3DS eShop Game Reviews
Review Hidden Expedition: Titanic (3DS eShop / 3DS)
An exposition on the commodification of human tragedy
On April 15, 1912, a passenger liner carrying no less than 2,000 travelers struck an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. Not properly equipped with the necessary amount of lifeboats and other safety equipment, when the ship sank the vast majority of passengers did not...
Review City Mysteries (3DS eShop)
Globecluttering
Famous world locations are not a bad backdrop for a hidden object game, although the irony of priorities here must be noted. Eiffel Tower? Whatever. We’ve got a bowling pin and a screw to find! City Mysteries takes item-finding to the proud metropolises of New York, Paris, Moscow, and London, stuffing each scene with enough...
Review AiRace Xeno (3DS eShop)
Kicking it into Xenogear
The fourth entry in Warsaw studio QubicGames' downloadable AiRace series, AiRace Xeno is a natural progression of last year's AiRace Speed on the 3DS eShop – race three different futuristic aircraft at face-melting speeds through nine tough obstacle-filled tracks and try to beat your high score. It's a stripped-down racing...
Review European Conqueror 3D (3DS eShop)
Go ahead, mention the war
European Conqueror 3D is a title that might inspire a bit of déjà vu in observant eShop gamers, coming less than a year after the release of CIRCLE’s slightly more ambitious-sounding World Conqueror 3D. Like its predecessor, this is a turn-based strategy game that takes cues from tabletop classics like Risk and Axis...
Review Squids Odyssey (3DS eShop)
Cephaloportable
It might be said that Squids has come full circle. Starting on mobile platforms, The Game Bakers’ brand extended its tentacles to a console experience with Squids Odyssey on the Wii U, which we’ve reviewed. The same game has now found a home on the 3DS, returning to its portable roots with a few small differences. Squids Odyssey...
Review Plain Video Poker (3DS eShop)
Plain dealer
Here’s a reviewing conundrum: how does one approach a game that is determinedly designed to be average? This is the case with Plain Video Poker, which does away with pretence by using an adjective in its title that’s been reserved more often for yogurt and M&M’s than anything within the hyperbolic games industry. What this...
Doesn't soar, but not quite a bore
SKYPEACE is a stage-based runner that finds you surfing it up in the in the sky, high above the clouds. As runners generally go, players will be aiming for a high score by collecting as many coins and significant pickups as they can, while avoiding incoming obstacles. Existing in a genre that overpopulates the...
Review Toy Stunt Bike (3DS eShop)
Batteries included
The store aisle packaging that greets you when selecting Toy Stunt Bike from the 3DS menu is a telling sign of the game’s intended mood. This is a physics-based platformer alright, but the challenge is infused with those elements of joy, imagination, and mild cruelty everyone remembers from playing with their toys as a kid...
Review Cocoro Line Defender (3DS eShop)
Doing lines
If there's one thing French studio Moving Player knows how to do beautifully, it's presentation. Its new title Cocoro: Line Defender is inspired by Japanese watercolour-style art, with bright environments and striking dark outlines reminiscent of the 2006 classic Ōkami. Sporting a traditional flute-based soundtrack and characters with...
Review Shovel Knight (3DS eShop)
This is the kind of shovelware we can dig
Shovel Knight is the adventure of Shovel Knight, a knight with a shovel. That simple — and gloriously absurd — premise has somehow resulted in some of the strongest hype the 3DS eShop has seen yet. The good news is that the final product absolutely lives up to the lofty expectations; the even better news...
Review Another World - 20th Anniversary Edition (3DS eShop)
Another World, Another System
Another World: 20th Anniversary Edition belongs in the download era, as the retail success story of the original truly laid the groundwork for narrative-driven, minimalistic and artistic games that are now becoming increasingly common away from high street shelves. When first released its cinematic flair was a...
Review Color Zen Kids (3DS eShop)
Childlike innocence
If you read our review of Color Zen on 3DS earlier this month or Color Zen Kids on Wii U most recently, you're in for a familiar ride with the latter title on 3DS. The laid-back colour-matching puzzler with the sweeping electronic soundtrack is back, and this time your children can play it on the go. The objective of the...
Review Van Helsing sniper Zx100 (3DS eShop)
No, Hugh Jackman's not in this one
Barcelona-based developer EnjoyUp Games got our hopes up for this – after the surprising success of its atmospheric Abyss on the Wii U eShop last month, the trailer for EnjoyUp's new 3DS-exclusive Van Helsing Sniper Zx100 demonstrated a first-person gallery shooter set in a neon sci-fi dystopian future London;...
Review Super Dodge Ball (3DS eShop / NES)
Super Lag Ball
Many people are familiar with River City Ransom, the cult classic NES game, but what you might not know is that it's actually part of a series with many, many more titles. Of course, that can be hard to figure out when those that were localized all got completely unrelated names. Interestingly, while the series is mostly known in the...
Review 1001 Spikes (3DS eShop)
Exquisite torture
We'll get this out of the way right now: 1001 Spikes is hard. So hard, in fact, that it's deliberately unfair. Those of you turned off by that knowledge can save yourself a great deal of frustration by walking on by. Anyone up to the challenge, however, is in for one of the most satisfying platforming experiences in recent years...
Review Mega Man Xtreme 2 (3DS eShop / GBC)
An Xtreme Improvement
Mega Man Xtreme left us feeling a bit underwhelmed. While its intentions were certainly good, the execution was lacking and the experience felt like a far clunkier retread of levels we've already played before, rather than much of a game in its own right. However it's worth noting that the game was originally released for the...
Nirvana on the go
Last month we reviewed the Wii U version of Color Zen, a relaxing abstract puzzler in which you match geometric shapes with colours as a soothing electronica soundtrack plays in the background. This week the chilled-out title arrives on 3DS largely intact; it's essentially the same game, shrunk down to the small screen(s). It's the...
Review Arc Style: Baseball 3D (3DS eShop)
Take me out to a real ball game...
Arc System Works' latest casual sports title, Arc Style: Baseball 3D, contains the same extensive customisation options of Arc Style: Soccer!! 3D, but it also retains the sluggish, repetitive gameplay and adds some new issues to boot. There is fun to be had in the local multiplayer and even the single player...
The trouble with nostalgia
In 2008, Matrix Software and Red Entertainment teamed up to develop a turn-based Role-playing game for the Nintendo DS appropriately titled Nostalgia. Incorporating classic JRPG gameplay and mechanics with modern visuals, this game was designed to tug at the heart strings of ageing gamers while still managing to provide an...
Review Double Dragon II: The Revenge (3DS eShop / NES)
Now actually living up to its name
As one of the first scrolling beat 'em ups ever made, the original Double Dragon became a smash hit when it was released way back in 1987, and like most arcade games at the time quickly received a port to the NES. A single year later, Double Dragon II was released in arcades and, as was to be expected, it was also...
Review Mega Man V (3DS eShop / GB)
There's a Stardroid waiting in the sky
The handheld Mega Man games, up until now, have been remixed mashups of two NES titles each. Some of them hewed more or less closely to the source material, while others were emboldened to evolve the original ideas is exciting new directions. Mega Man V, however, throws the very concept of "source material"...
Review The Denpa Men 3: The Rise of Digitoll (3DS eShop)
Good vibrations
Before Denpa Ningen no RPG washed up on Western shores as The Denpa Men: They Came By Wave in 2012, it felt like a localisation long-shot: a candy-coloured JRPG with off-the-wall style, an AR-based hook, very little story, and deceptively traditional, grind-heavy gameplay. Even the Denpa Men themselves — colourful and oddly...
Review Alien On The Run (3DS eShop)
Out of this world
After a few weeks full of ports and disappointing original titles on the eShop, Japanese studio G-Style's 3DS-exclusive Alien on the Run is a breath of fresh air, a surprisingly addictive "comical escape game" that has arrived on the store at relatively short notice. You play as an alien named Delude who has been abudcted by a UFO,...
Review Turtle Tale (3DS eShop)
Turtle Recall
Do you love retro platformers but wish they featured more squirt guns? Not to be confused with the children's animated film A Turtle's Tale from a few years ago, Saturnine Games' Turtle Tale brings Super Soakin' platforming action to the eShop at a budget price, but don't let its colourful graphics fool you: Turtle Tale is a strict...
Review Mega Man IV (3DS eShop / GB)
Great things in small packages
With one exception, which is also making its way to the 3DS Virtual Console, all of the Game Boy Mega Man games take two of the NES titles and rework them a bit. Some old faces in new places, so to speak. A sprinkling of unique bosses and weapons help to carve out identities for these portable experiences but, by and...
Review Parking Star 3D (3DS eShop)
Back it up and dump it!
There are so many driving games on the market today, we've been oversaturated with choice; whether you want a hardcore racing sim, a lighthearted arcade game, a futuristic hovercraft racer, or all your favourite corporate characters go-karting together, there's something out there for you. But you know what the driving game...
Review Mega Man III (3DS eShop / GB)
Third time's the charm
After the fun but flawed Dr. Wily's Revenge and the almost thoroughly disappointing Mega Man II on Game Boy, Capcom made a serious and substantial course correction. The result is Mega Man III, and we couldn't be happier about that. Retaining the template from Dr. Wily's Revenge (two sets of Robot Masters, a new Mega Man...
Review Mega Man II (3DS eShop / GB)
Get equipped with tarnished legacy
Ask any fan of the Blue Bomber to name their favourite game in the series and the odds are good that they will say either Mega Man 2 or Mega Man 3. That's to be expected, though; both of those games are among the best on the NES, a system that had no shortage of great platformers and action games. What's less...
Review Moon Chronicles: Episode 1 (3DS eShop)
Down the hatch...
Renegade Kid originally released first-person shooter Moon on the DS with publisher Mastiff in 2009, though sales were relatively modest — this episodic digital re-release, retitled Moon Chronicles, will be the first time many players experience the game. The 3DS isn't always considered ideal for first-person shooters, but Moon...
