Off the heels of Sam’s post about handheld gaming, I thought I would chronicle my history of handhelds and why I think they are also great. I have always been more of PC gamer than a console gamer, but handhelds have mostly been a different category since you can take them anywhere, but that has changed with the Switch and Steam deck having handheld and docked modes. I grew up with the Game Boy family and took my latest one with me almost everywhere I went. Nowadays, I generally take either the Switch or the Steam Deck on trips, depending on what game I might be playing at the time.
Game Boy
The Game Boy was my first handheld, which is no surprise since it was one of the first handhelds at all. My family had one when I was 5 or so years old. I remember it came with Tetris, but I didn’t really understand or care for Tetris at the time. At some point I got The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, which was the first game that was “mine.” Years later I remember borrowing Pokémon Blue from a friend, and having my own Game Boy to play on and use to trade Pokémon with. I don’t remember if I ever owned my own Game Boy or if that was borrowed as well. Either way I certainly remember the ugly screen color and and just chewing through AA batteries.
Notable games: Link’s Awakening, Super Mario Land 2, Kirby’s Dreamland 1 and 2, Pokémon Blue and Yellow
Game Boy Color
I got a GBC for my birthday or Christmas or something and remember loving it. It was much smaller and easier to hold, the screen looked a lot less pukey, and it only chewed through 2 AAs at a time. I don’t recall many of the games I had other that Pokémon Gold (I wanted Silver, but the K-Mart only had pre-orders for Gold left) and Link’s Awakening DX. The worst game I remember having was Conker’s Pocket Tales, which I could never get far into since I was unable to button mash fast enough. This is around the time I discovered emulators, so I played a bunch of other games that way.
Notable games: Pokémon Gold, Link’s Awakening DX, Pokémon TCG, Mario Golf
Game Boy Advance
The GBA kicked ass. Alongside all these handhelds, I also grew up with the SNES and liked it a lot. The GBA was like a handheld SNES: better graphics, L and R buttons, a nicer screen (but still no backlight). I remember playing a lot of GBA in the car and carrying around a pile of games at all times. Metroid Fusion, WarioWare Inc, Mario Kart Super Circuit, A Link to the Past, and more. I only had the original model, so I also had to carry around a light attachment to play games in dark.
Notable games: Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission, Mario Kart Super Circuit, Wario Ware, Castlevanias, Wario Land 4, Mother 3
Nintendo DS
I got a DS for Christmas the year they came out, which was awesome. This was my first handheld that was backlit, which was a huge upgrade from the prior Game Boys. The downside of that is there were not a lot of good games a launch. I had Super Mario 64 DS and played around with the Metroid Hunters demo that came with the system. I eventually got the Zelda games (Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hourglass), some puzzle games (Picross, Picross 3D, Professor Layton) and some rhythm games (Elite Beat Agents and Rhythm Heaven). I think this is what sparked my love for Picross games, which I still enjoy today. I also got to replay Chrono Trigger, which was my favorite game ever at the time.
Big shout out to the Download Play feature of the DS. Being able to play a reduced version of your game with other people who didn’t have the game at all was awesome. I had a study hall session in high school where a group of us (including Sami!) would play Mario Kart DS almost every day. There were a handful of us that had DS’s and had we would borrow any we could find to play 8-player Mario Kart off a single cartridge. This feature was awesome. Honorable mention to Pictochat, which was fun to play with, but not the most useful since you were close enough to others to talk to them IRL.
Notable games: Both Zelda games, WarioWare Touched, Elite Beat Agents, Mario Kart DS, Rhythm Heaven, Pokémon Black, Chrono Trigger, Professor Layton
Nintendo DSi
Not much to say here, this was just a slightly upgraded version of the DS. It was a lot smaller an sleeker with slightly larger screens. I think it was a little more powerful, but that didn’t matter much. It was a lot nicer than the original that I had, but very similar to the DS Lite.
Sony PSP
I got a PSP when I was a freshman in university, when I swapped my Xbox 360 for a PS3. I didn’t end up buying many PSP games. I wanted to play God of War, so I got that special edition that came with it. I had Lumines 2 was also great. Other than that I mostly just used it to play GBA games. This thing was a perfect size to carry around and the screen was awesome for GBA games. This is where I played a lot of GBA games I missed out on, like the Castlevanias, and the fan translation of Mother 3.
Notable games: God of War, Lumines, the entire GBA library
Nintendo 3DS XL
I did not really care about the 3DS when it came out. It was expensive, the 3D seemed very gimmicky, and there weren’t any games I cared about for a while. By the time the XL came out, there were enough games that I wanted one. The 3DS ended up a an awesome library of games that I will mention below, but the stand out feature of the system was Street Pass. It was fun being able to play some mini games in Street Pass Plaza with random people you pass. The place I was working at the time had a lot of people with 3DS’s, so I would get 10-20 Street Passes around lunch time. The 3D feature was cool, but not necessary. I ended up turning it off for most games since it was only good if you held it in the exact, perfect angle from your face. Once you were in place, you couldn’t move your body or the effect was lost and headache inducing.
The 3DS ended up with a great Zelda game with A Link Between Worlds, a great Mario Kart game with 7, and a great Animal Crossing game with New Leaf. ALBW is one 3DS game that I think I used the 3D effect for the entirety of the game. It was one of the only games I can think of that really added depth INTO the screen, rather than things just popping out towards your face. I ended up clocking in many many hours into New Leaf both as the base game, and again when the big Amiibo update came out. The Metroid 2 remake was also great, but came out after the Switch was in my hands, so it felt weird to buy a game for a practically dead system. This is the reason I never played WarioWare Gold (hopefully both of these get a Switch remake).
Notable games: A Link Between Worlds, Pokémon Y, Mario Kart 7, Fantasy Life, Metroid: Samus Returns, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Fire Emblem Awakening
New Nintendo 3DS XL
I played my 3DS so much that I was happy to get an upgraded version. It was a lot snappier, especially when loading the system menu while a game was running. The new eye-tracking 3D was also amazing. Not being forced to sit completely still while using 3D was so much better than the previous model. I still didn’t use it all the time, but it made games like A Link Between Worlds awesome and Mario Kart 7 more enjoyable. I think this takes the cake for the device with the worst name in this list…
Nintendo Switch
When the Switch was announced, I didn’t care about it. I don’t remember there being many games announced alongside it, and the gimmick of having a handheld that could be docked and used on a TV seems like it would be underpowered like most Nintendo hardware. I was right about the underpowered part, but the docking part turned out to be pretty sweet. I got hype for the Switch before it came out and ended up pre-ordering one. I played the hell out of this thing for a long while, mostly docked, but also a fair amount of handheld. The game catalog ended up being pretty great as well. It was awesome for Nintendo’s games and a lot of indie titles. It has also been great to play some Wii U games that have been ported. I did own a Wii U, but only ever bought a few games and didn’t play it much.
Nowadays, at the end of 2023, the Switch obviously struggles to run most games. Nintendo’s first party games always have, and continue to be awesome and generally very smooth. They know how to utilize the hardware and how to make games that look great without being super high-res. Almost everything else these days looks and runs pretty bad. The most recent games I have played on switch are Sky: Children of the Light (an awful experience on Switch, both visually and a terrible framerate) and Mario Wonder (very smooth and looks great).
Notable games: Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Metroid Dread, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Nintendo Switch OLED Model
This is just an updated Switch with a slightly bigger and much nicer screen. It’s Nintendo, so of course there is no HDR, but at least the screen looks brighter and more vibrant. I got one of these for Sam for Christmas one year, which she liked a lot. I then acquired this one from her once Splatoon 3 came out and she absolutely had to have the special edition OLED switch, which has awesome looking joycons and dock.
This is probably not really worth the upgrade for people who have the original unless they play in handheld mode a lot, but it certainly looks nicer. Also, the kickstand went from being a flimsy piece of junk to something much more solid and usable.
Playdate
The Playdate was an interesting and fun idea. Making a little handheld reminiscent of the original Game Boy, but with a crank on the side. The screen on this thing is pretty awesome. It is just black and white, but pretty high resolution and looks great with even a small amount of light. The rollout of Season 1 of games, where 2 games come out every week for a few months, was a cool idea. I ended up checking them out as the first couple of weeks hit, then promptly forgot to keep checking in and playing them. This was a fun novelty, but definitely not for most people.
Notable games: Casual Birder (the bird photography game)
Steam Deck
The Steam Deck does what Nintendon’t. This has been a pretty awesome handheld. It supports almost all of my Steam library, it runs pretty well, and also has support to be docked to a TV. I played a lot of indies and some visual novel puzzle games when I first got it, and then haven’t used it a whole lot. I still do use it occasionally and is my handheld of choice when it comes to anything not made by Nintendo. I mentioned Sky: CotL in the Switch section, which is terrible on Switch, but runs great on Steam Deck. The biggest downside to the Deck is the size. It it chunky to hold and kind of heavy, but at least it has good hardware in terms of internal specs and inputs (touchpads are occasionally useful and I think every controller should have paddle buttons).
Notable games: uh… almost everything on Steam.
New Super Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Edition Model XL Advance
Pls Nintendo.
