In the latest Nintendo Direct the company revealed various new projects that the public was not aware of. Of these, two of those games were ports of Wii U titles that have been given new life on the Nintendo 3DS, specifically Super Mario Maker and Yoshi’s Woolly World. Nintendo has not been shy in the past about taking its home console games and giving them new life on the handheld. From the Game Boy Advance with its various Super Nintendo ports to the Nintendo 3DS and its ports of Wii titles such as Donkey Kong Country Returns and Xenoblade Chronicles.
For many, these newly revealed ports are a blessing for those who decided to skip out on the Wii U but it also breeds a cautious eye from those who adopted the failing system for its titles. These are not the first Wii U ports we have seen (that honour belongs to NES Remix, followed by Hyrule Warriors Legends) and so many believe that we may see the Wii U’s entire library jump ship to either the Nintendo 3DS or NX. While I think that is a gross over-exaggeration as some games wouldn’t survive the transition, it did make me think about which games that are out now on Wii U could also work on the Nintendo 3DS. I decided to narrow it down to the five games I think would work on Nintendo’s handheld (with some honourable mentions at the end) so without further ado let’s take a look.
Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze
I started with an obvious one but Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze already has all the framework to work on the Nintendo 3DS. This is because of the previously mentioned Donkey Kong Country Returns having already been ported to Nintendo 3DS by Monster Games. While that was a Wii title and this is a HD Wii U game I don’t think it makes much of a difference. We know HD titles can easily be scaled down to work on the Nintendo 3DS and so editing the already existing Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D to have elements from Tropical Freeze would not be as complicated as porting a whole game from scratch.
The only issue I have with this at the moment is that I do not think it is in development currently. Monster Games who did the first port is currently working on a non-Nintendo Nascar racing game and I don’t see any evidence that they could work on two games at once. Nintendo could give it to a different developer but this port is hardly a priority so I could see them waiting till Monster Games is free in order for them to port this title like the original.
Kirby and the Rainbow Curse
The logic behind this port is that Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is already a sequel to a handheld title: Kirby: Canvas Curse. The gameplay is identical with the bottom screen being used to draw lines for Kirby to use while the top screen shows more of the level and action. The only major benefit to it being on the Wii U is the addition of multiplayer and the cute stop-motion artstyle. For the transition to the 3DS both of these may have to be cut. The art-style might be able to remain in some fashion but greatly toned down but I think multiplayer would unfortunately see the boot.
Super Mario 3D World
Using similar logic to the above title, Super Mario 3D World is the console sequel to a handheld title: Super Mario 3D Land. The gameplay is identical with many of the same power-ups being used in both so it would be a simple matter of adding the new content onto the already existing Super Mario 3D Land assets. Just like with Kirby however I can see certain aspects of the game not making the transition. Some would be minor like the Double Cherry only allowing either one or two clones as the max, instead of the five that it is now. The bigger change would be to the multiplayer.
Multiplayer was a big appeal of Super Mario 3D World as you could team up with three other other friends for some four-player action. All things considered I do not think this would be possible on the regular Nintendo 3DS but unlike Kirby I do not think it would be cut entirely. Instead I think that it would be limited down to two-player local-multiplayer instead of the current four-player. Of course all the characters would return so the choice is still there. There would be other minor changes but I would be here all day if I had to list them all so let’s move on.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Within Super Mario 3D World we were introduced to the Captain Toad mini-games where you had to guide Captain Toad around a 3D diorama in order to get the star. Eventually he got his own video game which expanded on this concept and I could easily see this game being made available on Nintendo 3DS, more so than Super Mario 3D World. The concept is simple and the 3D diorama worlds would look great in stereoscopic 3D. One only has to look at the Streetpass Puzzle for Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker to get a feeling of how it might look.
Of all the games on this list I feel like this is the most likely to show up as the concept would transition well without any changes required. They could even expand on it with some new dioramas and make it similar to what Legends was to the original Hyrule Warriors.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE
The final game of my selection is certainly different from the other four but I have good reason to think this would work on the Nintendo 3DS. First and foremost is that Atlus has had plenty of experience working on the Nintendo 3DS from Shin Megami Tensei IV, Persona Q, Etrian Odyssey V and SMT: Devil SUmmoner: Soul Hackers. Second is Atlus’ habit of making a follow-up remake/port to their games for another system, one that’s often a handheld. This happens mostly with the Persona games which saw Persona 3 & 4 on PS2 getting rereleases with bonus content on the PSP and PS Vita respectively. The same could happen with Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE and there is a strong incentive to do this.
The Nintendo 3DS has been good to Atlus and historically the Fire Emblem series has always done better on the handhelds with Awakening and Fates for 3DS outselling every game before it. The handheld has also been shown to be successful for JRPGs, the genre of which Tokyo Mirage Sessions is.The original game for Wii U bombed when it was release so there is also incentive to try again on a better selling platform.
Those are the five games I feel are most likely for a 3DS port but here are some honourable mentions. While a few of the other Source Gaming staff recommended Star Fox Zero due to it already having a game to be based on (Star Fox 64) I think that the gyroscopic controls and its two screenplay would hinder it. The game was designed around it and, just like Skyward Sword’s motion controls, I cannot see Miyamoto so willing to throw them away. I bring this up though because I feel like Star Fox Guard could work really well on the Nintendo 3DS. The only issue is that it uses the same engine as Zero so I doubt you would get one without the other. Another staff member also put forth the Wonderful 101 which could work but they would need to change the camera. The characters are so small that even on a Nintendo 3DS XL I can imagine it being difficult to play.
Before I leave off today I also wanted to bring up Nintendo’s mysterious, rumour-fueling, machine the Nintendo NX. A popular rumour says that Nintendo is planning various ports of Wii U games for the system, the most likely of these being Super Smash Bros for Wii U. Other games to be rumoured were Super Mario Maker and Splatoon but if Nintendo now has a focus to bring their Wii U library to other platforms we may end up seeing more ports later down the line. If that is the case then I think a Pokken Tournament Ultimate edition with all the DLC and a port of Xenoblade Chronicles X are very possible.
That’s all I wanted to say for now but hopefully we may get confirmation on some of these NX ports real soon. They have to be revealing the NX in the near future and it’s a guarantee that we over at Source Gaming are going to put our heart and soul into covering every bit of detail about the system. Let me know what you thought of my choices for ports, if you agree with my decisions or if you think I have it all wrong. And if there is a Wii U title you would like to see ported to either the NX or 3DS then also tell me in the comments below what it is. Until next time guys I hope you have a good one.
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