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Introduction
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Final update (28/3/23)
And so, it is done, the 3DS and Wii U eShops has officially stopped allowing people to buy its games and apps. One can still download the updates and what they've already bought before, but as a shop, it's dead. Long live the eShop.
I want to thank you all (especially everyone who's still checking this after the closure lol) for giving a purpose to all of this, I hope my poorly constructed list helped you find some titles that were worth your money.
Personally speaking, I've had a 3DS for most of my teen years and the entirety of my adulthood, I've spent WAAAY too many hours on it and it means so much for me.
HOWEVER
This ain't the end of it, not by a long shot. It's time for me to do the thing I've tip-toed around for this entire project. Yes, I'm going to be like those EXTREMELY ANNOYING dipshits who keep "reminding" people about the existence of homebrew every time anyone thinks about buying games, to which i have two things to say: 1) I was using Nesticle before you were even born, mate, and 2) you'll be bitchless for the rest of your life.
Anyway, I recommend everyone to mod your 3DS and Wii U, using their respective guides ( https://3ds.hacks.guide/ ) and ( https://wiiu.hacks.guide/#/ ). I will not tell you how to use them once you do so, but regardless on how you intend to use it, it's in everyone's best interest to have their consoles "at their fullest potential".
I will leave this guide up, as a memento to the 3DS and Wii U eShops, and as a (hopefully) good memory for everyone who was involved.
I hope you will all have a wonderful life, take care.
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Addendum (7/3/23): due to a lack of time in the last few months, as well as motivation to do the colossal amount of work I did to make this list in the first place, I haven't been able to update it since I first made it, and most importantly the prices of many physical games are now outdated, as the prices of many have inflated in the last period. I won't be updating it in a major way in this last month, so as far as physical games go you should check them yourself just to be sure. Just know that if they were here in the first place, there's a reason.
With that said, I'll still update a couple of things here an there, but nothing major, maybe some DSi title. Outside of retail prices, 99% of what I wrote back then still applies today.
Also a bunch of old games are on NSO now, but since it's a paid service with questionable emulation quality, I honestly won't be updating accordingly.
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On the 16th of February 2022 Nintendo announced that the eShops for the 3DS and the WiiU systems will be discontinued as of late March 2023, making it impossible to purchase digital games on those platforms. That includes games for the 3DS, DSi and Wii U, as well as their respective Virtual Consoles, with titles from the Famicom and NES (both), Super Famicom and SNES (Wii U and New 3DS), PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 (Wii U and Japanese 3DS), Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS (Wii U), MSX (Japanese Wii U only), Game boy, Game Boy Color and Game Gear (3DS). This will also apply to DLC, both the ones purcharable directly from the eShop store and the ones purchasable in-game, and themes, though free themes will still be downloadable. It won't be possible to download demos and free-to-start software, make any kind of in-game purchase or use download codes. Pokémon Bank won't be downloadable, however it will become free for those that already have it on their systems, though the duration of its service has not been disclosed.
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The North American eShop will accept credit cards to add funds until the 23rd of May 2022, after which it will only be possible through codes from the Nintendo Cards (this has been the case in Europe for a couple of years).
As of the 29th of August 2022, the codes from the Nintendo Cards won't work either, but it will still be possible to share the wallet with a Nintendo Switch system and use its eShop to add money to both the 3DS and Wii U stores until late March 2023, which requires to use the same account for both systems. If one doesn't own a Switch, then by all means the deadline for being able to add funds is the 29th of August 2022.
After late March 2023 it will still be possible to download content that has already been purchased (both games and DLC) and software update, as well as being able to play online.
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This document is made with the intent of categorizing purchasable software that people would have to download to legally play, either because it's only available in a digital format or because the retail version has become far too expensive since launch. This will include 3DS and Wii U games, DLCs, Virtual Console and various other pieces of software.
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This document won't concern with the use or the morality of piracy, since it's directed to people who still want to purchase these games. If anything, I hope that this list will be useful to all 3DS and Wii U players, indipendently from how they decide to acquire the media.
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My objective here is not to list EVERY game that falls into the previously stated parametrers, since there are too many to feasibly document them, and many if not most of them would be shovelware (especially when it comes to the 3DS' eShop); what I'm interested in is software that people might actually be interest in playing, from indies to AAA. Of course what is worth playing is subjective, however this list is mostly made based on people's suggestions all over the internet, so hopefully it will be more curated than the eShop itself.
This does not apply to the DLCs sections, where I tried to list every game with a DLC that I could find (although I couldn't find the price of all of them)
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The value of the physical games will be based on the prices of used games found on eBay lisings, with some indications from pricecharting.com, and although some of them are approximative, it's the most reliable source I have on the pricing of hundreds of games.
It needs to be noted that some used-games stores like CEX usually have lower prices than what found on eBay, but I'll still use the latter as reference for the sake of consistency and so that this project doesn't take a decade. Still, it's good to keep that in mind and not just use one website to look for used games.
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I the sheet will be white-on-black because I don't want to torture my eyes, but if for some reason you want to read it black-on-white I'll make another version that just changes the colours
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Since note marks won't be visible on a black background, the cells with notes will have a single exclamation point in them, so that they'll be visible in all versions (it apparently gives problems in mobiles tho, so it's advised to use a pc to navigate it)
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For the sake of semplicity, I will focus on Japan, North America and Europe/PAL rgions when it comes to availability, and a game being available for all three will be classified ad being available "Worldwide". I know that this is a very narrow way to categorize things and excludes a lot of people, but this was already a colossal endeavour as is, doing more in-depth classifications would probably kill me. Still, I want to apologize to anyone who isn't part of those regions, especially Australia, since I used "Europe" and "PAL" interchangebly through the sheet, so some stuff regarding the availability in australian territories might be inaccurate.
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Lastly, english is not my native language, so if I made any sort of spelling or syntaxical mistake, then by all means point it out to me, I won't take offense in it and will correct it.
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A big thanks to u/captaintimey and MercuryEnigma for helping me with the prices of Wii U games and 3DS DLCs in North America, since for some reason those aren't available on the american Nintendo site
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Legend
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3DS and Wii U games are categorized based on their availability outside of their respective consoles
For Virtual Console titles, the original release won't be taken into account for this categorization, as well as the NES Mini and SNES Mini, due to not being readily available on the market
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Games with a green square beside their name are easily available on other consoles a/o Steam (this doesn't necessarely include mobile ports, though they will be listed in case they exist)
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Games with a yellow square either currently only have a mobile port or they're only available through the Nintendo Switch Online service (for Virtual Console titles)
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Games with a red square are currently only available on 3DS a/o Wii U and do not have any port
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I selected these colours so that they would be visible to colorblind people, if they aren't adequate please let me know
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There are flags to indicate the region where that game was released, and it's categorized into Japan, North America, Europe, combinations of the three and Worldwide. More will be added if needed.
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It must be specified that it doesn't indicate where the game was released in general, but where the game was released in relation to the section it's in. For example, if a game is released with a physical edition in North America and digital-only in Europe, then it will have a NA in the "physical games" section and an EU flag in the "digital-only" section,
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List of flags:
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Japan
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North America
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Europe
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Japan and North America
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Japan and Europe
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North America and Europe
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Worldwide
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If a game's name is in italics, it means that it has different names depending on the region, and the cell with the title has a note listing the other name.
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In the Virtual Console sections, games with Starfy to the left of their names are entries that add something to the original release of the game, be it a translation, making online-only functionalities available offline or adding content that was previously unreleased.
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When I list the price of a used copy of a game, I base it either on loose or CiB copies, and which one I use for what is based on the platform the game is on. If the boxes used for that console were made of cardboard (NES, SNES, Game Gear, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64), I'll go with prices of loose copies, since boxed copies of those are much rarer and expensive, so you'll usually find only the cartridge. If the boxes, are made of plastic (DS, 3DS, Wii, Wii U, all modern consoles), however, i'll use CiB prices, since those are much more common. I'll still do my best to indicate which one is which.
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Colour Index
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As stated above, I tried to make these colourblind-friendly, however I don't know if they're actually effective, so if any colourblind person has problems with them, please tell me. I used green, yellow and vermillion, blue is there just to replace green in case the latter isn't a good choice.
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00a072 - Green
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f1e63e - Yellow
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d55f21 - Vermillion
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0073b4 - Blue
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