The 3DS was was, in my opinion, one of the best family of handhelds. Made by Nintendo from 2011-2020, this family of consoles were all dual-screen handhelds, designed to be played on the go. The gimmick of this console was that
1. It had 2 screens and
2. It had a cool stereoscopic 3D slider you could use to make your games look like they were popping out of the screen!
The 3DS family of systems can sorted into 2 categories: the ‘old’ generation, which was launched in 2011, and the ‘new’ generation, which was launched in 2015.
The ‘old’ generation of 3DSes and 2DSes are the most popular, and are the original 3DS consoles Nintendo made. In this category, there are a lot of consoles. These consoles include the 3DS, the 3DS XL, and the 2DS. There was also a lot of backward compatibility, as you could play games from the (of course) DS, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, NES, Sega Game Gear, and Game Boy Advance (Only if you were an ambassador, which bought the console before the price was cut
However, 4 years later in 2015, Nintendo released the ‘new’ generation of 3DSes. These consoles have a host of improvements, and a ‘New’ before the name of the console. These consoles included better head tracking for 3D, a better processor for more FPS in demanding games like Rayman 3D, ZL and ZR buttons, a fancy C Stick, which was basically a tiny joystick meant to be a right joystick that only ended up being used by a few games, a built-in NFC reader, and a few other small improvements, like these cool replaceable faceplates on the non-XL model of the New 3DS! It also had a few exclusive titles like Xenoblade Chronicles 3D and Minecraft (Which coincidentally was probably the worst version of the game), and Virtual Console SNES games.
Both the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ generations had a great game library at launch, like Nintendogs, and Nintendogs, and also Nintend- ok but seriously, the launch titles for this console were not the best. One must imagine the early buyers were probably pretty angry that they had paid $80 extra for a console with terrible launch titles. Which is why Nintendo, to make sure everyone was happy, gave these ‘ambassadors’, as Nintendo called them, 10 random NES games and 10 random GBA games. The GBA games were actually exclusive to the ambassadors, probably so people would feel happy and special to be one.
Anyways, after a while, the game library started to get better, with Pokémon games, Kirby games (Kirby is the best series ever), Mario games, and a lot of other titles. If you wanna see them all ranked, there’s a lot of videos on YouTube for which ones to play first. My personal 2 favorites are Kirby Planet Robobot and Tomodachi Life! I would also recommend playing Miitopia, Pokémon Sun and Moon, Mario Kart 7, Super Mario Maker, Animal Crossing, and New Super Mario Brothers 2. Nintendo shut down the EShop in 2023 so you’ll have to find another way to get the game either on cartridge or something else.
Modding1. Modding your 3DS is one of the most awesome things ever, and can unlock worlds of potential in your console. And before we start, if you want to mod your console to do all this cool stuff, you can mod it at https://3ds.hacks.guide/ ! If you follow the guide I just linked, after finishing you will be left with a few apps, each of which have their own purpose, as shown in the guide. The first thing most people do when they mod their 3DS is get some cool custom themes! You can get them from Anemone, the cool preinstalled theme manager. This app also allows you to download custom boot splash screens and badges! (RIP Badge Arcade)
You can also use Universal Updater to download custom games, apps, and other cool things, like an online version of Streetpass. I’ve even seen games like Half-Life ported to the 3DS!
One other thing that I would consider a ‘must-get’ would have to be Pretendo. Pretendo, if you didn’t already know, is a service that revives the 3DS and Wii U online services, after Nintendo shut them down. They don’t have everything finished yet, but they have Mario Maker and Mario Kart, and that’s enough for me. If you want to see what apps are currently working, there’s a list here!
Basically, this family of consoles was, and still is, one of the best family of handheld consoles ever, because of it’s game library, it’s portability, and it’s modibility.
- For legal reasons I do not condone piracy or the illegal download of games you do not own. This blog was created for educational purposes, and I am not responsible for any actions you take after reading this blog, nor will I be held responsible for any damage created from taking action from this guide. ↩︎