An Ode to the 3DS
I was animating some wacky boobs in Flipnote Studio 3D on my old 3DS XL, and it got me thinking...
I love the 3DS. i think it's my favorite nintendo system ever at this point. It was the system I played the most during college so nostalgia is definitely a strong factor for me lol, but its feature set and touch screen have so many use cases beyond playing games.
I still enjoy playing games on it; my recent obsession is a new save file in Animal Crossing New Leaf which I started up late last year, and I'm having more fun than I expected revisiting the game and discovering more than New Horizons offers, even after its recent 3.0 update. But the 3DS is very unique in that I've spent just as much time in creative applications like Colors 3D, Flipnote Studio 3D, Inchworm Anim, the KORG music programs, and more. It turns out I also used Swapnote a lot back in the day; looking through my old notes from friends from 2012-2014, we did a lot of chatting and would swap Colors 3D pieces with each other.
(Speaking of Swapnote: did you know it still works today? You can't use internet features anymore, but streetpass still works perfectly fine. Streetpass doesn't need an internet connection at all, and you can still pass notes with drawings, photos and recorded sounds back-and-forth. No internet, zero moderation... which in hindsight explains a lot about what happened with the program. If used responsibly, however... it's still lots of fun, and a unique way to communicate.)
The precision of its screen also makes it (as far as I know of) impossible to fully replicate in emulation, or with capacitive touch screens. the only device I can think of off the top of my head that could have maybe emulated it fully was a Wii U, of all things. or I guess you could use a Wacom/Intuos/XPPen monitor on a computer, or a samsung phone with a pen using wacom's tech? But those are all expensive solutions to what was originally a very simple thing.
I think this situation is kinda brilliant from a hardware standpoint in fulfilling Nintendo's usual desire to keep a unique experience locked to their systems. The lower specs also typically made building games for the 3DS cheaper, quicker and more realistic in expectations than the Switch and almost all game consoles going forward.
Its main weakpoint for me was its game library: there's way too many 2D platformers. The Circle Pad not being durable enough for heavy 3D games or Smash Bros (and no right control stick aside from the circle pad pro) also ain't great. For slower games like Animal Crossing and games built around its features though, I think it's manageable.
I wonder how realistic it would be for them to continue making more of them? It's probably not that realistic with the current state of affairs in the tech industry and with Nintendo's stubborn desire to only value the present and the future, but man... I can dream.