I spent summer of 2011 playing this. I'd throw on a DVD - I worked my way through three shows that summer, Gilmore Girls, One Foot in the Grave, and Scrubs - and play this (and Ocarina of Time 3D) and just chill out. I felt safe. I felt joy. I felt things everyone deserves to feel, and those precious moments, those seconds that stretch on forever, were all created by flying a Mii through some awkward hoops. Playing it now, today, maybe I don't feel those things, and maybe I never will again, but I felt a bond with that guy I used to be, an understanding. He's still in there. I hope he had fun revisiting this one.

I bought this for my 3DS in Gamestop in the world's saddest shopping center. That's a bit of a lie - I've seen sadder ones - but that place represents an era of my life that is long since over, and I imagine it is the same for anyone who has ever been there. It's still going. Places that are born in certain times are often doomed to be haunted by the memories of those who grow out of them, and this place was no exception. I haven't been there for years. We used to go there on school tours, and because at a certain age things that are mundane seem adult and grand and out of this world, we'd spend the hour granted to us by our teachers (in this case a woman who would drift in and out of our school years like a ghost in her own right, I actually ended up seeing her with another school when she visited our college for a tour, but I kept my distance, as though I would've said anything) milling about, commenting on how busy it was. Sometimes we'd get separated, which we were told we were not allowed to do. I'd wander around looking for a familiar face, having done my shopping early, not much by way of cash to my name anymore, and I'd often end up clinging onto a group of my friends like a limpet to a rock, feeling an unspoken sense of discomfort from them that stemmed from my very presence, my very being, the fact I was born years ago and lived my life in order to reach this moment, outside a small, grim café, eavesdropping on a conversation I was already a part of. We would sit on the bus and go back to school and pick up our shit and go home and I'd sit alone at night and I couldn't even tell you what I'd think about. Those memories are gone, like the person I was then, without any attempt to salvage them. I would love to know what I thought of everything back then, just as I would love to tell the person I was back then and will always be at heart that I am better off now than I thought I ever would be and that they will be too. The default camera angle in this sucks absolute shit and the controls are so wonky and it's absolutely insane that it defaults to regular difficulty and 10 minute halves like what the fuck is up with that. Anyway

I remember when this one first came out, I was so intrigued. The launch of the 3DS was maybe the peak of my gaming/Nintendo fandom, and a time in my life that I remain both nostalgic for and fearful of to this day. Finally getting to play it is wild, because I know had I chosen this as part of the BOGOF offer Game (rip) did for the launch titles (I ended up with Nintendogs and Pilotwings Resort) I'd be raging, and that's even before I had to contend with my dyspraxia on this one. The voice acting's fun. I don't know. I did two missions and the training and kinda got all I needed to get out of it. Steel Diver, more like, Steel D'ehver. I don't know.