Help me build up my digital 3DS library

I had largely ignored the 3DS last gen, but the eshop closure has motivated me to go back in and fill in any gaps I'm missing. I know you can still get funds into the 3DS with a linked account, but I'd rather go through now and add stuff while you can still add cards as well. I don't really need anything that has a physical copy at the moment, as I don't mind paying a bit extra a few years down the line if I find something I really want.

I'm more looking for good eshop only games, or games with DLC that likely won't be available by March.

So far I've picked up:
Both Phoenix Wright games (no DLC yet - do I need to beat the game to buy them?)
Boxboy trilogy
Pushmo/Crashmo/Stretchmo (no DLC on Stretch which sounds like the entire game)
Liberation Maiden
Aero Porter
Pokemon Picross
Pocket Card Jockey

What are some other good ones I'm missing? Thanks for any help - you are all the very best. Unless you're not helpful. Then you're the WORST.

100% get the case DLC for Dual Destinies. Spirit of Justice is less important.

Theatrhythm Curtain Call has some great song DLC, but getting it all would be pretty expensive.

Super Kirby Clash
Kirby's Blowout Blast

You should be able to buy the DLC cases without beating the game, I'm pretty sure.

The DLC for DD and SoJ should be able to be purchased without needing to play the game, so I'm not sure why you wouldn't be able to find them.

Yeah, sorry if I wasn't clear there. I could not find them on the 3DS eshop. I wasn't sure if I had to beat the game or something but after looking into it, it looks like most if not all DLC for the 3DS has to be bought through the game itself. I should be able to access both though just by getting to the main menu, so that isn't an issue.

My fault for not knowing much about the 3DS, honestly.

Thanks for the recommendations so far!

Attack of the Friday Monsters
Gunman Clive 1 and 2
Witch and Hero 1-3
Pokmon Rumble World
Any and all Kirby games

If you have the game Fantasy Life, it has a large DLC story that you should get too.

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

Yeah, sorry if I wasn't clear there. I could not find them on the 3DS eshop. I wasn't sure if I had to beat the game or something but after looking into it, it looks like most if not all DLC for the 3DS has to be bought through the game itself. I should be able to access both though just by getting to the main menu, so that isn't an issue.

My fault for not knowing much about the 3DS, honestly.

Thanks for the recommendations so far!

You will be able to find them when you boot them I think

You need a save in both PW games to get the DLC, but you don't need to beat the case or game or anything like that.

Culdcept Revolt.

Yeah, you can play the DLC case after you finish the first case (although it's generally not recommended).

besides Liberation Maiden and Aero Porter, you really should consider the rest of the Guild01 and Guild02 titles too! I'm personally a fan of Attack of the Friday Monsters, and Weapon Shop de Omasse and The Starship Damrey are alright too imo

additionally, I'd like to throw in a mention or two for a few other eshop exclusives.

Apollo Justice's enhanced port is the definitive way to experience it if you didn't already fwiw.

They're rather hit or miss with mediocre translations but the Parascientific Escape series are decent enough pseudo-clones of Zero Escape. also most other games published by circle entertainment are generally pretty decent too, and quite cheap.

Sayonara Umihara Kawase aka. Yumi's Odd Odyssey on 3DS is overpriced as heck but good (there isn't really much reason to pick it over the vita or pc versions but hey).

Oh and if you liked liberation maiden, Iron Combat: War in the Air (or Rinkou no Lantse) is alright too. The devs of that also had a cute if barebones virtual on clone too but that wasn't localised unfortunately...

besides that, i guess there are some okay simulation games out there that are fairly cheap, mostly train sims

and yeah also seconding stuff like culdcept and any kirbies

Highly recommend Mega Man V (GB) on the 3DS Virtual Console. It's like $5 and it's better than half the NES titles.

Two survivor horror games that are digital-only:

• Dementium Remastered (DS version is physical but not the 3DS remaster)
• Silver Falls 3 Down Stars (requires a New 3DS to play)

Here are a few others:

• Dillon's Rolling Western
• Nano Assault EX
• Fire Emblem Fates Revelations (unless you have $800 to spend on FE Fates Special Edition)
• 3D Classics Kid Icarus
• 3D Classics Kirby's Adventure

Also, if you have any interest in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, get it digital because the physical versions are notorious for having a game-corrupting bug. Atlus has the game on sale for $10 every few months, so keep an eye out for a sale unless you're okay paying $20.

PrinceOfKoopas posted...

Culdcept Revolt.

This is available in physical, currently around $60.

UF8 posted...

Apollo Justice's enhanced port is the definitive way to experience it if you didn't already fwiw.

Why is this

Culdcept Revolt has some DLC. Most of it is cosmetic, but two of them are quest/match dlc. I don't think they're important story wise and there's a ton of matches anyway, but one of them has its uses if you're trying to get some of the ingame achievements since it's more of an endurance match with a high point requirement for winning.

anyway, some more digital exclusives that I can think of:

Rhythm Heaven Megamix
Harmoknight
Picross 3d Round 2
Inazuma Eleven

might as well pick up the rest of the guild games if you get a chance, but I'd say the one left that's most worth getting is Crimson Shroud followed by Friday Monsters. Bugs vs. Tanks is pretty mediocre, and the starship one doesn't have any replay value (I never got around to playing the weapons shop one since it came out so much later than the others)

notable DSiware titles I can think of:
Spin Six
Art Style series (although I've only played Pictobits)
Number Battle (though I've only recently started it)
X-scape (though I haven't played it yet)

some of the SEGA 3D classics are worth getting: OutRun, Streets of Rage 2, Space Harrier, After Burner 2, maybe Sonic and Sonic 2 if you especially like those games

for DSiware, there's Dragon Quest Wars. It's not very good but if you really like Dragon Quest, it's at least something you'll never get another chance to have.

Fantasy Life DLC is essential if you have any interest in the game at all. Adds so many hours to the game.

Crescent-Moon posted...

Why is this

just a lot of small quality of life stuff, also the 3D is actually surprisingly good (subjective i know)

I don't use the 3D part of it anyway. I find it completely messes up my eyes.

yeah i really don't like 3D in a ton of 3DS games at all (every real 3D ace attorney game especially included) though it really shocked me there

Also seconding X-Scape which was mentioned on the dsiware front, there is so much good dsiware stuff out there though i'm personally not up to date on what's still there on the 3ds eshop nowadays (and there's no guarantee it's the same across regions anyway...) but that one I'm pretty confident about and it's worth it for sure (even if probably more for its historical noteworthiness than not)

I think it's on other platforms these days but Dark Void Zero is definitely a must pick up too

And a few others I kinda liked included Crystal Monsters (mediocre mobile game port pokemon clone with shadow hearts battle system) and AlphaBounce (a brick breaker that's also an rpg i guess). I think the states at least used to have some more escape type games from the devs of Parascientific Escape though that's one of those kinds of things I have no idea if it's still there on 3ds now for obvious reasons (damn region locking). They were under an "Escape Trick" series iirc?

a few more things i just thought about

Moco Moco Friends is a... well, relatively overpriced jrpg that i think is fairly cheap relatively compared to most of the full price releases anyway so idk maybe to also consider

Virtual Console has some neat stuff i guess like the gen 1 and 2 pokemans had online or something iirc, there was also some weird exclusive stuff like Murasame Castle and Summer Carnival 92 Recca (maybe first bullet hell). there's also just kinda rare stuff too like one of the Shining Force game gear games or the Legend of the River King gbc titles (fishing games with some light jrpg battle elements on the side worth the low price of admission imo)

I know you clarified you weren't looking for ones with physicals but i figured i'd add that stuff like Etrian Odyssey titles are dirt cheap in half of its cases (also megaten stuff) and all of those are already hell to get physically. This applies to 7th Dragon III too (and also Radiant Historia's enhanced ver).

Also I nearly forgot but Chase Cold Case Investigations is even cheaper (and actually eshop only)

Also also it's jank as heck and I haven't personally played it since it's also not available in my region (why did australasia miss out on a huge chunk of even the stuff europe got ugh) but Family Kart 3D is... a vastly inferior kart racer to MK7 and even Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed (which is quite not good on 3ds tbh) but not the worst out there probably and definitely on the very low end price-wise

Also also also I completely didn't even know it was a thing until right now but I guess arcsys made some other eshop racer that wasn't released in pal regions called VectorRacing too huh no idea if that's any good (it's also very cheap though)

Wow thanks for all the recommendations so far! Out of curiosity, is it ok to swap out to a second memory card? I just filled up the relatively small one I had before since I wasn't really downloading games. I bought a much bigger one but I can't find a clear answer if it is safe to store all these on a second card particularly if I'm not going to be swapping back and forth until I finish all the games on the first one. I could just download everything to the second card, I guess, but that sounds like a bit of a pain and I'm lazy.

Ok, so summarizing things for me mostly to look back on.

Games I purchased:
Gunman Clive 1/2
Pokemon Rumble World
Attack of the Friday Monsters
The "Denpa" Men They Came By Wave
Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe

Games I plan on purchasing:
DLC for the two PW games
DLC for Fantasy Life
DLC for Theatrhythm
Kirby's Birthday Bash!
Weapon Shop de Omasse
The Starship Damrey
Parascientific Escape series
Dementium Remastered
Silver Falls - 3 Down Stars
Dillon's Rolling Western (and sequels)
Rhythm Heaven Megamix
Harmoknight
Inazuma Eleven

Unsure:
Witch and Hero 1-3 (Looks like these are all on the Switch, too, so not super urgent for me)
Fire Emblem Fates Revelations (Is this DLC? Couldn't find it on the store. I do own Conquest already but it is currently sitting unopened on my shelf)
Persona Q (I'll look into the bug, thanks! I do actually own this physically already but hadn't heard anything about a game breaking bug when I bought it. Oops. Not sure I want to buy it again.)
Picross 3d Round 2 (Not entirely sure I really want/need a picross game unless there's something special about it)
Spin Six/Art Style series/Number Battle/X-scape (None of these looked super notable to me but I was just checking quickly. Might get X-Scape actually since it had another recommendation here)
Dragon Quest Wars (The post here was basically "eh it kinda sucks" so not really sure I need this one haha)
Dark Void Zero - I'm almost positive I already have this but I need to go check
Crystal Monsters/Alphabounce - Recommendation was kinda tepid
Moco Moco Friends - It has a physical copy but not sure I would want to shell out $250+ for a game that I hear isn't all that great

Probably Not/Need More Info:
Super Kirby Clash (This is a Switch game, I think)
Culdcept Revolt (Physical copies available)
Apollo Justice (Have this game on DS; unless it is a major upgrade I probably don't need it again)
Sayonara Umihara Kawase (Own for Vita)
Iron Combat (I might be blind or this was delisted because I couldn't find it)
Mega Man V (I think I already have this in a couple of compilations)
3D Classics Kid Icarus/Kirby (Is there really a reason to get these? I've never been a huge fan of the 3D functionality in the first place and I have both of these on other consoles)
OutRun, Streets of Rage 2, Space Harrier, After Burner 2, Sonic and Sonic 2 (Again, is there anything special/notable about these? I have all of these already on other systems)

Thanks again everyone! This was super helpful and I already found a bunch of interesting games I've never heard of.

oh i completely didn't realise moco moco friends had a physical release in the us lol, guess that explains its weird pricing...

i consider alphabounce good though i only just learned recently it was a port of a browser game so it's difficult to recommend it thaaaat strongly. crystal monsters also is just a little bit hit or miss, i think it's still one of the better pokemon clones out there though

oh yeah and i might as well add for chase cold case investigations that admittedly i haven't gotten around to it myself yet but it's kind of a spiritual successor to hotel dusk and last window i suppose? it's also sub $10 and eshop only so it's more than worth considering probably

thirdly to clarify for x-scape it's a sequel to the cool 3D gameboy game X that was a precursor to star fox. i personally like the original more than it since it was insanely advanced for its hardware and x-scape definitely isn't, but it's a good followup to it

lastly i neglected to add that the reason i brought up family kart 3d was because while it was a budget title, it also seemed like a mario kart 64 clone so that's cool

and yeah iirc it's fine to switch sd cards no problem, it's not like vita memory cards

Yeah I don't remember upgrading my SD card being much of a hassle

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

Picross 3d Round 2 (Not entirely sure I really want/need a picross game unless there's something special about it)

This one's a lot of fun imo; the third dimension of the puzzles adds a lot

UF8 posted...

oh yeah and i might as well add for chase cold case investigations that admittedly i haven't gotten around to it myself yet but it's kind of a spiritual successor to hotel dusk and last window i suppose? it's also sub $10 and eshop only so it's more than worth considering probably

hard anti-rec to this

it's like 2 hours long and very very bad

oh well fair enough i guess

I remember i only got it because it was a free reward somewhere a few years ago so i didn't know much about it

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

Super Kirby Clash (This is a Switch game, I think)

Welp I'm dumb, I meant Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, which came out in 2017. Super Kirby Clash is the Switch sequel which came out in 2019.

That being said, if you've either played SKC or plan on playing it later, you don't really need to play TKCD. While SKC is the better of the two, the gameplay experience is nearly identical, with the sequel basically just being a larger game with more levels and more gear (to be clear, it is all new content, it's not a 3DS port). But TKCD is somewhat obsolete to play after 2019, where the only reason to continue playing it is "you really like the Kirby Clash series and want even more levels to play" (I'm probably the biggest Kirby Clash fan on this board and I haven't touched the former since the latter came out).

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

Wow thanks for all the recommendations so far! Out of curiosity, is it ok to swap out to a second memory card? I just filled up the relatively small one I had before since I wasn't really downloading games. I bought a much bigger one but I can't find a clear answer if it is safe to store all these on a second card particularly if I'm not going to be swapping back and forth until I finish all the games on the first one. I could just download everything to the second card, I guess, but that sounds like a bit of a pain and I'm lazy.

I transferred all my stuff to a larger SD card. It's super easy. Basically just use a computer to copy everything from the original card to your PC desktop, then insert your new card and paste your stuff onto there. Insert the new card into your 3DS and you're done.

Unsure:
Fire Emblem Fates Revelations (Is this DLC? Couldn't find it on the store. I do own Conquest already but it is currently sitting unopened on my shelf)

I believe you have to buy Revelations through Conquest rather than through the eShop. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Probably Not/Need More Info:
Mega Man V (I think I already have this in a couple of compilations)

MMV (Gameboy) is different from MM5 (NES). In MMV you fight Robot Masters named after planets and instead of having charge shot, you get to launch Mega Man's arm to attack, grab distant items, etc. V has never appeared in a compilation as far as I know.

You do not own Mega Man V in any compilation as it has never been included in one. It was supposed to be in one on the GBA but it was canceled

Oh wow, thanks for the clarification. I absolutely did not look into it closely enough and was getting it confused with 5. Ill add that to the to get pile.

The biggest novelty of 3D Classics Kirby's Adventure (and probably most/all NES games, although I haven't tried others) is being able to experience the original game in a flawless framerate, without any of the notorious NES lag. But you'd have to already be a fan of the original game to be able to both recognize and appreciate that change.

what free to play titles are worth playing/paying for anyway? I already unlocked everything in Pokemon Picross (without paying anything), and I've put in almost 200 hours in Pokemon Shuffle this year (again without paying for anything). Not super interested in Rusty's Real Deal Baseball since I'm not into sports, and Strechmo is more of a demo than a free to play (and I plan on buying it anyway).

So Boxboy was great. No clue how I hadn't even heard of this one before. I was going to say early on that it was an almost perfect example of an indie platformer, but then I saw it was HAL that developed it so no wonder it was so good.

Nintendo Badge Arcade is significantly less good and feels borderline criminal. Probably just gonna delete that even though it was free.

Mr_Crispy posted...

what free to play titles are worth playing/paying for anyway? I already unlocked everything in Pokemon Picross (without paying anything), and I've put in almost 200 hours in Pokemon Shuffle this year (again without paying for anything). Not super interested in Rusty's Real Deal Baseball since I'm not into sports, and Strechmo is more of a demo than a free to play (and I plan on buying it anyway).

Pokemon Picross is the other game I started, and I'm not entirely sure how to go about not paying for anything. I've already run out of the picrates to open up new areas and caught everything that I could catch. Only getting like 6 picrates at a time and these new levels are all 100+ to open up. The only other source of picrates I see is the daily challenge, but there I'm only getting like 8 at a time or so too.

I don't mind spending $10 to $15 or so because I like picross and there seems to be a lot of puzzles here, but I don't want to drop money if it is going to be a huge investment later on to unlock levels. I don't mind the forced waiting mechanic because I really only want to play a couple of picross puzzles at a time anyway, but I don't want to be stuck farming picrates for weeks just to get to the next area.

-hotdogturtle-- posted...

The biggest novelty of 3D Classics Kirby's Adventure (and probably most/all NES games, although I haven't tried others) is being able to experience the original game in a flawless framerate, without any of the notorious NES lag. But you'd have to already be a fan of the original game to be able to both recognize and appreciate that change.

Ok, awesome, thanks for that. I'm not a huge enough fan of any of these to drop more money on them so that is good to know. I do like Kirby's Adventure quite a bit, but honestly the version on my NES classic is fine.

3D Classics Kid Icarus changes up things a bit more IIRC, in that it adds backgrounds to what were just blank black areas in previous versions.

you basically have to start Pokemon Picross each day and do the training puzzles. You get a small amount of currency this way, once each day. It would take playing every day for about a year to get everything this way, though.

for maximum efficiency, you should focus on unlocking new areas first. upgrading the stamina gauge and expanding the number of slots is kind of a beginner's trap, stamina's useless if you aren't going to do more than a couple puzzles a day, and you probably don't need to upgrade the number of slots until you actually need them. And no sense in unlocking the mega picross puzzles until later, since it's tied to your progress in the regular puzzles.

I think I heard that if you buy 30 dollars worth of currency, they just go ahead and give you infinite currency. (However, that's enough to buy a couple of the picross e games, or Picross 3d round 2)

My friend, may I make a suggestion

https://twitter.com/_gamexdata/status/1563305438971437062?s=21&t=e2kJNAzoTRtIQQC4iyAsdQ

Unless it was patched, there was also an exploit to use the 3DS clock to bypass the wait or something in Pokemon Picross, making the entire thing playable in a relatively timely manner.

mnk posted...

Unless it was patched, there was also an exploit to use the 3DS clock to bypass the wait or something in Pokemon Picross, making the entire thing playable in a relatively timely manner.

The glitch I knew of required you to change the clock, play the daily "workout" thing, earn Picrate and repeat

This takes so much time to farm enough to beat the game that at the end I questioned if it was ever worth my time. In one hour of real life work I can purchase "the game" and the farming thing probably took me 5-6 hours or..more...who knows :|
But yeah it's a matter of principle

plasmabeam posted...

Unsure:
Fire Emblem Fates Revelations (Is this DLC? Couldn't find it on the store. I do own Conquest already but it is currently sitting unopened on my shelf)

I believe you have to buy Revelations through Conquest rather than through the eShop. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

As someone who is also VC'ing while he can, I'd love a clarification on this. There's Conquest, Birthright and Revelations? Conquest and Birthright are physical games? Fates is the digital version, but then you play through chapter 6 where you get the option to choose either storyline as DLC? What would be the best/most cost-effective way to get these titles? (sorry for the hijack).

Re: Fates:

Purchase one of either Birthright or Conquest. Play through CH.6(Branch of Fate). The Dragon's Gate( in-game DLC shop) will then become available. Buy Conquest/Birthright and Revelations from there. Originally because BR/CQ were $40, you would pay in total $80 for all three paths(40+20+20). You could probably get either BR/CQ cheap now so it would only be *price of BR/CQ*+20+20.

Technically, Birthright and Conquest can stand alone as individual games. So it's not an "immediate necessity" if you don't want the opposing path. Revelations is meant to function as a "golden route." Seeing the story from all angles and seeing the "hidden plot points" come together, alongside getting the largest playable cast is the main appeal of having all three games.

Additionally, Re: Fates:

The DLC "Hidden Truths" provides a look at how the "primary antagonistic force" of Fates reached that point. Also shows how fan favorites arrived in the world of Fates and WHY. Also also, shows very compelling plot notes that only the player(not the MC) is meant to know.

Heirs of Fate is praised for it's well-done, uniquely told story. Does not directly impact the main story of Fates.

After that, the other DLC is fun, easygoing DLC. EXP, Gold, Items/Weapons and so on.

RyoCaliente posted...

As someone who is also VC'ing while he can, I'd love a clarification on this. There's Conquest, Birthright and Revelations? Conquest and Birthright are physical games? Fates is the digital version, but then you play through chapter 6 where you get the option to choose either storyline as DLC? What would be the best/most cost-effective way to get these titles? (sorry for the hijack).

well, I think for digital you could buy either the Birthrights and Conquest version, or yes there's a generic version where you can play up to the route split where it connects you to the eshop to buy a route.

The first route you buy between Birthright and Conquest would be $39.99 (whether you buy it physical or digital), then the other route would be $19.99 and the third option Revelations route would be another $19.99.

The only way to get a physical version with Revelations would be to buy the limited edition with all three routes on cart... but that only had a limited number of copies printed and is in high demand so it would cost you several hundred dollars at this point and will probably only go up.

for dlc, there's a $17.99 map pack and a $7.99 map pack that between the two has all the DLC content. Most of it is grinding stuff though (and I can't really say what goes to what offhand and is worth buying offhand). There's a couple of freebie ones to give you a taste.

While we are on this subject, anything important on the Wii U eshop?

There's Pushmo World, I guess. I think I heard positive things about Affordable Space Adventures and Fast Racing Neo at some point, but haven't played it.

Probably should make sure that you download the free Xenoblade Chronicles X texture packs to improve loading at some point.

Some of the VC games have changes to them. Super Mario Advance 4 has all the e-reader levels included (which isn't even possible with the original cart since you could only have so many saved at once). Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon has wifi shop items available offline. The Animal Crossing DS game apparently removed the wifi requirements for some items or whatever. The Mega Man Battle Network games also have some of the multiplayer only chips available or something (though the upcoming collection might have a solution too).

i tried ASA for about an hour one time, it's strictly a couch co-op experience so if you don't have folks around willing to play it's not really worth it i feel. the presentation is hit or miss too

fast racing neo is a top tier indie racing game that has mostly been superceded by fast rmx on switch (there are notable difference but all the stages it has are in rmx including the dlc ones...)

the vc distinction on select games is pretty interesting though it's also kinda important to note that there's also a lack of multiplayer features on some of them...

also in any case i feel even less prepared to discuss what to get on wii u overall since i think nz missed an even larger chunk of the library (percentage-wise) than on 3ds...

DAWN OF THE FINAL DAY

Any last minute suggestions? I plan on leaving an extra $100 or so on the shop to pick up the DLC and any other games I might miss but hoping to fill up as much as possible today?

And are there any other games I need to actually start playing before March to make sure I can access the DLC? Sounds like Phoenix Wright and Stretchmo I basically just need to get to the title screen to get to the DLC but Fire Emblem I actually need to play some of. Any other games like that?

LiquidOshawott posted...

While we are on this subject, anything important on the Wii U eshop?

I also second the recommendation for Pushmo World. The NES Remix games were a lot of fun too but I think the compilation includes everything and that has a physical release.

I did check for Wii U and 3ds games before I made this topic and the general consensus seemed to be not that much on Wii U and a bunch on the 3ds which is why I asked here for more 3ds recommendations haha.