After the rant about the crushing frustration of poverty the other day, I am now going to make myself sound like an ungrateful wretch by telling you all that I've just gotten a 3DS. I am delighted to own the thing, but somewhat less enthusiastic about the way I feel compelled to justify my possession of it by explaining how I got it, which is that I am on Moggie's equipment upgrade path. My birthday is in early September and, as Mog elaborated, "With [an amount of money she had handy], I could either replace my phone, or buy a New 3DS and a PSVita." So that decision pretty much made itself.

She actually asked me if I wanted it. I pointed out that this is a lot like asking the rats if they want this here food. The real question is not 'do you want this', but more 'where should I put this down so you don't accidentally get my hand when you grab it'. She was apparently worried that I'd be disappointed that it wasn't the new kind with the C-stick and extra shoulder buttons, because this would put a crimp in my visual novel flow, I guess? I don't know. All the games I play can be operated with ABXY + D-pad + LR + shouting OBJECTION! into the microphone, if I really want the subway car to myself.

Surprisingly, a 3DS is not totally useless without any 3DS games to feed it. Nintendo has caved and released YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix clients for it, which beats out the Blackberry tablet. The web browser is utter bollocks -- Opera for DS worked better, frighteningly enough -- but it'll still make friends on its own with StreetPass, and you can play Pokémon Shuffle without giving anyone any money, if you're patient enough. Game paks for 3DS are region-locked, but DS games are not.「すばらしきこのせかい」doesn't make a whole lot of sense in any language, but it successfully boots up and makes Squenix nonsense in Japanese. While I have had some Euro games obnoxious enough to countermand my orders to play in a language that isn't the one the menus are set to, I suspect that there actually isn't any way to tell what region a DS cart was released in from the console side. The DS is region-free, so they wouldn't have had any reason to set a queriable bit for that.

The therapist lady has advised me to budget some amount of money towards not going out of my mind. She did it in the same tone of voice she used to remind me that I am allowed to call 911 when I told her what happened with the beta-blockers, so I assume she's serious. The eShop has a fair number of puzzle games under $10, and some under $5, but the whole reason I wanted a 3DS to begin with is that the DS family platform is the home of Ace Attorney and Professor Layton, which are $30-40 each as digital downloads. Amazon doesn't seem to have them much cheaper used on physical media, but I'm going to be within spitting distance of CeX and GameStop today, so we shall see what I can find, and whether I can convince myself that sanity is worth a couple of sawbucks.

As bulwarks against madness go, there isn't much that works better for me than puzzle/mystery visual novel games. Typically what happens when I get a new one is that I roam around for several days with a DS held right in front of my face, which is the Masterwork Feat version of walking around with your nose in a book. I figured out how to keep my footing on a moving subway train without hanging onto anything specifically so that I didn't have to take either of my hands off of my game. The archaeo-puzzle-ology professor and the big gay lawyers are my two absolute worst addictions, and now someone has combined them into a speedball crossover, so, y'know. Sitting on my hands until I can justify throwing money at Capcom and Level 5.

My super-secret Nintendo friend code is 1951-1210-1112, if anyone feels like adding me. I'm honestly not sure what exactly this will do for either of us, inasmuch as I don't really play games that reward networking, like I gather most Pokémon things do now, and I'm not especially interested in hanging around the Miiverse. Seems harmless, though, and there's probably some sort of achievement for making friends buried somewhere in the menus.

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