Find Mii

While its sequel is an overall marked improvement, I felt like my journey through the StreetPass Mii Plaza wouldn't be complete without revisiting the original Find Mii. It may not be the one that I played the most, but I have a lot more nostalgia for this Find Mii than I was expecting. Something about it reminded me of playing the 3DS's built-in AR games in my brothers' bedroom while I was still discovering what the incredible new handheld could do. Thinking back on those times gives me a nice warm feeling that I just don't get with Find Mii II.

The original Find Mii is a relatively simple affair. There's no potion shop, no pairing up, no helper hare, and no branching paths. It's a linear quest where you use StreetPass-tagged adventurers to move from place to place and defeat the monsters that get in their way. This meant I couldn't cheese my way through with just one or two teams as I did in the sequel, but the journey was so much shorter that I didn't really mind. In fact, I might have even had a better time with this game because of those restrictions.

Every play session of Find Mii II took a long time relative to the rest of the StreetPass games, largely because I spent so much time buying potions and shuffling team-ups to find the most efficient pairings. In contrast, a session of Find Mii probably took 30 seconds to a minute because each hero would get one chance to attack, and then it was over! While that slowed down progression significantly, it made Find Mii easier to look forward to. I never knew how much further I would get, and it didn't feel like it was dragging on the way the other one did.

I appreciate all of the additions and improvements that the sequel brought with it, but I didn't realize how much they bogged down the experience until I came back to the classic Find Mii. Playing this was like setting aside a plate of homemade fettuccine alfredo topped with grilled chicken for a quick bowl of Kraft mac'n'cheese with sliced hot dogs. In just about every regard, it is the inferior option, but there's something special about the simplicity of indulging in a nostalgic childhood experience again. For anybody new to the StreetPass scene, I don't think there's much on offer here, but for those who played Find Mii when it was new, there hasn't been a better time to revisit it than now.
Although the game is no longer being distributed, you can learn more about it here (as of 8/28/24): https://antifandom.com/nintendo/wiki/Find_Mii_(3DS)

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