In this, the Year of Luigi – It’s been all about the Nintendo 3DS

Behind all of the hype and mess of the two ‘next generation’ consoles and how poorly the Wii U did, there’s been one thing in gaming that hasn’t been said enough in 2013.

The Nintendo 3DS absolutely rocked it.

This year has been such a breakout year for the portable that the mainstream gaming and even the mainstream press had written off not two years ago. But first a story, a personal one on how the Nintendo 3DS has become the system of the year. If there ever such a thing.

In early 2011, my brother and I flew to Japan to check out the Nintendo 3DS. Being that the system was new and wasn’t out yet, things were pretty cruisy for Nintendo. The hype was high; this was a new Nintendo handheld after all and the successor to the Nintendo DS. The second highest selling console of all time.

Later in 2011 I met my girlfriend; she had a Wii and played Guitar Hero, Wii Sports and Wii Fit – the typical or stereotypical lapsed gamer who had picked up a Wii after never really touching games since childhood. To her, the idea of the Nintendo 3DS was ridiculous, especially in this smartphone crazy world of ours.

Mainstream and the general gaming press felt the same way soon after the system was released. The sales figures too agreed, the Nintendo 3DS was on a downward trajectory. The now famous price drop since then help correct that, but it hasn’t really been until this year that the ears of the press, the general public and gamers have pricked up – “Hey look, the 3DS is a compelling console”. That’s large in part to the series of games released this year.

Owning the Nintendo 3DS in 2013 has been absolutely amazing. From the first month of the year, we’ve had hit after hit after hit. Cries of ‘stop Nintendo we can’t play all these’ have been tweeted, Facebook’d and written about this year. The Nintendo 3DS has had the highest quality exclusives almost monthly throughout the year.

GameCube nostalgia, it’s not something Nintendo has banked on much yet and Luigi’s Mansion 2 was the first game to successfully pull it off. Luigi’s Mansion 2 isn’t good because it is nostalgic, it’s good because the developers, Next Level Games, had a solid idea for the title and then infused that Nintendo magic with it to make a terrific game.

Who else other than Intelligent Systems could make a turn-based game into a game of the year contender? Fire Emblem: Awakening, the name is somewhat ironic – it was one of the first games this year that awoken people to just how great the Nintendo 3DS is.

The biggest and some might say the best Pokemon games in years. Completely revamped, rebuilt and sold out for months, Pokemon X and Y utilises the Nintendo 3DS to the extreme, so much so that they had turn 3D off for most of it (alright so that might not be a good thing for some). Pokemon X and Y also use the system’s StreetPass, online and local multiplayer capabilities to their full effect.

Hands up if you’re still playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf on a daily basis? If you’re not, what are you crazy people doing?! Your poor villagers are likely dying, sick and overrun with weeds. That’s the emotional bond that Animal Crossing brings, the addition of returning to your fantasy village and lording over a bunch of needy animals.

What if Nintendo made a Zelda game that for once changed the very core of the series, but at the same time took a game from 1992 and turn that on its head as well. That’s what The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is.

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, Mario and Luigi’s Dream Team Bros, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy and Bravely Default. This and more is just some of the games you can only play on the 3DS. Well maybe not Donkey Kong Country Returns, but at least this version doesn’t have the waggle.

I haven’t even mentioned the eShop yet! We’ve had a ton of compelling games from Level-5, each game being pulled from the Japanese Guild series and each made by famed Japanese developers. We’ve seen Steamworld Dig and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies show that third parties can release exclusive games on the digital platform.

Both Nintendo and third parties have finally come to an understanding with the system, they know what they can do with and in the case of Pokemon X and Y they can even push it too far. This year is the first year in a long time that I’ve had to take a handheld with me at all times.

Just how is everyone going to top it in 2014?