My immortal video game salon reading
This piece was written for and read at the my immortal video game salon hosted by Ashley Bardhan on October 17, 2024.
In the top drawer of my desk sits a well-loved red Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP and a cartridge for Pokémon Sapphire. It's lived there for the past few years, having made the trip from Los Angeles to New York in a packing box sent by my mother after cleaning out my childhood bedroom. Once upon a time, I spent 223 hours adventuring in the Hoenn region with this cartridge on this Game Boy, all of which still lives on in that original save file.
Save files, in a very literal sense, store memory in such a way that surpasses human cognitive capability. They are time capsules of an exact moment in digital space, a whole world frozen in immortal stasis, holding its breath until you return. A save file can easily outlive the shelf life of the game to which it belongs. I may not have installed the Witcher 3 in over five years, but my save file is safely tucked away in a folder on my desktop for safe keeping. Just in case I want to check in on Geralt.
When we press “Continue”, this paused universe lives again, not realizing time has passed. But we, the players, of course know that it has. These save files also act as preservers of our own lives. We finish a workday, come back from vacation, remember we have to finish the game to write our review. So, we are transported back to the person we were 8 hours, 3 days, a week ago. The longer it's been since the last playthrough, the longer the journey back. This means when I revisit one of those many very old save files stored away for a rainy day, I come face to face with one of my digital doppelgangers. Results of this can vary.
Back to that Game Boy Advance SP and that copy of Pokémon Sapphire. The save file that exists features a player that is miles away from who I am today. I'm two decades older, I live across the country, and perhaps most obviously, I'm a woman now. Take your pick. It might as well be a completely different person's copy of Pokémon Sapphire. The save file doesn't even bear my name. How was that little boy to know that seeing those little letters would someday arouse feelings of embarrassment, dread, and even a strange sense of amusement?
There does seem to be something voyeuristic and slightly perverse about a 27 year old woman exploring the life of a six-year-old boy through his save file, but I think I get a pass on this. In his shoes I retread familiar steps. They guide me to a base built deep amongst the trees outside of Fortree City. The interior design is actually quite impressive for a young boy. I get an idea of what he thinks is funny based on the silly names of the Pokémon in his party, like an Oddish with the now unexplainable name of “Bobofeet”. I scroll through photo after photo of his countless victories against the Elite Four in which favorite team makeups become clear. The latest records show a string of self-inflicted challenge runs with only one Pokémon in his party, a sign of mastery and a desire for something more than what the series could offer up at the time.
If he could see the Pokémon games of today he might delight in the larger roster of monsters or the freeing open worlds. Honestly, I’ll never know because I haven’t really picked up a Pokémon game in years. That Pokémon obsessed iteration of me stopped existing not too long after I put Sapphire down. But I like to think about that version of myself and wonder. What would he think of me now? Would he be impressed or proud of my life writing about video games, living in New York? I like to think so.
The loudest question in my mind every time I pick up the game is: “Why don’t I just kill this snapshot of myself?” It’s easy enough, I never said that the immortality a save file brings to these past versions wasn’t fragile. It’s as simple as starting a new game. There is a part of me that wants to revisit Pokémon in a world of what-could-have-beens. What if I did play it as a little girl instead of the boy I was? It is sort of possible, I’ve read the complex guides on how to transfer a save file from my Game Boy to my PC, which would let me edit the game data. But to do so would be wrong.
The save file represents an entire life. The little boy who still exists within it finds so much joy running around the pixelated map with his favorite pocket monsters in tow. It wouldn’t be fair to him to delete it all. It wouldn’t be fair to myself either. Like the old superstition about cameras, a save file can capture some truth about the player in its code. Reconciling the person, I am today with the person within Pokémon Sapphire is still an ongoing struggle. Part of me wants to put as much distance as I can between me and the little boy I was, but my life has already done that for me in many ways. I am happy as the person I am now, and I can let him be happy as the boy he is by letting that save file continue to live in that cartridge in my desk drawer.