My Experience with the 3DS

After years of missing out on the latest handheld system, I finally decided to get a 3DS. I had never owned a DS, DS Lite, or DSi before, and had hardly even held one. This was mainly due to a lack of funds and my reluctance to play portable systems due to problems like batteries, lack of lighting, and hand cramping. But after reading some things online, I made the choice to get one so I could catch up on 2 of the Zelda games I had never played. Part of what motivated me was the realization that I was now 2 iterations of games behind, and that between my GBA and a 3DS I could still play any game Nintendo made. I had seen some commercials, and had never actually seen the 3D work myself, but I was curious.

I deemed the 3DS to be a reward for getting a little elective surgery done on the Friday before Superbowl Sunday in 2012. We took the family to Wal-Mart and I gave the color choice to Avery, who picked out Aqua Blue (he chose . . . wisely). I took it home, got it set up, and started messing around with it and reading the instruction manual.

I had read online about how 3DS owners got 20 free games, but after a little research I was disappointed that it only applied to those who had bought it before the $100 price drop, so I was about 6 months late (but about $100 richer). I hopped onto eBay and bought myself a new copy of Phantom Hourglass, which wouldn’t be delivered for about a week, but in the meantime I continued to learn more about it. I also played the included games, such as Face Raiders, the AR games, and the StreetPass Plaza games (Find Mii and Puzzle Swap).

I discovered the eShop, and loved browsing through all the games. I also like watching the Jessie Cantrell videos, Nintendo Direct, and some of the game preview videos. For the first time in a long time, I felt kinda “connected” to Nintendo (more so than I had felt with the Wii), and could keep up on current events. I found Link’s Awakening DX and downloaded it so I could play the one dungeon that had eluded me, but found that the game was much more colorful than I had expected, not a 4-color upgrade like the Super Game Boy. I also found Four Swords Anniversary Edition for free! I got both games and decided to play those while I waited for my first physical game in the mail.

I also downloaded a bunch of demos and tried them out. But finally Phantom Hourglass arrived, and I started playing almost immediately. I loved the innovative controls and interaction, in addition to the fact that it was a direct sequel to one of my top 3 favorite Zelda games. Since I had no other games, I left it in the 3DS all the time. I bought a protective screen cover set that came with a couple of cases and a cleaning cloth. I started leaving the cloth in the system when not in use so it would soften the blow when the two halves were closed, as I think the impact had scratched the inside camera.

Like the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy, I played it mainly at home, treating it almost like a mini-console. My kids and I took turns playing the games, but we slowly came to the realization that there couldn’t be multiple “profiles” on the system – it was meant as a personal system for one person. This meant they would be playing my quest on Find Mii and finishing my puzzles.

I kept the system on my nightstand mostly, except for a few times when I took it to school with me. When I was done playing it, I turned it off like I had done with every game system I had ever owned. It would be some time before I started leaving it on all the time in sleep mode. I didn’t get StreetPass Tags very often, so when I did I was very excited about the fact that I didn’t have to pay with Play Coins to do the StreetPass games. I learned the trick of changing the date and manually shaking it to rack up play coins, but I also started experimenting with taking it with me when I went out in public to see if I could tag someone. While on car trips I would shake the system to rack up coins, and give it to Anne to change the date when necessary (safe driving and all that).

After my 3DS dropped out of my pocket onto a hard tile floor (it only fell a couple inches), I decided to also buy a hard plastic case for it. I picked out a green Ocarina of Time 3D case that had a beautiful painting of Link on Epona riding through Hyrule field. Unfortunately, the picture soon rubbed off in my pocket, but the case kept the system safe and gave it a little more weight and bulk.

I soon found out about 2 others who had a 3DS – a current student of mine, and the father of one of my Cub Scouts. I started bringing it to school to tag my student once each day, and also driving by the Cub Scout’s house to try and tag his dad. Besides wanting tags, I was also curious about how far away the systems needed to be, how much time it took to transfer the data, and how well it went through walls. We discovered that we could tag him by surreptitiously visiting a parking lot behind his house and waiting for 5 or 10 minutes.

My friend James’ son also upgraded his DS Lite to a 3DS so I could run over there and tag occasionally as well and become 3DS friends. In the next few weeks, both James and his daughter would also get a 3DS, as would Avery, bringing our total to 5 between the two families. We started calling what I did, “Ninja Tagging,” where I would sneak around at night and get close enough to their house to tag (they would occasionally do it to me as well). Besides tagging, we would also send SwapNotes with funny messages bragging about how sneaky we were being.

Around this time, I started taking the 3DS with me everywhere I went in an effort to get StreetPasses (and also get play coins). I would get one here and there, but what I started noticing was how convenient it was to have a system to play when I had to sit around and wait for something. Between the physical game, a few downloads, and the demos, I had at least 10 games I could potentially play. And because closing the system put it into sleep mode, I didn’t have to save and turn it off like I would with the GBA (to be fair, games that were released after the SP was out often had some kind of sleep feature but it was cumbersome to get it in and out of sleep mode). Also, I grew to love the convenience of having games on a handheld. One of my main reasons for preferring a console growing up was that I never had to fight anyone for the TV in my house, since the TV I used for the SNES and N64 was a dedicated one for games and wasn’t hooked up for anything else. Unfortunately, now I had several people in the house all vying for TV time, and I couldn’t play my consoles on a whim like I could with the 3DS. Also, the issue of fitting a small handheld in my hands and unlit screens made them seem less attractive to me, but both these issues were resolved with the 3DS.

After a couple months, I bought Spirit Tracks to complete my Zelda collection. I enjoyed it more than Phantom Hourglass, but for some reason I stalled out on playing it 3/4th of the way through (I would later go on to complete it). I also noticed a strange problem with my 3DS – it stopped StreetPassing for some reason. A little research turned up that it happened after the system was completely drained of power, and that somehow this affected the internal clock making it think it had always just StreetPassed someone. The result was that I could get new people, but if I had already tagged them once I wouldn’t get them ever again. I sent in the system to Nintendo for repairs, but they determined it to be caused by the time I dropped it a few inches. They seemed to act oblivious to the fact that lots of people were posting about this online, calling it the “StreetPass bug.” The only solution was to do a complete system reset/restore, which meant I would lose all my progress in Puzzle Swap and Find Mii, but it had to be done. At some point later a system update corrected this bug, and a simple change of Miis will fix the issue should it ever come up again.

Avery’s 3DS also came with a copy of Pilotwings, and I had also bought a Rubik’s Cube game, so we now had 4 physical games, in addition to some of the downloaded games (such as a chess simulator). He also bought a fabric zipper case for his 3DS that held about 20 games, the AR cards, and the 3DS in a fabric zipper holder. I started keeping all the games in that rather than the little 1 or 4 game holders I had gotten with the screen protector.

Then a curious thing happened – Phantom Hourglass stopped working, and I was perplexed. I had a student who also had a 3DS and a copy of the game. His worked in both of our systems, and mine didn't work in either system. On a whim, I tried it in the DS Lite, and it worked. I did a little research, and found out that my copy was most likely a bootleg version, and a recent system update had rendered it unplayable. Some of the telltale signs included a badly printed manual, and the game's sticker code doesn't match the code printed on the back of the game card. I found both to be true in my case. Also, as I looked through the manual, I noticed that one of the pages had the Spirit Tracks logo and not the Phantom Hourglass one. Had this been a legitimate copy, there's no way the Spirit Tracks logo could have been printed 2 years before the game came out. To resolve the situation, I bought a used copy from eBay, but kept the bootleg copy as well. 

One day I was looking up stuff about the 3DS online when I stumbled upon a meetup group. Apparently there was a group of Nintendo enthusiasts who meet monthly in SLC. I told James, and both of our families went down to a park in Murray. Never before had I seen my 3DS blink green so much! It was awesome how many puzzle pieces we were able to get, as well as so many free Miis to use on Find Mii. Afterwards we went out to lunch for Philly cheese steak sandwiches. A couple months later, Avery and I went again to one held in a mall, and then after that they started meeting most often in a library. We now go almost every month, and it makes for a great time to talk with everyone about games.

Occasionally at these meetups they will hold a contest to give away a prize. Avery won a used copy of Kid Icaraus: Uprising there by guessing someone’s favorite past Nintendo console. Another time we won a Zelda Amiibo in a contest.

Another time Avery and I were seeking tags was at the first ComiCon in SLC. We drove down expecting to just walk around the exterior of the building, but found an open door. We waltzed in and were amazed at how many tags we were getting. We even got to go in to see Adam West and Shatner for free because they wanted to fill the auditorium.

My brother Brady (who had owned a DSi for some time) got a new DSi for Christmas because his had broken, and they were cheap on the Black Friday. My niece also got one the same year. In the year following, Aurora received a used DS Lite for Christmas along with a Littlest Pet Shop game. She liked it, but traded it in (read: I kept it and gave her the money she would have gotten for it because GameStop wouldn’t take it) and upgraded the present for a 3DS around the New Year. She was excited to have her own Netflix device and some of the other features the 3DS has, and I tried to find a way for the DSi and 3DS to message each other to no avail. Later the 2DS would come out, and I told my brother about them. My niece and nephew looked like they were going to each get one for Christmas, so we could all SwapNote. But less than 2 months before Christmas (Halloween night, actually), Nintendo cancelled the SpotPass features (aka regular internet) so it wouldn’t be possible. My niece opted for a tablet and her DSi instead of a 2DS, but my nephew got one.

When Nintendo re-released Four Swords Anniversary Edition to celebrate the latest Zelda game being named Game of the Year, I made sure that Avery and Aurora downloaded the game, told Brady about it, and informed my brother Matt to get it on their DSi and 2DS. Even though it was a DSi game, they only allowed 3DS/2DS users to get it this time around, so Brady and my niece couldn’t get it. I also realized that the opportunity couldn’t be wasted, so I bought another 3DS and got FSAE intending to give it to Logan for Christmas the following year, but the kids found out about it within the week and we gave it to him. It was probably one of the last 3DS units in town (I checked 5 places to find one), as there were only 2DS or 3DSXL units available. Later I would find out that it was because the “New” Nintendo 3DS would be coming out soon.

Using points from Club Nintendo, I got a hard plastic Zelda-themed case to carry 18 games in it, as well as several games that we share as a family.

We helped my brother Brady upgrade his DSi to a 3DS so he could join in on the fun and play some of the games he had been missing out on. Now that he’s in college, he’s been a little behind while I have been able to catch up.

In early April of 2016, I upgraded to a "New" 3DS XL. The main reason was because the virtual console on this new system could handle SNES games, so I could get A Link to the Past on my 3DS. Anne inherited my old system and she has been playing Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, and the Oracle games, as well as the Mii Plaza games. The finish on some of the buttons and the D-pad started to crack or wear off, so we replaced them with new purple buttons, giving it a unique look. I also replaced the circle pad in Logan's 3DS, as the wear and tear Logan put into it tore the rubber covering off. 

I got my NN3DSXL some Zelda-themed armor to help protect it, as well as a pouch to carry it in. Additionally, my mom found a good deal on some 3DS cases and got them for Aurora and Logan that hold 6 games. 

This has been the first system where we have really downloaded a lot of software for it. I would normally rather have the cartridge or disc version of a game because of the potential problem of having a system crash and dealing with transferring games from one NNID to another is a pain from what I've heard. But the biggest reason is that once downloaded, it can be only played on that one system. So, for example, if I want to play Mutant Mudds (which Avery has purchased), I have to use his 3DS. By contrast, we can all share a Zelda game cartridge between us. However, there are a lot of games that are only available digitally, including those games that are given in return for a rewards program. 

But despite that, I have quite a few VC titles, including the first Metroid Trilogy, every Zelda possible, Mega Man 1 through 4, and Super Mario Land 1 & 2. I also have downloaded Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures, Shovel Knight Treasure Trove, The Legend of Dark Witch, and several of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games. 


Many of the games I end up getting are on sale. I have built up quite a backlog, so if I see something on sale that looks interesting I will get it for cheap, then play it later when I can get around to it. I got a Professor Layton game for $10 new on sale while in St. George on vacation, and Crush3D (used) for $3 in California. 

The final chapter in the 3DS story (at least for now) is hacking it. I had heard about people doing it and put it off until I was reasonably sure that I wouldn't be banned by Nintendo or have the system bricked, and also until we had a spare. Avery had recently upgraded to a NN3DSXL, so I used his old one as a guinea pig. Once I got the hang of it, I hacked all of the 3DS systems in our house, as well as several family members' and friends' systems. This opens up a world of new possibilities, including having digital copies of all my Zelda games so I don't have to bring the game case with me.