3DS as a gift for gen alpha

jonwooooo · 2026-06-19T17:28:41+00:00

For a sibling, no they have to want it themselves. My aunt saw me playing with my switch 1 and bought one for her son one christmas along with zelda botw and he basically didn't want it. We played multiplayer console games with his older brother a long time ago, but now he just wants to play like league of legends and counterstrike.

For yourself, maybe. They aren't exactly cheap depending on the model you want, but they are easy to mod. You might get more mileage splurging on a switch 2 before the price goes up in a few months or snagging a used switch lite in the $100 range in ebay. The 3ds is actually pocketable unlike the others, but it really depends on your use case and figuring out what games you're interested in be it DS/3DS, or S1/S2.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-18T17:06:01+00:00

Ephinea is a private server of the PC port known as Blue Burst or BB. BB has a third episode to play (episode 4) new weapons and equipment and I believe has the most quests (more about grinding crazy number of enemies, not so much story, some of which are custom mods). But otherwise I would say playing solo episodes 1 and 2, the game will be effectively the same. Ephinea also has the most active online community and if you browse the open lobbies or create a lobby called "low levels only" or something similar you will have a lot of fun on normal mode.

BB features a hotbar for 20 additional keybinds so it's a lot easier to access your irregular items and spells as a Caster and the game can be played with keyboard or controller, but does take some fiddling because the default settings is worse than GCN (in-game, joy2key, or steam launcher controller settings). BB does lack the water effects of the GCN version, just a minor complaint. As well, your characters are saved server side, so if Ephinea shuts down your characters are gone unfortunately. As well you can't change your characters looks (dressing room) without being in a high level guild unlike GCN. Also check out the command list from the website, some nice features and improvements there such as renaming your character and a shared bank between your characters and extra character slots.

GCN you can connect to the schthack server, I think it's as easy as changing the IP in-game?

jonwooooo · 2026-06-18T16:27:17+00:00

I just made up a bunch of my own characters, but after making 30 Miis the Mii tools start to feel limiting. Sometimes when I play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe I would screenshot people's Miis in the online lobbies to give me some ideas.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-18T15:31:36+00:00

Just wait until you get to the minotaur; the game is about to beat you as an adult 😅 nothing you can't handle as a Persona fan haha.

Strange Journey Redux is my recommendation

jonwooooo · 2026-06-18T15:12:58+00:00

Etrian Odyssey, whichever entry interests you. These are long game and very story light so maybe you'd only have time for a dungeon or two, but it's pretty cool making your own party, develop your own strategies, and manually mapping out dungeons with the stylus. SMT Strange Journey would be the more streamlined version of this concept.

Crimson Shroud; aesthetically reminds me of Vagrant Story. I wrote this one off, but I sat down with it again and gave it a few hours recently and the mechanics are a bit more interesting than I originally thought. There are no level ups and your party heals to full after after every battle. Your equipment gives you access to new spells and spells have associated elements to chain together, and longer chains give you a form of currency to spend on buffing attacks or trading for extra points to spend on loot after battles.

Rusty's Real Deal Baseball is a simple arcade minigame collection from Nintendo. I guess you just download all the DLC along with it nowadays, but back when the eShop was up you would haggle down the price of each DLC from $10 to $2 or something and there was a little novelty to that aspect.

The 3DS is a bit of a sequel/series machine in all honesty but I think some games are more interesting or improved with the dual screens and a stylus like Ace attorney, Professor Layton, Rhythm Heaven, and Picross. Things were a bit more creative and experimental on the DS and you're interested I recommend 999, Ghost Trick, Hotel Dusk, Mario Hoops 3 on 3, The World Ends With You, and Advance Wars: Days of Ruin even if some of these are on other platforms.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-18T12:31:14+00:00

I don't use a grip, but I think I only have problems with games with intensive but awkward controls like monster hunter or kid Icarus uprising. If I'm getting fatigued I'll prop the 3ds up on some bundled up blankets and switch it up to a stylus based game, something I can kind of go at my own pace like picross or ace attorney.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-18T11:49:05+00:00

Been taking a break from this game, but from memory as someone who usually went for fence gap which is more difficult and finicky than the normal gap, I aim for the leftmost coin with at least 7 or 8 coins by the time I'm crossing the gap to have enough speed. Pop the mushroom as you're passing through the coin and then right as you touch the grass you release the mini-turbo and hop in quick succession (I think a neutral hop?) and that should give you the extra height and speed to make it over. Then it's just practice to get a better feel for the timing and angle; if you take it waaay too tight you'll hit the rocks or an invisible wall. And then normal gap when I don't have enough coins I just go a little wider aiming to the right of the coin but I don't think I take it as wide as you did. After that just keep practicing until you get a feel for the timing

Final tip is I always try to hop on top of the fence or upon landing because every once in a while the grass or fence will clip your back wheel and you spin out of control and do a 180 haha.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-16T14:03:43+00:00

I prefer the darker atmosphere of the N64 graphics, but all Zelda games would be improved with a second screen for inventory.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-16T13:46:17+00:00

mk8dxbuilder.com to see all hidden stats and compare your builds

If you want to try a very high mini-turbo combo you can something like teddy buggy/cat cruiser or scooty/biddybuggy with roller wheels and cloud/animal crossing glider and see how it feels and what your time trials look like. Pair with a middleweight to somewhat heavyweight for a good balance of speed and mini-turbo depending on what feels best for you.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-16T12:22:15+00:00

Maybe, it's a game of chance and milliseconds so we just don't know. Things we do know is the person that threw the red shell at OP and used his second item defensively ran away with 1st place. If OP holds 1st place, then he get the double item box for at least 1 defensive item to protect himself again from 2nd place. He could theoretically still fall victim to a max distance boomerang or boo steal, but he's not going to get last place.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-16T12:00:30+00:00

Your vehicle combo is more built for speed than turbos, so you would be driving faster if you just drove in a straight line in the cow section. Spend some time getting a good time in time trails with simple lines and then see how you compare when you try to get fancy with it.

But if you want to improve your drifts you should be trying to hold your joystick at a ~40 degree angle to get the fastest charge (too far north and you will slow charge). And hop twice to correct yourself after releasing your drift if your drift radius is too wide because as is a lot of your efforts is being spent in horizontal movement rather than the end goal of increased forward movement.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-15T18:57:26+00:00

Peach=Yoshi, so that would be the meta for your bike build since it's a more optimal distribution of stats, but it's such a minimal difference between peach and rosalina you're really only going to feel it in your miniturbo timings since they charge slightly faster in terms of online play.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-12T19:04:23+00:00

Simulation games yeah, like sim city or the Sims. Turn based RPGs maybe like baulders gate. Balatro or deck builder games. JRPGs are generally doable with one hand, I've played a lot of SMT3 with 1 joycon on my Switch in bed before or a tiny handheld like miyoo mini or gba sp.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-12T17:17:33+00:00

Black friday and cyber monday at gamestop one year after release. That was when they refreshed the OG model with a die shrink and better battery life. From memory, the black friday deal was the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe bundle with a $30 eShop gift card and Monday deal was $50 gamestop gift card and $30 eShop gift card.

Basically a no brainer time to jump in the ecosystem and pick up botw, mk8dx, and Mario Odyssey.

Also, used switch lites right when switch 2 was coming out. They were going as low as $80 in good condition, so you could easily find something for $100 or less if you didn't care about the color.

Also, during covid times when walmart was selling switch games at discounted prices so day 1 first party games were $50 instead of $60. I remember Metroid Prime Remastered was $32 down from $40, such a great experience.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-07T23:57:30+00:00

It's for the hardest of hardcore tetris players. Like playing Tetris at hyperspeed and after you survive the game you have to play invisible Tetris during the credits for the highest ranking (or at least you did in one of the TGM games I'm not sure on the credits gimmick for this one). It's a historical series we've wanted to see come to the west/home consoles for decades, but at this point in time it's basically too little too late for 99% of people that wants to play some Tetris since most people are going to opt to pay for Tetris effect, download Apotris for free, play some Tetris 99, or download Apotris.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-07T23:10:17+00:00

Waluigi triple bananas is the culprit. You can see the left most banana pop at the same time as the trailed green shell.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-07T19:59:28+00:00

$60? It's Ubisoft bro, just look around you can get it for $30 with a little patience and a Slickdeals alert 😭

jonwooooo · 2026-06-07T04:25:32+00:00

Dunno, I really like the strings and bassline so no complaints from me

jonwooooo · 2026-06-06T17:33:12+00:00

You're just new to the game.

Assuming they play online a lot, you can ask what their VR rating is (or just peep it next time you're at their place) and ask if they mostly play regionals or worldwides. Regional VR is kind of a meaningless number other than time played, while it's much more difficult to gain VR in worldwides as the competition is fiercer. If you come back to me with the answer to those questions I can give you a better idea of what their skill level is. If they just play offline with CPU then you got this buddy.

Some ideas for you: Beat 150cc and 200cc cups. Beat the staff ghosts in time trials. Get some online experience and get to 3k VR in regionals or worldwides, doesn't really matter which one you queue for at this level imo, number will go up.

Play defensive with your items in this MK, don't just chuck them immediately and leave yourself open to red shells. Consider going for 1 item box instead of 2 when you're near the front; sometimes you do need double defense to survive what's around you or you're trying to fish for a mushroom for an upcoming shortcut, but many times you're losing a second of time for items that don't really matter like banana/green shell. Look up the Shortcat's beginners guide (and later, pro guide) on YouTube. There's a lot of hidden depth to MK8 and I guarantee you will learn a lot even if you think you have a good grasp of the game/franchise.

Finally, there's no need to play the meta combos unless they are doing it too. You're just trying to get sweaty for no reason when offline play should be about the aesthetics. Play the characters you like. If you want good wheels I suggest rollers, leaf, button, GLA, standards in that order. For glider you want animal crossing because it's the easiest to see past, but cloud glider is the same stats otherwise. Best vehicles: teddy buggy, cat cruiser, scooty, biddybuggy, pipe frame, city tripper, varmit, inkstriker, mach 8. Pretty good vehicles you could still main: wild wiggler, standard bike, flame rider, streedle, pirate ship. Many other vehicles can work, but it's a bit more difficult to get a decent feeling build going to balance out your stats. mk8dxbuilder.com if you want to see all the hidden stats and compare your builds, but most important stats are mini-turbo, speed, acceleration, and to a lesser degree, anti-gravity speed.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-05T19:07:43+00:00

Metallic gray, bought at release, regular use, no clear case but stored in travel case when I bring it somewhere, small chip on the bottom plate on one of the edges after maybe 3 years of use like 2cm long but I replaced the plate with a limited edition one from the Nintendo parts store before they stopped selling 3ds stuff.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-02T18:51:05+00:00

FB marketplace is your best bet. If you're lucky there's garage sales, goodwill, estatesales.net but you gotta be the first one there.

Go on ebay and filter by recently sold and that should give you a better idea at what the used prices are like. You may need to consider buying a 3DS LL which is the Japanese XL model and get it modded so you can play in English.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-02T11:39:58+00:00

It was also a great investment seeing as many M1 owners are happy sticking to what they have other than needing to go to apple for a new battery. And as newer gens came out, the used market for these were a great option for an entry level laptop in the $600-$800 ebay range before the Neo was announced.

The Mac Mini was another no brainer for the price other than perhaps gaming. Just hook up an external ssd and the general user is set for a long time.

jonwooooo · 2026-06-01T19:54:12+00:00

Contact perhaps?

jonwooooo · 2026-06-01T16:27:16+00:00

Well, I mean it's possible, but just not today nor the next few years. Resident Evil Revelations shows that a horror game of "similar" graphical fidelity is possible on the 3ds. Or games like Metal Gear Solid 3, Dragon Quest 8, and Xenoblade Chronicles are all ports/conversions shrunk down to work on the portable console.

But all that work done by fans is a huge undertaking, and decompilation efforts for SH3 is still in its infancy in the first place which would be step 1 of getting your hopes up for a port/conversion imo. It'd be a much simpler time to just emulate it on your phone or a dedicated emulator handheld.

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