Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm tempted to buy a nintendo DS for my long commutes to work. This all started from reading the pokemon x/y thread in this very forum ( and I have never played a pokemon game) , however I have a few questions.

Are there many good games to play?
how long does the battery last? Can you buy a booster battery pack?
Are there any competitors that get close?

Has anyone bought one and had a bad experience/good experience?

Lots of good games, In fact I wish I had some more money to be able to play them all. I'd say its very much worth it. My 3DS gets 4 or so hours of straight playing. I think, not sure, but I think the XL gets even more time out. If you do end up getting one X or Y is good, Also the new Zelda is supposed to be quite awesome. (Still waiting to get my copy). Fire Emblem Awakening is also an amazing game. Absolutely beautiful, great music, loved the game play. I use it for much the same reason as your considering and it works great.

Bullockist wrote:

Are there many good games to play?

Lots and lots of them. If you buy a 3DS, then you have access to almost the entire DS back catalogue- the only exceptions are some functions of Pokémon, transferring Pokémon from GBA games to the DS titles, as well as the DS Guitar Hero games. There may be a few other odd exceptions.

how long does the battery last? Can you buy a booster battery pack?

Battery on a 3DS is good, on a 3DSXL it's better. About 4 hours for the standard 3DS would be my estimate. No booster battery is available, and if you buy the 3DSXL you will need to buy a charger in addition- it isn't packaged with one, annoyingly.

Are there any competitors that get close?

Nope. Sony's attempts are left behind by the lack of flagship franchises which Nintendo has, and all of the other handhelds are usually Android machines with a crappy D-pad blu-tacked on.

Has anyone bought one and had a bad experience/good experience?

It's a lovely console but the 3D is a gimmick. Occasionally it's good, like Star Fox 64 3D. Often it doesn't add much, like the majority of Pokémon X and Y. The feel of both 3DS and 3DSXL is good, I haven't had my hands on the 2DS yet, but reviewers say get the original 3DS instead.

Granted, I'm fairly disappointed with the 3DS library, and only have 5 titles, but most of the titles I do own happened to be quite good, and capable of killing quite a bit of time.

How long is your commute? If it's around an hour, I'd heartily recommend Monster Hunder 3 Ultimate. Each fight is 50 minutes, and the game is stellar. Better yet, there's a nearly endless amount of content to be played. That said, the game is pretty grindy (thankfully, the grind is usually pretty engaging), and you'll absolutely want to pick up a circle pad pro for it.

Pokemon is a given. Great game, with lots to offer for both casual and competitive players. If you're into the more casual side of things, expect 50-100 hours of playtime, all of it pretty solid. If you're interested in competitive play, expect a nearly endless amount of time that can be invested. The downside to competitive play is that it requires a considerable investment into breeding, which is ridiculously boring (and the main reason why most competitive players prefer simulators).
Another downside (depending on how you look at it) is that the game is insanely easy. Outside of the optional Battle Maison (which gets its difficulty exclusively from the fact that the AI is a cheating bastard), the entire game can be easily steamrolled over with little thought or effort.

Fire Emblem: Awakening is a solid title. The characters are very well written, and the plot is decent (you don't need to know much about Fire Emblem's history to pick up this one). Similar to Pokemon, however, the game is ridiculously easy. Don't let the permanent character death fool you, it's all to easy to get a team of ridiculously overpowered characters and plow through the game, even on its hardest difficulty. In fact, with how poorly balanced some of the classes are, it's possible to beat the entirety of Lunatic mode (said highest difficulty, barring the silly Lunatic+ mode, which is more random than actually difficult) with a single character, once you manage to get them past a certain point.
If you're looking for 100% completion and completing all the social links, there's a lot to do, and tonnes of replayability, but the complete lack of challenge can make it difficult to want to replay it at all in the first place. That said, even if you only play through once, there's a solid 20+ hours on the cartridge, which makes a fairly good investment, if you're into RPGs or turn based strategy games.

Resident Evil: Revelations is fantastic, especially when compared to the mediocre console offerings of late. This game also benefits quite a bit from the circle pad pro. It combines the over-the-shoulder shooting from the resident evil titles of late with some classic exploration and ammo rationing that you'd expect from the original titles. It's a fantastic mix that really manages to bring out some of the best of the entire franchise. The storytelling is all over the place, but it serves to keep the game going.

Lastly, Tales of the Abyss. It sucks. If you really like the Tales games, you might like this one (that said, if you've played one Tales game, you've played them all. It's pretty much the dictionary example of cookie-cutter game design). Otherwise, stay away. It follows the same tropes and cliches you'd expect of any other JRPG, but also manages to have an entirely hatable cast that does nothing to make its flat world or storyline even remotely entertaining. Combined with the dull mash-fest that is the combat, it's a very poor title that is definitely not worth your time or money.

DS is indeed a good choice to pass the time when travelling. I've purchased one about five years ago, never had any troubles with it. The battery (rechargeable at any household socket) would last for hours; I often didn't even bother recharging it at all after a trip, simply because even when the red warning light goes on you'd still have half about an hour of juice left, so I'd just recharge on an "as needed" basis.

I'm not up to date on the selection of games at all, and only purchased about a dozen over all those years - but half of them easily kept me busy for months.

If you like turn-based strategy, take a look at "Advance Wars Dual Strike", as it's pretty much Battle Isle with cute graphics. Comes with a big campaign, further content and customisation to be unlocked via gameplay, and a built-in map editor. And then we have "Wh40k Squad Command", which is basically Chaos Gate's gameplay for the DS, with you commanding a squad of Ultramarines through a destructable(!) environment. Even has Dreadnoughts and vehicles!

Also interesting was "Star Trek Tactical Assault", which is a handheld version of the Starfleet Command series, where you're the captain of a spaceship and issue orders to your various bridge officers. It comes with both a Federation and a Klingon campaign, and unlike the original Starfleet Command your crew actually has personalities and gains experience as you progress.

Other than that ... "Mario Kart" is always good for half an hour of quick fun, and if you like RTS with city-building elements, there's "Anno 1602" where you lay claim to some island to construct a colony with its own industry etc, attempting to dominate your neighbours via economic or military means.

Those were my personal favourites, anyways.

Oh! And you might be interested in the DS being mod-able. I have no idea if this still works for 3DS, but with the old one all you needed to do was to buy a flash cart like CycloDS which would be slotted like a normal game. With this, you could upload and access your own data, including customised operating systems. For a while, I had my DS start up showing the Imperial Aquila and having little skulls as buttons.
Plus, this allows you to convert your DS into an MP3 player.

[edit] Actually, it seems they do have a version that works for 3DS now, too!

http://www.cyclopsds.com/cgi-bin/cyclods/engine.pl?page=products-cyclodsevolution
http://www.cyclopsds.com/cgi-bin/cyclods/engine.pl?page=news

 Fafnir wrote:
Monster Hunder 3 Ultimate. Each fight is 50 minutes, and the game is stellar. Better yet, there's a nearly endless amount of content to be played. That said, the game is pretty grindy (thankfully, the grind is usually pretty engaging), and you'll absolutely want to pick up a circle pad pro for it.

Monster Hunter 3 is on the 3DS? I thought it was only for the Wii?

I just bought a 3DS XL to give my son for Christmas... I wonder if he will let me borrow it once in a while...

 4oursword wrote:

Bullockist wrote:

how long does the battery last? Can you buy a booster battery pack?

Battery on a 3DS is good, on a 3DSXL it's better. About 4 hours for the standard 3DS would be my estimate. No booster battery is available, and if you buy the 3DSXL you will need to buy a charger in addition- it isn't packaged with one, annoyingly.

I bought an XL earlier this year and it came with a charger. Any portable you buy these days will have it's charger packed with it.

Thanks for the replies guys. I was looking at getting an XL and you guys have made it definite.
I cannot wait to spent 2 and a half hours gaming on the way home from work after spending 2 and a half hours reading on the way to work.

Another game I'd recommend: Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2. It's very similar to the original, but I like the Advanced series way more. I put just over 200 hours into that game between the main campaign, side-missions, and customizing all the classes.

 Dais wrote:

 4oursword wrote:

Bullockist wrote:

how long does the battery last? Can you buy a booster battery pack?

Battery on a 3DS is good, on a 3DSXL it's better. About 4 hours for the standard 3DS would be my estimate. No booster battery is available, and if you buy the 3DSXL you will need to buy a charger in addition- it isn't packaged with one, annoyingly.

I bought an XL earlier this year and it came with a charger. Any portable you buy these days will have it's charger packed with it.

Maybe in the US is different but like I said, I just bought the 3DS XL for my son and it most definitely did NOT bring a charger. I had to buy one separately.

A little bit of sleuthing around, and apparently only the North American release of the 3DS XL comes with a charger. In the UK, you have to buy it separately, or use the one that comes with the DSI, DSI XL, or vanilla 3DS. That's pretty lame.

There are a ton of great games for the 3DS. I have spent a ton of time playing it.

Some of my favorites so far:
Pokemon X/Y
Luigis Mansion
Sonic Generations
The Legend of Zelda: A link between worlds
More Mario games.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf is a great game for the 3DS. On the regular old DS, the three Castlevania games (Portrait of Ruin, Dawn of Sorrow, and Order of Eclesia) are all amazing. I would highly recommend picking them up

Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars is another fun strategy game for the 3DS; I'm a big fan of Advance Wars and Fire Emblem too.

Bravely Default has a Feb release date here in the U.S.

It's about time we had another Advance Wars, even if not a lot has changed since the first game. Also it's good to hear that Layton vs Phoenix Wright will be making it West after all; I was worried for a while that they wouldn't bother.

The new Zelda game on the 3DS is fairly awesome.