Games Inbox: Was the Nintendo 3DS a good console?

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A farewell to handhelds
Sad to know that the 3DS is going offline forever next week. It’ll probably end up being Nintendo’s last ever dedicated handheld and while they were clearly right to make the change with the Switch, from a business perspective, I personally regret it.

Portable games were made differently than home console games and there’s now no reason for them to exist. Fire Emblem worked much better as a portable game, in my opinion, and we’d never have got things like Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Professor Layton, Ace Attorney, Theatrhythm, BoxBoy, Pushmo, and all those 2D Kirby games without them being on a handheld.

The 3DS might not have quite as many classics as the DS, because at that point portables were already going out of fashion, but in my opinion it’s a great console with a lot of very unique games. I’ll not only miss it but the whole concept of a console that is only played in the palm of your hand.
Tim Rogers

Before its time
Well, that sounds like a classic Xbox move: your customer support is famously bad, with people complaining about how hard it is to get hold of a real person. The solution? Even more AI than there already is! Can’t wait to have my refund denied by Metal Mickey or to be told my subscription has run out even though it’s still got six months left on it.

I’m sure AI will be great in five years or so, and probably won’t destroy humanity, but it’s not ready yet. Games companies just can’t stop themselves introducing new tech before it’s ready and it always means people’s opinions get soured on it even when it does end up working properly, years down the line. It’s not been a luddite to say we should wait until it all works properly.
Bsoton

Bad omens
I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer but I will absolutely be shocked if the Silent Hill 2 remake turns out well. Those bits of dialogue from the age rating listing are so bad it’s almost funny. Maybe it’ll be better in context, with the voice acting, but I have trouble imagining it.

The combat trailer looks awful and the fact that we’ve seen so little of it is a huge red flag. All these age rating listings must mean it’s out in the next month or two so why haven’t we seen more of it yet? What’s the point in shadow dropping something like this? All those different Silent Hill projects and we’re still yet to get one that isn’t terrible.
Iceman

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Show and tell
Over the weekend I finished Princess Peach: Showtime! and wanted to give it a shout out. After finishing the pretty tough (and my current game of the year) Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown I was just looking for a nice chill game that wouldn’t be too taxing and Showtime delivers on that. It really doesn’t offer much of a challenge at all, it’s true. I did find, however, that finding all the stars in each level could be tricky. It was only on the opening floor of levels that I was able to find all the stars in each level without trying.

After I heard that this was being made by the developer of the two most recent Yoshi games, which I enjoyed more than most, I was perhaps expecting a little bit more from Showtime, but I can’t deny that I didn’t have a fun time with it.

The two standout things about it for me were the bosses, which offered a little more challenge and each of them was really fun. The other thing was the music, which had some really good tracks. So, if you’re looking for a breezy game which looks lovely or a game for your kids, you could do much worse than Princess Peach: Showtime! Those cake decorating levels can get in the bin though!
Angry_Kurt (Twitter)
Now playing: Lost Judgment (Xbox), Marvel’s Midnight Suns (Steam Deck), and F1 23 (Xbox)

Conditional help
RE: Ishi. Wouldn’t count on 60fps being guaranteed even on the PS5 Pro.

It could help when it’s the GPU that’s the bottleneck, but most likely the big bottleneck will end up being the CPU.

Digital Foundry already saying that if the base game on the basic PlayStation 5 can’t maintain 60fps and is limited to 30fps, then that likely signifies the CPU will be bottlenecked and the Pro version only has a 10% increase on CPU clocks.

However, in games where it’s hovering between 45-60fps the GPU is the bottle neck, and it can help in those situations.
Kiran

Coming soon
While the world goes to hell in a hand basket I find there’s plenty of interesting stuff coming out, gaming and non-gaming, to keep me occupied.

There’s a book called Vassal State by Angus Hanton, out on the 11th, about how Britain sold its soul to corporate America, that I think I’ll pick up. I was just about to order it from Amazon and thought hang on. I’ll get it from WHSmith, then wondered who owned WHSmith.

The Stellar Blade demo was a lot of fun. I’m going to ignore the tedious back-and-forth surrounding the game and if it reviews well will consider a purchase.

The Fallout TV show arrives on Amazon Prime the exact same day as the book that I expect will use Amazon as the prime example for its subject matter. It looks promising though and they’re dropping all episodes at once, I believe, so that’s a Sunday booked for me.

Harold Halibut arrives on the 16th which is an indie I’ve had my eye on for a while, so hopefully that turns out well.

Other things that have perked me up are Balatro selling over a million copies now and Hollow Knight: Silksong getting a wishlist page on the Xbox and PSN store. The Xbox one is new, not sure if the PSN one is. But maybe it’ll see the light of day soon.
Simundo

Dream team
I never really thought about why GTA 5 has never been on GTA 5. I guess you’re right and it’s that GTA Online wouldn’t be on there but I don’t think Red Dead Redemption 1 has its multiplayer options on Switch, so why should GTA?

With the new game coming up it doesn’t really matter but I’d love to see a collaboration between Rockstar and Nintendo in the future. GTA probably isn’t the right thing for it but maybe Nintendo could help them revive Space Station Silicon Valley or something.
Carver

Endless game
It was interesting to read the feature from Brian at the weekend, on how Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is both the best and worst game of the year. It perfectly summarised my own thoughts on the game and saves me writing a feature myself! The remake of Final Fantasy 7 has been the main driving force behind both my original PlayStation 4 purchase and the eventual upgrade to PlayStation 5, and so to say I’ve been waiting for this game is putting it mildly.

The comments around having completed the fluff in the grasslands to just immediately repeat it all in Junon were spot on; it almost put me off the game right from the start. Thankfully, the bits it does well are done really well. I’ve loved the character interactions, the general story line (I’m in Chapter 13 at the moment and hoping to finish tonight) and basically any scripted events have been very well executed. The large open areas full of what are essentially collectibles, less so. The springs and towers could be removed from the game and not lose anything at all, with perhaps an argument for the whole proto-relic and fiend fights being worthwhile.

I know mini-games were a large part of the original, yet I do feel the volume of them in this game has gone a little over the top, which I have had to learn to deal with. I read a review which perfectly summarised how to play this game: take your time, sit back, and enjoy it. As soon as I did that, I managed to suffer the (almost) endless intel tasks with only minor frustrations while really enjoying the actual story of the game.

I do keep hearing this game referred to as open world but I would have to massively disagree. Everything happens in order, there are no opportunities to go off and do something different, it’s just some areas are more open/larger than others. That was a feature of Final Fantasy games going right back to the early 90s, so this isn’t something new – the open areas have a few fights and eventually lead to the next key plot point of the story. It isn’t comparable to something like Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, nor do I think it ever should be.

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed it once I managed to ignore the frustrations of the world intel. I’ve actually left a few fights to come back to for when I’ve completed the game. Despite the take it slow approach I’ve avoided all spoilers for the ending and feel that I am struggling to keep doing so, which has led to me jumping on with the final missions.

I am a massive Final Fantasy 7 fan though, so how much of this enjoyment has been nostalgia for characters I have grown up with is hard to tell. Even the links to Crisis Core are pretty much essential knowledge for following the main plot. It would be a hard sell to recommend this game to someone who has literally never played anything from Final Fantasy 7 before.
Adam W

Inbox also-rans
It’s not a game I have any real interest in (I played the original and didn’t like it much) but glad to hear that Dragon’s Dogma 2 is doing well, as it means more money for Capcom. I don’t want to jinx them but it’s been years since they’ve had a flop now. Now get a started on my Ghosts ‘N Goblins reboot!
Gannet

Apparently Nightdive’s next boomer shooter remaster is PO’ed from the 3DO. Now that is a deep cut. I’ve no idea how they’re going to make their money back on it but good on them.
Futterman

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The small print
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