The best Nintendo 3DS games

Animal Crossing games aren’t like other video games, especially since you’re not engaging in tense combat or undertaking epic quests. You won’t be scratching your head trying to complete complex puzzles either, nor sweating against stiff racing competition. Instead, Animal Crossing: New Leaf functions as a relaxing town-management sim, one where you slowly build your tiny town and engage in various upkeep activities. With New Leaf, you might find yourself furnishing homes and visiting with neighbors or spending some quality alone time gardening, fishing, or partaking in numerous other activities. This doesn’t mean the game is boring, however, because it’s that same leisurely pace that makes the title so deceptively addictive. From the moment you assume mayorship of your town, you’ll be busy maintaining the quaint village, keeping your villagers happy, preparing for holidays, and unlocking new activities to enjoy. The franchise recently struck gold again with Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the Nintendo Switch.

Believe it or not, Mario and Luigi do a lot more than jump on Goombas and devour mushrooms in their free time. Though Mario and Luigi: Dream Team may not be the most recent of the fraternal plumber duo’s RPG adventures, it is one of the best Mario games and the best one available on 3DS. Dream Team takes place simultaneously on the Island of Pi’illo (pronounced “pillow”) and inside Luigi’s surreal dream world. While playing in Pi’ill0, players explore the island and control Mario and Luigi in turn-based combat. When in Luigi’s dream world, however, Mario must team up with Luigi’s dream avatar, Dreamy Luigi, to engage in a mix of 2D side-scrolling and RPG battling. Dream Team is a great hybrid that will scratch your itch for both a platformer and an RPG while still retaining a keen sense of charm.

Majora’s Mask is somewhat of a misfit within The Legend of Zelda series. It’s both incredibly dark for a Nintendo game and also features one of the riskiest mechanics in the series. Taking place in Termina, a parallel to Hyrule, Majora’s Mask sees Link search for his fairy Navi following the conclusion of Ocarina of Time. He quickly finds himself in a weird predicament: He has three days to save the world before the moon crashes down and destroys everything. The three-day cycle mechanic, representing about one hour in real time, turns the exploration and progression on its head. If the moon hits, you lose all the progress you made since the last collision. You can avoid this by playing songs on the ocarina to manipulate time. But minor progression will always be lost, as well as characters’ knowledge of Link. The mask system is inventive, expanding on the feature in Ocarina of Time in surprising and fun ways. What makes Majora’s Mask stand out, besides the constant stress of beating the clock, is the world itself. Out of all of the alternate worlds in the Zelda series, Termina still feels the most real. The N64 port plays brilliantly on the 3DS. Keep in mind, though, it plays best on New Nintendo 3DS hardware due to the C stick and increased processing power. If you missed the lesser-known N64 Zelda the first time around, do yourself a favor and play it on 3DS.

As the long-awaited sequel to Luigi’s Mansion, Dark Moon capitalizes on what made the original so great while adding a few fun additions of its own. The game tasks players with investigating five haunted mansions in search of the shattered pieces of a ghost-quelling object called the Dark Moon. Like so many of Nintendo’s exclusive titles, Dark Moon is an inventive adventure title, one that’s packed to the brim with amusing and entertaining gameplay. Nintendo hit another home run with this Luigi-centered franchise and followed it up with a sequel on Switch in 2019.

Considered by Nintendo of Europe as the “rightful successor” to Super Mario Bros. 3, New Super Mario Bros. 2 took the franchise back to its 2D roots. With nine worlds to play through, Nintendo treated gamers to a title that felt familiar but featured its own set of unique upgrades. Understandably, the visuals received a massive uptick in quality, each of which further capitalized on a wealth of vivid colors and gorgeous 3D backgrounds. New Super Mario Bros. 2 also featured co-op gameplay, which players unlocked after successfully completing the game’s Solo mode. With its addictive gameplay, beautiful visuals, and high level of replay value, New Super Mario Bros. 2 is no doubt one of the finest titles available on the 3DS.