:-(((((((
I mentioned a while ago that I have a 3DS at my disposal until the new Fire Emblem comes out whenever. I’m done replaying Awakening, so I thought I’d get a 3DS game or two to pass the time. That said, I wasn’t really interested in Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, but what the heck, it’s been almost 5 years since I last played an HM, I used to be a huge fan of the series, let’s see what they added to the mix, etc etc. The only games I’d played on the 3DS to date were FE: Awakening and Phoenix Wright Dual Destinies, none of which used the circle pad, so it never even occurred to me to check the control system first.
Look, I’ll get to the point. As your senior in life, I have some important advice for you: if you try to play HM: ANB on a borrowed 3DS XL only to discover that the circle pad is stuck and can’t move left at all, stop using it immediately.
Step 1: Put it back in the box.
Step 2: Return it to the owner.
Step 3: Explain the situation.
Step 4: Walk away quietly.
Do not under any circumstances attempt to Google a solution and fix it yourself. Got it? This is really important.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to write all this down, put it in a time machine and send it to the Me of 3 Days Ago. Right around now she’s reading some foolish advice on GameFAQS about pulling the stick up so it works better. In a few minutes she’s actually going to attempt this crazy solution, with all the care and subtlety she is so well-known for. “Rrrghhh! Nnngh! Come up, you stupid stick! Up! Up, I tell you! U–”
…Tee hee ♥
I wish I could say I let things go at that, but, well, are you familiar with the expression “Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb?” I figured once the cap was off anyway, i might as well… Unfortunately further pulling didn’t really make a difference. What did help a bit was advice from another site about brushing under the stick with a toothbrush and blowing around it with compressed air. As a bonus the toothbrush also got rid of all the caked-in dust you see up there. Win-win, right?
Except the stick still gets stuck, but now in different directions at random. I think there’s something stuck in there that the toothbrush dislodged, and now it just keeps moving around and causing trouble. So I’m still playing A New Beginning (ref: Sunk Cost Fallacy), but every couple of minutes I have to take out the toothbrush and brushie brushie brushie so I can keep moving again. The cap can be superglued back quite easily, but then my brushie-brushie strategy won’t work any more so it stays off for now. My next step will be to open the 3DS from the back and try to get find exactly what is causing the trouble, but I don’t have a #000 screwdriver yet, so it will have to wait.
Oh, right, before you nominate me for the Worst Game-Borrowing Friend award, I did make a full confession to my owner friend. Eventually. He was 10,000 times more understanding that I would have been in the same situation (ashamed Kina is ashamed!). He even came over and we tried to fix it together, but no dice. He’s pretty laidback about the whole thing, shockingly enough. Most likely the poop won’t hit the fan unless the new Fire Emblem comes out and needs the joystick to work… -_-;; Anyway if opening it up doesn’t help then I’ll either pay for repairs or buy him a new one. The fault was discovered while it was with me after all. :-<
Final piece of advice: Buy your own 3DS, don’t borrow anyone else’s!
i’ve heard of a lot of 3DS nubs popping out but usualy in relation to abuse caused by super smash bros, maybe searching for that could help you?
Okay, I’ll take a look…
Really? Jeez, what happened to good old rock-solid Nintendo design? The Gameboy was a monument of solidity, a brick designed to last decades, and a 3ds cannot survive a mere five years of existence unmaimed? Of course, these analog sticks are more fragile than D-pads by design, but still… It must be galling.
On a more positive note, I nominated you for the Liebster Award. I hope you don’t mind. ^_^
http://thatextralevel.blogspot.com/2015/05/my-most-unexpected-liebster-award.html
Liebster Award? Thanks… I guess? I don’t think I’ll pass it on, but I will answer the questions.
As for Nintendo, I think the GameCube was their last good piece of hardware. We had to send our Wii back for replacement after Smash Brothers Melee did something or the other to it, and I’m on my second DS Lite, both of which had hinge and other problems. I don’t know what kind of abuse the 3DS went through before landing in my hands so maybe it’s not their fault, but I’m not very impressed with them right now.
First of all, congratulations on your Liebster award! I found your blog through thatextralevel.blogspot.com. And I’m glad I did, your article is hilarious. Well, not for the 3DS obviously, and I can only imagine how awful you must have felt. But I can totally picture you brushing away time after time. By the way, what did you think of A new Beginning?
Thanks for reading! I had to give up on A New Beginning because it was just too frustrating, plus I’m genuinely worried about ruining the 3DS any further. Repairs or buying a new one is the next step.
I was only on day 20 or so of Spring on ANB when I stopped, right after meeting Iroha so nothing had really happened. I have barely anything on my farm, only 1 animal and only like 5 people in the whole town so it’s really boring. I hear it opens up after month 1, so I’ll pick up where I left off once I sort the hardware out.