9 Best Selling Nintendo 3DS Games That You Should Know Update 03/2024

Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire

When it came out, the Nintendo 3DS put stunning graphics in the hands of everyone, and people are still buying it today. The Nintendo 3DS and its bigger brother, the Nintendo 3DS XL, have a lot of fun games to go with them because they are so popular, and they have also sold like crazy.

Even though there are a lot of great games for the Nintendo 3DS, we’re here to see which ones have sold the most. Not surprisingly, most of the most-bought games have come from popular series like Pokémon, Super Mario, and Animal Crossing, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Time to play some games! Here are the Nintendo 3DS games that have sold the most copies.

Tomodachi Life

Tomodachi Life

Tomodachi Life was a crazy life simulation game in which your Mii looked like the main character. He or she moved into an apartment on an island where they could eat, try on clothes, do activities, and fall in love. The more people a player got to know other Miis, the more fun they could have.

Even though the game could get boring and some of the minigames were said to be too easy, the wacky game was often praised for being funny and different. More than 6 million copies were sold. There’s something about the whole thing that’s very Nintendo.

Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon

The last main-line Pokémon game to come out for the 3DS was the updated version of Sun and Moon. It had a new storyline and a lot of other improvements. The characters played a young Pokémon Trainer in the Alola region, which is in Hawaii.

Even though some critics said it was too similar to the first game, Nintendo didn’t really mind. Since the first version was so popular, the new version was just as much fun and sold 8 million copies.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS brought the popular crossover fighting series to Nintendo’s newest handheld device. The fighting was tweaked to be faster than in Brawl for the Wii but not as chaotic as in Melee for the GameCube.

It was a fight to sell more than 9 million copies of the game. Even though there wasn’t a story mode and there were a few problems with online play, the game was just as fun as the ones that came before it.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf

In New Leaf, the popular Animal Crossing series, in which a person moves to a town full of friendly animals that look like people, was given a new twist. This time, they were made mayor of the town and given the extra job of making sure the people who lived there were happy and making life there more fun.

The game also added two new types of animals, hamsters and deer, and two new types of villagers, “smug” and “uchi.” People liked how New Leaf took the fun features of its Wii predecessor and made them even better.

Super Mario 3D Land

Super Mario 3D Land

This game had parts of a side-scrolling Mario quest and parts of a 3D Mario game where you could move around freely. People liked how different the gameplay was, which led to more than 12 million copies being sold.

Changes of all kinds were added to make the game even more fun. Boomerang Mario, Statue Mario, and Fire Mario, just to name a few, were all part of the game. The new and strange worlds also kept the story interesting.

New Super Mario Bros. 2

In this 2D side-scrolling quest, Mario and Luigi had to save Princess Peach from Bowser and the Koopalings again. This time, the game was all about collecting coins, and the nine worlds made sure there were plenty of chances to do so.

Even though the second game wasn’t that different from the first, critics still liked how the levels were set up. Players got their hands on more than 13 million copies of adventure.

Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire

Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire

This set of Pokémon games was a more advanced version of the Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire games for the Game Boy Advance. The main goal of the game was to beat all eight Gym Leaders and catch as many Pokémon as possible.

People liked how the games looked in 3D and how the Super Training feature worked. The problems with the first games were fixed, and even though the game had some bugs, it sold 3 million copies on its first day on the market. It moved up the charts and has now sold more than 14 million copies.

Pokémon Sun and Moon

If you thought this game’s remake from 2017 sold a lot of copies, you haven’t seen the numbers for the original yet. 16 million copies of Sun and Moon were bought.

As in the Ultra versions we’ve already talked about, players move around Alola’s islands to catch Pokémon and fight other trainers. People liked the game’s new format and design, but thought the story was just okay. But you don’t have to worry about that. As was already said, Nintendo had a good reason to make a second one.

Yo-Kai Watch 2 (2014)

Yo-Kai Watch 2 (2014)

Level-5’s cute ghost-collecting RPGs were an instant hit because they were like Pokemon. The first game came out in Japan in 2013. Fans who couldn’t get enough of collecting supernatural creatures didn’t have to wait long for the sequel, which came out in the Far East a year later.

The series took a while to get to Western audiences, but the first and second titles were still released a year apart in other places.

Yo-Kai Watch 2 took a page from Pokemon by splitting into two versions, Bony Spirits and Fleshy Souls, that were basically the same game but had different creatures to collect.

Naturally, this means that Yo-Kai Watch 2 sold a lot of copies. With two versions available for completists, it’s no surprise that the combined sales of Yo-Kai Watch 2’s double versions reached an unnaturally high 6.92 million units, which is over four million copies more than the still-respectable 2.78 million copies sold of the first game.