A Long and Winding Road
Grieving, as a process, never really ends. You can maybe get to a point where the sadness doesn’t hit you every single day, but the pain of that loss will still linger within you, at least in some diminished form. The void doesn’t necessarily get easier; you just get better at handling it.
Alex Toy, a close friend of mine, passed away recently. Just four years ago, Alan Moss, another friend in the same group, also passed. I’m only in my early 30s, but already I’m forced to ponder if anyone else close to me is next, or even if it’ll be me. While these grisly notions only seldom emerge, they’ve popped up more often over the past month than ever before.
Naturally—perhaps foolishly—I’ve turned to video games as a possible avenue towards healing, or at least a distraction from the wounds, still much in need of time to recover. Even when these digital experiences succeed in pulling my mind away from the sadness, such relief is merely temporary.
I thought, at one point, Mario vs. Donkey Kong was the “game I needed right now,” but it turned out to largely be a decent but mindless reprieve. Later, I played through much of the brilliant Animal Well, thinking in many moments it served as a perfect encapsulation of what I had been feeling: mostly lost and confused but ecstatic each time I made a small, granular discovery, almost as if I could incrementally fight my way through my grief. Ultimately, once those discoveries became fewer and farther between, that sense of “winning” against my own struggles quickly faded. A few Halo Infinite sessions with other friends helped ease my sorrow for a bit, but mostly I just enjoyed hanging with my pals.
Obviously, I’m fully aware that no single video game—or movie, song, painting, television show, or book—can fully cure me of this pain, even if various works of art can help me navigate it. The one thing, however, that has worked best to guide me through these trying times is less a single work, but rather a console itself: more specifically, a New Nintendo 2DS XL previously owned by my deceased friend.
Two Screens, Two Hearts
Anyone familiar with my work knows how much I value older games. As much as we’re all chasing new, shiny things in the gaming world, every single year I play numerous titles from previous generations that strongly resonate with me, with a few serving as the best games I play in a given year. In 2019, that was Chrono Trigger. In 2021, it was The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This year, so far, it’s been Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
As a result of this interest in gaming history, I try to take any opportunity I can to gather physical games and consoles, lest I potentially lose out on the chance to play something I can’t otherwise access on modern platforms. So, when I joined another friend to assist Alex’s family in dealing with his belongings, I of course ended up bringing home much of his gaming hardware and software (with not only his family’s strong blessing, but recommendation).
Of particular interest to me, funny enough, was his New Nintendo 2DS XL, a handheld that launched in 2015 (and yes, the word “New” is part of the name, not just its condition). I never had any intention of purchasing one myself, as most of its available games are easily playable on the launch edition Nintendo 3DS I already owned. When I booted it up, I found a cornucopia of 3DS games I had never played before. As I explored the library, I thought about how it had been months, or maybe years, since the console had last been used. I saw a few games that Alex had urged me to play numerous times.
At that moment, I decided I had to play some of these, if for no other reason than I felt somebody should. What I hadn’t considered at all was that holding this 2DS would make me feel more connected to Alex’s memory and legacy than anything else I’d tried up to that point.
Sifting Through the Treasure Trove
Despite my love of all things Nintendo, I actually completely ignored most major 3DS releases when they first came out. I was a bit of a late adopter of the handheld in general, but even when I did get one, my playtime focused almost entirely on various Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, and virtual console games. For every 3DS game I adored and cherished (e.g. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Mario Kart 7) there were dozens more I just didn’t play and felt little urgency to, even when Nintendo shuttered the 3DS eShop not too long ago.
So, when I opened up Alex’s 2DS XL, I immediately reached for what many consider to be the “classics” of this generation, starting with Kirby: Planet Robobot, a very good 2D platformer that incorporates shifting between multiple planes on the same screen and even mecha-based combat and puzzles. So much about Robobot fits neatly into my interests as a gamer—great level design, clever art direction, smooth mechanics—yet somehow I completely missed this one.
I also finally tried Kid Icarus: Uprising, a wildly imaginative if somewhat clunky 3D action game directed by the great Masahiro Sakurai himself. It has all the hallmarks of a classic Sakurai experience—tons of random power-ups, gameplay that seems simple on the surface yet contains many layers of depth, a fun and (mostly) intuitive UI, and tons of dark, shadowy figures to battle. While I wouldn’t call Uprising one of the best 3DS games of all time (as many have in the past), I’m glad I finally got a chance to play it for a little bit, as I really admire many of its ideas and hope it’s not the last we see of Kid Icarus for a while.
Most notably, however, I decided to play Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, which was originally released for the PlayStation 2 but later received the remake treatment on 3DS. Much like basically every other mainline game in the series, DQVIII focuses on lovable characters, a largely basic turn-based battle system, and— most importantly—immaculate vibes. I’ve only played about a dozen hours as of the time of writing, but I’m having a good time with this one, even if it’s not quite as good as Dragon Quest XI (the only game in the series I’ve ever finished) and even if it’s unlikely I play all 60+ hours of the main quest.
Even outside of these aforementioned standouts, I now have tons more 3DS experiences to try out, including Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn, Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, Ever Oasis, and, of course, several other Dragon Quest titles. Who knows if I’ll ever have the drive (or, let’s be honest, the time) to play through anything else, but a big part of me wants to play through as many of these as possible.
An Eternal Punished Chat
I know what some of you reading this may be thinking: doesn’t Sam feel a little weird having all this fun? Of course I do! I know full well I probably wouldn’t have played any of these games if one of my closest friends hadn’t met an untimely demise. I know I only have these things because he can’t have them anymore. And I know I’d give all of it back—and much, much more—just to have him back for a day, cliché as that sounds.
Damning questions pop up in my head almost every single time I open up that damn clamshell. Should I have played more Dragon Quest games when he was alive so we could geek out about it together? Is it morally wrong to delete previous save files he had in some of these games? Does it feel extra bad seeing he barely made any progress with a lot of these games and never got to see them all the way through, and never will? As much as I’ve enjoyed playing this little handheld, it hasn’t been without some internal conflict, and I’m still working through some of my feelings around it.
On the flipside, though, playing these games on this particular 2DS has helped me through my grief in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. The device itself isn’t just a nice memento to remind me of the great times we shared together; it’s allowed me to feel like I’m still learning more about him through the games he played (and the ones he didn’t). I already knew he loved franchises like Dragon Quest, for example, but now I have more of a window into why.
Moreover, I feel at times like I’m still, in a sense, talking to him when I play these games. In my head, he and I have conversations about how much Kid Icarus: Uprising’s aerial combat sections rule, and simultaneously how the ground sections…don’t rule as much. We talk about how Super Mario 3D Land was a great platformer but a lackluster Mario game. We discuss which Dragon Quest VIII companions we like the most (obviously we both LOVE Yangus) and argue over whether the story in Pokémon Sun/Moon was annoying and pointless (it was). I know he’s not here anymore, but when I play these games on this particular Nintendo handheld, it still kind of feels like he is.
I’ll miss Alex in some form every day, the same way I still miss Alan. I’m just glad I have something I can hang onto, at least for the time being, that maintains that connection to him I’m terrified to lose. Who knows: maybe I’ll play every single Dragon Quest game I can. That way, Alex and I can still have much to discuss.
P.S. For those interested in making a donation in Alex’s memory, here is a donation page for Grace Church School’s renovated childhood playdeck that will be named for him: https://www.gcschool.org/giving/toy-play-deck-fund
