Friday my new 3DS with Animal Crossing: Happy Home designers arrived and I couldn’t be more thrilled.
I already had a 3DS but it was the very first model (I got it on sale somewhere) and I started to notice very much that it was beginning to get outdated. Being slow, 3D actually giving me more of a headache than fun… So when I saw the Animal Crossing bundle I went ahead and ordered it. I also switched from a regular 3DS to an XL one and boy, can I notice the difference!
The new 3DS has something called superstable 3D which means that it doesn’t matter from what angle you look at the screen, it will stay 3D, something I thoroughly enjoy. The screen size is also a huge difference to me, I’ve always been used to staring at relatively small screens and this device is rather large. It’s giving me a much more relaxed gaming experience though, I don’t have to pinch my eyes at certain stuff… And it’s easier for me to just sit back and enjoy gaming on a bigger screen.
Not saying the smaller 3DS is bad, but right now I just enjoy the XL way more.
Transferring data
Over the years I have downloaded some games on my 3DS and built up a lot of save games. The cool thing that Nintendo lets you do is transfer data from one 3DS to another. There’s a few catches with this though. It will format the 3DS where the data is transferred from seeing as you can only have one 3DS attached to a Nintendo Network ID (which you need to purchase stuff from the e-shop nowadays). I was a bit hesitant to do the data transfer, since I was scared I would lose my preinstalled game but that wasn’t an issue so I went ahead and did the transfer. The total process took about 30 mins but now I have all my save games and downloaded games on the new 3DS and I can just continue with stuff on there!
This leaves me with a formatted handheld though and I’m not sure what I want to do with it. I am a bit of a collector and I’ve kept all my old Gameboys… So I think I’ll just hold on to it for the time being. Maybe I’ll trade it in at some point for credit at my favourite game store, but this is something to worry about for the future.
Playing Interior Designer
So far I’ve enjoyed the game that came preinstalled with my handheld. Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. The name actually says all that is to the game, you are an interior (and later) exterior designer. You get a request from a customer and it’s your job to fulfill it the best you can. For instance my latest client wanted a room that was completely black and white. Another one wanted a room where she would be “surrounded by books”. You can decorate the room with wallpaper and flooring, furniture, rugs and things to hang on the walls. Every time you open up a new client new furniture and other things get added to the catalogue you get to choose from. With the tools provided you can make some really cool designs and you can also share your designs with others via Miiverse.
There’s only one catch to designing. All of your clients have some furniture already present that they want to keep, so it’s up to you to make sure that furniture fits in the final design.
So far designing rooms has been fairly simple but I assume things start to get more challenging along the way.
As the game progresses you get more and bigger tasks while you are also supposed to stay in touch with the client list you have built up… Regardless it’s a very nice relaxing game to play and, unlike New Leaf, it doesn’t seem to punish you when you don’t play it for a few days.
A nice addition to the game is the amiibo cards you can get for it. All the amiibo cards contain one character to unlock that is otherwise not (or difficult to find) found within the game. I got one card with my game, which I haven’t been able to use yet. Apparently you unlock this feature as you go so I’ll find out soon enough.
For now I find this game a nice little distraction. I can play it for 15-20 mins, decorate a house, visit some clients and then shut it down again. It’s small, simple and enjoyable and it’s getting me back into handheld gaming again.
I also made a new game in Kingdom Hearts 3D (Dream Drop Distance) since I for the life of me couldn’t remember where I was. The game looks so incredibly good with bigger screens and more stable 3D so I’m looking very much forward to playing through it entirely. I predict a more handheld focused gaming month for me…