Craving a 3DS - Do I Want it Just to Want it?

It's an age old question for me. Do I want the thing just to want it, or will I actually USE it once I have it?

I recall how badly I wanted the PSP, and though I owned one for 2+ years, I only ever played Final Fantasy Tactics on it extensively. It became a dust collector, and I traded it in at a Gamestop for practically nothing.

I camped out at a local Target for a Wii when it was first released. I think in the years I've owned it I've probably gotten 24 hours of total use. Another dust magnet.

Now, my current craving is the 3DS. There will be a fabulous deal this weekend where I can get the regular 3DS for $130 or the 3DSXL for $160. I've never owned ANY version of the DS, so my possibilities for games to play are virtually endless.

But will I actually play the damn thing? Do I really have interest in it, beyond trying Ocarina of Time for a bit before growing bored? Hell, I have a dozen good Xbox games to play (I just got one this past Christmas) and my Steam list is sad in how packed it is with good games I've yet to touch. And I haven't even looked at my PS3, though games like Uncharted 3 and Arkham City are waiting for me.

Maybe I have enough. Then again, I have a hard time passing up a good deal, and this is certainly that. What say you Giant Bomb, 3DS or no 3DS? If I DO pick one up, what's one game I can't miss?

Man I've been there before, that's how I ended up with a PS3 and a Kinect. Sounds like you know how this is gonna end, my personal opinion: Skip it and get started on Arkham City! lol

3DS has good games, I think it is worth getting. But I also think the Vita is worth it just for P4G so you know where I stand on things

3ds has a veritable cornucopia of great games now, but i'd agree it's hard to justify with a huge backlog.

as for me i got gifted the system and i do a lot of public transport commuting so it gets a helluva lot of use. it's a fine system with the games to back it up, but i'd understand if you can't rationalize it right now.

so to sum up: buy the damn thing and don't look back :)

e: also FIRE EMBLEM FIRE EMBLEM FIRE EMBLEM. and Super Mario 3d Land for good measure.

Do you have any place to use it? To you often have time away from home where you have long waits like in between classes?

I think you should make a list of what DS and 3DS games you would like to play before considering a purchase. I bought a 3DS almost two years ago and I barely use it other than take it out for sweet sweet streetpassing.

I have a little rule I tend to follow which is:

If I can think of 5 games I will want to play on the system, purchase is justified.

There are a lot of great games on the systems, especially if you go back into the original DS catalog of games. I would say do soem research and see how many of these games you would actually want to play.

Animal Cross.

@irishdoom: I've been going through the same dilemma this past week, also due to the target deal. After about a week of flip flopping between getting one and not getting one, I finally decided why the hell not. Yesterday I used the buy two get one free deal at target and got Fire Emblem Awakening, Ocarina of Time, and Mario 3d Land for 85 dollars, so along with the 3ds XL deal, ill be saving about 100 dollars for three games and the console. Now is as good of time as any to jump in. And as for having a bunch of games in my steam library, the way I see it, 3ds games serve a different purpose than my PC games. I haven't owned a Nintendo console since the 64, and I am really excited to finally jump back into that Nintendo magic.

As mentioned above, listing out all of the games you'll want to play should help the decision.

For me, Fire Emblem, Mario 3d land, Ocarina of Time, Luigi's Mansion, Monster Hunter, Kid Icarus, Mario Kart, Pokemon x/y, Professor Layton, and the promise of a 3ds Smash Bros. were more than enough to justify the purchase.

Get it.

I hate these threads where people ask if I should buy a system or not. If you do decide to get a 3DS spend the extra and get the XL because it has better battery life.

Fire Emblem and Ocarina of Time alone should be good for an awful lot of gaming. I do have 2 young kids as well that might be ready to enjoy something like it. From what I understand, 3DSXL is the way I should probably go, both for the size and better battery life.

@irishdoom: I don't want to tell you what to do, but you should buy a 3DS. I've been playing it way more than any of my home consoles as of late. Also I think if you buy Luigi's Mansion or Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and register an XL you can choose from a selection of free games (one of which is 3D Land).

That is a nice bonus. I don't know anything about that Pokemon game, but I was looking at Luigi's Mansion already.

There are enough games now that it's worth it now, and it's still early in the life cycle that you have years of games to come.

Are you interested in:

• Fire Emblem Awakening
• Super Mario 3D Land
• Etrian Odyssey IV
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Luigi's Mansion: iforgotthesubtitle
• Shin Megami Tensei IV (which isn't out 'til the end of the year but it's the game I want for 3DS.
• SMT Devil Summoner
• SMT Devil Survivor
• Monster Hunter 3
• Mario Kart 7

or any number or original DS games or eShop games?

@believer258 I'm interested in at least half of those.

The extra bonus is I can sit here and think about what DS games I missed, since I missed them ALL. :) What are some of the best of the best from regular old DS?

I know the feeling, i had the same "want" couple months back and i found a 3ds on ebay with couple games, played some zelda, mario kart and even the browser's inside story, after those games had a hard time finding games i would find interesting that i could just find on better platforms. Luigi's Mansion has me interested thou.

@irishdoom: Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Probably, but even if there's no 3DS games there's still a lot of good DS-exclusive games. Trauma Center, Phoenix Wright, Professor Laytons, Mario & Luigi and the Castlevanias are still some of my most favorite games ever.

Chrono Trigger! Unless you've already played it on the SNES or PS1, in which case you should still get Chrono Trigger and replay it with a better translation.

I must confess, I didn't play a ton of DS games for quite a while, so I missed a lot of them. But from what I know, a whole lot of the DS games that were great were JRPG's or Japanese turn-based strategy. Radiant Historia and Advance Wars comes to mind.

I did play Chrono Trigger back when it was released. Yeah, I'm old. But I woul play it again.

Picked a blue 3dsxl from best buy about an hour ago, along with a copy of Luigi's Mansion. PM'd the system to Target and the game to Kmart. I wanted to grab Fire Emblem, bit I'll wait till I can find a deal. Let the games begin!

@rafaelfc said:

For a handheld purchase of $130-$170, I agree with this guy's logic.

Yeah, got one at Best Buy (price match) through the target deal. Although if I saw this earlier I would have advised you to get Luigi's Mansion, since club nintendo has a thing going on where if you register a 3ds XL and Luigi's mansion/the pokemon spinoff game you'll get one of 5 games, 3d land included, free to download.

Only got Fire Emblem so far but the deal is good until the 30th of April so I figure I'll probably get Luigi's mansion before then.

For a portable for me, it's got to be more than just the games. I need a place/time when it makes more sense to play portables than console/PC games. For me, I use my 3DS while watching TV with my wife. Sure, I use it in PAX lines and it's great, but that is 3 days out of the whole year and not enough to justify the expense.

My guesses for the most common portable uses are:

• Couch Time
• Public Transport
• Lunch Breaks at work

Luigi's Mansion 2 is pretty great...

@irishdoom: Do you have a commute on public transportation?

If not, I'd say its more of a gadget lust thing. The portable games, especially the ones that have more depth on vita/3ds, work a lot better when you have long dedicated stretches where you must be on a portable. Otherwise, you are unlikely to use it when you having options with a bit more power behind them. Unless you've burned through all of the games you would want to play on stationary systems maybe - like JRPG fanatic with tons of time?

I did a DS awhile ago because of that. But it really does not hold up for playing in short breaks. And at home.... I'm not going to play a tiny handheld with awkward to press controls when I have so many unplayed games on consoles/pc/tablet.

I caved in and bought a 3DSXL, but there just isn't much out for it. If you're into pokemon and random crap, I guess it's great, but meh. I'm willing to spend money on some games, but the only things I've found worth dropping $40 (!!!) or more on is Fire Emblem and Etrian Odyssey IV.

Then again, I've had a DSi for a long time. And a DS before that. And I bought more than 100 DS games almost a year ago and have literally played less than four hours, total, since a year ago. I'm lame.

I'm waiting for pokemanz, but fire emblem and the newly released Luigi's Mansion are pretty tempting. If you're fine with the price then go ahead and buy one, if you're waiting for a price drop that's possibly lower than that deal like me, then I'm sure there'll be one by the end of the year.

It will be most useful for me when I'm on the couch with the wife at night, where I can't turn on the Xbox or go play my PC. I also intend to bring it with me to work for my lunch breaks.

I broke my 3DS in two yesterday because every fucking time I want to play something on it the battery seems to be low (it works properly, just that I play games in long streches and that pos doesnt hold for too long). Last time I played it was in march last year, and last week I finally turned it on again to play monster hunter 3 demo and guess what, the fucking battery was low.

Fuck that garbage, never buying another one, I barely played it anyway and the only game I bought it for (resident evil revelations) is now coming to PC and consoles.

I tried to sell it multiple times in the following months after I bought it but no one would give me more then $50 for it.