New 3DS XL

If you follow me on Twitter or read my New Leaf blog, you probably know that my 3DS XL has been falling apart and I was in need of a new system. Even though I was tempted to get another 3DS XL, I decided to upgrade to the New 3DS XL instead. This way, I won’t have to buy the separate NFC Reader for the Amiibo cards in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. Also, I’ll be ready for any future games that will only work on the New 3DS.

I got a red one, and it’s a nice, shiny red. (The picture below doesn’t do the shininess justice). The bad thing is that fingerprints show up on it quite easily. The system has improved 3D abilities, although I rarely use the 3D functions anyway. Some of the buttons have been moved to different locations, as have the volume slider, cartridge slot, and stylus slot. I think I’m going to be reaching for things that aren’t there, for a while at least. The stylus itself is shorter and thicker than the previous one, and I don’t care for the change. I think I may continue using my old stylus most of the time, at least when I’m at home.

Red New 3DS XLWhile it may be a temporary inconvenience to have buttons in different places, some things are gone completely–such as the wireless switch. It allowed you to immediately cut off all wireless communication to save battery power when you’re not playing online or going out for StreetPasses. It was also helpful in games like Animal Crossing: New Leaf: If someone was causing damage to your town or stealing items from you, you could cut the connection to preserve your town/items by reverting to the previous save.

Another change is that you need to use a tiny screwdriver to remove the MicroSD card. And then you’ll likely need an adapter to use the MicroSD card in a regular SD card slot on your computer. But fortunately, there is a way to move files wirelessly. It took me a little while to get it set up correctly, but I did figure it out.

Red New 3DS XLI’m hoping this New 3DS XL proves to be more durable than my regular 3DS XL, but I’m going to try being extra careful with it regardless. Portable or not, a video game system should not need to be replaced after 2.5 years. While I’ll still take this system out to get StreetPasses, I may skip taking it to amusement parks. It has the potential to take more abuse there, even though that was one of my best places to actually get StreetPass hits.

I performed my system transfer wirelessly yesterday, and it took about 2.5 hours. There is a faster option that lets you move files from your SD card to your computer, and then to your microSD card, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find a MicroSD card adapter. I think I have one somewhere, but I’m not sure where it is. But everything transferred over smoothly, with all of my data intact, so I’m happy about that.

I am enjoying my new New 3DS XL, and it’s nice to play games without having to literally hold up the top screen. I was a bit surprised that the New 3DS didn’t come with any new apps or anything fun to play around with, but it’s a big relief just to have a fully working system once again.

Super Mario 3D World – World Crown

I’ve been playing a lot of Splatoon lately…so much that it’s kept me from completing the last world in Super Mario 3D World: World Crown. But I made it a priority to finish it off recently. And it definitely wasn’t easy, but I did it. While the previous two worlds didn’t have stamps in the levels, they returned for World Crown. This world only has three levels, but don’t be fooled. It provides a monster challenge and will probably take longer to complete than any previous world.

World Crown-Toad: Captain Toad’s Fiery Finale is the last (and most challenging) Toad level. A piranha plant near the center of the level will constantly shoot fireballs at you as you navigate across floating platforms above rising (and falling) lava. Some of the platforms are the kind that require you to blow into the gamepad microphone…as you’re rotating the camera and avoiding fireballs. This is quite a tricky level…but it’s nothing compared to what’s to come.

sm3dw-ctWorld Crown-Cube: Mystery House Marathon is set up like other previous “Cube” levels. You are presented with a series of short challenges (with 10 seconds to complete each one), and they are presented in rapid-fire succession. If you die or fail to collect a star before time runs out, you must start all over. And unlike previous Cube levels, this one has a whopping 30 challenges with 30 stars up for grabs. Some of the challenges are easy, some are hard, and many others only seem difficult until you figure out what to do. But doing everything in one go is what makes this level a beast. Lots of trial-and-error is required, and it took me many hours to clear this stage.

World Crown-Crown: Champion’s Road is the granddaddy of all challenges. This is the most difficult level in the game, and it has to be one of the most challenging Mario levels ever. It starts out with a platforming section, where you have to avoid cannonballs being spit out by enemies. There are also Fire Brothers and Chargin’ Chucks to contend with. You then warp to a section where you have to climb a bunch of beat blocks, which constantly alternate. Peach’s float move comes in handy here, but it’s still quite a challenge.

After an area with Magikoopas and blocks that fall when you stand on them, there is a section where you have to maneuver around swinging spiky cylinders while watching out for fuzzies. You then have to scale a wall by wall-jumping and bouncing off of enemies. A spring board gets you started, but this section is extremely difficult if you don’t have a cat suit.

Clear all of that, and you’re taken to a high-speed area where you have to run and jump across speed boosts, while avoiding pulsing rings of electricity. If you can collect five keys and make it to the warp box, you’ve survived the worst of it. You have to go through a series of transparent pipes that spell out “THANK YOU.” They’re not hard, but it takes some time to go through them, so you’ll need ample time remaining.

By the way, this level has no checkpoints. Die anywhere and it’s back to the very beginning. Each section is challenging and requires lots of practice. I don’t know how many hours I put into this level, or how many times I died here. But I’m sure my death count is easily in the triple-digit range. This level is brutal.

What a huge relief to get that done with. Looking at the stamps screen, I saw that I had all of the regular stamps. The only ones I didn’t have are the large character stamps you get for completing *every* level with that character. Since I’ve been using Peach for most of the game, I saw that I only needed to complete about a dozen more levels/mini-bosses to complete everything with her. Most of those were in earlier worlds (before I switched to Peach permanently), so it wasn’t very hard to do. That earned me the large Peach stamp.

As for the others, let’s just say I don’t need the stamps that bad. Asking players to replay a game with four other characters to unlock trivial things such as stamps is a cheap way of artificially lengthening a game in my opinion. And I am so done with World Crown that I have no interest in playing it again anytime soon.

But don’t let my negative opinion of World Crown deter you from playing Super Mario 3D World, though. Overall, I’ve enjoyed Super Mario 3D World quite a bit. Stay tuned for my review in the near future. Update: The review is here.

Splatoon Get-Together #1

Last night, I held my first Splatoon get-together. While I’ve been playing Splatoon online on most nights lately, this was the first one that I’ve announced ahead of time on Twitter and Facebook. Three of my Wii U friends joined in: Qwerty (Nintendude), Meli, and DaBraxMan. The other spots were filled by random players, of course. For those who don’t know, Splatoon doesn’t allow you to open private lobbies just for your friends.

Here’s a lovely group photo of me, Meli, DaBraxMan, and a guy named David.

Freaky squids turning into inklings.The night’s levels were Bluefin Depot and Blackbelly Skatepark. I don’t think I’ve played on Blackbelly Skatepark much before last night. I don’t care for it too much, but maybe it will grow on me eventually. I’m not a fan of the two-levels-per-four-hours thing either; it’s not unusual to do the same stages five or six times in a row.

Still, playing online turf wars is ridiculously fun and addictive. I lost more battles than I won tonight, but I had a great time. Despite the game’s flaws, Splatoon is probably my favorite online Nintendo game since Mario Kart Wii. It’s rare for a game to keep me playing for hours at a time, and coming back nearly every day.

Splatoon gameplay screenshot from Blackbelly Skatepark.Here is a video showing three of last night’s battles. At the end of the first battle, my Kraken got lifted up into the inkstrike tornado. I thought that was kind of funny.

I reached level 19 during last night’s battles, just one level short of the maximum. I’ll probably hit level 20 at some point this weekend. As for the game’s story mode, I completed it about two weeks ago. It’s very enjoyable too, but it’s shorter than I would have liked. I don’t recommend Splatoon to anyone who isn’t going to play the game online…at least not at full price. The bulk of the content is online-only. If you haven’t seen my video showing the first three levels of the story mode, you can see it here.

I’ll be having more Splatoon videos in the future, and I’ll also have my review coming up in the not-too-distant future.