Land of the Blind: Nintendo 3DS: Initial Thoughts
Well, it’s that time once again: the time when Nintendo releases a new hand-held, to much anticipation. Nintendo has always enjoyed astounding success with its hand-helds from the GameBoy all the way through the DS. I’ve always been a big fan of these devices (although not quite as much of the DS thanks mostly to the disappointing amount of shovelware).
Last year at E3, Nintendo announced the latest in their line of hand-helds, the 3DS. This improves upon the DS in almost every way, though the main hook Nintendo is trying to sell is the 3D element — something I obviously couldn’t care any less about. I personally think 3D is one giant fad that will hopefully fade in a few years. I do like the fact that the 3D effect is adjustable, meaning you can turn it off completely if you desire, thank god.
Despite the fact that I don’t care at all about 3D, I’m still very, very excited for the 3DS. Now, you might be asking yourselves why that is; well the answer is quite simple: the massive jump in power. Remember the reports before the 3DS was officially announced that had developers claiming that Nintendo’s next hand-held would rival the power and capability of the Wii? Turns out they weren’t lying. I was already looking forward to the 3DS on the list of announced titles alone, but upon its release in Japan, my anticipation skyrocketed. The amount of audio present just on the system itself is simply staggering; I think there actually be more jingles, music and sound effects in the 3DS’ menus than on the Wii, all of which are very high quality. Everything has its own jingle upon choosing it, as well as menu music for that function. What’s more, the games themselves now sound like console games — no more compression for the sake of cartridge space.
It seems the boundary between console and hand-held has well and truly been shattered at last. I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on the 3DS, and I for one welcome our new hand-held overlords.
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