3DS eShop Game Reviews
Review Reel Fishing 3D Paradise Mini (3DS eShop)
A bassing fancy
Natsume might be most famous as the house that Harvest Moon built, but fishing fans will know the name from its Legend of the River King and Reel Fishing series. Reel Fishing takes a more realistic approach to the angling action, and saw several installments on WiiWare with decidedly mixed results. Reel Fishing 3D Paradise Mini...
Review 101 DinoPets 3D (3DS eShop)
Di-no-thanks
When you first boot up 101 DinoPets 3D you're greeted with an introduction that sees you finding an abandoned dinosaur hatchling on your front porch. If you're anything like us, this will fill you with excitement about how much potential for fun this concept has. Then again if you're anything like us that excitement will soon disappear...
Review Unchained Blades (3DS eShop)
Do the wyrm
If you could wish for anything, what would it be? If you're anything like Fang, the immediately off-putting Dragon King protagonist in the opening moments of Unchained Blades, you'd ask for the name of the strongest being alive, start a fight with a goddess and get thrown out of heaven for your insolence. Thankfully, XSEED's latest 3DS...
Review Air Battle Hockey 3D (3DS eShop)
Balls to the wall
Ever since Pong invaded homes 40 years ago, simple ball and paddle games have had a home in gaming. Air Battle Hockey 3D doesn't manage to stand out among the four-decade pedigree, but it is at least a competent entry on its own merits. The game is so simple that there's really not much to say about it. You use your stylus to...
Review Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (3DS eShop / NES)
Lost levels = lost sanity
It's a story so well known now that we'll just summarise it for you: what is now known as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels was actually released in Japan as the sequel to enduring classic Super Mario Bros. Western gamers instead received the subconscious vegetable buffet that we more traditionally think of as Super Mario...
Review Johnny Impossible (3DS eShop)
Mission: Intolerable
Johnny Impossible is a bad game. We'd be perfectly happy to leave the review at that sentence, as it does actually tell you everything you need to know, but Johnny Impossible is so interestingly bad that we need to say a lot more about it, if only to achieve some sort of closure. Having made his eShop debut in Johnny Kung Fu,...
Review Mahjong 3D - Warriors of the Emperor (3DS eShop)
Not your 奶奶’s Mahjong
If you’ve ever played any iteration of Mahjong before, then there’s a good chance that you know how the tile-matching gameplay works. While the core experience remains unchanged, it’s what Mahjong 3D - Warriors of the Emperor does with the system that makes this one stand out. Rather than simply finding all of the...
Review 3D Game Collection (3DS eShop)
Win, lose, or draw?
Casual appeal and touch-screen controls have made Nintendo's recent handheld systems a perfect fit for digital collections of traditional games and puzzles, and that's the niche in which the rather generically named 3D Game Collection sits comfortably. With 25 games from Backgammon to Battleship, Solitaire to slide puzzles,...
Review Gunman Clive (3DS eShop)
Mega Clive
When Gunman Clive was announced for the 3DS eShop, some smartphone gamers may have had their heads turned; one of the few complaints of the original release was controlling the gun-slinging hero with a virtual joystick and buttons. Here was an indie-game with a smart visual style and loving references to some of the classic platforming...
Review escapeVektor (3DS eShop)
Traces of greatness
Looking back to the release of escapeVektor: Chapter 1 just over a year ago, we're filled with conflicting emotions. We're glad, of course, because the game was fantastic, inexpensive, and thoroughly addictive. However we can't remember that game without being reminded of the fact that WiiWare never saw the rest of the series...
Review Hydroventure: Spin Cycle (3DS eShop)
Water way to go
2010 WiiWare title Hydroventure (or Fluidity as it was known in North America) was a fine example of how to harness the unique properties of a console’s hardware to deliver a refreshingly original experience. The water-based gameplay was accentuated by clever puzzles and hidden collectables, making it one of WiiWare’s undisputed...
Review Gardenscapes (3DS eShop)
Hidden Horticulture
Who hasn't dreamed of leaving it all behind, of quitting the city and hopping a train to the glorious green of the countryside? Gardenscapes plays off of this desire, casting you as the young inheritor of your grandfather's country home and garden, now both sadly in disrepair. Restoring the once-beautiful garden will require some...
Review Murder on the Titanic (3DS eShop)
Lost at Sea
Imagine, if you will, a tale of two young lovers aboard the infamous ship known as Titanic. The woman, young and from an affluent family, in love with a poor man working as a stoker deep within the bowels of the ship. Sound vaguely like a blockbuster film you’ve seen at least a dozen times? Now add a murder into the mix and a whole lot...
Review Wario Land 3 (3DS eShop / GBC)
Warioid
Nintendo loves to experiment with the Wario Land series. The second game diverted from the first in that it was more of a puzzler than a platformer, as Wario was invincible, and the third game continues that trend by offering yet another twist: an almost Metroid-like exploration system. This time, Wario finds a mysterious music box in the...
Review Crimson Shroud (3DS eShop)
The red coat is coming
All magic in the world stems from gifts delivered directly to mankind from the gods. That much, as far as Crimson Shroud is concerned, is fact. Or is it? As you lead your party through a treacherous dungeon in search of the original gift — the titular and mysterious Crimson Shroud — other possibilities present themselves...
Pix 'n' mix
Block puzzlers: the genre that keeps on giving. Just when you think all the possibilities of the humble square have been exhausted, along comes another game to prove just how wrong you are. PIX3D combines cuboids and pixel art in a retro love-in that's fun, despite a general lack of challenge in its main mode. PIX3D's concept is both...
Review Pac-Man (3DS eShop / NES)
Ghost gobblin' on the go
If you were to ask one hundred people to make a list of the most classic video games of all time, you shouldn't be surprised to find Pac-Man on every one of those lists. It's an unrivaled masterpiece of gaming simplicity, an experience that involves nothing more than moving endlessly around a single maze, yet which somehow...
Review Aero Porter (3DS eShop)
A game with a lot of baggage
We at Nintendo Life absolutely loved Airport Mania: First Flight. Its appeal was rooted largely in the simplicity of its tasks, and the larger effects they all seemed to have. Airport Mania took the entire, massive scope of airport management and narrowed it to a tiny focus: directing and maintaining planes. There was,...
Review 3D MahJongg (3DS eShop)
The ancient art of matchmaking
MahJongg is one of the most classic games on the planet, dating back — by some estimations — to around 500 BC. The fact that it's still popular today says a lot about its addictiveness, and its myriad variants range from social group games — think poker — to solitary, puzzle-like experiences. It's the latter...
Review Ninja Gaiden (3DS eShop / NES)
Frustratingly fun
Gamers nowadays might be more familiar with the rebooted series, but now you've got yet another chance to experience the original NES Ninja Gaiden, the game that started it all. A classic 2D action platformer, you assume the role of Ryu Hayabusa as he seeks to kill Jaquio, who murdered his father. This original is frequently...
Drop 'em like they're blox
Meet Fallblox – a game so clever that its very title could be a brand new synonym for “mindboggling”. Predecessor Pullblox / Pushmo remains one of the best titles on the 3DS eShop, an extremely smart puzzler that's fantastic value for money. Fallblox, known in North America as Crashmo, is no lazy sequel: it takes...
Review Dress To Play: Cute Witches! (3DS eShop)
Half witch, half craft
Older gamers might look at Dress to Play: Cute Witches! and see echoes of the Cotton series, or Magical Chase. Cute witches (lowercase) are certainly no strangers to shoot-'em-ups, and this game aims to combine a simplified (and bullet-free) version of that side-scrolling action with a dress-up element for character...
Review Johnny Hotshot (3DS eShop)
A total misfire
From the studio that brought us such eShop disappointments as Zombie Slayer Diox, Samurai G and clear game of the year contender Chuck E. Cheese's Arcade Room, we now get a Western-themed mess called Johnny Hotshot. And it manages to feel almost consciously terrible. The story of this game is irrelevant, but since the developer saw...
Review Pokédex 3D Pro (3DS eShop)
It's evolution, baby
Admit it – if you were ever a fan of Pokémon, you probably wanted a Pokédex. The best-forgotten LCD-screened plastic versions aside, the 3DS eShop's Pokédex 3D was the first time you could hold the all-knowing electronic encyclopaedia in the palm of your hand – the catch was that it only contained the 150 Unova-region...
Review Monster Shooter (3DS eShop)
Monster mulch
Even gurning, gun-toting monsters have their softer sides. Just ask Dum Dum, the hero of Monster Shooter, who stamps through 60 alien-infested levels reducing anything in his way to viscera and goop after his beloved kitten is abducted. Though we're sure any answer you might get would involve more firearms than words. Monster Shooter...
Review 2 Fast 4 Gnomz (3DS eShop)
Gnome-madic
While the title might indicate that 2 Fast 4 Gnomz could be the marriage of Miami street racing and gnome culture we've all been waiting for, what we have instead is a much-improved eShop version of QubicGames' WiiWare runner of the same name. In fact, the title's silly, Prince-esque number usage and 90's-edgy "z" belie the fact that 2...
Review Mighty Bomb Jack (3DS eShop / NES)
Not so mighty
The original Bomb Jack was an addictive little arcade game in which the objective was to collect all the bombs in each level while avoiding enemies. Sounds like a simple concept - and it was. For the NES, though, Tecmo decided to make a sequel with a bit of an adventure game element to it. The bomb rooms from the original game are...
Review Ghosts 'n Goblins (3DS eShop / NES)
A Halloween greeting from Satan himself
Capcom couldn't have picked a better time to release Ghosts 'n Goblins onto the 3DS Virtual Console. It's Halloween, after all, and this is one of the most classic spooky games there is. The real question is how well it holds up today, and that's one we're happy to answer: quite well, actually. Despite the...
Review Gradius (3DS eShop / NES)
Dated, but legendary
To say that the original Gradius was influential on the evolution of the side-scrolling shoot 'em up would be a gross understatement. When the game hit arcades in 1985 it was lauded for its amazing level designs and simple, yet wildly playable, power-up system. This NES release was one of the first home ports of the game and has...
Review Mega Man (3DS eShop / NES)
The NES experience, now on 3DS
A while back, the 3DS Virtual Console got Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge, the Blue Bomber's first Game Boy outing. It's a decent conversion of the console game, but many would agree that the handheld Mega Man games didn't really begin to shine until later in the series. Curiously, instead of working their way closer to...
