The Nintendo 3DS comes out this Sunday, and it’s pretty awesome. For a full write-up of the system itself, read this review on PCMag.com. For the games, stay right here and check it all out. Nintendo sent six games (Pilotwings Resort, Nintendogs+Cats, Steel Diver, Super Street Fighter 4 3D Edition, Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars, and Madden Football) along with its new handheld, and we just received Namco Bandai’s Ridge Racer 3D for an even seven. Over the next week, we’re going to look at these games and see how Nintendo’s new handheld’s launch lineup stands. We’re not going to see the Ocarina of Time or Star Fox 64 remakes for a while, nor will we get Kid Icarus: Uprising or the 3D jiggliness of Dead or Alive Dimensions for a few months, so this is what we have to work with. Read on for the very first 3DS game review.
We’ll start with the cream of the crop, which surprisingly isn’t a first-part Nintendo game. Out of all the 3DS launch titles, Capcom’s Super Street Fighter 4 3D Edition
Fighting games have always gotten ripped off on portable systems, usually getting scaled-back and messed up pseudo-ports that feature big heads, simplified gameplay, and shrunken rosters. Super Street Fighter 4 3D Edition breaks that trend. Make no mistake: this is Super Street Fighter 4 on a portable system, with dozens of characters fighting the same way they fight on the home consoles. No chibi characters, no puzzles, just the same Street Fighter 4 action you saw on the PS3/Xbox. The only real gameplay twist is the use of the touchscreen, which can be set to Lite mode to automatically trigger two special attacks and your Super and Ultra combos, or to Pro mode to automatically trigger throws, focus attacks, and HP/MP/LP and HK/MK/LK moves.
Expect no limit to the eye candy in this game. The arenas are all rendered in 3D. Every character has at least one alternate costume with several different color schemes for each. Even the ending movies are fully animated anime clips with voice acting. Capcom really went all-out in making this port, and it looks great.
In addition to the standard camera mode, which still shows off some nice 3D effects with characters that stand out against the arenas and meters and effects that pop out before your eyes, you can fight in Dynamic View, an over-the-shoulder view that shifts between the fighters depending on who’s advancing. Amazingly, even though it’s a gimmick, Dynamic View looks great and doesn’t interfere with the gameplay. You can fight comfortably in either camera modes, though Dynamic View is the best way to really get a feel for the 3D effects of the system.
Besides fighting, you can collect figurines in the game’s Figure Slots mode, by spending figure points you can get either through fighting online or by trading your 3DS Play Coins (the points you get on the 3DS home screen for walking around) for them. There are hundreds of them, with seven different figurine types for each character, each of which with its own alternate costumes. When you collect them, you can view them in a rotating 3D view that really shows off the 3DS’ screen. It’s strictly 3D porn.
With StreetPass, you can collect simulated teams to have simulated fights with. Unfortunately, since no one else has SSF43DE yet, I couldn’t test this or any of the other multiplayer features. Assuming the game supports the most basic multiplayer modes, however, it stands out as one of the best fighting games to ever hit a handheld system. If you like Street Fighter, this needs to be the first game you pick up for the 3DS.
