3DS's Stereoscopic 3D is Good, Actually 

Oh, so THIS is the year where people finally start to notice!

I'm one of those rare people who can super enjoy stereoscopic 3D with no issues, so, I was obsessed with 3DS and very sad that the concept is dead... :(

World 5-2 in Super Mario 3D Land is one of my favorite uses of 3D because it’s like he's jumping out of the screen to punch you in the face

The upgrade with the 'new' 3DS cannot be understated. I loved the 3D with my original 3DS but I was always having to fiddle with it and find the right spot. With the 'new' 3DS...boom! There it is, look at it, it's in 3D!

I remember when people bitched and moaned about the 3-D feature and acted like it was mandatory. Then Nintendo had to go and remove it completely. I always use that feature full blast and loved every second of it.

I was lucky enough to only get a 3DS when the "new" line was out. So it was always cranked up to the max for games like Kirby Triple Deluxe, Majora's Mask and 3D Land. It was genuinely upsetting when Gen 7 Pokemon didn't even have 3D support, as much as I love those games.

Also, the games looked so much better with 3D on imo. Something about aliasing being more visible to me, and shadows etc.. I think 3D masked the low gfx more.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD FINALLY, I never had issues with 3D, but I did see that most people I lend my 3DS to, had some issues with it, I played with 3D every single game all the time, I even tilted the console to the side on the old model to have some games that have ''3D Depth'' to have instead ''3D pop'', it was cool, it felt immersive, my only issues is that some games didnt implement it well and had this effect where you have a faded 2nd image on the side instead of the 3d effect, but I never understood why this gimmick was so hated, do I have some kind of ''3D immunity'' perk?

RU-vid fully supported 3D. Most 3D TVs had a RU-vid video to show off their TV. All viewable on 3DS. I also took videos of those Harry Potter models at the Leavesden HP studio tour. Great to be able to watch it back in 3D

The 3ds is underrated gem and possibly one of the best if not the best handheld released.

Fire emblem awakening and fates still have my favorite 3D on the system. Glasses-less 3D should return for nintendo at some point.

SBS 3D is featured in the Citra and even Dolphin emulator which means with a VR headset you can experience those games on any sized screen and prefect 3D no matter how much you move your head. One wild thing to check out is Super paper mario as its 2D until you flip in to 3D and makes such a cool instant contrast in the visuals, even the transitions in to buildings and through pipes suddenly show you this 4th wall effect as the world gets folded open in to a room or with pipes its crumpled from the back and sucked in

I always felt like Ocarina's 3D effect was really strong, so I didn't keep the slider all the way up. I think most early 3DS games had a strong 3D effect, perhaps with the idea that you'd turn it down if you didn't like it, but I imagine that people complained about it enough that everyone started toning the 3D down. This would explain why Majora's Mask has a softer 3D effect than Ocarina of Time. But I never played a 3DS game with the 3D turned off, not even Smash Bros. It's what made the console special.

In Ocarina, when you get like medallion etc the 3D looks AMAZING. To see it burst out the screen and float in mid air, so beautiful.

I guess hindsight is 3d now. I really liked having visible depth in may games it made everything pop out and made things easier to discern. I wish 3d in general caught on more.

Always used the 3D, even on the "old" 3DS, though I get that most people found it really inconvenient to use on that model. With the New 3DS, it basically fixed it's main flaw. Also, if pople find the 3D uncofortable to use it most likely signifies a problem with their vision, rather than a hardware design flaw. Besides that, if you find the 3D effect too strong at first, that's normal! Most people need time to get used to a stronger effect, that was also true for me. And guess what, that's why the 3D slider exists.

Oh so NOW I notice the 3D animation in the GVG logo

The 2DS reveal is hilarious XD. Thanks for the story Steve

The 3D effects in the Layton and Bravely games are my favourite, simply because they're so pretty and clever. I turn on the 3D and just spend time looking at the screen, taking in all the little details. A Link Between Worlds is also very cool because of the angle and the way enemies get bigger and "pop out" of the screen.

My favorite use of the 3DS is to play 2D pixel art games in 3D. Cave Story looks SO much cooler with stereoscopic 3D!! Along with shovel knight, the Nintendo 3D classics, and the Sega 3D games too!

KUNIO NO KUN!!! The series is at its peak in the 3ds. Amazing double dragon sprit gameplay with rpg leveling up and a retro tokyo 3d sprite background? Amazing

The intro for monster hunter 4 ultimate almost blew my head off in 3d. I've never been so ready to play a video game in my life after watching that. If you've got the game and a 3ds and haven't tried it with the slider up, you've gotta see that, omg

Imagine the 3d effect with a bigger screen and HD visuals, would have been amazing, a 3D Switch

Thank you! I love the 3DS's tech. To this day whenever I go back to it it looks... cool. It's still as much of a magic trick today as it was on launch day, especially with the eye tracking on the new 3DS.

I played most games in full 3D. Project X Zone had a simple effect but it made all the difference. My only regret is games like Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon with ghosting (ha!).

I bought a 3DS XL this year. The 3D effect is essential to the whole thing. It's not like anything else. Between that and the dual screens, it's something you can't emulate. I have it maxed out always.

Got my nephew a pre owned 3ds for 50 bucks recently, hacked with an sd for another 10, absolutely amazing gift for a young child. Only put like 10 3DS and 5 DS games, no new to overload them, but my nephew is absolutslg glued to it.

The 3DS will go down has the end of gaming culture from the early to mid 90’s- 2017 that most of us grew up loving. Such a huge switch in gaming culture since the release of the Nintendo Switch.

I always played Kid Icarus Uprising's flight sections in 3D. Then I turn it off for the land battle because my arms get lazy and don't wanna hold it in place properly. If I got a New 3DS XL with eye-tracking, I'd probably never turn it off.

Stereoscopic 3D is cool and all but if there's more to a game than just "woah look guys it's 3D!!!", like it's an actual full game, they should have accessibility features for people who can't use the 3D. The camera in Mario 3D Land is positioned in a way that emphasizes the 3D effect, but I can't see out of my left eye, so the effect doesn't work for me, so I miss easy jumps just because the camera is locked into specific angles and I don't see the depth of a platform. I can put up with it but it would be so much easier if I could just have the camera behind Mario and/or pointed slightly downward instead of just the two extremes of directly looking at his side and directly looking at his hat.

I was one of the 3% of people who always had the 3D turned all the way up when playing the 3DS. I remember playing Ocarina of Time 3D, and whenever you got one of the spiritual stones, it looked like you can reach out and grab it. It was something small, but I found it cool.

A diorama is exactly how I used to describe it. Playing Mario Kart, 3D Land, Link Between Worlds, Pilotwings in 3D was as close as I ever felt to playing with physical toys in a game. It has real presence. I fired up my 3DS for the VirtualBoy emulator again recently and that feeling is still there. The 3DS is a really singular experience that is absolutely un-emulatable and irreplaceable for me. I really think my 3DS would be my desert island console. I love it so much.

The glasses-free stereoscopic 3D function of the 3DS was pretty cool. But recently I got to watching some exclusive 3D 'Shaun The Sheep' shorts and some other on my hacked N3DS (which I never knew existed) and I gotta say, even if they aren't as sharp or high res as I would've liked, I REALLY dig stereoscopic 3D medias now. I've never seen a 3D movie before in my life and the 3DS was the first device to give me that experience right at the comfort of my palms. So yeah even though '3D' went out of style like a decade ago or so, I still would like to see Nintendo or someone come back to this concept. But with a higher resolution offering sometime in the future someday. As unlikely as that might happen.

I used the 3D a lot on my original 3DS, but on my New 3DS XL it seemed like even with the eye tracking it wasn't lined up properly and would have a sort of "ghost" around stuff, most noticeable with darker backgrounds.

When I played Etrian Odyssey IV with 3D on, I felt like I was actually transported into the labyrinth, being able to get fully immersed in the worlds I’m in. Of course, this is a first person game but this kind of experience works best in 3D. Which speaking of, Mario Kart 7 having a first person mode truly added to the 3D allowing for a more immersive racing.

"3D was always great and I'm done pretending it's not"

Something I’m noticing while playing Gaist Crusher on 3DS (voice acted, furigana, can replay, take at own pace, only like 300 yen used) is the 3D effect also makes text boxes feel much better. No longer do they overlap the characters, but it actually feels like it’s own window and distinct from everything behind it

Playing 3DS for the first time, Street Fighter 4 being the first game I played at a gamestop, was still the most impressive and fascinating game experience for me. I couldn't believe my eyes that there could be a way to view 3D without the glasses. And the icing on the cake was how beautiful the system was. I still think aqua 3DS is the best looking system. I still always keep the 3D slider on. I've never gotten a headache. I love the 3DS!

My favourite 3D moments are simply getting an item (especially small keys) in Ocarina of Time 3D... It really looks like you can just reach into your screen and pick it up!

I used to always use the 3D on the 3DS. I don't always use it now but I also don't always play actual 3DS games on my 3DS. Recently I played through Bravely Default and I absolutely used it frequently.

I can't tell you my favorite 3D game, because I never got to play it. I can only watch TV clips of other people playing Mega Man Legends 3: Prototype Version and imagine what the 3D effect does for an over-the-shoulder view of flame-jump-kicking a giant robot. Even so, never turned the 3D on my system off, and only ever turned it down on Pilotwings.

Luigi’s mansion 2. Man the 3D in that game was so flippin amazing. Mario kart also

19:40 the kirby games would have sections where you have to choose a path, with gordos in the way, but some of them where not actually blocking your path so you need 3D. Also there was a boss that you dont *need* 3D but it would paint some objects and the *real* objects would stick out in 3D and the others would be paper.

I love 3d to this day. I have two 3ds consoles. I really hope NIntendo will return to this concept. There are millions of people who loved playing in 3d.

I really hope the successor of the Switch gets 3D in some way. I really miss it, and I believe it would be so nice to see games like Splatoon in 3D. And even then I really hope games like Red Dead Redemption II gets on it, and seeing that beautiful world in 3D would be so gorgeous. I do imagine that if the successor of the Switch gets 3D, it'll be via a headset, so it can be handled in both handheld mode and TV mode. Like, it would look like a VR headset, but it would just give the normal gameplay you are used to, but with the 3D effect. And while you play, people in your surrounding can watch your gameplay on the console's screen or TV screen. I made a concept of it in Paint, but I wish I could show it here in the comments.

I absolutely love the 3d effect and it's such a shame that most people don't realize how magical it is, I think the problem is just that on the original 3ds there was no eye tracking so it can get uncomfortable, and so people just dismissed it entirely, and if they upgraded their 3d to a new model, they get a new 2ds and never experience the awesomely improved 3d eye tracking. Personally, I wish the switch had a 3d screen, I mean imagine that large hd OLED with the 3ds 3d and further improved eye tracking, it could've been glorious, but I guess I'm the only one who cares lol

Criminal that you didn't mention Kirby Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot, which arguably had the best 3D effects on the system, especially with the multi-layered gameplay.

I never turned the 3D off. It looked amazing ( especially on the "New" series of consoles) and gives a more unique experience than any other handheld. Such a shame that it wasn't popular enough to be on the Switch as well

Haven't watched the video yet, but I LOVEEE the 3D so much. I used to use it all the time on my playthrough of Zelda Ocarina of Time. Made the adventure SUPER immersive!

Until the 3DS came out I never knew I didn't have proper depth perception. I have strabismus which is corrected by glasses/contacts but even with those I couldn't see the 3d effect when I first got the 3DS! My dominant eye was too dominant I guess. I had to train my eyes and brain to see it but I can now and 3d is really weird and cool. It took years for me to do and a lot of headaches but I love the 3DS so it made it worth it.

Maybe the reason they put a less intense 3D effect in MM3D is because in OoT3D the effect would have a lot of ghosting on everything, even when I turned it down a lot. That could have been something that's different from person to person but I didn't have this issue with any other 3DS game that I can think of and I played every game that supported it with the 3D slider all the way up

I wish 3D had caught on and I still hope it does. The industry is constantly looking at ways to improve image quality and they're overlooking the most obvious one, real images have depth, human eyes can perceive depth, and the difference between 2D and 3D is much larger compared to 1080p vs 4K in most cases.

I STILL have the same childlike sense of ‘3D? WITHOUT glasses?!’ And sometimes go back to it in disbelief that it was real and the primary console gimmick, just so cool. I hope Switch 2 has some kind of ‘wow, that’s so neat!’ going for it ;-;

The 3D on the NEW 3DS XL is so good & improved I can't go back to the original. Me & my family all love the 3D games. It's Such a shame that many games made for that system didn't use it. I would have liked to see all of the great NES games get that treatment. Sega was doing a pretty good job with it too.

I’m getting my 3ds back from my kid and I will try one more with the 3d on.

I played the apollo justice trilogy on 3DS and I have to say the 3D effect in those games are so good AA4 just has the usual sprite layering thing, but DD and SoJ do the kind of diorama look and it's so cool to see

I LOVE that the discussion videos are back. Hopefully they do well and get to continue. I also loved the 3D effect, but my poor 3ds has an issue nowadays where it doesn't quite work.

Even after owning a 3ds for 12 years I still can't use the 3d for more than 10 minutes without my eyes hurting

I always constantly used the 3D effect, even when it made the frame rate lower. I loved it.

The glasses-free 3D feature was a huge selling point to me, and it's still kind of shocking to me that it seems the vast majority of people rarely or never used the 3D! The original model definitely had the issue of needing to be in the "sweet spot" to get it to work, but the New 3DS added the eye tracking feature that made it work so much better. I was super disappointed when games like Pokemon X/Y and Sun/Moon limited the 3D effect to specific parts of the game.

I can finally say I'm not alone when it comes to playing with 3D always on. Even today, I play my 3DS games with the 3D cranked to the very top and I wish so much 3D screens in portable consoles were still used. Experiences like Mario 3D Land cannot simply be replicated because of this

I seldom play with the 3D on, but I like having it there, and it's always neat to turn that slider up every once in a while to see what the game looks like with it on, and play like that for a while, but because I have an old 3DS, it gets a bit tiring to hold it in *Just The Right Spot* for so long, so I end up inevitably turning it back off after too long... I'd probably use it more if I had a new one... Or maybe not... Tbh, part of the reason why I leave it off, along with the wireless off, and on the lowest brightness whenever possible, is to drain the battery less so I can play longer!

I was one of the freaks that always had 3D turned all the way up, unless the game was 60fps with it turned off! I loved it. But I appreciate it was smart to not incorporate it for Switch as it is quite a waste of hardware CPU/GPU resources to render a game twice, when that could be used for better graphics or performance.

I am absolutely ready for the homebrew revolution of porting every single retro pixel/sprite based game to stereoscopic 3D for 3DS. Let's do it!

god i really wish my new 3ds hadn’t been defective back in the day. for whatever reason the eye tracking just didn’t work on mine. i’ve been finding myself looking back fondly at that really overblown 3D effect you get when you turn it up to max! wish i’d never sold mine 😭😭😭😭

What a timing. Just charged up my 3DS for the first time since the eShop shut down last year. Let's hope porting games to stereoscopic 3D for the 3DS will become a huge thing moving forward.

One thing I miss about the og 3DS that is missing on the "new" model is how the "3D" symbol next to the 3D slider lights up. I still keep 3D slider all the way up whenever I play on my 3DS, which is often.

I have ALWAYS had that slider cranked! Made the 3ds feel so freaking cool! Have to say I enjoyed the 3ds but when I got my majora’s mask new 3ds I played it sooo much more. The face tracking 3D did not get enough love for how well it works! After modding my 3ds it’s a whole new world for discovering 3D games that I missed out on. There’s something really special about playing games on this console now…

I had a 3DS, 3DS XL and New 3DS XL I pushed that slider to maximum on day one, and never touched it again!!!

Bravely Default/Second had some of the best 3D. Looked like a painting come to life.

One thing I never understood with most at the time is how they said the 3D effect was hard to maintain and supposedly having to have god level precision to not move the console for that when for me it just worked without issue idk I actually kept it on most of the time because it looked cool to me

I love the 3D effect - and still do! That said, I actually like its effect the most when it's over top of a static, pre-rendered 2D background. Etrian Odyssey games in particular made the backgrounds of the different town buildings look absolutely gorgeous. As I'm playing theough EO5, even now, I still marvel at it. Some developers were better at using the effect than others, of course - but when it hit, it hit.

I always used 3D on my 3DS. But my brother did look at it for half a second and went "Nope, never using that ever again" and actually never ever touched that slider ever again. A lot of people are like that, which is a shame. Because 3D is pretty great (even with my glasses) on the device. Instead of a screen you basically look into a game world. I love that.

I never got to experience the 3D due to having a lazy eye, but the 3DS gave me many good memories. I'm glad many others enjoyed the 3D!

I love the 3D feature, even if I don't use it as often as I'd like. The Old 3DS makes it much harder to use, but I still love it! It's amazing in the Ace Attorney games released on 3DS and designed for it, looks beautiful!

Only had a 3DS for a couple of months now, and the 3D when it's at it's best is fantastic especially on the N3DS. The Virtual Boy emulator in particular is a gamechanger for experiencing those games

3D in Dragon Quest VII and Metal Gear Solid 3D was awesome. The depth is amazing on those games specially when configured properly.

I always loved the 3d I never got why people didn’t like it. It’s not great in some games but in others it makes it so much better. Plus now you can do Virtual boy emulation in 3d if you have a modded one

I never got to enjoy the original 3DS's finicky 3d, but once I joined the 3DS ecosystem with the New 3DS I was enthralled with the 3D effect. I would never play a game with it turned off. I definitely loved that SM3DLand had those spots where 3D was required. Lo-res as the camera was, taking 3D videos was also quite interesting. OT question: does anyone know why Jon's cropped/profile image is normal but his full-screen image is mirrored? The other two don't do that. Just curious on the choice to do that- two different cameras at play?

The 3D is what makes the 3DS so unique and special, even to this date. And isn't a gimmick, every now and then I play something on PS5, PC or Switch that could be a lot better if it was in 3D, you could judge distances, jumps and stuff a lot better with the effect I think that Trine 3 or 4 is one that the lack of 3D really hurts its gameplay

The new 3DS XL's 3D is awesome. You need the XL because the 3D only looks good if you hold it farther from your face.

I'm playing through Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney now, and I have to say it's my favorite use so far. Ace Attorney already did a good job of using the diorama box style, but the Professor Layton Investigation sections just pop so beautifully on the New 3DS, and you can move your head around to see different angles. Truly remarkable

They really should have done 3D versions of Mario, Mario 2, Mario 3, Super Mario World, the first two Legend of Zelda games, heck they could have just kept on going. Criminal that they didn't give the original Pokémon games the 3D treatment also, because the 3D kirby, kid iccurus, Twin bee, Sonic games etc all look so good on the 3DS and brought more life to them games

the 3D in the 3DS is something I can't live without. the New 2D XL is beautifully designed, but I just can't. I love playing games in 3D and it's an experience that can't be replicated anywhere else. Luigi's Mansion 2 has to be my favorite one to use the feature

I didn't get to experience many of these games, but Link Between Worlds was a very memorable experience for me on the 3DS. This inspires me to go install an emulator on my Quest 3.

I struggled with the feature with the original 3DS but the "new" 3DS seemed to have some kind of improved tracking feature that made it work better for me. I'm quite fidgety.

Mario & Luigi Dream Team's environments and backgrounds look amazing in 3D! Great game too all the Mario & Luigi games are great!

I completely agree. I have a New 3DS XL that I got for the first time a few years ago and I practically never turn that 3D slider down. It’s been much better than people said.

Maybe boring people turned the 3D off after 5 minutes but I never stopped using it. In fact, Pokémon Sun and Moon taking away the 3D effect during battle was a huge deal break for me. I just can't have nice things. If I like something, it gets taken away.

YAY more group discussions please! I wonder if Luigi's Mansion GC's original 3D features would be possible to access some day?

Every game has a different sweet spot on the slider. But I always used 3D. I hope Nintendo makes another 3D console someday.

A big issue was the fact that this was back when Nintendo had two lines of systems and the 3DS was definitely marketed toward a younger demographic. I feel that is what caused the backlash and the introduction of the 2DS line. In a perfect world the next switch has 3D with eye tracking

i generally wasn't a fan of having the 3d slider on but i have Two Exceptions: 1. you mentioned in the video, but kirby's adventure 3d classics was really good. the way they layered all that detailed nes spritework was incredible, and not slowing to a crawl every few seconds is the best way to play it 2. mario & luigi: dream team. i think the later mario & luigi games canned the 3d function which sucks, because those sprites look beautiful with depth. the mountain themed after bodybuilding in particular looked great

My other comment is fairly dismissive of 3D, but I actually want to separately shout out what I think is by far the best ever use of it, because it’s going to inevitably be lost to time. In the first Great Ace Attorney game, one of the cases makes a lot of hay about a historically-novel invention, the stereoscope, which allows you to see still images in 3D. Not only does featuring this in the case make for a cute link to the system’s gimmick, but their utter confoundment at the possibilities of the technology really draws attention to how far technology has come, given your own infinitely more advanced device through which you’re experiencing the story. This especially rings heavy once you stop and appreciate that, even so many technological steps behind, they’re still tasked with the same thing the justice system would be today: apprehending the truth. While I’m ofc stoked the duology eventually made it here, I do think it’s kind of a shame it had to lose some degree of this very interesting idea in the process.

The 3D on Rayman 3D is crazy too! You're gonna want a modded New 3DS to get the performance up to 60fps, but if you can get that the effect is awesome.

3D was the thing I missed most, when I started playing Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate on Switch. The 3DS MH games are one of my top picks for good 3D usage. Especially when you're underwater in MH3U.

I love it and use it full blast whenever I play my 3DS. I honestly can't understand how people don't like 3D. To me it was always the next step in visual entertainment and people's dismissal of it is like if people called color TV 'a gimmick' back in the 60s when it was introduced and preferred to keep watching things in black & white.

It's great that people are starting to realize how cool the 3D on the 3DS was, but it would've been even better if people had this love for it back in the day. /:

I love this 3DS videos. Please keep making it

StarFox 64 3D is just great. I hope we get a remake of Adventures and Assault for the switch or switch 2