3DS - Still Worth It?

In a world dominated by the fancy new Nintendo Switch, some dedicated players still hold on... Hold on to what they love.

That didn't have to be so dramatic, but it's true for me. The 3DS still offers me an experience good enough to where I don't feel the need for a Switch.
Have I owned a Switch? Yes, 3. Two normal ones and a Lite. I don't miss them at all though.
The expensive games, the paid for online, the joycon drift, the difficulty to hack it if you get a v2 (which is most of them).
I just don't really like the Switch's current value proposition, specially factoring in that BS online pricing.

So, as Don Mattrick said on the unfortunate launch of the Xbox One, "we have a console for those who don't want to play online."
Poor Don...

So, why would you get a 3DS?

• Availability

The 3DS sold so many units that it's not hard at all to find one out there in the wild, be it on eBay, Facebook Marketplace or MercadoLibre/Livre for my LATAM fellas, and if you're getting the basic model it usually doesn't go for too expensive, with the most expensive model currently being the New 3DS XL around where I live at around $180.
I didn't pay that much, in fact, I paid nothing. My cousin wasn't using his anymore so I just kinda stayed with it, he doesn't mind.

• Games

After 12(!!!) years on the market, it's pretty much a guarantee that your console will have tons of great games, and even excluding the very limited amount of New 3DS exclusives, you have around 1525 games in total to play! That's an insane amount. Sure, some of that is shovelware, but a good great chunk of it are quality experiences, with Nintendo games being usually a very good bet on where you can spend your time and have fun.
Not to mention it was also a good console for indie games, with hits like Cave Story, Shovel Knight and more coming to it.

• Retrocompatibility

A cool thing about the 3DS is that every single DS game will run on it (with the exception of games that required the GBA port, but even the DSi couldn't run those).
You can do this without hacking of any sort, but if you do decide to exploit your console, you can run TwilightMenu which allows you to play whatever DS game you have backed up straight from your SD card, and DSi games if properly dumped will have their DSi features working, like Pokémon Black 2 which I've been enjoying on it.

Not to mention that with a little bit of tinkering you can get some games to display in widescreen! I personally haven't felt the need to do so, but for some people this must come in pretty handy.

• The Online Still Works! (And is free)

Yup! Games like Mario Kart 7 and Super Smash Bros 4 are still fully playable online with no extra fee, unlike on the Switch.
And I'm not talking "just having the servers up", no no no. There are actually tons of people still playing these games and keeping up communities together, I personally know of some friends who regularly get together to play Mario Kart 7 on weekends, and I'm very tempted to join them!

This reminds me of playing the Wii online on its final days in 2014, I was there when the servers shutdown, playing until 3am when my Skype group was all eventually booted off the servers. Good times.
Hopefully the 3DS lasts for way longer than the Wii and DS did, but I really see no incentive for Nintendo to turn these servers off as of right now, so I can definitely see them being online for the next few years... And even if they go down, there's still another option...

• Homebrew

Universal Updater, a repo and way to upgrade homebrew.

What did you expect from me? If you've seen any of my other console reviews/retrospectives, you know I'm one of those guys - one of the ones that want to get as much as possible from the hardware they're using, and hacking is always the way to achieve this.

The 3DS hacking scene is mature and BIG.

What you expect is there, of course. Emulators, ports, brand new games and much more. Retroarch works like a dream here, running almost every core at great speeds, even PS1 works well on the New 3DS. Who needs a PSP?! (I do, I love the PSP too).

The ports department is really damn crazy! You can play Super Mario 64 in full 60FPS and at 800px resolution with anti-aliasing on the New 3DS.

Some other cool projects that came from the community include things as crazy as Sonic Mania!

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Overall, in 2023, I still rate the 3DS a solid 10/10. It's a great console with an incredible library built throughout the years, that's still playable online and has way more uses than Nintendo intended for us with very simple hacking methods.

If you can find one for cheap, DEFINITELY get it. It's way more affordable than the Switch and can still deliver a great experience. Unfortunately more and more scalpers are realizing all the hidden potential this console has and are slowly but surely driving prices up, but there's still many opportunities to get it for cheap from what I've seen - just don't feed the scalpers.

Now if you excuse me, I have some Sushi Striker to play (totally recommended, really fun puzzle-action game).

Thanks for reading!