goodness for that level select I guess. That's After Burner, though. This is a fantastic version of a frustrating game. Port of an arcade game. There are conversions of this game on many platforms but no other releases of this version.
3D Ecco the Dolphin [Genesis] - ported by M2 and published by Sega in 2013. Ecco the Dolphin has to be one of the weirdest games ever to get a major push by a major, successful console manufacturer. This Genesis classic is well known because Sega pushed it hard despite its totally bizzare ... everything, pretty much. You are a dolphin here, in a sidescrolling world. But as anyone who has played the game knows, this game is no fun little dolphin game; instead it is a brutally hard deathtrap of a game with a crazy plot. Lots of people have started this game, but few have finished it... and I must admit, I am not one of those few. Ecco's a really cool game, and exploring the levels, using your dolphin abilities -- a charge, speed-up, and echolocation ping the manual calls "singing" -- to figure out your way past puzzles and enemies without running out of health or drowning, since dolphins need air to stay alive. But hte game gets so difficult so quickly that you need to be very committed to finish this title. I will someday. As for the port, it's pretty flawless as usual for M2's 3DS titles. This is the Genesis version of the game and not the Sega CD version, though, which means you have the pretty good chiptune soundtrack and not the exceptional CD one. Ah well. The 3d effect is fine but as with most sidescrollers is a fairly minor thing. Still, this is probably worth getting. Genesis port. Versions of this are on many platforms, but there are no other releases of this version.
3D Fantasy Zone [Arcade] - ported by M2 and published by Sega in 2015. Fantasy Zone is one of Sega's early scrolling shooters. This game is a very bright and colorful sidescrolling shmup with a cute them and brutal difficulty originally released in arcades and on the Master System. The main differentiating feature is that unlike most games in the genre, you can fly either left or right through a looping stage, Defender-style. The game is much simpler than Defender, though; you aren't defending anything, just shooting down bases. Endless waves of enemies attack you while you try to destroy these hovering bases. Once you destroy all of the bases you move on to the level's boss. The bosses are challenging and shoot lots of bullets at you, good luck dodging them all. There are also a bunch of powerups you can buy in a shop, which you can spend money you get from killing the enemies on. I really, really dislike that almost all powerups are temporary and only last seconds, though, it makes the upgrade process feel mostly pointless. This is a good version of Fantasy Zone, and the 3d adds a little here, though not a lot. The issue is that I've just never been a huge fan of Fantasy Zone; it's fine, but somehow I've always found this game bland and not fun enough to want to try to get good at. I've never gotten more than a couple of levels into any version of this game. It's fine and an objectively above average game, but between the high difficulty, particularly of the bosses, and the extremely obnoxious timers on almost all weapon powerups, I'd rather just play something I like more. Port of an arcade game. There are conversions of this game on many platforms but no other releases of this version.
3D Gunstar Heroes [Genesis] - ported by M2 and published by Sega in 2015. Gunstar Heroes is one of its era's most popular run & gun shooters. This release is that game, but with decent 'the sprites stand out from the background' stereoscopic 3d effects and the usual set of features all of this series of games have. Fans of the game might want to pick this up. I like Gunstar Heroes so I got this and enjoy it, but I don't LOVE Gunstar Heroes as some do; I like its GBA sequel more, and Contra Hard Corps as well. This is a game I wanted to love but only like. Still, this game's got a lot of content and is pretty impressive so some version of it is worth playing for sure. And if you want it with stereoscopic 3d, this is your only option. Genesis port. Versions of this are on many platforms, but there are no other releases of this version.
3D MahJongg - by Joindots in 2012. This is yet another low-budget 3DS game. It's fun, but is it a Mahjong game? No, this isn't real mahjong; as with most American-released "mahjong" games in recent years, it is a mahjong solitaire game, or a Shanghai clone as the concept was known in games back in the '90s. That's a little disappointing, but I like solitaire mahjong so that's fine. The tiles are in a patterned layout on the screen, and you need to figure out how to match all of them. Matched pairs of identical tiles disappear, but you can only select and match tiles with a left or right side exposed, not tiles between other tiles. It's harder than it may sound, running out of moves is easy. This version of Shanghai has a whole lot of tile layouts to match the tiles on, a campaign mode where you play all the puzzles one at a time as well as a single puzzle mode where you can play any layout you have unlocked, and several different tilesets and backgrounds to add a little variety. You play with the stylus on the lower screen, in 2d, with a static view of the play area. The upper screen shows the tiles in 3d, and you can rotate that view with the circle pad. Given that you mostly play on the lower screen, the upper one is just a gimmick. Still, with lots of content, if you like this tile-matching game, and I do, 3D Mahjongg is good fun and worth getting. And no, I don't know why they added a second 'g' to the title.
3D OutRun [Arcade] - Ported by M2 and published by Sega in 2015. OutRun is one of Sega's best and most popular games of the 1980s, and this fantastic port is maybe its best version ever! This is the original Outrun arcade game, with a 60fps option and stereoscopic 3d. At the time of this version's release, the only versions of Outrun ever to have 60fps support were the Saturn version and this one, the original arcade game and all other ports are 30fps at best. The difference is not huge, but the game does run noticeably smoother and better in 60fps. Combine that with the awesome stereoscopic 3d, which is just fantastic in a super-scaler game like this one, and some of the most fun gameplay in classic arcade racing, and you get a highlight title for stereoscopic 3d effects. Outrun is a challenging and fun super scaler arcade racer. This is a point-to-point game where you drive along a branching road, choosing which course you want to go to at the end of each previous one if you are good enough to not run out of time. It's a short but challenging affair. The game controls great and even though it is quite hard, you'll be coming back again and again, learning the tracks and eventually reaching the finish line. Pick this up for sure if you don't have it already.
3D Retro Dungeon Puzzle Challenge - released by Skunk Software in 2018. This first-person action/puzzle game could have had promise, if an actual complete game was made of it. Unfortunately, it wasn't. So instead we got this little indie game, which is basically a series of first-person dungeon rooms. Each one has a different thing to do. Unfortunately there aren't many of them and each is pretty short and very easy. After you've finished the ten or so of them, which won't take long at all, you go to the final level, which... is really hard and frustrating. The rest of the game is maybe an hour of easy fun, but this level is very unforgiving and poorly designed. You basically need to avoid being hit at all but that isn't very likely. Ugh. Overall, it's moderately amusing, but don't buy this. It has barely any content and is very highly unbalanced.
3D Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [Genesis] - ported by M2 and published by Sega in 2015. One of the best platformers of its generation, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is very similar to its predecessor but with more of a focus on speed; most of the slow parts of Sonic 1 are gone. I've covered the game before in my Genesis Game Opinion Summaries list, though. What's different about this version? Well, you can save your progress with the savestates, but otherwise, not much other than the stereoscopic 3d. The 3d does look nice, particuarly in the bonus stages, but I probably do like playing this game on a TV more than a handheld, overall. Also, Knuckles in Sonic 2 isn't here; this is a Sonic and Tails-only affair, unfortunately. That's too bad, I love the Knuckles lockon mode. Also playing any of the two player content, either co-op with Tails or multiplayer, will be much harder than it is on the Genesis due to the limitations of handheld hardware, if the game even has multiplayer. Other than that this is fantastic and well worth getting for the unique visual look of the 3d. Genesis port. Versions of this are on many platforms, but there are no other releases of this version.
3D Space Harrier [Arcade] - ported by M2 and published by Sega in 2013. Space Harrier is another port of a super scaler arcade game. This mid '80s classic is one of the all-time great rail shooters and is a personal favorite of mine, this game is probably my favorite Sega rail shooter ever. It's either Space Harrier or Panzer Dragoon, anyway. And with stereoscopic 3d, level select which unlocks levels as you reach them, and perfectly smooth gameplay, this port is one of the best ways ever to play the game! So yeah, pick this one up for sure. Blasting your way through the Fantasy Zone, shooting at the various crazy creatures, and avoiding the obstacles, is incredibly fun. The game is just about as hard as After Burner, but feels dramatically more fair -- your pace is a little slower here, and the things coming at you are much more visible. This is an honest challenge, not a cheap one, and it is very rewarding to get better at as you play it more. This is a must have. Port of an arcade game. There are conversions of this game on many platforms but no other releases of this version.
3D Streets of Rage [Genesis] - ported by M2 and published by Sega in 2015. This Genesis classic is an all-time great beat 'em up. I covered it in my Genesis Game Opinion Summaries list years ago. This port is fantastic and as with all of the Genesis Sega 3D Classics games, even has Genesis 1 or Genesis 2 style audio options, which is pretty awesome. There are a lot of ways to play this game, but even though sidescrolling games in stereoscopic 3d aren't nearly as amazing as into-the-screen games are, it's still pretty neat and well worth playing. This game is probably my least favorite of the Streets of Rage trilogy on Genesis, but it's still one of the better beat 'em ups of its generation. I love the complex, twisting level layouts of this trilogy, the great graphical design, and the fantastic music. Awesome stuff. This isn't an absolute must have since the 3d is the only real differentiating feature here, but still, get it if you like the genre at all. Genesis port. Versions of this are on many platforms, but there are no other releases of this version.
3D Streets of Rage 2 [Genesi[b]s][/b] - ported by M2 and published by Sega in 2015. Streets of Rage 2 is the best beat 'em up ever made, and this is that game, but with stereoscopic 3d. I covered this game in my Genesis list also. Streets of Rage 2 has improved gameplay, levels, graphics over the first game. I love the way that levels in this game, like Golden Axe, aren't just a left-to-right straight paths, but have more interesting layouts. It's an exceptional classic. Of course two player co-op won't be as easy as on a console, but oh well. What more needs be said? Get it. Genesis port. Versions of this are on many platforms, but there are no other releases of this version.
3D Super Hang-On [Arcade] - ported by M2 and published by Sega in 2013. Super Hang-On is another of Sega's classic super scaler games. This one is a motorcycle racing game. It's you against the clock, you need to try to finish before running out of time. This is a somewhat special one though, because most of the time Sega re-releases the Genesis version of this game. While it has a significant amount of added content, as with most of Sega's early scaler-style games on the system, unfortunately that version also has an absolutely terrible, eye-hurtingly bad framerate. This release, however, is based on the arcade game, not the Genesis game. So instead of eye pain, you get totally smooth 60fps stereoscopic 3d bike racing excitement! This game is extremely difficult and unforgiving, but it's incredibly fun. This is probably the one of these games I'd played the least before getting these 3DS ports, due to how bad the Genesis version is. On 3DS however, this game is almost certainly my most played of the 3DS Sega Ages titles I've covered here. It's fantastic and even if most runs end with running out of time -- you'll need to be just about perfect to finish any of the race circuits here -- it's so much fun that you'll want to keep trying anyway. The 3d looks fantastic as well. Buy this for sure. Port of an arcade game. There are conversions of this game on many platforms but no other releases of this version.
80's OVERDRIVE - by Insane Code, 2017. This game is a really nice looking, but very average and somewhat boring playing, scaler-style racing game. This indie game has great visuals with nice scaling sprites, but again, that gameplay? This title feels slow and dull. You might want to play this if you look at it in pictures, but once you actually do you'll rapidly lose interest and want to play something else... such as the vastly superior Sega 3D Classics titles I just covered. I think this game really goes to show how, in recent years, it's easier to make good graphics and sound than it is to make great gameplay. Because this game only has one of those two things. If you like a game that might bore you to sleep, maybe check this one out.
This game has some things going for it, including a lot of content with plenty of races, a somewhat lengthy campaign mode with cars to unlock and upgrade, races against opponents and not just the clock, a money system that's mostly implemented well with cash rewards for victories and plenty of cars and upgrades and race fees to spend it on, a strong pseudo-'80s theme, great sprite art, a very good electronic music soundtrack, and more. However, it's just not very fun to play and has a lot of design problems. On the one hand, most of the time the game is very easy and dull. Drive forward, turn as the road does, you'll be fine 99% of the time. The controls are as average as can be. Races are point-to-point and are too long, overstaying their welcome by minutes. The game puts a lot of information on screen, but in story mode the one thing that's missing is a timer showing how long a race is. That doesn't hide how long these races are, though. And it gets worse; sure, the game is mostly easy, but when you hit that 1% of a course that is trickier and crash, that's it; you cannot recover from a mistake in this game, you'll need to pause and restart the whole race. This is a very '80s arcade game thing to do, it's absolutely how Super Hang-On and Outrun work, but at least those games are fun to play, even if they are tremendously frustrating as you lose over and over. This game has the frustration but without the fun. Instead, it's 'ugh, I crashed right near the end of the race AGAIN? I don't want to redo like five tedious and zero-challenge minutes of boring driving AGAIN just to get to the tricky part...' and that's not good design. Of course your AI opponents suffer no such limitations, only you can crash.
And perhaps even worse, you will need to grind in this game. Buying upgrades and cars and such is REQUIRED for progress, you will not be able to win races without a steady rate of upgrade purchases. But you may not get enough money from just the new races, so you'll need to go back and race the easier races to build up cash as well. And again, one mistake and you need to pause and redo the race. The good news is that restarting a race is free and can be done as many times as you want, but that's a small consolation when the game is so grindey and dull most of the time. The sense of speed isn't even exciting in this game until you have a lot of upgrades, and even then it never reaches Super Hang-On or Outrun's level. You won't need to brake almost ever except at those random hard turns that'll kill your runs, either. But wait, I didn't mention the time trial mode! This is your classic Outrun-style race against the clock, not other cars. That could be alright, though the slow and boring gameplay would still be an issue... except nope. You literally will not be able to finish a time trial stage or two until you have a LOT of car upgrades from story mode. You'll run out of time. This is not a real arcade mode, it's an unusable bonus mode that's literally impossible unless you've pretty much finished story mode. How lame. Overall, probably don't bother with this one. It's okay but there are way too many issues to make it really worth playing, and it's just not all that fun or rewarding. Also on PC (Steam) and Switch.
Adventure Bar Story - developed by RideOnJapan,Inc and published by Circle in 2015 (port of a 2012 phone game). This game is a very generic JRPG crossed with some elements of a cooking game, with sprite art graphics. This is a port of a mobile game and you can tell. You play as a woman who owns a bar, and go on adventures to defeat monsters to collect ingredients to use for food to sell at the bar. That may sound good and some people like this game, but I was quite underwhelmed. As you collect ingredients and recipes you'll be able to combine them in a menu, either using recipes or guessing at them yourself, to make food. However, you get a LOT of recipes at the start and a bunch of random ingredients, but very few ingredients that actually combine into usable recipes. This gets annoying quickly as you collect lots of useless stuff while all you can make is cucumber sandwiches or something like that. Additionally, this game is VERY grindey. You aren't constantly making progress to new areas here; instead, you're going through the same few areas over and over, fighting a thousand of the same few enemy types in the same places again and again. That's not game design I like, give me new places to go. And the battle system is extremely generic, too, this is a basic turn-based JRPG with random batles. I'm sure there is an audience for this game but I am definitely not it, I find this game boring and not fun. Not recommended. The game was also released on iOS, Android, and only in Japan on the PSP but I don't know if those versions are still available.
Adventure Labyrinth Story - developed by RideOnJapan,Inc and published by Circle in 2016 (port of a 2013 phone game). This sequel to Adventure Bar Story changes things up significantly, but still is mediocre. You play a different character this time; you are a female warrior in this game, an aquaitance of the character from the first game, exploring a randomly-designed dungeon. So yeah, it's a rogue-lite, though not one of the better ones. The core gameplay is standard for the genre, with your usual Rogue-like dungeons made up of square rooms and connecting paths. This is a turn-based game, so enemies only move after you do. Every time you attack, the game plays a little attack animation in a pop-up window showing what happened. These animations slow down an already slow-paced game significantly. Unfortunately you can't turn them off, I wish you could. I like this game more than the first one, but it still isn't all that fun, it's just way too slow and basic. There are no unique gameplay features here. In the game you explore rooms, fight enemies, collect items you lose upon death, either clear the dungeon in question or eventually lose and return to the base, and have occasional story scenes with some of the characters from both games. Or don't. This game isn't awful or anything, but there isn't any particular reason TO play it either. There are much better games in this genre on this platform. Also released on iOS, Android, and Playstation Vita several years before the 3DS release.
AeternoBlade - Released by Corecell Technology in 2014. This game is a 2.5d action-platformer game. You play as a female knight in a somewhat anime-inspired metroidvania-ish action game with a time-control mechanic and decent though flawed gameplay. The game has good graphical design and makes great use of the stereoscopic 3d, but it somehow just doesn't hold my interest and never has. I think that the controls are one reason why. First, despite the polygonal graphics, control is digital, not proportional. A proportional control option might have been good. Now, your character is primarily a swordfighter. Once she starts an attack animation in this game, you are locked into it. You can extend the combo by hitting the attack button more, but can't, for example, quickly turn around mid-attack to hit an enemy behind you; you'll need to wait for the attack animation to finish first and make sure to not extend it. It's kind of annoying. Hitting airborne or underground enemies is similarly irritating, you'll watch yourself attack nothing a lot until you finally luck into lining up your attack. You slowly get more attack combo options as you kill things and spend the points you get on stats and attack combo moves, but still you'll mostly just mash attack and watch the overlong animations. I know some people like this kind of action, but I never have.
As for the game structure, at its core this is a linear game, you are progressing through areas and going through a decent, if cliche, revenge-your-destroyed-town story. Areas are a mixture of basic platforming and combat, with some simple puzzles. Areas often have multiple branches, and you will get new items you can equip as you go, so there are Metroidvania elements in the game. Unfortunately, the map is NOT on screen at all times, you must pause to view the map. The lower screen instead has various other mostly much less useful stuff on it. That's bad. My biggest issue here though is, I think, with the combat; it's just dull, I don't enjoy playing this much. The graphical design and music are good, and this game has always theoretically looked interesting, but every time I try to actually play it I want to stop almost immediately. It tries to be good, but is a janky game with issues. It's probably average but not any better than that. The game was first released on 3DS, but is also on Playstation 4, Playstation Vita, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam). The visuals fit the 3DS better than the rest of those systems, so if you really want to play this game this is probably the best way, particularly if you like stereoscopic 3d. The game has a sequel, but the 3DS version of that one was cancelled. It looks like the sequel got even lower reviews than this first one, and reviewers didn't like this game very much.
AiRace Speed - Released by QubicGames in 2013. AiRace was a series of four auto-flying tube racing games on the DSi and 3DS. This genre of very simple flight racing games first appeared in the '00s, probably on cellphones, and eventually moved over to consoles as well. This is the third game in the series, and the first on 3DS. This is a quite nice looking game with some cool futuristic tunnel environments to fly through. There are a total of 22 races here, with most being three-lap races, and a few several other types. The game is not amazing, but is pretty good value for the very low price. The controls are simple -- you fly with the circle pad, rotate your craft left or right with the shoulder buttons, and go a little faster or slower with two face buttons. The challenge is to not hit anything, and it will be tricky as the tunnels are full of obstacles and twists and turns. It controls well and the gameplay is a good mix of fun and frustration, as you learn each track and do better each time. There are three stars to get on each track, mobile game style, depending on how fast you finish. The game can be hard and I'd certainly understand giving up once the game starts requiring you to get silver stars or better on races; that'd require a lot of practice. And the core gameplay is very simple, you just auto-fly forward and dodge stuff. But even so, this game is decent enough to certainly be worth getting. It is only $3.50.
AiRace Xeno - Released by QubicGames in 2014. This game is the last title in the AiRace series. It's basically the same as the previous one, but with new courses and a slightly creepier-alien-look theme to some of the visuals. I like the look of this game, it's pretty cool. However, the game is a dollar cheaper than Speed for a reason, it's got less content -- there are only 13 races here, a big downgrade from the 22 of the last one. They try to make up for this by making the game get hard much more quickly. By only a handful of tracks in you will be required to get multiple stars on earlier courses. Good luck with that one, that'll take quite some memorization. This game is perhaps too frustrating, but it is still a decently good game I enjoy and probably would recommend. I like a more complex game better, but this auto-driving (or in this case flying) genre's a decent amusement here and there. Sure it's frustrating at times, but the game plays well, there are some neat environments here, and the 3d effect is great.
Alchemic Dungeons - by Flyhigh Works and published by Circle in 2017. This game is a simple-looking 2d roguelike. This game started out as a mobile game before being ported to console, but turned out much better than most such conversions. The graphics here may be plain, but I have found this game frustratingly compelling and keep coming back to it time and time again. This is a turn-based overhead roguelike RPG which is broken up into dungeons and with simple sprite-art graphics. You play as one of four characters, each with different stats. The main differentiating feature is that there is a crafting system. You collect a lot of parts as you go, and can combine them in your inventory into other items. However, there is no guesswork here -- all formulas are shown to you in the menu. I love this about the game, I don't like having to guess when crafting things. Each dungeon is longer than the last, and you unlock more item-combination formulas in each new dungeon you reach. You also can attach some items to your equipment to add status effects to the items. These attachments are permanent for the rest of the run, so you need to choose wisely.
This game is frustrating, though. The game can be unfair when you get ambushed by an impossible situation, and as it is a roguelike when you die you have to start over. If you close the program immediately after dying you will go back one turn, but that is not always enough to save you. I wish you had more ways to upgrade your attack power, but you don't; all you can do is very limited upgrades to your weapon type and add the fire item to your weapon. Adding fire to your weapon is the biggest upgrade you can do to your attack, since it gives you a second hit on every attack, but in the later dungeons you need more than that as you get to deeper floors, but there isn't really anything more you can do other than use temporary boost items. This is a pretty good game, but the gradually more and more difficult combat gets frustrating later on in a dungeon. I haven't beaten all of the dungeons in this game yet despite many attempts, with some luck you can have a really good run going until randomly something awful happens and that's it. I know that's the genre, but I'd like more power enhancement options in this game perhaps. And yes, this is a game you can finish, I have finished some of the dungeons. Unfortunately the game doesn't tell you how many floors each dungeon is, that would be good information to know. Still, with a simple and fun to use item combination system and simple but addictive gameplay, Alchemic Dungeons is a good game well worth a try. This is a nice roguelike dungeon crawler to play for a short session here and there, when you don't want to deal with one of the more seriously complex titles in this genre but do want something good. Recommended. There is now also an enhanced Switch and PC DX version of this game, but I have only played this release, but it apparently adds four more character classes to the four from this game among probably other things. This original version is also on iOS, or at least it was at one point.
Ambition of the Slimes - Developed by altairworks and published by Circle in 2016. As with some Circle titles this started out as a mobile game, but it's a good one. This game is an isometric turn-based strategy game with very chunky-pixel sprite art. It looks decent but that's all, you can tell it's a low-budget game. The gimmick here is that you play as a bunch of slimes, trying to get revenge on the human adventurers who like killing them so much. This may seem hopeless, but a slime gets an amazing power at the beginning of the game: the ability to take over a human by going in their mouth. Your goal in each mission is to take over or kill all humans. It's an amusing concept and the game is fun to play. As with most games in this genre it does get hard, though. Each slime can only take over one human per mission and cannot leave once in that person, so you can only take over as many people as you have slimes, and you can only take a few slimes into each mission, there is a limit. You usually start out badly outnumbered, and even once you take over some of the humans you've got your work cut out for you to take them all down without losing. The first few levels are easy enough, but it gets tough quickly. The slimes and humans both come in a bunch of different class types, each with different attacks and abilities, so there's plenty of strategic variety here. I should say, this isn't Fire Emblem -- slimes who died in a mission come back after you win and get experience for it. Given how hard this game is you'll be very glad for that.
This may be a low-budget game, but with a unique concept and good execution, Ambition of the Slimes is a pretty good game. Be prepared for a high challenge, though! This game gets hard early on and I'm nowhere near the end so I can only imagine how much harder it'll get as you proceed. You do need melee range to take people over, while many of them have ranged attacks, and slimes are weak and have little health and no ability to damage humans who attack them, so after a while just managing to take over the people you want to will be tough. The story is kind of messed up since you play as monsters killing humans, but hey, humans in fantasy games spend a lot of time killing slimes, so why not let them get some revenge. I don't know what happens to the humans who have been taken over after you win a level, the game doesn't say, but I assume they are killed; they are entered into the 'humans defeated' list along with ones you killed in a level. This is a simple but good game well worth playing and the 3DS version is good. Also released on iOS, Android, Playstation Vita, PC (Steam), and Nintendo Switch.
Angry Bunnies - Released by Cypronia in 2013. From the name, you might be able to guess at what this game is. Yes, it's an Angry Birds clone... not that Angry Birds was the first game like this either, it wasn't, but anyway. As in that popular title, you need to shoot cute characters, in this case rabbits, at a defensive structure made of board and wall pieces and such, trying to crush all of the defenders inside. This game looks decent and controls fine. You control with the touchscreen, aiming by pulling a line farther or closer from your cannon. This game does nothing that its precessors in the genre didn't, but at least the most important part, the physics, are implemented well and there are a lot of puzzles to break your way through. I like this concept and the 3DS is perfect for a game with stylus controls like this, so this game's well worth a play. The developers later made Wii U and Switch Angry Bunnies games. I assume they are ports of this title, though I'd far rather play it on 3DS or Wii U than Switch due to the Switch's capacitive touchscreen being far less precise for gaming.
Art of Balance TOUCH! - Released by Shin'en in 2012. This is a pretty good logic puzzle game with good 3d visuals and touch-based controls. You need to try to balance a bunch of blocks of various shapes in a stack without the pile falling over. The game has a good physics engine that makes balancing the blocks tricky. It's a challenging and quite fun game. The stereoscopic 3d is quite well done as well, Shin'en as usual are great at graphics tech. This is a simple but very good puzzle game which I recommend for sure, though it will get frustrating! It may start out easy enough, but keep going and you'll see just how hard things get. It's the kind of challenge that keeps you coming back, though. Play this one.
Azure Striker: Gunvolt - Released by Inti Creates in 2014. Azure Striker Gunvolt was the first game in a now somewhat long-running series of anime-styled action-platformers somewhat loosely inspired by the Mega Man X games. This game is okay, but don't get too excited; the graphics are pretty nice, but I don't find the gameplay anywhere near as great to play as it is to look at. Some people really like these games but while I found this game okay, that's about all. This is a slightly above average game maybe worth a look, I guess. I just wish the gameplay and level designs were as good as the flashy visuals. The somewhat bland main character guy doesn't help either. You play as Gunvolt, an anime guy in a power-armor suit who's doing ... something involving opposing an evil organization. The plot is totally incomprehensible unless you really spend time trying to understand it, and it's not well written either. I like plenty of anime, but this anime plot never interested me enough to get me to try to make sense out of it, it seems kind of bad. I last played this game several years ago and remembered almost nothing about what happened when I tried it again to write this. Oh right, it's something about trying to protect a girl. Of course.
As for the gameplay, on the default difficulty Gunvolt is a tedious adventure indeed. But to begin, this is a sprite-art platform-action game in the Mega Man X vein, except without that series' great gameplay. You cannot crouch and control is entirely digital, but you can wall-jump. You get many items to equip, and which ones you equip in the pause menu will change your shot type and other abilities including what kind of extra jumps you get, and more. You also get abilities from bosses in that classic Megaman style. Gunvolt has two basic attacks, a gun and a laser field thing. The gun does very weak damage and locks on to a target, while the laser field does more damage but mostly only attacks at a short range. You can hit enemies farther away if you lock on with the gun then use your field attack, and this is key to making fights not take forever because your gun is very weak. The laser field has limited power, but recharges quickly when not in use. It's a decent concept in theory I guess, but in execution I don't find this design very fun. First, on the default difficulty your health is very high, so you are at very low chance of dying. And if you do die you get resurrected with full health and infinite field power! You need to die a SECOND time to actually die. Dying twice is possible in the harder boss fights, but not otherwise. So, regular enemies are just a nuisance and the stages are somewhat inconsequential. The challenge and fun of a Megaman level is not at ALL present here. The boss fights are better, but this core lock-on-and-hold-attack system just isn't anywhere near as interesting as something which requires more dynamic action such as, oh, Mega Man or Mega Man X. I believe there is a hard mode to make the game require much more active play, but with no quick dodge move I don't know how fun that would be.
On the whole Gunvolt isn't a BAD game, but it isn't a good one either; trying to be objective, this game is average to a bit above average. I just don't like playing it much at all. It's an okay but often boring game far worse than the great classics it was inspired by. I'm not interested or engaged enough to say I'd recommend it to much of anyone. Some people clearly like this series because for some reason there are four, and soon to be five, of these games now, but I'm not one. I didn't finish this game and don't know if I ever will. Also on Switch, Playstation 4, and PC (Steam). Some of these later ports have added features this original 3DS version doesn't have.
Azure Striker: Gunvolt 2 - Released by Inti Creates in 2016. This game is very similar to the first one, but slightly improved. The story is every bit as convoluted and nonsensically badly written as before, except there are two playable characters now, the guy from the first game or a new guy. How about a girl character, like Megaman ZX had? Lolno, they're only here to cheer on the guys and be plot devices. Ugh, that really annoys me about these games. Those games finally put female character in Megaman, but this sort-of-followup series went right back to having male-only playable casts. Too bad, it makes me less interested in playing them. Anyway, the two characters each have different abilities and routes. But after getting several hours into the first game and being quite underwhelmed, while I did buy Gunvolt 2 when it went on sale at some point I never got around to actually trying it until I had to for this list.
Playing some of it now, it's similar to the first game but maybe with even MORE tediously long conversations about the game's sexist and tediously over-complex story and two characters to play as now. Seriously, they just won't stop popping up text boxes! Why did they think people would want so many long conversations in what is supposed to be an action game? It's awful! You can turn off the story, but still, the gameplay's not much better. Gunvolt still is like the first game, so you use the gun to lock on then use your lightning attack to blast them from anywhere. So yeah he's still not that rewarding to play as, I don't like that core concept all that much. The other character, Copen, plays a bit more traditionally -- he does decent damage with his gun, and has a Mega Man X-style dash move. You can lock on to enemies by dashing into them and then shoot missiles at them for more damage. I may like this better than Gunvolt, but not enough so to actually make me want to play this game, not with story and levels this boring and difficulty this absent most of the time. On the positive side, I'd say the graphics and design are similar to the first one but maybe slightly better, so it's a nice looking game. The sprite art and effects are good for this system. However, the gameplay is similar in difficulty to the first one, so most of it is so easy that it's barely even worth thinking about, apart from some bossfights. I have not gotten far in this game but really don't want to have to keep playing it, these games are so boring... these games look nice, but that's about all they have going for them. Also on Switch, Playstation 4, and PC (Steam). Some of these later ports have added features this original 3DS version doesn't have.
My Favorite and Least Favorite Games In This Update
My favorite games this update would be some of the Sega 3D Classics titles. Since it's a game I haven't played all that much before, and it is significantly enhanced by being in 3d, the game in this update I've played the most is probably 3D Super Hang-On. 3D Outrun and 3D Space Harrier are also must-haves. Otherwise, obviously Sonic 2 and Streets of Rage 2 are amazing. Of the games that aren't retro ports, Alchemic Dungeons is my favorite here, followed by Ambition of the Slimes and Art of Balance Touch.
As for my least favorite games this update... wow, it's hard to pick! There are some pretty bad ones here. If I was going by just pure personal bias, I'd say the Azure Striker Gunvolt games... those are the games here that I least want to actually play, I think. However, they are far from the worst games I covered. As much as I don't like playing those games, they certainly are much better than 3D Retro Dungeon Puzzle Challenge in every possible way. That's probably the worst this time. AeternoBlade, Adventure Bar Story, and 80's Overdrive are not very good either.
Best
3D Outrun [Arcade]
3D Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [Genesis]
3D Space Harrier [Arcade]
3D Streets of Rage [Genesis]
3D Streets of Rage 2 [Genesis]
3D Super Hang-On [Arcade]
Good
3D Ecco the Dolphin [Genesis]
3D Gunstar Heroes [Genesis]
3D After Burner II [Arcade]
Alchemic Dungeons
Ambition of the Slimes
Art of Balance TOUCH!
AiRace Speed
AiRace Xeno
Above Average
3D Fantasy Zone [Arcade]
Angry Bunnies
3D MahJongg
Below Average
Azure Striker: Gunvolt 2
Adventure Labyrinth Story
2 Fast 4 Gnomz
Geki Yaba Runner Deluxe
AeternoBlade
Poor
Azure Striker: Gunvolt (subjective worst game here)
36 Fragments of Midnight
Adventure Bar Story
80's OVERDRIVE
Worst
3D Retro Dungeon Puzzle Challenge
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - A Black Falcon - 19th June 2022
I'm nearing completion of part three of this series, when I realized that I never posted part two here! I finished this in late May, but here it is. Part three will be releasing quite soon, there are only two summaries left.
Game Opinion Summaries: Digital-Only Nintendo 3DS Games, Part 2: B & C
In this update I cover the digital 3DS games I own starting with a B or C. I cover some of the greats in this update, including four titles published by Nintendo itself.
Table of Contents
Balloon Pop Remix
Bit Boy!! Arcade
Bit Dungeon Plus
Blaster Master Zero
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon
BoxBoy!
BoxBoxBoy!
Bye-Bye Boxboy!
Brave Dungeon
Brave Tank Hero
Bricks Pinball VI
Bubble Pop World
Candy, Please!
Castle Conqueror EX
Castle Conqueror: Defender
Cazzarion
Chicken Wiggle
Collide-a-Ball
Color Zen
Conveni Dream
Crashmo
Crimson Shroud
CRYGHT
Cube Tactics
The Summaries
Balloon Pop Remix – Published by UFO Interactive in 2012. Balloon Pop Remix is a followup to the low-budget Wii and DS puzzle game Balloon Pop. In this somewhat bland but decent game played exclusively with the stylus, you pop bubbles in a square field of colored bubbles. The game has nice graphics with some good stereoscopic 3d effects on the upper screen while you play on the lower one. You aren’t popping the ones you want to score points on, though; instead, you are deleting bubbles from the field so that the remaining bubbles, which will fly up to fill in the empty spaces, can match up. Bubbles that fill the space you cleared and form into a group of at least three like-colored bubbles will pop, refill your meter some, and allow a potential chain to form if other bubbles on the field fall into threes. It’s important to note that bubbles don’t pop just because there are three same-colored bubbles together, they have to fall in together after a pop to pop themselves. They won’t pop just because some come onto the screen in a same-color block.The controls are simple. You draw lines on the screen with the stylus to pop bubbles, and must pop at least two at a time. As you draw lines, you use up power from the meter. If the meter runs out you lose and have to restart the level. It’s a simple design, or it would be if dealing with that meter wasn’t so tough. However, it is: the core challenge in this game is keeping the meter up. Not only does the meter go down every time you draw a line and remove some bubbles, but the meter also slowly goes down all the time as a timer. If the meter empties, you lose and have to start the level over. And Balloon Pop Remix’s levels are LONG, probably too long. Losing deep in a level is a somewhat painful experience because of how long it can take to get back to that point, and you will lose because this game gets tough eventually.
The game adds some more elements as you go, with special bubbles and such, but that’s the core of it. This is a simple game using a time-tested match-three formula with a slightly different twist. This game starts out easy, but get a few levels in and you’ll realize that it’s actually tricky; thought will be required to stay alive. You need to act quickly and pop the right bubbles to match and, better yet, set off chain reactions to really refill that meter. The concept is solid, if average, but the difficulty gets maybe too hard after a while. I start really struggling at level eight, and there are no difficulty options and again levels are quite long. On the other hand, the game plays well and looks nice. The stereoscopic 3d effects are much better than those in most 3DS puzzle games, if other games even have them at all. Overall this game is alright, though frustratingly hard. It’s a decent game worth a look if you like puzzle games. 3DS digital exclusive.
Bit Boy!! Arcade – Developed and published by Bplus in 2014. This is a sequel to a WiiWare game called Bit Boy. This game is a pretty charming somewhat Pac-Man-ish 3d arcade action game. The game plays from an overhead perspective, and you control a cube character. You move with the d-pad, with fully digital, four-direction, tile-based controls that move you one space at a time, and maneuver through the level avoiding enemies and collecting pickup items scattered around the stage. There is sometimes more to it, but avoid-and-get is the usual gameplay. This isn’t a strict maze like Pac-Man, it’s more of an open level you move around. Once you collect all of the pickups you become invincible and can kill the enemies if you run into them, and leave the stage by finding the exit that opens at this point. If you die, you start the level over. It’s simple but fun enough. You can die without it being your fault, though, as you can’t see the whole stage at once and enemies can be waiting at the end of a one-way corridor, so you turn around, but another enemy has blocked the other way in the meantime. You die, try the level again. You can zoom the camera out some, which is quite helpful, but you need to hold down L or R to do this. It would have been much better if it was a toggle, but unfortunately it’s not. Also, the game does reuse stages a LOT, though — don’t expect a new level every time, you’ll be playing variants of the same level over and over and over. The game mixes things up a bit as you go, but there is a lot of repetition. Even so, I do like the gameplay here. It’s arcade-style fun done competently and the stereoscopic 3d graphics are simple but nice looking.
In between levels is where the most charming part of this game resides, though — the game’s European creator, represented with a pixel-art rendition of his head, and the game’s main character talk about the game, the story of the game, and more. There is no fourth wall at all in this game, it’s fun stuff. The game is fully voiced, and the cube character has a deep voice that’s amusing contrasted with the cartoony cube image. For instance, every so often the cube character you’re playing as complains about the color scheme in the game, after which the level changes colors as the creator responds. It’s entertaining and endearing stuff. The cutscenes are probably the best thing about this game, though, as the gameplay is repetitive and gets frustrating at times. There is plenty of content and replay value here if you get into it, though, and you sometimes get optional abilities beyond just moving around and avoiding things. This game got poor reviews becasue of the simple gameplay and occasional blind deaths, but on the whole I do recommend this game; it’s a 3DS exclusive and even if the gameplay has issues it’s still decent enough, and the very weird story is worth playing the game for. 3DS digital exclusive.
Bit Dungeon Plus – Developed by Cosen and published by Dolores Entertainment in 2017. This is a top-down action roguelike with decent 2d sprite art. It was originally a mobile game. You play as a little knight in armor, fighting lots of monsters in dungeons because that’s what you do in games like this; there’s no real plot here. Unlike most roguelikes there isn’t an inventory here either, not really. You get equippable items, and the lower screen lists your stats, but you can’t view your current equipment. You can customize how your knight looks in each run with stuff you unlock, though. You never actually see your character under that armor.
As mentioned, this is an overhead action game. You have three buttons, for sword, shield, and magic. Your sword attack range is extremely short, so hitting enemies without getting hit yourself is challenging. Your shield is vitally important, you must use it effectively to get very far. You will get stunned if you block for too long so you need to use it well. Magic is less useful; at first your spell is just a short-range stun. I think it grows in power if you beat bosses and get abilities. You have two meters, health and magic. Some drops refill one or the other and your health refills after you clear each floor, and you will level up as you kill enemies, but refilling health can be kind of a pain since, again, there are no items; the only way to refill health is to grind the weak enemies that appear in cleared rooms. Oddly each equipment item has a name, even though you can only see those names when choosing whether to pick it up or not and not after it’s equipped. The game plays on the upper screen, and your stats and such are displayed on the lower screen. When you level up you can choose whether to boost your attack, defense, or critical hit chance. This is one nice element to the game.
So, this game is simple in design. The graphics and combat are a bit like Zelda, but this game is not Zelda, it has no puzzles. Each dungeon in this game is made up of a bunch of rooms connected with doors. There is a map on the lower screen showing how they connect. Unlike many roguelikes, there are no narrow corridors connecting the rooms; each door goes straight into the next room. Each room takes up the upper screen, and as far as I have gotten there are never obstacles in the room, they are always a rectangular room with nothing but a background and enemies to kill. Some enemies or boxes in rooms drop item chests with equipment you can equip if you want. Once you kill all the enemies, a key drops which will unlock one of the doors so you can repeat the process, until you find the floor’s boss room. Bosses are giant enemies with stronger attacks. Beat the boss and it’s on to the next floor.
And that’s all you do. It’s fun for a little while, but is very repetitive. The game plays fine, but refilling your health when you lose it can be difficult, avoiding damage is hard given how close you need to get to enemies to hit them, and with no inventory you’re only really playing for better stat-increasing equipment. I find the game fun for a level or two but not enough to want to keep going after that. There is almost no variety, every room is pretty much identical apart from which enemies are in it, and it’s pretty tough and frustrating. This game has some good ideas but the execution is bland and average. Don’t expect neat 3d effects, either. It may be worth a try if you like these games, I guess. I won’t be going back to this one much. Also on Playstation 4, Playstation Vita, PC/Mac (Steam), Wii U, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and in its original non-Plus form on iOS and Android.
Blaster Master Zero – Developed and published by Inti Creates in 2017. This game has paid DLC. Yes, it’s yet another Inti Creates game. This classic-styled game is the first of what is now three Blaster Master Zero games, a new series based on Sunsoft’s NES classic Blaster Master. This first one is a remake of the original Blaster Maser game for NES. Blaster Master is pretty good, but it’s not a game I played in the ’80s or ’90s so I don’t have nostalgia for it. Still, I like the game and despite my misgivings about the developer, this one’s one of their better games. Unfortunately, only the first of the three games in this series has a 3DS release, but this probably is the best one to have. The game doesn’t take much use of the 3DS’s dual-screen design though so oh well. That is, the game plays on the upper screen exclusively in-game. The lower screen is not used, it just says ‘touch here for the other pause menu’. You need to pause with the Start button to use the inventory or view the map, which is really annoying. The map should have been on the lower screen.
This game is very faithful to the original title. There are modern enhancements, including a firing lock button and some modern anime flair, but the core gameplay and design were taken straight out of the NES original. Perhaps the most important addition is saving. The original was very, very tough, and there was no saving at all. Here, you can save at regular save points, and this is a very welcome change. So, one half of this game is a side-scrolling action-platformer where you control a fast-moving tank exploring open-ended levels, fighting enemies and finding sub-areas. You can also get out of your tank, though you don’t want to do this unless you have to. The other half of the game is a top-down action game where you shoot your way through sub-areas and fight bosses. I’ve always liked the sidescrolling parts of this series better than the topdown part, but it’s good. Mixing genres like this was common on the NES, it was an experimental time, and sometimes it works, as it did in Blaster Master, and by extension Blaster Master Zero because a lot of the level designs and areas in this game are barely altered from the original title. This is more of a remake than it is a sequel. The story is kind of a hybrid of the Japanese and American plots of the original game, which is nice. The sequels are entirely original, but this game isn’t.
This game controls and plays well. The graphics are above NES quality but aren’t fullly pushing modern 2d like Azure Striker Gunvolt does, which is fine; the game has a nice retro-ish look, though the game has that distinctive Inti Creates graphical style that I never love. It’s just kind of bland. On that note, yes, this game is fine. It’s reasonably fun because the controls are good and it’s a remake of a great game. It’s probably good that so much of this game is a remake, Inti Creates aren’t the best at level design. I never feel like Inti Creates games are as great as the games they are inspired by, and this game is no exception, but for an Inti Creates game this game is alright. The magic of the NES game isn’t entirely here, and the game is perhaps too much of a homage, but it’s fun. I like this better than I was expecting, it’s worth playing for sure.
As for the DLC, there are four alternate characters you can buy, for $2 each — Gunvolt, Ekoro (from Gal Gun), Shantae, and Shovel Knight. Yeah, those late two are random, but neat. While in the tank they play identically to Jason, the regular main character, except with the tank in a new color scheme, but when on foot and in the top-down sections each character has entirely different weapons and abilities, so the alternate characters are worth getting. The alternate characters have no story so if you switch to them the story is entirely disabled, but otherwise the game is the same. Overall, Blaster Master Zero is average to good. The port is good, apart from not having the map on the lower screen where it should be, and the game plays and looks good. Also on PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One (with Xbox Series X enhancements).
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon – Developed and published by Inti Creates in 2018. Yes, Inti Creates again. But of the Inti Creates-programmed platform-action games on this list, this is probably the best one. It’s still only good at best, none of these games are great, but it may be worth playing. This is their last 3DS attempt at a somewhat NES-styled game, along with Blaster Master Zero and the two Mighty Gunvolt games which will be covered much later on this list. This game tries to be like Castlevania, instead of Mega Man, and is was designed by longtime Castlevania head Koji Igarashi. Having more than just Inti Creates working on the game clearly helped, because I like this a lot more than their other games. This game is a pretty big improvement over Inti Creates’ other action-platformers on this list, I would say, with nice enough graphics and good level designs and gameplay. That more than just Inti Creates worked on this game is particularly obvious when you compare the level designs here to the one in Inti Creates’ other games, these are much better than their own work.
This game plays a lot like Castlevania, just easier. The main character is a side character from the main Bloodstained game, a very overly serious demon hunter guy. There are also three other characters you will get along the way, including the main game’s main character Miriam. The four characters each play differently and have different abilities, sort of like Castlevania III. It’s fun stuff. The game has some good replay value too, because there are several unlockable alternate modes after you beat it. You will beat the game, though, because that point I made earlier about it being easy is noteworthy. Don’t expect a NES Castlevania game challenge here. Curse of the Moon is fun, but it’s the kind of game you can get through in not too long if you keep at it, this is only a moderate challenge at best. This game’s alright, but it isn’t anywhere near as challenging, or substantive, as the NES games it imitates. Even so though, with good controls, gameplay, characters, and levels, it’ll be decent fun while it lasts. Also on Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC (Steam), Playstation Vita, and Xbox One. The game has a sequel which unfortunately isn’t on 3DS.
BoxBoy! – Developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo in 2015. BoxBoy! is a great side-scrolling puzzle-platformer game done in black and white, with some shades of grey. Color is used very sparingly for specific highlights and effects and such. The game has very nice, and simple, pixel art graphics that fit the game perfectly. The overall look is very much like something from the original Game Boy, except with a higher graphic resolution and a bit of color in spots. It looks great. But while the graphics here are simple, the gameplay isn’t! In this game you play as the BoxBoy, and can move and make boxes extend out of your boxy body. You can create boxes on the left, right, or top side of your body and move around while holding them. You can also drop or throw the boxes. The number of boxes you can create at a time varies depending on the level, each one has a preset maximum number of boxes at a time. Your challenge will be trying to use this power to get through many carefully designed puzzle levels. You need to reach the exit door in each level. In addition to platforms you will face various other obstacles, including falling blocks, spikes, and such. Every level is carefully crafted and well thought through.
In addition to the main goal of reaching the exit door, there also are several crown items to get in each level. These must be reached within a preset number of boxes used total in the stage in order to collect them. Trying to get to the crowns without using too many boxes adds additional challenge to already-tricky puzzles. You can buy various alternate costumes to wear, which is a nice touch. This is a great, and compelling, game that you’ll come back to until you finish it or get stuck somewhere and give up, because this game is HARD. Getting the first ending is doable, and is well worth it to see the ending of this simple but interesting story about your box boy and his box world, but the post-game levels are numerous and incredibly difficult. I admit, I did not finish them, they get crazy hard quickly. You’ll need some good logical thinking to get through this game, but it’s fantastic all the same. This game will frustrate you but in a good way. BoxBoy is a simple but genius game from HAL, it’s a definite must-play. I would say more, but I don’t want to spoil the puzzles! Play this game and experience them yourself. This trilogy is probably collectively the overall best digital-only game(s) on the 3DS. 3DS exclusive. Western Digital exclusive.
BoxBoxBoy! – Developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo in 2016. The second game in the series is more of the same, except with some new abilties and lots of new tricky levels to struggle through. It’s just awesome that this series continued, the first game was original and great enough to definitely make me want more. This game is great! Tough, sure, but great. The main new feature here is that this time you can create multiple separate stacks of boxes, so you can, for instance, leave two different boxes on two different switches to get through a door. That’s about all that differentiates this game from the first one, but that’s fine, more of the same is what I wanted after playing the first game. It starts out easy too, so this is not a game designed just for people who finished the first one. You can play these games in any order, and each one starts out easy but gets hard as it goes along.
I like the first BoxBoy game a lot, but this sequel may be even better, because it’s the same thing but with a new new ability that adds to the puzzles. Figuring out how to create and move your boxes to allow you to get through each level while getting the stuff you need can be tough, but it’s very satisfying when you finally figure out a puzzle. This game won’t convince people who somehow didn’t like the first one, but for everyone else, I recommend getting all three; they’ll give you plenty of content to play for quite a while. These kinds of games are perfect for playing a bit of here and there. This game is great stuff. Buy it. 3DS exclusive. Western Digital exclusive.
Bye-Bye Boxboy! – Developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo in 2017. This is the third game of the 3DS BoxBoy trilogy. So, expect more of the same as in the first two games: you’ve got a new set of tricky puzzles to get through with your box-creation powers in a mostly monochromatic world. For some reason, they removed the multiple box stacks feature from this game, at least initially; it returns to the original game’s single-stack style. As you go new elements are introduced here, though. This time you will travel through multiple planets on your cube ship, each with a different visual theme in the background. New obstacles appear as well, and new gameplay challenges. Most notably there, you will now have many levels which are escort missions. In these levels a child cube person needs to be rescued. It’s initially one, though the game gets harder the farther you get in, of course. After you save them the child will follow you around, and you need to keep them safe from danger. It’s actually well thought through and pretty fun, as you try to figure out how to both keep the child alive and get the crowns in each stage. This game is just as fantastic as either of its predecessors. Yes, it’s again the same basic thing, but when you have a somewhat original idea done very well, making more of that is good.
After this games’ release, Nintendo published a trilogy collection on cartridge… in Japan only. I have no idea why the cart release didn’t come out over here, it absolutely should have, but it stayed Japan only, unfortunately. It’s awful that this wasn’t localized! Unless you want to have to import that collection, called the ‘HakoBoy! Hakozume Box’, make sure to buy these games while the 3DS eShop is still available. This series continued with a fourth game on the Switch. It is just as much of a must-play as these three are. 3DS exclusive. Western Digital exclusive.
Brave Dungeon – Developed by Inside System and published by CIRCLE in 2017. Brave Dungeon is a topdown dungeon-crawler RPG spinoff starring one of the various female characters from the Dark Witch series of platform-action games, which I will cover later in this list. This game is a simple but fun dungeon crawler. The most unique feature about Brave Dungeon is that enemies cannot move. Instead, marked tiles on the map have enemies on them and when you walk onto those tiles you fight a battle. You won’t be able to avoid combat though, because the mazelike levels lead you through many enemies as you look for treasure and the route to the boss and the next floor. I like exploring the mazelike levels, and love that the game has an on-screen automap that fills out as you go. Oh, levels here are networks of straight paths with intersections; this isn’t styled after Rogue. You do level up as you get experience so this is an RPG, but levels don’t increase your stats, you have to buy stat upgrades in town between runs. It sometimes feels like almost as much of a puzzle game as anything. That’s fine, it’s a fun game.
Combat is similarly simple. The game has standard JRPG battles, the two teams of players go back and forth attacking or using spells or items. Items are purchased in town and regenerate when you go back to town, so you don’t need to keep rebuying the same stuff, which is pretty cool. I like this system. Your party will include three characters at a time from a roster of at least five girls. You can switch in town. When you are in town you can buy items and abilities and such and make equipment out of stuff you have collected if you have all of the right parts. You can also spend money to upgrade your characters’ stats, as mentioned. You’ll need to choose whether you want to spend on stats or items, or grind for both.
So, this game is simple, but I do like playing it. Exploring the maps is fun. One unique element here is that there are five dungeons which you will go back and forth between. You unlock shortcuts after beating the boss on each floor, so when you return back to the town you won’t have to redo the whole floor. Once you beat a floor’s boss you get a key, and your goal is to finish all ten floors in each dungeon. This game is simple fun. The challenge level is just about right; it’s not too easy or too hard. You will need to go back and forth between dungeons once you reach floors too hard for your current party, but with the shortcuts and such that’s fine. Anyway, if you lose you just get warped back to town without penalty. Overall, Brave Dungeon is decent. This game isn’t amazing, but it’s a fun little game worth playing if you like this genre. This is actually probably my favorite Dark Witch-related game, I have much more mixed feelings about the main platformer trilogy. This version of the game is 3DS exclusive, though there’s a collection for PC and Switch which includes this game and a second title not on the 3DS, Dark Witch Story: COMBAT.
Brave Tank Hero – Developed by Arc System Works and published by Natsume in 2015. This game is a third person tank action game. You choose from three different tanks, and go on over 50 missions to destroy enemy tanks and defend areas and such. The game has appealing cartoony graphics and good gameplay and controls. There are two control schemes available, but I prefer the advanced one, which uses the dpad and buttons to emulate a tank’s two engines, so you push both forward to go forward and one up and one down to turn. Standard tank controls there, it’s easy to get used to with a little practice and you get much better controls than the default mode. You also have independent turret control on the shoulder buttons and can shoot with a button. The controls here are great, I really like that twin-stick controls are present. Each mission in this game is a short challenge against a handful of enemies. The pacing is good and gameplay fun and challenging. The game has an interesting way of limiting the draw distance, too — the world in the game curves away extremely quickly, as if the entire world was minuscule. This allows a shorter draw distance without popup and it has a unique look I like. There’s really not much bad to say about this game; the graphics, controls, and gameplay are all good, and the missions have some variety as well. Definitely pick this game up while you can. It’s also on Wii U, without the stereoscopic 3d but with higher resolution graphics of course. It’s good on either platform. Buy this game.
Bricks Pinball VI - By nuGame, released in 2021. This is the so-far-last of at least 25 Breakout/Arkanoid-style blockbreaking games that nuGame released on the 3DS. Yes, twenty five games, in several different sub-series, including Double Breakout, Bricks Pinball, Maze Breaker, Pinball Breaker, and Bricks Defender. With that many releases one would hope this game would be good, or at least competent. Unfortunately, it is neither. This game has decently nice graphics. Many of nuGame's 3DS blockbreaking games are played from an overhead view, but this one has an angled isometric view, more like looking at a pinball table. Each level is about two screens tall, and you see the upper half on the upper screen and the full view on the lower screen. There is a paddle at the bottom and in the middle, so you have two. This fits the 3DS's display well and works great design-wise. Some stages have additional controllable pinball flippers on the sides. The graphics are in stereoscopic 3d and the blocks and such look fine. It is plain, but at least it's in real 3d. Audio is very generic and forgettable.
The problems begin when you start playing it, when you will realize that this game, on the 3DS, has digital-only controls. You can use the analog stick or dpad, but either way control is entirely digital. Considering how much analog controls help blockbreaking games and that the touch screen or analog stick would give you much better control than a dpad, I have no idea why they went with this control scheme, but they did. And the issues don't stop there. Given the "slightly pinball-ish breakout" theme, some levels have pinball flippers, as mentioned, and pinball bouncers as well. The bouncers are nice since the ball actually will bounce around decently after hitting them. The flippers are weird, though, they're just kind of ... there. You can make them move with a button, but the ball will only sometimes actually correctly bounce off of them; other times it'll just pass through. There is just wonderful physics and collision detection here.
Bricks Pinball VI - By nuGame, released in 2021. This is the so-far-last of at least 25 Breakout/Arkanoid-style blockbreaking games that nuGame released on the 3DS. Yes, twenty five games, in several different sub-series, including Double Breakout, Bricks Pinball, Maze Breaker, Pinball Breaker, and Bricks Defender. With that many releases one would hope this game would be good, or at least competent. Unfortunately, it is neither. This game has decently nice graphics. Many of nuGame's 3DS blockbreaking games are played from an overhead view, but this one has an angled isometric view, more like looking at a pinball table. Each level is about two screens tall, and you see the upper half on the upper screen and the full view on the lower screen. There is a paddle at the bottom and in the middle, so you have two. This fits the 3DS's display well and works great design-wise. Some stages have additional controllable pinball flippers on the sides. The graphics are in stereoscopic 3d and the blocks and such look fine. It is plain, but at least it's in real 3d. Audio is very generic and forgettable.
The problems begin when you start playing it, when you will realize that this game, on the 3DS, has digital-only controls. You can use the analog stick or dpad, but either way control is entirely digital. Considering how much analog controls help blockbreaking games and that the touch screen or analog stick would give you much better control than a dpad, I have no idea why they went with this control scheme, but they did. And the issues don't stop there. Given the "slightly pinball-ish breakout" theme, some levels have pinball flippers, as mentioned, and pinball bouncers as well. The bouncers are nice since the ball actually will bounce around decently after hitting them. The flippers are weird, though, they're just kind of ... there. You can make them move with a button, but the ball will only sometimes actually correctly bounce off of them; other times it'll just pass through. There is just wonderful physics and collision detection here.
On that note, the physics engine is perhaps the worst thing about this game. The game runs somewhat slowly and is kind of boring to play. But it's not slow because of great graphics, though the 3d effect is solid other than that it is very plain, or competent physics, because it doesn't have that, for sure. It's just slow. The ball does not at all follow natural bouncing physics, instead tending towards going straight up and down unless you hit it with momentum. Hitting it with the sides of your paddle won't change its angle much at all, you should actually be moving when you hit it in order to get it to do something different. And even when you do get it bouncing around, the way balls bounce around looks slow and clearly off. On the other hand, you don't need to destroy every block to proceed, only a percentage of them which is told to you. This is a nice touch. Also, there is no saving in this ga,e you have to play it in one sitting. There are "only" 15 levels, but that's probably ten more than I have patience for. Given how many games in this genre nuGame released and how cheap they are, 15 levels isn't too bad, and each does have a unique layout. That's still far less than better games in this genre, of course. Overall, Bricks Pinball VI is a semi-playable disappointment with more bad than good. If this is nuGame's last Breakout-style game, I wish they had put more effort into making their games play better and less into pumping out a high volume of titles. The 3DS would be a great platform for a dual-screen blockbreaking game with paddles on each screen, and the angled perspective is a good idea. It's a shame about the rest of it, but between the poor controls, bad physics, slow gameplay, and more, there is a lot that would need to be fixed for this game to be good. I wanted to get at least ONE of nuGame's dozens of Breakout-style games on 3DS, to see what they were like, and I guess I'm glad I did, but you should not. Definitely pass on this and probably all of the rest of their games too. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Bubble Pop World – By Cypronia, released in 2014. As a note, this game is NOT in any way related to the early ’00s puzzle game Super Bubble Pop for the PS1 and Gamecube. That game I moderately liked, but this is from a different developer and publisher and has nothing to do with it. What this game is is a match-three puzzle game which heavily uses the 3DS’s often-forgotten rear-facing 3d camera. This is an AR game that requires the question mark block AR card that a 3DS system came with in its alternative-reality cards pack. This is one of the few games on the 3DS other than the built-in AR games which actually use the AR card(s). Fortunately, the used New 3DS I got some years ago was complete in box and did come with the AR cards, so I can play this game. … Well, I say fortunately, but this really isn’t great. This game tries to use hardware in the 3DS that almost no games use, most notably the camera but also the motion sensor, which is how you move the in-game cursor, but I’d rather just play a regular game which has regular controls and graphics. Oh, and I’d rather have better gameplay than this has, too. Bubble Pop World is heavy on the minigames and light on fun puzzle gameplay, but again the core design is part of the issue. Sure, the stereoscopic 3D imagery is cool and the AR thing is kind of neat I guess, but I’ve never cared much about the AR games thing and this does not convince me. I mean, it’s just showing something on a screen over an image from its camera, it doesn’t actually create anything in reality.
So, in this game, there are two modes. One is a puzzle mode where you need to solve preset puzzles with the specific bubbles you are gien, and the other an arcade mode where you alternate between puzzle-ish levels and minigames. In normal puzzle stages, you take your 3DS and point the camera at that question mark block AR card. The playfield is the card, and some bubbles will appear on the screen floating over the card. It’s pretty annoying because I want to be able to point my 3DS any direction I want and play it in the dark and such, but you can’t do that here; you need to be playing somewhere where it’s bright enough to see the AR card and the card is fully visible in the system’s rear camera. You move the camera by moving your 3DS and activating its motion sensor, and fire a bubble with a button. The controls work well but are a little slow. Your goal is to clear the field with the bubbles you are given without having any extra bubbles left over. Shooting a bubble can set off a chain reaction which sends other bubbles flying off the screen, so you need to be careful with your shots. Arcade mode starts out easy, with simple puzzles which let you keep shooting bubbles if you don’t win in the shortest possible number of turns. However, why is there a minigame after every single puzzle level? There are only eight minigames, many fewer than the number of stages, so they repeat constantly. they are neat the first time, but the minigame-to-main-gameplay ratio here is badly out of balance. The minigames do mix things up by having full-screen 3d polygonal graphics instead of the camera’s view for a background, but they should have been one for every handful of levels finished, not one per level. 50% of arcade mode is those same eight minigames over and over. It’s not great.
As for puzzle mode, it is hard from the start, with tricky puzzles and zero margin for error. There is usually only one solution to each puzzle and you must find it to proceed. I may not have a lot of fun with this game, but there IS plenty of challenge here I will admit. And Bubble Pop World does get points for using most of the 3DS’s hardware features; it uses the camera, tilt sensor for the core controls, touchscreen (for menus), and even has a puzzle creator which you can share resulting levels with friends via QR codes. So it might be worth a look for all of that. But the gameplay? Puzzle mode is frustratingly hard, and while a few games make that style of puzzle fun for me this is not one of them. And Arcade mode is pretty annoying due to being 50% minigames that are even less good than the puzzles. Some would say I’m being too hard on this game I’m sure, but I don’t find AR games very interesting and the gameplay here loses me even more. This is, at its core, a generic and mediocre match-three puzzle game with design flaws such as too many minigames in the arcade mode and below average gameplay and controls. Apart from the stereoscopic 3d AR graphics, which are somewhat unique, you can do much better on this console than this. Pass on this game unless you’re interested in the tech. I am not. 3DS digital exclusive.
Candy, Please! – Developed and published by Nostatic Software, released in 2017 (port of an earlier mobile game). This game is part of what I believe is a five-game series of adventure games called the Quiet Games series. The series started on phones, but the games also released on console. Well, five of the games did, if there are more past that they haven’t. Only three released on 3DS, though, the first, fourth, and fifth, each sold separately. Yeah, it’s kind of odd. (A Wii U collection includes the first four titles all together, but the fifth one, Turkey, Please, is only on consoles on 3DS.) This game is the fourth one, though they are all stand-alone. All of these games are very graphically simple pixel-art adventure games with huge chunky pixels. It’s not going for a realistic retro console look, but instead just a generic modern low-rez pixel art style. As the name suggests it has a halloween theme. All of these games feel heavily nostalgia-laden, as they were clearly designed by someone wanting the player to think of childhood in the ’90s. The simple graphics are not impressive but work fine and look nice.
You play as a girl, who is the lead in all of the games, and it’s Halloween. You need to find costumes, go with your hyperactive little brother to get candy, and along the way solve plenty of classic adventure game item-manipulation puzzles. This gameplay is standard for the genre, but it’s not easy; you’ll need to look carefully to find everything you can interact with. The game is short and the puzzles are not always intuitive, but hey that’s adventure games, figuring out what to do is the fun part. This game is a decent to good little indie title which is worth a try if you like the genre. It’s nice that these games didn’t stay stuck on cellphones forever. The very simple, massive-pixels sprite art graphics and nostaligic feel of the setting and story work well, and the puzzles are mostly well thought through. Nostatic Software published some not so great stuff but these adventure games are probably their best work and are above average. Also on PC (Steam), iOS, Xbox 360, Playstation Vita, Wii U, and Xbox One. The Wii U and PC versions are both titled the Quiet Collection and contain the first four games.
Castle Conqueror EX – Published by CIRCLE Entertainment in 2014. This is one of those strategy games where there are a bunch of bases on a single-screen stage screen which auto-generate troops, and you play by selecting one of your bases and sending them towards other bases to try to take them over. The game is played exclusively with the stylus, which is great. You can select how many troops to put in each army you send out. In this case, the bases are castles. This game is sixth game in its series; the first five are DSiWare games, then the last two are 3DS eshop games. Your enemy is doing the same thing at the same time, though, and there are neutral castles too, so the challenge is to try to overwhelm them before you get crushed. The strategic gameplay is simple but a lot of fun, I like this style of game. I know the concept comes from mobile games, but it is fun.
This game has a few issues, though. First, you can only have five armies on screen at once. So, once you’ve sent out five groups of soldiers, you need to wait until one dies until you can send another group. Worse, this game is very grindey. The game seems fun at first, and you will make progress, but eventually you will realize that some levels are way too hard to beat naturally. Instead, you’ll need to repeatedly play earlier levels for money, because this game has an upgrade system. You can buy permanent upgrades to eight stats for money, and inventory items which have various effects as well. And you will make a little money for replaying levels you have beaten before. The first big grind cliff hits at level 1-10; the first nine aren’t bad, but level 10 is much harder. You start at a big disadvantage, with fewer weaker castles than the enemy has, and will need better stats to keep up. I had to replay older levels several dozen times, probably, to build up enough stats to clear that stage. And that’s how the game is from that point on, it’ll be almost impossibly hard if you just try to beat each level once. This game is fun and I like the nice sprite art graphics and the gameplay, but the grind is frustrating and has kept me from going sticking with it anywhere near as long as I otherwise would. It is maybe worth getting if you like this kind of game like I do, though. 3DS digital exclusive.
Castle Conqueror: Defender – Published by Circle Entertainment in 2014. This is the last title in the Castle Conqueror series. This is a very different game from the last one, though — this time the game tries to be more of a full-on defense-focused strategy game. Each level is a multiscreen overhead stage, with enemies coming at you from the left towards your castle’s defenses on the right. You design your defenses in the first phase in each level, and then go into the fight. Each battle consists of several rounds, with a building phase for you to prepare initial defenses, then an enemy attack, then your next building phase. The game uses a combination of button and touch controls, so it takes some getting used to, but the controls work fine. All-touch controls might have been better, though. During battle you can move troops around and such, RTS style, to stop the enemies coming at you. You can only select one unit at a time, so movement is pretty clunky, but you can move them. However you can’t build new troops or defenses or such, that is only for the first phase. You have limited money with which you can buy troops and repair or build defenses, and get more after each round of the battle. This game has a great concept, I like this kind of game for sure; it’s kind of like a very simplified version of Stronghold (the PC game) crossed with elements of a tower defense game. This game is nowhere near as great as Stronghold or the best TD (tower defense) games, but it is a fun title well worth playing if you like strategy games.
The game is definitely tough, though. If you do poorly in the later round of a battle you may be in an unwinnable situation that will force you to restart the whole thing, since you only have limited rebuilding and unit repurchasing funds after each round. You also need to make sure to build your castle walls just right, because units can only move along a fully connecting wall, and wall segments are two tiles wide. If you have two walls that are one tile apart, there’s not much you can do, you can’t connect those walls with a path your archers will be able to move along during battle. Archers on a wall also can’t go down off of that wall to move to a different wall during battle, they’re stuck there unless the wall is destroyed. This works because of the games’ phase-based nature, but it does emphasize the importance of good planning in your castle design. These limitations can be annoying, but once you get used to it building defenses and then managing your forces during the attack is pretty fun. The game isn’t entirely balanced, some strategies are going to work better than others, but still I enjoy this game.
And here’s the best news: if you lose, you can keep trying! In fact, the game rewards you for losing. If your hero leader unit or base fortress are destroyed, you can simply try again from the start of that phase, and the game will give you a little bit of money to spend on a few things on top of that. So, are you losing because you didn’t have quite enough money for enough traps to slow down the enemy? After losing you may have enough money for it the next time. This helps a lot at making the game more fun. I love defense-focused strategy games of all kinds and this is a good one. There is more to learn with this game than Castle Conqueror EX, but it is rewarding and ultimately more fun since the game feels better balanced and less grindey. Sure, you may do some grinding here, but not nearly as much as in EX. Overall, this game is not the deepest, and as a tower defense fan I am certainly biased here, but I like this game for sure and recommend it, to genre fans at least. 3DS digital exclusive.
Cazzarion – Developed and published by Zarpazo in 2020. New 3DS required. This game is a very basic space shooter. The game has three modes. One is a static-screen shooter, Space Invaders style but much less good since the controls are not especially responsive and it’s missing Space Invaders’ better touches such as the bases to hide behind. The second is a scrolling shmup, though it’s a very simple one; you just go forwards in an endless stage, killing enemies until you die. The ships are decently drawn and I do like the 3d planet backgrounds, that’s probably the highlight of the game. Apart from that though there’s not much here of any note. This game has okay graphics, poor controls, no music, only one or two sound effects, menus that are harder to navigate than they should be, and little reason to go back; all the game saves is your one best score per mode. I would say don’t bother buying this game, but I’m pretty sure it has been delisted. That’s too bad, because the one thing about the game that was charmingly intresting was the insanely long text description on the eshop page! It just went on and on and on, describing the backstory of the game and stuff, in semi-intelligible English. I wonder if there’s a copy of it anywhere, I can’t find the game anymore in the eshop. If you have a way to play this game though… meh, try it for a minute or two, why not. Or don’t, there’s no real reason to play it. Also available on Xbox One and PC. That version is still for sale. It may still be up on the 3DS eshop in Europe as well; the game is European.
Chicken Wiggle – Developed and published by Atooi in 2017. This game did have a physical release from Limited Run in the Atooi Collection, but let’s not count them. Chicken Wiggle is a pretty good 2d platformer game and toolkit. This is a pretty tough but seriously under-rated title. It’s a high quality game which deserved a lot more attention than it got. In this game, which is a 2d side-scrolling platformer, you play as a cute cartoon chicken with a worm on its back. The sprite art is great, with a strong cartoony style, and the stereoscopic 3d looks fantastic with great depth. Levels are generally linear platforming affairs. Your goal is usually to reach a captured chicken in a cage at the end of the stage. You can collect gems along the way, and also hidden letters if you want to search for passages behind hidden walls and such in order to get everything in each stage.
For abilities, your chicken can move with the d-pad, and with three buttons jump, peck, and use the worm as a grappling hook. The worm goes straight out in the direction you are facing and attaches to a wall on the other side, if one is in range. Hitting enemies with the worm will often stun them, making them much easier to kill with a peck; you die in one hit, so getting close to them otherwise is very dangerous. Now, in this game, some game elements are always going, but others work based on your movement. Flipping blocks switch between being there or not depending on your jumps, for instance. Some enemies are similar, and only move when you jump. Worm grapples will not change any of these objects’ states, but a jump will. This is a pretty interesting system that adds quite a bit to the challenge. Some things are based on your movement, as well, such as balloons which allow you to go a certain number of tiles before disappearing. Other enemies move all the time though, so it’s an interesting mix. You will have to go through each stage carefully, learning its obstacles and challenges, before succeeding in clearing the stage. Fortunately levels have checkpoints, so you won’t need to restart them from the beginning each time. If you want to make the game even harder you can turn off checkpoints, though I would not recommend it.
But while the main campaign is plenty of challenging platforming fun, as I said, this isn’t just a single-player game, it has a level editor and online level sharing, too. As a huge Mario Maker fan, that’s awesome! Of course this game wasn’t exactly a hit, but it did well enough for some people to make levels that you can play online. That’s really awesome. There are some limitations, though — this game has no difficulty system at all for online levels, and no timer or deaths counters either. There also is no equivalent to the 100 Man or Endless modes in Mario Maker games. Instead, all you can do here is just select a level from a list of stages, with no hints about how hard each of the levels is apart from the level’s name since no such metrics are provided. There’s plenty of fun to be had there, but it is frustrating when you end up in a really hard level by accident. But hey, at least it has online level sharing at all, that is quite rare for this kind of game! It’s awesome stuff.
Overall, Chicken Wiggle will definitely frustrate you due to the challenge of its often fairly precise platforming, but the game has great, very responsive controls, a good toolkit, and good game design. This is probably my next favorite download-only platformer on the 3DS after the BoxBoy games. It even has a level editor and online level sharing! Very cool. Definitely pick this one up if you like platformers. Also on Nintendo Switch.
Collide-a-Ball – Published by Starsign in 2016. This is a 3d logic puzzle game. Starsign’s games all have similar-looking menus and similarly simple visuals, but it works. It plays on an isometric field, and there are three gameplay modes. As the name suggests, the main, 30-puzzle mode is about trying to make similarly colored balls crash into eachother. You can move around and rotate objects such as ramps and speed strips in each puzzle, trying to get everything into an arrangement where the balls will hit eachother when you hit the button to send them both off. You need to line it up so both are on the target square at the same time, which can be tricky. It’s an alright but fun puzzle game with simple graphics and good puzzles.
There are two additional modes, too. Second is a 20-puzzle mode which is just a little timing puzzle. You can’t rearrange anything here, you just hit the button once to set off the first ball, and again to set off the second, trying to time it so they are both on the target block at the same time. This is tricky but much less fun than the main mode, it’s not really a puzzle just a mediocre stopwatch simulator of sorts. The third mode is a 10-puzzle mode where there is only one ball, and you need to arrange the field so that it stops exactly on the target block. These puzzles are hard right from the start! It’s fun, though. Collide-a-Ball is nothing amazing, but it’s a quality logic puzzle game worth picking up while you can. 3DS digital exclusive.
Color Zen – Developed by Large Animal Games and published by Cypronia in 2014. Cypronia is mostly a publisher of pretty bad games, but this one is a major exception to that! Color Zen is a pretty cool logic puzzle game. Each puzzle is a single screen made up of various colored zones, and you need to figure out what order to touch each one in so that you turn the whole screen the color of the puzzle’s border. It’s a compelling logic puzzle game with plenty of challenge and fun. I think puzzle games like this are perfect for the 3DS’s handheld, stylus-using design, and highly recommend this one. It may come from a developer who also has made some bad games, but this one’s borderline great. There are a lot of puzzles, and a good difficulty curve too, as things start easy but steadily get tougher and tougher to figure out. I love this game, the color-based visual aesthetic is cool and the gameplay is original enough to be different from other logic puzzle games while also being very well designed and executed. Also on Wii U, iOS, Android, and Playstation 4. This game is not 3DS exclusive, but I would say this is the best way to play the game and recommend it for sure. It’s really too bad that other than the younger-audiences-focused Color Zen Kids, no other sequels for this game were made. It’s great!
Conveni Dream – Published by Circle Entertainment in 2016. This game is a highly simplified convenience store management simulator. You hire staff, lay out a small Japanese convenience store, choose what goes on each set of shelves, and start selling. The problem is, calling this a simulator is almost false advertising; you barely need to do ANYTHING in this game, once you have your store set up and provided that you keep the shelves stocked as they sell out, the game basically plays itself. There are few detailed economic menus to deal with here. Pretty much all you do is watch the store run, while occasionally clicking on an empty shelf or cooler or such once everything on it sells and choosing what to put there instead, from the limited number of options available. Some item types have short expiration dates and others longer ones, so setting things which expire sooner means you’ll need to go back to that shelf sooner, but it doesn’t really matter financially because this store makes money regardless. Oh, you also do a little hiring, but there aren’t many applicants, you pretty much just hire the people you’re offered. Overall this is not a BAD game, I guess, but there is so little actual gameplay here that I can’t recommend it unless you like very easy and boring games you basically can’t lose but also can’t really beat. Seriously, there’s basically nothing to this. So long as you don’t leave the shelves empty, you cannot mess up enough that customers stop coming in. Its sequel, Restaurant Dream, is a much better, more full-fledged simulation. This one is only for timewaster-game fans. I am not one. I find this game pretty boring. 3DS digital exclusive.
Crashmo –Published by Nintendo and developed by Intelligent Systems in 2012. Crashmo is a the second game in the four-game Pushmo/Crashmo series, a series of puzzle-platformer games starring a cartoony guy in a sumo wrestling outfit for some reason. Now, this is a series, but this game makes some big changes from the first one, so I think it is fair to cover it separately. In each game you manipulate an image, pulling or pushing or in this case crashing into parts of it to activate or de-activate different colored sections in order to try to climb to the top of the picture. Each level starts with a 2d image made of blocks. Each pixel block image is made up of various colors. Each group of identically-colored blocks is a single piece which you can move around with your silly-looking character. He may look silly, but this game is a serious challenge. Crashmo plays like a platformer, as you move the character around in three dimensions and walk, jump, and move groups of blocks, but plays like a puzzle game. The challenge is not in the platforming, it is in trying to figure out which sequence of moves will let you jump to the top of the structure.
Now, in the first game you can pull any of the color sections in and out at will, to make stairs. In this one however, each piece fully moves separately, and if you pull one off of the other blocks supporting it that piece will fall to the ground. That makes this game much trickier than the first one, you will need good puzzle solving and strategic thinking skills here. There are some other new objects here as well, including switches and more. Getting to the top may seem simple at first, but this game gets very challenging pretty quickly. It’s easy to see why this series caught on enough to see multiple entries on both 3DS and Wii U, but it is something that will frustrate when you get stuck on a level and just can’t figure out what to do. Pushmo is easier, but this one is probably better. The graphics, gameplay, controls, and puzzles are all great, and there are plenty of puzzle levels to work through. Crashmo’s a good game well worth playing, I certainly recommend it. Pick up these games while you can, Nintendo did not release them on physical media. The series contains Pushmo (3DS), Crashmo (3DS), Pushmo World (Wii U), and Stretchmo (3DS). Sadly after that fourth game Nintendo cancelled the series; they should bring it back. 3DS digital exclusive.
Crimson Shroud – Developed by Nex Entertainment and published by Level 5 in 2012. This game is a tabletop RPG-inspired JRPG from Yasumi Matsuno and Level-5, two big names in JRPGs. It is also a 3DS exclusive that any RPG fan definitely should play. This is no standard JRPG, though; this game takes the “tabletop RPG” part of what I said earlier very seriously. This is the most tabletop RPG-inspired JRPG I’ve ever played. In this game, you play as a warrior guy, in a party of three with an archer guy and mage girl. You are exploring a crumbling ruined fortress infested with monsters, looking for treasure and monsters to fight. All characters are shown on one of the screens as literal immobile figures on bases, as if they were miniatures in a tabletop game. You are playing as the character(s) directly, though, not as people playing AS those characters in a tabletop game. The story isn’t original but is interesting and well told. The game plays on a map of the castle, drawn as if it is on paper. You can only go to certain rooms in the fortress. You don’t move around in each room, each one serves as an event spot. Some rooms will almost always have an enemy encounter, others treasure chests, others just a story cutscene. And there is a lot of story in this game, mostly either told by a narrator or by the characters talking to eachother. Going to certain rooms will unlock new rooms, or new events in other rooms. It’s a pretty good system, and the game has plenty more depth in its battle, equipment, and other gameplay systems.
However, I should get the downsides out of the way first. This is a relatively short game with only the one fortress to explore. It’s a seven hour game on average for the main story. And in that time, despite there being no random battles, you’ll spend a fair amount of time grinding fights as you go back and forth between rooms trying to figure out where to go in order to proceed, since it is not always apparent what you need to do next — sometimes going to a room unlocks the next one, but there are trickier parts. Do you need to go to a certain room a second time? Fight somewhere until you get a certain item you need to proceed? Or something else? Who knows, the game can be quite unintuitive in this respect. While that certainly fits the classic tabletop RPG style, that’s not something I enjoy. You may need to look up help at points.
At least though, those fights are decently interesting. Now, the tabletop RPG side of this has a lot of influence from Dungeons & Dragons, but the battle system here is pure JRPG. Your characters start with health in the hundreds, and each hit does dozens of hit points of damage. That’s definitely JRPG numbers. Each character can attack, guard, or use magic each turn, and also can use a skill if you want after doing an attack. Skills aren’t attacks, they do things such as refilling your magic points. You can also boost attacks with dice you will earn. Whenever you roll dice, for a boost or some other reasons, you actually throw some dice on the lower screen; it’s a really cool touch. You don’t need to roll for every attack, but still, it’s great. Anyway, some abilities are linked to the weapon you equip; each magic staff the mage girl equips changes which spells she can use, for instance. You can’t change weapons during combat, so you’ll need to choose which you want. After you win, a list of items appears. You can take some of the stuff, though you might not be able to take everything, since there is a points system; each item has a point value, and you can only take stuff up to the point amount you won in the battle. This game has no towns or shops, just this one adventure to play through, so it needed a way to get new items, and they came up with an interesting one. As far as I’ve played this game has been easy, but maybe it gets harder later.
On the whole, anyone who likes RPGs definitely should buy Crimson Shroud. Sure, you may get frustrated not knowing what to do at times, and the game is not exactly long, but the tabletop miniature and castle background graphics look fantastic, the script is well written, and the combat, while not incredibly deep or challenging, is fun. Definitely buy Crimson Shroud while you can. 3DS digital exclusive.
CRYGHT – Developed and published by TOYURO, released in 2022. This game is from the same developer as a similar game on the Wii U eshop, Crystorld. This newer title is a bit better than that one, though. It’s much more playable. This game is a … very low budget … 3d platformer of sorts. I’ve seen several games like this appear on various systems in the last few years, 3d platformers surely made by one person and done with the absolute lowest budget possible. Basically, you play as a sprite-based warrior of some kind, exploring 3d worlds of flat shaded polygons. You need to reach a specific point at the opposite end of the stage, after which you move on to the next one of the games’ several hundred levels. At first it’s just you and the stage, but eventually you need to fight enemies along the way too, which won’t be easy with this camera and your melee-only sword attack. The camera is fully user-controlled and has no automation at all, so good luck with that; trying to get it so you can actually see where you’re going is often one of the worst things in games like this.
This game is playable and cheap and sure has plenty of content, but when you play a game like this you really see how hard 3d game design is. In 2d, you can get away with a very low-budget effort, and even if it’s not great it can be totally playable. But in 3d? With either a static or fully user-moved camera, extremely basic “this is a collection of solid-color or shaded blocks with no textures on them” level designs, and more, you really see how much work it takes to make a good 3d game. This game is interesting for its many deep flaws, though, and might be worth getting considering that it only costs like a dollar. I like the look of flat-shaded 3d and platformers, so I’m glad I got it. The controls and stage layouts are definitely better than Crystorld’s. Still, know what you’re in for: a very stripped-down platforming flawed experience which you’ll probably give up on after a level or two. I find this kind of game somewhat fascinating for exactly those reasons, though, and honestly am glad the 3DS has this thing in its library. This game isn’t good but it’s fun and I recommend it. Also on Xbox One and Android. Yeah, it’s a somewhat strange selection of platforms, heh.
Cube Tactics – Published by Teyon and developed by FUN UNIT in 2014. Cube Tactics is a simple strategy puzzle game. Too simple. In this game, each level takes a minute or two, no more. Levels play on a small grid of squares. Levels are often sizes like 3 by 7 or 5 by 5 cubes, with a max height of, usually, two cubes. You play by placing different terrain or building types down on the field, and for unit-producing buildings choosing the direction that the soldiers it sends out will initially go. Buildings always are placed on top of a cube, so playing a building will raise the terrain in that spot by one. You cannot remove placed buildings or build above the max cube height, so your options here are very limited. Both players, you and your AI or human opponent, actually draw from the same selection of five cubes to play, but in most stages the AI doesn’t build anything and just uses preset setups so this isn’t particularly important in single player.
And that’s all you do, your troops are entirely automated and there is no economic component to this game. Now, that could be fine, some fantastic strategy games are all about building placement! The problem is this game is just too simplistic, there’s almost nothing to it. You place buildings or environment tiles, watch the little guys go out and try to destroy the enemy’s buildings, and win (or lose) when one side’s core cube is destroyed. There are a few limits on building — there does seem to be a limit to how many buildings you can place, indicated by some meters on the lower screen, but the game does not really make it at all clear what those meters mean or how many buildings you can actually place. Also,you can only build adjacent to a cube that you started with, and can’t build on or next to terrain tiles the other side controls or placed. There is no way to take control of a terrain tile. However, if you destroy an enemy building you do take control of that tile, and can build next to it if space is available in the stage. This won’t often be necessary but is a thing you can do. If one of your buildings is lost you lose that tile for the rest of the battle though, so watch out.
The game has three modes, the puzzle-style single player campaign with the aforementioned mostly preset enemy layout, a multiplayer mode you are unlikely to find someone to play against in, and a free-play mode where you and an AI play on a blank map, creating as you go. That last one is probably the most interesting thing here, but for me it wasn’t enough. For the most part, I find this game kind of boring. It’s not awful, it’s just extremely bland and forgettable. It’s mostly easy, and the extremely short level length and extremely small maps hurt the game, one or two minute levels is too little for a strategy game! Now, the game can be fun at times, once it eventually gets a bit more challenging. You do have a limit on how many tiles you can play, and need to play your tiles in the right places to win, to make paths to the other side, place buildings in spots where they will be able to send troops to the enemy without being destroyed, but even so I can’t recommend this game. There is the core of a good idea here but there just isn’t enough going on to really be worth playing. Try it if it sounds interesting though, I guess. 3DS digital exclusive.
My Favorite Games In This Update
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There were a lot of fantastic ones this time! Most of them sadly don’t make much use of the stereoscopic 3d this console has, apart from the usual ‘it’s a sidescroller but the foreground pops out a bit from the background’, but plenty are good games. I’m going to group them by quality here. They are unranked within each group.
These are the best games this update. Get them.
BoxBoy! (3DS Exclusive)
BoxBoxBoy! (3DS Exclusive)
Bye-Bye BoxBoy! (3DS Exclusive)
Color Zen
These are also good games. Try these if you like the genres.
Crashmo (3DS Exclusive)
Chicken Wiggle
Crimson Shroud (3DS Exclusive)
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon
Brave Tank Hero (3DS / Wii U Exclusive)
Castle Conqueror Defender
Brave Dungeon
These are decent mid-tier titles worth a look if you like the genres.
Balloon Pop Remix (3DS Exclusive)
Blaster Master Zero
Candy, Please!
Bit Boy!! Arcade (3DS Exclusive)
Collide-A-Ball (3DS Exclusive)
Castle Conqueror EX (3DS Exclusive)
Bit Dungeon Plus (this game barely avoids the bottom category)
Not very good, but maybe worth a look anyway...
CRYGHT
Cube Tactics (3DS Exclusive)
Conveni Dream (3DS Exclusive)
Bubble Pop World (3DS Exclusive)
And last and definitely least...
Bricks Pinball VI (3DS Exclusive)
Cazzarion
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - A Black Falcon - 23rd June 2022
I said part three was almost done, and it is. Here it is. There are nineteen full summaries this time, plus mentions of the DLC for two of the Fire Emblem games. There's some good and some not so good in this update, as usual for digital-only games.
Table of Contents
Dangerous RoadDedede's Drum Dash Deluxe
Defend Your Crypt
Demon King Box
Digger Dan DX
Dillon's Rolling Western
Dillon's Rolling Western: The Last Ranger
Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure
Drancia Saga
Drone Fight
EDGE
escapeVektor
European Conqueror 3D
Excave
Excave II: Wizard of the Underworld
Excave III: Tower of Destiny
Fairune
Fairune 2
Fire Emblem Awakening (DLC levels)
Fire Emblem Fates (DLC campaigns and levels)
Fun! Fun! Minigolf TOUCH!
Rankings
The Summaries
Dangerous Road - Developed and published by Starsign in 2016. Dangerous Road is a Frogger clone arcade action game. Just like Frogger but with different animals, you play as one of four cute animals, including a racoon and others, and are trying to get to the other side of the many dangerous roads in the game. This isn't kind of like the modern 3d Frogger games, it's basically the same thing just with some very small twists. This game has two modes. The main one has 60 levels, and it is a checkpoint-based goal mode. Here you must walk on to all checkpoint tiles in a level, in order, in order to complete each stage. So you can't just go to the end, but need to find the three checkpoints first and then you can go to the goal at the end of the level. The second mode is a time-based avoidance mode with 40 levels. Here you need to survive to the end of a timer in each small arena-style stage. Avoid everything until the timer runs out and you win.Along the way, you will avoid incredibly Frogger-like obstacles: roads with traffic and rivers with logs. Yeah, it's Frogger, but done in simple, low-poly stereoscopic 3d. I do like that the graphics make use of the system's 3d effects, they look nicer because of it. The controls have more issues than the graphics, though. The controls are as simple as you'd think: the dpad moves you one tile at a time, with each tap moving you one space in that direction. The A button uses your characters's special ability; each of the four animals you can play as in this game has a different ability. The racoon can slow down time, for instance, twice per stage. That may sound fine, but the controls have a long delay; it almost feels like you don't move until AFTER pressing the pad! As a result, it can be hard to move exactly where you want to, you'll often overshoot and die because you hit the dpad six times and a second or two later, after you finally move, realize you should have hit it only five times. And when you die in this game you need to start the level over from the beginning. Levels are short, but still, it's frustrating stuff that really holds back this otherwise decent game. Other than the controls and complete lack of originality, though, Dangerous Road is alright. I'd call it average, and maybe worth a look for fans of Frogger games. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe - Developed by Hal Laboratory and published by Nintendo in 2014. This is one of a bunch of digital 3DS Kirby games that are expanded versions of game ideas first seen in the two main cart-based 3DS Kirby platformers. This one is a concept from Kirby's Triple Deluxe. This game is a music game 2.5d platformer. I love platformers but hate most music games, so I wasn't sure what I would think of this one. Well, it's alright. You play as the Kirby villain-of-sorts King Dedede, and run to the right in platformer levels made up of drums you walk and jump on and obstacles to avoid such as enemies, spikes, and pits. Each level has a different song taken from a past Kirby game, and they're all great. The basic gameplay only requires getting to the end of the level without taking too much damage, which is fun enough. You can run and, depending on how you hold the button, make smaller or larger jumps. You can also clap at the peak of the jump with a well-timed button press.
However, just completing the levels won't get you far; there are only a handful of levels in this game. The amount of content is reasonable for the games' low price, but unfortunately the 'music' part of the genre is unavoidable. In order to really beat the game, and to unlock all of the stages here, you need perfect scores in levels. In order to do that, you must time your jumps to perfectly match the beat of the music AND do a perfect clap at the top of every jump. It's just too much, I will never be able to do that. This game is fun enough when I play it as a platformer with a bit of a music theme, but the full-on 'match the beat' stuff? I just can't do it. Oh well. This game is decently good anyway. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Defend Your Crypt - Published by Ratalaika Games in 2016. Defend Your Crypt is a fun but short tower defense action game with a bit of strategy. You are defending a tomb that "thieves", or rather explorers, are trying to break into and loot, and must kill all of them. You do this by activating traps with the correct timing. This game is almost exclusively controlled with the stylus. You don't get to set up your defenses or anything here, this game is simpler than that. Instead, in each one of the 30 levels you have a preset assortment of traps in a stage, and you need to figure out how to kill everyone with them with well-timed trap activation. After each use of a trap that trap has a cooldown timer until you can use it again. You do need to spend some funds to be able to use a trap in the first place in a stage, but these are one-time fees and you generally can get most of a level's traps right away. When you can't, you will be able to get the rest by the time you need them. The trap types have some nice variety, including spikes, shooting arrows, water traps, crushing ceilings, and more. Some stages are one screen, while others are two screens; you can switch with the dpad or circle pad, in the games' only use of the buttons. Activating traps to wipe out the invaders is simple, fun, and satisfying. After you have finished the 30 levels, a Hard mode unlocks. It's still pretty easy but adds a bit more to the gaem. Still, I finished all levels in both difficulties in under 7 hours. I had fun doing so though, so that's okay. Recommended. Also released on PC / Mac (Steam) and Wii U.
Demon King Box - Developed by Lanan and published by Circle Entertainment in 2014. This game has a solid idea and some very good art design, but the gameplay? Unfortunately, it is highly repetitve and grindey. In this strategy game with RPG elements, you play as a newly awakened mini-demon lord in the modern manga style. Your goal is to recapture the lands the demon king lost when presumably a hero sealed the previous one or such. You do this by choosing a team, which includes a monster hero and five different types of regular monsters. You start with only five types of regular monsters, but will unlock many more as you play. In your base you can give your monsters food in order to level them up, choose which monsters you want on your team, and view what you have unlocked. This is all done with the touchscreen and sometimes the A, B, and Start buttons. When on the 'select an option in your base' screen, instead of selecting a base option you can also move a cursor around a map on the upper screen with the circle pad. Icons mark the levels, and show if you have completed that stage or not. If you hit Start you will enter that level.
Once in a level, the gameplay is simple. Each sides' hero unit is at one end of the field. In between there are three pathway lines, and both you and your enemy send troops along those lines at the other side. The first hero to run out of health loses. You can't just send troops infinitely though, each one has a mana cost and a cooldown after creating one. Your mana automatically regenerates, but somewhat slowly. The concept is fine and there is a bit of strategy, as you'll want to have warrior units go in front with archer and healer units behind, and such, but it generally feels like your units' levels and quality count for more than any strategy does. When you first unlock a new level, you'll have no chance of being able to beat it, no matter what strategy you use, and there isn't much in a game this simple, will get you destroyed. Instead, what you have to do is grind earlier stages. You can play levels as many times as you want to build up food supplies to level up your monsters with. And that is really where this game loses me. I like some things about Demon King Box, but the core gameplay is too simplistic and grindey to actually keep me coming back. Instead, whenever I play this game I look at the pretty well done sprite art and wish it was in a better game. Not recommended. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Digger Dan DX - Developed and published by Four Horses in 2016. This game is a modern take on the early '80s classic action/puzzle game Boulder Dash. This is the third Boulder Dash-style game called Digger Dan, one an '80s title from Ocean, one a DSiWare game from 2011, and finally this one. I don't know how related the modern two are to the old one, but this game is a graphically enhanced port of the DSiWare title, Digger Dan & Kaboom. The content is largely the same as the DSiWare game, everything just looks a lot nicer now. That game didn't get much attention, but perhaps partially thanks to the better art this did. The levels here are not all just taken out of Boulder Dash, and there are new gameplay elements here as well, but even so it was similar enough that the rightsholders to Boulder Dash issued a takedown notice to try to get this game removed from sale on the 3DS eshop soon after it released. The developer settled, most likely with a financial agreement with Boulder Dash's rightsholders. More than your average homage, this game is basically a remake/sequel to the original.
So, as in the original, you control a miner, moving through an underground stage. You can freely move in all directions, and tunnels dig automatically as you go, digging out the dirt. You need to be careful, however, because there are enemies to avoid, gems to collect within a move limit if you want a better rating in the level, and objects to watch out for and use in puzzles. Objects include rocks which will activate and roll once you dig out the ground next to them, a little gopher ally who you can rescue and then switch to in some levels in order to get through narrow passages, warps, blocks which you can drop by digging out underneath them, and more. The concept here is simple and this game is not that hard, but figuring out the best route through each stage may take some effort. I would say more, but figuring out the puzzles is the core of the game, so I will leave that to the players.
Visually, Digger Dan DX has nice prerendered 2d sprite art graphics and good stereoscopic 3d implementation with depth to the background. The game looks quite nice, stereoscopic 3d this good is somewhat uncommon in 2d indie 3DS games. The rest of the game is pretty good as well. Every level feels well laid out and fun to explore, puzzle your way through, and figure out. The first time through a level you may want to just finish it, but going back to collect everything, find the hidden gem, and get to the exit in under the turn limit is quite rewarding. This is a very well made and full featured title with nice stereoscopic 3d, 100 levels, and more to do beyond that if you want to find everything. The core concept is certainly unoriginal, Boulder Dash did this back in the early '80s, but this is one of the best Boulder Dash-style games released in a long time. Highly recommended. Pick this one up while you can. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive. Enhanced remake of Digger Dan & Kaboom, for DSiWare, which is also a DSi/3DS digital exclusive.
Dillon's Rolling Western - Developed by Vanpool and published by Nintendo in 2012. Dillon's Rolling Western was an early-ish 3DS game. The game has full polygonal 3d gameplay and a very nice graphical style with Wild West animals such as your hero armadillo Dillon. However, as nice as the visuals and concept are, with simple gameplay and iffy controls, I don't find it very fun to play. This game plays with the analog circle pad and the touchscreen only and never uses any buttons. Touch-based controls in games can be great, as I have said I love the 3DS's reactive touchscreen and think it is perfect for touch gaming, but in this game it often feels more of a gimmick than a necessary feature, and the game around it is thin in content variety and repetitive. This game is okay, I guess, but does nothing to make me want to come back and keep playing it. The basic controls in combat are decent, though advanced maneuvers require annoying amounts of precision with your taps.
This game has a structure is closely sticks to. First, each level begins with a phase where you can explore the area. Each level is a moderately large field in a stereotypical wild west desert. You explore on the upper screen while the lower screen shows a map. There are caves you can explore, and you can repair and add weapons to defensive towers scattered at certain points along the marked path the enemies will follow once waves start. After some time, the enemies attack, following those paths in classic tower defense game fashion. You don't just rely on your towers in this game, though; instead, you will kill a lot of the monsters yourself. When you touch an enemy in the overworld, you go into a battle arena. The combat goes as described earlier, though most of it at first is very slight-feeling as enemies die in very few hits. The other enemies in the overworld are still moving during your fight, though. Considering how frustrating some of the harder moves are that's probably good, though apparently the game does get harder farther in. Anyway, after you kill all of the monsters in a wave you go into town, which is just a menu. Here you can buy some stuff with the money you have made and save your game. Then it's on to the next stage.
Or, in my case, to the quit button after only a few levels; this game is decent, but with combat that is both too simple and easy (at first) and yet too frustrating once it actually requires advanced maneuvers due to the touch inputs required and not nearly enough strategy to keep the game interesting, this game lost me pretty quickly, unfortunately. I absolutely love the tower defense genre, but this more action-focused take on the genre just doesn't quite work. It's not a good enough action game to match the better action games around, and isn't much of a strategy game either. You will need to make decisions about where to spend your money -- its quantity is quite limited -- and eventually will need to try to be in multiple places at once as enemies keep approaching the town from multipole directions, requiring some planning for where to upgrade towers and such, but for me this just doesn't add up to a game I actually want to play. Dillon the wild west armadillo is a good character and I like rolling around, but the rest of the gameplay is strictly average stuff unfortunately. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Dillon's Rolling Western: The Last Ranger - Developed by Vanpool and published by Nintendo in 2013. This game is basically identical to its predecessor above, just with new levels. Basically everything else is the same. It even still has the annoying touch-only menus, you'll still need to tap to select menu options instead of just being able to hit a button once you have selected what you want! In the case of the BoxBoy series, that Nintendo published three very similar games on the 3DS is a good thing because the core concept is fantastic. But with Dillon's Rolling Western, it is unfortunate that the games are so similar because this game really needed some work. It didn't get any. Five years after this games' release, a third game in this series released on the 3DS. I don't have it yet, but in the US it is a digital exclusive (though it did get a physical release in other regions). Apparently they didn't change very much during that five year gap. It's apparently still largely the same thing. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure - Developed and published by Nintendo in 2015. Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure is a good, but few-frills, Dr. Mario title. Following up Dr. Luigi for the Wii U, Miracle Cure has both Dr. Mario and Dr. Luigi modes, and has both a 30-stage puzzle challenge mode and traditional stage-based and endless modes, along with online play. Dr. Mario is a classic puzzle game. It's never been one of my favorite block-dropping puzzlers, but it's a fine series. The game takes place in a pill bottle, which starts with some viruses in it in three colors, red, blue, and yellow. Two-half pills fall from the top, in several colors. If you match four pill halves or viruses of the same color in a line they disappear. This game has several new powerups in the puzzle challenge mode as well, which will destroy all pills or viruses of their color. And as I mentioned earlier, it has Dr. Luigi mode and levels as well. Dr. Luigi, new to the Wii U game, drops two pills at a time insted of one, linked together to form an L shape. I'd say it's probably not as good as classic Dr. Mario, but it's a decent twist which can be fun to play for a while.
There is a decent featureset, but it's not an ambitious game like Dr. Mario 64 was. There is no story mode or such, only the puzzles, their descriptions, and the classic modes. You play on the upper screen in a somewhat small amount of the frame, with a Dr. Mario or Dr. Luigi character off to the side of the bottle. The lower screen just shows info and stats. There's minimal to no use of stereoscopic 3d, either. Still, with solid Dr. Mario gameplay, classic Dr. Mario music, good controls, some fun puzzle levels to play through, and online play, this game is good and is well worth getting if you like blockdropping puzzle games at all. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Drancia Saga - Drancia Saga is a very nice looking, but disappointing to play, 2d platform-action game. This title is a mobile port, and unfortunately you can really tell, because you can't stop moving in this game. Each stage is a side-view single screen area with flat ground. There is no scrolling. Your character, and you have dozens to unlock and choose from in what is probably the games' strongest feature, always is moving unless you are at one of the two edges of the screen. Your weapon is always out as well, so you don't need to do anything other than walk into enemeies to attack them. All you can do is change direction, jump and use magic with buttons, and, while in the air, do a ground slam attack with down. You have a health bar, and will have to restart the current stage if it runs out. You get infinite continues but can't save a game in progress, though with only eight moderate-length stages this isn't a big deal. Bump attacking can work in a well-designed game, such as the early Ys games, but this is not that; there's not that level of depth here.
That isn't to say that the game is a total pushover, though; there are many enemy attacks you will need to try to avoid. Most stages have some kind of environmental hazard that will damage you if you stand in the wrong spots when they activate, some enemies can shoot at you, and others have spikes or weapons it would be better to avoid. There's some decent variety. The game has eight levels. Each of the eight stages in the game has the same formula: kill all of the enemies, which attack as you defeat their predecessors, then defeat the boss. Bosses take three hits to kill, but are only vulnerable after an attack pattern. You will probably die at bosses a few times until you memorize the patterns, but none are particularly hard. After beating level eight's boss, there is one final real final boss. It's not much harder than the previous one, though you do continue from that bossfight if you die. Fighting the enemies would be a fun challenge if you could move around normally, but remember, you can't; you are always moving forward in this game, auto-runner-style, unless you stand at an edge. This is very poor design which significantly holds the game back. I know that without the auto-movement this game as is would be even easier, and it is not exactly hard, but regardless it would be be much better and more fun that way. It's a real shame that the game kept this awful mobile autorunner control scheme here on a console, it kind of ruins the game.
After you beat the game, the credits roll and that's it. There are no difficulty level options here and no unlockable content. Each level plays the exact same way every time. The game strongly encourages a lot of replay, as you only very slowly earn the crystal currency that you can unlock new characters with and only get one new character to potentially purchase each time a game ends in either a game over or game completion. Yes, even if you do have money, you'll need to go in and die or something in order to get another character to potentially add to your roster. That's annoying. The game does have guest characters from a bunch of other 3DS indie games Circle published if you have them installed on your system, though, and they automatically unlock if you have those games. Gunman Clive 1 and 2 unlock Gunman Clive and Mrs. Johnson; Witch & Hero unlocks the Witch and the Hero; Witch & Hero 2 unlocks the Little Witch and Little Hero; Fairune and Fairune 2 unlock the nameless heroine and three other female characters from those games; 2 Fast 4 Gnomz unlocks a gnome; and Brunch Panic, Urban Trial Freestyle, and Petit Novel Series - Harvest December unlock characters as well. That's neat, and again the sprite art in this game is all great looking with nice pixel art visuals, but the gameplay is just so bland and mediocre thanks to the annoying mobile game auto-running controls that I can't quite recommend Drancia Saga. It's not BAD, but it's not all that fun either, and it relies very heavily on constantly replaying the same levels over and over and over. It's not a roguelike or something, the game really is the same every time apart from your character. It can be fun in small bursts, but this game is overall below average. Nintendo 3DS console digital exclusive conversion of an iOS game with added content.
Drone Fight - Published by Circle and developed by SilverStar in 2018. This is a low budget flight racing game. The title is half right, and half wrong. This is indeed a game about drones as the planes you are flying in this game are all drones, but "fight"? No, this is a racing game, not a combat game. There are some kart racer-ish attacks, but it is primarily a racing game. Now, one big question in any flight racing game is, how 3d is it? In terms of stereoscopic 3d, it isn't; if there is any 3d depth here at all I can't tell. I know lots of indie 3DS games don't have any 3d effects, and I usually don't mention that fact, but those other games are 2d games where that makes more sense than it does here in this polygonal 3d behind-the-vehicle racing game. As for the game design though, there is a height component, though in effect this is a "tube" racing game -- you have a fairly low maximum flight ceiling. This is fine, and is how most flight racing games work, but this game isn't quite as well made as the better ones.
For controls, you move up and down and turn with the stick and accelerate, brake, and use items with the face buttons. The controls work fine, though the very over-responsive controls take getting used to and never feel great. Perhaps that is accurate to how drones fly, I don't know, but you will be flying into walls and trees and such for a while in this game.
This game has four drones to race as, six circuits plus a tutorial, and three speed classes. It's quite a nice amount of content for the low price this game sells for. In the slowest speed, you can get around any of the tracks in the seven circuits that make up this game without much of a problem. There are checkpoint rings along each track that you must fly through all of, little blue drop pickups which heal damage you have taken, and powerup boxes with those Mario Kart-ish items in them. A blue line floating in the air marks where the path goes that you need to fly along. Many levels are set in narrow canyon-like designs, but even when stages are in a more open space, you always must follow the main path marked by those blue lines, since since you must fly through those checkpoints in order to complete the race.
This game starts out simple enough, but definitely gets hard in the medium or high speed classes. You will need to memorize turns and checkpoint locations in order to finish for sure, or you'll just be driving into the walls all the tiem and missing checkpoints. That's fine, it gives you something to work for, the problem is I just don't find this game fun enough to want to put in that much time with it. With no stereoscopic 3d, simple graphics, twitchy controls, and sometimes frustrating to follow track layouts, Drone Fight is average at best and probably is a bit below that. This game released on 3DS first, but there is also a Nintendo Switch port that released later.
EDGE - Developed and published by Two Tribes in 2013. This game was first developed for cellphones, before being ported to some consoles such as the 3DS here. Despite that, though, it's good. Edge is an isometric 3d platformer. Or perhaps it should be called an isometric 3d arcade action game? I'd rather call it a platformer; though you can't jump in this game, the style is all platformer. This game is all about navigating through levels and making your way to the exit. You play as a cube in a world made up of blocks. The game uses mostly shaded polygons instead of textured ones and looks very nice. The game makes great use of the 3DS's stereoscopic 3d and fits the system very well. The electronic-style music and simple but nice presentation are really good as well. Edge is well made and fun to play.
The controls here are simple: you move the cube around with the dpad, moving tile to tile as you rotate the cube. This game is isometric so the directions are diagonally angled, but you get used to it quickly. By rotating the cube you can climb up one-block ledges, but not more. You do move by rotating, so you can't go up if you're in between two blocks, you'll need to find another way forward. More advanced maneuvers are possible, such as half-going up a block in order to move along the side of moving blocks without falling into a pit. It's fun stuff. Certain tiles, marked with little white blocks, will cause something in the environment to move around. There are also some prism pickups scattered around each stage. Your challenge is to get to the end of each stage and reach the goal. After beating a level you get ranked, with a grade based on your time, how many of the pickups you got, and if you died. There are a lot of levels in several campaigns, so there's plenty of content even though most levels are short.
This is a simple game, but it's quite fun. The stereoscopic 3d effect here looks great, the game controls well, and levels are short and fun. There's plenty here to keep you coming back for a while. This game is available on many formats, but only this one is in true 3d. Edge is a simple but fun game with good controls, good level designs which are fun to play, and an aesthetic I like. Recommended, this game is good to great. This might be the best version of this game due to the good stereoscopic 3d support. Also released on PC / Mac / Linux (Steam), Android, iOS, Wii U, BlackBerry, and PSP.
escapeVektor - Developed and published by Nnooo in 2012. This game is an arcade action maze title. This is a game that plays on a stage made of lines that make paths. These lines are all straight, with right-angle connections. The core gameplay here is basically a modern take on Amidar (Arcade, Atari 2600): you have to travel along all paths in a level to clear the stage. I like this subgenre quite a bit, but while I enjoy this game I found it not as fun as I was hoping I would. A few other games in this subgenre of somewhat Pac-Man-inspired maze games include Zoom! (Sega Genesis), Amazing Penguin (Game Boy), and Pepper II (Colecovision). It's a pretty fun game style I like. It is important to note, though, that escapeVektor first released with escapeVektor: Chapter 1 on the Wii's WiiWare shop, but that was only one part of this game. Unfortunately the rest of the game never released on Wii, only in this later title for 3DS and Vita. So, for anyone who has played the WiiWare game, if you liked it this is still worth getting because there is more game here than you find in that one. There are a lot more levels here than in the Wii game.
As with many modern indie action games of its era, escapeVektor has a cool cyber-world look with some nice electronic music. It may not be incredibly original looking and the visuals are simple, but I quite like the look. When you fly over a path it changes color, and once the whole maze has changed color, you beat the stage. Enemies try to get in your way and stop you, though they usually aren't too hard to avoid. You can speed up or do a ranged attack with buttons, so the game does use more than just the stick. As you get farther more mechanics are introduced as well, including gates with switches which you can lure enemies into to kill them, and more. Once you go on all of the paths in a section of a level, the next part of the level will appear in front of you.
That's mostly good, but it does have some issues. The game can be a little slow and repetitive. You can speed up, but the speed-ups are limited. Worse, unless you hold the zoom out button down the camera is too close, so if you speed up you can get into trouble. Levels have scores with a bunch of stats tracked, and medals to to work for, if you want to keep playing after you get through it the first time. I didn't find the story particularly interesting either; yes, there is a plot here for some reason. Overall, escapeVektor is an okay game worth a look. My favorite thing about it are definitely the graphics and music, but the gameplay is a little slow, and having to hold down R all the time to be able to see where you're going is pretty annoying. The slow pace reminds me of Amidar, though given how old that tile is I give it more of a break. You can see the whole screen all the time in Amidar, too. Overall, escapeVektor is an okay game. It can be fun, but due to some questionable design decisions it isn't as good as the classics that inspired it in its subgenre. Still, the game is an average to just barely above average title worth playing if you like arcade action games. Also on PlayStation Vita. The Nintendo Wii WiiWare title escapeVektor: Chapter 1 is the first part of this game.
European Conqueror 3D - Published by Circle and developed by Lionant in 2014. European Conqueror 3D is a board game inspired turn-based grand strategy game. This game is simple at heart, but doesn't explain itself well at all so it may initially seem complex. Before playing read through the manual, it is helpful. Inspired by board games like Risk and Axis & Allies, but not as good as either, this title can be fun but has some big problems. First, this game is single player only, it has no multiplayer. And the AI is not the best. That's not good. Anyway though, this is a World War II-themed turn based strategy game. It plays on a map of Europe, and only Europe and a bit of western North Africa. There are twelve nations in the game who have chosen a side, either Allies or Axis. The game has two modes, a campaign mode where you go through a linear series of campaigns, first for Germany and then after that for Britain, France, and the USSR (Russia), and a freeform conquest mode where you choose a nation and try to capture the capitals of all nations in the other alliance. The Axis powers include Nazi Germany, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Spain, and the Allies Britain, France, Russia, Poland, Turkey, Norway. Yes, for some odd reason Turkey is in the Allies. That's not right. Also the US is not included, which makes things much harder for the Allies for sure. The nations are not equal, each one has different ratings, with the Germans having the best tanks for instance. It makes defeating them difficult. The conquest mode has two variants, a 1939 one and, after you beat that, a 1941 one.
Once you choose a mode and start, you go to the map. In the campaign mode each level plays on only a section of the continent, while the conquest mode of course plays on the full map. The map is broken up into provinces. And here's the games' first very odd design decision, of many: while this game has three different core troop types, infantry, tanks, and artillery, you can only have one troop type on a province at any time. If tanks are on a province, artillery cannot move into that province, cannot pass through it, cannot do anything but wait until the troops in the way move to another province or are destroyed. The game does have some nice stereoscopic 3d graphics, so the units stand out above the background map, though. However, making things even worse, while you have allies in your alliance, you cannot move through the territory of your allies, you can only attack them and take their territory. When you attack an ally, their troops will fight back, but they will never attack you in return on their turn no matter how much you attack them, which is pretty stupid. If you want to conquer Germany as Italy, the only thing slowing you down will be how bad Italian tanks are compared to German ones, they'll never attack any province you take. There is absolutely no diplomacy system here. And remember, all you can fight against is the AI, for which there are three difficulty level options. There is no way to fight against a human.
On each turn, you move troops around the map, attack enemies (or allies), and build units and buy upgrades in a shop menu. The game has analog stick and face button controls for moving units and your cursor on the map, since the map is on the upper screen, but the sub-menus, including the shop and battle menus, are touch control only. It's a bit odd but works fine. When you move troops onto a territory controlled by another nation, the battle screen appears. As fitting the boardgame style, battles are decided by die rolls. Now, no matter how many troops are on a province, only five attack per turn, except for tanks who can attack again if they take zero casualties. Once the top five of your stack of 50 artillery have attacked, that's all that entire stack can do that turn. Unit stacks max out at 99, but that stack of 99 will be insanely hard to defeat since it will need to be chipped away five at a time.
It gets worse. You initially can only build troops on your nation's capitol province. If a nation's capitol falls, that nation is immediately defeated and removed from the game and the nation who took the capitol gets all of their remaining provinces. However, if you upgrade a province's structures to level five in the shop menu, you can build units on those provinces as well. This makes effectively impossible to get through defenses easy to set up once you have a large enough empire; you'd be able to replace the dead far faster than the other side could break them down. Only taking your other provinces would allow an opening, but the AI won't do that if you're attacking someone in your alliance. The AI won't usually built massive stacks like that, giving you a big advantage, but this is a pretty flawed game either way. Risk and Axis & Allies aren't broken like this. You DO have a few options, such as an Airstrike you can buy that will damage a province without you taking any casualties, but this game is very badly balanced.
Even so, while this game made a pretty bad first impression, once I got used to it it's kind of fun. The game is pretty much totally broken balance-wise; conquering German capitols is obnoxiously difficult due to how good their tanks are and how hard it is to actually chip away at a big stack of units in a province that can build units; the absence of the USA is annoying; the map is missing key parts of the European theater such as Egypt; the choices of nations are a bit odd -- I mean, Turkey and Spain were neutral in World War II, why are they belligerents here; there is really only one map; and more, but despite all that there's something entertaining here if you want to play a not that difficult strategy game for a while. This IS a very cheap game and strategy game fans might want to give it a look. Just know, the game does make you play as the Nazis first in the campaign, which is unfortunate. As in Axis & Allies the game uses the iron cross as the Nazi German flag instead of the swastika, but that's just papering over reality. I never want to have to be made to play as them... Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Excave - Developed by Mechanic Arms and published by Bergsala Lightweight in 2015. Excave is a series of three top-down polygonal 2.5d action-adventure games. Yes, action-adventure; there is no levelling system in this game. In the first two games you play as one of a pair of characters, a male human warrior type and a female elf better at ranged attacks. Their looks are preset, though you will get a fair number of weapons and accessories, and each weapon plays differently. This first game has some good and some bad ideas. The second game removes most of the worst things of this game and is overall more fun to play, but first I'll describe this one. These games are simple average to slightly above average action-RPGs with some Diablo influence, though this game is nowhere near Diablo's quality.
In Excave you start in a town, which is a menu. Here you can repair your weapons, which break down quickly based on a hidden durability stat; buy items; and manage your inventory. This is a simple game, don't expect crafting or anything more complex like that. Your inventory you can take into the action is very small, only 12 tiles, though each of the two playable characters does have a separate one. You can't switch characters while playing though, only in town, so the inventory is way too small. Additionally you do also have 20 panels of 12-item storage in this town inventory menu. The town menus in the first two games are very similar, except the second one has more inventory space. The last option enters the game. In this first title, there is no sub-menu here, you go straight in. This game is entirely predesigned, it is not a randomly-generated title. The graphics are very simple and bland and it looks like it COULD have been randomly generated, but it isn't. You will get random item drops from enemies, though. During missions, your very limited amount of inventory space will be a problem, as is common in this genre. Making things worse, random enemy item drops appear in chests, and you cannot open the chest to see what's in it without the space in your inventory to pick up the item inside. And you can't drop an item and pick it up again, dropping an item destroys it. And lastly, random drop chests disappear after a little while. Chests with key items in them stay around, but not the ones with random items. You also sometimes will get message items which you need to carry around until you can store them in your base, taking up even more inventory.
Once you start a mission, you move around with the circle pad and buttons on the upper screen, while simultaneously controlling the inventory with touch controls on the lower screen. In town you can control your inventory with the stick too, but not while playing. You must use the circle pad here, not the dpad. Controls are fine. It's great how you get both views at once, and switching weapons and such is easy, though inventory management during combat can get you in trouble of course. Still, the concept is a nice example of what the DS line of systems can do that single-screen systems can't do as well.
And now we get to the other very odd thing about this game, the level structure. Instead of selecting stages from a list, you need to unlock and enter warp tiles to go to new areas. You will get keys by beating bosses that you will need to use to unlock the doors to new warp boxes to go to new areas. After beating a boss and getting the treasure from the treasure room after it, you'll need to manually warp out of the dungeon by holding down X. You can do this at any time while playing, but seriously, why not have a warp box out in the treasure room? Anyway, when you enter a new area, you'll walk past a line of warps before going to the first area past them. There are pointless dead ends sometimes, it's annoying. Additionally, if you buy silver and gold keys in the town and take them with you, or get some in drops, you can open doors in the levels, some of which have chests in them and some of which are shortcuts. And this game does not have a map. While you get used to it in not too long, I find the structure of this game quite annoying. With a map it'd be less bad, but the dead ends, the keys, the numerous doors and warps... it's kind of confusing, I'd much rather have a more normal game layout. It wouldn't be as bad with more variety, but this game does not have much variety. The very bland dungeon environment and boring, extremely simple enemies -- almost all of the enemies you fight in the whole first section of the game are generic slimes -- really get old fast.
Now, do you remember when I called this an action-adventure game, and not an action-RPG? Yes, this game does have numeric stats. You have health, attack, and defense stats. Weapons also have invisible durability and damage stats. The game does mark stronger weapons with red star numbers, but other than that it doesn't tell you how much damage weapons do. But with no experience or level system, so there is no reason to fight the enemies unless you are in a room where the door won't unlock until you kill everything or you have to kill them in order to get by. If you do fight the enemies, you'll find that you will need several weapons in your inventory for each time you go into the dungeon because their durability won't last long... except for the elf woman's bow, which is infinite use. Yeah. I like how each weapon type is different, but this kind of thing is annoying. Oh, and while this game does have magic, it's not very useful -- spell scrolls are single use and just set off an environmental attack that hurts enemies around you for a while. Then you lose the scroll. Pretty lame.
This game can be challenging, though, so it may keep you coming back; it is easy to die, either from enemy attacks, poison if you run out of antidoes, or more. If you die, you are returned to town with no penalty other than having to redo everything you just did. Overall, Excave has decent graphics with way too little visual variety. It's an alright game which can be fun once you manage to get used to its oddities, and it controls fine, but this is a very generic game. It's playable but below average to poor overall, and in my opinion this is the weakest game in the trilogy. It might be worth a look anyway, but the sequel is the same basic thing but better. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Excave II: Wizard of the Underworld - Developed by Mechanic Arms and published by Bergsala Lightweight in 2015. Releasing on 3DS only a few months after its predecessor, this action-adventure game is very similar to but nicely improved over the first game. First, the odd level structure is gone, in favor of a straightforward level select menu in the base with clearly stated mission objectives given at the beginning of each stage. Beating a level unlocks the next one. You won't need to manage keys and memorize where to use them anymore, which is great. Additionally, this time you get 18 spots of inventory and 50 panes in the storage screen, both great improvements. Amusingly, the inventory screens quite straightforwardly call the two characters Man and Woman. Heh.
The core gameplay is the same, but with more variety all around. Once again Man and Woman are delving into dungeons looking for loot. The basic setup here is the same as before: go into predesigned levels, fight enemies, kills the boss at the end of each stage, and collect somewhat randomized loot along with the key items the boss drops after you kill them. Then, go back to town to sort through your loot and repair weapons before going to a new level. Some weapons can only be used by each character, as before. There are some new weapon types added here, perhaps most notably magic staffs with attack magic in them. They have just as limited-use durability as most weapons in these games do, but they're quite fun to use. You play on the upper screen with the buttons while managing your inventory with the touch screen below.
On the game structure, again, the single tree-like stage layout of the first game, with keys that unlock warps to new areas, is gone, and I at least am glad about that. Not only do you have more inventory, but you won't need to clutter a bunch of it up with keys and notes and stuff, either. The larger inventory is quite welcome, it feels like enough for the length of most missions here. The game just tells you your objective at the start of each level and then sends you off. And the incredibly bland environments are improved on, too. The graphics are a bit better here, and there are more area types. It's not all the same boring dungeon and forest this time! You even get to fight something other than slimes early on, though the first games' enemies definitely return in numbers. There's still plenty of challenge.
Overall, this game is okay, with slightly better gameplay than the first one and a bit more variety as well due to added locations and items. It is very much an iterative sequel released right after the first game, but if you play only one of the first two Excave games play this one. It's certainly nothing special, and I'd probably call it average to slightly below average due to the very bland design and visuals and only decent gameplay, but that is a good step over the first game and I have had some fun with it. This game is decently entertaining if you are an overhead action-adventure game fan, as I am. This is probably worth a try, at least for genre fans. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Excave III: Tower of Destiny - Developed by Mechanic Arms and published by Teyon in 2016. The third Excave game mixes things up slightly. The core game is similar, it is still a 2.5d overhead action-adventure game, but it is more Mysterious Dungeon-like now. For one, Man and Woman, the heroes of the first two games, have been replaced with one character, a somehwat scantily clad dark elf woman. She can use all weapons, so the character-specific weapon element of the previous games is gone now. Another change is that levels are much more randomized now. Before, loot was somewhat random, but the actual level designs, enemies, bosses, and such were all preset. This time, the game is much more randomized, for a more roguelike style of randomly generated stages based on premade pieces. While it may add replay value in theory, I'd call this worse than predesigned stages, myself; I prefer the more interesting design of a uniquely made level over random generation that may lead to pretty poorly laid out results. And you will get that here, as always in games with randomized layouts; expect exits sometimes being right next to entrances, and such. There is even less setting variety here than before, too, it's all the same dungeon environment.
The game has two modes. In the main story mode, you take on a series of dungeons. Your level and weapons and everything reset each time you enter a dungeon, roguelike style, so there is no continuing progression, quite unlike the previous games. There is no shop or anything and you lose your items after finishing a dungeon. I don't mind this much, I don't care much about loot, but those who do will hate this more roguelike change. This mode isn't too long. The other mode, the much longer one, is called the Fantasy Tower. This is a near endless dungeon, which you explore to see how far you can get. The Fantasy Tower has online leaderboards, which is cool. There are a lot of overhead action-RPG roguelikes out there, plenty better than this, but still there is a lot to do in this mode if you get into the game.
So, there are a bunch of changes here. The combat and core gameplay, however, are the same as before. So, expect more decent but unspectacular dungeon exploration and combat. Exploring around, killing monsters with your variety of weapons and spells, and collecting stuff is fun enough. I got all three of these games not just to have them, but because despite my criticism there IS fun overhead action-RPG combat to be had in all three of these games. The combat controls well and the challenge level is reasonable. Overall this game is okay, but I personally prefer the more permanent and predesigned nature of Excave II over this more randomized adventure with no permanent equipment. This game is below average and is a bit weaker than the second one. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Fairune - Published by Circle and developed by Flyhigh Works in 2014. Fairune is an Ys or Zelda-style overhead 2d action-RPG starring a nameless female protagonist. The game has very nice pixel art graphics that are a good draw into the game and classic-inspired gameplay, for good and ill. This game was first released on smartphones, but also got ported to consoles such as the 3DS here. It is a short game that should only take three or four hours if you can find your way forward. The combat here is simpler than Zelda's, though; you don't have an attack button but instead just attack things by walking into them, classic Ys game style. This origin is the most likely reason for the very simple combat, but it does work. I mentioned Zelda and Ys, and elements of both are here. You explore a fairly good-sized area here, exploring, fighting enemies, levelling up, finding items, and trying to figure out where in the world you need to go in order to proceed. The game does have a minimap on the lower screen showing the whole current area map, which is fantastic, and it reveals as you explore areas. Still, even if you know where to go, figuring out how to get there can be tricky unless you look up help outside of the game. I got pretty far in this short game, but eventually got stuck and stopped playing.
In general there is more item usage here than the early Ys games, but much more levelling than Zelda. You can't just grind up levels, though; only certain enemies will level you up, you won't even be able to damage ones too high level above you and will get no experience from ones too weak. The game is strict about this, you will only gain experience from very specific enemies at any time. So the game is technically an RPG, but you cannot go grind levels at all. I'm fine with that, I don't like grinding. My issue here is that the game gives you minimal direction about where you should go. If you want a clearly identifiable path forward in your games, as I do, this structure can be very frustrating, because you will frequently have no idea what to do to proceed. I want games which aren't linear to either give good clues about where to go or have a clearly identifiable path forward. This game has neither of those, so while it is fun for a while, once I can't figure out the path forward I eventually give up on the game. The game world is not huge, but there are several different maps which you will work your way through, and what you need to do could be in any of them. Basically, Fairune is a good but simple game with nice graphics and very basic combat. Exploring around is fun, but you will need to be looking closely for very well disguised hidden paths and probably will need a walkthrough at times. I should use one and finish this sometime. Also released on iOS, Android, and Playstation Vita. The game was also released in the Fairune Collection, which released on the Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and PC (Steam). It contains both of the Fairune games, a very short new prequel chapter, and an unlockable shmup minigame. I don't have it.
Fairune 2 - Published by Circle and developed by Skipmore and Flyhigh Works in 2016. Fairune 2 is very similar to the first game, just with a larger world and more stuff to find. For fans of the first one this is everything you could want -- it's got all the frustrating puzzle solving exploration of the first one, just with more space to explore and a longer quest. The game is apparently about twice as long as the first one. It's still short at 6 hours onhowlongtobeat.com, but not quite as much so as the first one. I haven't gotten far at all into this game, but it is clear that it is extremely similar to the first game. The graphics, gameplay, design, all are the same as its predecessor, just with new areas and items and such. They also added ten ingame achievements, for those who care about such things; I don't. So, it's a definitely good game that is not entirely for me due to its nonlinear exploratory nature. When I can figure out what to do these gamse are pretty fun, but I do NOT like the 'now figure out what to do, wander around and try stuff on things' element of these games, or the classic titles which inspired them. I know that's just me, but it holds me back from finishing them or unreservedly recommending them. The ingame maps help, but not enough to get me through. This game was initially a 3DS exclusive, though it was later released on other platforms in the Fairune Collection for the Switch, Playstation 4, and PC (Steam), which, again, includes both games and some little bonus modes.
Fire Emblem Awakening - DLC - Published by Nintendo in 2013. I'm not reviewing Fire Emblem Awakening here; it is a fantastic strategy-RPG and one of the best games on the 3DS, but it is a cart release. This is here as a reminder that the game has a whole bunch of downloadable content, including a bunch of additional levels to try and some new outfits for some characters. All of this content will become entirely unavailable once the servers are shut down so buy it while you can, there are some pretty cool maps in there. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Fire Emblem Fates - DLC & Campaigns - Published by Nintendo in 2016. I'm not going to write a full review of Fire Emblem Fates here. It's a great strategy-RPG which I didn't quite finish but did play a lot of and got deep in to the Birthright campaign of. This is, instead, here to remind people that this game has three campaigns, and you must buy some of them as DLC. You can either buy Birthright or Conquest on their own carts, but to play the other campaign you can't just buy the other cart, but instead in order for them to link up correctly in-game you need to buy the other campaign as DLC. The third campaign is DLC exclusive* and must be purchased. The asterisk notes that there actually is a very rare release of the game, Fire Emblem Fates: Special Edition, which includes all three campaigns on one cart. This was a limited-edition low print run release, and its price is sure to go up even more once the ability to legally purchase and play the rest of the game is denied people who own either of the regular versions, Birthright or Conquest. Regardless, for that and also for the DLC levels, which just like its predecessor this game has plenty of, buy the DLC for this game while you can. It's not quite as great as Awakening since its entire game design is basically copied out of that title just with new levels and characters and such, but it's still a fantastic strategy game and one of the best post-GBA Fire Emblem titles. (Yes, GBA Fire Emblem will probably always be my favorite. It's not close. Still, these are great.) Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Fun! Fun! Minigolf Touch! - Developed and published by Shin'en in 2012. This game is a sequel to a WiiWare game called Fun! Fun! Minigolf, which I did not buy so I haven't played. Shin'en is a developer who makes games with great tech and usually good gameplay. Some of their games are great all around, such as Fast Racing Neo or the Nanostray games, but others are games which look good but have some gameplay issues. This game, unfortunately, is one of the latter type. This stereoscopic 3d minigolf game has three environments each with three nine-hole courses for its main mode, and three three-hole challenge trick shot stages as a bonus mode. You start with one of the courses, and buy the rest of the stuff in an ingame shop with money you make from playing. There are only two minigolfers here really, a man and a woman. You can change their clothing colors and patterns, for shirt and pants for the man and shirt and skirt for the woman, but there are no alternate clothing options. It's fine, but with how many courses there are to buy I was expecting some clothing options in the store too, but no. You can play as any Mii on your 3DS, though. This is pretty cool, but it just maps your Mii's facial data and skin color onto the game's character of that gender. It's still a neat feature though. The ingame graphics are pretty good, with nicely rendered, varied holes and fun environments.
As for the gameplay, you can play entirely with the touchscreen, but can use the stick and buttons as well. You rotate left and right either with the stick or by rotating a ring on the lower screen. Using R you can change views to try to line up your shot, though you only have two views, behind the starting point or a side view of the hole from one side. Then you tap or hit A to select that angle. Pull back the club to choose how hard to hit the ball, and 'will you hit the ball dead on' marker appears. Tap or hit A when it's at the strength you want to hit the ball at. It's a simple control scheme which mostly works once you get used to it, though turning left or right to aim your shot is fiddlier than I'd like. Aiming where you want is harder than I think it should be, particularly for a game which does have stereoscopic 3d! Despite the additional depth of view, I still find myself frequently hitting the ball into obstacles, and I don't feel like the physics always act like I feel like they should; sometimes the ball hits an obstacle and just... stops dead, even though there should be some momentum.
And then we get to what I'd call the worst thing about this game: when your shot doesn't go where you wanted, that is onto the green or into the hole, you can't just keep playing from the spot you shot to. Oh no. Instead, the game says 'Out of Bounds' and makes you shoot again from the starting point on the tee until you get the ball all the way to the green on a single shot. A border line marks the border of the "green", and you must get the ball in that area or you just wasted your shot. This utterly bizarre design decision pretty much ruins the game, because while all holes in this game are designed to be able to reach the green in one shot, this is NOT how minigolf plays, not in the slightest!
Overall, Fun! Fun! Minigolf is not fun, the "you must get to the green in one shot" design concept is awful. It looks very nice, as expected from Shin'en, and plays fine, and can be fun when you're playing well, but overall this game is not recommended at all. If you're going to make a minigolf game, have it play like minigolf and not the awful target-shooting design they went for here. I like minigolf, but not this. Don't bother. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Rankings
These are the best games this update. Get them.Digger Dan DX (3DS exclusive remake of a DSiWare game)
EDGE
These are also good games. Try these if you like the genres.
Defend Your Crypt
Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure (3DS exclusive)
Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe (3DS exclusive)
Fairune
Fairune 2
These are decent mid-tier titles worth a look if you like the genres.
Dangerous Road (3DS exclusive)
Drancia Saga
escapeVektor
Excave (3DS exclusive)
Excave II: Wizard of the Underworld (3DS exclusive)
Excave III: Tower of Destiny (3DS exclusive)
Drone Fight
Not very good, but maybe worth a look anyway...
Dillon's Rolling Western (3DS exclusive)
Dillon's Rolling Western: The Last Ranger (3DS exclusive)
Demon King Box (3DS exclusive)
European Conqueror 3D (3DS exclusive)
And last and definitely least...
Fun! Fun! Minigolf TOUCH! (3DS exclusive)
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - A Black Falcon - 31st July 2022
Yes, the next part is done. This time we've got a bunch of decent games. There's nothing really amazing, but most of them are alright and might be worth a look... except for the last three.
Table of Contents for this update
G-H-I-J - 23 games
Glory of Generals
Go! Go! Kokopolo 3D
Gotcha Racing
Gourmet Dream
Gunman Clive
Gunman Clive 2
Gurumin 3D
Harold's Walk
Hazumi
Hyperlight EX
Ikachan
Infinite Golf
Iron Combat: War in the Air
Jett Rocket II
Jewel Match 3
Jewel Quest 6: The Sapphire Dragon
Jewel Quest IV: Heritage
Johnny Kung Fu
Johnny Hotshot
Johnny Impossible
The Summaries
Glory of Generals - published by Circle and developed by Easytech in 2014. This is yet another World War II-themed turn based strategy wargame from Circle. Last time I covered a Risk or Axis & Allies-styled one, but this game is a hex-based wargame. As with all of Circle's 3DS strategy games it does some things well, and some things not so well. This is a simple and accessible game, not a hardcore wargame. On the positive side, the game plays fine, with decent graphics, multiple troop types including tanks, artillery, infantry, and ships, submarines, and decent enemy AI to fight against.
On the negative side, though, there are no visible stats other than unit health present here and I just listed most of the unit types in this game. There are different types of tanks, but it's not easy to tell what the differences are. The main unique feature of this game is in the title, the generals. You have a money system in this game, and can buy airstrikes, try to heal units, and such, and most importantly hire and assign generals to units. There are many generals from World War II present from both sides, and you can pretty much hire any of them on either side. Yeah, really. When a unit has a general leading it, the unit gets significantly stronger and harder to destroy. It's a decent system but can be frustrating because destroying enemy general units is quite tough, they will chew up a lot of regular units.
Once again, this game plays through the European theater of World War II. You can play as either Allies or Axis. As the Allies, you start out with the Battle of Dunkirk, but you are only controlling the French while the British are AI-controlled. You need to survive a required number of turns without letting the Germans conquer all of the control points. Each mission has a turn limit and objective points you must control at the end. In the first stage the famous retreat is not really represented, unfortunately; you just will lose troops steadily as the endless German armies come at you so you will slowly be wiped out. Despite losing almost all of my troops I managed to win the mission on my first try. The game gets harder as you go along, of course, and is reasonably fun if you like wargames. But with so few stats and unit types, once again, don't expect the depth of most wargames on the PC. Still, it's a decent game for cheap. Released digitally on 3DS and iOS.
Go! Go! Kokopolo 3D: Space Recipe for Disaster - Developed by Tanukii Studios and published by Circle in 2017. This is an overhead action game with some fairly original design. It is a sequel to a DSiWare game that I haven't played. The game plays on floating paths on a grid. You can't move off of the paths. The game has a very strong stereoscopic 3d effect, with the paths floating over the background just like Jack Bros. for the Virtual Boy. Also like Jack Bros., there are three playable characters, all cuteified characters, slightly anthroporphised animals here. Unlike Jack Bros., you will need to beat the game as all three characters to unlock the true ending. There is also a helpful tutorial mode which teaches the gameplay basics, a time attack mode which lets you play any level you have reached in the main game and keeps track of the three best times for each stage, and recipe cards to unlock if you defeat the correct enemies in the levels and collect them. But how does it play?
So, this has a few similarities to Jack Bros., but its gameplay is not quite as straightforward as that games' is. In Kokopolo 3D, you move with the dpad. Two face buttons jump and attack, and the R button runs. Running is central to this game. Because, you see, while your goal in each level is to kill all of the enemies, but you can't kill them directly with the attack button. Instead, you have to lure enemies into traps. So, you attack an enemy, then run towards the nearest trap as they chase you. You then need to jump over the trap, and any other obstacles along the way, and the enemy will be caught in the trap. Rinse and repeat for each enemy in the stage and you win. If an enemy hits you it will take off some health and you will need to start the process of luring them into a trap over. If you try to defeat an enemy with just your melee attack, it will go away but infinitely respawn. You need to trap them to defeat them.
Overall, this game has great graphics with very nice character and background graphics, fantastic use of stereoscopic 3d, and decently solid arcade action gameplay. The game is repetitive, however, since the 'hit, run, go to trap' loop really is all you do here. The game does get harder as you go, with more spike pits to jump over, one-way gates blocking paths, and more, but don't expect much variety from Go! Go! Kokopolo 3D. Having to be going so fast so often can be frustrating too; memorization is required in this game. The speed makes avoiding obstacles hard unless you memorize stage layouts. You do have infinite tries here, thankfully, but still it can be irritating. Still, the game is mostly fun. On the whole I find this game decent to good, with gameplay that's fun but not quite as great as the graphics. Jack Bros. is better. Still, this game is worth playing. 3DS digital exclusive.
Gotcha Racing - Developed by Arc System Works and published by Natsume in 2015. Gotcha Racing? That's just the Western title. This game is actually titled Gatcha Racing, and while it seems to probably be a 3DS exclusive it was made in the style of a Japanese mobile game. Unfortunately, you can take the microtransactions out of the mobile game, and indeed this game does not have microtransactions, but the game does have horrible, game breakingly obnoxious random-draw blind bag nonsense, straight out of a mobile gatcha game. Gotcha Racing is a top-down 2d racing game with decent, if unspectacular, graphics, sound, and gameplay. If it had normal progression and gameplay it'd be a totally average-at-best racer maybe worth trying if you like this kind of thing. The game plays on both screens, with your car on the lower screen and a good view of the upcoming track ahead of you going up onto the upper screen. There is also a minimap, so unlike some fast-moving topdown racing games it won't be too hard to figure out the turns in this game. It's a nice use of the two screens that I wish was present in a good game. The controls are only decent, but they're alright. The game initially is decent fun for a topdown racing games fan, as I am.
However, the good side of this game does not last long thanks to the omnipresent gatcha mechanics, straight out of an exploitative-to-your-wallet mobile game. Basically everything in this game revolves around blind-bag draws. Do you want a better chance in the next race? It won't be easy, the other cars probably have better stats than you do so you won't keep up. You'd better upgrade your car, hope you draw some good stuff from the blind draws! Sure, you can't spend real money in this game, it does not have paid DLC on the 3DS so you need to earn draws with in-game currency, but this does not make the gameplay any better, only the financial hit. This game is a horribly obnoxious pain and is not worth playing. Outside of the gatcha mechanics this is an average game with decent graphics, nice use of the two screens, average controls, and a fair amount of content, but the farther the get the clearer it is that the blindbag draw mechanics are awful and totally ruin the experience. Avoid this mess. 3DS digital exclusive.
Gourmet Dream - Developed by Arc System Works and published by Circle in 2016. Remember Conveni Dream? That game was an incredibly simple and basic convenience store simulator that was moderately amusing, but was overly simplistic and easy. Well, Gourmet Dream is very similar, except with a restaurant theme and perhaps a few more statistics to track. At first it may seem like this game has more depth than Conveni Dream, but I don't think it really does. It might be slightly better than that game, though. As with that game, this is a very simple, easy, and stripped-down simulation game which is mostly hands-off and requires only occasional player input. So, you are running a restaurant here. The game hides it, but this is very clearly set in Japan, as with Conveni Dream all the food and such would only be found at restaurants in Japan.
You start off with a tutorial where the game gives you three staff members, two for the kitchen and one out front, some basic tables and such for your restaurant, and several recipes. As with Conveni Dream, you have options in this game but they are limited. The game has recipes to choose between... but only a few. It has tables which seat different numbers of diners, but you can't choose diffrent types of tables or anything, this game is simple. You can change your staff's uniforms and spruce the palce up with some plants in the seating area if you wish. Once things are placed in your restaurant they seem to be permanent, though; you can't move the tables at all, which is pretty annoying. Table placement definitely matters for maximizing the number of tables in your restaurant.
This is a restaurant game though, so the core of the issue is food. The game has recipes for various different dish types, but it starts out with very few options; you can't create a restaurant here really, just work with the handful of choices you're given. At the start you can only have four recipes actually serving, though you will slowly get more added to that. You will also get more recipes now and then. Recipes are rated with various stats, the most important of which is a deliciousness rating. The game also keeps track of how often each dish is purchased, which is useful. You want to keep track of this and serve dishes which your customers like more and buy more. There is also one last thing, incredients. Food is made of ingredients, but this game doesn't go into much detail there; there are only six ingredients to buy, representing the core food categories, and you can choose to either have them auto-reorder as they expire or run low or to manually buy more. The latter option gives you something more to do in this mostly hands-off game.
Indeed, once your core choices are made as far as food, menu, and layout, most of what you do in this game is watch the customers come in and eat. You can tweak your menu as you get new food options, hire more staff once a week, expand your restaurant if you have the funds, advertise, and such, but a lot of your time will just be spent watching, and not doing anything. At the end of each day the game tells you how much money you made or lost that day; so far I have only lost money one day. At the end of each week you get a bunch of customer reviews and more ratings. Good customer reviews are preferable of course, though people seem to come in just fine so long as they are at least decent. Because where in the real world the restaurant business is apparently quite a difficult one, here it is easy. Your success may not be totally guaranteed, but with minimal strategy you will be fine, at least early on. I hope that it eventually gets harder as you try to reach being a Rank S restaurant, but I don't know if that is the case. Overall, this game is playable but repetitive and simplistic. The only reason to play this game, I think, is if you like somewhat interactive management games. I don't, really; if I wanted to play a sim game I'd want one with more gameplay than this, a SimCity or Pharaoh or such. But people who do like simple numbers go up tycoon sim games might be amused here. There are at least a few more numbers to track than Conveni Dream has, so it does surpass its predecessor. 3DS digital exclusive.
Gunman Clive - Published and developed by Horberg Productions in 2013. Gunman Clive is a sidescrolling action-platformer shooting game that achieved some minor popularity. The game has a nice Wild West aesthetic and solid, simple controls and gameplay. You play as either Clide or Ms. Johnson, and need to rescue the other character. Yeah, you can rescue the guy if you want, flipping the usual stereotype. Each one plays differently, too -- Clive has a lot more health and a normal jump, while Ms. Johnson has a floating jump like the Princess in Mario 2 but has a lot less health. This game is short and not very hard, but while it lasts running along, jumping between platforms, and gunning down the enemies is fun stuff. The controls and core gameplay were inspired by Mega Man, and it does well with it, though not perfectly.
First though, the visuals. The game has a cool visual style that looks kind of like a sketchbook. The backgrounds are done in only a few similar white and pencil-ish colors, and each sprite is filled in with a single color -- an orange-ish color for Clive, blue for many enemies, pink for the Ms. Johnson, and such. The look is great. This is one of the earlier indie platformers with a strong visual look which holds the game up; this kind of art-first sidescroller would become very common in the years since, but ten-plus years ago when this game released the idea was still somewhat new. This game, at least, does have good gameplay and level designs too, it is not only about the graphics as it is with some artsy indie games. The visual look is important to the appeal of the game, but it IS also fun.
On the controls, they are conventional but responsive. You move with the dpad and jump and shoot with buttons. It's standard stuff but feels good. Still, Gunman Clive is never quite on the level of the better Mega Man titles, it's too simple and has more issues. See the weapon powerup system, for example. Weapon powerups drop from some enemies which give you a stronger attack, such as a three-way shot. If you take a hit, you lose the powerup. This means that on average you will spend much more time without powerups than with them, which is unfortunate. And the games' Mega Man elements do not extend to its powerup system; there are no permanent powerups in this game, only the basic temporary-stronger-shot stuff.
The game is entirely linear, but has good level designs. Each stage has some new challenges to get past, and there are fun setups all along. Really the only significant fault this game has is how short it is; Gunman Clive is a lot of fun, but it'll be over in an hour or two of moderate play. For anyone who hasn't played it, though, I recommend it for sure. The game is very cheap and has stereoscopic 3d depth, so this is not the exact same as the PC version. As for replay value, there isn't a lot since the game is the same each time, but there are three slightly different characters, one unlockable after you beat the game, so there is that. Either way, this is a good game worth playing. Released digitally on 3DS, Android, iOS, PC (Steam), and Mac (Steam), and in an HD Collection on Wii U, PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC (Steam).
Gunman Clive 2 - Developed and published by Horberg Productions in 2015. This game is very similar to the last one, but with new levels, more colorful and more varied backgrounds still with stereoscopic 3d depth, a bunch of dinosaurs to fight, and a new Indian character protagonist to choose from alongside Clive, Ms. Johnson, and the unlockable character from the first game. Yes, I said dinosaurs. Oh, and this game is longer and more challenging than the first one too, which is great. This sequel does nothing new in terms of gameplay, controls, or game design, but it does take a very good base title and improves on it in a few ways. You get more somewhat Mega Man-ish shooting platform-action, with good level designs, more varied settings this time as you face off against the dinosaurs which have appeared for some reason, and more. This is a good sequel which improves over the original in most ways and is certainly worth playing. The first game has a purer focus with its very simple environments, but this more ambitious title is fun as well. Expect it to be mostly the same but with new content and you won't be disappointed. Released digitally on the PC (Steam) and 3DS, and in an HD Collection on Wii U, PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC (Steam).
Gurumin 3D - Developed by Falcom and published by Mastiff in 2016. Circle Pad Pro / New 3DS added controls supported. Gurumin is, like many Falcom games, an action-RPG. It was first developed for the PSP before being ported to PC and 3DS later on. This 3DS version is pretty much the same as the PSP original, except the whole game is, as you would expect, in stereoscopic 3D now. The graphics and art design are great. Gurumin is a pretty good game, though I've never stuck with it enough to finish it. It looks nice. There are a lot of similarities between this game and Falcom's Ys games of the same era, but there are some significant differences as well. In this game, you play as a young girl who has found a portal from her boring mining town to a town where friendly monsters roam. Something goes wrong, though, and bad creatures kidnap all of the good ones and destroy the town. So, our heroine sets off to beat up all of the bad guys, rescue the good monsters, and rebuild their town so they can all play together happily again.
That may make this sound like a cute kids' game, but it's not; it's actually a pretty challenging action-RPG for anyone. This game plays well, with a few issues, but it is tough. This game is a third person action game with a behind-the-character camera. The main unique gameplay element here is that your weapon is a drill. You can attack with the drill by hitting a button, charge it up for a forward drill dash attack, and more. You get some other items, such as different masks, but your weapon is always the drill. The game has a bunch of moves you can buy over the course of the game. You also have a jump button, but the drill dash also will go over gaps. Some controls are enhanced if you have a Circle Pad Pro or New 3DS: a dodge, which is on both a face button and LZ or RZ, and camera rotation on L and R or the right stick. You also have some touch buttons on the lower screen to quickly change items or bring up the menu to use healing items and such with. It's a good use of the touchscreen. You also can bring up a menu to use healing items or such, but you can only carry up to three of each type of healing item at a time so they are quite limited. As I said the game gets hard. One thing this game does NOT have is auto-targeting. Instead, you will always attack straight ahead and will need to use L and R to rotate the camera towards your enemy. It makes tougher battles much more difficult and annoying than they would be with an auto-targeting system.
This is a stage-based game, not open world. The game starts out in the human town, and then you go to monster village, but once it is destroyed and the friendly monsters mostly captured you go to a world map. Here you choose a level. Levels are relatively short. The stage lengths show that this game was designed for a portable system. It's good that Falcom considered that handheld games often have shorter play sessions than TV ones. After you beat each stage you get a rating, so there is some replay value if you want to increase your ratings. You also will need to go back to some areas once you get additional abilities. Additionally, as you save more friendly monsters the monster town will be rebuilt. You also will find items which belong to the monsters and can return them to them. You also can upgrade your abilities and buy items back in the human town, so there is some reason to go back there.
This is mostly an action game, and the challenging combat is the core of the game, but there are also some puzzle-solving elements, and I have sometimes been unsure on what to do next. Some enemies require certain attacks to have a better chance at beating them, and you always should be on the lookout for things you can destroy with your drill. Breaking objects will drop money or, sometimes, other items. I don't quite understand why Japan loves drill weapons so much, but it's fun to use here. Additionally, while stages are generally linear, you will need to solve puzzles as well as fight baddies here. I do get frustrated quickly when I get stuck and don't know what to do next or are at a pretty tough boss fight. I admit, as much as I like Gurumin I've never finished this game on any platform. Still, Gurumin is absolutely worth playing, anyone action-RPG genre fan should play this one. It looks nice, plays great, has decent variety, and is lots of fun. Gurumin isn't Falcom's best game, more areas and variety might have been nice and it really should have auto-targeting, but it's still pretty good. The game was made by one of the best action-RPG developers in the business and it shows. Released physically on PSP and digitally on 3DS and PC (Steam).
Harold's Walk - Developed and published by Luke Vincent in 2020. Remember Cryght, above? This is another extremely low budget indie 3d platformer, a bit like that one but both more ambitious and perhaps less fun. On the positive side, this game is fully 3d. Your character Harold and the world around him are polygonal, and the game makes full use of stereoscopic 3d to help you see where you are better. The graphics are simple and look like programmer art. You can jump and double jump with one button, roll while moving with another, and walk with a third. You must use the analog stick to move, but have no speed control on the stick, you are running unless you hold the walk button. I wish you had some speed control, it would be quite helpful in a game like this, but oh well. Otherwise the controls are decent. In this short game, you explore levels looking for crowns and the exit. Each level has three crowns hidden in it and an exit portal. There are also donuts which refill your health; you have four hit points and lose one when an enemy hits you. You defeat them the usual Mario way, by jumping on them. So yeah, this is an indie Mario 64-inspired title. There are only ten levels in this game, each short, so unless you want to get all of the collectibles this game won't take you long. The levels each have a different theme, which is nice; while the graphics are simple, you can tell that some work went into designing them, they are not the borderline random generation stuff of Cryght. There are even some sections which switch to 2.5d, which is neat. So, is Harold's Walk worth it? Sure, maybe. The game is objectively below average, but it's alright. It's cheap and amusing for platformer fans. With very little content and basic visuals this game won't hold you for long, but it's enough for a mildly amusing hour at least. If you love platformers maybe get this one when it's on sale. It has some charm. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Hazumi - Developed by EyeCancer and published by Gamelion in 2014. Gamelion was a handheld and mobile game publisher. This is a console game, but it has some mobile design stylings. This title is a pretty fun arcade action-puzzle game. You control a bouncing ball here. The ball is always bouncing up and down, and you control its left-right movement with the d-pad. Your goal in each of the 104 levels is to destroy all of the colored blocks. Blocks come in four colors, though, and you can only destroy blocks of the same color as the ball. Certain blocks will change your ball's color. There are also hard blocks of each color that you cannot destroy but can push, only while that color, by bumping into them. Obstacles such as grinders and chomping metal 'teeth' will destroy your ball on impact, and when destroyed you restart the stage. There are only a small number of parts used in the game, but it's enough. Each level is a single screen, so pacing is good. Visually, the game has nice pixel art graphics. It looks pretty nice. There is a bit of stereoscopic 3d depth on the screen, but it isn't used as much as it could be. Ah well.
Once you beat each stage, you get that mobile game classic, a rating out of a possible three stars. While playing, each time you break a block a bit is added to a star meter on the lower screen, and your rating at the end is based on how many stars are fully or partially filled in when you break the last block. It's simple, but is challenging to master. And you will need to get better at this as you go, because in order to unlock levels you need a certain number of stars in earlier levels. As you go the star requirements increase, so you will need to go back to earlier levels eventually. The game starts out easy, but steadily gets harder as you go along. Overall this game is perhaps a bit too simple and easy, but it is reasonably fun. Each level is short but rewarding to play and finish. The stage designs are good, with plenty of fun puzzles to figure out, and they have a good difficulty curve. The game even has a level creator, if you want to make your own levels. Unfortunately there is no online level trading support, though. Overall Hazumi is not complex, but it is a solid, above average game which can be fun and has a nice mixture of action and strategy. Recommended for sure. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Hyperlight EX - Developed and published by CatfishBluesGames in 2016. This game is an overhead arena action game. The visual look was inspired by games like Geometry Wars. There are many not-as-good clones opf that game out there, but this one at least isn't just a clone, it has unique gameplay. Unfortunately, the gameplay is as flawed as it is different. So, much like Geometry Wars, each stage in this game is a single-screen overhead area, on the upper screen. The graphics are nicely drawn and have a good, very cyber-world-ish style. The game makes good use of the 3DS's stereoscopic 3d display as well. You control a little ship, and enemies appear for you to destroy. However, in this game you CANNOT shoot most of the time. So, this is not a twin-stick shooter. Instead, you move around with the dpad or circle pad, and do a ram attack when you hit A. There is a meter on the screen showing how much ram power you have, and normal enemies will blow up if you pass through them while ramming. If you touch an enemy while not ramming, though, you will be the one to die, or lose your shield if you have one. The meter goes down quickly if you hold the button down to stay in attack mode for a while, but recovers quite slowly.
You do have some help, though. In addition to your ram many enemies drop powerups, and they are useful. The basic powerup recovers some ram power. There is also a gun powerup which shoots straight ahead for a few seconds, walls which create a temporary barrier on the screen, assist drone things, and some more. So, the game is a balance between attack and retreat, as you destroy enemies when you can and run from them when you can't attack. It's a fine concept, but it can be very hard to tell when you run out of ram power; random deaths when you think you should be invincible but instead blow up because your meter was too low are common. It often feels like you don't have enough meter for the amount of foes on screen, either. And this game is punishing when you die, too -- in the main mode, Arcade, the game is level-based. You get one or two lives per stage, and if you run out you start the level over from the beginning. Extra lives aren't really a thing here, either. Progress is difficult and frustrating as you play levels over and over, trying to get past. It's a decent game but having to get right on top of enemies, literally, to attack them leads to a lot of danger and you don't have much margin for error here.
In addition to the main arcade mode the game also has two other modes. THere is an endless mode where you try to survive in a single level for as long as you can, original Geometry Wars-ish, and a somewhat odd mode with tilt controls where you can't go into ram mode and just need to try to stay alive by avoiding enemies by tilting your 3DS away from foes as they try to kill you. Overall, Hyperlight EX has nice graphics and controls well. However, as a game it is average to slightly above average. It has some good ideas and some bad ones and is a bit too frustrating for me to call it great or unreservedly recommend it. Try it if it sounds interesting. Released digitally on 3DS and PC (Steam). There is also a probably enhanced Switch version called Hyperlight Ultimate.
Ikachan - Developed by Studio Pixel and published by Nicalis in 2013. This game is a 2d sidescrolling platformer, I guess. It has an underwater setting so you aren't running or jumping, but are swimming around as a squid; ika is the Japanese word for squid. Studio Pixel, a one-man Japanese indie developer, is best known for Cave Story, but he also made a few other games, including this one. As with Cave Story, this game started out as a freeware PC game, and that PC version was the first game he published, back in 2000. Most of his games other than Cave Story are quite short, this game included; it can be completed in an hour if you know what to do. None of his other games are as popular as Cave Story. While there are some good things about this game, after playing this one honestly I can see why it didn't become a hit like that game did. I did like Cave Story, but not quite as much as some; I played through it once when the original PC freeware game became popular back in the '00s and that's it. I definitely liked the game, but didn't love it enough to play again to get the best ending or buy any of its paid remakes. It was an important release at a time when retro-styled platformers were rare, and it helped spark the retro-styled modern game revolution that we take for granted today.
But that is a different game. As for Ikachan, I had never played it for PC before buying this 3DS port. From what I have played of this game, it's alright but certainly is no Cave Story. It's not just that that game is longer, short games are fine. It's that the game is more satisfying to play, and not as confusing to figure out, unless you wanted the best ending of course. Somewhat like Cave Story, this game is not just a pure platformer. You also talk to other characters in the sea, and will need to figure out what to respond in order to proceed sometimes. This game mixes action and adventure together, and it can be frustrating if you can't figure out what to do. The gameplay is also simple, as I will next explain. The game does have great, very Cave Story-style graphics and music, though, which is pretty nice. The game has stereoscopic 3d depth to its background as well, which is great. Cave Story and retro game fans should play this for its visuals, at least, for sure.
But the most important thing about a game is the gameplay. In this game you play as the squid Ikachan. She can swim and at the beginning that's it. You always are facing updwards. You can angle left or right with left or right on the d-pad, and propel yourself upwards with the A or B buttons. The controls work well and you should get used to them quickly, swimming around is fun. You do move a bit slow since you are underwater, though. You get a hat early on which allows you to damage enemies when you swim up into them from below. It's easy to miss when you try this. They will hurt you if they touch you from other directions, though. You will get a few more items later on, there are six spots in the inventory. This is a quite short game so there aren't many items, and there are only five level-ish areas to the game. The game has an experience system as well. When you kill enemies or collect food pickups you gain experience, and as you level up you get more health and such. You can save and heal at spots between each "level".
The levels are mostly linear, but are not straightforward and do have open areas to explore. You will need to not only just go forward but also will need to talk to the friendly sea urchins, answer their questions correctly, get items, and sometimes go to the same place again after doing some random other thing somewhere else in order to trigger the path ahead opening up. The game may be short, but when you get stuck as I did in the second level it won't feel that way. I had to look up what to do online. Some of what I missed was obvious and some wasn't. The game can feel directionless and figuring out what to do can at times be frustrating. Once you do proceed the game is good, though not the best. The swimming can be fun, but combat's a bit finnicky with having to hit enemies from below. And while I have no problem in theory with exploration in games, having to talk to one person in order for a path to open somewhere else is kind of annoying design. I know I'm complaining too much about one little section, but it did cause me to stop playing this game for years until I came back to it for this summary so I think it's justified. Overall, Ikachan is an alright game. For an underwater 'platfiormer' it's good, though it is a bit slow-paced as underwater games usually are. The game looks and sounds great, but it is short, simple, and annoyingly nonlinear at times. It is a good game worth playing, but it isn't great. Released digitally on PC (as freeware) and 3DS (paid on the eshop).
Infinite Golf - Developed and published by Petite Games in 2017. Infinite Golf is a simple, single-screen-per-level sidescrolling golf game. In each stage, your goal is to get from the tee on the left side of the screen to a hole somewhere else on the screen. The game has two modes, an infinite one and one where you get three shots to complete each hole, and get game over once you fail to complete a hole in three shots. The game keeps track of your best score. In either mode, each stage is randomly generated. There are, unfortunately, no predesigned holes here, only random generation. Each hole is made up of angled ground making up a very rough and hilly surface to try to get through. The controls are simple, with basic touch and button controls for aiming your angle and shooting, which has a standard power meter for how hard your invisible golfer hits the ball. And that's the game, pretty much.
But how fun is it? Pretty fun, actually! This game is very simple and surely was originally designed for cellphones, but I think it's quite entertaining. This is the kind of game designed for playing for minutes per session, not hours, but that is fine. The controls work great and while the random stages will eventually dump you into something nearly impossible unless you make a perfect shot, trying to get as far as I can in the three-chances-per-hole mode is fun stuff. This game has simple graphics with only a few colors per stage, but the stark visuals and angled landscapes look nice. Those stages which put the hole right next to an angled slope going off the edge of the screen are quite annoying, but when you get the power and angle just right to make one of those shots it is very satisfying. I recommend this game for sure, it's simple and cheap and is worth playing for a few minutes at a time. Get Infinite Golf. Released digitally on 3DS and iOS.
Iron Combat: War in the Air - Developed and published by Teyon in 2015. Iron Combat is a 3d flight action game. Perhaps somewhat inspired by Liberation Maiden, which I will cover next time, but perhaps a bit more flawed, this game is somewhat interesting regardless. I will start by saying, though, definitely read the manual before playing this game. Not only is some of the story only in the manual, the controls are also only listed there, not in game. So read it first. With that said, this game is an anime-styled game starring a female android, and set in a post-apocalyptic world. So, this is a mission-based title. Each level in this game requires you to shoot down enemies until the mission ends. There is some voice acting, all in subtitles Japanese, but the cutscenes are text-only, they must not have had the budget for art for them. There is a shop and upgrade system here, and the amount of money you get will depend on how well you do in missions. This can lead to required grinding of earlier stages for upgrade money if you get into a cycle of barely beating missions. This game is tough so most will need to grind.
Once into a mission, the game is fast-paced and mostly fun. Each mission is in a floating box, basically; there is a large cube of sky you can fly around in, with barriers around the edges that will stop you. You have been heavily modified and are both a plane and a floating girl. The two modes control quite differently. The plane form can fly in three dimensions with the circle pad, but is fast and hard to hit enemies with. The humanoid girl form is much more combat-oriented, but you slowly fall all the time while in this mode and cannot control the vertical axis in this form, the stick only moves you left and right. You cannot turn the camera around in this game either, though there is a radar on the lower screen. You will need to rely on the targeting system to hit foes behind you. It kind of works.
As for the rest of the controls, you can switch between the two modes with the R button. In both modes, B fires machine guns and A missiles. Beyond that, in flying girl form Y uses a sword attack. In plane form this will switch you to girl form and use a sword attack. In girl form, you lock on to enemies and the missiles will fire at your current target. Your movement is also based on your current locked on target, and your view points towards them. Since as I mentioned earlier you can't turn the camera, this means that it can be tricky to hit enemies behind you. X changes targets when multiple enemies are close to you, so try to change targets to whoever is attacking you. Lastly, L does a horizontal dodge. When you are locked on to targets and shooting them this mode is fun, just remember you are slowly dropping and you'll be in trouble when faced with a bunch of foes coming from multiple directions. You can change targets of course, but it can be tricky. In plane form, you can't lock on to targets and your view points towards where you are flying. X instead does a rapid turn, and L closes up your upper stabilizers to increase your speed. This mode gets you some elevation again and out of tricky situations. You can fight as a plane too, but will have trouble hitting much unless it is also moving fast.
The game can definitely be fun as you blast the enemies, but it is pretty hard to stay alive. It would have been better if you got more money for beating missions, the required grind to pad out the game is annoying. Also, while in floating girl form I wish you could easily turn around to face enemies coming at you from other directions. You have to rely on either whatever hitting X to change lockon targets does or switch to plane form and fly away, and neither of those options are as good as a more free control scheme would allow. I know that this game doesn't support the Circle Pad Pro or New 3DS's second analog stick and added buttons and thus uses all the buttons, but still, I wish that they had done things a bit differently. Even so, Iron Combat is a decently good game certainly worth playing if you like flight action games. This is a plane game, but it feels shmuppish at times as you move left and right to dodge incoming fire while you shoot away at your foes. It's reasonably fun stuff, the sometimes high difficulty and targeting issues aside. Moderately recommended. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Jett Rocket II - Developed and published by Shin'en in 2013. Jett Rocket II is a 3d, behind-the-character action-platformer. This game is a sequel to Jett Rocket, which was a WiiWare game on the original Wii. For those who didn't buy that game back when it was available, though, this game stands alone just fine. That game was a 3d platformer. This time, the game has both isometric-ish 3d levels and side-scrolling 2.5d levels, and alternates between the two styles. You play as hero Jett Rocket, and he moves somewhat slowly, unfortunately. You also don't have speed control; the game has some analog control, for your movement direction in 3d levels, but you're either walking or stopped. Disappointing. On the other hand, as the name suggests he has a jetpack. You can also jump normally, but the jetpack is the unique thing here. The jetpack is fun to use but you will need to learn to control it. Jetpack usage is limited though, you need to stand on recharge areas to get jetpack uses back. And last you have a roll attack. This is a separate button from jump. On the ground you do a forward roll, and in the air a double jump / spin attack. This move is how you defeat enemies or break breakable objects or walls in the levels. You'll need to get used to hitting one button to jump then a different one for the double jump and attack. The controls feel fine, not the most responsive but perfectly decent.
As far as level designs, in either the 2.5d or 3d levels this is a good but not great game. You walk around, jetpack, pick up items, roll into enemies, and repeat. I liked the first game on Wii more, honestly; this one feels a bit lesser in scope. That game was entirely 3d, for one thing, instead of being half 2.5d and half 3d as this one is. I like the 3d levels here more than the pretty generic 2.5d ones, so I kind of wish this one was fully 3d as well. I never feel incredibly impressed like I would on 3DS from Mario 3D Land or Sonic Lost World, but it's a fine, solidly made game with slightly slow but decent pacing, average challenge, and quality level designs. The game does get harder as you go along, so it won't all be easy. Avoiding some enemies feels janky at times though, but you do have several hit points per life so it's not too bad. On the one hand, all of the levels in each world have pretty similar looks to them and there are a lot of fairly sterile-looking environments. It is all in 60fps stereoscopic 3d though, so it does look nice. Overall this is a simple game without much depth, and it feels somewhat generic in graphics and level designs, particularly in the 2.5d half of the game, but while ultimately only a bit above average, Jett Rocket II is alright and probably is worth playing if you like the genre. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Jewel Match 3 - Developed by Suricate Software and published by Joindots in 2013. This is a match three item-dropping puzzle game. It is part of a long-running casual PC game series, in maybe its only entry on consoles. There are a lot of games like this, inspired by Bejeweled among many others, but this one is one of only a handful of download-only ones on the 3DS. It's an easy and conventional, but fun, game. Please note, this game is called Jewel Match 3, but if it is part of a series the rest of the games aren't on 3DS. The main gameplay here is match 3 puzzles, but it has a few other minigames to keep things interesting. This is a fantasy-themed game. You are a young woman trying to save her kingdom from an evil mage who has imprisoned everyone in crystals and ruined the place. There are story scenes along the way. So, you use the money you get from the match 3 puzzles to rebuild the castle and surroundings and make a garden. These two elements are separate screens. You have two currencies, one spent on buildings and one on plants and gardening items. It is satisfying to get more buildings and expand the castle, and you get additional abilities -- that is, items you can use during a puzzle to affect the screen and get past a locked-up impasse where you can't get the right block in the right place to start clearing a part of the screen -- over time, particularly as you free the key people from those crystals. As for the garden element, you place flowers onto the screen, and then can buy items such as water to grow the flowers taller or bug killer to keep bugs off of them. It's very simple stuff but is a decent inclusion I guess. You play on the lower screen of course, but the castle, which is on the upper screen, and other upper-screen displays are all in stereoscopic 3d.
The main game is mostly standard match-3 gameplay. The main unique feature is that each level has several screens which you will go between. Often each screen is a separate puzzle, but sometimes you will need a key on one screen in order to finish another screen. It's an idea they could do more with, but I like the feature, it adds a bit to this game. Other than that, the game is mostly traditional. Gems drop from above, falling into open spaces. You play with the stylus, and slide tiles to make a match. You can only move if you can make a match, you can't move into empty spaces, and tiles only match when you slide them, they won't break by themselves when they form lines of three while dropping in. That's fine, there's almost always a match in this game. If there isn't one it will drop all new gems, you don't need to start over. Matching four or more items drops a powerup, some very useful; one clears a full row of tiles. Some spaces have blocks that only open once a key somewhere has been aquired, others wooden boxes which break once you break a block next to them, and others have locks so you can't move that tile's gem but have to match next to it. To beat levels you need to drop certain unbreakable items to the bottom row of tiles and/or make a match on certain shining tiles. These are all standard elements of the genre but it's all implemented well here. The other game types are hidden item puzzles and tile-flipping image creation puzzles. The hidden item puzzles are fine and standard for the category, search the scene for the items shown and touch them when you find them. The tile flipping ones very thankfully are NOT sliding tile puzzles; they may look like it at first, but you can just move tiles anywhere at will and rotate them, to make the tiles copy an image on the other side of the screen. It's easy.
And indeed, "easy" is one of this games' defining traits. Match 3 tile games are never incredibly hard, but comparing this to other games in the genre, and I have a bunch on physical carts on the 3DS and DS, such as the Cradle of Rome/Egypt/etc. series, this one seems more forgiving than most. Your abilities are powerful, the powerups that drop are great, the time limits in stages are long and forgiving, the image recreation easy, and the money comes in at a steady pace. I don't think I have failed a level yet in this game. This is a fun, relaxing game which won't challenge you much but is reasonably fun if you like the genre. The game feels somewhat ambitious with its various side modes, and the building and simple gardening you do between stages gives you some nice progression as well as your castle and garden grow. Jewel Match 3 feels kind of like a beginner's match 3 game due to its forgiving nature, but it's a fun enough time and is worth a look. Released physically on the DS and PC (both released in Europe only) and digitally on PC (on the BigFishGames store only) and 3DS. The DS version appears similar, just without the 3d and with downgraded graphics and resolution of course.
Jewel Quest IV: Heritage - Developed by Engine Software and published by MSL in 2015. The 3DS version of this game released a few months after Jewel Quest 6: The Sapphire Dragon, below, though it is based on an earlier game so I am listing it first. Is Jewel Quest 4 a sequel to Jewel Match 3? No, they are entirely unrelated games from different publishers. This match 3 jewel tiles series had probably several dozen releases on various platforms, some of them on the 3DS. This game follows up Jewel Quest Trilogy for Wii and DS, and the original PC games of course. The game has a mid 20th century setting, and you play as an archaeologist guy, who with his family starred in the original three games as well. This time, your precious Golden Jewel Board, which was Aztec treasure found by Cortez, has been legally taken from you by a sketchy guy claiming to be Cortez's distant relative. You need to investigate your own family tree in an attempt to figure out how to turn tables on him and get your precious Golden Jewel Board back for your museum. The plot is pretty dumb, but it's normal stuff for this genre. There is voice acting. Fitting with the family tree theme, the level select screen is a family tree. Each person has several boards and the game keeps track of your score for each one.
Once you get into the game, Heritage has a large board on the lower screen where you play, and a stereoscopic 3d image on the upper screen showing where you are. This is a match 3 game, so you move tiles to make matches. As usual in these games, you can only move tiles to a space directly next to it left, right, up, or down. Both Jewel Quest games here, this and the next one, are from the 'you must make a match on every tile on the board to proceed' school of match 3 game design. Once you make a match on a space it turns gold, and once a whole board is gold you beat that level and move on to selecting a new board to try. Once you make a match new tiles will fall in to fill the space, and if they make any 3-in-a-row matches themselves they will also pop and clear those tiles as well, creating chains. You need to wait until all tiles have finished matching and filling in before you are allowed to make your next move. The next game would change this, but this works fine. An odd quirk both of these Jewel Quest games do share, though, is that you can move tiles freely through empty spaces on the board, without making matches. Since tiles fall you can't move a tile to a space directly above it, but you can move tiles left and right at will. Some puzzles are impossible without moving tiles around this way. It's always strange to see, but get used to it here.
Now, one major issue with 'clear every tile' match 3 games is the frustration when you need one corner tile and can't get it. In this game, if you match three golden disc items, you get a powerup which allows you to turn any one tile gold. It's nice they give you something. It would be nice if there were more powerups, such as the bonus items some games such as Jewel Quest 3 give you for matching 4 or 5 at a time, but this game doesn't have those. Ah well. The game is mostly very similar from stage to stage, but it does do some small variations on its core design. Each stage has a ruleset listed on the level select screen. Most have just the standard rules, but some have special rules. One noteworthy type of special stage are ones with limited tiles. You must clear a certain part of the board without running out of tiles. It's kind of frustrating. Moving tiles left and right is essential here. Overall though, this is a fairly simple game. You just match tiles, follow the plot if you care, and go back to matching tiles. This game is a decently average title maybe worth a try if you like matching tile puzzle games. Released physically on DS (in Europe only) and PC, and digitally on PC (on the BigFishGames store), iOS, DSi (on the DSiWare shop, still available on 3DS), and 3DS. Some platforms have the IV in the title and others do not but it's the same game.
Jewel Quest 6: The Sapphire Dragon - Developed by Engine Software and published by Tulip Games in 2015. This game is also part of the prolific Jewel Quest franchise, a franchise with many titles across a lot of platforms. I don't know why they skipped the fifth game on 3DS though, but they did. Amusingly, this game released before the 3DS version of Jewel Quest Heritage, above, though the original PC game released after Heritage. This game drops the characters from the older Jewel Quest games for an all-new cast, though it was, oddly, written as if you have seen these characters before and know them. It's pretty annoying writing when no, this is as far as I know the only game with these characters. The story and writing is worse, I quite dislike it. I should say, this game is fully voice acted. The game has touch-only controls, so you advance story lines by touching a button on the screen. In this game, which is set in the present day, a guy makes a discovery. Then, the game skips to a group of six adventurers, one of them that guy, one his twin sister, and four others. Then people attack and kidnap him wanting to find that discovery first, and you play as the other five trying to rescue him. This game has a levelling system and progression, with each character having separate experience and abilities to unlock. You choose which one you want to play before each level. The game has cartoon-style art but takes its story far too seriously, and the writing is bad. For instance, a major plot point is that the kidnapped guy has diabetes, so they need to rescue him before he has problems because of that. All of the character interactions are just way too tediously serious and realistic, it turns me off of the game. Some of it is very stereotyped, too, such as the Russian woman's broken English or the way the male characters constantly hit on the female ones. Oh, and the game puts the games' title screen image on the upper screen of the level select screen for some reason. Odd.
As for the gameplay, this is, of course, a match three puzzle game. When compared to Jewel Match 3 above, there are a few important differences: first the tile size is much smaller, though the board isn't as much bigger as you'd think since there is a large border around the screen for some reason. It looks small and visually boring. The upper screen is mostly empty, with only some stats and the time bar there and little else. As for stereoscopic 3d, that title screen image that the game's showing you constantly has it and during story scenes the character images float over the background, but that's about it. Anyway, as in most match 3 games, each stage is a single board. The biggest difference between Jewel Match and Jewel Quest though is that in this game, if tiles dropping in form 3 in a rows they will make a match and pop those tiles. This allows for chain reactions as tiles drop in and make matches as they go. That can be fun to watch, but honestly I'd rather play the game than watch it play itself. Additionally, unlike Jewel Quest 4: Heritage, The Sapphire Dragon lets you move tiles while other ones are still dropping, for slightly more dynamic play. Just like Jewel Quest 4, though, this game laos has the very odd ability to lets you move tiles stuck around an empty space through the other empty spaces. Yes, there is an exception here to the usual "you can only move to make a match" rule: you can move jewels through empty spaces even if there is no match. It's so odd to see versus the way this genre usually goes. Some stages rely on this to be possible to complete. Even so, I would call this game definitely harder than Jewel Match 3, since it has much less to help you. Just like the previous game there aren't powerups on the board for instance, you get nothing special for matching 4 or 5 at a time. Your characters' skills become more useful with time as they level up, but early on you get little. The early game is more frustrating than Jewel Quest 4 for that reason. The game does have three difficulty levels, but they only affect the length of the time limit.
The way you clear a standard board in this game is by making a match on every single tile on the board. The 'you must match on every tile' match three games are almost always harder than the 'match on these specific spaces' games, and this is no exception. There are a few other game modes here as well, though. One has you having to follow a path, matching on specific tiles one after another to cross a board. You can't skip a spot here, you have to match on the right spaces. A third variation has large blocks dropping, getting in the way unless you clear the space under them. Here the 'you can move through empty spaces' feature becomes quite apparent. There's one where you need to match special item types in addition to making a match on all tiles. And more. It's nice that the game has a little variety, but it's all just small twists on the same basic idea. Still, it's something. Even so, with small, bland graphics, writing and characters I kind of hate, and very forgettable gameplay in every way this game is as average as it gets. Only play this if you like match 3 games that require you to spend lots of time tediously trying to make that one match in a corner that almost never lines up. There are a few good things about Jewel Quest: The Sapphire Dragon, but I'd say pass on this game unless you really like the genre. Released physically on PC and digitally on PC (on the BigFishGames store) and 3DS.
Johnny Kung Fu - Developed and published by UFO Interactive in 2012. UFO published three games starring a character called Johnny, all released in the second half of one year, 2012. So, this is a trilogy of sorts, though each game has totally different themes and gameplay. There's plenty of variety here. On the good side, these games have very good visuals for download only 3DS games, with good art design and very nice use of stereoscopic 3D, much better stereoscopic 3d than most downloadable 3DS platformers and such. As such, had the games just played well, they'd have been easy to recommend. However, they forgot something important: good gameplay. None of them have it, at all. If you look up the few professional reviews of these games they are VERY low, and after playing them I fully understand why. It's really unfortunate.
Starting with this game, Johnny Kung Fu is kind of a minigame collection. The primary game is a handheld LCD game recreation, such as a Tiger handheld or Nintendo Game & Watch, so you cannot freely move around the screen but instead move from point to point and can only act at specific locations. It is a single-screen game where you need to go up to the top of a three-level area and get through the door. You've got to avoid enemy attacks on the firist two floors as you go over to the enemies at the end of each floor and take them down, and then get past a lot of lasers on the top floor to escape. The mode is questionably designed and is incredibly frustrating. Sometimes you're stuck not being able to move forward on the first floor because of constant enemy attacks and that you can't jump in the middle third of the screen so you need to just wait for an opening while not missing any jumps before moving forward, for instance; your duck only lasts a predetermined time so to dodge the second floor guy's knives you need precise timing; and the lasers on the top floor are just awful, there's no good way to figure out their pattern and not die! I'm rarely much of a fan of handheld LCD games, but this is NOT a well designed one. It's too hard, and the limitations of the locked-to-specific-locations handheld LCD game movement system are really frustrating. I get what they were going for but wish they had made something more normal.
In between handheld LCD game levels you play other stage types. Some are much more standard side-view beat 'em up battles. These are also on a static screen, but at least you can freely move around. You have buttons for jump, punch, and kick, and sometimes face waves of enemies and other times bosses. It's pretty average stuff. And last, sometimes there are other little timing minigames. The game keeps throwing new things at you as you go. The problem is it's rarely all that fun, the handheld LCD game which is the main mode you play is too hard, and the side-view beat 'em up stuff is very very bland and mediocre. And when you die, you lose time. Yes, this game, as all Johnny games do, has a time limit. In each of these three games you have one hour to finish the game, and after each three deaths and thus a game over five minutes is knocked off of that time. Once you run out of time you need to start the game over from the beginning. I absolutely hate this design decision and think it mostly ruins whatever bits of fun you can find in this title, I don't want to have to start over because your game is too hard! That's not right. Overall probably don't get this game, or the others below, unless you want to experience this mess for yourself. Some might enjoy the challenge here, particularly if you like handheld LCD games, so consider it if you do. And if you DO get it at least you'll have some solid visuals to look at. But I don't find it very good. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Johnny Hotshot - Developed and published by UFO Interactive in 2012. While Johnny was a kung fu star in the title above, this time he's a Wild West Sheriff. The plot here is Johnny was pulled into an arcade machine and needs to get out by beating the game for real. Again, the game looks pretty nice and makes good use of stereoscopic 3d. The gameplay, though? This game is the absolute worst of the three, by far. This game is miserably unfun to playh and has virtually no redeeming qualities; at least you can find SOME enjoyment out of the other two Johnny games. This one, though, is pretty irredemably bad. So, there are three minigames in this title. In each of several stages you go through the same three minigames, playing the three games in the same order each time. The first minigame is a target-shooting game which locks you to your targets. There are three potential targets shown on each of up to two lines on screen, and you hit left and right to change targets and fire to shoot. The lower screen shows cardboard cutouts of targets, and you can also play by tapping the lower screen icons for the people appearing on the top screen; it can be faster. Some targets are armed enemies you need to shoot, and others are unarmed civilians you shouldn't shoot. And one per stage flees quickly and is very tough to hit.
The game is timed, and once the timer runs out you lose and lose a life unless you completed it. As with all three Johnny titles, each Game Over takes five minutes away from your one hour timer until you have to restart the entire game, which is, again, horrible design. The game does not tell you what you need to do to complete it either in the game or in the ingame manual, and you cannot actually finish it just by taking out enough targets; it's endless and keeps showing random targets until time runs out and you lose. I had to go read a review of the game online to figure out what to do here. The secret is those elusive guys who run quickly; you must shoot that harder-to-get enemy down in order to complete a stage. Once you manage to hit this target you instantly win and it ends and you move on to the next minigame.
The second game is similar to the first, but you move left and right to shoot at targets. The room is five targets wide, and you can only shoot straight ahead. This time you cannot use the touchscreen, it's button controls only unfortunately. Again you need to hit the elusive target to proceed, figure out who it is through trial and error. The third minigame is a fight against the stage's boss. This time it's isometric. You and your target are on horses running to the right, and you move up and down to avoid their attacks and shoot them down. Once you do enough damage, you mash A and then hit X at the right time to fill up and activate a lasso meter. Then you win. The boss stages are, oddly, the easiest ones. Then you move on to the next stage and repeat the process. You probably won't want to, though. There are some good classic games with the 'shoot the targets, don't hit the civilians' concept like this game has, but the horrible 'you must hit the one secret enemy to win or you lose and we didn't bother to tell you this' design is really, really bad and the game isn't much fun even once you do understand how to play it. I don't think I'll go back to this game much at all. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Johnny Impossible - Developed and published by UFO Interactive in 2012. The last of the Johnny games is almost good... but it isn't. This game is a side-view action-platformer with a spy setting. This is a stealth game, and you need to get through each level without being seen. The game is made up of many single-screen rooms, and you need to figure out what to do in each one to proceed. You will jump between platforms, hit switches, avoid or fight enemies, and such. There are also handheld LCD game style minigames at the end of each level. Fortunately they are a much smaller part of the game here than they are in Johnny Kung Fu. Your items start with night vision goggles and a stun gun, and you get more things as you go. The lower screen shows a map of how the screens connect and also your items. I like that this time it's actually a platformer where you can move around normally, unlike the previous Johnny games. However, there are several major issues that ruin this game almost as badly as the other two: the controls, the screen view, and the timer. On the controls, you move Johnny with the dpad and jump or use your items with buttons. Control never feels good, it's slow and mobile game-ish. I've missed jumps many times because of the iffy controls. It can also be hard to tell when you will make it onto a platform and when you can't. Next, the timer. The one hour timer returns, unfortunately. As before, each game over means you lose five additional minutes towards the one hour you have to complete the game. One hit kills you in this game so you will be losing time a lot. The game is also loaded with bugs and glitches. Know you will need to start over.
Now, the above problems are annoying, but not critical. There are plenty of decent games with similar issues to those. The next issue, however, is. UFO, as always, made a major mistake while designing this game. And as for the screen view... So, when playing Mario Maker 2, what do you think of dark levels? Like most sane people, I quite dislike them. It is possible to make a good dark level, but it is extremely rare. Well, this game presages that with ... the whole first few levels of the game being entirely dark! Yes, right at the start of the game and for the next large chunk of gameplay after, you can only see Johnny and the area immediately next to him. You do have a button which turns on night vision goggles that shows the whole screen for a second, but the item has a timer so you can't just keep using them. You can't move while using it either, and it only lasts a moment. The idea is to learn your surrounding and then go through the area in the dark. Can you do this, yes. Is it fun, no. Noat at all. Because for instance, in the dark, how are you supposed to see that motion sensor beam which you tripped? You probably couldn't. And now that you hit it, you have ten seconds to get out of the current screen to another screen or you die and lose a life. Of course, you might die on the way out too, that is very possible; given the exceptionally short viewing distance seeing obstacles is unlikely if you are moving with any speed. Now, the whole game is not dark, later levels let you see. Unfortunately, this does not make the poor game design much better. The game still feels bad to play and is very memorization heavy.
As a result, in this game you need to move slowly, learn the traps, work your way around them, and use your tools appropriately to get past enemies and such. And there is something to be said for that. In levels where you can see the whole screen, this game rises to merely a poor game that isn't much fun. When the screen is dark, though, this game is totally miserable. You will die constantly because of traps you couldn't see until it's too late. This game is a very frustrating pain to play and only play it if you want to subject yourself to this kind of frustration. I don't want to for long. This game is, overall, bad. It may be the best Johnny game, but that is saying very little. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Ranking of the Games in this Update
These are the best games this update. Get them.
Gurumin 3D
These are also good games. Try these if you like the genres.
Glory of Generals
Gunman Clive
Gunman Clive 2
Hazumi
Infinite Golf
Ikachan
Iron Combat: War in the Air
Jewel Match 3
These are decent mid-tier titles worth a look if you like the genres.
Go! Go! Kokopolo 3D
Gourmet Dream
Hyperlight EX
Harold's Walk
Jett Rocket II
Jewel Quest IV: Heritage
Not very good, but maybe worth a look anyway...
Gotcha Racing
Jewel Quest 6: The Sapphire Dragon
And last and definitely least...
Johnny Impossible
Johnny Kung Fu
Johnny Hotshot
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - Dark Jaguar - 31st July 2022
Hmm... I may have to just steal them after the store closes. I can't see a moral reason not to, since Nintendo won't be able to take my money either way at that point.
Wait Fire Emblem Fates special edition is actually rare now? Goes to show how little attention I tend to pay to releases once I already own them... Apparently Panzer Dragoon Saga is the most expensive game I own now. I really REALLY need to get around to ripping those discs before they rot.
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - A Black Falcon - 14th August 2022
Yes, the all-in-one release of FE Fates is pretty rare. I wish I'd gotten it but I didn't, and now it's quite expensive.
Quote: Hmm... I may have to just steal them after the store closes. I can't see a moral reason not to, since Nintendo won't be able to take my money either way at that point.For those with a Switch linked to their Nintendo Network account, remember that it doesn't fully close until next March. That's a while to wait, and I think some stuff is definitely worth getting. But sure, once they have shut it down? There's not reason to respect "don't copy" after that. If Nintendo wanted people to buy the games they'd keep the store up.
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - A Black Falcon - 15th February 2023
I didn't drop this series, just ... uh, I took some multi-month breaks. I see that I forgot to post the last one, which I did back in November. I will post that now and then in a second post the sixth update, which I just finished.Game Opinion Summaries: Digital-Only Nintendo 3DS Games, Part 5: K-LYes, it’s not a mirage, it’s an actual videogame article! I finally got the next part of this series done. The article should be complete now. I cover some interesting stuff this time.
Table of Contents
K-L – 20 games
K-L – 20 games
Kami
Karous: The Beast of Re-Eden
Keep, The
Kid Tripp
Kingdom’s Item Shop
Kirby Fighters Deluxe
Kirby’s Blowout Blast
League of Heroes
Legend of Dark Witch 2, The
Legend of Dark Witch III: Wisdom and Lunacy, The
Legend of Dark Witch, The
Legend of Kusakari, The
Liberation Maiden
Lifespeed
Link-A-Pix Color
Lionel City Builder 3D: Rise of the Rails
Love Hero
Gal Galaxy Pain
Queen TV-Game 2, The
Luxor
The Summaries
Kami – Developed by Flyhigh Works (for 3DS) and State of Play (for the original iOS release) and published by CIRCLE Entertainment in 2015. Kami is a puzzle game where you need to make a screen all one color. The game is a port of an earlier mobile game of the same name. The screen starts out with a bunch of different colored blocks, with a Japanese paper-folding visual theme, and you choose from the colors in the image and touch blocks in order to change that colored area to that color. Make the field the same color as the screen border and you beat the stage. Once differently colored blocks are changed to become the same color they merge into a larger block of color. This game is a lot like another puzzle game I covered earlier, Color Zen, but this game is a bit different in that you don’t move objects around on the screen in this game and have to end with one specific color as the color of the whole screen. I think that overall I like Color Zen a little more, but Kami is also pretty good. This is a solid, simple logic puzzle game.
The main catch that makes this game tough is that you have a move limit, and must complete the stage in either that number of moves or one more than that target. You get a better medal for hitting the upper target, a lesser medal for the lower target, and fail and have to retry if you take any more turns than that. The game starts out easy, but after a while it gets pretty hard to figure out what order to color each color zone in in order to make the whole field the same color. This is a tricky logic puzzle game that will keep you coming back for some time. It’s good and I recommend it for anyone who like this kind of game. Also released digitally on iOS and PC/ Mac (Steam).
Karous: The Beast of Re-Eden – Developed by RS34 and published by CIRCLE Entertainment in 2015. The original Karous is a shmup for the Dreamcast, and later also Gamecube (in Japan) and Wii, from the developer Milestone. Milestone was an okay but somewhat average shmup developer, and I never really liked their games. Still, when this 3DS title using the Karous name was released I picked it up eventually. Unfortunately, don’t expect much from this game because you won’t get anything really worth playing. The original Karous was a subpar, but standard, tate shmup. This game, however, changes things up. It instead has a mission-based design with levelling and experience and such. So, yes, it puts grind into shmups. Thanks?
Going for a gameplay window the size of the 3DS’s upper screen makes sense, though it does greatly reduce forwards visibility as your ship is quite large. This is a vertical-scrolling shooter, and there are no stage obstacles to avoid in the levels, only enemies and their bullets. That is normal for this kind of shooter, but this one has much less interesting enemy patterns than a better shmup. Indeed, the boring stages and grind-heavy gameplay are much less sensible decisions than the new screen shape is. In the between-missions menu you can buy upgrades for your ship and choose a mission. There are a lot of missions, though gameplay-wise they are all very similar: fly forward and shoot stuff. After you are done, whether you beat the stage or die, you return to base and get some money to spend on rewards. You get more rewards for winning than losing, of course, but you get some either way as you try to level up enough to actually survive. You will survive better as you get better stuff, but I don’t think that playing the same boring, empty levels over and over to get to that point is at all worth it. Not recommended, this game is not good. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
The Keep – Developed and published by Cinemax (no, not the TV station) in 2014. The Keep is a first-person dungeon crawler RPG, in the classic Western dungeon crawler style. This game has real-time action-ish combat, so it is not a purely menu-based affair. You play as a guy who is exploring a dungeon in order to try to save the locals from the evil wizard holed up within. The game has decent background art, but the character art’s kind of mediocre and the main character guy is a bit odd looking. He doesn’t look like your stereotypical selfless hero, heh. The plot is okay, though, and there are some cutscenes. Regardless, this genre isn’t known for its stories but its gameplay, and the gameplay here is alright. In the classic first person dungeon crawler style the game has plenty of dungeons to explore, with puzzles, traps, and monsters to fight within, along with story scenes here and there. This is certainly a modern game, in that it is pretty kind to the player early on and you should be able to progress steadily. I am fine with that; real ’80s to early ’90s PC dungeon crawlers were often insanely hard and grindey. I prefer this, myself. You can’t even really grind here, enemies are preset and don’t randomly generate as you go around. I like this design.
While you are exploring, you will use both the d-pad or analog stick and the touchscreen. The upper screen shows where you are, with nice stereoscopic 3d depth to the visuals as you would expect. The lower screen has your inventory and interface. A touchscreen is perfect for RPG inventory management, and indeed you will use it for that. Additionally, one button gives you a cursor to move around the upper screen, in order to interact with things there when you want to push a button or lever or what have you. It’s just like having a mouse except on the 3DS and works well. When it comes to combat, as I said, this game is real-time. So, you can kite enemies by attacking them, backing up, waiting for them to move towards you, and repeating this process. Does this make many enemies in this game kind of brokenly easy to fight if you master the technique, perhaps, but still I find it fun. You have a variety of regular weapons to use, but also will get magic runes. If you place the runes in your magic panel in the correct order, as shown in magic spell scrolls you collect, you then can cast that spell by opening the magic panel and activating those runes in that order with the cursor. It’s a simple but fun magic system which is fun enough to use.
Overall, The Keep is a good game. This straightforward, classic first person dungeon crawler will have you traveling through dungeons, looking for switches and fighting monsters as you try to defeat the evil wizard. The game certainly is on the easier side for its genre, but given how crushingly hard many dungeon crawlers are, having one that isn’t like that is a very nice option. And there isn’t even any grinding! Sure, the graphics are bland and the charcter art not very good, but the gameplay beyond those visuals more than makes up for it. I like this game and would recommend it, it’s above average. Digital exclusive. Also available on PC/Mac (Steam) and on Nintendo Switch. This game is the kind of title that’s certainly more fun portably than on a PC and it makes good use of the 3d effect and touchscreen on the 3DS, so get it on this system while you can. Also released digitally on PC/Mac (Steam) and Nintendo Switch. This 3DS release is probably the best version due to making great use of the stylus and 3d effect.
Kid Tripp – Developed and published by Four Horses in 2017. This game is an auto-runner platformer originally released on mobile, as you might expect. The same developer would go on to make another similar but improved game that mostly drops the forced autorunning, Miles & Kilo, but unfortunately this one is an autorunner. You are the boy Kid Tripp, and while flying along in your biplane you get blasted by a flaming attack and are shot down on a tropical island. All of the animals in the area are fleeing in fear, and you join them in running away. The game has decently done, if generic, 2d sprite art graphics with stereoscopic 3d depth. As you run along the game uses two buttons, one for jump and one for a ranged throwing attack. You can also do a head tilt forward charge-ish thing by pressing forward. Beyond that, it’s just up to you to memorize each level enough to actually get to the end without dying. Completing stages here will take memorization, because you will need very good timing to make the jumps and attacks without dying. Some jumps are just basic platform-to-platform jumps, but others involve having to bounce off of enemies with very precise timing both in the jump and in the approach in order to make it over some pits without falling into the water and losing a life. The game is alright, but very frustrating at times as you move somewhat quickly and many situations cannot be discerned without dying, perhaps repeatedly, until you get the timing right. This game is alright I guess if you like dying a lot because of getting the timing wrong, but I’d call it definitely below average overall mostly because of how annoying autorunning is. I greatly prefer being able to stop and take jumps at my own time to having to deal with always moving forward in a platformer. Automatic movement works in shmups, but it does NOT work in platformers. Still, it’s maybe worth a look, though Miles & Kilo is better. First released digitally on iOS in 2013; digital releases on 3DS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch, and enhancements for the Xbox Series X have followed.
Kingdom’s Item Shop – Developed by PUMO and published by CIRCLE Entertainment in 2016. This game is an RPG-lite with a lot of crafting and some light economic-sim elements. In this game you play as a boy or girl running an item shop in a fantasy world. The catch is, you don’t just sell stuff; instead, you have to go into dangerous areas to collect the component parts for the items you will sell. However, you aren’t a fighter and don’t go into dungeons alone. Instead, you hire heroes to fight for you and follow behind them, telling them some basic commands and collecting the items defeated enemies drop. Each area is a linear path made up of a series of fights, and once you defeat each enemy you move on to the next screen and the next battle. Your heroes automatically fight, but you can tell them to defend or attack with the buttons. This is important because in defensive mode they will take less damage, and you want to try to keep them alive because once knocked out they won’t come back that run. The battle system is simple, but the commands are enough to keep battles a bit interesting, and running around collecting items and avoiding enemy attacks while your party fights actually is fun. The issue is, the items enemies drop, and the enemies you fight, is somewhat randomized, so getting specific rarer parts requires a lot of grind as you replay the same handful of areas over and over and over.
Once you return to town, you can go to your shop and choose what you are putting out to sell, go to several crafting shops where you try to combine the items you have into new better items, or try to do missions for people. In both the missions and crafting shops you are given a clue about the item in question, and need to figure out what it is. Crafters will give you a vague hint suggesting what items you need to combine to succeed at the combination, and the mission messages give a little bit of plot hinting at what item the person wants, but you need to figure out what items are required on your own. The early combinations are easy enough to figure out and for quite some time I was having fun with this game, but eventually the clues get extremely cryptic. I do not enjoy crafting much, so it was about at that point, late in the game, when I gave up; the remaining item combinations are just too hard to guess, and getting the supplies to keep trying is extremely grindey. Even so, despite the heavy crafting focus and simple design, I like something about this game and keep going back to it. I recommend this game if it sounds interesting. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Kirby Fighters Deluxe – Developed by HAL and published by Nintendo in 2014. Kirby Fighters Deluxe is a spinoff Kirby game, based on a minigame from one of the main series titles. The game has decent stereoscopic 3d effects and nice, classically HAL graphics, but there is very little reason to buy or play it. The game is one of several fighting game spinoffs of the Kirby franchise; there are two different fighting game with RPG elements Kirby spinoff series, for some reason. This one is simple, probably too simple. I know this is a cheap downloadable game, but still, you don’t get much here. This game is incredibly similar to a Smash Bros. game, except with only Kirby with a variety of powers, and instead of having to knock the other players off the screen you win by just depleting their health bars. The controls here feel taken straight out of Smash Bros. more so than a 3DS Kirby game, since you have limited flight sadly.
For characters, again, there is only Kirby. The game has a decent selection of different Kirby powers, maybe ten or so total. You choose one each time before you start; you can’t take powers from the others, but instead just have your current power for the current run through the game. For modes the game has a single player mode and a multiplayer mode. The single player is a standard fighting game-style tournament with about eight rounds. Most are against various Kirbies or groups of Kirbies, some of them 1 on 1 fights and some 2 on 1 or 1 on 2 team matches, and two are boss fights. The length is about right for a fighting game, as in short, and there are four or five difficulty options which do a pretty good job of changing the challenge level. On the top setting, this game is honestly challenging. However, that’s all you get for modes unless you have friends with 3DSes, because this game does NOT have online play. Instead, the multiplayer is local only. Good luck playing that ever. Overall, Kirby Fighters Deluxe is a mid-tier game, expanded from the minigame it is based on but with a lot fewer features than its later Switch followup. I can’t recommend buying it unless you are a Kirby completionist. It’s fun enough for a few minutes, but what’s the point of this being its own game? Just play Smash. Sure, this has a few Kirby abilitites and environments you won’t find in Smash, but even so, it is just a cut-rate, very feature-reduced Smash knockoff by Smash’s original developer. Probably don’t bother getting this. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive, technically. This game has a sequel on the Switch, which is also a digital-only release.
Kirby’s Blowout Blast – Developed by HAL and published by Nintendo in 2017. Kirby’s Blowout Blast is a great little isometric side/overhead view 3d action-platform game with very nice stereoscopic 3d effects. As with most of the downloadable Kirby games, this game is an expanded idea based on a minigame from a previous main-series Kirby game. This game was visually inspired by the original Kirby’s Dream Land, which is great. The game looks fantastic with a very nostalgic look, all the enemies and settings of the original game return here. The gameplay is quite different, though. As in that game you play as Kirby and while you can swallow and spit out enemies, you don’t get powers from them.
However, that is where the similarities end. Here your goal is not just to walk, jump, and fly to the end of each level. Instead, it is to defeat all of the enemies, either by swallowing them yourself or by spitting other enemies at them. While this game has some platform jumping, the main focus here is on the combat rooms, areas where enemies attack you and you cannot proceed until they are all defeated. You are scored on your performance in each area, getting more points for getting more kills with a single attack than you do for having to kill each enemy individually. This game is very short, but as with all of the downloadable Kirby games on the 3DS it has good replay value if you want to try to get better scores and rankings in the levels, there is plenty to try to optimize as you try to use fewer attacks and take more enemies out with each blast.
Overall, this is a great and charming game and it’s a definite must-play. The game is simple and straightforward, hence the short summary here, but is extremely fun and rewarding. Of the digital-only 3DS Kirby games this one is by far the best. This game is simple, but it is probably one of the best download-only games on the 3DS and is something everyone with a 3DS should definitely buy. It’s a fun and charming game with good fun gameplay and is plenty of fun. The difficulty is well-balanced too, with easy play for low grades but more challenge for someone who wants to get more points. Buy this game while it is still for sale. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
League of Heroes – Developed and published by Gamelion in 2014. This game is a simple, and not very good, overhead 2d action-RPG. Quite relevantly it is a mobile port. You play as a warrior adventurer guy off on a quest to join the League of Heroes and save the world. The game has nice, well-drawn cartoony graphics with solid use of stereoscopic 3d, but the gameplay is extremely basic and subpar and the controls feel pretty bad. You start in a little town area. There are an equipment seller, an items seller, a guy who gives you new abilities if you have unlocked some, a guy who has quests to complete, and that’s about it. Oh, and while the main game uses stick-and-button controls, all townsperson menus are touch input only for some reason. It’s kind of annoying, use one or the other, not both like this! And that list may make the game sound better than it is, because basically everything in this game is randomly generated, and while there isn’t any paid DLC in this version, they left in some of the real-world timers! It’s just awful. So, once you leave town you go to a world map. Here you can either choose the current randomly-generated stage, or go to a special quest stage if you can based on the current timer. And yeah, that’s about your only options, and 99% of the time only the one random stage as an actual choice you can choose. Games should not rely this heavily on random generation, it very heavily drags them down.
Once you enter the stage, you will find that each level is a smallish rectangular area with scattered enemies and breakable objects or chests with items in them. You complete the stage by killing all enemies. Some areas are just a rectangle with objects randomly scattered around while others follow a more railed path, but either way there is no actual beginning or end to the level, it’s just a space with whatever monster types are present in this stage. While overly simplistic this could be decent if the game was actually fun to play, but it isn’t, at all. To fight these monsters, you have a wide assortment of abilities to use… or not. Nope, you have a sword button and a ranged throwing weapon button, and that’s it. You can’t guard, or use any other skills, or anything, only sword and throw attack. All of the abilitites that you can purchase after reaching certain levels are passives. It’s pretty lame, particularly when combat feels this terrible. Movement, which is done with the analog stick, feels okay, but your weapon feels utterly weightless, like the worst of mobile game controls brought to the 3DS for some reason. The throwing attack is okay, but you have limited ammo and need to purchase replenishment of it from the shop so you can’t rely on it all of the time.
And as for those quests, they feel like they might be randomly generated as well. And if they aren’t they are the most generic boring things ever. Get ready to … get a quest where you have to buy something from one of the shopkeepers? Huh? And while most of this game is mind-numbingly easy and actually dying is hard, some quests even can be borderline impossible, such as if you get a quest to kill a certain number of some enemy type but it isn’t giving you stages with that enemy in them for a while. This game is poorly designed like that. Overall, League of Heroes is a bad game. The graphics are nice, and it tries to be amusing with its writing, but with awful-feeling combat, no depth, completely random boring levels with zero character, no gameplay other than walking around and whacking monsters, and mobile game timers still present even though you can’t pay to get around them in this version, League of Heroes is one to definitely skip. I dislike mobile games and titles like this are a good example of why. This is probably the weakest title covered in this update. The graphics are the only thing good about this otherwise awful borefest. Also released digitally on Android and iOS, but this is the only console version of the game.
The Legend of Dark Witch – Developed by Inside System and published by CIRCLE Entertainment in 2014. The Legend of Dark Witch is a 2d platform-action game. This was the first game in a franchise that would see about a half dozen releases over the years, four of them on the 3DS. Three are platformers, and the rest other genres. I covered the one spinoff released on 3DS, the action-RPG Brave Dungeon, earlier. The games are okay, though there is something about them I’ve never liked all that much. This game isn’t bad, but there is just something about it, and its sequels, that makes me not want to play it. I just have trouble trying to figure out exactly what that is. Regardless, some will like these games. In this game you play as a goddess I guess, or she’s described as such, though for a god she sure dies easily. She is the “dark witch” of the title, Zizou Olympia. The cast is entirely female. The series has an anime fantasy setting with a lot of modern elements. The scripts in all three games are poorly translated, to the point of sometimes being borderline unintelligible. The gameplay here is one part Mega Man, one part shmup, and one very large part generic mediocrity. As in Mega Man, each game has eight bosses that you can fight in any order. Most are new in each game but some of the anime girls you fight return in later games. You do get something from each boss you beat, but also get magic points which you can spend on upgrades in a shop between levels.
In addition to that, these games have a Gradius-style powerup system and a magic meter for your basic attacks. As you use regular attacks the magic meter depletes, and more powerful spells use more magic so using them will deplete the meter more quickly. You will need to wait for it to recharge after that, which is annoying. Mega Man style item meters are probably better. As for the Gradius-style powerup system, it works fine, and I love Gradius and its powerup system, but I don’t know if it was a good idea here. From this meter you add things like higher jump height and float and more powerful shots added to your attack. It is nice when you are powered up, but don’t die or you both go back to the last checkpoint and are reset to default. As much as I love Gradius, here it’s just kind of … there. Having this be the way you get these powerups in this game is just … eh, it’s there. Okay. I get why it’s here, with how many bullets are on screen sometimes there are some shmup elements to the gameplay here so why not a shmup powerup system too, but I don’t know how necessary it is.
One of the major issues with these games is the difficulty balance. You die in only a few hits here, and losing health is easy because the level designs are loaded with enemies attacking you from unexpected directions. There is a tightly timed blocking mechanic if you hit Down just before a bullet hits you, but it’s tricky to get right. The enemy placements are not quite Valis levels of bad, but it’s pretty annoying. This game requires a significant amount of memorization to get through. You can upgrade your health in the shop, but initially you get only three or four hits. It is also easy to lose lives by missing jumps, since many jumps require very tight timing to make, and upon game over you have to restart the current level. Now, these games have four difficulty levels. They generally default to the second of the four, which is a moderate challenge but not too bad. Go up to difficulty three, though, and now enemies never drop health powerups, and your only healing will be magic items you bought in the shop before the level began. That is a pretty ridiculous thing to do in a game this loaded with enemies shooting at you!
The background graphics are another issue with this game. Each level begins with a section without any background detail. You have a starfield behind and shaded blocks for all platforms, and basic enemies that look the same in every level, and that’s it. At some point you eventually get far enough to see the actual stage, which is a relief. The regular stage graphics are okay, decently average 2d sprite art, but the beginning sections before you get the real stage graphics look pretty bad. I really don’t understand why all three games have them, they are NOT a good idea.
The game has some more systems, and you can unlock a second playable character by beating it, but I’ve never gotten anywhere close, or wanted to. This game is way too hard to be fun on the default setting. Memorization-heavy platform-action, as much about shooting as it is anything else, can be great fun, but here I do not find it interesting or enjoyable. The game isn’t BAD, but the constant dying and returning to the incredibly boring looking first part of the level I’m on does not make me want to keep going, not when nothing about the game gets above average. There may be more here if you get into it, but I don’t like this game very much. Objectively it’s average though.
Also available on PC (Steam). There is also a Remastered version of this game on PC (Steam), PlayStation Vita, and Nintendo Switch, which is basically the same as the original but with redone, higher resolution graphics.
The Legend of Dark Witch 2: The Price of Desire – Developed by Inside System and published by CIRCLE Entertainment in 2015. The second game in this series is very similar to the original. Really, this is basically more of the same, with no major changes from the first one. So, again this game is a slightly Mega Man-esque platformer with almost shmup levels of bullet dodging and firing mixed in. You do have some interesting options in this game to adjust how the screen scroll works, and can use the ZL and ZR buttons of a New 3DS or 3DS second stick addon to map some more functions that are annoying to use otherwise, but for the most part this is just more Dark Witch, for people who liked the first one. The new abilities may add a bit to this game, though it does add a bit to the complexity, and the business of the lower-screen display. Once again there are four difficulty levels, though it defaults to a slightly easier one than the first game so if you play on that setting you will actually beat stages. I guess that’s nice, but that doesn’t make the game actually better, it’s still extremely mediocre and sometimes annoying.
This game is also available digitally on PC (Steam).
The Legend of Dark Witch III: Wisdom and Lunacy – Developed by Flyhigh Works and published by CIRCLE Entertainment in 2017. In this third and final Dark Witch platformer on the 3DS, you once again play as Zizou Olympia the god or witch or whatever in a very mediocre platform-action game. This time things are similar, but simplified. A bunch of things have been removed from this game in the name of simplicity and easier play. The interesting ‘adjust the screen scroll’ menu system from the second game is removed. There is less stuff on the lower screen display menu this time than before. You start with fewer abilities than the second game, as well, so while this game supports ZL and ZR they have no function at first, unlike that game. Your only other ability at the start is a new melee-range charge attack on the R button. You don’t get new shot types from beating bosses, so one of the key Mega Man elements of this game is gone. The blocking mechanic is gone. And while the game does have different difficulty levels, you cannot select them at first; you start in the default setting and only unlock more by beating it. So yeah, those are probably downgrades, though it does make the game easy to get into.
Here’s a questionable thing about this game. Remember what I said about poor translation work in these games? Well, it’s no better here than before. It might actually be worse, in fact. This game has a sub-menu with art of the (as usual all anime female) characters, unlocking as you reach them. The first one is for the main character Zizou, and on the right you see art of her wearing shorts as she does in the first two games, then on the right there is art of a dress. Not her in a dress, just the clothing. The subtitle text says that she had shorts before to show how she is kind of a tomboy but they tried something more feminine, does it work? And yeah that’s a pretty strange sentiment, Japan has some questionable views on gender. But even beyond that, I don’t think the actual sprite in this game is wearing a skirt, I think it’s the shorts outfit on the left. So I have no idea what they are talking about unless there’s something unlockable later on.
Other than that though, beyond the simplification or removal of some elements of the more complex previous games, the rest of this game is the same as before. Once again, you walk and jump to the right, use a Gradius-style powerup system, buy upgrades between stages, endure the visually boring first section of each level before you get to actual graphics, and try to learn the jumps and enemy placements so that you survive to the boss. With all of its simplifications this game is the easiest of the three to get into, so despite being the last one maybe start with this game if you want to try a Dark Witch game, before tackling the previous titles. But with the subpar level designs and often annoying gameplay I’m not sure that I’d really recommend any of them. These games are probably just barely below average overall, closer to bad than good. But I’m sure there are some people who will like them, if blending platforming with bullet-heavy shmuplike elements sounds interesting, so maybe try one.
This game is a Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive. It does not have any ports, unlike the previous two titles.
The Legend of Kusakari – Developed by Librage and published by Nnooo in 2016. This game is a top-down puzzle-action game where your goal is to cut down all of the tall grass in each level. This game is set in fantasy Japan during a war between humans and monsters, and you are a random villager guy who decides to help out the cause by … cutting the tall grass, so the soldiers can fight unimpeded by tall grasses. Yeah, that is the plot. The story may be silly, but unfortunately the gameplay here gets boring quickly. This is an easy and straightforward game. In each level you move around, cutting grass. You have two different types of cuts, one which just cuts straight ahead and another better one that cuts all around you. The first doesn’t have more range, so I’m not entirely sure why there are two, the circular cut is almost always what you want to use. You also have a run button for faster movement. And lastly you have a health meter which depletes both when you get hit but also somewhat from cutting grass or walking in certain dangerous terrain types.
In each map there may be enemies, but they don’t go after you; instead, they move along preset paths, as in a Frogger game, and you need to learn their routes to avoid them. There are also various different terrain types, some of which damage you to walk through them or make you move slowly. Each level is fairly small and takes only a minute or two to finish. You do get graded on each level based on how quickly and well you did, but I don’t know if you get anything for getting a better grade. This game is easy and fairly short, and doesn’t really have much replay value unless you really want to go back to levels to get better times. I can see that potentially being interesting, there is plenty you could do to work on routing through the stages, but I don’t know if anyone would put in the effort. I won’t, I just don’t find this game anywhere near fun enough to try. The concept is solid, but it’s too slow and boring to hold my interest. Also, there are no online leaderboards or anything. overall I do not recommend The Legend of Kusakari, it’s an okay but somewhat boring game that I would say is slightly below average and probably won’t hold many peoples’ attention for very long. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Liberation Maiden – Developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Level-5 in 2012. Liberation Maiden is a mostly 2.5d shmup of sorts from Suda51’s Grasshopper Manufacture. This game is a mini-game of sorts, as it was apparently originally published in Japan as a part of a compilation. In the West it is sold on its own, but it’s a cheap game. This game is fairly short and easy, but is quite fun while it lasts. You play as a teenage girl who was just elected President of New Japan, which of course means that it’s time to get in your flying mecha vehicle and save the country from evil invading forces yourself, because that’s what Presidents do, right? Heh. The story is not exactly the main draw here, the action is, but it’s decent enough. This game is played with both controller and stylus simultaneously. The upper screen shows your view, and the lower is a map and your touch pad. You fly around with the analog stick, dpad, or face buttons, and aim and fire with the touchpad with a cursor you control via touch. The game has a tilted, almost-overhead view and in regular levels you only can move on a 2d plane. As a result, even though this game has nice polygonal 3d graphics and makes good use of the system’s stereoscopic 3d effect, gameplay is mostly two dimensional as you cannot fly up or down. This keeps the game simple, approachable, and fun.
As you fly around, plenty of targets appear and will try to shoot at you. So, target them with the stylus by moving the cursor over those enemies, then lift up the stylus to fire at them. It’s a nice take on the lock-on-targeting style of shmup or rail shooter design, except here you can freely fly around. The controls work great, and since you control the targeting cursor it entirely avoids the frustration of the extremely specific targeting cursor of games like Xevious or RayForce. You also get a second weapon which attacks just by holding the stylus on an enemy. You can also go into strafing mode by holding a shoulder button, to circle around an enemy. The controls are simple and easy to get used to, and the game is plenty fun as you fly around blasting enemies while dodging their attacks. Many enemies take multiple hits to kill, and as in most shooters with a targeting system you can lock on to multiple targets at once. You can even lock on to many of the missiles shooting at you, which is a nice way to not take damage. You can take a decent amount of damage without dying, though. Bosses switch to a tube-ish view instead, where you circle around the enemy and now can move up and down. They may take a bit of practice, but it’s not too hard. On the default Normal difficulty setting the game is only a moderate challenge. There are also Easy and Hard modes if you want, though.
Other than its short length, one of the games’ few real issues is saving. That is, you can’t save during the game, you’ve got to play it in one sitting. If you quit you will lose your progress and score. Now, the game is not super long, but even so most games on this system have a much better save system than this one. They probably did this to give the game a little bit of challenge, because again the game is very short with only five moderate-length stages, but it is a bit annoying. The game does encourage repeat play for score, though, as there are side objectives in the levels as you play through them and there is of course a high score table. There aren’t online leaderboards though, unfortunately. Even so, even if the game is over in just a few hours unless you get into replaying it for score, I recommend Liberation Maiden. This game is a pretty fun free-roaming shmupish game with good controls, fun gameplay, and a silly story it’s a fun ride while it lasts. Play it. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Lifespeed – Developed and published by Wee Man Studios in 2017. Lifespeed is what you get when you cross an auto-flying tube racing game of the style I have covered several of in this series with a traditional racing game. As in those other semi-automated racing games, you are always flying forward in this game and your only controls are for flying, slowing down, and using items. However, this isn’t just a checkpoint-based game where you are alone in the tube, it is a lap-based racing game where you race against a full field of other flying cars. So, this is a hybrid of AiRace and F-Zero.
Conceptually, I like the combination of a simple tunnel flying game and an actual racing game, but while the game is okay, I don’t think it quite comes together as well as it could have. The issue is, the simple auto-flight gameplay just isn’t a great match for a challenging game like this which requires skill. If you put in the time there is probably a lot to enjoy here, but you will need to memorize the turns quite extensively to have any chance at finishing above last place, and at the speed you’ll be going at in this game that is tough. This is a VERY hard game! I love fast futuristic racing games, and tunnel flying stuff can be fun, but I think this game shows why most of the other games like this, the AiRace series and such, are the simple games that they are and not more full-fledged racing titles. It’s all you can do to just fly down the tube at these speeds, but in this game you also need to consider where the other flyers are, go through the rings for boosts and weapons, and attack the others racers with those weapons. I like the concept here but it still feels both too limited in terms of control thanks to the automatic acceleration, while simultaneously too frustrating in terms of how good you are expected to be in order to do well. Still, I’m sure there is an audience for this game. If you want something which takes that streamlined tunnel-racing genre and changes it into something more challenging and more “normal” while still being an identifiable part of its subgenre, well, this is the game for you.
On the whole, this is a game I really want to like, but just can’t. If it didn’t have auto-acceleration I think that I would like it a lot more, that would make the game much less frustrating. But as it is this game is one I keep giving a chance and then quitting in frustration a few races later. Still, the game is worth a look for sure, it’s interesting. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Link-A-Pix Color – Developed and published by Lightwood Games in 2018. This puzzle game is one of three ___-a-Pix games, all from the same developer, with very similar visuals but a different spin on the formula each time. One of the three is basically just Picross but with multiple different block colors, but the other two are original. All three have the same interface. Each allows you to choose a puzzle, shows you the clear time, and gives a medal if you don’t use the ‘remove errors’ function. One button brings up the errors menu, which tells you if there are any errors currently and gives you the option of removing all of those errors. Just viewing this screen does NOT affect your medal at all, which is kind of odd — if you want to abuse it by just putting things down one tile at a time and checking constantly but never actually having the system remove the errors, that’s fine, you get the medal! Heh. The Picross-style one is the only one with a bunch of DLC puzzles. That’s really too bad, I wish all three did. This is the one of the three I have played the most of and I wish there were more puzzles here, I’m like 70% of the way through and will miss it when they run out.
So, in this game you are creating a picture by connecting blocks. Each block has a different color and number on it, and you need to figure out which two blocks with that color and number you will need to connect and, with the stylus, drag the blocks out of that tile to link the two blocks together. The background is white, and white is not a tile color, so some tiles will be blank, you don’t fill the whole image with tiles in this game. You will need to figure out where the tiles are to form the image, and find the right paths for each color. Most puzzles in this game are quite large, so each puzzle can take over a half hour, but it’s a fun challenge and I’m quite enjoying it. Sometimes figuring out the route for a link is easy, but other times it is a solid challenge. This is a simple and straightforward puzzle game which is well made and fun, I recommend it for sure. It’s pretty good. The game doesn’t have Nintendo levels of production values of course, but it does well enough. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Lionel City Builder 3D: Rise of the Rails – Developed and published by Big John Games in 2016. This game is a simple train driving simulator probably aimed at kids. Lionel is a famous model train company, but while this game has their license, this isn’t a game about model trains. Instead, this game is about real trains. The games’ oddly dark, though unspecific, backstory says that society has collapsed, but in this post-apocalyptic world one guy with his train collection can rebuild the world, one train trip at a time. Alright, why not?
In the game, you drive trains with simple touchscreen controls. The game has nice stereoscopic 3d visuals for the upper screen showing where you are going, and you control the train’s speed, stopping, winch for picking up cargo, and more with touchscreen buttons and sliders. The game is forgiving in that if you go past a target spot you can just back up into it, but you will need to do the needed actions correctly to proceed. Before and after the missions, there are story sequences as our hero talks to other people and works on rebuilding society with his trains. It’s all played straight. Beyond the basic setting this game is not dark and depressing or anything and would probably be fine for older children interested in trains, but it is a bit of an odd choice. The gameplay is alright. The touch controls work and your objectives are clearly stated. The game is competent but clearly not high budget. The missions have okay variety, you aren’t just always doing the same thing thankfully.
In addition to the main story mode, the game also has a creation mode. Here you can lay out your own track, place trackside buildings, choose a train, and drive around the loop you created. It’s fine, but could be a lot better. For one thing, when dragging the track into the shape you want, other parts of the track will flop around to new shapes. There are ways to keep them in place, but seriously it should NOT be like this! I’ve never seen a track editor as hard as this one to just make the track you’re creating into the shape you want. The amount of space you have to create a play area in is fairly small, too, which is also disappointing. You can have some fun in the creation mode regardless, but I think it needed more work. For some this probably should be the main feature of the game since this is the part more like what its license is about, building a model train setup and then driving around on it, but unfortunately it’s only worth the time for the dedicated. Too bad. Still, if on sale this might be worth a buy if you like the subject matter. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Love Hero – Developed and published by Butterfly (Batafurai) in 2019. This is the first of three very odd and unique, and yet very simple and generic, games from an indie developer called Butterfly. Each of these games’ actual gameplay is a very simplistic arcade game. There is also a bit of story in each game telling a weird but generally somewhat depressing story, if you can actually make much sense out of it. This game does not initially have any story, though as with all three titles in this series there are unlockables if you accomplish certain hidden goals in the levels. It starts with a coin sound, so I guess this is supposed to be an early ’80s arcade game. There are five levels in this title.
In each level, you need to survive until the end of a timer shown on the lower screen without getting hit enough times to run out of hearts. Initially you get multiple hearts, quite forgiving by Butterfly’s standards (see below), but by level three they take that away and you die in one hit. You control a small, ’80s-style spaceship, and move it around the upper screen with the analog stick. You cannot use the d-pad to control the character in any of Butterfly’s games. Controls are analog, so it works.
In levels, if you are allowed to fire in the current stage the A button shoots, and you shoot both up and down. You do not have autofire so you need to mash the button to keep shooting. Threatening you are enemies, which are different in each stage. In the first level, the enemies are hearts. As you shoot the hearts they slowly get smaller until after taking enough damage you destroy them. You will need to destroy some in order to have space to move around, but destroying them all is hopeless, they spawn too quickly for that and take too long to destroy. The second level instead has exploding squares for enemies, and the third lines which rapidly move in from the sides of the screen, mostly from below, and kill you if they hit you. I’m not sure about levels four and five because that’s as far as I have gotten so far.
Once you beat each level, you unlock an image of some medical equipment that you can view in the Museum screen. Why? I don’t know, but it will be a running theme in this series. Overall this game is very simple but it’s alright. I have always liked this kind of avoid-the-enemies game, and this is a competent one. Maybe give it a look. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
The Queen TV-Game 2 – Developed and published by Butterfly (Batafurai) in 2020. The second of Butterfly’s three games is perhaps its most accessible, though it is still extremely difficult. This game has a ‘retro early to mid ’80s game’ theme, and it starts with putting a cartridge in a console. This game has voice acting from a woman. She does swear some, so this isn’t for children. This time there are apparently only three stages, though there is plenty of challenge on offer. This time the game is an avoid-em-up, with a different spin on things in each stage. In the first level, you control a quite large block. You use the analog stick to move around, and a face button to use a shield. You need to not get hit by two balls bouncing around the screen for 135 seconds. The shield protects you from damage if you are using it while the ball touches you, but it’s limited. If you get hit even once, as you expect from this developer, that’s it, you lose. Try again.
If you manage to stay alive long enough, you move on to level two. This time you have an even longer counter, over 180 seconds, and control a Breakout-style paddle on the left side of the upper screen. Again you use the analog stick for movement and A is a protective shield. You need to keep two balls from getting past your paddle. If you miss them even once that’s it, Game Over. I have not completed this stage, it’s insanely hard. There are some things to unlock in each stage if you meet certain goals, though it doesn’t tell you what they are and I did not unlock the first one when beating that level so I don’t know what they are. It’s probably story-related. Still, for very cheap this game is interesting enough to maybe be worth a try. This is the first of Butterfly’s games that I got and while very basic, there’s something about it that interested me enough for me to get their other two games as well. Maybe give it a try. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Gal Galaxy Pain – Developed and published by Butterfly (Batafurai) in 2022. The last of Butterfly’s games is their oddest game yet, though unfortunately not in a good way gameplay-wise. This time, the story consists of images of a woman and medical equipment of some kind and some text explaining some of the story. What is going on? Well, you apparently are protecting the Earth from meteors, while also stealing money I guess. What is going on beyond that, with the woman (maybe you are playing as her, maybe not? I am not sure) and medical equipment and such, you’d probably need to do well at the game to figure out, if it even tells you.
The story is interestingly weird, but the gameplay this time is extremely frustrating. I find this the least fun of Butterfly’s three 3DS games and don’t think I will go back to it much. Gal Galaxy Pain is a touch screen controlled title. This game is basically Missile Command crossed with a calculator. Numbers fall down the upper screen, and you need to punch that number in on the touchscreen numpad on the lower screen then touch the enter button on screen to destroy the number on screen with the same number that you just entered. You have a tight timing window to shoot down the numbers, and if even one number gets to the bottom of the screen, you lose, Game Over. It’s brutally hard.
Still, the first stage has only single-number enemies, and it’s hard but with some practice I got through it. Once I got to the two-number enemies in the second level, though, it was too much and I had to give up. There are probably only a few levels since Butterfly’s other games are short affairs, but it’s too much. Love Hero has an okay idea and I like the touchscreen usage, but the utterly ridiculously high difficulty and very bland visuals make this, I think, my least favorite of the three Butterfly titles here. It’s not awful but is only for the dedicated. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Luxor – 3DS port developed by Engine Software and published by Tulip Games in 2013. The original PC game was developed by MumboJumbo in 2005. Luxor is a puzzle game series. The games were inspired by the Ballistic or Zuma style of match-three ball-shooting puzzle game, but instead of shooting from a central point, in this game you instead shoot balls up from the bottom from a paddle on the bottom of the screen that you can move left and right, somewhat Arkanoid-style. The concept is simple, you move left and right and shoot the colored balls up where you want to add them to the balls moving along a track on the screen above, but it is a compelling and fun idea that is well executed here. The tracks in this game can twist and turn, going behind other sections of the path and more, as they wind from their starting point to the end point. If a ball reaches the end point, you lose a life and have the try the level over. There is a lot of variety from level to level, and it’s always interesting to see what the game will throw at you next.
The games have an ancient Egyptian theme and are solidly fun. I think the moving paddle adds quite a bit to these games, it makes them more strategic than the games they take the core concept from. I really like being able to aim my shots from the bottom of the screen by moving to where I want to shoot from. Probably as a result of this, I’ve played more of the Luxor games than of Zuma, Ballistic, or Magnetica. This is a pretty good series, and this is a good port of the original title. These are casual games, but they’re plenty hard! By the end this game gets very hard. Indeed, I’ve never beaten this game, despite a lot of trying. I got to the final level, but it is just insanely hard and I’ve never quite managed to finish it. The level throws a crazy number of balls at you in a complex, twisting track, and stopping all of them is just too much. Ah well, the game is lots of fun anyway.
Quite a few Luxor games were made, particularly on the PC, but unfortunately the 3DS only got a port of the first one. That’s too bad because this platform is perfect for this genre and the port is quite good. I’ve played quite a bit of some PC Luxor games but like this experience better. This game is played with the d-pad or analog stick and buttons, not touch, but even so it is a perfect fit for the 3DS. I’d recommend this game. I wish I was good enough to beat that final level though, it’s just so insanely hard! This game is a lot of fun despite that, though. Originally released both physically and digitally on the PC and Mac. Also released digitally on iOS.
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - A Black Falcon - 15th February 2023
And here is the new one. It's not polished but I just want to get the summaries done...Game Opinion Summaries: Digital-Only Nintendo 3DS Games, Part 6: M-N-O
Introduction
So, I didn’t worked on this series at all for months. That’s not good when the time limit until 3DS eshop purchases are shut down at the end of next month in late March, so I had three choices: give up on it, make like one more and continue the series after the shutdown, or try to make shorter and less comprehensive summaries in order to try to get this done. The last is unfortunate because there is more that could be said about the games, but… well, I really want to publish SOMETHING about these games while they can still be bought, so I’m going to try to do that. It’s likely I won’t finish before the shutdown, since it’s under a month away and finishing the last four parts of the original list before then will take a lot of effort… and even if I somehow do get that done, there are a lot more games to cover beyond that because I’ve bought a lot more digital 3DS games since starting this list, many of which I haven’t played yet and did not add to the list. Ah well. I’ll probably continue this after the shutdown, since there are other ways of playing 3DS games if you have a modded system, something I do not have. Anyway, here is the next update, for M-N-O games. Expect more soon.This article is not really finished yet — as you will notice, I have not yet polished it with adding the publishers and release years for the games, other platforms the games are on, a working table of contents (yes I know, I’ve been slacking off on those for a long time now…), and such. I will do that later, getting it posted is the most important part.
Table of Contents
Mario and Donkey Kong; Minis on the MoveMario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars
Mega Man IV (Game Boy Virtual Console)
Mercenaries Saga 2
Mercenaries Saga 3
Mia’s Picnic
Mighty Gunvolt
Mighty Gunvolt Burst
Mighty Switch Force
Mighty Switch Force 2
Miles & Kilo
Mini Golf Resort
Mini Sports Collection
Mom Hid My Game!
Mutant Mudds Deluxe
Mutant Mudds Super Challenge
My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda – Twilight Princess
Nano Assault EX
Ninja Battle Heroes
Noah’s Cradle
Of Mice and Sand
Ohno Odyssey
M-N-O – 22 games
Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move – This title is basically a Mario take on the classic puzzle game Pipe Dream. This game is good, if you like Pipe Dream. You place tiles of various shapes to get the mini toy Marios along a path from start to finish, much as in Pipe Dream and the many titles it inspired. The challenge is that each tile type moves the minis in a specific direction, and you lose if they go off the track or walk into a spike block. The problem is, as I said I’m not exactly the biggest Pipe Dream fan around. It’s alright, but I’ve always found that game very frustrating. This title is no exception. This game is played with the stylus, as you would expect, so the controls are great. Each level plays on a grid, and some tiles start out filled in with spikes or curved road pieces. You need to get your mini from a start square to the end square without going off course. As you play, random pieces slowly fall in in a hopper on the right. You need to put down the correct tiles to fill in a continuous path from start to finish, preferably while also grabbing the three M-logo icons along the way in order to get a star on the level. You cannot remove any piece that has been placed in the level unless a Bomb item drops which can do that for you. You can always throw away pieces in a block dedicated to that in the corner of the level, though. You can only have five pieces in your queue at a time, so this will be needed. Touching the next piece icon will cause it to drop in more quickly.So yes, it’s basically Mario’s Pipe Dream. The game is mostly good, but it’s got that usual Pipe Dream gameplay frustration of being stuck waiting for that one piece you need but the RNG will not give you it and … oops, that took too long, your mini walked off the edge. Game over, try the puzzle again. It’s a good game, but that stuff is always annoying and will happen often in Pipe Dream games. Of course, the better you get the better you will do, but still I’ve always had some issues with the concept. Overall, this game is a good, fine puzzle game with nice graphics and solid puzzle gameplay, but whether you stick with it or not will depend on how much you like this style of puzzle game. I only kind of like this kind of game, so I’d say that Minis on the Move is good, but not great. I’d recommend it to puzzle and Pipe Dream fans for sure, at least.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars – from Nintendo. This title is also a puzzle game. The game was released on both 3DS and Wii U, and is pretty much the same on both platforms. This game builds off of the Mario vs. Donkey Kong games for GBA and DS, as they moved from platform-puzzle games to puzzle only. Very much like the last DS game, MvDK: Mini-Land Mayhem or Nintendo’s oddly Japan-only SNES title Mario vs. Wario, this game is a puzzler where you place objects on a 2d stage, trying to get your auto-moving characters from the start to the end safely. Think Lemmings, except instead of putting abilities on characters you connect points to build platforms and walls in order to get the minis to go the way you want them to. The game is controlled with the stylus, which is perfect for this kind of game. While I found the first two MvDK games disappointing, I loved Mini-Land Mayhem! It’s a fantastic game and one of the better puzzle games on that system. I found this game a small step back from that classic, but it’s still great. It’s just less original than that one and its online is shut down.
As with Lemmings or the other Nintendo games I mentioned above, the genius here is that the game is a puzzle game, but there still is an action component. You don’t just set up your stuff and watch, but you need to build floors, move pipes, and such as the minis are moving around, with the right timing, in order to get them where you need. You can only interact in certain pre-selected spots, which is quite limiting and makes the game simpler, but stages still can get plenty tricky until you figure out the solutions to the puzzles. Figuring out what items to place where to get Mini-Mario and friends to each stages’ goal is great fun, and the challenge level is just right. This game has a great difficulty curve from easy to hard, it’s balanced well. There are 96 puzzles, a good number, and there is some replay value if you want to go back and get better ratings in the stages. This game is an must-buy game for any logic puzzle game fan, buy it while you can!
However, there is one catch, and it’s a big one: when this game was released it had online level trading. You see, this game isn’t just a fantastic pre-designed puzzle game, it also has a level editor… and online level trading. However, the online level trading servers were taken down years ago. If you want to play the hundreds of levels people uploaded, from easy to hard, good to bad… you can’t. I have no idea why Nintendo took these servers down so quickly but it was a real tragedy, this game is amazing and should have stayed up long-term. As it is this game is great and I certainly recommend getting it, even just for what you do get this is a top-tier A-grade hit. However, the major missing feature of the removed online play is incredibly unfortunate and holds it back a lot for anyone who didn’t play it back when they were up. I am very glad I did get this game before the servers were taken down, there are a decent amount of levels in this game but after not all that long I finished them and wanted more. And they had that… until they took it down. Jerks. Sadly, Nintendo hasn’t made another game quite like this one. I hope they do soon, it’s fantastic and needs to come back. Also available, also digital-only, on the Wii U.
Mega Man IV (Game Boy Virtual Console) – from Capcom. I only own a few Virtual Console games on the 3DS, mostly because I own so many original games, but even though I’ve got my boxed original copy of this game, I had to buy at least this one on virtual console because Mega Man IV is the first Mega Man console game I owned and is a game I deeply love. This fantastic action-platformer is one of the all-time greats, and is every bit as great as Mega Man’s best NES games. This title may reuse bosses and level settings from the fourth and fifth NES games, but the level layouts and stage orders are all-new. This game also introduced a shop to the Mega Man series. Many enemies drop P items, and from the stage select screen you can go to a store and spend your earnings on powerups and such. With some of the best stage designs and gameplay in the series and a solid balance between stage difficulty and boss difficulty, Mega Man IV is one of the all-time great 8-bit platform games. These outstanding games have not been re-released again yet, so unless you want to buy the expensive original carts, I highly recommend buying this release while you can! Make sure to also get the third and fifth Game Boy Mega Man games too, they are also fantastic. The first game is alright and the second poor, but the series got a lot better after that and ended with two of the better 8-bit action/platformers around. This is a fantastic game that probably is a bit under-rated, just because the level themes are reused from the NES series does not mean that it isn’t original, or top tier! It is both. The Mega Man series doesn’t get much better than this. And Mega Man V is just as great.
Mercenaries Saga 2: Order of the Silver Eagle – This is a tactical strategy game. For some reason the first game in this series wasn’t brought to the 3DS, it was left on cellphones, but the second and third ones were. This is a simple and straightforward little tactical strategy game with a fantasy anime war theme. You play as a group of mercenaries who get involved in greater events. The story is fine but fairly standard stuff, and the same goes for the gameplay. This is your standard tactics game, with an isometric grid, decent sprite-art graphics, and average gameplay. Each character is slightly different, some are melee warriors, thieves, have ranged weapons, magic, and such. You start out with three guys but will slowly get more as you go along. Between missions there are story scenes, and you also can manage your team from a menu. Here you can buy items, use points you earned in the battles to upgrade your characters’ skills, and choose who you are bringing to the next mission, though at first you’ll just be using everyone. It’s all conventional, standard stuff, and no element of this game really stands out, but nothing about it is bad either. Overall this game is a competently made average tactical strategy game. Fans of the genre might want to check it out. It is somewhat generic-feeling all around, but plays well enough. There is a Nintendo Switch collection which includes both of these games plus the previously cellphone-only original title. I’m glad I have them on 3DS though. This series has several more entries on the Switch past that.
Mercenaries Saga 3: Gray Wolves of War – Very similar to its predecessor but with a new story and new characters, Mercenaries Saga 3 has a slightly strange plot. You see, you start out controlling a group of four mercenaries working for a powerful nation that is invading another continent and trying to take it over. They question their mission, but the locals are religious zealots so their side doesn’t seem like a great option either. The story this time seems a bit more interesting than the quite generic second one, but the gameplay is the same as before, with the same loop of generic story scene, then battle, then camp where you can spend your skill points and buy items and such. So, this is still a very standard tactical strategy game with alright sprite art graphics and an isometric perspective. It’s clearly running in the same engine as the last game and looks extremely similar graphically. Expect more okay but not particularly thrilling tactical gameplay. It’s fun enough but is still quite average. There is a Nintendo Switch collection which includes both of these games plus the previously cellphone-only original title. I’m glad I have them on 3DS though. This series has several more entries on the Switch past that.
Mia’s Picnic – Released in 2020 by Nellyvision. This is an indie puzzle game. This developer made two puzzle games on 3DS. Both released late in its life and both are partially fun and partially very annoying. This is a tile-matching game played on the lower screen. The tiles are all different kinds of fruits in this game -- red and green apples, cherries, strawberries, lemons, and more. The graphics are nice and large and well-drawn, though there is no use of stereoscopic 3d on the upper screen unfortunately. You use touch or the dpad to select contiguous (left/right/up/down only) matching-icon tiles the tiles that you want to collect and add to your tiles. You can also double-tap a tile, or highlight it and hit a button, to remove a tile from the field without collecting it.
This all may sound reasonably standard and it is, but the game does a couple of somewhat unique things. This game isn't just about staying alive as long as you can, it's a mission-based game. In each stage you have an objective, and a VERY tight time limit to complete that objective in. Objectives either are 'collect X amount of these specific types of fruits to complete the stage' or 'collect X number of specific fruit lineups to complete the stage'. As an example of the second type, you may need to match ten green apple - red apple - green apple combinations. The objectives give this game a different feel from standard tile-matching games, but the extremely strict timers make Mia's Picnic very frustrating. Can you beat it with enough retries, yes. But luck will matter as much as skill, sometimes, since what tiles drop in after you make a match is the luck of the draw. Get too many of the wrong tiles, or have too many rotten green apples drop in and corrupt your regular green apples, and you'll run out of time and have to try again. Fortunately the game saves after each stage so you can keep trying from where you are, but of the tile-matching games on 3DS this one is probably the most frustrating due to the timer. Still, it is fun when you do well and the RNG cooperates, so it may well be worth a look if you like puzzle games. Also available on Switch and PS4. I'd rather play it on 3DS if I had to pla ythi sgame though due to how well stylus-based touch works for this kind of game.
Mighty Gunvolt – This Inti Creates game is a NES-style platformer. This spinoff crossover of the not exactly popular Mighty No. 9, the pervy shooter series Gal Gun, and the slightly more popular Gunvolt series goes back to the roots of both series and makes something inspired by the series that both of those franchises are based on, Mega Man. This is no Mega Man game in quality, though, not even close. More in keeping with the often-lacking quality of Inti Creates titles, this game is a very short and basic little title. There are only maybe five or six stages here, and they are all very short and basic. For the most part you just walk to the right and sometimes jump over things, while shooting the enemies. This game has decent NES-ish graphics, but with such a limited amount of very basic gameplay this game will not keep anyone interested for long. Some people liked this game more than Mighty No. 9, and with how flawed that game is I get it, but I’d rather play that game than this one; it has SOME good points, more interesting stage layouts, and at least it won’t be done in half an hour. I don’t know that this game is really worth playing. It’s alright but a bit below average.
Mighty Gunvolt Burst – This sequel is improved over its predecessor. You have several characters to play as and better levels than that last game. Once again, Mighty Gunvolt Burst is a NES-inspired platformer. This game still isn’t as good a Mega Man game as the NES-style Bloodstained games are Castlevania games, but it’s a decent time while it lasts. As with most of Inti Creates titles this game is a whole lot easier than the NES games that inspired it and I would call it a short and easy game, but at least this time the stages are more interesting than they were in the first game and the game is a bit less short. This game might be worth playing, at least for Mega Man fans. Go in with low expectations and you might have fun for a little while. I think some people overstated how good this game was back when it came out, it’s no match for Mega Man games in level design or challenge, but it’s still a decent time and is above average to good.
Mighty Switch Force – This WayForward game has their typical good art design. The game is a 2d platformer, as with many WayForward titles, with a twist. In this quite puzzley platformer, you play as a police girl, and need to find and capture five criminal girls in each level, who are all blondes. The criminal girls don’t move, so the challenge is finding where they are hiding and touching all of them to capture them. The game is certainly sexualized, but it is pretty good. The controls are also spot-on, control of your character is responsive.
The main gimmick is hinted at in the title, switching. You have the standard jump and shoot buttons, but your third action button switches certain blocks on and off. Each time you hit it some blocks, launchers, and more will switch between being present active objects, or being shadowed out backround items you can’t interact with. You will need to switch in midair in order to flip types to make it through walls of blocks, switch with precise timing to get either you or a bomb enemy into a specific launcher to shoot it off in the direction you need to go in, and such. Beyond the nice sprite art graphics this is a fairly simple game, but it gets challenging eventually and beating all of the levels will take skill. Because levels end not when you reach the end but when you find all of the criminals, exploration is key here. Fortunately levels are relatively small, so the challenge here is not inordinate amounts of exploration but instead is in trying to figure out how to get past the obstacles in front of you. This is a good game well worth playing, the frustration of the later stages is well worth it to experience this WayForward classic.
Mighty Switch Force 2 – This game is similar to its predecessor, except you’re a firefighter girl now. As with before the plot is very minimal. You need to rescue five people in each level from fires that have broken out all over town. As with before, all of the people are beautiful blonde women. Because you are a firefighter now, and this is a new character and not the same person as the sprite art and voice acting are different, you have a water cannon instead of a regular gun, and there are fires and mud blocks and such in the levels that you will need to break down with that water cannon. You don’t need to worry about water or anything, your water gun has infinite water somehow. There isn’t even a hose. So yeah, this is not exactly a firefighting simulator, but it is a good platform-puzzle game with plenty of good to great levels to figure out. As with the first one this game isn’t especially long, and is well worth playing while it lasts because of the great controls and very good gameplay. This game has a bit more going on in terms of stage objects than the first one, which is great. The mud blocks, pipes, and more add some welcome depth to this game. I like trying to figure out the puzzles here. And as with before, if you want to get some more out of this game you can try to finish all of the stages faster, since both games save your best times, and also can try to find an optional baby who is hidden in each level. Some of the ways you get to a level’s baby are pretty tricky, it’s good stuff. Overall, this game is great. Buy it while you can. It takes everything the original did and improves on it.
Miles & Kilo – This is a 2d platformer game with decently nice sprite art. I mentioned this game previously. The previous game was an endless runner, but this time you get full control of your character, thankfully. The game has some auto-runner sections, as you get pulled along behind your out of control dog, but most of the time you you control your movement. The game is much, much better for it! I’m not much of a fan of autorunners, but even so it is kind of amazing how much better this game is than the last one just because you aren’t always moving anymore. This game has nice visuals, solid controls, and mostly good levels. This game is fairly standard stuff as you walk, jump, and attack enemies along straightforward linear levels. The game doesn’t have the most variety, but it does have some, with the autorunner sections to mix things up from the regular platforming. Overall it’s a decently fun little game and I do think platformer fans should want to check it out. This is far better than any autorunner, it really is amazing how much this genre is improved by having control over your character.
Mini Golf Resort – Mini Golf Resort is a mini-golf game with nice stereoscopic 3d graphics. That’s great, I like minigolf. However, this game is not great. There is a huge amount of content here, with a character creator to create your golfer and a lot of quite lengthy holes to play through, but the controls are extremely weird and hard to get used to and the hole designs are heavy on things like very annoying ramps and bridges you need to hit perfectly to get over. You’d think that a 3DS minigolf game would have a stylus-based system where you have an on-screen indicator showing how hard you’re hitting the ball, but this game isn’t simple like that, oh no. Instead, this game has a weird hybrid system where you can use either the buttons or the stylus, but neither works well. You can rotate your club and turn the camera up and down with either the stylus, analog stick, or ABXY buttons. You hit the ball by touching a ball indicator in the lower right corner of the touchscreen. This makes a power level slider appear on screen. Now you select the power you want to hit the ball with. Yes, it’s just a selection slider, not a power meter. How odd, for a golf game. Then you touch the screen and move the stylus down and then up in order to mimic a hitting motion. The ball will only go straight if you move the stylus straight up and down, vary and you’ll go off course. There are no indicators on screen showing how your shot will go, you’ll just need to hope that it goes the right way. It’s odd, but you do get used to it.
Once you get the controls down, though, those incredibly annoying level designs, and the often extremely long holes, are there to ruin any fun you might have been having. If you can aim your shots just right, sure, you can get through holes in just a few shots. But a minigolf game where extreme precision is required on many of the MANY MANY holes in the game or else you’ll take dozens of shots to complete a hole? That’s no fun. And you can’t just play a single hole, either; instead you need to play a full course in a single sitting. Each is made up of multiple holes, and you can’t save a game in progress and will need to start it over if you quit. For a handheld game that’s not good design at all. After completing some of these holes I never want to play them again, but might have to. Overall, Mini Golf Resort is disappointing and critically flawed. While there may be a huge amount of content here, with odd controls, no saving of a course in progress, and very irritating course designs, it’s a poor game with major problems. I can’t recommend it at all.
Mini Sports Collection – This is an olympic-style sports minigame collection. The game has nice stylized graphics, with graphics which have flat sprites in 3d worlds with some solid-color outlines for people. It is in stereoscopic 3d and I like the look. Once you get into the game, though, it has issues. This title has twelve minigames. You can either play each one independently, play some four-minigames challenges, or play all twelve one after the other. Whatever the mode, the only challenge is you against yourself: there is no AI opponent, only a high score counter with letter grades based on hitting certain required scores in that minigame and some achievement-style objectives for each of the mnigames. The addition of the achievements and grades is nice, because otherwise this game would be over in ten minutes. It still can be if you don’t care about grades, score, or achievements, but it is nice that the game gives you multiple things to work for beyond just finishing the minigames. As for those minigames, they use the d-pad or analog stick and not more than one button. There is a helpful control screen before each one telling you what the controls are. Most of the minigames are either about well-timed reactions or focused inputs. They can be pretty frustrating, getting good scores in this game is not easy. Some learning will be required if you want to master this game. Is it worth it I’m not sure, the timings required can be tight and I get frustrated. But for a title with this little an amount of content there is a decent amount here to do if you get into it. This game is average at best but some might want to give it a look. I’m glad I picked it up.
Mom Hid My Game! – This indie adventure game started out on cellphones and became fairly popular after its release. The game got several sequels and is still alive today. Unfortunately only the first game got a 3DS port, but it is a good port well worth playing if for some reason you haven’t played this title. This is a short and simple little game, but it’s great fun for the few hours it lasts. You play as a young boy, probably Japanese, and in each stage your goal is to find the handheld game console that your mother hid. You play with the stylus on the lower screen, touching things you want to interact with. When you touch things something happens. Most stages are just a single screen or only a few screens, so there usually are only a few things to interact with, but it does get moderately tricky eventually. Still, this game is pretty easy and won’t last all that long, but it’s quite fun while it lasts so that’s fine. I definitely recommend this game, and its sequels as well. It’s too bad the sequels didn’t get 3DS releases, anything with touch controls like this is significantly better with a stylus on a reactive screen like the 3DS’s.
Mutant Mudds Deluxe – From Renegade Kid. Mutant Mudds is an indie 2d platformer from the same developer as Chicken Wiggle, though this title released before that one. You play as a boy going on a great adventure, in that classic platformer fashion. You have a regular jump, a shot that doesn’t go all the way across the screen, and a jetpack with a fuel meter that refills when you land. From these simple basics come some pretty good challenges. This game was somewhat popular and has multiple ports, and indeed I covered the original PC version of the game some years ago, but this improved 3DS version is perhaps the best because this game makes great use of stereoscopic 3d effects. This game feels somewhat inspired by early ’90s PC shareware platformers, which is fantastic since I love those games, but it also takes visual inspiration from Virtual Boy Wario Land, since as with that game it has multi-plane stages with plenty of obstacles that move around in and out of the screen and plane-switching jump pads. The 3DS Kirby games would similarly use these VBWL-inspired design elements, but this game did it first. Naturally, while it is also on PC and Switch and such, the best way to play this game is on the system where it’s in stereoscopic 3d, the 3DS. And this is definitely a good game, for its gameplay is very bit as good as its visual effects, or better. This is a challenging but fun platformer with great controls and large levels that are a lot of fun to explore. This game is fairly simple and easy to understand, but with classic design inspired by games I love, good controls, good graphics, and good level designs, this is a good to great game without question. I might like Chicken Wiggle even more, but Mutant Mudds is an almost-classic and shows off stereoscopic 3d quite well. This game is good and is absolutely recommended.
Mutant Mudds Super Challenge – From Renegade Kid. This sequel to the original Mutant Mudds is pretty much the same as the original in visuals and gameplay, but, as the name suggests, it is harder. The all-new levels feel aimed at players who have beaten the first game, so this feels kind of like an expansion pack sold on its own. That’s fine, just know what the game is. The question is, do you want a much more challenging Mutant Mudds game? I think that the first game got its difficulty balance just about right and was plenty challenging, so as much as I like it I’ve never cared quite as much for this one; it’s perhaps a bit too hard. Of course you have very good controls and nice 3d stereoscopic visuals, and you can keep trying levels as many times as you want, but I’ve never stuck with this one all that long. It starts out well, but after dying a lot I eventually stop. Even so, this game is good and is worth a try for sure. Just be warned, it IS hard.
My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda – Twilight Princess – This title is only available as a My Nintendo reward. Spend enough coins and you get a code for this game. I hope that it is still available as a reward, at least until the eshop shutdown, but aren’t sure. Anyway, despite costing quite a few points, this title is not a full game. Instead, it is a mini-game with 25 Picross puzzles of various characters and objects from the Gamecube classic, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I love Picross, and this title is great with all of the fantastic touch or button-based controls and classic puzzle gameplay of Picross, it just won’t last long because of how few puzzles are included. For those who do not know, picross is a picture crossword logic puzzle game series from Nintendo and Jupiter. From sets of numbers along the right and top sides of the screen, you need to figure out which blocks need to be cut out from the grid of blocks on the lower screen. The upper screen, meanwhile, shows the current image. As a big Twilight Princess and Picross fan I love this title, and that it’s kind of free more than makes up for the limited amount of content. If you can still get this, definitely pick it up.
Nano Assault EX – This is a shmup from Shin’en, a small German game developer behind games such as Nanostray on the DS. Shin’en games consistently have great graphics with very good use of hardware, but whether the gameplay is as good as the graphics are is highly variable. This game is a rail shooter, sort of like Shin’en’s first console game for the GBA, Iridion 3D, but better. You control a miniature nano-sized craft, flying through living beings to defeat the dangerous invading cells. This game gives you no control over the camera or your movement speed, you just move your ship around the screen to avoid obstacles and shoot at foes. That makes this game conceptually a lot like the ’90s game Microcosm. I like rail shooters, but I do think they are better when you can move around more, as opposed to this very strict ‘it plays a video and you move your cursor-like ship’ style. It also can be hard to tell when you’re going to be hit, since you see the ship dead-on so judging distance is tricky. The visuals here are great, but the gameplay isn’t quite on that level. As for the controls, you have analog control of the ship, but the change from slow to fast motion is abrupt. You are either barely moving or zooming across the screen. I’ve found myself getting killed by this more times than I’d like.
And as you play you will need to focus, because the game has long levels. You get limited lives per level and die in one hit. You do respawn where you died so long as you have lives left, but once you run out you’ll need to restart that level again from the beginning. This is a challenging game that you will not easily get more than a few levels into. This game can be fun as you look at the cool visuals and shoot at dangerous cells and the like, but with the too-railed design and sometimes iffy controls, while there is plenty to like here with the interesting enemies and obstacles and challenging stages, this style of rail shooter, the ‘it’s kind of a FMV cursor’ style, has never been my favorite. So, this game has issues, but even so it is good overall and certainly is worth playing if you like shooters. This game is probably good overall, but barely. It’s in between above average and good really.
Ninja Battle Heroes – Released in 2012 by Tom Create. This is a 2.5d platform/action game. It’s alright. You play as an anthropomorphic ninja animal guy on a mission to save fantasy ancient Japan. There is a plot told by short cutscenes between stages. You move with the analog stick and can attack both melee and ranged, jump, block use special abilities, and, by pressing down on the stick while not moving, draw in souls. The combat has a little depth as you do have to use some strategy with bosses, but it is still mostly simple. It’s alright, but it’s perhaps a bit too much of a sidescrolling beat ’em up for my tastes, combat-wise. That’s just not my favorite kind of combat.
The analog-only movement works, and you do have proportional speed control, but sometimes I did wished that you could use the d-pad as well. It’s fine though. As for the gameplay, this game is decent but a bit generic in feel, somehow. It does feel nice when you run through the levels slashing enemies, but the visuals and stage designs aren’t anything too special. The controls, menus, and interface are all extremely similar to those of the other Tom Create games for 3DS, several of which I have covered. You can buy special abilities with the souls you can collect, though at first you can only equip one at a time so you will need to choose what you want. Fortunately, eventually you do get to equip more specials. This game is alright to good. Tom Create’s games all have a decent sense of style, with higher production values than many download-only 3DS games. The graphics are good and it is in stereoscopic polygonal 3d. People who like sidescrolling beat ’em up combat, with blocking and such, should get this. As for me, I’ve gone back to it here and there but don’t love it despite recognizing its above-average quality. It’s fine.
Noah’s Cradle – This game supports the added buttons of the 3DS controller addon unit or the New 3DS. This is a 3d flight combat game with modern aircraft. It’s technically a sci-fi game, but doesn’t really look like it. This title is no hardcore sim, it’s pretty simple, but while I do like some sci-fi flight games, ones like this have never interested me much at all. This game makes an okay first impression, but I rapidly lose interest. That may just be me, though. The game has decent graphics with stereoscopic 3d, and it makes good use of the added buttons of the New 3DS or 3DS controller addon — LZ and RZ control your throttle. Otherwise you need to adjust it on the touchscreen. The button option is nice. Otherwise, face buttons control your bullets and missiles, use an afterburner, and lock on to a target in front of you. Oddly enough, you can also strafe with L or R. Yes, strafe sideways, in a plane. I am not sure how a plane can strafe by seemingly adjusting its flaps, but okay. You fly around with the left analog stick. In addition to the throttle, the lower screen has a map and shows your weapons. You can enable or disable weapons by touching them.
In each mission, you fly a plane around in empty space and have to accomplish missions. Most missions are basic ‘kill all the enemy fighters’ stuff. This is an indie title, so there isn’t full ground here, you are higher up. The graphics are alright and the plane controls are okay, so it’s a decent game I guess. The way the plane tilts around as you move the stick is odd, but it is realistic I believe. Basically left and right rotate your ship and up and down tilt it, so you need to turn by angling in the correct direction while holding down L or R to activate those flaps. Once you’ve got that down, though, figuring out where those enemies ARE can be difficult. If enemies are close they will appear on your radar and you can lock on to them, but there isn’t a larger map you can bring up to tell you where enemies are. Sure, the game may start you near your foes, but they’re in planes, they fly around. Lose track of them and they’re just gone, good luck finding them again. And this is where the game completely loses me. Other than this problem Noah’s Cradle is a decent game which can be fun for its genre, but sorry, I have no interest in aimlessly flying around looking for missing enemies.
If you do stick with it, the game has various different weapons and several planes to buy, and you can replay missions and they won’t be the same every time. Or rather, you will NEED to replay missions, because I don’t think there are all that many in this game and if you don’t lose track of the enemies they are pretty short, and they pad it out by not unlocking the next level right away. Instead you need to play the same stages over and over and buy better stuff and such. They very slowly get harder the more times you play them. And… yeah, no thanks. If this sounds like your kind of game by all means pick it up while you can, but it’s not mine. It’s too aimless and repetitive. Not recommended.
Of Mice and Sand – This is an interesting, but flawed, indie strategy/simulation game. You control a large tracked vehicle full of sentient mice travelling through a post-apocalyptic desert. This game has nice 2d sprite art graphics. It doesn’t make much use of stereoscopic 3d, but still the visuals are good. This game has mostly touch-based controls. You manage your mouse tank-colony by placing rooms and giving the mice tasks. This game is both really interesting, and quite boring. I like the post-apocalyptic theme, and the graphics are nice. The concept of managing a colony is also a good one, and I love strategy games and like building sims as well. However, a lot of the time there just isn’t enough to do to keep me interested. As you play, you travel around between locations in the desert. You watch your vehicle move, and as you go you automatically pick up some items on the ground that you will need, such as scrap metal. Then, you tell one of your mice to turn that scrap metal into refined products such as pipes and the like in the Workshop room in your colony. Once you reach a location, you can buy and sell items, of which the game only has a relatively small number of types, get quests which generally amount to ‘bring me X amount of some item type’, and pay people for information. You will need to buy pretty much all information options in order to proceed, as you can’t get to new locations until you learn from people where new places of interest are in the desert.
A lot of this kind of game are rogue-lite titles with a lot of danger, games where you are always on the edge of failure and might get something if you lose. This game is not like that. Instead, most of the time you are not in much danger to anything other than quitting out of boredom. You absolutely can fail this game, as if you take too long to proceed to new areas monsters will destroy your colony and it can take a while to get enough resources to be able to build enough items to both be able to sell stuff to make money for food, fuel, and the information you need. However, most of the time you are just going back and forth between locations, slowly picking stuff up, while next to nothing happens. There are a few events here and there and the towns and writing are charming, but it’s just a bit too slow-paced and tedious. I like the concept of this game, but the tedium of the core gameplay loop is flawed. It doesn’t have enough building simulation elements to keep you interested like a dedicated building sim does, but also doesn’t have enough threat to hold your interest like a rogue-lite colony sim does. Of Mice and Sand does its own thing, and I kind of like it, but it just doesn’t have varied or interesting enough gameplay to keep me coming back. Raw material collection, particularly, is too dull. This game is above average but could have been better. There is also an enhanced Nintendo Switch version of this game which adds more content. The controls here are better, as the game is perfect for control with a stylus, but the added content would be nice.
Ohno Odyssey – This is a 2.5d puzzle/platformer game. No, not that kind of puzzle-platformer. This game is one part endless runner and one part level editor. The game has a great concept, but fairly average implementation. Each level is made up of curving platforms floating in the air. You start out in an editor. When you press go your orblike alien character will move forward along it. Your objective is to place objects along this track with the stylus in the simple stage editor so that you will be able to reach the goal. Once you hit go, you only have limited control of your character. Some powerups give you a jump you control and such, and you will need to time uses of the jump powerup in some levels so some platformer ability is required, but the puzzle element is the main game here.
You just need to set up the level so that the Ohno alien will complete the stage. As such, the main challenge here is in the puzzle solving.
It’s a good idea, and a really good implementation of this could have been some cross of The Incredible Machine and a platformer, but unfortunately this game isn’t that title. Ohno Odyssey is a very easy and simple game. The puzzles do slowly get a bit more complex, but with how few items you get in each stage, most of the time the puzzles are far too easy to figure out. Put ramps over pits, blocks to keep you from hitting bombs, and such. Sometimes you can do neat stuff, but only infrequently. The platformer isn’t enough to keep me interested either, since it’s mostly an automatic game which you don’t interact with at all most of the time. Many levels don’t have any interaction at all, you just hit go and watch. If the puzzle setups were trickier this would be fine, but they aren’t. This game is a mildly amusing little thing, as you place items and then watch your orb-guy zip along the course, but there isn’t enough substance here to keep me interested for long. It’s probably slightly below average.
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - A Black Falcon - 16th March 2023
And I'm done with part ten, before the shutdown! Fairly impressively, I've gotten an article done every week recently.
... wait, why did I forget to post parts 7, 8, or 9 here, and they're only on my site? Uh, sorry about that. So here is part seven.
Table of Contents for this update
Parascientific Escape: Crossing at the Farthest Horizon
Parascientific Escape: Cruise in the Distant Seas
Parascientific Escape: Gear Detective
Parking Star 3D
Pazuru
Phasmophobia: Hall of Specters 3D
Phil’s Epic FIll-a-Pix Adventure
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice
Pic-a-Pix Color
Picross 3D Round 2
Picross e
Picross e2
Picross e3
Picross e4
Picross e5
PICROSS e6
Picross e7
Picross e8
Ping Pong Trick Shot
Ping Pong Trick Shot 2
Pirate Pop Plus
Pocket Card Jockey
Psycho Pigs
Pushmo
Puzzle Labyrinth
PUZZLEBOX setup
The Summaries for letter P – 29 games
Parascientific Escape: Cruise in the Distant Seas – Published by Circle and developed by Intense in 2015. This is a somewhat simple but great adventure game. You play as a girl in a group of girls stuck on a sinking cruise liner, and you need to figure out how to get off alive. The game has a first-person viewpoint, with prerendered rooms which you view and can interact with with the stylus on the lower screen. You will collect items and use your abilities in order to solve puzzles. While inspired by escape rooms and such, though, you can’t actually lose in this game, which I at least really like. I don’t like the pressure of having a time limit before your character dies or something, so this game, which has the tension of that kind of setup but doesn’t have the actual danger, is perfect. As the name suggests, the main character has psychic powers. She’s able to use several different abilities, and you will need to use them in the right places in order to solve the puzzles. Now, this is a small download-only title, so it is not especially long. The difficulty level is also somewhat moderate. There are some tricky puzzles, sure, but for the most part this game isn’t that hard. That was entirely fine with me, though, and I really liked this game. The four girls are all good, interesting characters, the puzzles are fun to figure out, and the visuals and setting are good. I would say more, but I don’t want to spoil the story! I highly recommend any adventure game fan should get this game while you can. I’d say that it is a fun little adventure that probably won’t take too long and is lots of fun while it lasts. The game did well enough to get two sequels. I like this first one the best, though. It’s great. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Parascientific Escape: Gear Detective – Published by Circle and developed by Intense in 2016. This title is a sequel to the one above. This game has similar gameplay to the first one, but makes a lot of changes along the way. Most notably, this time you play as a guy detective. He’s got a sidekick girl who likes him. Additionally, you aren’t stuck in an escape room-style setup this time. Instead you’re a young detective, as the name suggests, with a detective’s office. Of course, you’re about to be pulled into a dangerous mystery. This is still an adventure game with psychic powers and items to collect, though, so apart from the change in setting and characters the core gameplay is familiar. This game has a bit more consequences for failure than the first one, so I guess other people didn’t like that you couldn’t actually lose in the first game. I liked it better that way, but still this is a good adventure game well worth getting. It’s cheap, good, and, again, entirely 3DS exclusive.
Parascientific Escape: Crossing at the Farthest Horizon – Published by Circle and developed by Intense in 2017. The third and final Parascientific Escape game brings back both protagonists from the first two games, and switch between them at points in the story. This game feels a bit more ambitious than the previous ones and has some good puzzles. As with the second game it definitely has choices that can lead to a bad ending. I don’t like that kind of pressure, probably unlike most people, but still this is a good adventure game with an interesting story, good characters, and nice visuals. As usual the psychic powers thing is a somewhat gimmicky puzzle-solving mechanic for the most part, but still this is a good adventure game I certainly recommend picking up while you can. This trilogy, based entirely around stylus-based precise touch controls, would not control anywhere near as well on the Switch as they do on 3DS, but even so it’s a shame that the series hasn’t returned. I like all three of these games quite a bit, they’re short-ish but well made and very fun adventure games that any genre fan should definitely play. Everyone knows the Ace Attorney series, but this series of smaller titles shouldn’t be forgotten. Pick them up. 3DS exclusive. Buy it. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Parking Star 3D – Published by Circle and developed by Easytech in 2014. This game is a driving puzzle game, but definitely not a racing game. It feels like a mobile port, but it’s alright. As the name suggests, this is more of a simulator, a parking simulator in specific. Using either button or touch controls, and the best option is a mixture of both, you try to park a car. The controls are on the lower screen, and the fairly basic 2d overhead-view graphics on the upper screen. The game makes minimal use of stereoscopic 3d, unfortunately. It is there, but not much of it. In each level, your challenge is to park in a specific parking space, fully in the space with the parking space lines showing on all sides of the car, without hitting more than one thing. You can bump one thing and keep going, at a cost of rating for the requisite three-star rating system seemingly all mobile games use, but a second bump means you fail, try again.
The controls are simple but take a little getting used to. You have a forward or reverse lever, either on the dpad, face buttons, or on the right of the touch screen; the wheel, either on the touchscreen (preferred!) or on the analog stick; and a brake, either on the left of the toughscreen or on the shoulder buttons. Using touch for the steering is preferred because you don’t turn the car like a normal car in a videogame. Instead, you have to spin it as if it was a wheel, even with the stick. This works well with the touch controls, just turn that wheel with the stylus. It feels very odd to be rotating your analog stick around in circles, though, but that’s what you have to do here. Yeah. As with a real wheel it stops at certain points once you’ve turned the wheels as far as they can go, and then you will need to turn it back around. The wheel doesn’t auto-center at all, it stays exactly where you leave it. As for speed control, you can adjust your speed kind of, but it doesn’t feel fully analog. For reverse basically you move at a standard speed as soon as you go into reverse, stopping when you let off it. For forwards you can kind of control your speed, but you mostly have a speed you go at. Fortunately, it is slow enough to work. Once you figure out the controls this game plays fine, as you go forward and back and turn in order to work your way into each parking space. There are plenty of puzzles on offer. It’s a decently average little game that you might want to pick up if it sounds interesting. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive, as far as I know.
Pazuru – Published by Joindots in 2015. Pazuru is a puzzle game with one-button controls. This is baasically one of those bounce-the-light-on-angled-mirrors games, but with a bouncing ball and a timing element. The game plays on the upper screen, has basic sprite graphics, and doesn’t use any stereoscopic 3d, so it is certainly technically unimpressive. The gameplay is plenty challenging and interesting, though, so it may be of interest. This game has a light Japanese ninja theme, but mostly you are just watching an object bounce around the upper screen. Whenever you hit the A button, objects change depending on their type. Some angled blocks will turn on and off each time you hit the button, others will rotate each time you press it, and such. Each puzzle is a single screen and there are several gold shurikens scattered around that you are trying to collect all of with a single try. The challenge is, there are multiple exits scattered around the level, so you will need to hit the button with the correct timing to make everything line up correctly so you don’t end up in one before getting them all. After completing each level you get a rating on the standard mobile game three-start system Based on your time and if you got them all and such. Pazuru is simple, and probably is a mobile port, but it’s a decent puzzle game and is average or slightly above that. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Phasmophobia: Hall of Specters 3D – Published by In-D Gaming in 2019. New Nintendo 3DS required. This title is an extremely simple and short little game jam demo that you pay for, basically. It’s kind of neat though. This game is someones’ attempt to make a 3d, first-person take on Pac-Man. On the upper screen you see the first person view, and on the lower screen a map of the maze. It’s the standard Pac-Man maze. The map shows your location and the locations of the four ghosts. In this maze, you need to explore around and collect 12 pages attached to the walls. The pages are NOT marked on the map, so you will need to look around and find them. If you get caught by a ghost you lose a life, three lives and it’s game over. You move with the left stick and aim with the right analog nub. I kind of hate the analog nub, so it’s unfortunate that this game doesn’t have touch aiming, but sadly it does not. It also doesn’t have stereoscopic 3d; despite requiring the New 3DS, this game looks the same with the 3d slider up or down. Too bad.
If you can manage the camera stick the controls are alright, though this is about as basic a 3d environment as you will see on 3DS, but there’s literally minutes of gameplay here — there is only one level. You will definitely die several times before beating the level, but once you beat it the only other thing to do is Insanity mode, where you have only one life and a time limit. That only took me a few minutes more and with that the game was done. There is very low replay value here, it really is a techdemo. It’s cheap, can be fun to play, and it’s cool that it got released at all, but still, I’m not sure if it’s worth buying or not. Do you not mind buying one of the shortest games on the system in order to support an indie game jam project that actually got released on the eshop? I don’t regret buying it, but make your own choice. Also released on Android and PC/Mac/Linux (itch.io). Note that while there is a PC/Mac/Linux (Steam) game named Phasmophobia, that is an entirely different game by a different developer.
Phil’s Epic Fill-a-Pix Adventure – Published by Lightwood Games in 2017. This third party somewhat Minesweeper-meets-Picross game is a huge disappointment. This game has over a hundred huge, scrolling puzzles. Numbers around the field tell you how many blocks next to each space need to be filled in. Picross-style you either fill in spaces or don’t, there aren’t multiple colors. The concept is sound, I love both Picross and Minesweeper so sort of combining the two is a good idea. Sadly, but you won’t want to try to solve these puzzles. Of all 3DS puzzle games I have played, this is the only one at all like this which is missing something critical. You see, this puzzle game… has button-only controls. And I mean it has NO stylus support, not even in menus. On the 3DS. I have no idea at all what the developers were thinking, but who would want button-only controls in a 3DS puzzle game like this? Why would anyone actually publish a puzzle game like this on 3DS with no stylus support? The game concept is great and is exactly my kind of thing, I love both Picross and Minesweeper and this is a nice cross of the two, but without stylus support my interest in the game goes way, WAY down. I don’t know how this happened, but it should not have been released like this. Skip this mess. This is the same publisher who released the pretty good ____-A-Pix games and this released after Pic-a-Pix Color (below), so I have no idea what happened with this one, but don’t buy it. Also on Vita, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.
The Phoenix Wright series – The four titles released in 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2017. Four Phoenix Wright games, including a collection of the three GBA games and three standalone releases, released in the US on 3DS, and two more in Japan-only, though they did finally get Western releases on Switch. I was going to cover these, but … I’ve still never played any of them, and I don’t think I could cover them now in the depth any fans would want. So I won’t. I will only say that these games are very good versions of these popular adventure games, and that these games are digial-only in America and are ideally suited for this system. With touch controls designed for a stylus touchscreen like this and stereoscopic 3d graphics that are much improved over those in the GBA and/or DS versions of the games which are ports from the previous generation, these are probably the best way to play the games. The two first released on 3DS have some DLC as well. I don’t think any are 3DS exclusive.
Pic-a-Pix Color – Developed by Lightwood Games in 2017. Pic-a-Pix Color is a good, and pretty interesting, Picross clone. The main unique feature here is that unlike official Picross, the tiles in this came are in multiple colors. You switch between colors with L and R, and play with the stylus (or buttons if you really want). Because there are multiple colors, this makes for a pretty different game from classic Picross because different colors can be contiguous. So, where in regular Picross there are always white spaces in between the black blocks you carve out, Pic-a-Pix Color puzzles can have a string of differently-colored blocks that are all touching, without there definitely being spaces in between. I love Picross so this is a pretty neat take on the genre. The controls and gameplay are just as you’d expect. As wtih all of the ____-a-Pix games, you have a button that will tell you if you have any errors in the puzzle, and gives you the option of correcting mistakes if you wish. And as wtih all of these games, you get a gold medal after completing each puzzle if you don’t use the autocorrect feature. You can use the ‘how many errors are there?’ feature as many times as you want, that’s fine and isn’t punished at all, and as usual this is easy to abuse if you wish. The game does keep track of how long it took you to solve each puzzle but the only medals are for not using error correction. That is somewhat unfortunate, but even so this is a good Picross-style game with a nice twist.
And, it doesn’t end with the puzzles included: unlike the other ___-a-Pix games, this one has DLC. There are several dozen $2 puzzle collections available, and if you want to play them on 3DS, and I at least definitely do, buy them before 3DS purchasing shuts down. I wish that the other games in this series also had DLC, it’s unfortunate that they do not, but hey, I’ll take what I can get and like this game for sure. It has solid puzzle gameplay, a lot of content, and is definitely worth buying. Its DLC is as well. Also on Wii U, PS4, Vita, and Nintendo Switch. Personally I would much rather play it on this system than any of those due to the combination of stylus controls and portability.
Picross 3D Round 2 – Developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo in 2016. This title is the second and sadly so far last Picross 3D title. This sequel to the original Nintendo DS game is fantastic, but unfortunately is cut down and lacking in features compared to its exceptional predecessor. The first Picross 3D is my favorite game for the DS, but this one is “merely” a very good game. On the positive side, the graphics here are very nice with good stereoscopic 3d, the puzzles are interesting, and there is a fair amount of content. However, the first game had a puzzle editor and lots of downloadable levels that you could download for free. Of course you can’t download anything in the original DS game now, but even so it still has more content than this one, and that puzzle creator. This game doesn’t have any of that. It has fewer puzzles built in, too. I love that the game is in actual 3d now, and the gameplay of chopping out the blocks of a 3d cube to make a picture is as amazingly fun and rewarding as ever. It’s just really sad that this game is so cut back versus the first one. This game had a physical release in some regions, but unfortunately not in America, so it is on this list. This is one of the best download-only 3DS games here, but it’s a pale shadow of its amazing Nintendo DS predecessor.
Picross e – Developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo in 2013. I’m something of a Picross addict, and have slowly been playing through the 3DS Picross series, one game at a time. I’ve finished every puzzle in the first four games now, and have played a lot of several more. This series slowly improved over time, but all of the games are well worth playing if you like Picross. Picross, or picture crosswords, are nonogram puzzles which are simple and yet challenging. The board is a grid of squares. Numbers along the left and top sides of the screen show you how many tiles in each row need to be carved out. Picross is simple, since tiles are all either white, uncarved, or black, carved out. The grids can get large, particularly in later titles in the series, but the core is simple and approachable. You just need to figure out which tiles need to be touched by using logic, deduction, and, if you get stuck, guesswork. The game has a timer, and if you try to touch the wrong tile time gets added to clock. With each mistake more time gets added than the last time you guessed wrong. If you complete the level in under an hour of time, you win, get to see the image in color, and it is considered completed. Take longer than that and you will need to try again. Each Picross e titles breaks its puzzles up into several categories, and if you complete all puzzles in each mode a medal appears on the main menu showing that you have completed it.
This first game has 15 Easy puzzles of sizes 5×5 to 10×10, 60 Normal puzzles of sizes 10×10 and 15×15, and 60 Free Mode puzzles also of sizes 10×10 and 15×15. Free Mode is harder since you aren’t allowed to use hints while playing any of these puzzles. Most later games only have three Free Mode puzzles on each 15-puzzle page, but this one has more. And lastly, the game has 15 Extra mode puzzles, also 10×10 and 15×15. This game doesn’t have as many puzzles as the later ones and the maximum size is relatively small, so it’s a good starting point.
The core systems are similar across both this series and the several other licensed Picross titles, including the Hello Kitty one, the Pokemon one, and the mini Zelda Twilight Princess one, but they do add new features over time. The core controls are the same, but the later titles add larger puzzles, new modes, more puzzles, and some control improvements that make the games a little easier to use. However, start from the first one and it will feel good. This first game may not have the large images or such, but it does have plenty of puzzles mostly in smaller sizes, so it’s a perfect starting point for new Picross players. Buy all of these. If you’re only getting one the later ones are better, they add things like marking if you used any hints when you solve the puzzles instead of only ‘did it take you under an hour or not’ and improve the controls a bit, but such, but I at least say, get all of them! It’s great. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Picross e2 – Developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo in 2013. Picross e2 is very similar to the first one, but with new puzzles. The number and block size of puzzles in the Easy, Normal, Free, and Extra categories are all identical to the first game, so you have 15 Easy puzzles, 60 puzzles each for Normal and Free, and 15 Extra puzzles, and a 15×15 max puzzle size. Additionally though, the new Micross mode is added. Micross puzzles have you making a famous work of art. The artwork is broken up into a grid of 8×8 tiles, some of which will be empty and some of which contain parts of the image. You touch each tile to start that puzzle, then try to figure out that block. Each block of the artwork is, as with the main puzzle, only 8×8, so these puzzles are easier to solve than the regular one. This game comes with five Micross puzzles, a nice amount. I like Micross mode, it’s fun seeing the larger image come together. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Picross e3 – Developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo in 2013. Developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo in 2015The third Picross e game again is based off of the first one with new puzzles. You get fewer regular puzzles this time, though, unfortunately. This time you get 15 Easy puzzles (5×5 and 10×10), 45 Normal puzzles (10×10 and 15×15), 45 Free puzzles (10×10 and 15×15), 15 Extra puzzles (all 15×15), and 30 puzzles in the new Mega Picross mode, in sizes of 10×10 and 15×15. Micross sadly doesn’t make an appearance in this game. It is missed. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Mega Picross somewhat makes up for the lack of puzzles in this entry, though, because these puzzles are harder than those in the other modes due to reduced information. You see, in a Mega Picross puzzle some rows are combined into paired rows. You will see only the block totals for both rows or columns combined, instead of for each one separately. Additionally, some numbers, in a black outline, are for a group of blocks which go across both rows in this group. Regular numbers are only in one lane or the other, as marked, and will never be directly touching another row. This makes solving the puzzles much trickier, as you can’t X out blocks nearly as easily because you could go sideways instead of just up and down. If that sounds a little complex, well, Mega Picross can be a bit frustrating sometimes because of how much harder it can be to figure out what you can X out or chip away. Still, it was a good addition and this is a good game. I wish it had more regular puzzles and some Micross, though. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Picross e4 – Developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo in 2014. For the new year, this game mixes up the menu system a bit. Now, the Easy and Normal categories are combined into one mode just called [Regular] Picross. This mode has 105 puzzles of sizes 5×5 to 20×15, so a new larger puzzle size has been added. Three puzzles on each page of 15 are Free mode puzzles, the rest regular ones where the game docks you time for each mistake. This 20×15 size would be the largest size in the Picross e series. You also get two Micross puzzles, 45 Mega Picross puzzles of sizes up to 15×15, and 15 bonus puzzles, five of which unlock for each of the first three Picross e games that you own on your 3DS. Considering how muchl onger Mega Picross puzzles take and that the new size is larger, this game has a solid amount of content.
You get some new options, too — from Picross e4 on, in this series you have Hint Number Auto-Check, Hint Roulette, and ? Navigation options on the pause menu. If you turn the first of those options off the game will no longer tell you if you make mistakes, or dock you time if you do so. If you turn the second off, the game will stop asking before every puzzle if you want to have it start out by filling in one row and one column. And if you turn the third off, the hint mode will be disabled even on puzzles where you are allowed to use it. There are some nice new features here. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Picross e5 – Developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo in 2014. This second 2014 Picross game is very similar to its predecessor, though with a bit of a graphical improvement; the on-screen interface looks a little better than it did before. This title has 120 regular Picross puzzles in sizes of 5×5 to 20×15, with three Free mode puzzles per 15-puzzle page; three Micross puzzles; 30 Mega Picross puzzles in sizes of 5×5 to 15×15; and 15 puzzles that unlock if you have the first three Picross e titles. Yes, it’s always just the first three that unlock bonus puzzles. It’s another great entry in this series. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Picross e6 – Developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo in 2015. At this point, Picross e became a yearly series instead of one more frequent. This game has 150 regular Picross puzzles in sizes of 5×5 to 20×15, 150 Mega Picross puzzles in sizes of 5×5 to 20×15, three Micross puzzles, and 15 puzzles which unlock if you have the first three Picross e titles. This may sound like a huge number of puzzles, but the last three Picross e games “cheat” by not actually making new puzzles for Mega Picross mode. Instead, you get 150 puzzles for regular Picross, and those same puzzles in Mega Picross mode, just harder now due to how much tougher that mode is due to more limited information. The puzzles are not in the exact same order so unless you can identify the image and cheat by looking at it in the regular mode you probably will need to do the puzzle again, but it was a clever solution to significantly increase the amount of content in these games without needing to create new puzzles.
Also in 2015, Jupiter also made the free-to-start but pay-to-finish Pokemon Picross. It’s fine I guess, but expensive compared to the rest of the series — playing the whole thing will cost about $30, far more than any of these other titles, for not THAT much more content. It’s wildly overpriced, I think, but the actual gameplay is the same great stuff of course. And no, you cannot play it all for free; after a bit you need to pay in order to get the play points to continue. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Picross e7 – Developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo in 2016. This game released more than a year after its predecessor, and it shows — the series has had a full graphical overhaul. This time you get 150 regular Picross puzzles in sizes of 5×5 to 20×15, 150 Mega Picross puzzles in sizes up to 20×15 which again are the same puzzles as regular mode just put in a different order, and three Micross puzzles. Additionally, there are 15 puzzles which unlock if you have certain other Picross e titles. The regular, Mega, and unlockable puzzles have three Free mode puzzles per 15-puzzle page, where you are not allowed to use hints and the game will not tell you if you are chipping out the correct spaces or not. In other puzzles the game tells you when you try to do an incorrect move and you get a time penalty. However, this game has the great feature that there is now a medal to earn on each puzzle. If you complete the puzzle with no errors or help, you will get a medal shown on screen. Make even one mistake, though, and you won’t get that medal. As usual if you complete the puzzle with under an hour of time used it appears on screen in color and is considered complete, but if you want to go back for some additional challenge, try to beat puzzles without using hints to get those medals. It’s a great feature which only the later Picross e titles have. This is a fantastic Picross game with nice graphics which are improved over the earlier titles, great touch controls, and lots of puzzles. Highly recommended; this series got better over time. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Picross e8 – Developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo in 2017. The last main-series Picross e game on the 3DS is very similar to its predecessor. This game again has 150 puzzles for regular and Mega modes, reused in both modes as with the previous two titles but harder in Mega mode of course due to that modes’ rules, with the same sizes as before of sizes up to 20×15; three Micross puzzles; and 15 special puzzles which unlock if you own the first three Picross e titles. All of the features are the same as e7, so it has the medals to earn on each puzzle. The puzzles are a bit harder than e7’s are, though, so this last one is likely the most challenging and probably the best Picross e entry. I highly recommend getting all of them, though, it’s a just fantastic series which will take many, many hours to puzzle your way through. This game would be the last of the numbered Picross e titles, but Jupiter would make one more Picross game on 3DS after this one, 2018’s Sanrio characters Picross. I will get to that one later, but it’s great whether or not you care about Hello Kitty. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Ping Pong Trick Shot – Published by Starsign and developed by SIMS in 2016. This is an action/puzzle game where you need to toss a ball into a little cup. I recall there was a WiiWare game like this which the developers had to rename from “beer pong” to “ping pong” because Nintendo didn’t want a name referencing drinking in their shop. These 3DS games follow that trend by being that concept, but without any references to drink. No, this is a puzzle game where your goal is to throw the ball with the exact right speed and angle in order to get it to go into the cup. The game keeps things interesting by having each stage have a different layout. You will need to deal with walls, moving platforms, angled holes, and more. This game is from the same developer as Collide-A-Ball and such, and has the same style, interface, and simple shaded-polygon visual design as their other games. You control the game with the touch screen, and it controls well. There is a slider for your shot power and you aim with the stylus. I like this game, this kind of precise aiming is quite rewarding when you get it right. This is a short game since there aren’t all that many puzzles, but it’s fun while it lasts and I recommend picking it up. Objectively the game is average, but I enjoy it. Also available on iOS. Or at least it was at one point.
Ping Pong Trick Shot 2 – Published by Starsign and developed by SIMS in 2017. This game is more of the same. This is a level pack for fans of the first one with basically no changes except some somewhat more challenging puzzles. So yeah, I say pick it up, it’s a good game. More of the same is fine when you’re making more of a good and short game, and the added challenge makes this game slightly better than its predecessor. Pick it up if you like the first one, as I do. This game may be a NIntendo 3DS exclusive, though it’s probably a phone port.
Pirate Pop Plus – Published by 13AM Games and developed by Dadako Studios in 2016. This game plays exactly like Capcom’s classic game Buster Bros.. The game plays exactly like that game, except with not quite as good controls but some nice Game Boy-ish graphics and filters. Just like the game that inspired it, you move left and right with the d-pad and shoot straight upwards with the fire button. When you shoot, it drops a line down from the top of the screen at that point. The enemies are bouncing balls, and when they run into the line they take a hit and split apart into smaller balls. Sort of like in Asteroids you need to avoid them and keep hitting them until they all are destroyed, at which point you move on to the next level. There’s plenty of content here and I do like the screen filter options. This is an okay take on a classic, but the imprecise, mushy controls are a disappointment; I was hoping this game would be more fun to play than it is. With better controls this game could have been good, but as it is it’s below average, unfortunately. Also available on Wii U, also digital only there. The two versions are basically identical other than screen resolution and such. Also on PC/Mac (Steam) and Nintendo Switch.
Pocket Card Jockey – Developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo in 2016. This solitaire card game got quite a bit of press when it released, so I picked it up… and was quite disappointed. Pocket Card Jockey is a solitaire card game with a horse racing theme. Basically, you are a jockey, and as you go around the track you will be faced with games of solitaire. If you do well and clear them quickly you will move ahead and maybe win the race, but if you struggle and fall behind things won’t go well for your horse-racing career. The game has nice sprite-art graphics with some use of stereoscopic 3d, but I find the actual card games far too frustratingly random. My main issue is that this game punishes you quite a bit when you end up with a random card layout that is hard to solve quickly. It’s not my fault though, it’s all the luck of the draw… but the game doesn’t care. The game has a whole bunch of systems to learn, so it will take a while to figure out and going through all of the tutorials is highly recommended. I did that, it makes sense eventually. My problem is not the complexity, it’s the randomness. I think this game is way too luck-based and punishes you too much for having bad luck of the draw. I don’t like this game much at all and can’t recommend it, though given that plenty of people do like it maybe you will disagree. For me though this is one of the worst games in this update. I have no interest in playing it again to describe the details of its gameplay, sorry. The game was originally 3DS exclusive, but since has had newer versions made on other formats.
Psycho Pigs – Published by Bergsala-Lightweight in 2016. This is based on a Jaleco arcade game from the ’80s. Psycho Pigs is a remake of a classic arcade action game about pigs throwing bombs at eachother to try to blow eachother up. This one is a bit interesting because the game never released before in the US. It was originally a Japanese arcade game, which, like many Japanese arcade games, got a bunch of ’80s home computer releases in Europe that never got released here in America, which is surely why the Swedish company Bergsala-Lightweight ended up publishing this remake of the game. I believe that this version is the first one we got. It’s kind of odd playing a graphically enhanced remake of a game I’ve never played, but that’s what this is. The game has polygonal character models and is played from an overhead perspective with a single screen, on the upper screen, per level. The lower screen shows your status and such. For such a simple game there are an oddly large number of different things displayed around this screen, including your stats, items, and more.
The controls are simple, either the d-pad or analog stick moves, and you do have analog directional control but not movement speed, you either move or you dont, and two buttons throw bombs and use items. You can switch items with L. Still, though, this is a weird game. Rounds are often incredibly short, first. If someone gets blown up with a bomb they’re out, and with a single not-very-obstructed screen to fight in this usually won’t take long. We’re talking ten or twenty seconds per round, often. There are several ways to blow either your or the other pigs up, including by directly hitting them on the front side of their character, getting blown up by an exploding bomb on the ground since each one has a timer on it which will eventually go off, or being caught in a chain explosion as bombs set eachother off. It is important to note though that hitting someone from the rear doesn’t blow them up, in that case the bomb drops to the ground next to them. The result is a probably overly simplistic, but quite chaotic, game as the four or so different pig characters run around, picking up and throwing bombs at eachother, until only one is left. You can pick up powerups, some of which are items to use and others which will boost your stats.
Naturally, this game would be best in multiplayer. Unfortunately, the multiplayer in this game is local only. If you do have several 3DS systems though, give this a try, it’d probably be fun. Against the AI, though, while the concept is initially entertaining, with incredibly short round lengths and very basic gameplay, I find myself losing interest in this game quickly. It has much less strategy than Bomberman, this is mostly just chaos. It’s moderately amusing but shallow and mediocre. Being a classic arcade game there also isn’t a lot of content. There are arcade modes in several lengths, local multiplayer, and one or two player endless modes. The endless modes are a nice addition, but the gameplay here is my main issue, not the amount of content. I just don’t find this game interesting enough to play for more than a few minutes. If you do stick to it though there are different costume pieces to unlock, which is nice, but with very little depth and somewhat forgettable gameplay I’m not entirely sure why this game got a remake. Still, it’s okay. A bit below average, but okay. This game is strange and obscure and you might want to check it out, but I don’t know if you want to buy it or not. This version of the game is Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Pushmo – Published by Nintendo and developed by Intelligent Systems in 2011. Pushmo is the first game in a series which would have a decent number of entries on the 3DS and Wii U over several years. I mentioned Crashmo, a later title in this franchise, in a prior update, but this game is somewhat different from that one. It is much simpler and easier. In this game, 2d images have turned into 3d puzzles. Each image is made of blocks, and you can pull out the blocks up to three spaces in order to find a route up to the top of the image. This is different from Crashmo in that the image can’t change, you just need to try to figure out the route to climb each otherwise-static picture by pulling out blocks. You move around with the analog stick, jump with A, and . There are a few modifier objects, but for the most part this is a pretty simple game. I like Pushmo, it is good, but I don’t think it has the depth to be great. The totally flat nature of the original pictures limits the game, making the 3d merely isometric, and the unmovable blocks make this really just a game of ‘can you see where to jump to get up’. As I said, it’s just barely good, but that’s it. I’d say I recommend it to genre fans but probably not to everyone. The game does have a puzzle editor where you can make your own stages though, that’s pretty nice. Sadly you can’t share them online, only play them locally. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Puzzle Labyrinth – Published by Circle and developed by Intense in 2016. This is a first-person dungeon crawler puzzle game. Yes, it’s a puzzle game, not an RPG, there is no combat to be found here. Instead, you explore small dungeons and solve puzzles in them. You can pick up items from specific spots and try to figure out where to use them while interacting with the various tricky elements of the current stage as you try to figure out what to do to proceed. This game has simple graphics with solid stereoscopic 3d but very basic dungeon graphics and fine button-based controls. The main draw here, though, is the puzzles, and I would say that it delivers there. This game starts out easy enough, but it gets pretty hard after not that long. Once you’re dealing with warp tiles that travel through time as you try to figure out how to make a flower grow in a specific space and such, you will realize that this game is NOT easy. There isn’t really an in-game hint system, but you can find a guide online. Even if the game is hard it is good, though. Puzzle Labyrinth is a simple but challenging game that any adventure or puzzle game fan should definitely check out. I would say that due to the simple design and sometimes high frustration factor the game is good but not great, but it’s certainly worth a play. This game seems to be 3DS-exclusive, too, so pick it up while you can. It can be compelling. This game is quite different from Intense’s Parascientific Escape trilogy, but is just as much worth getting as the later titles in that series. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
PUZZLEBOX setup – Published by Bplus in 2014. This is a sadly simplistic block-filling puzzle game in which you hold your 3DS upside-down. Yes, really. You hold the system with the upper screen facing you as a lower screen, and play with the stylus on the now-upper lower screen. This means that your hand will be partially obscuring the screen, but that is as intended. There are two modes here, both of which involve dropping colored blocks into spaces that are marked with the correct block color that needs to go into that space. In Classic stages, you go through and auto-scrolling level. The lower screen shows the block pattern you need to fill, with the correct color marked, and you touch the space directly above that spot on the upper screen to drop a block of that color into the space. The 3d screen does have stereoscopic visuals, which is nice. You can’t fill something with the wrong color, the game won’t let you. You can fill empty spaces with blocks of any color, though. The game does keep track of how many blocks you needed to use versus the minimum number, though, so if you want a better rating you should avoid this. The game also keeps track of how long each puzzle took you to complete.
In the other stage type, Copycat, you fill in an image on a single screen. The core gameplay is the same, fill in the blocks wit hthe correct colors, but instead of this time you are actually filling in an image, instead of just filling in blocks for no reason other than to do so. Copycat puzzles can be zoomed out so as to fit more rows of blocks onto the screen, and as expected the game keeps track of how long it took you and teh number of dropped blocks required. The two modes are similar, but the Classic levels are often boring, as you need to wait for the blocks to slowly move onto the screen, so I definitely had more fun with Copycat. Either way, though, this is a very basic game probably mostly for children. After all, you can’t actually get anything wrong and the only challenge is just to hit the button(s) for the correct color(s) in each row. It’s a very basic, overly simplistic game that did not hold my interest. A younger audience might like it though, I don’t know. I’d call this quite forgettably basic, though, apart from the way you hold the system. Nintendo 3DS digital exclusive.
Best games in this update:
Picross 3D Round 2
Parascientific Escape: Cruise in the Distant Seas
Picross e series (all 8 games, but particularly the last two)
Worst games in this update:
Pocket Card Jockey
Phasmophobia: Hall of Specters 3D
Phil’s Epic Fill-a-Pix Adventure
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - Dark Jaguar - 20th March 2023
Alright so:
This collection, which sounds like it was an utter nightmare to put together, is being donated to archivists. Good! If Nintendo doesn't want our money, that is, since they are actively telling us they won't accept it any more in a matter of a few days, just pirate it.
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - A Black Falcon - 20th March 2023
(20th March 2023, 11:10 AM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: Alright so:
This collection, which sounds like it was an utter nightmare to put together, is being donated to archivists. Good! If Nintendo doesn't want our money, that is, since they are actively telling us they won't accept it any more in a matter of a few days, just pirate it.
As someone trying to buy what I'd consider the part of these libraries that is interesting, I feel their pain in a way most people probably don't. So far over the past month I've spent $400 on 3DS and Wii U digital games, and there are so many more interesting games I want to get... and most of the problems they complain about in that video are SO SO annoying! The 300 file limit is a nightmare (particularly on 3DS since it has much more software; I have not hit the limit on Wii U and probably won't), the limit to the download queue is annoying, the 125MB of space for DSiWare titles is completely stupid, etc.
Yes, the correct response would be to say "Nintendo you jerks, I'll just pirate it all, you get what you deserve..." but I can't get myself to do it.
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - Dark Jaguar - 21st March 2023
At the very least, hack your consoles the moment they turn the stores off. You'll do yourself a great favor in just making the use of your software easier. I did it with my DSi and Wii for example and I can't imagine going back. That's especially important now that it's been revealed there's a known bug that has the potential to outright brick your Wii U with a corrupted table entry if you leave the system turned off for too long. By hacking the system, you can safely back up the whole NAND to a file you can store elsewhere so you can potentially recover the system later.
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - A Black Falcon - 21st March 2023
(21st March 2023, 5:30 AM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: At the very least, hack your consoles the moment they turn the stores off. You'll do yourself a great favor in just making the use of your software easier. I did it with my DSi and Wii for example and I can't imagine going back.
I will probably do this, yes.
Quote:That's especially important now that it's been revealed there's a known bug that has the potential to outright brick your Wii U with a corrupted table entry if you leave the system turned off for too long. By hacking the system, you can safely back up the whole NAND to a file you can store elsewhere so you can potentially recover the system later.
Good news on that front!
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - Dark Jaguar - 21st March 2023
(21st March 2023, 10:04 AM)A Black Falcon Wrote:(21st March 2023, 5:30 AM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: At the very least, hack your consoles the moment they turn the stores off. You'll do yourself a great favor in just making the use of your software easier. I did it with my DSi and Wii for example and I can't imagine going back.
I will probably do this, yes.
Quote:That's especially important now that it's been revealed there's a known bug that has the potential to outright brick your Wii U with a corrupted table entry if you leave the system turned off for too long. By hacking the system, you can safely back up the whole NAND to a file you can store elsewhere so you can potentially recover the system later.
Good news on that front!
I was referring to that myself in fact, and was considering if I should post that but the details are rather "inside baseball". Still, that helps. In fact, you can hack the Wii U without buying that device at all if you wish.
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - A Black Falcon - 24th March 2023
By the way, it's on my site, but I did finish part 11 a few days ago.
RE: Game Opinion Summaries - Nintendo 3DS Digital Games - Dark Jaguar - 26th March 2023
At this point, I've bought all I really want off those shops at this moment. Whatever I miss going forward, I'm just going to get the hacked way. That includes the DLC for Layton v Phoenix, because frankly I don't have enough time to actually beat the game and "unlock" the ability to download it's DLC. Absolutely ridiculous that's how they designed some of this.
I DID go all the way through Rusty's real deal though. That's the only game I've ever seen that used "light patterns" to manipulate purchases.