Mr. Shauna's Top 5 3DS Games of 2013!

[Dat Matt]

Mr. Shauna's Top 5 3DS games of 2013

Many of you may know I am a big Nintendo fan. Well this year has been the year of the 3DS for me, and such such I have compiled a list of my top 5 games for 2013! As the year is coming to a close, now is the time for meaningless lists to be shared on internet forums!

My intention is to reveal the top five over the next 2 days. With #1 Being revealed on Monday Evening. This should allow for a spot of discussion on the games under the assumption that I am not the only ones that played them.

Without further adieu, lets begin. Starting with:


Number 5

Animal Crossing: New Leaf

My Playtime - 51 hours

Animal Crossing New Leaf was my first time with an Animal Crossing game. I had previously heard jokes from those whom had played the games that my life was over and I would never see the light of day again. For around a month, they were correct. Animal Crossing is stupidly addicting for no reason.

The entire premise for Animal Crossing:New Leaf is that you arrive in a new town and are roped in to becoming mayor. For most this would seem like a hard task, but when the majority of the city's problems revolve around the weed infestation it isn't hard to jump right in. The game revolves around upgrading and paying off your home, and investing in public ordinances to improve the town. You however have to finance this about 99% yourself.

Money is not hard to come by as you can undertake all sorts of tasks such as fishing, bug catching, selling fruits from trees etc. These items can be sold to the local shops, which would mean that the local pawn store owners must be the richest people in the Animal Crossing universe.

The game is made more interesting by changing in real time. Some fish and bugs can only be caught between 4am-9am, while some can only be caught after 11pm which encourages players to come back regularly. Some events also happen randomly on a day to day basis allowing for great variety each day.

Despite all my time with animal crossing it inevitably falls short for me for the same reason that I stopped playing Farmville many years ago, there was no logical conclusion. I can pour hours into a game so long as I know that the time invested is justifiable. The majority of my time with animal crossing was dedicated to completing the collections of bugs, fish and sea creatures but it did not go much further than that.

Animal Crossing is very fun if you just want to tune in for 20 minutes a day to see how things are doing. If you are dedicated to an engaging story, animal crossing may not be for you.

[Bolivar]

I think this might have been the year of the 3DS for me as well, I'm excited for the rest of this list!

[Shauna]

I think I played two 3DS games this year. I am good at games.

[Dat Matt]

Wow! Number 4 had great discussion. Lots of interesting topics and opinions to consider! Lets see if we can top that with:

Number 4

Fire Emblem Awakening

My Playtime - 50 hours

Fire emblem awaking was a surprise for me this year. I have only briefly played Fire Emblem in the past, and I had not played a strategy RPG since Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. As such I opted to give Fire Emblem Awakening a go. I was amazed by how good it was.

The premise behind Fire Emblem Awakening is that the main character is decided by you as you start the game. You can alter the appearance and gender of this character however it bears little impact to the story. Thereafter, You are introduced to Chrom, the prince of Ylisse and the Shepherds with the task of protecting the country that has been ravaged by war. With the local towns been ravaged by Enemy Soldiers and a new threat know as The Risen, the Shepherds go from area to area defeating these threats and hiring new allies.

Fire Emblem awakening offers a new style of play from previous instalments in that party members can now team up to deal more damage. If a team is used more often, they upgrade their relationship rank which leads to stat bonuses when pairing up. If the pair are of different genders, the relationship rank can reach S rank, which results in the marriage between the two characters.. The more party members that reach this level of relationship, the more secret missions are unlocked which unlock new characters.

With around 50 playable characters and around 12-14 playable characters per the largest maps, the game offers a wide selection of play styles. I for one found that one character later one was so broken that she walked into the enemy stronghold, killed everyone and the rest of my team could put their feet up and have a cup of tea rather than fighting.

Despite never having playing a game in this series before, I found myself engrossed in the game. Leveling up characters to be part of my squad, fighting strong opponents from streetpass/spotpass updates, collecting secret characters all added to the depth that the main story had to offer and padded out the game for grind crazy fellows like myself. Well worth a shot if you can find the time to put into it.

[Shauna]

The two 3DS games I played were neither of these games. I will get to them eventually. If I finish Pokemon.

Well, you had a bunch of fun with them. I was a gaming widow for a long time because of these games. ...And the games he is playing now.

[Dat Matt]

It's true, I played Bravely Default for 9 hours yesterday. I only stopped when we went out for food/wrote up this list. Dedication to the cause!

[Bolivar]

I was scrolling through my 3DS game activity after finishing Zelda this week and was not surprised to see Fire Emblem with the most hours by far. It may have been lite on customization and mechanics but it more than made up for it on story and charm. It's still engrossing to grind and build your army as you see fit and many of the character interactions are a lot of fun. This was also my first fire emblem and I can't wait to see what else the series can offer.

[Dat Matt]

I found that when you started S ranking the relationships and unlocking the bonus characters that the game became rather easy. The last boss was rather hard but the rest of the game I just Steamrolled.

Playing "you lose a character, they die" is also something I was not used to. I remember just casting Life on fallen allies. So many times I reset Fire emblem...

[Bolivar]

Yeah, I reset a lot too, its kinda crazy how it's insta death once they're KO'ed, added a lot of challenge.

I think the only battle I had problems with at the end was with the legendary soldiers/weapons in the desert. It does get kinda easy with promoted characters with S rank relationships, and when you start getting the children at high levels with S rank relationships they absolutely tear through the enemy.

Where's Skyblade at?

[Ayen]

I've yet to touch the DS gaming library, let alone the 3DS gaming library. Still curious to see what else appears on this list. Didn't know they were still making Fire Emblem games.

[Dat Matt]

They were scared about this one. Saying that it would be the last in the series if it didn't sell more than 250,000 copies. It appears to have sold 1.13 Million units so we'll be expecting more in the future.

[Dr Unne]

I found that when you started S ranking the relationships and unlocking the bonus characters that the game became rather easy. The last boss was rather hard but the rest of the game I just Steamrolled.

Playing "you lose a character, they die" is also something I was not used to. I remember just casting Life on fallen allies. So many times I reset Fire emblem...

It'd be a lot harder if you didn't reset all the time, I bet.

[Ayen]

They were scared about this one. Saying that it would be the last in the series if it didn't sell more than 250,000 copies. It appears to have sold 1.13 Million units so we'll be expecting more in the future.

250,000 is considered a low number? Shows you what I know.

[Dat Matt]

They were scared about this one. Saying that it would be the last in the series if it didn't sell more than 250,000 copies. It appears to have sold 1.13 Million units so we'll be expecting more in the future.

250,000 is considered a low number? Shows you what I know.

At £30 per game (for argument sake) that's £7.5m in revenue at 250,000 units sold. That's pretty good. Conversely tomb raider sold about 4 Million Units and at roughly £40 per unit that'd be £120m in revenue. Funny thing is that was considered a failure by square enix. Costs for triple A games are dumb.

[Dat Matt]

Half way through. Have any of your favorite games this year made the list? Lets see if this makes your list:

Number 3

Pokemon X/Y

My Playtime - 55 hours+

Pokémon X/Y are the two parts of the 6th generation of the Pokémon series. While there are many criticisms of the series that the game is the same each time and that the game relies on nostalgia to sell Generation IV is by far the best generation of the series.

The Pokémon series is different for everyone. For some, they train their Pokémon to fight others online. For other, they collect Pokémon to fill the Pokedex. This generation offered an aid to both with the game overall being less of a grind, and offering a much larger selection of Pokémon available via standard play by entering the pool of Pokémon from previous generations.

Pokémon itself is not much to write home about story wise. Travel through the lands fighting Gym Leaders and an Evil Organisation in order to become the Pokémon master. Same old noise from previous games which is where this criticism comes from. Pokémon is not about the story but more the Journey.
Pokémon Y is also the generation of Pokémon that I managed Miss Shauna to play. Therefore it is the best Pokémon game ever.

I have started playing Pokemon again today as part of my new year challenge to catch them all. God help me...