3DS Catch-all

ccesarano wrote:

Y'know, I KNOW I've played other DS games that require stylus controls only, yet never has it been a problem until Kid Icarus.

This is why Kid Icarus is so different: it doesn't have stylus only controls - you need to use both the circle pad and the stylus. It's probably closest to Metroid Prime: Hunters (which I love and hope gets a Wii U sequel) in controls. The game pretty much requires the whole 3DS to be supported by your left hand (or right hand, for the sinister people among us), and it also has to support any extra pressure you apply with your stylus hand.

I think it's the combination of having to use the touchscreen, the circle pad, and the L button all at once. I remember Phantom Hourglass required both the touchscreen and the d-pad, and another game I can't remember right now required the L button and the touchscreen. Using all three at once (and quite frequently) seems to have been a real problem for a lot of people.

So the XL is $40 off at KMart this week. Tempting...

ccesarano wrote:

Y'know, I KNOW I've played other DS games that require stylus controls only, yet never has it been a problem until Kid Icarus.

It's using the analog stick to move, touch-screen to aim and L button to fire while holding the system one-handed. That's messed up.

I did try other control options and they were just as awkward.

Mystic Violet wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

Y'know, I KNOW I've played other DS games that require stylus controls only, yet never has it been a problem until Kid Icarus.

It's using the analog stick to move, touch-screen to aim and L button to fire while holding the system one-handed. That's messed up.

I did try other control options and they were just as awkward.

What other control options are there?

I think what you're describing does sound bad. What made a game like Ouendan! work, in spite of having very rapid stylus movements, was that you only used the stylus. That wasn't a "pleasant" game to play in terms of ergonomics but it was only the stylus vs. you holding the device. No button presses or D-Pad in the mix. Maybe I'll stay away, then.

DSGamer wrote:

What other control options are there?

It's a twin stick shooter without the second stick. So what we have is the following:

Step1 - Move Pit with either: circle pad or ABXY

Step 2 - Move the reticle with: circle pad, touch screen, D-pad or ABXY.

Step 3 - Map actions to buttons depending on controls chosen.

Using ABXY is not precise at all and I tried playing left-handed for a while but that wasn't ideal either.

Yeah, being left handed is what's kept me away from this one. I've played a game or two where they try to make ABXY act like a d-pad, and it's always been terrible.

Think I'm going to pull the trigger on Crimson Shroud for my flight out to California. I think I am getting a Vita for Xmas, so I don't want to get into something too in-depth that I'll have to drop for P4P.

I seem to remember Metroid Prime Hunters having a similar control scheme to Kid Icarus, what with being an FPS on the DS. I don't remember hand-cramping complaints there.

ccesarano wrote:

I seem to remember Metroid Prime Hunters having a similar control scheme to Kid Icarus, what with being an FPS on the DS. I don't remember hand-cramping complaints there.

I found it too uncomfortable to stick with, but Icarus with the stand isn't so bad.

Maybe I'm weird. I didn't use the stand for Kid Icarus and I don't need the second analog for Resident Evil Revelations.

necroyeti wrote:

Yeah, being left handed is what's kept me away from this one.

Yeah, I tried every configuration I could think of. It sucked. Do not recommend.

It's a shame, too, because it seemed like a ton of fun. Y'know, were I actually able to play it.

Well, I appreciate all of the feedback. I was hovering over buy and now I'm not going to, so thanks.

DSGamer wrote:

I was hovering over buy and now I'm not going to, so thanks.

It's too bad, because it is a great game, but I don't know if it got the sales it deserved. Buy it and donate it to a Child's Play hospital! Then you are saved hand pains and a great game gets bought.

Atras wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I was hovering over buy and now I'm not going to, so thanks.

It's too bad, because it is a great game, but I don't know if it got the sales it deserved. Buy it and donate it to a Child's Play hospital! Then you are saved hand pains and a great game gets bought.

Given how many people want to play it and are physically unable, it sounds like it got exactly the sales it deserved, unfortunately. I hope the devs learn from it and are able to make a new game that captures what people loved but is more physically accessible.

I just finished Crimson Shroud. All I'll say about the ending was that it was surprising on a lot of levels.

My final time was 7:50 by the in-game clock. There is a new game plus option that lets you start over from the beginning with your nicely beefed-up party. The story seems to be the same, at least through the beginning, although the enemies are a lot tougher. You get to keep all of your skills and items from the first go-round with the notable exception of quest items you need.

I really enjoyed the game, and I'm curious to investigate new game plus. For $8, it's hard to not recommend it with the caveat that there's a little bit of a grindy part in the middle that can be frustrating.

Estimated eight hour RPG? Hrm...I DO like games that aren't incredibly long...

Know what? Think I'll bite when I get home.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I just finished Crimson Shroud. All I'll say about the ending was that it was surprising on a lot of levels.

My final time was 7:50 by the in-game clock. There is a new game plus option that lets you start over from the beginning with your nicely beefed-up party. The story seems to be the same, at least through the beginning, although the enemies are a lot tougher. You get to keep all of your skills and items from the first go-round with the notable exception of quest items you need.

How did you tackle the...

Spoiler:

3 witch kings that mimic your party

right now they are utterly slaughtering me - was there any trick to it, or do I just need to go back and grind for better loot?

stevenmack wrote:

How did you tackle the...

Spoiler:

3 witch kings that mimic your party

right now they are utterly slaughtering me - was there any trick to it, or do I just need to go back and grind for better loot?

I honestly didn't have much trouble with them. One of the advantages to grinding skeletons for a couple hours was that I ended up with nice loot. Nothing was individually very nice, but because you can meld items with copies of themselves, I had pretty powerful stuff (like a Composite Bow +6 that just tore things to shreds).

There's also a dark magic spell (I think it's Cleanse) that removes all buffs from a single target. That was really helpful in that fight because they like to cast things like Inspire II to get their damage up.

I got Fluidity: Spin Cycle yesterday.

Fluidity is one of the overlooked gems of the Wii. It's a Metroidvania puzzle-platformer that makes really novel use of motion controls and physics with a unique storybook aesthetic. My wife and I put maybe 20 or so hours into it and really, really enjoyed it.

Fludity: Spin Cycle is a slightly different beast. As with the Wii version, Spin Cycle makes great use of motion controls. In this case, you tilt the 3DS to maneuver your character—a big blob of water—through mazes and other hazards. In some levels, you even tilt the world (and thus the 3DS) 360° with no set "down". Thankfully, unlike the Wii version, you can use the L and R buttons to jump rather than having to shake the console like you had to shake the Wiimote.

Unlike the first Fluidity, Spin Cycle isn't a classic Metroidvania in the sense of having a large, contiguous world. The game is broken up into stages. Your goal in each stage is to collect as much water as you can, nab a Rainbow Drop at the end, and optionally collect hidden puzzle pieces that unlock bonus stages. Through the first eight or so levels, the stages have been fairly small and simplistic. I hope that they grow as the game progresses to reach the size of some of the puzzles in the Wii game.

So far, I'm really enjoying it. It's not quite as good as the Wii original, and the 360° rotation of the 3DS can be a little awkward, but I'm really happy to be playing it.

So what did you guys think of the 3DS in 2012?

I thought it was a good year mired by a couple software droughts. Kid Icarus was the stand out for me (#3 on my top 10) and I really liked Resident Evil: Revelations and Theatrhythm. After a bumpy start I'm no longer worried about support as it seems to be doing decent in NA/EU and phenomenally in Japan. The only worry I have is that NOA will drag their feet and continue their weird practice of not spending a modicum of resources to localize games. Other than the small worry of NOA being NOA, I'm hoping that 2013 has a steady stream of quality software, Nintendo ID's are added through an update and more 3rd parties do digital on release.

Resident Evil: Revelations, Theatrhythm and Kid Icarus all ranked in my Top 10, though I have a feeling I'd have been squirming in my chair if I had played Paper Mario Sticker Star earlier. It turns out once I sorted all the games I played this year into separate categories, I was left with only 10 deserving of the top 10.

I would have hated to have knocked any of them off, and if Paper Mario Sticker Star proves itself Xenoblade might have lost out. :S

But I really liked my 3DS this year. It was a worthy device that I am fond of more so than any other handheld, and it'll be a companion as I head up to visit friends in NYC this year on the Megabus. This is the first handheld I've really enjoyed in and out of the house. I'm also going to do a write-up on just the 3DS on my blog.

So overall, while I felt pretty good about it last year, I feel confident in it this year. The draught also provided time for me to drop back into Radiant Historia and Pokemon B&W, so I don't mind at all.

Also, just look at the screenshot I used for this image:

IMAGE(http://www.gamertagged.net/img/gwj/goty_resievil.png)

Normally no one makes their system look good like Nintendo (the Wii and GameCube are a testament to this), but holy crap Capcom made a beautiful game. Most 3DS games end up looking rather poor in screenshots, but Resident Evil Revelations continues to look gorgeous.

Kingdom Hearts 3D made the system easily worth it to me. The amazingness of Theatrhythm and quirky goodness of Sticker Star were just the icing on the cake.

ccesarano wrote:

Also, just look at the screenshot I used for this image:

IMAGE(http://www.gamertagged.net/img/gwj/goty_resievil.png)

Normally no one makes their system look good like Nintendo (the Wii and GameCube are a testament to this), but holy crap Capcom made a beautiful game. Most 3DS games end up looking rather poor in screenshots, but Resident Evil Revelations continues to look gorgeous.

Yeah, Revelations was great graphically and it really added to the atmosphere of that game. MT Framework was one of the best decisions Capcom made this generation.

I was very happy with the 3DS this year. I feel like I played a wealth of good games and still didn't get to all of the games I had hoped to. I'm definitely looking forward to 2013. There are already a handful of games I want that are releasing January and February alone.

I ended up happier than I thought I would. I stuck with Paper Mario and ended up liking it. I also stuck with NSMB2 and ended up enjoying it. The quantity wasn't there. There were more games I liked on the Vita and I liked those games more. But I can't deny the fact that I kept playing NSMB2 and Paper Mario in my spare time at home. I really need the 3DS to get a Fire Emblem or Advance Wars so I have a reason to pack it with me all of the time. Right now that honor goes to the Vita.

Target has the regular (non-XL) 3DS for $20 off this week. Slightly tempting, but more tempting was the XL sale last week that I couldn't get away from my family to buy... grr...

I'm feeling weird about it in 2012.

My wife got me The Hidden for my birthday last January, and I have fun with it! The graphics really killed all of the mood they tried to set, but it's still fun and a way to play games without being parked on my backside. I am very possibly the only person, ever, to like that game. But I do.

Code of Princess was the only other 3DS retail title I picked up, and the super-cheap juggle combo deaths that come from facing 20+ enemies at the same time just got me depressed. So did grinding and grinding and grinding just to get 1 hit KO'd by a boss.

I had some fun times in the E-Shop though. Zen Pinball probably captured more of my time than anything else. Freakyforms let me make obscene monsters and have magical adventures with them. Then I realized the entire goal was to grind for more parts to get to the next level, where I could grind for more parts, and all the while build a backlog of parts I wasn't grinding hard enough to get. Outdoors Unleashed African Safari started off with a comically offensive trailer and proved, to my dismay, to actually show a little taste in its execution. It's still a fun way to blow off a few minutes, but feels too grindy too.

The Big Name retail titles didn't appeal to me.

I had a lot of fun with the system. A lot. I can't badmouth it but my ultimate favorite things to play on it were DS games.

I'm pretty happy with the 3DS as well this year. I picked up 6 games, and I'm happy with all of them. I don't think I'm looking forward to much in 2013 (based on what we know of the release calendar so far), but I really feel like I need to start diving into the eShop more since that's where more of the interesting titles are landing.

The system is finally shaping up well, and now that we're through the "will they or won't they do a redesign" anxiety sales should continue to pick up. I'm also hoping that they expand the Virtual Console support to include more of the home console systems like the SNES and Genesis. The R4 debacle with the GBA/DS demonstrated there's a strong demand for people to play classic titles on the go and they really ought to be capitalizing on that. While I'm wishing for a pony, cloud saves for VC games between the 3DS and WiiU would be nice if they were to extend the 3DS Virtual Console to more platforms.

The 3DS has been pretty disappointing for me this year, but I can easily see why so many of you are happy with it. Sticker Star will surely make my top 10 for the year. I've played midway through world 5 and have really been enjoying that title. Sadly, most of the big titles released this year have held little appeal for me.

I have a feeling that I'd really enjoy Kid Icarus, so I'll probably bite on that when I see a decent sale for it. I can't recall ever having hand cramps from playing a game, so I'll take my chances.

I didn't really connect with my 3DS much at all this year, mostly because the majority of the games that are out don't appeal to me. I did recently pick up a 3DS XL, so it's not like I'm abandoning the system... I just hope that the software library picks up in a hurry.