I couldn’t get into Minecraft on the PC. I should have. I’ve spent weeks and months worth of time in both Terraria and Starbound , and one of those games isn’t even out of Early Access yet. But when it came to Minecraft , I didn’t feel that tug. I tried it alone and with friends, but there was no spark. It took the game coming to the Vita to make me one of “them.”
You know who I’m talking about, the people who set aside time every day to devote to building or surviving in Minecraft ‘s virtual world. Ones who look at the rampant onslaught of merchandise and goes, “Aww!” or “I want one!” instead of, “They made more?” I found myself transform into someone who searched online for guides. I became one who would abandon a starter world to create a themed one. The custom skins available for purchase actually started looking good. Minecraft got ahold of me.
A week later, I believe I’ve figured out why Minecraft has hooked me the way it has. It isn’t as though the game is any different or better, or the idea of playing online with my PS3 and Vita friends. It’s about the portability.
The notion of creating in a virtual world appeals to me. I wouldn’t have invested concerning amounts of time into Terraria and Starbound if it didn’t. However, there’s a reason why Terraria captivated me on the PC, but not so much on the PS3 and Vita, but Minecraft did. Minecraft is the perfect game to play on a Vita.
With creative sandboxes like Starbound and Terraria , the mouse and keyboard setup fit perfectly for adventuring and creating. While Terraria can work with a more conventional control scheme, it doesn’t feel as good. Minecraft , on the other hand, works perfectly with joystick controls. Despite being the same sort of game, it always felt more like something I’d play on a console than a computer, and that kept me from getting invested on the PC.
More importantly, Minecraft feels like the kind of game someone should play on a Vita. Despite my unending affection for the game, Terraria can feel too cramped on the Vita and mobile devices. Minecraft looks and runs perfectly. Having the full experience in your hands transforms it into something that could be pick-up-and-go, or sit-and-play-in-bed-for-5-hours-instead-of-sleeping.
It doesn’t even matter that the PC version, which sits unplayed on my laptop, is further ahead in terms of content and could be improved by countless fan-made mods. Having a full and comprehensive Minecraft on my Vita trumps that. Knowing I can enjoy the game anywhere, at any time, without having to worry about servers or compatibility issues, is worth the cost of opting in again. It’s a comfort.
Especially since reinvesting was worth it. I’m enjoying Minecraft more on my Vita than I ever did on the PC. It’s the same game, but it feels like a totally different experience. It’s only when it went portable that I was really able to understand what makes this game so magnetic.