I gotta say that I am very surprised with the 3DS. I expected it to be "okay" but I think it's better than alot of people think. I initially bought it for a view games I was looking forward to (mainly resident evil revelations, but i'll get back to that in a minute). The interface and menu's are excellent. It's got that nintendo wii flavor but not so dull and very playable and interactive. So is The online service which i'd say (well till the vita comes out) the best on any handheld platform at the moment.
You have friend lists this time which makes it nescesary to add people with friend codes only once, and then they'll just be regularly displayed as they have chosen to. You'll see them online and see what they play. You also get the option to join them in their games if you own the same game. This is all similar to steam so I was quite surprised nintendo was capable of getting there.
The E shop ala appstore is pretty great as well. Aside from the expensive vintage/retro offers, the free stuff (zelda four swords for example) and demos makes the 3ds even without games a fun handheld. There's also alot of extra channels which are pretty fun. There's a channel where u can like make a picture of yourself with the front camera, and it changes ure face into flying enemies that fly around which you gotta aim and shoot by moving your 3ds around with the back camera viewing your house. This made me lol for the first time because it's pretty weird to see evil faces of yourself flying around in your own house. The menu is full of silly things like that. It's something you'll probably only touch a view times but it gives a great impression nonetheless.
Now on to the quality of the visuals and the 3D feature. After downloading and playing the demo of resident evil revelations I gotta say that it looks rather fucking amazing. Forget about rushed games like sonic generations. The 3ds can display visuals that probably look on par or better than the Wii. The 3D feature for some reason makes the visuals look better.
The 3D effect is a love or hate thing, but personally I really think it adds alot to the experience, especially in RE:revelations with it's horror vibe. It takes getting used to, and after keeping it on for a long time it does cause headaches, but that is when it's handy to have a slider to switch it off for like a half an hour.
Overall i'd say the 3DS is underestimated imo. To be honest imo there's no need for HD graphics on a handheld like the PS vita is going for. I think nintendo did well to choose for such limits because limits always determine the style of games on what the consumer will consider worth buying in the sense of wether something is pushing or not. For example on the vita it would have to look like uncharted to be worth buying full price, while on the 3ds you'd be happy with something similar to the DC/PS2/NGC. Less realistic and more fantasyish, which i am personally a big fan of. The Wii suffers from being SD and looking pixelated on HD tv's. The 3DS with it's small screens makes everything look smooth.
I think this is where my only gripe is. The screens could have been a little bigger but other than that i'd say if there's any game you don't wanna miss on the platform, go for it. Sales are doing better and better. Piracy hasn't hit the 3DS yet and I really hope this won't happen soon
because at the moment there are alot of developers encouraged to design games for it. Kingdom hearts 3DS and Metal gear solid snake eater(which I never played on ps2) are going to be must buys to me.
There's really no bias involved in me saying all this. I embraced all the pre SEGA rivals just like any other hardcore SEGA fan had to do after SEGA went out of the console market. Shadiwulf would probably not be able to make sense of all this lol.
Wow... well there ya go. This became quite a wall of text
