Recently, I had the opportunity to tell Jeff Grubb how much I loved his YouTube series Game Mess Mornings. I felt starstruck as we both chatted about our affinity and frustrations of video game journalism. For me, a lot of my specific frustrations come from the lacking of my very casual handheld gaming experience and the rumor mill of the Nintendo Switch 2 console recently. Thanks, Grubb – here I am being the voice I want to see, in frustration.
I have long had an affinity for handheld consoles. Throughout the years the tech for them has ebbed and flowed into some of the fondest memories of my own experiences with video games. Being a decades long Nintendo Fan-girl has committed me to the life of the Nintendo Console. Yet lately I am finding myself playing more games that I could play on my beloved handheld, seated on the couch in front of my Xbox or PS5. Has my love for handheld gone astray or has Big Gaming left me behind in my need of performance and mobility for games?
Nintendo was my first introduction to video games. My mother was a very young wife, married at fifteen. When I called her one evening to do research on the original SNES I remember us owning, she talked excitedly about Duck Hunt and Q*bert and losing the console during a move. At the end of the call, two things were clear; my interest for video games was hereditary and this was not Nintendo’s golden age of transportable gaming.
The next console I remember owning was the original Nintendo Gameboy. I remember sharing this with my family and us creating our own natural shifts in the house in our gameplay. My mom remembered playing Donkey Kong, my younger brother played Zelda, and I played Kirby. We all tried our hand at Mario Land 2, but this is one of the hardest games we collectively remember struggling through. Sharing these memories and reliving these gaps in perspective was only possible through the accessibility of this mobile console. Most able bodies in a house could pick it up and find a cozy spot to struggle away at silly game puzzles in their own comfort, time, and place.
My first handheld console was the Nintendo DS Lite. I have the most fond memories with this console. I remember spending countless hours on my landline phone with Steve playing games like Elite Beat Agents. Later, when I upgraded to the 3DS I remember this was the most joyous console that I feel I have ever owned. It was purple, folded into itself so you knew the two screens were protected, the screen brightness or 3D effects could be adjusted by scale. You could use touch or a stylus (remember the retractable stylus??) and most games found a unique way to incorporate each screen that really added to the memory of a gameplay. Plus the DS eshop also offered a variety of themes to customize your home screens with. It all added to the feel of the handheld console being yours and traveling with you in a different way than most others at the time offered. You could game on the go, make new friends, and earn custom features simultaneously in the console. Here’s a list of games and features of the 3DS that still give me the warm and fuzzy feelings: Ever Oasis, Grezzo’s StreetPass Garden, Animal Crossing New Leaf to name a few. Comment and let me know if you enjoyed any of these as much as I did!
In my early stage 30s, I spent a lot of my time been teaching English in different countries and traveling abroad. Because of this, I have heavily relied on my Nintendo Switch console. After the first one was stolen while I was returning from teaching in Japan, I remember being at the time so invested in my Splatoon 2 progress, that losing it devastated me. To it’s benefit and determent – Nintendo had introduced to me to my first online PvP in a chatless environment. When I finally acquired another Switch, I remember cruising through any account progress I had lost, and again I was enjoying the heck out of decking out the console with accessories. (Think bejeweled cases and joystick thumbgrips.)
Nintendo is the only brand that I have consistently been able to rely on for my handheld console escape for decades. However, as I watch more powerful graphics and games coming to other places, I am left with the longing for the days when Nintendo was a leader in the trifecta of what made a good handheld console so meaningful – ease of holding, good graphics, and a powerful engine for the latest games. The resolution and the performance of the tech overall is equal to that of a low-budget tablet. I am pretty desperate to feel something again with the gaming tech in my hands, in bed perhaps, on a cozy day spent indoors. Will a Nintendo Switch 2 change my mind?
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