Annons
Annons
Annons
Annons
But I've sunk a solid 12 hours, at least, into The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, and I'm still some way short of finishing 2013's fantastic 3DS RPG. It's a beautiful game, portable but so far from being a compressed take on home-console cousins. And I think that's why, for me, the 3DS has become such an essential amongst my gaming hardware – its games are only rarely "pocket-sized editions" of others you'll have played on more-powerful systems. A Link Between Worlds is a bespoke production that is both lovingly crafted with nostalgia for the SNES's A Link to the Past and the Game Boy's Link's Awakening, and built to perfectly fit the specifications of the 3DS. It makes great use of the 3D, for one thing, with dungeons playing out across a number of simultaneously visible levels, and Link's wall-merging ability always looking exquisite. The same is true of Super Mario 3D Land, which uses the system's stereoscopic top screen to better telegraph routes through stages, and its gyroscope for aiming first-person tools, like binoculars. Neither of these games would work so sweetly on any other platform.Related: Check out the top 20 games of 2015, according to VICE
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And it's accessibility to older games that really makes the 3DS such an indispensible companion for me, on my travels. I've armed mine with a 16GB memory card, onto which I can load any number of old-school NES and Game Boy titles, via Nintendo's digital eShop. So whereas the Game Boy was a toy, the 3DS is a window on the very history of gaming culture. I can use it to play NESsentials like Super Mario Bros. 3, the original Castlevania and Metroid, and Punch-Out!!, as well as GB winners like Kirby's Dream Land and Super Mario Land 2 (both in black and white, of course). And it's not just Nintendo's past that's preserved here – a number of releases for SEGA's Game Gear are on the eShop, while Japanese developer M2's series of SEGA titles "remastered" for the 3DS is regularly delivering the definitive versions of childhood favourites."I think all of these classic SEGA titles have much to offer, in terms of evergreen gameplay appeal," is what M2 president Naoki Horii told me in 2015. And having played through the 3DS updates of Streets of Rage 2, Out Run, Fantasy Zone and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, each of which add new gameplay modes to familiar experiences, I can honestly say that these are the best these games have ever been.On Motherboard: Nintendo Direct Is Still the Best Event in Gaming
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