Review on Nintendo 2DS Sea Green - Get the Ultimate Racing Experience with Mario Kart 7 by Jeff Johnson

I really like the color scheme of this 2DS and Mario Kart 7 comes with a memory card preinstalled. I didn't have a 3DS before but there were plenty of games I wanted to play with it and the 2DS is a great cheaper alternative at almost half the price of the 3DS XL. The 3D effect causes motion sickness for me personally and I don't want to have anything to do with it. I hesitated for a while whether or not to buy the 2DS, but couldn't resist and bought a 2DS Japanese Translucent Yellow Pikachu as a souvenir when it came out in Japan. I didn't know at the time that Nintendo implemented region locking (since all previous Nintendo handhelds were region free) and after getting it I realized that I could only play Japanese 3DS games on it (however, it will play all NDS games played region). Since I wanted the English games Pokemon X and Yokai Watch, I had to buy another 2DS for the North American games. I also play my JP only games so it didn't bother me too much but Nintendo's decision to use region locking on this PDA is pretty lame. It's quite obviously a 'simplified' version of the 3DS in the sense that it has no hinges and isn't collapsible, the screens are smaller and of course there are no 3D gimmicks - all done to keep the price down. The guts are the same as the 3DS, though. It's a pretty solid little device and doesn't feel cheap. I put mine in an old padded zippered CD case to protect the screens. Battery life is a bit short, 3.5-5 hours goes by pretty quickly. I expected it to last 7-10 hours like the 3DS XL, but that wasn't the case. It has all the same features including WiFi connectivity. Overall I like this device and am very happy with it. 2DS might not be for everyone, but if you just want to play a few 3DS games and don't care about 3D gimmicks and want to save some money, this might be for you. It could also be a cheaper and more durable option for younger kids that age.