using a modded 3ds for 3 months

as many people know i have been using a modded 3ds for a while now.
this little fella was my dream console since i was 15, and now that i actually have a job and the money to get it, i decided to get one for a bit of a salty price for a console like this, and lemme tell you my experiences with it.

1. Using It Daily

i remember just turning the 3ds on and being super happy,,, the amount of personality that this little portable has is absolutely wild, the touch controls, music and overall aesthetic of it makes it a joy to do literally anything. like bro they made music for the internet settings. THE GODDAMN INTERNET SETTINGS. IT IS A JOY TO CONNECT TO YOUR LOCAL WIFI

after getting the console itself i decided to buy a little case for it so i can take it to work, uni, and other places i go around with it, and i must say - the 3ds is REALLY portable. it's smaller than your average mobile phone when folded and its very lightweight!! i myself have a very busy schedule so the portability comes in handy for those "eh why not" kind of moments where i can just easily pull the console and start playing something.

the library the 3ds has is pretty nice,,, i myself mostly play Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Super Mario 3D Land, but i have other stuff in here like Luigi's Mansion 2, Metroid: Samus Returns, Picross, and other plenty of things i barely play 😭 (as i write i tried playing Fire Emblem: Awakening and its really really good?? im not an rpg )

the battery life is... surprising? like, fine, i don't play for more than an hour but i keep it turned on while closed so streetpass still works, and it still holds up for a whole day if youre gonna carry it during your daily routine! as far as i'm aware it uses a 2000mAh battery and there are custom made batteries to make it use a 5000mAh battery!? which i'll be honest, i thought on getting them,,, but they're too expensive and i don't think i need it too much.

like i said, i use my 3ds at periods when im not doing anything. that's mostly when im sat down on a bus while getting to work, at uni while waiting for class to start, and at my bed, playing before sleeping. so i don't really play for long periods of time... and maybe that's what the 3ds was made for. those little moments where you wanna pick something up and just play for a while, and not full-on long gaming sessions. although there's games where you can EASILY find yourself on the grind (my case with fire emblem: awakening!!)

my favorite thing is to pull the camera. the 3ds has this 2013 camera quality that makes it wonderful to just use,,, whenever i open up a video i made with it, it feels like i'm looking at a distant memory when in reality i'm looking to a video i recorded 2 days ago - and it's not just me, there's even whole subreddits just for 3ds fotography. it's funny how having a 3ds was so normal a few years back and right now, it's the coolest thing ever. it's a shame modern UIs don't really seem to have much of this level of personality for the sake of convenience.

2. Modding

the modded 3ds experience is actually spending more time just downloading tons of shit rather than actually playing on the goddamn console lmfao. the homebrew scene is pretty wild!! i myself am having tons of fun with apotris (a homebrew tetris game) and its soooo smooth to play. i have a few ports (SM64, DDLC) that i barely even touch and installed purely for the funsies. the CFW process is surprisingly simple (no really, just download python, put the sd card in and out few times and youre done).

my 3ds came with a fucking 2gb sd card 😭😭 you can barely put anything in this. so i just bought a 64gb sd card (requires formatting) and just slapped in a bunch of games. so im taking my sweet time to play each one of them individually.

theres two big things that reflect a lot on how i use my 3DS, though:

2.1 Pretendo

Pretendo is a fan-made, community driven online service restoration project for both 3DS and Wii U games and platforms. And it's actually WILD to see it in practice. i myself played few rounds of Mario Kart 7 with my best friend and it's incredible how smooth it just... works. theres few chances it might get a little troublesome to get into rounds during the first tries but at least for me, it seems to work fine.

super smash bros is really, REALLY laggy unfortunately 🥀 when both me and my friend tested it, we were quite disappointed with the results we got. it's barely playable.

now, there's plenty of stuff i still gotta test. animal crossing is something i wanna play with my friend ahhhhhh but im still so surprised by how damn well pretendo just. works.

2.2 Netpass

Netpass is an online service where it lets you get streetpasses with people around the world. This is SO goddamn cool.

you can finally see mii streetplaza at it's glory once again. it's not as cool as getting an actual, physical streetpass, but it's still amazing nonetheless. because of this, i tend to keep my 3ds turned on while closed connected to my phone's wifi router. seriously, you can farm A LOT of passes.

3. 3DS Models

just a short segment to talk about the fact that i own the original 3DS,,, after that one we got a few models, like the 2DS, the 3DS XL and the other consoles from the New Nintendo 3DS Family.

if you want the ultimate modding experience - go for the new 3ds models. original new 3ds models are kind of hard to find, but the new xl models tend to be more common. because of the superior hardware you can run more computationally expensive homebrew apps,,, for instance, the SM64 decomp has weird performance on O3DS models, while it runs smooth as hell on N3DS models. and don't even get me started on emulation!! N3DS models are PERFECT for PS1 emulation, not only because of performance but because of the c-stick, alongside extra shoulder buttons, which is enough to have a good PS1 gaming experiences.

as far as i remember, you can also run SNES virtual console games on N3DSes compared to O3DSes, although i myself haven't tested much emulation via retroarch on my one. i tried running crash bandicoot on my O3DS and it runs like ASS. genuienly 😭

4. What I want to do next

ahhh i have a few plans for this bad boy. i wanna just buy a few accessories for it (a plastic case, a USB to USB-A charger plug) and maybe, one day, going in for a full shell swap alongside a bottom screen replacement. i will admit im pretty scared of doing this but it's kinda clear it's current case is kinda wearing off... it doesn't look bad, but i kinda wanted to make it look entirely new.

and that's it for today! i myself am having tons of fun with my 3ds and i hope to spend more time with it :))
also goddamn these consoles are getting expensive nowdays 💔

see ya!
-maci