14 Best Looking 3DS Games

Dream Drop Distance is the seventh game in the Kingdom Hearts series, and it came out in North America on July 31, 2012. Square Enix decided to make it after the team was impressed by the quality of the Nintendo 3DS. Its graphics come close to the PS2 games, and the 3D effect pulls you into the screen when you fall from high places. Critics praised the graphics and the gameplay, though the plot took some knocks.

Players say it looks like a PS2 Kingdom Hearts you can carry around. Each world opens with a Dive, where you freefall down a tube, and that is where the 3D slider earns its keep. Sora and Riku are back in their younger forms from the first Kingdom Hearts, so it feels a bit like the first game all over again.

Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are enhanced versions of Pokémon Sun and Moon, which came out the year before. They were released worldwide on 17 November 2017 and take place in the Alola region, which is based on Hawaii. Critics liked the extra features, though some said the story was too close to Sun and Moon.

It is the only Pokémon game that made this list. Players say it looks really good for a 3DS game, and they single out the character models. Alola is bright and sunny, and its beaches and islands suit the colourful little screen. If you only play one Pokémon game on the system for the views, make it this one.

Snake Eater 3D is a re-release of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and it came out in North America on February 21, 2012. It was the first Metal Gear game on a Nintendo-developed portable since Metal Gear: Ghost Babel back in 2000. A patch later fixed a glitch that could freeze the game and corrupt your save when you used the Circle Pad Pro.

Players say it made the 3DS feel like a home console in your pocket. They also admit it is not perfect, with a frame rate that drops and a picture that is more pixelated than other versions. Still, a jungle stealth game this big on a handheld this small was a minor miracle in 2012.

Bravely Default started out as a sequel to Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, and it first came out in Japan in 2012. Nintendo published it in Europe, Australia and North America in 2014. Akihiko Yoshida was the art director, and Revo of Sound Horizon wrote the music. Critics liked the graphics and the music, and the battle system won them over too.

The towns are the reason it is here. Players call the hand-drawn town settings some of the best art on the 3DS, and some would open the game just to look at the cities. With the 3D on, the towns look like paintings with depth.

Super Mario 3D Land came out worldwide in November 2011, the first Mario game on the 3DS. It mixes the old side-scrolling Mario games with the free-roaming 3D ones. Critics loved how it used the stereoscopic 3D, and it has sold 12.88 million copies, which makes it the seventh best-selling game on the system.

It does not try to look like a home console game, and that is why it works. Players say its simple, colourful style suits the 3DS better than games that push too hard, and they point to how smoothly it runs. The jumps over bottomless pits are the best argument for keeping the 3D slider up.

Majora's Mask 3D is a remake of the Nintendo 64 game from 2000, and the team at Grezzo worked on it. Most of the textures are much more detailed than before. It also runs at 30 frames per second, up from 20 on the Nintendo 64. The Song of Double Time now lets you skip to any hour of the day, which makes the three-day cycle far less painful.

Players call it one of the best uses of an art style on the system, and they say the environments are very detailed. Termina has never looked this good. The moon still looks like it wants to eat you, though.

Samus Returns is a remake of Metroid II, the 1991 Game Boy adventure. MercurySteam first pitched a remake of Metroid Fusion before Yoshio Sakamoto suggested Metroid II instead. It plays from the side in 3D graphics, and the camera zooms in for cutscenes. It got good reviews for its visuals and won Best Handheld Game at The Game Awards 2017.

The original was a Game Boy game, so this is a very big jump. Players say it looks great, especially with the 3D effect on. The music came from Daisuke Matsuoka, with Kenji Yamamoto of Super Metroid fame directing it, and it fits the caves and the gloom.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is called Monster Hunter 4G in Japan, and Monster Hunter 4 first came out there on September 14, 2013. You join a traveling caravan and hunt your way from town to town. It was the first handheld Monster Hunter with full online play. Earlier handheld games needed a PlayStation 3 or Wii U for that.

Players say it shows what the 3DS can do, from the wide environments to the monsters themselves. Some of those monsters are the size of a house. Seeing one charge at you on a screen that fits in your palm never gets old.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS was the first handheld Smash, and up to four players fight on stages inspired by classic Nintendo handheld games. Development started in 2012, and it had sold over nine million copies by September 2022. The Ice Climbers were cut because of the technical limits of the 3DS.

Players say the speed is what impressed them most. It almost never drops below 60 frames per second, and few 3DS games can say that. Nintendo's characters had never looked this crisp on a handheld, and they had never moved this fast on one either.

Xenoblade Chronicles first came out on the Wii in Japan in 2010, and the New Nintendo 3DS port followed in 2015. It runs only on the New 3DS. You get maps and character stats on the bottom screen, plus a mode for looking at 3D models and listening to the music. Critics praised the port for re-creating the game in a portable form.

Players still cannot believe a game this big fits on a 3DS at all. The textures are lower, but they say the vistas still look amazing. The whole world sits on two giant titans frozen in place, with people living on their bodies, and seeing that on a screen this small is a strange and lovely feeling.

A Link Between Worlds came out in Australia, Europe and North America in November 2013. Shigeru Miyamoto asked for its world to be based on A Link to the Past, so you are back in a reworked version of that Hyrule. Some of its puzzles use the 3D effect, and the art style got mixed reviews at the time. It had sold over 4.26 million copies by 2022.

Players have come around on that art style. They say the clean look hides the low resolution of the screen, and that it runs smoothly with the 3D on. Looking down into a dungeon with the slider up gives each floor real depth.

Dark Moon was made by Next Level Games, a Canadian studio that had worked on Punch-Out!! for the Wii. It came out in Japan on March 20, 2013, and critics praised its graphics and its worldbuilding. Luigi gets a new tool called the Strobulb, which stuns ghosts with a flash of light. It sold 6.44 million copies, which makes it one of the best-selling games on the 3DS.

Players say it feels like playing a cartoon, or a diorama you can poke around in. They point to the animation and the small details hidden everywhere. Luigi spends the whole game terrified, and his face is the best special effect in it.

Satoru Iwata asked Masahiro Sakurai to make a launch game for the 3DS, and Uprising is what came of it. Development started in 2009, and the team had little access to the hardware early on. It was the only game Project Sora made before the studio shut down in mid-2012. It sold over a million copies, and critics praised its graphics, though the controls were often criticized.

Players call it one of the best looking games on the system, and they are amazed it came so early in the 3DS's life. Pit soars through skies full of enemies, then lands for frantic fights on the ground. The colours never let up, and the story keeps the lighthearted tone of the first Kid Icarus.

Revelations is set on a cruise ship, picked for its claustrophobic corridors and its isolation in the middle of the ocean. It brought the series back toward survival horror after the action of Resident Evil 5. It was the first game outside Japan to support the Circle Pad Pro, and critics praised its spooky setting and its sound.

Players say it made them forget they were holding a 3DS, and they still cannot work out how Capcom made it look so good. When the HD version came to home consoles, reviewers called its graphics dated. On the 3DS, the same game looked like a miracle. It finished ahead of every other game on this list.