To this day, at the ripe old age of 35, I have very clear childhood recollections of playing The Oregon Trail on an Apple II machine in our elementary school’s computer lab. It was always kind of a rushed affair, because we had to wait until the end of class (usually the last 10–15 minutes) before we were allowed to pick a game and play until the bell rang.

I never actually got to complete the thing — my family would always die of something, or we’d drown trying to cross a river, or something. So, most of my fun came from the hunting mini-game.

Ahh, memories.

I know that The Oregon Trail has existed in many forms since those days, from board games to card games (“Features 5 New Ways to Die!” 😂) to choose-your-own-adventure books (my son has these and loves them) — but for me, nothing beats that old-school (pun intended) pixelated experience.

Which is all to frame why I was excited to discover this handheld version of the DOS game, which to my knowledge is normally a $25 Target exclusive except it’s apparently no longer available there, either in stores or on their website.

In any case, this is the real-deal, full-color, feature-complete game I remember from my youth, now able to fit in the palm of my hand! All the original sounds are in there and everything. So cool.

As of this writing (October 8th, 2020), some company is selling the handheld edition for just a little over $21 on Amazon, so even if Target stocks back up, this is the listing I’d go with.