3DS eShop Reviews

The dark knight

Taking the title of this game at face value, one could understandably conjure some exciting images of brave warriors setting off to battle in a land teeming with adventurous opportunities. The medieval setting is well-established by this point, and is versatile enough to appeal to even the very young demographic that Tiny Games...

Lock the box and throw away the key

With a huge assortment of puzzle titles on the eShop, PouncingKitten's Boxzle doesn't do nearly enough to set itself apart from the rest of the litter. With three variations on the "sliding box" mechanic the potential for clever and satisfying puzzles is there, but poor visuals and sound, generic presentation and...

Aquatic amusements

All prefaces about there being too many match-three puzzle games available on the 3DS eShop have been exhausted. While it still rings true that there is an overabundance of them on the digital marketplace, there's no use beating the dead horse that this genre and joke have become. The fact is that people love tile matching games,...

Kubi, you blockhead...

It's been almost five years since Bit Boy!! graced the WiiWare service, providing a generation-spanning adventure through the history of video games. Unfortunately the execution of that game was middling at best, leaving a great concept — the guiding of a single hero on a nostalgia-tinged journey through the past — sorely...

Deep in the debt of Texas

Imagine that Donald Trump stole the DeLorean from Back to the Future. He warps to the Wild West, but instead of saving the Doc like in Part III, he creates a form of government in which you rule by simply owning every building in sight. It’s a monopolocracy, if you will, and everyone crams the saloons to play poker for...

Dire, dire docs

You know the drill. Mysterious, seemingly-abandoned location. Haunting atmosphere. Looming tragedy that unfolds through documents you find scattered around. It's a formula that works well for video games in general. As an interactive medium, the scares can be taken to a whole other level in the right hands. The mere fact that you...

En Passable

VooFoo Studios took on a tough challenge in not only producing cross-platform online chess multiplayer, but achieving it on both the Wii U and the 3DS. Pure Chess immediately earns credit right away, in that case, as a technical example of what can be achieved on what is relatively old tech with the 3DS. Bonus points are due, then, but...

A forgotten gem from the NES launch library

Mach Rider is an impressive feat for an NES title — a faux-3D motorcycle combat game with dozens of courses, an endurance mode, and a track editor. Not only was Mach Rider an NES title, but it was an October 1985 NES launch title. Namco's Pole Position had only hit arcades three years earlier, and...

Back of the net

Although they are perhaps a little alien to those outside of Europe, soccer management titles have a long and respected pedigree among those who commit weeks, months and even years of their lives to playing them. In the United Kingdom especially, such games have existed since the days of the 8-bit microcomputers, with franchises like...

Come fly the frazzled skies

All right, let’s address the 500-ton jumbo jet in the room: I am an Air Traffic Controller Airport Hero Hawaii is a long and silly name. Although IAAATC is actually an established series in Japan, it’s not the kind of title that tends to inspire great confidence in the West. That’s too bad, in a way, as Airport Hero...

A dog's life

To start with a key point, the actual games in Rusty's Real Deal Baseball are window dressing for Nintendo's rather quirky interpretation of the free-to-play microtransaction craze. A collection of ten baseball-themed minigames start out at $4.00 each, but players are encouraged to haggle with the eponymous middle-aged dog Rusty to get...

Downright offensive

Welcome to Young Justice: Legacy, where the mechanics don't work and "play" doesn't matter. The game purports to be a strategic turn-based experience but accomplishes nothing more than being a horrendous nightmare. It is astonishingly incompetent in every field. Its gameplay, engine, animations, and entertainment value are among...

This cat ain't rad

There's been a surge of popularity when it comes to "runner" games over the last few years — games where you do little more than move right (or occasionally, left) while dodging everything that comes at you in an attempt to improve your high scores. While "endless" runners seem to be the most popular variant, Skater Cat falls...

Spinning from poles as a fish with human limbs...

Clu Clu Land is one of those unassuming early Nintendo Entertainment System releases that seems to show up all the time these days, from cameos in Super Smash Bros. to minigames in NES Remix, right alongside classics like Mario and Zelda. Even if you didn't grow up playing Clu Clu Land, most Nintendo...

Ocean Belly River's back!

In some games, just moving around is a joy. Soaring through the skies in Pilotwings, loop-de-looping in NiGHTS into Dreams, wet-jetting around Isle Delfino in Super Mario Sunshine, and tumbling through town in Gravity Rush are all exhilarating experiences in their own right, as memorable as the games built around them.

P-A-R-T-WHY? Because I gotta learn my ABC's!

The adorable panda bear, Lola, is back at it again. This time she's putting her life as a train conductor in the past, and is instead throwing a party...of knowledge. Being the second game in the series to focus on basic ABC's and spelling, following Lola's Alphabet Train on DSiWare back in 2012, does...

Absolutely Diabolical

Very few developers can boast the introduction of as many unique and refreshing gameplay concepts as game-crafting master Shigeru Miyamoto. Nintendo’s iconic developer has reinvented and reinvigorated countless genres, breathing new life into stale and tired gameplay tropes and carving a name for himself as one of the...

"Just you wait, Master Higgins!"

The original Adventure Island — though a fun little platformer in its own right — is most fondly remembered today for being a strikingly comprehensive clone of SEGA's Wonder Boy, as a result of developer Escape licensing the property (minus SEGA's character designs) to Hudson Soft for an NES port. Adventure...

Burst in line

The hardest part of starting Bubble Pop World might be remembering where you left the “?” box AR card you’ll need to play it. Precious few 3DS games have taken advantage of the system’s augmented reality feature, with the majority employing it just for an amusing little extra. Developer Cypronia, however, has fully dived into...