"I Was So Lucky": Remembering The Past With Smash Bros.

Content originally posted to Instagram on October 5, 2021.

Same.

I don’t own a Switch, have only played Smash Ultimate once, and am not really a Kingdom Hearts fan now compared to when I was growing up (but I did find myself watching KH3 playthroughs when that came out 😆). Somewhere in life, my interests just naturally changed. Being unable to keep up with countless new KH games and feeling like 3 would never come out added to that shift. Seriously, one of the reasons why I went with a PS3 over a Wii back in the day was that I thought I’d be able to play a future KH3 on it 😅

But seeing Sora in the final Smash Bros. presentation by Masahiro Sakurai took me back….way back. Back to when I had a hand-me-down PS1 with no memory card and badly wished for Kingdom Hearts 1 to be playable on it. Back to when I was finally playing KH1 after getting a PS2 and experiencing those magical opening moments. Back to when I reached Hollow Bastion, a “final” world where I truly felt a mix of tension, awe, and uncertainty (and frustration at a certain boss). And back to when I ran home from school on Fridays to play KH2 and all my anxieties from being bullied and feeling alienated washed away for a bit. I was so lucky.

“Life will change, but video games are forever” - this is something that rings true for me more than ever now. Thanks to the Smash Bros. Ultimate team for making their game the incredible shared experience it is today. And everyone….sometimes, “never say never”!