Soapbox features allow our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random things they’ve been chewing on. TodayAndy McDonald celebrates and remembers the console that showed Nintendo’s off-the-wall creativity at its best…
With the 3DS’s days as an active platform numbered due to the impending closure of the eShop, I decided to dust off and pick up some digital exclusives that will soon be officially going the way of the dodo, lest we enjoy re-releases or time travel pop up. It’s always a strange feeling to see a console become ‘obsolete’; how these cutting-edge devices into which we have devoted years of intrigue, money and time are suddenly usurped by ever-evolving technology. I love for the 3DS, however, runs particularly deep and as I window shopped for some last minute additions to the collection, my mind began to wander.
It was 2013 and I returned to my old hometown after graduating from university. It’s a story that’s probably familiar to many people – you go from the regulated nature of full-time study to losing that structure overnight, suddenly at the mercy of a relentlessly competitive job market and cut off from the comfort of friends and freedom. Such a change in lifestyle can be difficult to handle and after the first dozen or so rejection letters from potential employers, life can start to feel a bit directionless. After a few months of that, the days merge into one.
One thing was new though — my awesome 3DS. During my years at the academy, I largely got rid of my gaming habit, and my last purchases were the GameCube and the original DS. But a colleague at my last part-time job – which I left to return home and pursue something in my field – insisted I try Nintendo’s latest handheld. Bowing to one man’s peer pressure, I treated myself to the red XL version. Not long after, said co-worker and I, we were sitting on upturned bins in the store’s warehouse playing Mario Kart 7. Something dormant in me stirred.
The 3DS became something of a beacon in those later job-hunting days, as I immersed myself in Super Mario 3D Land, Luigi’s Mansion 2, Resident Evil Revelations, and Fire Emblem: Awakening. Just as a slow-starting console supported Nintendo as the Wii U struggled in the mid-2010s, it supported me in those difficult days. Strangely, I never got into Animal Crossing: New Leaf, even though it must have been a dream game at the time for its idyllic escapism.
It was also my first augmented reality experience. Scan pre-packaged AR cards to unlock 3DS camera features, including mini-games. Even for the modest technology of the time, I found the snooker/golf hybrid, the AR Shot, to be an impressive piece of trickery as it carved hills and bunkers out of the kitchen counter. Face Raiders, meanwhile, let you take selfies that would scatter around the room as targets to shoot. I may not have seen my college buddies skimping on it very often anymore, but I could still lovingly crack their ugly mugs. This thing really seemed like a bastion of Nintendo’s boundless creativity.
I didn’t just sit around the house playing video games though. 3DS portability comes with its own custom rewards. Equipped with an internal pedometer, carrying it around would count your steps, turning them into game coins that could be used to get bonuses in various titles. I would walk for miles with my assistant in shells, mostly to use coins in pseudo-social StreetPass Plaza.
This app lives up to its name; when two people passed each other with wireless functionality enabled, their Mii avatars would later appear in each other’s squares and could be used to participate in various activities, such as exchanging board pieces to complete stereoscopic portraits or facing monsters in StreetPass Quest. I growing army of fellow 3DS wanderers has always been an incentive to maintain an active lifestyle.
Despite all that polygonal positivity, I couldn’t completely solve my troubles, and the work problem was still a big one. As a journalism graduate, one of the ways I kept my skills up was writing. I relative success as a freelance music journalist only served as a cruel contrast to my lack of luck with Lady Employment, after I had written some heartfelt pieces for British rock magazines. After all, my experience has shown that music journalism is largely impenetrable; chronic; unrewarding.
But now one rediscovered pastime was massaging my literary muscles. Was there still room for a kid in the British games press?
Around this time, Pokémon X and Y, the series’ first release on the 3DS, appeared. This new region of Kalos was vast and mysterious and there was a noticeable lack of official information after its announcement – some of its mysteries persist to this day. Using my pre-existing knowledge of creature-catching adventures, I decided on a whim to post a short article on how to competitively train Pokémon in this untamed land. It was worth a try…
No, really, it was. That humble online article opened the door, and within months I found myself writing a multi-page review of the upcoming Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, remakes of the Game Boy Advance games I’d read about in the same magazine over a decade earlier. Further freelance gigs followed, bringing money and confidence when I needed them most. With renewed motivation, I eventually landed a job based on the written word.
Unemployment was a mercifully short period in the grand scheme of things, but I now look back on those darker days with unusual fondness. This is largely thanks to the 3DS, not only as a form of entertainment, but as a vessel for creative and professional output. It’s doubly sad to see it consigned to gaming history since it could be the last in a long line of standalone Nintendo handhelds, and the Switch likely signals the company’s continued convergence of home and portable technology.
I’m picking up the remaining eShop exclusives with a heavy heart, but with its stellar catalog, communicative features, and innovative novelties, I’ll always remember the 3DS as the console that made my lonely world a little more three-dimensional.
