14 Best Nintendo 3DS Adventure Games

Hakuoki takes place in Kyoto at the end of the Edo period. Around the 1860s, Chizuru Yukimura heads to Kyoto to search for her father, and she is attacked by mad men before members of the Shinsengumi cut them down. They mistake her for a boy and take her into custody. Her father turns out to have made the Water of Life, an elixir that turns whoever drinks it into a blood-lusting berserker called a Fury.

You mostly read. Now and then the story stops at a decision point, and the game waits until you make a choice that pushes the plot in one direction. Over time Chizuru grows close to the Shinsengumi, and especially to its aloof member Toshizo Hijikata. Players still put it on their lists of favourite 3DS games, right next to much bigger names.

Layton's Mystery Journey is the seventh main entry in the Professor Layton series, released for Android, iOS and the Nintendo 3DS in 2017. The Professor is missing this time. Katrielle takes the lead, and with the help of her assistant Ernest Greeves she solves cases in and around London. She also has a talking dog that, for reasons unknown, only the two of them can understand.

The reviews were kinder about the price than about the puzzles. One critic thought there were "too many duds in the puzzle pile" and found the backgrounds, characters and music repetitive after a while. Free daily puzzles were promised as downloadable content for up to a year after release, which made it good value. Players still recommend it.

Spirit Camera comes from the Fatal Frame team. Series co-creator Keisuke Kikuchi led development with a team of series veterans, because both Kikuchi and Nintendo staff felt the 3DS would be a good platform for a horror experience. The first pitch was a port of an earlier Fatal Frame, but then-president Satoru Iwata vetoed it because he wanted something more original.

What he got is a game played through your own room. You use the 3DS system's built-in camera to see Maya, a girl hiding in an old house, in your real surroundings while the curse plays out. It is an odd thing to hold up to your bedroom wall at night. Players still name it among the 3DS games worth a look. Nothing else plays quite like it.

Attack of the Friday Monsters was designed by Kaz Ayabe, who is known in Japan for the Boku no Natsuyasumi series. It came out on the 3DS in Japan on March 13, 2013, as part of the Guild02 compilation, and as a separate download in North America, Europe and Australasia on July 18, 2013. Its Japanese title means The Friday When Monsters Appear, and it is a short adventure about everyday life in a town where giant monsters do exactly that.

Critics loved the mood. Nintendo Life called it "a lovely, memorable experience" that resembled a classic coming-of-age film, and another review compared it to Studio Ghibli and called the card minigame "surprisingly gripping". Polygon praised the writing and art but called the glim collecting "needlessly repetitive". One player summed it up as "a bite-sized blast of nostalgia of the Japanese countryside you never grew up in".

The Starship Damrey is part of the Guild02 series and was released for the 3DS eShop in 2013. The tagline promises that "nothing is more frightening than complete innocence", which tells you about as much as the game wants you to know going in.

Izuho Numata was hired as a freelance composer, but she felt the survival horror tension would grow if the game had no music, only sound effects. So the Damrey is quiet, and the quiet is the scary part. Every clank in an empty corridor sounds like something is in there with you. It ranks just above the other Guild02 game on this list.

Zero Time Dilemma is the third Zero Escape game, and it almost did not happen. The first two were commercial failures in Japan, and the third was put on hold in 2014. Development resumed the following year due to fan demand and because the hiatus became big news. A new studio, Chime, made it, with Kotaro Uchikoshi writing again and Shinji Hosoe on music.

The first two games told their Novel sections as a visual novel, while this one uses animated cutscenes. The story still branches on your choices and has multiple endings. After the first game's success abroad, the two sequels were planned as a pair, so play Virtue's Last Reward first. Zero Time Dilemma is the ending, and an ending lands better when you know who these people are.

Detective Pikachu is an adventure game spin-off focused on story, with a presentation comparable to the Pokémon anime. You work with a talking Pikachu to solve mysteries by walking around scenes, finding clues and speaking with people and Pokémon. Creatures Inc. began development in mid-2013, after PokéPark, because nobody had made a Pokémon adventure game yet. Junichi Masuda decided it needed voice acting, since he wanted a talking Pikachu.

A shorter download version came out in Japan in February 2016. The full game came out worldwide on a 3DS cartridge on March 23, 2018. A live-action film followed in May 2019, and a Switch sequel, Detective Pikachu Returns, came out on October 6, 2023. It is the gentlest mystery on this list and the easiest one to hand to a kid.

Azran Legacy is the sixth entry in the Professor Layton series and the third and final part of the prequel trilogy. Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino said it was meant to be the last Layton game starring the Professor himself. You travel the world aboard the airship Bostonius, solving puzzles themed to each place, and chase the mystery of the ancient Azran civilization.

The side stories are wonderfully silly. You help a jungle chief get his sense of humor back and cure a walled city of a sleeping illness. North America waited until February 28, 2014, after the rest of the world got it in 2013. As with every earlier entry, Tomohito Nishiura wrote the music. Players still name it among their favourite 3DS games.

Corpse Party began as Corpse Party: NewChapter for Japanese mobile phones, a remake of the 1996 NEC PC-9801 game Corpse-Party. It is set in 2008 at Kisaragi Academy in Fujisawa, a high school built on the remains of Heavenly Host Elementary School. That school closed after a series of murders and disappearances, and you can guess how the students' evening goes. The 3DS version adds improved graphics and extra chapters.

Long dialogue scenes with full character portraits make up a big part of the playtime, so some people call it a visual novel. Reviews praised its inventive sound design and complained about its drawn out wrong endings. Players who want something darker on the 3DS keep recommending it.

Miracle Mask was Professor Layton's first adventure on the 3DS. It takes him to the colorful city of Monte d'Or, where a mysterious man is causing havoc with the Mask of Chaos. Instead of tapping the scene directly, you use the touch screen to move a magnifying glass around the top screen. Midway through, there is a top-down section where a young Layton explores an underground ruin.

It was built in 2D but made to look pseudo-3D for Nintendo's E3 2010 show. There were 365 downloadable puzzles, seven a week for a year after release, on top of the hundreds in the story. Tomohito Nishiura composed the music, though this is the one Layton game with no official soundtrack release. Players still list it among the 3DS games worth owning.

Spirit of Justice came out on the 3DS in Japan in June 2016, and in North America and Europe that September. Phoenix travels to the Kingdom of Khura'in to see Maya Fey, and walks straight into a court system where defense attorneys have been deemed unnecessary. Verdicts are decided by a mystical vision called the Divination Séance, so you are arguing against a ghost's memory as much as a prosecutor.

The new trick is Spirit Medium Vision. You see the victim's memories right before their death and look for contradictions in their five senses. The Mood Matrix from Dual Destinies comes back as well. Ace Attorney fans still put it on their lists of 3DS favourites, usually right next to the other games in the series.

Capcom and Level-5 made this one together, and Ace Attorney creator Shu Takumi helped with the scenario. It came out in Japan on November 29, 2012, and Europe waited until March 28, 2014. Layton, Phoenix, Luke and Maya end up in Labyrinthia, a medieval town where people live in fear of witchcraft and those who wield it.

You solve puzzles around town to gather information, then defend your client in court. Hint coins found in the adventure parts work in trials too. The new group cross-examinations let you pit one witness's testimony against another's. It was also the first Ace Attorney with voice acting and animated cutscenes, which became standard for the series from Dual Destinies on. Players put it among their top 3DS games overall.

Dual Destinies is the fifth main entry in the Ace Attorney series. As the first one on the 3DS, it moved to 3D graphics while keeping the look of the older 2D art. You still split your time between investigations and trials, but each lawyer has a trick of their own. Phoenix sees psyche-locks over witnesses who are hiding something, Apollo spots visual cues of a lie, and Athena hears conflicting emotions in a witness's voice.

Critics praised the audio, visuals and character art, but the game sometimes refused logically valid answers in trials. It sold well compared to how the series had done before. The extra case has Phoenix defending an orca accused of killing an aquarium owner. Yes, an orca. Ace Attorney fans name it again and again when they list their 3DS favourites.

Virtue's Last Reward is the second Zero Escape game, released for the 3DS and PlayStation Vita. Director Kotaro Uchikoshi wrote the script, and Aksys Games localized it for North America. The cast is trapped in a facility, and the only way out is nine bracelet points earned in the Ambidex Game. Between the story scenes you solve first-person escape rooms, and a flowchart lets you jump back to any section you have finished and choose differently.

It only exists because the first game was an unexpected hit in North America. It then flopped in Japan, which led to the temporary cancellation of its sequel. Critics praised the story and characters but were divided on the escape rooms. Players recommend it more than any other 3DS adventure game.