Top Nintendo 3DS & 2DS Games 2023

Animal Crossing: New Leaf isn’t just a game – it’s a whole new world full of lovable characters and insurmountable charm. A world where you'll sometimes find a Metroid or a Triforce in a fortune cookie, where you can arrange your surroundings to perfectly suit your tastes, and where the Mayor still chips in at the local coffee joint. Every day feels different from the last, like you’re living out a separate (and wonderful) life with your wacky villagers. There’s always something to work toward, something to look forward to, something to be proud of or to remember fondly. New Leaf is a truly magical game, one that you can easily expect to invest hundreds of hours in over the course of years. Anyone with access to a 3DS should absolutely give this game a try - just be prepared to kiss your “real” life goodbye.

Fire Emblem Awakening is the most fluid and stunning strategy RPG experience available on a portable, and features the best storytelling and production value of any 3DS game to date. The strong tactical gameplay and strikingly diverse visuals are only part of the equation - the strength of the game comes from the strength of the characters. The desire to protect them and progress their individual story arcs drives home the weight of your decisions, and makes you feel more involved and invested than most games ever come close to. I found myself going to great lengths to keep all members of my team alive - not due to the compulsive need to collect all the warriors, but because I truly cared about these people. That’s rare for a videogame, where death is often a temporary and inconsequential occurrence. While many of these concepts aren’t new to the Fire Emblem series, never before have they been presented in such a refined and easily accessible package. In this way, Awakening exceeds all prior installments for a game that is at once a Fire Emblem lover's dream come true and a brilliant entry point to both the franchise and the genre. This isn’t just a Fire Emblem game, this is where Fire Emblem finally awakens from its deep slumber as a cult favorite and steps up as one of the Big N’s big franchises, no longer shackled by its niche origins. And it didn’t achieve this by sacrificing its identity either, but rather by refining the franchise’s already solid foundation so that its accessibility and caliber should easily qualify it as a quintessential portable experience, right up there with the likes of Super Mario 3D Land or Pokemon Black and White 2. If you have access to a 3DS, don’t deny yourself this truly special and incredible experience.

Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest is a rewarding and deep turn-based tactical game with a grand story and characters I liked enough that losing them in combat really stings. The intense difficulty is squarely aimed at veteran Fire Emblem players, and its satisfying campaign is full of variety and challenge. And even though a win or loss can down to sheer luck, I walked away either satisfied or eager to give it another shot.

Super Mario 3D Land represents the first 3DS title to fully make use of the system’s capabilities. With an expertly balanced difficulty progression, dazzling level design and masterful Power-Ups, this is the ideal 3DS experience. Most of the first eight worlds fly by a bit too quickly, but with extra content you unlock afterward, medal challenges in each level and StreetPass allowing you to best your friend’s times, you’ll still find plenty of replay value here. As an experience, Super Mario 3D Land gets deeper the longer you play, as you sink into its particular groove and learn to appreciate it as a unique title - one that is separate from yet beautifully derivative of the entire Mario franchise. As a whole, 3D Land is brilliant and addictive, and should do for 3D-enhanced platforming what the original Super Mario Bros. did for 2D platforming. If you own a 3DS system, you have no choice - you simply must own this game.

Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire for the Nintendo 3DS update the classic Gen III Ruby/Sapphire games with 3D graphics and polished mechanics worthy of a modern Pokemon title.

Pokemon X/Y doesn't change how it plays over Black/White, Diamond/Pearl, and so on, but it looks great and is still a fun, satisfying time-sink for your 3DS.

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D is a great port of an amazing game. The extra world is a worthwhile addition, and the new easy mode should allow even more people to enjoy the ride. While the 3DS’s version obviously doesn’t look quite as nice as the Wii’s, and the lower framerate is annoying, it’s just a hair short (an ape hair, perhaps) of being right up to par.

Persona Q is a 60-plus hour roleplaying experience that both charms and entertains. Though there were points when its puzzles completely stumped me, and the combat’s steep difficulty, made me want to launch my 3DS into orbit a few times, the enjoyable battle system, deep exploration, and generous dollops of fanservice made it worth the effort.

Shin Megami Tensei IV succeeds on the merits of its outstanding demon fusion system and combat, even if its story and exploration are only fair. Apart from a basic map it’s handsomely produced, and the pace moves at a good enough clip to keep things interesting. It doesn’t quite transcend the bounds of its niche appeal as an RPG, but it’s easy enough to recommend to anyone looking for a good hardcore dungeon crawler on the Nintendo 3DS.

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 is a love letter to fans of the Boy Who Lived. The comedic cutscenes toying with canon, the hundreds of hidden things to find, and the general sense of a great LEGO game paired with a great series really makes this game a standout. There are still a few issues to buff out, but there’s plenty in LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 to keep you coming back for more.