So like I mentioned last page or so, I ordered a 3DS, Zelda, and Dead or Alive to play temporarily, then return to Amazon. Usually, people buy video game systems for enjoyment, me included, but since I'm pretty disinterested and bored and nerdy, I got a chance to really look at this thing and assess it. This is gonna be a long post because, and I don't know if I'm jaded (please tell me if I am), but the 3DS seems like a bigger mess than I would've thought could come from Nintendo at this point. They had infinite dollars to throw at this thing, but we got the safest system imaginable. I'm just wondering if that's because Nintendo doesn't really have its finger on what modern electronics are like or if they just want to be as cheap as possible...I really hope for their sake it's the latter.
First, the UI is obviously made by a company that has never made a phone GUI before and has, thus, missed out on the world since the Blackberry and iPhone. They got the tiled icons right, the unique music for each item is nice, the graphics are cool, but that's where it stops. It's functional, but maybe my iPhone and Windows 7 and OSX have all ruined me because it feels like barely above the regular DS. Like, instead of just having a quick wi-fi set up or quick access to system settings, I click something and it has to load this whole other screen with buttons that just lead to more stand-alone windows. It's like browsing the internet, but every link you click opens a new window and it takes a few seconds to switch between all the windows and you can only go in sequential order. In iOS or XMB, I can hop from one place to another without feeling like I'm going anywhere in the UI, unless I'm opening a non-native app. That's how the 3DS should make me feel, at a minimum. Right now, it feels like a complicated series of windows bogged down by hardware that can't keep it snappy.
Was it too much for me to expect Nintendo's UI to be a lot more modern? I don't think so. I have no doubt it would've been better if they looked at how touch interfaces are done on mobile phones. My old verizon shit phone from 5 years ago is snappier and better streamlined than the 3DS interface. Or for a better example, they could have looked at the original PSP. I have no doubt Vita will come out, have a UI inspired by Sony's work on phones, and just look and feel like a modern handheld out the gate. Nintendo's new console feels old right out the gate. Like, not even as good as the original PSP. The camera software is cool but the camera resolution is so low that it's basically useless. AR games, face raiders, etc. Neat ideas that you use a little and never touch again.
Next, the form factor. Seems to be made for kid hands and I wish it were a little more rounded on the corners or have a better base, because it hurts my hands. To be fair, I get this with every handheld until I put some kind of grip on it. But seriously, where's the second analog stick? Why on earth, after every 3D PSP game got bashed for worse controls, would they leave one out? It's just a gimped form of control in this day and age, as it was on the N64 so many years ago. 2 analog + touch screen would've been good enough. They wouldn't have even needed a 3D gimmick. Just give me "3D" games that control like "3D" games on consoles already. Oh, and the second analog stick would not have been as easy for phone companies to simply lift for free and put on their phones, like the 3D was. I guess it goes without saying that even my toaster has a touch screen nowadays, so it's not even a bullet point, particularly since touch games were not the best games on the original DS and touch and motion control gaming will probably always be inferior to traditional controllers.
Dead or Alive -- it's a DOA game but worse because it's on a handheld. Great, clean graphics, as always from the series. 3D is useless because fighting games on handhelds = moving around the screen quite a bit. They have always put out DOA games right at the beginning of a console cycle-- PS2, Xbox 1, 360-- but this handheld version feels like a waste. DOA5 for consoles with a proper ad campaign would do fine right now, especially if it were made tournament worthy so it can latch on to that hype. I don't care enough to get into the meat and potatoes of the fighting engine because whatever, who is going to play it for balance against the CPU? I couldn't even get into an online match with "ANY" put for all of the choices. Literally nobody playing it online, I guess? Great sign when you're one of 10 games on a brand new system.
Zelda - Same great game we got on the N64, great graphical and control improvements. 3D is once again useless because you will be moving the system around a lot due to the game requiring all the buttons and a lot of fidgeting around with different button combinations. I don't think I got focused enough to even see it perfectly in 3D.
So yeah, when it hit me that Zelda is not quite playable with 3D on, I realized this system is pretty rushed and mediocre. Without 3D, it's a slightly better PSP with 2 screens and a touch screen. I am guessing that the revision will have more stable 3D and get a push from 1st party software, which will keep it alive. I guess this is like the original GBA and original DS where the first version of the system sucks.
DSware store - just lol. The problems of the system UI, but multiplied by 100 because you're trying to browse many things quickly. The search function allowed me to pull up everything on the store, but I couldn't sort it alphabetically and I could only look at about 6 things at a time, I think? Then it would take a few seconds to load the next 6. Excitebike 3D took about 5 minutes to download and I'm pretty the file size was in kb! Unbelievable. This is some fucking AOL shit, not even kidding a little. It goes so slow and has such a clunky interface that I'm back in 1994 with my 14.4kbs modem. Except I think searching AOL chat rooms was easier than browsing a list of what's in the Nintendo store.
