When my atomic purple Game Boy Color was stolen in 1999, I tried not to cry. I was 9, and I already did that too often. And I didn’t want to be seen as a child anymore.
A couple of years later, in an attempt to be viewed as more mature, I was watching fewer cartoons and picking out polo shirts instead of graphic tees. When relatives said I was too old to be photographing Pokémon on my Nintendo 64, I pretended not to care, though my nonchalance masked my continued attachment to those types of games.
Often anxious, I hoped to be perceived as tough instead, convincing myself that I wanted to play football in the streets and Madden 2000 with a controller. As part of my self-preservation, I distanced myself from video games that were considered childish by many.
So I left Nintendo behind for nearly two decades, before returning in 2017 with a Switch, which was pitched as the portable device that you and your friends could enjoy on the go. This week’s arrival of the Switch 2 has reminded me how getting back into Nintendo games as an adult helped me heal that inner child.
While growing up in South Florida, I had embraced a false bravado with the hopes of fitting into a culture that dismissed softness. I took up karate, tried getting into competitive intramural sports and dressed in the baggy jeans, oversize basketball jerseys and bandannas folded like my favorite rapper.
But in reality I was timid, skittish and, like other children, in search of kind places.
The welcoming of Nintendo’s cadre of mascots went beyond their pillowy exterior. I loved playing as them because they taught me how to care. Link was stoic and headstrong, yet depicted as a child out of his depth early on. Kirby’s rotund pink design hid the fact that the character could literally swallow darkness and turn it into a powerful tool.
Unfortunately, video games suffered from the reputation of being a waste of time. “You still play them things?” my West Indian relatives would ask when they visited, confused by a talking fox flying a fighter jet on my small television. The repudiations did more harm and only confirmed what I was learning from the eccentric characters chasing Pocket Monsters: how to be kinder to one another.
Nintendo is known for its kid-friendly library, with the narratives that drive characters like Mario and Pokémon trainers following much of the same formula for years. It’s how we engage with these games that changes over time. And it took the Switch to give my inner child a chance to wander, delivering a joy that was long overdue.
Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! — one of the first Switch games I bought — let me fall back in love with the franchise’s free-spirited Kanto region. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate allowed me to bond with my younger cousins online as they too navigated young adulthood, seeking out the same safe spaces I once did. Super Mario Party, which recognizes players for accomplishments beyond winning every minigame, helped me grapple with my constant need for one-upmanship.
Nintendo’s games have always cut through the noise and ultraviolence of first-person shooters by offering quieter and more welcoming digital spaces for children to explore. As competitors offered edgier games, Nintendo continued leaning on the nostalgia for cartoonish and colorful characters to deliver emotional storytelling.
That is a salve for a generation that grew up facing narratives of hypermasculinity.
The coach for my youth community basketball team in middle school encouraged us to tap into our “killer instinct,” and I failed to flourish there, making excuses to miss practice or entire games. I retreated into the digital world because of the permission it gave me to collaborate instead of dominate.
Video games give us a path to explore in the face of burnout and a way to escape the ever-encroaching threat of political dread. Through indie games like Celeste and Hades that I have played on the Switch, it has been possible to examine power dynamics and the overcoming of adversity in meaningful ways.
The release of the Switch 2 feels like a natural continuation of journeying through joy. I will get to geek out over the technical leaps of its controller’s new features and gleefully follow the eccentric characters chasing Pocket Monsters when Pokémon Legends: Z-A is released.
Pathologizing something as necessary as play undermines how we build community, and it moves us further away from feelings of empathy and care. The day I found out that my Game Boy Color was taken, my father consoled me with a soft pat on my back.
Getting back into Nintendo games has been my act of reclamation. What was stolen is gone. But what it represented — childhood freedom, imagination, a space to be — is being rewritten with the tenderness it has always deserved.
The post Returning to Nintendo Games Helped Heal My Inner Child appeared first on New York Times.
