The DS was great. The Switch lacks the features that made it amazing, imo.
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
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Welp, too bad I never had it to compare. I haven't played a mario game for like more than 15 years (until now), I vaguely remember playing on some very old Nintendo system when I was very young (like not the handheld types, I don't think), when I was in China. Then we immigrated to the United States and like we didn't bring all that stuff, my parents only packed a lot of clothes, legal documents, and like that was it.
I don't think I ever had a legitimate Nintendo system before, it was probably all bootlegs. And it was always shared with my older brother, I couldn't play when he was playing.
It's hard to have to leave everything behind. I think when adults pack for kids, they think about the things you'll need and don't consider the kinds of belongings that kids find meaningful.
A lot of my childhood games were flash games, and counter strike on the school PCs lol. I had a ps2 when I was very young, and later a ps4 in my later teen years, but basically everyone in class were PC gamers (I think one had an xbox), so it still felt like I was removed from all the multiplayer gaming and modding, and stuff, so I was like a schrodinger's gamer at that point. I could talk about games, but I still didn't feel like part of the gamer community in class
Now I have a PC tho, and I honestly regret asking for a ps4 for christmas way back then, cause honestly I probably would've had more fun on a comparable price PC.. though asking my parents for PC parts would have been a pain haha
My parents were super anti-video game, and also thought Pokemon were some satanic cult thing... My brother and I used to absolutely LOVE when my mom would leave us home alone on school vacations or weekends to go shopping or something or run errands while dad was at work, we would pop right on over to Kids' WB! and cross our fingers that Pokemon was on.
Our dad took my brother and I to some computer fair/carnival thing one time in 2000, I don't remember exactly where it was, but it was in a parking lot in front of some boring commercial building. There were computer themed carnival games, booths with information, displays of the newest tech, etc. We played lots of games and had a fun time.
Well, turns out, I was REALLY good at throwing floppy disks, because I got the 3rd highest score in the floppy disk throwing game (you had to hit targets of varying size to score points). My prize? A purple Gameboy color and Pokemon Yellow. (First prize was a high-end Windows 98 computer. I remember being bummed I didn't win a computer, but I still have that purple Gameboy Color... Probably wouldn't be able to say the same for the PC)
Of course since I won this thing, my parents couldn't take it away from me (well OK, I mean they COULD have, but besides being anti-video game and anti-pokemon, my parents were really great). This was the crowning achievement of my childhood. Of course, pokemon only has one save file, and so naturally, my brother "couldn't play my game". It took a while for my parents to understand this, but they eventually caved and got my brother his own neon green gameboy color and Pokemon Silver. Seeing the superior graphics of Silver, I saved ALL my pennies to eventually buy myself Pokemon Crystal. My brother, seeing the enemy Pokemon animations in Crystal not present in his Silver, saved all HIS pennies to eventually buy a Gameboy advance and Pokemon Saphhire... and the arms race continued. I got a GBA SP. My brother got a DS, I got a DS Lite, etc. etc., a constant stream of one-upmanship...
I still have the Purple Gameboy, Yellow, Crystal, Ruby, and the GBA SP, some of my most prized possessions. Almost every other physical thing from my childhood has been lost or sold. I had one of every single Pokemon game up until X/Y... A couple years back before the cartridge prices really exploded, I sold all the DS/3DS ones, which was kind of a bummer in retrospect, but whatever. I have much less interest in re-playing the DS era games. Maybe Black/White someday, I have good memories of that release. Last year I casually played through Pokemon Yellow again, and this year I've been playing Crystal.
I mean, based on the fact that you are on Lemmy, this experience was almost certainly due to your latent autism, which made it difficult to communicate with other kids, which drove social isolation. Ask me how I know.
I knew a kid growing up whose parents wouldnt let him play video games, or even watch tv. He had plenty of friends, because he was friendly and sociable.
So yeah, it wasnt your parents fault for not buying you the right console or whatever. It was God's fault for making you autistic. Now it's your job to give God the middle finger and go be friendly and sociable and happy anyway.
Wait we're latently autistic?
Sorry, it was obvious to everyone except you
Fuck
Hmm. I'm a bit older and I don't think we were allowed gaming consoles either. And it took us way longer than some of my friends to get a good internet connection. We had an old computer when I was a kid, though.
So we played point and click adventures and whatever that old machine would run. And I started to learn programming when I was a little kid since that was possible on the old potato. But we had a plethora of other hobbies and things available. And I'd fetch my bicycle and head off to friends with better PCs. So I was mostly alright?! I had that feeling of missing out at times. But it wasn't that bad. And someday when I was a teenager, we got broadband and a fast computer. Still no Nintendo, but that was alright. At that point I had become interested more generally with computers and gaming was just one aspect of it.
Today, I sometimes play Super Mario 64 or some of those games I never got to finish since I never had them at home and it brings me some (fake) nostalgia.