Question for Nintendo DS/3DS users.

[Deacon Cole]

I recently purchased a 3DS after bitching about it for a year because I tried a demo for Luigi's Mansion and decided I wanted to play more of it. Bow down to the killer app, ye dogs! I'm enjoying it well enough but I've noticed something that I find interesting and decided to see if anyone else has the same experience.

I hardly ever look at the second screen. I do occasionally glance at it or tap on it with my greasy thumb. But there's nothing the second screen does that couldn't have just been put on the main screen. I would have forgotten there was a second screen completely if I wasn't reminded that it was there when something important flashed on it every now and again. I also found it a bit disorientating to switch between the two screens and not nearly as intuitive as glancing slightly down should be. And I leave the rubbish 3D off, so that's not the problem.

So the question is, what are other users' experience with the second screen on the 3DS/DS? Do others find it as useless and forgettable as I do? I ask, because this may be the main flaw in the WiiU which makes a DS with your TV. So they may have thought this would be a recipe for success except the least useful feature of their recent handhelds after the motion controls, I mean jesus fucking christ, is the second screen. No one wants it. No one needs it. It adds nothing.

But that may be just me. So what is your experience with the second screen on the 3/DS

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Depends on the game really. But it is sort of true that few games require you pay attention to both screens at the same time[footnote]Battles in The World Ends With You being the only example I can remember right now[/footnote].

I wouldn't call the second screen completely useless though. It often has stuff on it like mini-maps, inventory, stats and such. Things you don't need all the time, but are still handy to be able to keep track off at a glance, and that would cause needless clutter if it were all on the same screen[footnote]Screenspace is already a previous commodity as it is on handhelds[/footnote] or that would bring your game to a halt if they required you to bring up a menu.

 

[Deacon Cole]

I wouldn't call the second screen completely useless though. It often has stuff on it like mini-maps, inventory, stats and such. Things you don't need all the time, but are still handy to be able to keep track off at a glance, and that would cause needless clutter if it were all on the same screen or that would bring your game to a halt if they required you to bring up a menu.

Maybe I'm just old skule or something, but I don't find that to be that much of a problem. Indeed, and this is really weird, but I found glancing from the main screen to the second screen to check the map to be... and I hate this term... more immersion-breaking that remaining focused on the one screen and pressing a button to bring up the map. Part of it is that such buttons would also act as a pause function so I could take a breather. With two screens, that isn't the case and I feel I need to keep an eye on the other screen lest I get blindsided by an enemy. This could also be accomplished using a transparent GUI so that I could focus on just the one screen at all times.

You know, immersion is one of those idiotic buzzwords that loads of people use without understanding or even knowing the meaning. In this case, a good synonym may be focus. I can remain focused on a single screen and push a button to bring up the map or inventory. Having to switch to a different screen, I lose that focus.

It's all about what works for a game when actually playing or not. It's like how the Playstation buttons are upside down.

Triangle, square, circle, X. But what do they mean? Square and circle are essentially the A and B buttons while the triangle was designed to be the enter button and X was the cancel button while navigating menus. However, in most games the functions of triangle and X are reversed. That's because they discovered people found one orientation intuitive while looking at the controller and the opposite intuitive while focusing on the screen and since games need you to focus on the screen, that's the function the buttons have in most games.

So, that's the problem with the dual screen. I have to take my focus off one screen to use the other and this breaks flow or that connection I have with the game in play.

You had said "Things you don't need all the time, but are still handy to be able to keep track off at a glance" which sounds like it would work well, but I have found in practice that this does not work very well at all. I'm actually rather surprised by this, hence this thread. I wonder if my old eyes and brain that hasn't purchased a handheld since the original Gameboy just can't wrap itself around this dual screen business or if it is a problematic feature, and by extension if it represents a significant flaw in the WiiU design.

 

[Dragonbums]

It depends on how well the studio understands game design.
It's the reason why one screen has all the action, and the other screen has very minimal content. It's meant to be a quick lookover and that's it.

Devs that put a shitload of things on both screens tend to utilize it for worse, because you are right, your only meant to really focus on one thing.

 

[MysticToast]

Like everyone else said, this is highly dependent on the game you're playing. None of the games I've played on my 3ds make the second screen feel useless. I like how in ocarina of time, all the action is on top and the information is on the bottom. I also don't find it that hard to glance quickly at the bottom screen

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I really loved how it was utilized in The World Ends With You and Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective but really... those were the only two.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I've gotten my uses out of the second screen. With Pokemon, it's nice that I can use it instead of pressing buttons every now and again. With Kirby's Mass Attack, the game's controls function solely on the second screen and, though I've had some issues with it, I've enjoyed it for the most part. In fact, when playing that game with both stylus', my brother likened it to watching me turbo crochet a pair of baby socks.

Just depends on what you doing with the screen with the game that you're playing.

 

[suntt123]

Strategy oriented games like Fire Emblem, Advance Wars and Devil Survivor make decent use of the games. Anything with Menu driven gameplay could also benefit from it. It kind of irritates me that in the Final Fantasy IV remake on the DS they put the menus on the top screen so I had to rearrange spells and navigate the menus, rather than just quickly tapping what I needed to use.... Kind of missed the point of the thing, I think -_-'

 

[Flatfrog]

Bowser's Inside Story used the two screens pretty well (I didn't play it myself, but my son was obsessed with it). One screen was what was happening with Bowser himself, the other had what Mario and Luigi were doing inside him (and yes, if you aren't aware of this game, I'm not kidding, that's the plot). In general you were only interested in one or the other at a time, but they formed a coherent whole, and sometimes there was some interaction between the two.

There's a bit more to it than that, but anyway, it kind of worked.

 

[Deacon Cole]

I think you would enjoy it more, had you been playing the DS since 2005 like most of us have.

I'm going to have to chalk it up to this because I would say just about the exact opposite of everything you've said after this. I find pressing start to pull up the inventory more intuitive than glancing down to a separate screen. I just found it weird that I found I disliked it as much as I did. On paper, I would have thought it would have been fine, but I find it... not good. Certainly not an improvement. But I'm probably just not used to it. May have to get a Zelda game to say for certain. If I do, I may update here.

 

[TrevHead]

As others say, it's only because you're not playing the right games atm I'm playing Entrian Odyssey where you have to map out the dungeon using the touchpad.

 

[Ruley]

As many have said, really depends on the game. Fire Emblem: Awakening and Animal Crossing: New Leaf are the games that have best used the touch screen in my experience. Awakening used it for unit moment and unit management. Animal crossing uses it for inventory management and in game chat.

I've played Luigi's mansion, i get what OP says about the second screen being useless. I never really use it either!

 

[Raioken18]

Yeah Etrian Odyssey is definitely one of those games that required you to use the second screen. Actually most games I'd played had fairly good use of both.

In general I like it because it frees up the main screen leading to more immersion. Like with the PsP at times I found my screen quite full of information and I didn't need it all the time. With the second screen all that clutter is somewhere else and I can only glance at it when I need to.

One of the things that bummed me out about the 3ds was that it doesn't register my fingers as a stylus. So if I really quickly needed to swipe something on the DS I could just quickly thumb it. Where as on the 3DS if I need to use the touch screen at all I need to awkwardly take out the stylus, tap it then put the stylus back. It's really counter intuitive.

Also getting my own 3DS XL from GF, cuz I'd been borrowing hers, not sure I want the XL as opposed to the normal sized one...

 

[Bellvedere]

As others have said, some games make better use of the second screen than others. It could be that I'm just used to the two screens having had a DS for years but I quite like even the games that just have all the menus/maps/inventories on the second screen as it's often cool to be able to quickly glance at those things while still continuing the game.

At any rate I think it will be something you get used to (just like you get used to different controllers/control schemes), whether or not you decide that it's something you actually like.

 

[novem]

I like the second screen for the most part but touch controls can go to hell.

Strangely enough I don?t mind touch controls on the WiiU. I think it has a lot to do with the nature of the devices. 3DS is mobile so the last thing I want to do is fumble with a stylus when sitting somewhere public or where there is no space to put the device down. The WiiU pad on the other hand can rest comfortably in my lap and is generally more versatile feeling.

 

[faefrost]

Things like puzzle or strategy games tend to make very good use of the second screen. More active action or adventure games not as much.