Find Mii

So I’m weak and was unable to wait for Nintendo`s inevitable redesign of the 3DS. After playing a demo unit for a couple of minutes the other week while I was out with a friend, I picked one up. I have to say that I am really impressed so far with the little 3D machine, and with Pilotwings Resort; the 3D is a cool addition to handheld gaming, and I hope developers make good use of the feature. I am also impressed with the number of free games that came already on the system. Face Raiders is a ton of fun; using the room you`re in as the stage for the game is awesome, and the idea of collecting your friends and families faces to use in the game is something new. The AR Games are cool, if only for the novelty of shooting a dragon that has grown out of your desk; I hope that in future firmware updates, Nintendo will update the AR Games and release more cards. But what is really surprising are the games found in the Mii Plaza.

The Mii Plaza is an application where you can see all the Miis you have collected with the spot pass feature of the 3DS. Spot pass lets your system connects to others how might have their 3DS with them, and download things such as Miis to your own machine. The Miis you have collected on your travels can help you collect puzzle pieces that form 3D pictures, or you can use them in the little RPG included in the Mii Plaza called Find Mii.

In Find Mii, you take the Miis that you have collected through your travels, and use them to rescue the Mii that you first created on the system. This first Mii, the one you use as your system profile, was the king of the land and has now been captured. It is up to your army of little people to save the king, and collect a bunch of hats along the way. While I have not been able to try this out yet (I not collected any Miis yet), it seems like a fun little game. It is nice that Nintendo included it with the system; this could have easily been a title for the yet released e-shop for a couple of bucks.

I am excited by what I have seen of the systems capability, and I hope that Nintendo fosters an environment of experimentation with this new 3D technology. The addition of visual depth to the screen opens a whole new world for companies to explore, and I hope people use it in interesting and exciting ways.