Topic: Wii U / 3DS eShop Exclusive Titles

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Apologies, this is a super super long post! But I am quite emotional after this weekend, perhaps staying up until 3am last night doing eShop shenanigans hasn't helped 😅

3DS (and Wii U) - A Retrospective

At times it has been a wild ride since I started this thread. When the eShop closures got announced last year, I spent a few hundred quid picking up some top picks recommended by people in this thread and elsewhere.

I knew there would be a final push towards the end. But finances struggling by this point, I was apprehensive to put any more money into a pair of dying consoles.

I've put a lot of work in over this weekend, not just in doing the eshop stuff but also finishing a couple projects that I planned years ago but just never got around to. That was greatly satisfying. But in preparing my consoles for the "end", a lot of memories were stirred up and I realised that the wild ride that I've described didn't begin with the eShop closure announcement. It began when I first bought a 3DS and a Wii U.

Projects

I'll start by describing the two projects which I won't describe in great detail so as to respect the community rules. I'll mainly describe my feelings around them which I don't think will break any rules.

Before the pandemic, I picked up a New 2DS XL on clearance from Tesco for £55. This was actually the 8th 3DS I've owned 😅 and I still have 5 of them! My intention was to hack the console. I just never got around to it. Last year, after the eShop closure announcement, I traded in a few things to CEX and bought a second Wii U for the same reason. I'm a bit funny with hacking, as I like to have a legit stock console rather than hacking my main machine.

Well anyway, not knowing a lot about it, I decided to do the New 2DS XL on Saturday. I also did an original 3DS that was gathering dust so I'd have something to play 3D games on as well. It was more of a failsafe. In case I missed something on the eShop, I'd still be able to find games somewhere. I had a play around with the hacked consoles and they showed a lot of promise so I was feeling confident.

I also did the Wii U on Sunday. This was a bit last minute so I wouldn't have as much time to mess around and test it out. But it looks ok, again it shows a lot of promise but I'll have to give it a better look!

I think the main thing for me about hacking these two consoles, is that they were projects that were around 5 years in the making. I'm the sort of guy that plans stuff, gets all the required equipment and then just leaves it for ages before I ever get around to it. I've described other projects, both completed and on going over on Time Extension and Push Square.

Honestly, it was just the greatest relief and sense of achievement to see these projects that have been in the back of my mind for so long become fully realised!

SD Cards and MP3 Players

Messing around with the above projects, as well as time yesterday spent frantically downloading updates on one of my legit stock consoles meant I was doing a lot of SD Card management over the weekend!

As I was backing up SD Cards so I could wipe/transfer them to bigger cards, I found loads of music on them. I had kind of forgotten this but I used to use my original 3DS and later and moreso, my 2DS (the slab) as an MP3 player. A lot.

It's amazing really, it's not the smallest machine to use as an MP3 player but I always had it with me for Streetpass so why not? I had so many albums on there from Eminem, Elliott Smith, Jamie Cullum, Jay Z/Linkin Park, Dizzee Rascal, Lady Gaga, Dr Dre and more!

It really was a great machine and I'm genuinely considering using my stock 2DS as an MP3 player again. Its not doing anything else as my main stock machine is a New 3DS XL (SNES edition! 😍)

Streetpass Plaza

Which brings me onto something I realised. I hadn't bought a few of the Streetpass Plaza packs. It's unlikely I will ever get back into Streetpass Plaza but I picked them up last night for posterity anyway.

As soon as I booted the app, that music kicked in. I hadn't heard it in so long but it was still familiar and nostalgic. Yet almost immediately, it filled me with with anxiety and dread.

I think I have a bit of an addictive personality and that has manifested as game addictions over the years. A few notable titles I have been addicted to are Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fuelled, The Simpsons Tapped Out and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp.

Unfortunately Streetpass Plaza is one such game that I became addicted to and I spent what felt like so much of my life playing those games. The main quest, puzzle swap, the gardening game and the tetramino arranging haunted mansion game stick out in my memory.

My goodness, it feels like an age that I spent with those games. I think that's why I checked out when they started releasing more titles for it. I barely had enough time in my day to play the Streetpass games I was playing already, let alone a half dozen more.

Honestly, my memory of the whole Streetpass Plaza is bittersweet. Sure I enjoyed playing it, that feeling when Miis lined up at the gate, trying to be tactical about which puzzle pieces I chose, messing around with the console date and shaking it for the pedometer coins etc.

But I will never get that time back and time in my finite life is so precious to me now.

Last Minute Pick-Ups

Yesterday, I put around £130 into my Nintendo Account to pick up some last few games. I had already bought a lot of the recommended titles over the last year but a series that I hadn't played before intrigued me. That was the Ace Attorney games, 3 of which would be locked to the 3DS.

I was waiting for Capcom to drop them in the sale like they did in the US but unfortunately they never did. So I ended up buying them full price. I also found out that two of them had DLC, after some frantic googling of how to actually buy this DLC (I don't think I have ever bought DLC on 3DS before 😅), I managed to buy them!

Also, themes! I am surprised I even did this to be honest but all the NL articles that mentioned themes really got to me. Particularly with regards to the Sega ones.

Every theme I've had up until this point has been free. The only theme I've ever actually used was a Breath of the Wild One which has that familiar minimalistic soundtrack that I fell in love with so much back when I played Breath of the Wild. I always thought they were a bit pointless and a waste of money otherwise.

Welllll, I went mad. I bought so many themes last night 😅. Lots of Sega ones and also a Metal Gear Solid one that plays the song Snake Eater on the home menu which is one of my favourite video game songs ever!

Seems a bit pointless really if I am sunsetting the consoles but oh well, at least I'll have some more stuff to mess around with and appreciate in the future!

New Things I Learned

The 2DS and the Wii U stylus are actually the same length! I accidentally put the Wii U one into the 2DS while I was multitasking on 6 different consoles last night and was only stopped by the different shaped end that clips it into the console.

Wii U download management - I've had loads of stuff in my download list on the Wii U for years. I put all my discs in last night to make sure they were all updated. Many said "update applied" as I put them in and my Download List got smaller. I had no idea that launching the game would clear it's completed update from the download list. Just goes to show how many free updates and paid DLCs I've bought over the years without actually ever returning to the game to play them!! 😅

Other Memories

Ambassador Games - When the 3DS came out and it was £229.99, I balked at it. No way was I going to spend that much on a handheld! Not when the Gamecube was £129.99, the DS was £99.99 and the Wii was £179.99!

Well, they dropped the price after a while and rewarded early adopters with ambassador games. Now I don't think those games were worth the cost of the price difference so I never felt particularly gutted about missing out on them when I eventually bought my reduced price 3DS

But I did see an ambassador 3DS on eBay some time later for a reasonable price that I could recoup by trading in the hardware. So I bought the 3DS, merged the data with my own and traded in the second 3DS to make my money back.

The 2DS - This gets its own entry because I absolutely loved and adored that original "slab" design of the 2DS.

It might not have had 3D but my goodness, it looked so beautiful to me. I know many people think it's ugly but I absolutely adored it.

To me, it looked so retro. Like a really tall Game Boy Advance. Just perfection 👌

I had a similar love for the Wii Mini revision, another "ugly" console by popular standards but one that I thought was so utterly beautiful.

I never bought the Wii Mini, much to my regret (how can I justify spending a hundred quid on a stripped back Wii?!) but I loved how retro it looked. With its textured plastic and black and red design that reminded me of a Mega Drive 2.

Multiple 3DSs - Yes I did say that I've had 8 3DSs in my life. My original 3DS was an aqua blue one. A beautiful machine. Unfortunately one of the shoulder buttons stopped working so I traded it into Game (it was before I had started fixing my own consoles). I initially traded it in for a Pokémon 3DS XL. I remember doing the system transfer in the shop, much to the chagrin of the shopkeeper.

I didn't notice until I got home that the new 3DS XL had like a burn mark under the plastic of the screen. So I took it back to (a different) Game to return it. This shopkeeper wanted me to jump through a bunch of hoops like ringing the Game head office and getting a return authorization code, blah blah blah. I firmly pointed out that that is not how faulty returns work lawfully in the UK and said if he wants to do all that internal bureaucracy, then by all means he can have at it but I needed to return the faulty console.

Of course he did it but I did push my luck by asking to system transfer to my new console in store. To be honest though, I had to right? I couldn't lose all my games and data. The shopkeeper informed me that head office said the burn mark on the screen was a common fault with 3DS XLs so I opted for the newly released slab shaped 2DS this time to be on the safe side.

Then I later bought a Cosmos Black 3DS for cheap off Amazon. This allowed me to play games in 3D again. I didn't system transfer so I kept my 2DS as my main machine. I was actually a bit disappointed by this 3DS, they'd changed the manufacturing of them and it used a yellow-hued screen instead of the bright white-blue screen of my original, long since traded in Aqua Blue 3DS.

Then the New 3DS was announced. I wanted the small one because of those SNES coloured buttons that weren't present on the XL variant. I couldn't justify dropping that amount of money on a console that I barely played any more though. Then the SNES edition of the XL was announced. I had to have it, not least because it solved the XL SNES button colours dilemma! I system transferred from my 2DS and this now became my main machine and still is to this day.

Then the New 2DS XL came. I held out, I quite wanted the Pokéball version when that was released but couldn't justify the price when I already had 3 different 3DSs already.

Some time later, perusing deals websites I found out Tesco were offloading their New 2DS XL consoles for £55. Black and Lime Green. I did a lot of driving for work around this time so I made a lot of (sometimes quite lengthy 😅) detours to different Tesco's to see if they had them in stock. I came out empty handed every time until one day I didn't. I bought two, one to hack and one to remain "stock" for my partner.

I actually bought a DSi that had Four Swords Anniversary on it around this time to system transfer to my partner's New 2DS XL. I already had it on my 3DS. I also finally redeemed the physical download codes for Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal and divvied them up between our two main machines for trading purposes. Of course, as things go, I never actually played either Four Swords or the 2nd Gen Pokémon games on either 3DS!

So my final list of 3DSs:

• New 3DS XL (SNES edition) - my main stock machine
• New 2DS XL (Black/Lime Green) - my partner's main stock machine
• 2DS (Black/Blue slab design) - a third stock machine with a few updates for certain 3+ player games
• New 2DS XL (Black/Lime Green) - hacked machine
• 3DS (Cosmos Black) - hacked machine

3DSs I have said goodbye to over the years:

• 3DS (Aqua Blue) - my original machine, it's bright blue/white screen will never be forgotten and will be forever in my heart 😍🧡
• 3DS (Aqua Blue) - the ambassador machine I bought from eBay to merge/trade in
• 3DS XL (Blue Pokémon design) - burn mark under screen, returned within a few days

Final Thoughts

It has honestly been a ride. It feels like the end of an era.

That's kind of an odd thing to say when I have literally just exponentially increased my 3DS and Wii U backlog by buying so many digital games and hacking more consoles.

But I feel done. I feel happy and content. The journey is over. Perhaps a new journey is beginning but who can say what the future holds?

At least I have done everything I can to lay foundations for that possible future if I choose to explore it.

And I can look back knowing that I had a good time and journey with the 3DS (and Wii U 😅)

✌️

I feel like a lot of these retrospectives are going to pop up over the next few days!

I just want to add a big thanks to all the contributors to this thread:

@Dogorilla @Taceus @Sunsy @anynamereally @1UP_MARIO @Tyranexx @Johncomms @Ralizah @Krull @Vivianeat @Ninfan @Eel @Tyranexx and others!

Also a shout out to @CharlieGirl and @Shnaps for making me aware of more NES Zapper games that made it to the Wii U VC with Wii remote controls. I had no idea that Wild Gunman, Bayou Billy and Hogan's Alley were even on the eShop until you mentioned them in the comments for the Duck Hunt eShop Spotlight article!

And also a big, big thanks to @dartmonkey and the rest of the NL staff for their tireless work writing numerous articles, guides and features and for making video guides that helped me (and everyone else, I'm sure!) prepare for this final outcome.

I have been flicking through all of those articles over the weekend and watching Zion's video guide to help prepare and make all the final arrangements!