A Week with the eShop

I’m in love with the 3DS eShop. And all it took was Link’s Awakening and Super Mario Land. The former satisfies my need for an epic adventure on a small scale. The later gives me a quick pick-up-and-play game for a few levels. It’s been a long time since I played Link’s Awakening and it’s amazing how deep an experience it is and how creative the level designs and puzzles are within the limited hardware of the GBC. Mario Land isn’t bad either. It’s obviously not as impressive as its console counterparts, but Nintendo was able to successfully translate the Mario formula within some very limited constraints. It’s a shame that it remains unchanged.




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Nintendo did give Excite Bike a 3D makeover. It’s the exact same NES game from over two decades ago in widescreen and with the 3D depth the 3DS offers. It’s another good game for a quick pick-up-and-play and it’s available for the low low price of: absolutely free. I don’t think that Nintendo has quite come up with a winning price structure for their other Virtual Console games. Four bucks for Mario Land is a little silly. One or two dollars makes a lot more sense, but it’s still only four bucks. It’s not that bad unless you compare it to some games on the iPhone that are only a dollar or even free that have a lot more to offer than a relic like Mario Land.

The robust offering of DSiWare games gives the 3DS a good backlog of games to browse through. Nintendo beefed up with browser, offering more ways to search for games and a much better interface. Since I never bought a DSi, I’ve never been able to download any of the software. I decided to start with some of the games from WayForward, who are quickly becoming one of my favorite developers. I picked up Mighty Flip Champs, Mighty Milky Way and Shantae: Risky’s Revenge.




From the incredible praise Shantae received when it came out, you’d think it was the second coming of Jesus – only this time he has a flamethrower and fights werewolves. Don’t get me wrong, Shantae is a solid action/platformer with a lot going for it. It’s a game with enough depth for a retail release. The puzzles are rewarding and the 2D sprites look great. But the map lacks details and is almost useless. Furthermore, the environments use a lot of the same assets. When you’re in a forest, don’t expect a large variety of trees. Most of that is due to the size limit of the games rather than a lack of creativity on WayForward’s part.

File size limitation is a subject for a later date, but I think it favors smaller independent developers.

Mighty Flip Champs is also another worthy download for the fans of puzzle/platformers. Of the three DSiWare games that I downloaded, I like Mighty Milky Way the best. It’s a basic “get from point A to point B” puzzle game that makes good use of enemy placement and gravity to offer a good challenge to fans of the genre.

I also took pictures of my wife in her bikini for Photo Dojo. She had no idea what I was doing at first, but go a huge kick out of recording her voice clips and watching herself beat up… herself. It’s a really fun application/game and it’s only two bucks, making it one of the best values available on the eShop.

Last but not least, I grabbed the Pokedex application and was really surprised by how detailed it is. It gives the level a Pokemon evolves and when it learns different moves, as well as a wealth of other information. It’s a shame that the only way to fill out the ‘dex is to connect wirelessly to other 3DS owners with the application downloaded as well, but it is what it is. It’d be cool if Nintendo had some WiFi or in-store download events to get more Pokemon in the Pokedex.

All in all, I’m having a lot of fun with the eShop. I’m looking forward to downloading more GB and GBC games as well as checking out more of what DSiWare has to offer. I hope Nintendo decides to put some GBA games on the eStore since I won’t be able to pop a great GBA games in unless I decide to carry my DS Lite everywhere along with my 3DS. But there’s not much point to carrying my DS Lite anymore. With the eShop and some great retail software on the way this month, the 3DS will be taking up a lot of my time for the next couple of months. It’s awesome to have so many games in my pocket without having to switch out cartridges.