10 Worst 3DS Games

Dream Radar is a small downloadable 3DS game made to work with Black 2 and White 2. It is an augmented reality game about catching Pokémon trapped in the Interdream Zone, a realm between the dream world and reality, and the ones you catch can be sent over to your copy of Black 2 or White 2. Among them are new forms of Tornadus, Thundurus and Landorus. It averages 51 out of 100.

Players barely mention it.

Steel Diver was first shown as a playable tech demo for the Nintendo DS at E3 2004. Shigeru Miyamoto had wanted a flight sim where you fly a huge passenger aircraft instead of a fighter jet, and a submarine struck him as big and bulky in the same way, so the 3DS launched in North America with a submarine game that exists because Miyamoto wanted to fly an airliner. You steer the sub with sliders and dials on the touch screen. In 2014 it became the base for Nintendo's first free-to-play game, Steel Diver: Sub Wars. It averages 50 out of 100.

Steel Diver has a reputation among players for being horrible, and some say they hated it. A few love it anyway.

Federation Force is a co-op shooter by Next Level Games, and the first Metroid game where you play a Marine of the Galactic Federation instead of Samus. It also has a soccer mode, Blast Ball. Fans turned on it the moment it was announced at E3 2015: the debut trailer got over 25,000 dislikes on YouTube in its first day, and a petition calling for the game's cancellation reached 7,500 signatures in under 24 hours. On release in Japan it sold fewer than 4,000 copies. It averages 49 out of 100.

To the players who played it, it's a bad game and one of the worst on the system. Another group defends it as a fun co-op shooter that was hated before anyone had played it.

Showdown of Legendary Legends is a platform fighter in the style of Super Smash Bros., with characters from the first three films, Po and the Furious Five among them. Several of the films' voice actors came back for it, James Hong among them. It was pulled from digital stores on January 1, 2019, when Little Orbit's Kung Fu Panda license ran out. It averages 52 out of 100.

Not one player we surveyed mentioned it.

Shattered Crystal is a side-scrolling platformer by Sanzaru Games, the 3DS half of Sonic Boom next to the Wii U's Rise of Lyric. You switch between Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Sticks whenever you like, and each of them has an Enerbeam for swinging across gaps. The two games were the last part of Sega's exclusivity deal with Nintendo, and together they sold 620,000 copies, among the lowest totals in the series. It averages 46 out of 100.

Players who played it remember it as one of the worst games on the system, or as a dull one.

Badge Arcade is a free-to-play claw machine, run by a pink rabbit called Arcade Bunny, where you grab badges of Nintendo characters to decorate the 3DS home menu. You start with five free plays and buy the rest from the eShop, though a practice catcher hands out a free bonus play now and then. Nintendo stopped updating it in 2017 and shut it down in April 2024. It averages 40 out of 100.

Players who use it say they hate it, and plenty of others call it one of their favourites. The low score is what puts it this high.

This is the first game based on Nickelodeon's 2012 Turtles cartoon, a beat 'em up made by Magic Pockets for Activision, and it came out on the 3DS in October 2013. Critics liked the 3DS version a little better than the others but still called its gameplay repetitive and uninspired. Activision pulled it from every digital store in January 2017, when it let the license go. It averages 38 out of 100.

The complaint from players is that it's a button masher with the same levels and enemies over and over. One player's kids liked it better, "because there is so little skill involved".

Explore the Dungeon is the second game based on Adventure Time, made by WayForward, a top-down hack and slash dungeon crawler in the style of Diablo. Princess Bubblegum sends you into her Royal Dungeon to find out how the prisoners keep escaping, because she doesn't know. Every other version has four-player co-op, but the 3DS version has no multiplayer at all, and critics mostly faulted the game for its repetitive gameplay. It was pulled from digital stores on March 31, 2018. It averages 41 out of 100.

Fans of the show who bought it call it a letdown, and some rank it the worst game on the system. That, and a score this low, puts it third.

Goosebumps: The Game is a point-and-click adventure by WayForward, the studio behind Explore the Dungeon, and a prequel to the Goosebumps film. You play a boy or a girl you name yourself, walking home from school after R.L. Stine's monsters have escaped from their books and taken over the neighborhood. Scarecrows walk at midnight, and gnomes roam underfoot. It averages 35 out of 100.

Players barely mention it.

Battle Crashers is a side-scrolling beat 'em up by Magic Pockets, the French studio that also made the Turtles game at #4. Uncle Grandpa crashes his RV through the worlds of other Cartoon Network shows and picks up Gumball, Clarence, Steven Universe, Mordecai and Rigby, and Finn and Jake along the way. The other versions let up to four players fight together, and the 3DS version has no multiplayer at all. Six Cartoon Network shows, and not one line of voice acting.

Critics called it a monotonous and boring beat 'em up that drains the personality out of every character, and it is the lowest-rated 3DS game on the biggest review aggregator. It averages 28 out of 100, the lowest score here.

Almost nobody we surveyed brought it up.