based on memory, so a little vague, but examples - access to various merchants in Bravely Default required you to have passed others. i remember this because i was sick with flu and spent a couple days with my 3ds and my daughter’s running/“passing” each other repeatedly so i could unlock everything.
to the best of my memory, some turn-based rpg’s (Persona? SMT? Etrian Odyssey?) would allow you to access customized personas/demons/teams? others had made available. like maybe someone had a really great high level persona (basically a pokemon) with a really great selection of skills on it and you could use it instead of trying to build the same thing yourself, before you might have normally had access to it.
so the latter type thing was cool and fun, but i didn’t get many of those. the first example is a situation where the game doesn’t really fully work without spotpass.
AlexCory21@lemmy.world 2 months ago
My version of a TLDR:
Spotpass is a wireless tech that would auto connect with other 3ds or Wii U systems that were in immediate area albeit with a limited range. It was their way of having a social community. Sort of like how you might meet other people while walking around outside.
In the case of Spotpass, when you connected, it would show you the users profile, their favorite games, etc. And in some cases for specific games it would provide special DLCs or content that cannot be found elsewhere.
Hence why we’d want to preserve that data since some DLC and other features are exclusive to Spotpass.
DreitonLullaby@lemm.ee 2 months ago
This isn’t correct, you’re getting confused between StreetPass and SpotPass. Yes, SpotPass is a wireless tech, but it has nothing to do with connecting to other 3DS’s or Wii U’s (and the Wii U did not have StreetPass; only SpotPass). A StreetPass-like feature would be pointless on a Wii U because you couldn’t take it out of the house without it losing range from the console. The 3DS on the other hand, had both features. So yes, the SpotPass did provide you with “DLC’s”, but it did not have the same features as StreetPass.
Also, the users’ profile and their favourite game was shown in the friends list, which was not a part of SpotPass. I can’t remember for sure if you needed a Nintendo Network account for adding friends, but I do know that you can add friends offline through the local network, but this does not use the SpotPass network, as the SpotPass network requires internet (and most games which had SpotPass warned you of this prior to activation).
The local wireless connection used in the friends list is the same connection used in local multiplayer games, the same as how it works on the Nintendo Switch.
PrimalHero@kbin.social 2 months ago
Thanks you. I will try to extract the data from my 3ds later but I never used to that feature. So I am not sure if it will much help.
DreitonLullaby@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Note that if you got the console second hand (even if it was factory reset), apparently, the SpotPass data stays on the console in the background, so it may be of more help than you think.