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Discussion I loved the 3D capability on the 3DS

N 2 Deep

N 2 Deep

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This thread has been on my mind for a while.

The 3D on the 3DS was a joy and I feel it was incredibly underutilized

As someone who suffers from motion sickness with most modern games, the 3DS was a case where the screen being smaller and gaming on a handheld as opposed to a big screen TV (this is why I prefer my Switch & Steam Deck as well) benefited me immensely and the fact that you could turn off the 3D meant that people that didn't enjoy it could just disable it and never worry again. It was the best of both worlds.

3D Land while brief was such a fun game. There were so many games early on in the 3DS' life that took full advantage of the screen and then halfway through it just ended. Pokemon never even bothering with it is a good example (although I don't know if I would have had faith in GF utilizing it in a meaningful way for a full blown RPG)

And yes I know in most cases it was a gimmick. But it was a fun gimmick okay, and pretty harmless. I really feel if the halving of pixels and battery drain were circumvented it would have had a lot more longevity. Plus the head tracking introduced with the New 3DS models was sick and fixed the small field of view that plagued the OG model.

It's wild to me how this will just be some forgotten tech, VR seems to be where most things are headed and that makes me more nauseous than gaming on a big screen TV.

Anyways are any of you with me? Did anyone else enjoy this mildly amusing feature, I feel like there has to at least be a dozen of us.
 
I remember enjoying the puzzle rooms in 3D Land, but I’m struggling to think of many games that really implemented it well? I used to leave it turned off all the time, but would check out each new title with it, and for the most part found that it didn’t really add much. I thought pilotwings resort would be a natural fit for it as a launch title and that was OK, but I didn’t really return to it. When even Nintendo abandoned doing much with it fairly quickly, it constantly felt like a ‘major idea in search of a game to really justify it’ combined with a ‘major differentiating factor for the marketing at launch’. For me all I really wanted was a better DS, and so that’s what I mostly used it for and what most of the software was. It reminds me of how my favourite Wii games just had me using a classic controller.
 
Depends on the game, but when well done, I liked it a lot! It was unusable for me before the New 3ds LL model. Games like Etrian Odyssey that used 3D were good. Fire Emblem IIRC also was good.
 
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I want it back for the next Switch.

Having proper glasses free 3D on a high res OLED screen playing games like the next Metroid Prime would be an absolute game changer.

The 3D was a cool effect for 3DS games like 3D Land, but imagine the effect on something like a new HD Xenoblade or open world Zelda game.

Nintendo have already got the parallax screen tech sorted, and with DLSS you wouldn't even need to render each individual screen at full res, you could let the upscaling bump up the res to the full 1080.
 
I want it back. That S3D effect is pure magic.

Not only does it make things appear tangibly real, it actually improves the gameplay experience by giving objects real depth. SM3DL is so much more playable than its Wii U sequel thanks to the S3D effect.

The problem with bringing it back however is the fact that the rendering load for stereo becomes exponentially higher as you increase the resolution. Look at how much VR developers have struggled with performance, resorting to tricks like foveated rendering (which would not work with a Paralax Barrier display) to reduce the load of having to produce two viewpoints.
 
N 2 Deep said:
But it was a fun gimmick okay, and pretty harmless
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Actually the glasses-less 3D could potentially impair the vision of young children.

(Just kidding, we don’t have objective proof of that)

Anyway, the 3D effect was magical the first time I tried it out. But yeah, it was underutilized, which is a damn shame. It worked wonders in Kid Icarus: Uprising, my scores really did get better with the 3D effect turned on. Hoping one day the 3D thing can make a comeback.
 
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Much like for 3D movies, there were maybe three games that implemented it very well where it actually felt awesome and like a big deal (3D Land, the Sega 3D Classics line, and Dai Gyakuten Saiban are the ones that come to mind). I still usually turned it on for stuff where framerate didn't take a hit but I have to confess I can't say it ever really enhanced much of anything for most other stuff.
 
Yeah, actually, im playing the batman arkham on 3ds, and the 3D effect is very good.
When it is well implemented in a game, it is spectacular (3D Land and I have been mentioned the Batman, but there are more like Kid Icarus, the Zeldas, Paper Mario, Luigis Mansion, Smash, the Kirbys or MGS3.

It helps a lot for immersion, and the truth is that I miss it for Switch.
I understand that it is difficult to implement it on the portable screen, but it is something that I would like to be optionally even if it was for TV mode.
 
Space Harrier with the 3D maxed out is the best way to play that game! There was the odd game that really shone with it, even if I didn't end up using it too much.
 
Even when the 3D effect wasn't integral to design, it still felt like notching that slider up was a magic cure for the 240p image. That had me leaving it on even for games like Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing.
 
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For the games that used it well it really shines. A link between worlds and mario 3d land are still some of the best examples. Still i cant use the feature for more than 20 minutes without getting a headache so i keep it off most of the time
 
I did actually like the 3D for some of the games I played. It's a neat gimmick to me but hardly the reason I got one in the first place.

Mario Kart 7
Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon
Kid Icarus Uprising
Smash 4

I usually kept the slider in the middle, not too much of the 3D effect. Then when I got a New 3DS with the improved 3D eye tracking I kept it on much more.
 
I like it occasionally too. Was going to show my kid and see how he liked it. Random question: can it play 3D movies? Like Coraline or Avatar? Not that it’s the ideal way to see it but I don’t have a 3D TV.
 
I never felt like the effect was integral to any particular game, but it was definitely a great supplementary feature for the games that supported it. I recently played through SM3DL, and while I'm not very good at Mario games and struggled a lot with it, I did find the 3D effect alleviated some of the issues I've had with avoiding hitboxes coming in from the background.
 
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A Link Between Worlds looked so cool in 3D - looking down from Death Mountain, or down through the levels and the new external areas of the Tower of Hera, rooms having sub levels of depth beyond the usual B2, B1, F1 etc. things bouncing towards the screen or falling away from it, it looks great

I'd be down for more 3D consoles from Nintendo in future, for sure.
 
I couldn't stand it. I found myself constantly tweaking it before ultimately disabling it for pretty much every game. Display quality overall was really bad until the New 3DS, which was slightly improved. The 3DS felt outdated from day one and overstayed its welcome.
 
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Tried it in Resident Evil, didn't like it, and never really bothered with it much afterwards. My eyes felt uncomfortable.
 
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People always seemed to be looking for games that required 3D for gameplay, like "other than Super Mario 3D Land, there aren't any games that demonstrate why they need to be in 3D." I never had that issue, as "it looks cool" was a good enough reason for me. I loved the 3D effect and used it at every opportunity.

It's a shame they never remastered or did Virtual Console releases of Virtual Boy games on 3DS, that would have been great.
 
I liked the 3D, I'm type who maxes out the slider all the time, however I don't think I'd be crying if I woke up in a alternative universe where we got a DS 2 with 3D being replaced with a 480p screen instead. Would've been a bigger benefit overall to be perfectly honest.
 
I loved the effect when it first came out, but it was hard to keep in on with the original system unless you sat perfectly still. New 3DS fixed it nearly 100%, imo. I remember seeing a display model, and doing a triple take at how much better it was. After that I kept the slider on pretty much at all times.
 
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I love 3D in general, but the 3D effect itself on both old 3DS and New 3DS was inferior to 3D using glasses. Still, better than flat.
Ojoloco said:
Speaking about 3D, it is possible to play Switch on 3D in a 3D TV?
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Not really. No games are made with that output in mind*. Not sure any console games for anything later than PS3 have been? Emulated it's probably possible--I haven't messed with Switch emulation, but I have tried emulated Wii U in stereo 3D.

*I think it might be possible to take BOTW's Labo VR and tell a TV to use it as side-by-side content, but it's pretty awful.
 
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I'm gonna be in the nah crowd on this. This gimmick was uncomfortable as hell and made games look worse 99/100 times. Thank god 3D gimmicks aren't trendy right now.
 
Ojoloco said:
Yes, you can on youtube

www.pughoofgaming.com

How-To: Watch 3D Movies On 3DS With NEW NINTENDO 3DS! - Pug Hoof Gaming

Did you know that you can watch 3D movies on 3DS, using the New Nintendo 3DS? Nintendo never talks about this,
www.pughoofgaming.com www.pughoofgaming.com
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I definitely see the 3D button when playing a YouTube video but I couldn’t find a Coraline video that worked. Mainly because any video over a couple minutes just led to the browser telling me it couldn’t load and crapping out. Will definitely try again later but I’m curious if there’s a way to put it into the video player app.
 
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The diorama effect in certain games was cute. I agree that this feature doesn't have to be 'essential', it was still cool to have and I still keep an n3DS XL around for 3D conversions of indie titles.

The issue, despite being a 'nice to have', is that it ultimately adds cost, uses compute resources and developers may ultimately ignore it. So I don't anticipate a 3D screen on a Switch device for some time.

But I do enjoy the Labo VR modes in BotW and Captain Toad, they convey the same diorama effect through the goggles. If a future Switch has a higher resolution screen I can see more of these popping up.
 
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I've said it countless times now, and i'll say it again: Autostereoscopic 3D is, probably, my favorite visual improvement over HDR and anything beyond 1080p

Everything looks so... real, things have real volume and depth that takes an awful amount of computational power to simulate in 2D displays.

Of course not all content uses it the same way, in some cases the effect is really subtle, but when it works... oh my god, it's amazing.

I'm going to list a lot of the usual suspects, but they're really the games to use if you want to see what the fuss is about.

  • Any SEGA superscaler 3D classic
    • Galaxy Force II
    • Outrun
    • Super Hang On
    • Space Harrier
    • Thunder Blade
      • On that note, some of the 2D scrollers also are pretty good at this
        • Sonic
        • Sonic 2
        • Streets of Rage II
  • Some of the very few Nintendo 3D Classics
    • Mainly Kirby and Xevious. Really, Xevious if amazing in 3D
      • Ironically enough, Urban Champion looks really neat, and i'm not trolling
  • Steel Diver Subwars (Yes, it's always going to be on my list. Play Steel Diver Subwars!)
  • Hana Samurai
  • Any of the Bandai Namco releases
    • Both Ridge Racer 3D and Ace Combat have framerate issues, but they're far from unplayable
    • Tekken 3D is the only fighter in the system aside of Smash Bros that runs at 60fps in 3D, and it looks AMAZING.
      • Don't expect a lot of content though. In fact, don't expect any content at all.
  • F1 2011. No, seriously
  • Pilotwings Resort
    • In fact, it may be a bit too much of a showcase. I always i need to get the 3D slider down a little
  • Super Mario 3D Land
    • This one is designed with 3D in mind. It has some mind fuckery moments and there's a theme of depth on the game in general. It also showcases both pop out and diorama style 3D modes
  • Both Mercury Steam games
    • Castlevania: Mirror of Fate is pure Eye candy. Diorama style graphics with lots of volume and the classic things going in and out of the camera 3D trickery.
    • Metroid: Samus returns tones it down a bit to keep the framerate at a stable 30 fps, but it's still pretty good at 3D
  • Mario Kart 7
    • Any racer, really, and almost anything developed by Nintendo, but MK7 works pretty well, pop out elements aren't invasive and everything has volume. It's a pretty neat game to look at. Also, 3D 60 fps.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3
    • If you can stomach 20 fps, that is
      • If your console is homebrewed with Luma CFW, you can add a patch that unlocks 30 and even unstable 60 fps on New 3DS, but beware of battery levels.
  • Starfox 64 3D & Kid Icarus: Uprising
  • Almost anything developed by Shin'en and VD-DEV
    • Jett Rocket 2 and Ironfall particularly. Those two do volume and depth pretty well without going crazy with it. They're more GPU tech demos than 3D showcases.
And then, if you have your console homebrewed, you can get a few games. Right now on top of my head

  • Super Mario 64 decompilation port
    • Stereoscopic 3D, 60 fps and you get the option of new character models
  • Quake
  • Doom
  • There's a build of Daedalus64 (N64 emulator) with 3D support. Low compatibility though
Most homebrew games and ports are 2D only because it's understably easier for the developers, but there are some surprises hidden here and there, you just need to look for them.

I keep going back to my New 3DS because i really miss the effect. High resolutions doesn't really do anything for me beyond 1080p, but this? Oh, i freaking love this.
 
GamerJM said:
Much like for 3D movies, there were maybe three games that implemented it very well where it actually felt awesome and like a big deal (3D Land, the Sega 3D Classics line, and Dai Gyakuten Saiban are the ones that come to mind). I still usually turned it on for stuff where framerate didn't take a hit but I have to confess I can't say it ever really enhanced much of anything for most other stuff.
Click to expand...

Playing through THAT section of the game on Switch was really quite sad… Even though I never got the chance to play the original 3DS version, I could see how THAT part lost a ton of impact over its original incarnation…

All the magic of that moment was gone :(
 
Dcubed said:
Playing through THAT section of the game on Switch was really quite sad… Even though I never got the chance to play the original 3DS version, I could see how THAT part lost a ton of impact over its original incarnation…

All the magic of that moment was gone :(
Click to expand...

I played through the original Japanese release of the game and its sequel after the Switch had already come out. For me it was very much a "oh wow, this is cool, I forgot the 3DS could even have things like this" moment.
 
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Reinhard Schneider said:
I've said it countless times now, and i'll say it again: Autostereoscopic 3D is, probably, my favorite visual improvement over HDR and anything beyond 1080p

Everything looks so... real, things have real volume and depth that takes an awful amount of computational power to simulate in 2D displays.

Of course not all content uses it the same way, in some cases the effect is really subtle, but when it works... oh my god, it's amazing.

I'm going to list a lot of the usual suspects, but they're really the games to use if you want to see what the fuss is about.

  • Any SEGA superscaler 3D classic
    • Galaxy Force II
    • Outrun
    • Super Hang On
    • Space Harrier
    • Thunder Blade
      • On that note, some of the 2D scrollers also are pretty good at this
        • Sonic
        • Sonic 2
        • Streets of Rage II
  • Some of the very few Nintendo 3D Classics
    • Mainly Kirby and Xevious. Really, Xevious if amazing in 3D
      • Ironically enough, Urban Champion looks really neat, and i'm not trolling
  • Steel Diver Subwars (Yes, it's always going to be on my list. Play Steel Diver Subwars!)
  • Hana Samurai
  • Any of the Bandai Namco releases
    • Both Ridge Racer 3D and Ace Combat have framerate issues, but they're far from unplayable
    • Tekken 3D is the only fighter in the system aside of Smash Bros that runs at 60fps in 3D, and it looks AMAZING.
      • Don't expect a lot of content though. In fact, don't expect any content at all.
  • F1 2011. No, seriously
  • Pilotwings Resort
    • In fact, it may be a bit too much of a showcase. I always i need to get the 3D slider down a little
  • Super Mario 3D Land
    • This one is designed with 3D in mind. It has some mind fuckery moments and there's a theme of depth on the game in general. It also showcases both pop out and diorama style 3D modes
  • Both Mercury Steam games
    • Castlevania: Mirror of Fate is pure Eye candy. Diorama style graphics with lots of volume and the classic things going in and out of the camera 3D trickery.
    • Metroid: Samus returns tones it down a bit to keep the framerate at a stable 30 fps, but it's still pretty good at 3D
  • Mario Kart 7
    • Any racer, really, and almost anything developed by Nintendo, but MK7 works pretty well, pop out elements aren't invasive and everything has volume. It's a pretty neat game to look at. Also, 3D 60 fps.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3
    • If you can stomach 20 fps, that is
      • If your console is homebrewed with Luma CFW, you can add a patch that unlocks 30 and even unstable 60 fps on New 3DS, but beware of battery levels.
  • Starfox 64 3D & Kid Icarus: Uprising
  • Almost anything developed by Shin'en and VD-DEV
    • Jett Rocket 2 and Ironfall particularly. Those two do volume and depth pretty well without going crazy with it. They're more GPU tech demos than 3D showcases.
And then, if you have your console homebrewed, you can get a few games. Right now on top of my head

  • Super Mario 64 decompilation port
    • Stereoscopic 3D, 60 fps and you get the option of new character models
  • Quake
  • Doom
  • There's a build of Daedalus64 (N64 emulator) with 3D support. Low compatibility though
Most homebrew games and ports are 2D only because it's understably easier for the developers, but there are some surprises hidden here and there, you just need to look for them.

I keep going back to my New 3DS because i really miss the effect. High resolutions doesn't really do anything for me beyond 1080p, but this? Oh, i freaking love this.
Click to expand...
And there are more games like Batman Arkham Origins, Kingdom Hearts DDD, RErevelations, or Sonic Generations
 
It was really cool sometimes but so janky in the first iteration and still had to be 'worked with' on later models, I feel it was too early of a concept to really nail, which is actually how I felt about Wii motion controls and the Wii U tech too, Nintendo jumps the gun a bit too much sometimes, and we rarely get matured versions of these technologies.
 
goldenpp72 said:
which is actually how I felt about Wii motion controls
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Nintendo had been toying with motion controls for a while already. They released several Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games with integrated motion controls before using them on Wii

And, regarding autostereoscopic 3D, they had been working internally with it since the Gamecube. I agree that it was too soon though, but with the industry pushing stereoscopic devices so hard back then, i wouldn't say they jumped the gun. We can even go earlier than that and look at the NES 3D glasses.

However, i agree on the technology being still too expensive and inmature, but sadly the whole 3D thing was nothing but a VR moment (Let us remember that VR has been resurfacing from time to since since the early 90s, and just now technology has been up to snuff) and we'll have to wait until manufacturers take interest on it again.
 
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it was dope, i liked it a lot, it definitely felt a bit like magic but then again, so it does playing home console like games on a portable device
 
I didn’t care for it because it hurt my eyes and forced you to stare at the screen dead on, and if you twitched or fidgeted, well, eye strain city.
Pretty sure the new 3DS fixed that. But by the time I picked one of those up, I didn’t care for 3D anymore, and most games barely tried to use it at that point.
 
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Reinhard Schneider said:
Nintendo had been toying with motion controls for a while already. They released several Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games with integrated motion controls before using them on Wii

And, regarding autostereoscopic 3D, they had been working internally with it since the Gamecube. I agree that it was too soon though, but with the industry pushing stereoscopic devices so hard back then, i wouldn't say they jumped the gun. We can even go earlier than that and look at the NES 3D glasses.

However, i agree on the technology being still too expensive and inmature, but sadly the whole 3D thing was nothing but a VR moment (Let us remember that VR has been resurfacing from time to since since the early 90s, and just now technology has been up to snuff) and we'll have to wait until manufacturers take interest on it again.
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I'm a believer that if something is executed consistently well, it'll eventually make its way into becoming commonplace. Motion aiming for example got a bad wrap due to a lot of games having awful motion controls, the entire concept was discredited by people who never used them, yet these days what most of us knew on Wii, is becoming a slow standard now, motion/gyro aiming is awesome and it never deserved to get binned just because of games having awful motion controls. Stuff like the Wii having primitive motion controls until the motion plus (which didn't take off) and then the Kinect being an unresponsive laggy mess at points basically killed off concepts that were in theory, awesome for some situations.

If being open minded, a game like say, Switch Sports 2, would make awesome use of more advanced motion controllers and a Kinect like camera being used in tandem to determine depth, leg usage, but also offering precision due to still using controllers all at once, it could in theory offer the best motion experience that is both fun and precise. The problem is a lot of these concepts have a pretty scary jump point now because they have already been done poorly, making it an uphill battle that didn't need to happen.

3D is the same, people were really impressed when Avatar hit and that was basically the big resurgence point for it, and it was very well done. The problem is almost nothing after did it in such a compelling fashion, to the point it just became a way to overcharge us while also offering a less than stellar experience, and people voted to get rid of it. However, since I did tinker with the 3DS 3D at points, I saw moments where it was really neat, very cool visually, but it was always hit and miss or difficult to be positioned right to get the proper effect without it breaking simply because you moved. If anyone were to try glasses free 3D now, the immediate response is going to be an aversion due to the last time it was tried.

It's important that companies be responsible when trying to introduce new methods and technology, because you can sour people on what was a viable and forward thinking idea that could change how the medium works. The Switch as a hybrid is not the first hybrid, but it is easily the most elegant and well executed version of it, and the prior attempts were niche enough that it didn't sour many people. If you've ever had the displeasure of trying to get say, a PSPgo to work on your TV, it would make itself pretty apparent that it never deserved success for the attempt, they just didn't have the pieces ready yet.
 
Personally it makes me dizzy and my head hurt, so I turn it off almost since day 1.
 
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