Online Services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U to be Discontinued

[Moonface]

Nintendo has announced that all online services for software on Nintendo 3DS and Wii U will end in April 2024: Full Announcement

Discontinued services will include online play and other functionality that uses online communication, such as online co-operative play, internet rankings, and data distribution. This will affect all software titles, including those by third parties.

Downloading games and update data will still remain via the eShop for the foreseeable future.

---

Although it was destined to happen eventually it sucks to be hit with the realization that stuff like StreetPass is absolutely gone now more or less. I loved that feature on the 3DS and always have fond memories of it, and I wish Nintendo had brought it over to the Switch. Back in the day I'd always wanted to try and finish all the puzzles.

[Mr EliteL]

StreetPass will still work but no longer SpotPass, boo. Yeah, I also liked trying to complete the puzzles that way but because I haven't gone to places with my 3DS for some years now there's lots I didn't finish. Pokémon Bank and Poké Transporter will also still work but for an unknown limited time as that could end in the future too, although I never used them.

[Moonface]

As neat as it is that Pokemon Bank will continue to work, it sucks that a certain number of Pokemon in the 3DS games will be unobtainable due to requiring trades to evolve. I don't know how many it will affect though, plus it might not be that bad in the end anyway since current Pokemon games don't include every Pokemon anyway, so not much point worrying about certain Pokemon being unobtainable if they're unusable in the Switch titles.

I think the worst thing that'll come from all of this is the loss of Mario Maker levels. That's a huge amount of community created content that's just going to disappear with no record of it except whatever videos exist online of it.

[Moonface]

I think the worst thing that'll come from all of this is the loss of Mario Maker levels. That's a huge amount of community created content that's just going to disappear with no record of it except whatever videos exist online of it.

I don't know how many of you have been following it at all, but a group of people called Team 0% have been working since 2017 to get every level uploaded to Mario Maker 1 cleared. Initially it was set up when level uploading was disabled, but kicked into high gear when Nintendo announced the servers were going entirely offline.

At this time, there is exactly one level left to beat which has quickly gained notoriety for managing to fly under the radar as an incredibly difficult level. Any other level that was known for being incredibly hard had already been known about and dealt with sooner than later, but nobody seemed to realize how tough this last level was. IGN have a good summary of the entire project and this level in this article: IGN | Inside the Multi-Year Quest to Finish Every Single Mario Maker Level Before the Servers Close for Good

I really hope they manage to beat this last level. I think they'll pull it off though. It's a shame that Nintendo will probably never even acknowledge this effort the community have made to get every level beaten and just come off as ignoring it.

[ShiraNoMai]

Yeah TTH uses a really fucked up bomb jump trick that requires doing multiple frame perfect into frame perfect trick chained in a row.

The creator who made it is known for doing these kinds of insane TAS-looking tricks and despite it looking like TAS, it was done by a real human. After all, it only needs to be cleared once for it to be uploaded, so who knows how many times or how long the creator struggled for in uploading?

I wondered if it would be just as challenging as ChainChompBraden's Trial of Death level that became famous for how long it took him to beat it (spoiler: multiple years ), but even that was beaten semi-recently by another person (through a series of uploads not through official means because the level took that long to beat that it was after Mario Maker uploading had been disabled).

[Moonface]

Were there any levels in Mario Maker that were beaten using cheats at all and if so how did Team 0% deal with those? I'm sure I heard a brief mention that some levels were uploaded with loop holes and cheats but I may be mistaken, especially since if they were unbeatable then we wouldn't be down to one level left to go.

[Maniakkid25]

So, the final level of Mario Maker has been felled, and not for the reason you think. I'd like to highlight this quote.

The creator who made it is known for doing these kinds of insane TAS-looking tricks and despite it looking like TAS, it was done by a real human. After all, it only needs to be cleared once for it to be uploaded, so who knows how many times or how long the creator struggled for in uploading?

Turns out, we were wrong. The creator did, in fact, TAS the level Trimming the Herbs (and Bombs5 for good measure) by using an Arduino hooked into the Wii U's controller. He meant for it to be a troll to reveal that Wii U TASing was possible in 2017, but it went under the radar, and now we are here. And so, the saga of Mario Maker ends.

[Moonface]

Yeah, it sucks that the truth behind that level broke so late that it took the wind out of the sails for completing every Mario Maker level before the servers shut down. Had it come out before every other level had been done there would have probably been a lot more hype for when the last legitimate level was beaten. It would be nice if somehow Trimming the Herbs can still get beaten by somebody before the servers die, but I don't even know if anyone is still bothering to try since the news about that level came out.

[Maniakkid25]

There are actually two runners still going for it. LilKirbs and Sanyx are still grinding it, so we've still got a chance. We'll see what happens...

[Moonface]

Do you know how far they've got at all in their efforts? I recall hearing about their progress before but that was before the truth came out about that last level so I'd hope they've made some degree of progress since then.

[Maniakkid25]

Sanyx got close enough he could have tasted it, looking into it. So, we're close, but just haven't strung it all together.

[Moonface]

I'm guessing if they made it to that door they were probably home free?

[Maniakkid25]

Quite literally home free; the second room just a straight drop onto the finish checkpoint. If he hadn't of bombed that last piranha plant, he would have made it.

[ShiraNoMai]

Well he would've still needed to land the nai (final jump) after that, but still, yeah!

Yeah a lot of the community was absolutely shocked by the revelation from the (notably asshole-tier) creator; what a turn of events. Still, with only 5 days to go, I definitely think it'll be done.

[Moonface]

Dang, it shocks me they were that close and they've not managed to pull off a stage clear yet even though it was four days ago that clip was posted. Just goes to show how hard the level is even when you seemingly do have 99% of it nailed down.