The 3DS is an odd one for me - a common thread here has been portables we were able to carry around while commuting or similar, and by the time the 3DS was out I really wasn’t commuting that much. I did toward the start of its life cycle, and I really enjoyed that julian gollop tactics game… ghost recon shadow war I guess!
But in general I resented the 3D, I felt like I was paying extra for something I not only wasn’t going to use, but actively disliked. So I was pretty happy when they started selling all the 2D ones. When I look at my physical collection, I’ve got roughly 10x as many DS games as 3DS. It felt like the game industry was rather cool on the idea as a whole too.
I really liked the form factor and input style of the DS family though, and so many games were designed with it in mind that now can’t really happen the same way. The original “good” vision of Gunhouse would’ve been perfect on 3DS but the market for indie stuff was already too cold in 2015-16 to even consider it. Not a single publisher would discuss it. Unfortunately there is still not a platform even equal to this idea, let alone better for it.
I think the loading on the 3DS was also a contributing factor in my realizing maybe I don’t need physical media for newer platforms that have digital releases. There’s not a lot of advantage to having a cartridge or a disc on the modern era.
That said, I love pokemon picross, and lament the death of stylus-based picross games. I also thought pokemon shuffle was pretty good! If they had just let me pay for non-f2p versions of these games, I certainly would have.
Also SMT IV is a fantastic game that should have a remaster somewhere at some point I’d imagine, maybe after V comes out. Otherwise I don’t have a lot of huge memories with this platform. It was sort of an extension of the DS, but always felt like it was on the way out, for me.
I’m curious about this dillon game but it’s 40 god darned dollars! I think everybody should be doing sales on there right now - Sega sure is!
[edit]
OH ALSO - has anyone figured out an actual good way to browse the 3ds eshop in the last 10 years!?
[edit 2]
I wonder if we should start a separate thread for 3DS-exclusive game recommendations before the eshop sunsets, or if we should do it here??