Mii Trek

Mii Trek was one of the StreetPass games that I truly looked forward to. The simplicity of directing my adventuring Miis and the excitement of making important discoveries made this a perfect successor to both Find Mii and Puzzle Swap. There's really not much to Mii Trek, and it feels like some of its major features were shoehorned in to help pad the game out, but I think it actually fits nicely within the StreetPass Mii Plaza for precisely those reasons.

You're placed in the role of an archeologist seeking ancient artifacts, and your StreetPass tags make up your team for each expedition. Each of those tags contributes to the team's stamina meter, presumably based on the number of steps they had taken when they were tagged according to their 3DS pedometer. Since all of my tags were received exclusively through NetPass, most of the people joining me weren't walking with their 3DSs and contributed the minimum 500 steps (which gets you just about nowhere). This made the hacked gold-pants special Miis and their automatic 30,000-step count a godsend. With the assistance of your team of explorers and a talking toucan, it's your responsibility to decide which trails to follow and which risks are worth taking as you seek out the mysterious ancient artifacts.

Each expedition is sprinkled with supplies to recover, obstacles to overcome, and wildlife to photograph. These little distractions keep the gameplay from getting too stale and are contextually appropriate, but they can sometimes feel a little tacked on. For example, the most common obstacle you'll encounter is an angry wild animal. Successfully tranquilizing the animal with one of the darts you can find on your adventures will allow you to pass it safely, while missing your shot or taking too long to react will result in one of your team members fleeing, along with all of the stamina they contributed. However, the actual gameplay of the encounter consists of you highlighting and selecting a red dot placed over a PNG of the attacking animal before a timer runs out. It's cute and silly in context, and it gets across what the game is trying to get you to imagine, but it can feel a little cheap.

The campy B-movie energy continued with the story, as each of the artifacts you discover point towards a surprise twist that's more Kingdom of the Crystal Skull than Raiders of the Lost Ark. I didn't mind the cheesiness here though. Playing this alongside Ninja Launcher helped me appreciate having any story at all. In fact, I think the whole package plays well off of itself, creating one of the most complete and cohesive games in the StreetPass Mii Plaza.
 
There's more to do after you finish the game, but I didn't have enough motivation to play the RNG roulette for new wildlife photos, so I called it quits after the credits rolled. While there are other StreetPass games that I'm still playing even though I technically beat them, I feel really good about where I ended with Mii Trek. I'm happy to keep it locked away as a game that I enjoyed from start to finish, rather than something I overplayed and got sick of. Now let's see if I can keep up that philosophy with all the other games that I play.
Although the game is no longer being distributed, you can learn more about it here (as of 10/10/24): https://antifandom.com/nintendo/wiki/Mii_Trek

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