i typed a long response to this but cohost ate it oh no, so why not grace my lovely bird partner with a proper answer on their birthday! it's under the cut

i love it honestly!! you'll be seeing her again every so often, much like how i want to bring back shark proxy at times too

here's the weird thing: i don't know! i've always been fascinated by handheld games in general, and a lot of my old memories are admittedly pretty blurry but i've always found the prospect of playing games while not tied down to one place to be cool!

i was told that i was an active child who constantly needed to be doing something with her hands (AuDHD on display here), and i was given a Game Boy as a young child. i was always preferring to play the games on those while wandering around the house or outside as opposed to sitting in one place! moving myself to adjust with natural lighting and all of that

i think it wasn't until high school, around the release of the DS? that was when i was realizing "oh yeah there are more of these besides Nintendo-made ones" (i had played my cousin's Game Gear a few times but never owned one until much later in life). i would then look at every handheld game magazine i could get my hands on, or any magazine that mentioned weird new handhelds. i grew intrigued by the funny design of the N-Gage, i was mystified by the Gizmondo's existence, i desperately craved the ability to play PSP exclusives.

high school was also the time i really started getting into emulation and started playing stuff that people on forums recommended from Game Gear & the Neo Geo Pocket Color; that caused me to fall into Google + Wikipedia rabbit holes, and i guess that just never stopped! the weirder stuff i found, the more intrigued i got, the more i wanted to experience it!

and now i have a display case full of handhelds and a box of handhelds i keep on hand for spare parts. oops