Rekindling a love for the Nintendo DS and 3DS

A little while ago, we talked about how the Nintendo handheld experience is at risk of being forgotten. Writing that piece inspired me to dig out my Nintendo DS and 3DS and have a fiddle around with them both for the first time in a while — as well as look at bolstering my library of games for them, both physically and digitally. And you know what? I’ve been having a thoroughly lovely time doing so, for a variety of reasons.

So I think it’s probably time we kick off another occasional feature, this time looking back on some of the titles it was possible to enjoy on these fine platforms. Because unlike many other established platforms from previous generations, the DS and 3DS experiences are not something you can easily recreate using emulation.

For the truly authentic DS and 3DS experience, you need all of those unique factors that they offered: the two screens; the touchscreen; the glasses-free 3D. While those may not sound much by themselves, there are plenty of games that make such good use of those things that they become a critical part of enjoying games for these platforms.

Take Kotaro Uchikoshi’s classic Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, for example. While this is primarily a visual novel punctuated by interactive escape room sequences, the original release of this game makes fantastic use of the dual screens of the Nintendo DS, particularly during its finale sequence. To explain exactly how it does this would constitute a fairly major spoiler, so we’ll leave it at that for the benefit of those who are still yet to play it — but suffice to say that the later ports for single-screen platforms just don’t work in quite the same way for this sequence in particular.

Or how about EA’s Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure? This is a game where you play a platform action game on the top screen and a Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon-style puzzle game on the bottom screen. You’re not expected to do both simultaneously — the platform action pauses while you’re engaging with the puzzle game, though the puzzle game does continue to advance while you’re platforming — but the two are interconnected.

Then there’s the classic dungeon-crawling series Etrian Odyssey, of course, which made a point of bringing back the old-school experience of mapping dungeons yourself, only without requiring graph paper and pencils. After all, if you have a perfectly good touchscreen and stylus, you might as well make good use of them for mapping and other interactions, right?

The DS and 3DS aren’t just about using those two screens, though. The fact that both of them were noticeably less powerful than their TV connected contemporaries actually works in their favour, now that we’re looking back on them with the benefit of hindsight.

Since most DS and 3DS developers knew very well that they weren’t going to be able to recreate the experience of an HD console on these handhelds, they would often opt to take a different approach. Multi-platform games would have their own distinctive, unique versions for DS and 3DS that were completely different releases rather than simple ports, while games designed specifically for the DS and 3DS would take unique advantage of the platforms’ strengths.

If you like pixel art, for example, a DS and 3DS should absolutely be part of your gaming collection, since both platforms play host to some absolutely beautiful pixel art games.

The aforementioned Henry Hatsworth is a beautiful-looking platformer, for example. The DS releases of the earlier Ace Attorney games use fantastic pixel art for their characters rather than the clean look of the more recent rereleases. Even visual novels like Lifesigns: Hospital Affairs have a lovely pixel art look to them; they look like they were designed with the platform’s limitations in mind rather than simply downscaling high-resolution art to fit a low-resolution screen.

And this isn’t even getting into the downloadable games you can nab on 3DS. While the DSiWare store is closed on the original Nintendo DS now, many of the games once available for it can be downloaded on 3DS — and 3DS also has its own substantial lineup of download-exclusive games that no-one ever talks about. Which is a real shame, as there are some absolute gems to enjoy among them — and, more to the point, we’ll only be able to download them in an official capacity until March 27, 2023.

On top of all this, both the DS and the 3DS offer an experience unlike today’s modern consoles, in that their lack of constant Internet connectivity and “social” features means that they just leave you the hell alone while you’re enjoying a game. No distractions from notifications, messages, invites or ads — just simple, straightforward gaming fun. And in an era where roughly 50% of the time my dumbass “smart” TV likes to show me an ad rather than allowing me to press the “Source” button to change the channel, that is honestly a welcome sight.

So going forward, among all the other stuff we love to cover on a daily basis, we’ll also be looking back on some worthwhile Nintendo DS and 3DS releases that you should make a point of checking out sooner rather than later. Physical releases of games for both platforms are already getting into “stupid retro pricing” territory for certain titles, but more reasonably priced digital options do still exist for many titles — the aforementioned Etrian Odyssey being a good example; I picked up Etrian Odyssey Untold and IV for £8.99 each the other night.

Just don’t leave it too late — more than anything, the Nintendo DS and 3DS represent two generations of gaming that are notably more difficult to preserve than any others. So it’s worth trying to enjoy them in their original form while you still can!

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Pete Davison

Pete is Rice Digital's editor, and a proud champion of any and all games involving pretty girls hanging out, saving the world or both. His first waifu was Rit from Rod Land.

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