So I've had my 3DS for about a week now, and I thought I'd write up some impressions.
Playing Ocarina of Time, my initial thought was that the graphics are pretty damn good. When you first start playing the system, the first thing you notice in 3D is the awful jaggies. When you're playing in 2D, the super-sampling and anti-aliasing completely negate the problem, but given the fact that the one major point the system has going for it that makes it seem more than "just another DS" (and admit it, even with the improved graphics, that's how it feels when you play it) is the 3D, that aliasing is disappointing. With that in mind, I would have really liked to have seen the resolution doubled from the original DS, which would also offer better backwards compatibility with legacy software. But of course, who knows how much that would have drove up the cost of the system, and so, with our quasi-400x240 resolution we remain. And of course, after a time, you start to stop noticing the jaggies and just start playing the game.
The hardware seems very powerful, however. Some of the textures in Ocarina of Time feel like they would be better at home on the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, or PC, rather than a portable gaming system. The stone walls of Death Mountain come to mind. And of course, emerging on to Hyrule Field for the first time and realizing that the draw distance is so good that I can see completely across it from one side to the other was jaw-dropping. Yeah, sure, this is an upgrade of a Nintendo 64 environment, but the lack of loading times and the amount of things the system is able to keep in RAM has really impressed me. And this is all (assuming) with a game that was developed when the 3DS's Software Development Kit only consisted of 64MB of RAM, half of what Nintendo ended up going with in the final hardware! I can't wait to see what the second or third generation of games look like, taking full advantage of that 128MB.
Outside of graphics, my second biggest thought was that why isn't the 3DS more like a Smart Phone? Yes, that is the thought that went though my head, and saying things like, "Nintendo only makes dedicated video game systems!" isn't going to change it. Maybe this is just me growing up, but a couple of thoughts were, "Where is my mail app?", "Is there an app to sync my calendar?", and "I wonder if I can receive in-game notifications?" Yes, I have an iPhone to do all this stuff, but on some level, this is the amount of functionality I think I might be coming to expect from every device. Instead, not unlike the Wii, the OS's features are somewhere in a gimped in-between. I think this is an area that the Playstation Vita is going to have a clear edge over the 3DS, and now that I think about it, now owning a 3DS, I stand by my original prediction that literally the only thing the 3DS has over the Vita is first-party Nintendo games.
Essentially, I would like to not have to check my phone while I'm gaming. That's the level of smart phone features I'm looking for.
The OS is also where the 3DS's doubled amount of RAM comes in to play again. Currently, the Suspend Play feature is slow and somewhat clunky, but if Nintendo in the future could upgrade the OS in the future to make it smoother or to bring iOS-level multitasking, we could have the basis for a really great system. I can almost guarantee that in the future, we're going to see a "3DSi-style" upgrade where Nintendo will double the RAM and maybe slightly bump up processor frequencies in order to provide a more functional OS. It's going to happen.
And yes, of course, battery life is bad, but I expect that to improve with a future revision. Even another half hour to an hour would be huge. (An extra hour would be good enough for me).
Overall, I would say I'm "satisfied enough" with the system. I'm really hoping that new features are added to the system in the future that makes the device more fully featured. Knowing Nintendo, however, this isn't going to be the case. I've felt the same way with the Wii, the DS, and the DSi, and we all know how much functionality was added to those devices over time. The graphics seem good enough for my tastes, and I really am looking forward to what developers can do once they become more familiar with the hardware.
