Minecraft for 3DS: Update 2

So Minecraft for 3DS is finally here. I'd like to talk about what I'd think of it.

First off, let's start with the home screen. It looks nice. The logo is on the top and the menu is on the bottom.

Top Screen on the Home Menu - pic by YouTube user CharzBall

The bottom screen doesn't have a "Singleplayer or Multiplayer" menu because there is no multiplayer at this point in time. They plan to add that. I think that should be in the game from Day 1; multiplayer is a big part of the game. I hope multiplayer doesn't require an update in the physical version. Anyway, this game does have a menu similar.

Anyway, that's how I would have done it exactly. Well, not exactly. DKC Returns 3D has a digital manual that can be accessed from the 3DS Home Menu and I think that would have been a better way to do it. I actually did make concept art that looked similar, but I didn't post it for some reason. At least not that I can find. Oops.

Press Play and you can begin the game. After it reads the SD card, you arrive at the World Menu.

Does this look familiar?

So far Minecraft on 3DS is hitting all the right notes except for multiplayer. Other Ocean even added new features that mine didn't have; the ability to rename worlds from the menu. Smart.

Anyways, tapping a world will bring you to that world. And that's where we talk about the controls. I made a chart comparing the current controls to the sets I made back in December.

So as you can see, Other Ocean did a good job adapting my new 3DS controls to their version of the game. I also heard that there's a set of touchscreen controls, but I couldn't find anything about what they might be. I assume they're similar to mine (which is based on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare DS) or to the Club Penguin games on Nintendo DS.

So now I'd like to talk about how the touchscreen was utilized.

If you take a look, you can see that the touchscreen has the hotbar, XYZ coordinates, and map, as well as a set of buttons for inventory, crafting, and armor. XP, health, and hunger are on the top of the upper screen. This is similar to how I designed mine, but with a few changes.

Mine, for comparison.

On mine, there are 3 tabs for inventory, crafting, and armor instead of buttons. Health and hunger are on the bottom screen and XP is on the very bottom of the top screen. Mine doesn't have XYZ coordinates. I should add that to the pause screen. And in my version, the map is accessed by pressing Select instead of it being available all the time. I think my map system and touchscreen OS is better; but Other Ocean did a good job using the 2 screens to their advantage. Take notes, 4J Studios. A quick update allowing access to my inventory/map system would be greatly appreciated.

And now, exclusive features.

Minecraft for New 3DS has a few unique features that are as follows:
1) World sizes are bigger than they are on the Wii U, but smaller than they are the Switch.
2) The game comes with 5 free skin packs preinstalled.
3) The map is not an item; it is available from the start.

World sizes being bigger may or may not be a good thing. Minecraft for New 3DS is in the middle in regards to world sizes on game systems. Above it are the PS4, Xbox One, and Switch. Below it are the Wii U, PS3, Xbox 360, and PS Vita. I think the world size on Wii U was perfectly fine. If the 3DS had the same size of worlds, Other Ocean and 4J could have worked together to make a cross-save feature, similar to how the Vita and PS3 can.

The skin packs are cool, but it would have been much more worth it if they had used my idea to create custom Nintendo skin packs exclusive to the 3DS.

The map being available from the start is something all console versions have, but it takes up an inventory slot and can be lost. In my Minecraft for 3DS post, I remedied this by making it accessible by a button instead. Other Ocean seems to have read my site and implemented it in a similar manner. Now the map is always displayed on the touch screen. This is useful, but like I said before, I think my design is better.

So I think that covers it all. I think Minecraft for 3DS is a good version of Minecraft, but definitely wait for a physical version; the digital copy takes up something like 3600 blocks of storage. (That's 3.5328 GameCube Memory Card 1019's.)