radioheadrule83
Banned
Mario Kart 7 (+)
The Neogaf communities aren't as active as they once were, but it's still fun to play with online - and now that it's available digitally, you can do it whenever you want, no matter what card you have in the system. It's Mario Kart, so if you haven't liked recent entries in the series, maybe it's not for you. I wouldn't say that this one does anything that will change your mind, but to me - it's a little better balanced than MKWii.
Super Mario 3D Land (+)
Out of NSMB2 and this? This is the better game. It might not have the streetpass content or the local-only multiplayer, but it's a fresher game with an expertly crafted difficulty curve. Veterans breeze through the initial part of the game, but completists who want to beat every level, top every flagpole and collect every large coin: they have a single player campaign that has levels equivalent to the Prankster Comets in Super Mario Galaxy and one or two gaming moments that are as tough to master as Luigi's Purple Coins. It is by far my favourite Mario to grace a handheld, and it completely destroyed my ability to enjoy NSMB2. I regard it as above a few of the console games as well!
Resident Evil: Revelations (+)
The story is cleverly chopped up into episodic segments that jump from character to character and location to location, which helps facilitate short bursts of play for commuters or people who play on their lunch hour. I know that some people feel this is a negative point as it isolates the levels and breaks up the feeling of exploration, and the action set-pieces probably don't help with that perception -- but this game does feel like a spiritual cousin to the sublime RE4, and it is beautifully made. Aiming feels brilliant, both with and without the Circle Pad Pro add-on, and the sound design is gorgeous. Some of the best tension and fear arises out of the audio you hear. As a software package? This is meaty, and very good fun. The puzzles aren't as great in number as the old Resident Evils, and that is something I still lament, but I was very happy with everything else. The single player campaign lasts a good while, and the variety is great -- exploration, endurance survival, frenetic boss battles, bombastic rescue missions, Metroid-style escape in the midst of destruction, the vulnerability of escorting injured team mates, a Natalia-style (GE007) protection level that doesn't completely suck etc. The multiplayer puts the icing on the cake. Raid mode is incredible. "I'M BUYING YOU LUNCH."
New Art Academy (EU) / Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone (US) (+)
I never expected to love this title as much as I do. It has introductory lessons, intermediate lessons and DLC lessons... each of them not only teach you about real life tools and techniques, they also teach you small pieces of art history and conceptual ideas that will help you understand why you might use a certain colour or tool. For example, it teaches you about complimentary colours, the colour wheel, impressionist styles, shading techniques in pencil and pastel, different options for drawing foliage etc. The emulation of paint, pencil, pastel and paper, as well as the different surfaces (like paper and canvas) is very nicely done, and it's at its most obvious when you view your work in the game's 3D art gallery -- in which you can hang your paintings or drawings wherever you please. When you get up close to a painting in the gallery and move the camera, you can see the specular highlights on your brush strokes and on the surface of the material. Really nice! You can jump out of a lesson at any time with save states, and you can export your work to use it in 3DS Camera or Swapnote/Nintendo Letter Box. Whereas Colors 3D is a tool for creating and sharing art, this is a tool that teaches you how to create and appreciate it. They compliment one another quite well actually.
Colors 3D (+)
Once you get used to the beautifully simple interface, you can begin to create 3D artworks with depth... the layer interface is slick as hell, and what's more - is that your drawing is recorded, allowing undo levels and allowing others to see exactly how you drew your last masterpiece. The online gallery is chock full of amazing drawings that are so good they risk demoralising you. You can also share a canvas with friends / strangers and draw something together. It's an awesome piece of software.
Mighty Switch Force (+):
This is an arcadey puzzle platformer in which you round up space age lady criminals. It's arcade-like in the sense that you are trying to get the best times and scores, puzzle-like in that you have to figure out how to reach each of the criminals, and platformer-esque in that traversing the levels requires skill and thought. The style is really lovely and the music is catchy as hell, you will find yourself wanting more by the end -- which thankfully, WayForward provided free as DLC!
Pushmo / Pullblox (+):
I always think it's something of an achievement when somebody can think up a new puzzle game this good. Surely all the best ideas have already been thought of? Nope!
Tetris took the idea of the tetromino - something we have in the real world - and made a game out of them that would only be possible in videogames. Games like 3D Picross, Polarium and Lumines have attempted similar in their genres. This does the same thing with the idea of pushing and pulling platforms within a restricted area. The levels can be abstract or they can be like gigantic, beautiful pixel-art, and the difficulty ramps up significantly towards the end. With a level designer and level sharing via QR code, this game can last as long as you want it to. My only gripe, and it is a minor one, is that the tutorials in the initial levels are unskippable. It's devilishly good, and I can't wait for the sequel.
VVVVVV (+)
Some of you may have played this on PC, and it's a fact that you can play it for free if you want -- but for taking it on the move? There are no options as good as this, and actually - few games as good as this. While the fun and frustration lasts, this is as much fun as you can expect to have on a handheld. Luckily, Nicalis have included a bunch of huge, excellent, community-made level packs with Terry Cavanaghs masterpiece, so the fun and frustration lasts a long long time. The 3D is actually nicely done as well, considering it is a vivid game against stark dark backgrounds I would have expected more cross-talk, but instead it just looks great - space flittering across the background of most levels. My only warning about this is that it may make you have a rage aneurysm - because parts of it are THAT hard. Hard, but satisfying. I think it's a must own personally, if I had my way it would be pre-installed on every system.
The Neogaf communities aren't as active as they once were, but it's still fun to play with online - and now that it's available digitally, you can do it whenever you want, no matter what card you have in the system. It's Mario Kart, so if you haven't liked recent entries in the series, maybe it's not for you. I wouldn't say that this one does anything that will change your mind, but to me - it's a little better balanced than MKWii.
Super Mario 3D Land (+)
Out of NSMB2 and this? This is the better game. It might not have the streetpass content or the local-only multiplayer, but it's a fresher game with an expertly crafted difficulty curve. Veterans breeze through the initial part of the game, but completists who want to beat every level, top every flagpole and collect every large coin: they have a single player campaign that has levels equivalent to the Prankster Comets in Super Mario Galaxy and one or two gaming moments that are as tough to master as Luigi's Purple Coins. It is by far my favourite Mario to grace a handheld, and it completely destroyed my ability to enjoy NSMB2. I regard it as above a few of the console games as well!
Resident Evil: Revelations (+)
The story is cleverly chopped up into episodic segments that jump from character to character and location to location, which helps facilitate short bursts of play for commuters or people who play on their lunch hour. I know that some people feel this is a negative point as it isolates the levels and breaks up the feeling of exploration, and the action set-pieces probably don't help with that perception -- but this game does feel like a spiritual cousin to the sublime RE4, and it is beautifully made. Aiming feels brilliant, both with and without the Circle Pad Pro add-on, and the sound design is gorgeous. Some of the best tension and fear arises out of the audio you hear. As a software package? This is meaty, and very good fun. The puzzles aren't as great in number as the old Resident Evils, and that is something I still lament, but I was very happy with everything else. The single player campaign lasts a good while, and the variety is great -- exploration, endurance survival, frenetic boss battles, bombastic rescue missions, Metroid-style escape in the midst of destruction, the vulnerability of escorting injured team mates, a Natalia-style (GE007) protection level that doesn't completely suck etc. The multiplayer puts the icing on the cake. Raid mode is incredible. "I'M BUYING YOU LUNCH."
New Art Academy (EU) / Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone (US) (+)
I never expected to love this title as much as I do. It has introductory lessons, intermediate lessons and DLC lessons... each of them not only teach you about real life tools and techniques, they also teach you small pieces of art history and conceptual ideas that will help you understand why you might use a certain colour or tool. For example, it teaches you about complimentary colours, the colour wheel, impressionist styles, shading techniques in pencil and pastel, different options for drawing foliage etc. The emulation of paint, pencil, pastel and paper, as well as the different surfaces (like paper and canvas) is very nicely done, and it's at its most obvious when you view your work in the game's 3D art gallery -- in which you can hang your paintings or drawings wherever you please. When you get up close to a painting in the gallery and move the camera, you can see the specular highlights on your brush strokes and on the surface of the material. Really nice! You can jump out of a lesson at any time with save states, and you can export your work to use it in 3DS Camera or Swapnote/Nintendo Letter Box. Whereas Colors 3D is a tool for creating and sharing art, this is a tool that teaches you how to create and appreciate it. They compliment one another quite well actually.
Colors 3D (+)
Once you get used to the beautifully simple interface, you can begin to create 3D artworks with depth... the layer interface is slick as hell, and what's more - is that your drawing is recorded, allowing undo levels and allowing others to see exactly how you drew your last masterpiece. The online gallery is chock full of amazing drawings that are so good they risk demoralising you. You can also share a canvas with friends / strangers and draw something together. It's an awesome piece of software.
Mighty Switch Force (+):
This is an arcadey puzzle platformer in which you round up space age lady criminals. It's arcade-like in the sense that you are trying to get the best times and scores, puzzle-like in that you have to figure out how to reach each of the criminals, and platformer-esque in that traversing the levels requires skill and thought. The style is really lovely and the music is catchy as hell, you will find yourself wanting more by the end -- which thankfully, WayForward provided free as DLC!
Pushmo / Pullblox (+):
I always think it's something of an achievement when somebody can think up a new puzzle game this good. Surely all the best ideas have already been thought of? Nope!
Tetris took the idea of the tetromino - something we have in the real world - and made a game out of them that would only be possible in videogames. Games like 3D Picross, Polarium and Lumines have attempted similar in their genres. This does the same thing with the idea of pushing and pulling platforms within a restricted area. The levels can be abstract or they can be like gigantic, beautiful pixel-art, and the difficulty ramps up significantly towards the end. With a level designer and level sharing via QR code, this game can last as long as you want it to. My only gripe, and it is a minor one, is that the tutorials in the initial levels are unskippable. It's devilishly good, and I can't wait for the sequel.
VVVVVV (+)
Some of you may have played this on PC, and it's a fact that you can play it for free if you want -- but for taking it on the move? There are no options as good as this, and actually - few games as good as this. While the fun and frustration lasts, this is as much fun as you can expect to have on a handheld. Luckily, Nicalis have included a bunch of huge, excellent, community-made level packs with Terry Cavanaghs masterpiece, so the fun and frustration lasts a long long time. The 3D is actually nicely done as well, considering it is a vivid game against stark dark backgrounds I would have expected more cross-talk, but instead it just looks great - space flittering across the background of most levels. My only warning about this is that it may make you have a rage aneurysm - because parts of it are THAT hard. Hard, but satisfying. I think it's a must own personally, if I had my way it would be pre-installed on every system.