StreetPass - GOTY?

Studying the Eurogamer offerings today I cam across an interesting article about the 3DS application, ‘StreetPass Quest’ which Christian Donlan called his ‘Game of the Year 2011’. A statement I wouldn’t be completely against making myself.

Off the back of this I thought I’d write a little about my own experiences with this fantastically long serving application and the reason I fell in love with it in the first place. First of all the analogy used by Christian was completely apt and explains exactly what the game itself is about - “If golf is a good walk spoilt, StreetPass Quest might be the exact opposite”.

The premise is simple – collect other peoples Mii characters and use them to complete quests, defeat monsters and eventually save your own Mii from his/her kidnapping ordeal. Basically keeping your device running during the day allows you to pick up other characters as you pass one-another in the street and thus the collection expands (also hence the name ‘StreetPass’).

Each level completed comes with a new hat for your Mii character that (as the game continues) requires higher levelled friends and a larger amount of them in order to proceed through each short dungeon.

The StreetPass Quest is one of the major reasons why my 3DS comes everywhere with me; it’s in my bag now, it will be later and it’ll attend family functions, celebrations, funerals, parties and trips to Costa for the foreseeable future as my quest for more hats continues. It’s out and out the one reason why I loved my 3DS prior to the two Mario releases at the end of 2011.

With this game Nintendo have offered something completely different and have also given themselves a smart piece of work to analyse with their statistics buffs over the next 12 months. The popularity of this game and its interactive charm is easily seen when you have two or more 3DS owners in a room. The conversations quickly spring up about what hats you have and how far through questing you are. This quickly transpires to the handhelds picture piece collection and whether the 3DS in your bag has picked up their character yet.

It’s sufficient to say that this encourages communication. If you have friends that play these games then the more times your 3DS consoles connect the higher their Mii character levels increase for you and the further you can progress. If you don’t have friends or live in the middle of Mordor then you can always spend some coins and create followers. It really is a simple but deeply rewarding and engrossing – who would have thought it?

On top of this the added conversation options I had at the Eurogamer Expo in September more then made up for the 5 hours of queue waiting I had to endure. It’s a great way to meet people with similar interests and even better when you grab a few Mii characters at your local pub. Suddenly you clock the bloke at the other end of the bar enjoying Pilotwings and wish for him to be your new best friend.

It’s a thoroughly entertaining time passer that shows a new idea taking off in full swing. I probably clocked as many hours trying to save my Mii as I did playing the 3DS version of Ocarina of Time. Let us not forget that the StreetPass function of the 3DS is also useful for all your other great games and regularly delivers new pieces of content for the likes of Mario and Street Fighter.

Christian added that, “it’s also been a game about 2011: an accidental diary of the places I've been to and the people I've met there, written in all the faces that are lined up in Mii Plaza”.

I could recommend having a go on this. If you have a 3DS and have yet to try this out then I strongly suggest you give it a shot. It can take a bit of time to start running but once your into the routine you’ll find yourself headed to crowded areas more often then you should.