Hello. This post is just going to be me talking on and on about the nostalgia I feel for the Wii U and 3DS, and how much I am going to miss it. If you guys want to, share some of your favorite memories, I like to read them! Pictures are mostly cringey Miiverse posts I made back in the day so enjoy those
Christmas of 2011, I got my first and only 3DS. A pink one, with a hello kitty game to go with it. I was 5 at the time. The sheer excitement I felt unwrapping it I can still remember. I was used to playing with a DS that I created out of pieces of printer paper (feel free to laugh I had a strong imagination), so finally getting the real thing was a big deal to me. It was the beginning of something special.
Christmas of 2014. My parents got me and my siblings a Wii U! The Super Mario 3D World + Nintendo Land bundle. On top of that, we got Disney Infinity and Mario Kart 8! We played the heck out of it for the whole Christmas break. I had no idea the impact one video game console would have on me.
My childhood was spent playing these consoles. Mario Kart, Nintendo Land, Animal Crossing, Kirby. Most importantly, Splatoon.
I don’t even know where to start. When I saw the trailer for Splatoon for the very first time, I’m not gonna lie, I thought it looked dumb. My siblings on the other hand, they flipped out. Something about being a kid that could turn into a squid just amazed them for some reason, I don’t know why. Soon after the game came out, my dad took us to Family Video (which has since closed down) to rent a movie and a game for the weekend. We went with, you guessed it, Splatoon! I didn’t show much interest until my sister handed me the gamepad and let me try. I was a krak-on roller on Blackbelly skatepark. And I LOVED IT! We rented the game for an extra week just to play this “Splatfest” thing we heard about. Hot Dog VS Marshmallow. I remember staying up late on Friday night just to play it at 11pm. It was a blast, even though we lost….
Soon enough, we all contributed money from our savings and went to Target to purchase Splatoon. For the next two years, Splatoon consumed me. It sounds cheesy, but my obsession with this game was something and it probably wasn’t healthy. My halloween costume in 4th grade was an orange inkling. No one knew what the hell I was except me. I wore my Splatoon t-shirt every week. The music I listened to was the Splatoon OST and remixes. In art class and at home all I drew were inklings. I binged cringey Splatoon SFMs on YouTube all the time. I spent hours drawing pictures and posting about Splatoon on Miiverse, or messaging my friends to play Splatoon with me. One random morning in Early 2017, me and my siblings are playing Splatoon and I open YouTube while I wait for my turn to play and see the very first Splatoon 2 trailer, posted only 15 minutes ago. We went crazy!
Everything about Splatoon Wii U just makes me sad now. The music, the sound effects, just looking at it. I felt this way even before the online servers were announced to be shutting down. Nostalgia hurts. I never got into Splatoon 3. While I know it’s a fun game, I don’t think I can play it because it just doesn’t feel the same. I also feel like it’s too late to start when they are about to discontinue new content for it.
The whole vibe of the Wii U and 3DS era was special. Nostalgia is a huge contributing factor, but I also just felt more connected to people. Miiverse, streetpass and spotpass, the list goes on. People from school and strangers at public places would visit me on Streetpass. The little miis standing around in the Wii U Menu talking to each other is a small detail, but it made me feel like I was truly apart of a community. Also, the whole vibe of scrolling through Miiverse late at night looking at Splatfest posts is just…UGH! I wish I could relive it one more time….
I took my 3DS everywhere with me. In the car, to my friend’s house, my sister’s soccer games, etc. There is so much to say about the 3DS, but I don’t have the energy to talk about it all. However, there is one game that is very special to me. Animal Crossing New Leaf. I decided to visit Tortimer Island one night and met who someone who would end up becoming one of my closest friends, whom I still talk to and play games with today. I also vividly remember spending countless hours playing Maka Wuhu on Mario Kart 7, trying to get the best time by abusing that one bug you might know about. Don’t even get me started on Tomodachi Life. :’D
The Wii U connected me with everyone, online and real life. My friends and cousins would come over and always ask to play the Mario Chase game on Nintendo Land. I used to play Mario Kart, Super Mario 3D World, and Nintendo Land with my family all the time. We were so happy and had so much fun. I can’t believe it was so long ago. The Wii U created special memories for us.
Now I am almost grown up, and graduating this year. It’s not just the fact that online has shut down that makes me sad. It’s also the realization things and people who were apart of my childhood are starting to disappear. When something that had such a huge impact on you suddenly goes away, it hurts. Everyone on my friend list one by one started to go indefinitely offline after the Switch came out. I’m older, my family is older.
Now it is time to let go. The future of Nintendo is bright, and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for 2025. If you read until the end, why? I am just blabbering because I feel like I need to let this out whilst sobbing uncontrollably. Thank you for reading though. Have a good day.
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