I still remember being 13 years old and begging my dad for an original old model small 3DS for Christmas. I wasn't expecting anything, but he did give it to me, and that's when I fell in love with this little system.
The 3DS is special for me. For the longest time I couldn't hack it or play backups on it, so every new purchase of a game was a special event. I ended up owning dozens of games before selling my entire collection in 2019 to build a PC; was it worth it? Well, considering that now I have a New 3DS XL and that I'm not too attached to material things (such as my game collection), I'd say yes.

The New 3DS XL takes everything I loved about the original model and makes it tens times better, even if I wish I could've gotten the smaller Japanese model, as I prefer the most portability as possible - still, it's a good console, and a great improvement over the original model.

Back when I got this, the paint on it looked pristine, but for some reason it's been slowly but surely "shedding its skin", making it look real ugly. It's not a deal breaker and it doesn't make me particularly sad or anything, but it does make it kinda of offputting, still, what matters is that the console is working.

Back shot of the paint peeling off

Right now, the only original and physical game I own is New Super Mario Bros. 2, a great upgrade over the original NSMB for the Nintendo DS, even if I prefer the DS game better.
But that's the thing, this is a 3DS, its got DS in the title, it can play DS games too!

With TWiLightMenu you can launch any DS/DSi game through your 3DS without the need of a flashcart, it's one of the benefits of having a hacked console.

It's crazy that I can play gen 1 through 7 of Pokémon on the 3DS. With my favourite games being Black/White 1, Pokémon Emerald and X/Y.
It runs GBA games natively which is pretty crazy, but that's because the DS hardware which is present on the 3DS for backwards compatibility is also present on the 3DS, just like the Gamecube hardware is present on the Wii U because of Wii backwards compatibility.

And on the topic of retro games, the 3DS makes for a great little emulation handheld, be it if you're playing through Retroarch or the Nintendo released virtual console titles. I'm pretty happy with the virtual console selection and haven't yet felt the need to install other emulators, but if that time ever comes, then well, it's easy as cake.

Back to Modern Games

As the name implies, this is a revision of the original 3DS. It's got more RAM and a more powerful processor, this makes some games run better (Smash 3DS and Hyrule Warriors for instance) and opens up the gate for entirely new titles like Xenoblade Chronicles (which is a crazy good port, even if it looks a little pixelated.)

Smash Bros. doesn't necessarily get better performance, but because of the added ram, you can close out of it without needing to restart the home menu, which was a small incovenience back in the OG 3DS but that saves up some time on the New 3DS.

Online Play

Last year, Nintendo shut down the online servers for the 3DS and Wii U line of consoles, that doesn't mean you can't play online anymore though. With a service called Pretendo you can still connect to fan hosted servers and play online as if nothing ever happened! This also works on the Wii U and it's a great reason to homebrew your 3DS, as some games were really fun to play online (I love online Mario Kart).

Overall, the 3DS is still a really great console. I personally don't think it beats the Vita (I really miss my Vita, damn), but it's still great and has an incredible selection of titles. Even some newer games were ported to it like Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido which is also available on Switch (and really fun there too).

If you ever come across a cheap 3DS, grab it! The selection of titles is insanely good and the hardware is the best out there for playing dual screen games (it is its purpose basically lol).

Also love this Persona theme haha

Thanks for reading!