Ramblings and musings about the 3DS' AR capabilities
So I found my 3DS AR cards yesterday morning and decided to do some good ol' 3DS AR gaming. I recently acquired Tetris Axis through some surprisingly easy means mainly because I was itching to try out the AR modes. I love Tetris, and I love video game console gimmicks, so it's basically perfect lol. Tetris Axis has two AR modes, AR Marathon and AR Climber. AR Climber is the less interesting of the two to me since it has a 2D equivalent.
AR Climber is a mode where you walk around an AR tower matrix and stack blocks to help the little stick figure fella get to the top. Not much else to say about it since I didn't play it as long as the other option, AR Marathon!
AR Marathon is like normal Tetris Marathon but its cooler because the gimmick here is the miniature matrix size which is awesome because it reminds me of Tetris Giant, which is one of my favorite Tetris variants. The other defining feature of AR Marathon besides it's matrix size is the AR part (unsurprisingly). As pieces drop in there will be a block of one taken by a glowing orange sphere every few pieces, clearing this sphere will immediately clear the board but also turn it on its axis (hah get it) to face another direction which the player will have to turn and face to keep up with the speed. Of course, there's going to be some gimmicky implementation of the AR idea which I'm sure isn't as compelling as circling around the AR tower but again, there's no 2D equivalent for this mode and it's just plain fun. Which I guess means if there was a 2D equivalent for AR Marathon as like idk Nano Marathon or something that would be my favorite instead but idk I just like 3DS AR stuff and find it interesting, it really was an ahead of the curve idea for its time, of course the 3DS' cameras aren't exactly high definition and all AR functionality is tied to the AR Cards, so much practical use for AR is rendered mostly implausible for the system but it's still really cool that Nintendo tried. And before getting off-topic on the greater topic of the 3DS in general there is one not-AR-related Tetris topic I wanted to bring up.
Bombliss!!! TMK this is the last Tetris game so far to feature Bombliss as a mode, though if I'm wrong I'd love to know which one is the true last since I really like Bombliss.
(2024: This is wrong now! Kinda! Tetris Forever includes a lot of Bombliss, but it's only rereleases of older versions of the game, Tetris Axis' Bombliss Plus is still the newest *original* incarnation of the mode tmk)
Moving onto AR in general though, I think it's really neat
The most iconic use of AR on the 3DS is probably the built-in AR Games software that comes with every 3DS system. I was also messing with the AR games there and the Mii Photo Shoot. Also apparently the 3DS doesn't really have any good dedicated fishing games so I'll consider the AR fishing minigame to be the best on the system lol. Also that easter egg in the globe minigame with the message "look after our planet" is kind of haunting.
AR photossss:
AR on the 3DS is just cool idk, totally understandable but a bit of a shame it never amounted to anything besides novel side modes at best in other games.
The only game (besides Face Raiders) that actually needed AR, Spirit Camera, wasn't really that great either. I feel though that there really could have been some potential in the idea, like with the no brainer idea of AR compatible Pokemon cards, it'd be like playing the card game but with actual visuals and sound, so basically like how every early 2000s card game anime depicted playing lol.
But in the end the AR on the 3DS was really nothing but a novelty, I have a soft spot for it since I love consoles that really feel like they're trying to achieve something more than just "it plays video games" with their features.
And it's interesting that AR has only really taken off since then, it's still incredibly early for much consumer use outside of smartphone applications but its clearly "a thing" at least and maybe if the 3DS just had some better cameras or was more powerful at launch then AR gaming could have been something more prominent on the system over its lifespan. Honestly it's a bit sad to me that pretty much every unique part of the 3DS was eventually forgotten and faded out by the time it was over. It really just became a beefier DS to most developers, which is why I'm so interested in games that took advantage of the odd unique aspects of the system and released near its launch when it was all shiny and new. Even 3D, the flagship feature in the name of the console (until the 2DS) was basically forgotten by the end, Tetris Axis for example has some insane depth to it that's really cool to see. I know 3D isn't for everyone but in my experience it really does help me as I'm very notrous among friends for having terrible 3D navigation skills in games, so I tend to have 3D mode on more than not.
But by the end of the system's life even first party games barely used the 3D screen and added the most shallow possible depth regardless if you turned it all the way up. I think the last game to really use 3D in any meaningful way where it was even part of the marketing was Samus Returns which feels like the swansong of the system in that regard, they even released a 3D video trailer for it on the console which Nintendo hadn't done in a long time until then, it was really nice to see that.
There doesn't seem to be much else to say on this for me other than maybe finding out that the AR cards were designed to be credit card sized so that they were portable just like the system which I had never even thought about, so now I'm carrying my question block AR card in my wallet and maybe someday that will be useful, someday.. (2024: still have it in there to this dayyy)
...Oh yeah and if you were wondering about the red surface in a couple of the pictures, the 3DS has to be pretty close to the AR Card itself to work optimally (another limiting flaw) and having to bend over a table for minutes at a time was kind of straining the seams on my back so I set it up on top of a punching bag which was a good height I could hold the 3DS normally at to play with lol