25 Best Nintendo 3DS RPGs

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse is a post-apocalyptic role-playing game that Atlus developed and published for the 3DS. It is set in the same universe as Shin Megami Tensei IV. The Press Turn battle system returns, so hitting an enemy's weakness earns extra turns and getting hit on yours costs them. Battles take place from a first-person view, triggered by story sequences or by running into enemy sprites in the environment.

It sold roughly half of what the first game did in its first week, which was still considered a success for a game outside the numbered series. If you finished the original and wanted to stay in that world a little longer, this is the one. Critics praised its feel and the quality of life changes from the original game.

Paper Mario jumps out of a book and into the Mario & Luigi series, so the brothers get a flat third member for their team. The two universes need untangling, and the brothers are the ones stuck doing it. It is the fifth Mario & Luigi game, following Dream Team, and it was announced at E3 2015.

Critics praised the Paper Mario elements and the combat and were mixed on the writing. It is a crossover that works because both series were already funny, and Intelligent Systems kept an eye on it while AlphaDream built it. It launched ahead of schedule, in December 2015 internationally. Some critics felt it never used the crossover to its fullest potential.

Fire Emblem Gaiden, the second game in the series, came out only in Japan in 1992. Shadows of Valentia reimagines it on a grander scale, fully voiced, and mixes in dungeons crawling with enemies to explore. Each unit carries a single weapon, and that weapon unlocks special Combat Arts as the unit levels up.

Gaiden never left Japan, so for everyone outside it this was the first chance to play that game at all. Players who like their strategy with some exploring mixed in are the ones who get the most out of it. Work on it began in 2015, right after Fire Emblem Fates was finished, and the team rebuilt the story and gameplay based on recent entries and their own wishes for added role-playing elements.

Fire Emblem Fates is split into three story paths: Birthright and Conquest, plus Revelation, which came later as DLC. You need to finish Chapter 6 in either game to reach the other paths. It was released in June 2015 in Japan, then internationally in 2016, and the staff of Awakening returned to their previous roles to make it.

Conquest is the hardest of the three, with less room to grind and tougher mission objectives. Birthright is the friendlier place to start, and Revelation sits between them. Most players pick the path that matches how much of a fight they want. In Classic Mode a fallen unit is gone for good, a recurring mode in the series.

Pokémon X and Y came out worldwide in October 2013, and they were the first Pokémon games to be released everywhere at the same time. They also moved the series to 3D models, in the star-shaped Kalos Region that was heavily inspired by France. It was first announced in January 2013 by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in a Nintendo Direct.

They sold four million copies in the first weekend, which made them the fastest-selling games on the 3DS. For a lot of people they were the first time Pokémon looked like the one in their head. Critics praised the visuals, though the story drew criticism.

The Alliance Alive comes from the creators of The Legend of Legacy and follows nine heroes. A thousand years ago Daemons created a Great Barrier that tore apart the human world, and they have ruled humanity ever since. The story is about the people who push back. It plays like a traditional Japanese role-playing game, with turn-based battles and a world map to navigate.

It came out in Japan in 2017 and worldwide in 2018, and it was the last FuRyu game Atlus USA published before NIS America took over. One player called it "criminally underappreciated", which is the kind of thing people say about games they would fight for. Development began after The Legend of Legacy, with the aim of balancing gameplay and story using player feedback from that game, and composer Masashi Hamauzu returned.

Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance is the seventh game in the Kingdom Hearts series and a direct sequel to Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts coded. The graphics come close to the PS2 games, and the 3D effect pulls you into the screen rather than throwing things out of it. It came out in North America in July 2012.

The Square Enix team made it after being impressed by the quality of the 3DS, and they increased the action elements from Birth by Sleep. Critics generally praised the gameplay and the graphics, and were harder on the plot. A high-definition remaster was released later as part of a compilation.

Yo-kai Watch centers on a boy who gets a special watch that lets him befriend mischievous Yo-kai and later summon them to fight other Yo-kai. The Yo-kai are ghosts and apparitions from Japanese folklore that cause mischief in daily life, and they look like anything from inanimate objects to mythical creatures. By November 2014 it had sold over a million copies in Japan, making it one of the best selling games on the 3DS.

It came out in Japan in 2013 and hit big enough to start a franchise with toys and an anime. It did not reach the West until 2015. It's a monster collector that cares more about jokes than gyms. A sequel, Yo-kai Watch 2, followed the next year.

Crimson Shroud is a tribute to tabletop role-playing games, where crucial decisions hinge on the roll of a die. Level-5 and Yasumi Matsuno made it, and you roll dice in real time and chain skills together to earn bonus dice of greater and greater face value. You follow a young Chaser named Giauque and his team, who are drawn into the mystery of the Original Gift.

It came out in 2012 as part of Level-5's Guild compilation series and was released separately on the eShop. If someone asks for a tabletop feel on a handheld, this is the answer, and it asks a lot less time of you than a campaign does. Use your dice strategically, or your foes may yet get the best of you.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is called Monster Hunter 4G in Japan. You play a hunter who joins a traveling caravan and explores new lands and towns, and hundreds of quests send you after creatures that drop the resources you turn into weapons and equipment. The series had sold more than 28 million units worldwide by then.

It is the first Monster Hunter on a handheld with fully integrated online multiplayer, where earlier games on the PSP and 3DS only allowed local connections. Multiple base camps unlock as you progress, which gives the series its biggest cast of characters yet. Director Kaname Fujioka said the game puts a larger focus on adventure and story progression than earlier Monster Hunter titles.

Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are remakes of the Game Boy Advance pair, rebuilt so thoroughly that they count as games of their own. Team Magma and Team Aqua are back, each turning to a Legendary Pokémon, Groudon or Kyogre, to grow the land or the seas. They are part of the sixth generation of the series, developed by Game Freak.

They came out in November 2014, exactly twelve years after the original Ruby and Sapphire. At the 2014 Game Awards they were nominated for Best Remaster, and lost out to Grand Theft Auto V, which is not a fair fight for anyone. One critic found there were too many HMs needed to play.

Monster Hunter Stories is a role-playing spin-off with a drastically different focus. You play a Rider instead of a Hunter and fight in a traditional turn-based battle system. You hatch eggs, befriend monsters and battle alongside them. You get four weapons from the core series to fight with.

Series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto said the idea was a response to players' interest in the world's setting and the lives of its monsters. Kinship techniques and monster customization give you plenty to tinker with. It's Monster Hunter for people who would rather keep the monster than carve it. The demo came first, with a Quest Mode for part of the story and a Tournament Mode for Rider battles.

Ever Oasis comes from the team behind The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D, and Koichi Ishii, known for his work on the Final Fantasy and Mana series, directed and produced it. You are a Seedling building a prosperous oasis in the desert of Vistrahda, which Chaos ravaged long ago. It was released in North America, Europe and Oceania in June 2017, and it is a brand new IP.

Combat is in real time and you switch between three party members. Dewadems from caves and dungeons grow new shops and even new gear. Some critics found the opening slow and the story shallow, but the oasis keeps pulling you back, and it is an adorable thing to come home to. Its combat system drew on Ishii's experience with action role-playing games.

Bowser wrecks the Sticker Fest in the town of Decalburg by making the Sticker Comet explode, and Mario and his ally Kersti have to recover the Royal Stickers flung far and wide. It is the fourth Paper Mario game and the first in the series on a handheld. Allies alongside Mario were cut because of complications with the sticker mechanics.

Battles run on the stickers you collect, so every fight comes down to what is in your album. Critics liked the graphics and the strategy, and missed the traditional role-playing elements. Its sticker battles are the whole personality of the game. A sequel, Color Splash, carried over many of its ideas to the Wii U.

Dragon Quest VII sends you back in time to save the present, and this version was rebuilt from the ground up for the 3DS. The world has been rebuilt, the characters have new 3D models and the story has been re-localized from scratch. Battles are still turn-based and fought from a first person perspective.

You can build your party from over 30 classes, and without the side quests a single run can take a hundred hours or more. The original came out in North America in 2001 as Dragon Warrior VII, and the remake reached English players in 2016. The Haven lets you recruit people from various towns, and the town changes depending on the type of people living in it.

Bravely Second is the successor to Bravely Default, set two and a half years after the first game. Agnès Oblige has been kidnapped, and as a knight in her service, it's up to Yew to save her. It was released in 2015 in Japan and 2016 overseas.

A feature like the first game's rebuilding of Norende returns, this time rebuilding Magnolia's homeland on the moon. In its debut week it was the highest-selling game on a Nintendo platform. Praise went to the gameplay and criticism mostly to how little it differs from the first game. If you finished Bravely Default and wanted more, this is more.

Mario and Luigi embark on a hilarious action RPG that mixes the resort world of Pi'illo Island with the wild landscapes of Luigi's imagination. You help Prince Dreambert free his petrified Pi'illo people from the bat-king Antasma's curse while you rescue Princess Peach. The worldbuilding was redesigned to be three-dimensional, while the characters kept their two-dimensional look with added stereoscopic depth.

Dream Team was made to emphasize Luigi, because the developer felt he was often underrepresented in the series, and it was released to coincide with the Year of Luigi. It has sold 2.7 million copies, which makes it one of the best-selling games on the 3DS. Half the game takes place inside Luigi's head, which explains a lot.

Etrian Odyssey IV is set in Tharsis, where the tree Yggdrasil looms on the horizon, visible from everywhere in the city. You are the latest explorer to arrive, and you board a skyship and set out into the clouds in search of the answer to Tharsis' oldest mystery. It is the sequel to Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City.

It is the first Etrian Odyssey on the 3DS, and the touch-screen map is yours to draw as you go, so you do the cartography. After the credits there is an optional post-game dungeon called the Hall of Darkness, for anyone who still wants more. NIS America took over publishing in Europe and Australia, and a downloadable demo came out before the launch.

Persona Q puts the casts of Persona 3 and Persona 4 into a game built on Etrian Odyssey, so it is a first-person dungeon crawler. You choose either the Persona 3 protagonist or the Persona 4 protagonist, with slight differences in the main story, and your choices change the flow of it. It was released in 2014, in June in Japan and in November in North America and Europe.

Series character designer Shigenori Soejima gave the whole cast new small, rounded looks. The team was made up of staff from both Etrian Odyssey IV and the main Persona series. It is fan service with a real dungeon crawler underneath. Atsushi Kitajoh and Toshiki Konishi composed the music, with supervision from series composer Shoji Meguro.

Rune Factory 4 is the return of the popular Harvest Moon spinoff that combines farming with dungeon adventuring. For the first time in the series you can play as a male or female hero, and suitors of either gender are available to pursue.

You are the newly appointed prince or princess of Selphia, so you can protect the town from invaders or take a more rural approach by raising fruits and vegetables and helping the townsfolk. It came out in Japan in 2012 and reached North America in 2013. Rune Factory 4 Special reached the Nintendo Switch in 2019 in Japan and worldwide in 2020.

Stella Glow is a strategy RPG from Imageepoch, the studio behind Luminous Arc. Alto starts as a country boy in a small town, until he hears a song coming from the forest, which is odd on a planet where song has been absent for thousands of years, and discovers Hilda, the Witch of Destruction. Hilda is hellbent on destroying the world with her harbingers.

Free time and battle time let you build relationships, and how far you take them can change the ending. Imageepoch made it to commemorate a decade of the company's history. It is the kind of strategy RPG that sneaks up on people. Hilda believed the only way to prevent Mother Qualia from awakening was to crystallize humans.

Fantasy Life is the adventure of your dream life in a huge fantasy landscape. There are 12 Life paths to choose from, and the Life system means your choices help shape your journey rather than just upgrade characters. The game is set in the world of Reveria.

Akihiro Hino wrote and produced it, Nobuo Uematsu did the music, and it came out in Japan in 2012 before Nintendo took it overseas in 2014. Players call it a stress free, chilled out RPG, the kind you sink hours into without noticing. A sequel, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, came out in 2025.

Fire Emblem Awakening puts you beside Chrom and his forces as an inevitable war draws closer. The new Pair Up and Dual systems let nearby allies support your attacks while their skills and relationships grow. In Classic Mode, characters defeated in battle are permanently dead.

Development began in 2010, and because sales of the series had been declining, the team designed it as the possible last Fire Emblem and took elements from every earlier game. Its success is credited with ensuring the series continued. Players tell everyone to play it, including people who have never touched the series. It is often cited as one of the best games on the 3DS and one of the greatest video games of all time.

Shin Megami Tensei IV follows the Samurai, the sacred protectors of the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado. As a newly appointed Samurai, you defend your home from a growing army of demons while factions plot against the world. It is the first true successor to 2004's Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. A score based on Flynn's moral choices decides which path you end up on. The Samurai's battle stances and katana handles were inspired by the Jedi of Star Wars.

Your decisions have lasting repercussions, and the fate of the world hangs on them. The Press Turn battle system from Nocturne was given an overhaul, and the game debuted to strong sales in Japan. Atlus does not do small stakes.

Bravely Default follows Tiz, a humble shepherd and the lone survivor of a cataclysm, as he joins a group of companions to restore balance to the world. Its battles hinge on two commands: Brave lets a character take more actions in a turn, while Default stores actions for later. It was released in 2012 in Japan, and the expanded edition reached the West in 2014, published by Nintendo.

It began as an action role-playing sequel to a Final Fantasy spinoff, and it kept the Final Fantasy feel while building its own story. Revo of Sound Horizon wrote the music to evoke Dragon Quest and SaGa. Players point anyone who wants classic Final Fantasy style gameplay straight to it, and you can adjust the difficulty and the random encounter rate as you play. It met with strong sales and critical acclaim in Japan and overseas.