2/5/25 - Post Magfest Video Game Revisiting

My visit to Super Magfest had got me itching to at least casually venture into video games, especially from a media preservation standpoint. I was attending panels for most of my time at Magfest and there was a recurring theme about game preservation and accessibility popping up. This makes sense because Magfest has the Video Game History Foundation as one of their guests this year. The conversation of preserving games has quite the handful of caveats that makes it different from preserving books or films (particularly with games abandoned by its publishers, games that can only be experienced on older technology that is harder to obtain, copyright law disputes, corporate bullshit, etc.) It makes you wonder how much has been lost to time, and how much we will continue to lose to time.

Thus, I could only obtain video games through specific means, often as holiday gifts from other people. If I couldn’t get a game, at least I could get invested second-hand through watching let’s plays and reading up about it.

One fateful New Year’s Day, a family friend had let me pick out a gift to celebrate the 2009 New Year. We went to the GameStop at Lakeforest Mall, and I had picked out my first console and game: a metallic pink Nintendo DS Lite and a copy of Pokemon Platinum (the most recent game at that time… go Sinnoh!). In the following years, I lamented “GOD DAMMIT why didn’t I just get a Nintendo DSi instead” since that had Flipnote Studio and upgraded functionality. Oh well. I don’t know where my pink Nintendo DS Lite is today but I miss her so.

I’m really glad Pokemon Platinum was my first game ever. It was an exciting new experience for me in every way, and gosh I was so genuinely Giratina and Torterra. From what I’m seeing, Platinum appears to be one of the mainline Pokemon games that has aged very well, which makes me want to revisit it. One of the panelists at Magfest also had Platinum as her first game and then she told all of us to look up how much people are currently reselling it for. That panelist also informed us about how counterfeits have flooded the online market as well, so it’s hard to find an authentic cartridge online. That was quite the wake up call for me. It’s times like this where I wish I knew where my own copy went…

I was not able to get any other games for my DS, except for Pokemon Black later on. I had managed to keep enough of my allowance for Pokemon Black… But that was LITERALLY IT. Two games for my DS Lite in the span of 4 years, but even with such few games, I had made the most of it. I remember desperately wanting to play HeartGold or SoulSilver since it came out shortly after I got my first DS. One of my classmates informed me about how Toys R Us had held an event for the release of those games in North America; he had gone and obtained a copy. GOD I WISH THAT WERE ME!!!! At the very least, during spring break, I got to play someone else’s copy of HeartGold at camp. Boy, did I spend a lot of time on that. I don’t remember much, but I do remember Whitney’s Miltank.

I’m sure we all have memories of us covertly playing our DS under a pillow at night… or whenever there was a “recess/sports” day at school and we brought our handheld systems and trade Pokemon (I was quite jealous of my classmates at that time… they had so many more games). I had a classmate who was also my neighbor downstairs in the same apartment complex. I would frequently come over to do the work it took to unlock Bowser Jr. (one of my all time favs) on his copy of Mario Kart Wii. Then, when I finally unlocked him, that friend had tried out Bowser Jr. on Rainbow Road, got 1st place, and said “no way I’m gonna play as Bowser Jr. now” instead of letting me play as him. I didn’t unlock any more characters after that.

I believe in the summer of either 2009 or 2010, my brother had gifted us a Wii! And YEP, we had only 3 games on it. The system came with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. Later, however, I somehow managed to get a copy of Super Mario Galaxy 2 since it was a new and highly praised game. That was my formal introduction to the Mario franchise and I had many fun memories of it.

Let it be known I had a massive Pokemon and Super Mario hyperfixation during my elementary school years, but 99% of everything I knew about both franchises were from information provided online in fan wikis rather than me playing the actual games. If I couldn’t play the games, well at least I could read up about it. The fixation went DEEP though. Never underestimate the power of what websites like Bulbapedia or Serebii does to a kid’s brain in the years of 2008-2011. I had wanted to play so so many of the games in the same franchise but couldn’t, so the relentless information absorbing and Youtube playthrough watching made up for it. I had memorized every Pokemon name and type at that time. I memorized most relevant Mario characters and even their Japanese names for some reason. Fifth grade me was able to draw most Mario characters (except for Bowser… his sheer size and numerous details intimidated me). Honestly, Pokemon might have been the thing that inspired me to start drawing (along with Warrior Cats). Even though I haven’t paid attention to this franchise in like a decade now, I owe it a lot for being there during my formative years.

So what happened? Sometime in 2010, I had a Wii remote suddenly go missing. It was odd because that wasn’t really something we would lose and I had the suspicion someone had taken it from our apartment. One year later, my suspicions were confirmed because someone had broken in and stole our whole damn Wii and my cell phone at that time. We never got it back or found out who did it. We didn’t go to the police (my mom didn’t want them finding out that I was always home alone for several hours whenever I came back from school) but I doubt they would have helped anyways. I had blamed myself because I’m pretty sure I didn’t lock the door properly that day.

That experience had basically killed my urge to obtain video games. Even though I got a 3DS in my middle school years, it was just for me to stay faithful to the Pokemon franchise. I had Pokemon X, Alpha Sapphire, and Moon… and that was it. No other games on there. Throughout my teen years, I was always that person who sat out when people were playing games like Smash or anything similar. I chalked it up to, “Well, I would be bad at it anyways”, because I did not own the game.

I did get the sense I was missing out from not indulging into video games but at the same time, it was a form of self control. I know my ADHD ass gets sucked into them to a point that it would be hard to focus on anything in an academic setting. But now that I’m not in an academic setting… I’M FREE RIGHT???? I don’t know, it takes me a while to get invested into any game these days and that is something I have to learn and navigate. I was a lot more open to the experience as a child and now the magic has kind of seeped out where nothing’s new for me anymore, and I haven't played games consistently enough to have an attachment. As ironic as it is, I was a CompSci major and I’ve taken classes about game development (particularly in Unity). I had a feeling the creative classes were more fun than the other CompSci courses which is why I took them. But it was bizarre learning how games work and not really being a fan of them.

It’s especially interesting hearing about discussion regarding popular games without actually playing them … fandom osmosis as they say. There have been like a total of about three exceptions where I caved in and got invested in a hyped game which I will make in another post since this one’s getting long. But stuff like that is rare for me…

What I want to do this year is sit down and fully experience a list of games I think I would enjoy. Let’s see if I can rediscover that magic. Obviously not looking to be a pro gamer or to be competitive in any way… just looking for new experiences (and to see what the storytelling point of view). I have buried this desire for too long and I need to start feeling things again. I need to make the most of my life!

Shoutout to Derrek’s 3DS video, which had inspired me to find and mod my old 3DS and get games for free on the HShop. I'm currently having fun with Tomodachi Life. Someone on NextDoor was selling a barely used Switch for only $105 which I nabbed! It came with the dock and everything, what a lucky find. Someone on Facebook Marketplace sold me a physical Switch copy of Holly Knight for $15, that might even be a luckier find. The seller warned me the game was hard…

The Switch 2 is coming out later this year so I might get that as well? Maybe if they release some limited edition color scheme based on an IP? Who knows.

Anyways, here’s to new experiences!

As for anyone wondering about the iMac known as Bo: we put him in a large storage closet with a table and made that place his room. Once you go inside you can pretend it’s the 2000s. I got a Deltarune desk mat from Magfest to put him on, and he is connected to the Internet via ethernet cable (though most websites have too modern of an encryption system for them to load on Clasilla or Netscape). I found this particular Star Wars math game in a thrift store and well… it’s … an experience.