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A feature of the 3DS that requires the person to walk and makes me want to keep walking. What blasphemy is this?!?

Playing the Game

The 3ds acts like a pedometer recording the number of steps that a person has taken. For every 100 steps taken you get a coin at a maximum of 10 coins per day. These coins can be spent in various ways such as obtaining figurines in ‘Streetfighter’, gaining unlockable items faster such as ‘Dead or Alive’, and extras games and collectables from the software on the 3DS console.  Specifically, you can gather hats for your Mii and 3D images of various Nintendo games in one of the 3DS software known as ‘Streetpass Plaza’.

 In ‘Streetpass Plaza’, there are two games. One is known as ‘Puzzle Swap’, the objective is to obtain puzzles pieces to complete 3D pictures like a jigsaw puzzle. When you start you are given one random piece from a puzzle. In ‘Puzzle Swap’ you can spend your coins on pieces, but the pieces are random, so there is a chance that you can obtain the same piece twice. The second game is called ‘Streetpass Quest’. In this game you can obtain various iconic hats, by defeating enemies with physical attacks or magic in turn-based RPG style combat. In this game, by spending coins you can recruit wanderers to attempt to rescue your Mii who has been kidnapped. However, there are limitations by just spending coins. The limitation of ‘Puzzle Swap’ is that you can only get pieces from jigsaws that you have unlocked and for ‘Street Quest’ to hire a full team (10 people) you need twenty coins, essentially two days of walking and they will also be between the levels of one and two. To obtain more Puzzles and heroes for Streetpass Quest is to do like the namesake, Streetpass.

 To ‘Streetpass’ it involves walking around with your 3DS and passing others on the street with their 3DS. When you pass somebody you will get a notification indicating that you have passed someone. You can get a maximum of 10 people on one trip and those people will remain in your plaza. This way you can obtain other pieces from other puzzles, which you can then spend your hard earned walking money to complete those puzzles. When you Streetpass people, you can later use them in Streetpass Quest for one time only until Streetpass Quest II where you can rehire them. The people obtained through Streetpassing begin at level one, if you Streetpass them again they gain a level. You can Streetpass continually with someone but they will only be at level seven which is the maximum level for Streetpass Quest.

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Thank you kind sir for the puzzle piece! You are a gentlemen and a scholar!

Game Analysis

What Worked

• Exercise. Although it is easy enough to shake your 3DS, it can encourage people to actively walk outside to get coins and possibly meeting up with people.
• Limit of coins gathered through walking. Limit on amount of coins you can gather daily so no chance of “game fatigue”/early boredom.
• Streetpass Rewards. The reward for street pass quest are great so now instead of showing off your Mii’s that you’ve created, they now can wear an iconic hat to make them more unique and show off your fanboyism/fangirlism.

What Didn’t Worked

• Puzzle Swap Rewards. The reward for Puzzle Swap is a little lacking. The images could have been unique, but the images are just of box art which I have already seen, with minor animations attached to them and lack of camera control. An interactive reward would have been better like the ability to rotate to whatever angle you want and for example, allow Link to sword slice with a button press rather than it being automated.
• Certain Streetpass Quest I/II mechanics. In Streetpass Quest and its successor, certain mechanics make me want to throw my 3DS in an anger fuelled rage. One of the mechanics is when you need a specific colour or colours to bypass an enemy. This requires dumb luck through hiring or Streetpassing or multiple 3DSs to obtain the colour needed. Second, there are enemies who are clad in armour where level ones cannot cause damage to it. This would be an alright mechanic if you are constantly bumping into the same people and levelling up or they gave you a random chance to get higher levels.
• The need for others with a 3DS. Not a huge detrimental factor but to get street pass hits there is a need for others with 3DSes. In other words you won’t be able to complete puzzles unless you get hits. You can still do Streetpass Quest, but requires dumb luck and lots of coinage.

Final Comments

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I thoroughly enjoyed and still enjoying the Streetpass Plaza’s Puzzle Swap and Streetpass Quest, but it could be because I borrow my older brother’s 3DS, so we have constant level sevens gaining hats for each other.  Although, I still go out to try and get my 10 coins every day, so the extra exercise is great and it still motivates me to go outside which is definitely a plus in my books.

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P.S. This is all opinion and different people may have a different experience. Sorry for the fuzzy photos, they were taken on my Iphone, and they were my best quality in comparison to other cameras.