The Urge To Go Back | The Return to the DS Era

I have always had a love for handhelds. My very first console that I could call my own was the handheld DS Lite, so the DS line has always had a special place in my heart. During my childhood, I thought that I had so many games, I knew when I upgraded to the 3DS, I didn’t have a large part of the library, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized just how little my library had.

I had a bunch of Pokémon games, some Kirby games, and of course, some classic Mario releases, but I was lacking a bunch of knowledge about the bigger picture. So many games that I have interacted with no as an adult have previous releases that are locked on a version of the DS line. From franchises that I already love to ones that I found later on and want to experience myself, there is a whole world of DS and 3DS games that I know have a burning urge to hunt down and collect.

Since I had moved onto the Nintendo Switch, I hadn’t touched any of my DS handhelds in years. I took some time the other day to grab the box that I keep all of my DS stuff in and I discovered that I have very little of my childhood collection. My copies of Pokémon Diamond and Soul Sliver are nowhere to be found and I have no idea how many other games have gotten misplaced over the course of two moves. So, now I am starting to make my lists to search Amazon and eBay to start collecting for my, now retro, console.

The first thing that I looked at was my hardware. I own four DS consoles in total. My original DS Lite has been worn down over years of constant use and is current unplayable (deemed by me) because the hinge is broken. My DSi has somehow (I still to this day don’t know how it happened) lost the top screen and is now just black like it’s been fractured, so that too is unplayable. My 3DS XL which was my main handheld for year is probably the saddest tale of why it is more or less unplayable. This, like all my others were put in a box for storage during my break from gaming to focus on high school/collage and when I took it back out, I discovered that the battery had eroded and leaked throughout all of the inner system. I took a few hours removing the battery, taking apart the system and tried to clean it, but the bumpers are still incredibly sticky. I am temped to test out homebrewing this one to see how it works. I am too nervous to have this one be a playable console because last time a game was in this system, I had to use plyers to get it out and I refuse to risk any more games getting stuck. Luckily, I was gifted a 3DS from my boyfriend for my birthday a few years ago, so I do have a working system. But, I want a DS system with a nice big screen since the small screen of my current go to system is a bit small so I can only play for about an hour before I get a pretty bad headache. Since I am going full force into this library, I decided that I will look for a model that I can play more.

So, my journey to find my perfect DS began. At first, I thought the best console for me was going to be a 3DS XL so I could play the entire DS and 3DS library and have a bigger screen. One thing that I don’t care about is 3D in my handheld games. When I first messed around with my original 3DS with Super Mario Land, the 3D effects actually made me have to stop playing. I searched around for a 3DS XL in good condition and couldn’t find one that I liked. I looked into other models and found that I overlooked the 2DS XL. This is my perfect model. It has the large screen, it can play the entire library, and I just love the actual system design best.

Now that I have the hardware, I need to hunt down the software. Since the e-shop went down a while ago (plus I love collecting physical editions) I need to hunt down games myself through GameStop's and eBay. Thankfully a lot of the games that I want like the Pokémon games I skipped and the Yo-Kai Watch series that I discovered later on can be found on eBay for a decent price.

Some of my priority pick ups the rest of the Pokémon franchise, I played through about half of Pokémon Black and stopped there. I missed out on the rest of the 3DS releases and only picked the franchise back up with Pokémon Shield on the Switch. I missed out on all the 3D Kirby games so I need to fix that as soon as possible, my top pick is Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn since I miss the Kirby’s Epic Yarn from the Wii. One game that I want to get for the first time is the first in the Yo-Kai Watch series. I never heard much about this franchise in the past, but now, I see a few videos here and there and it looks incredibly fun, like a nice new twist on the Pokémon monster catching mechanic. I was let down when I realized that there was no Yo-Kai Watch games on the Switch so I essentially was locked out of these games. Now that I has busted out the 3DS again (until my 2DS XL shows up) and pick up a copy from eBay to relive the childhood gaming experience I never had.

I stayed away from my 3DS after I got back into gaming because I picked up a Switch and almost immediately tried out Streaming, so I needed a system that I could stream the gameplay of. I stayed away because I was exploring the Switch library and it was so much easier to just set up a capture card to stream my Switch games compared to a DS. Now that I has given up streaming and moved to YouTube videos, I now no longer have to put an unneeded restriction on what I played.

The nostalgia that I feel even just looking at the games that I can buy is amazing. The feeling of coming back to play games that I missed out on in childhood is like taking back a part that I could have lost. Back then I didn’t know a lot about games and did not keep track of what was releases, now that I am pretty up to date on things and enjoy looking at DS collections, I realize just how much I wanted to grow my minimal collection.

I am continuing to live out my missed childhood memories now as an adult and I cannot be happier and I highly recommend doing the same if you have the means to do it.