I still remember the days when I was in high school, secretly stuffing the GBA under my textbooks, and playing two copies of "Harvest Moon" every ten minutes between classes. Later, I saved my breakfast money and bought a PSP. When I played "Nordic Goddess" for the first time, I was completely stunned - it turned out that such a beautiful picture and such a touching story could be played on a handheld console. At that time, a few of our buddies would always get together and discuss which heroine had the best-looking portrait and where the hidden subplots of dressing up were, as if those pixel villains were our entire youth.
Later, when I started working, the handheld computer was getting dusty. I occasionally used the mobile phone emulator to play two old games, but I always felt that something was missing. Until recently, my friend Amway and I played "Splendid Fate of Time Travel". I originally thought it was the kind of game where you can exchange krypton gold for leather goods, but it turned out to be really fun as soon as you entered it😂 This game actually has 15 chapters of free novel plots, just like the text adventure I played on the NDS back then. After following each chapter, I actually felt a little bit like "Heartbeat Memories"!
What surprises me the most is its wardrobe of 8,000 pieces of ancient costumes. Haha, isn't this the obsession of collecting costumes while playing “The Idol Master”? It's just that the robot idol has been replaced by an ancient fairy, but the feeling of "collecting all the suits" has not changed at all! Moreover, you can also date and interact with 30 handsome men in ancient costumes, and there is also a tryst session with costume changes... As a big man, I actually silently dressed the male protagonist in a green shirt and jade pendant late one night. Suddenly I understood why the girls in the class were obsessed with "Distant Time and Space"😆
Not to mention there are 8 cute pets available for adoption, which reminds me of the days of running around chasing Pokémon in the GBA era of "Pocket Monsters". Although the buttons on a physical machine no longer feel like a physical machine, lying on the sofa and clicking on the screen, looking at those exquisite ancient-style pictures, really brought back the energy that I used to hold on to the handheld device and forget about food and sleep.
The difference is that we saved memory card space back then, but now we can play the complete plot by registering; back then, there were only a few pixel color blocks for dress-up, but now you can even see the embroidery on the skirt. But the feeling of "taking the characters into a new world" has actually never changed. Maybe what we miss is not the handheld console, but the self who is willing to devote all his enthusiasm to a game.
After so many years, handheld consoles have been replaced by mobile phones, and emulators have become the new normal, but the excitement brought by good games has never gone out of style. "The Splendid Fate of Time Travel" may not be a masterpiece, but it allowed me to re-become the boy who had to collect all the CGs before he could save the game in my busy life. If you occasionally want to regain the feeling of youth, you might as well give it a try. Maybe you will be like me and suddenly feel emotional on an ancient night - it turns out that some things can really travel through time✨