As the title says, let's talk about games from our childhood. If you're old enough or circumstances dictated that games weren't a big part of growing up, that's ok too! Just find the earliest part of your life where you started playing games and try to remember the favorites that built your tastes or occupied the majority of your time. You can discuss them or recommend them, maybe folks will find some old gems to play for themselves! (Also there is no restriction on Console/PC/Other.
Since I'm the OP, I'll start and you can copy my example if desired. I won't be listing them in a specific order, just 5 games that would define my childhood gaming experience.
1: Final Fantasy IX (Playstation 1)
Everyone knows this game. And for Millennials in my age group, you either choose this as your favorite FF or it happens to be FF7. For me FF9 was an emotional roller coaster. It's the first game I ever felt emotional with. Not only does it ponder some deep themes and classism throughout, but you've got multiple romance subplots wrapped up in a beautiful presentation and a big return to traditional Fantasy.
This game spans 4 discs, each with it's own twists and turns. It's a long game but it never felt dull or boring. This game would inspire my love for JRPG mechanics, and Final Fantasy in general. From here, I worked my way backwards through the series and than forwards as newer ones came out. Even today I'm still a HUGE FF fanboy. And it all comes back to this game. I've beaten it at least 4 times through.
2: The Legend of Zelda OoT (N64)
I suspect this game will be on many peoples lists. Ocarina of Time was not my first Zelda, that honor goes to "A Link to the Past" on SNES. The problem is, at the height of the SNES days, I was just too young to wrap my head around things properly. Zelda LTTP mine as well have just been a hack and slash with no story to me. But a few years later and more a developed brain, OoT was the hotness. My grandpa was playing it, My dad was playing it, the neighbors were playing it. Shit, my grandpa would call my Dad at work and say "come help me beat this boss!"
I myself played this game so much, I feel like I could play it to completion with my eyes closed.
3: Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation Vs. Zeon (Playstation 2)
This game is the definition of Arcade fun and possibly clocked more hours on my PS2 than all other games I played on it combined. Not only do you have short Arcade style quick-play stories, you have local multiplayer and co-op, you have instanced free missions against AI, and you have story modes with over a hundred missions on both sides of the conflict. You even get to role-play your own character as it covers the entire story of the original Gundam series.
The music slaps, the graphics are insanely good (for PS2) and it controlled very well. The Space battles were insanity! Somehow they captured it very well. The combat in general was pretty tense, every mobile suit had specials, sub-weapons, main weapons, and melee combos/modes.
I'm actually quite sad they don't put out games like this anymore. Now the latest Gundam Arcade fun is online PvP Overwatch lite crap.
4: Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo DS)
Words cannot express how addicted I was to this game. I played it nearly every-day for a year straight. This was before Animal Crossing let you create your character, so you had to look up guides to answer the opening questions in a specific way to get the character you wanted. I didn't mind. I spent hours and hours looking online for various guides and communities for this game. On that note, I think this is the first "social" game I ever played.
5: Halo 2 (Xbox)
Ah, yup. Halo 2. When I first played this I had not yet experienced Halo 1. BUT this was so many firsts for me. First time playing something online competitively, first time paying a subscription (XBL), first time experiencing trash talk online lol and so much more. While the online portion of this game was fairly important and revolutionary, for me, the Campaign and it's varying difficulties plus the addition of "Skulls" made the story mode nearly unending fun to challenge.
Me, my brother (before he passed), and my Dad spent sooooo much time playing co-op and multiplayer locally in this game. It's some of my most fond memories of that time. We did the Scarab Gun! We did the "outside the map" trick a billion times on Outskirts and Metropolis. Shit one time we nudged Hunters onto the banshees at the final level and brought them to the boss fight with Tartarus! My pops and I will never forget that one in a million experience.
My love for this game would later inspire me to spend many of my pre-teen hours reading the Halo Novels, even the spin off ones. I went backwards and experienced Halo CE. I eagerly awaited Halo 3 and even got wrapped up in the viral marketing/ARG Campaign. Halo Reach ended up being my first ever "midnight release" that I waited hours for in a line. And it all started with this and the good times I had with family and friends via local/online interactions.
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Your turn MC!
Since I'm the OP, I'll start and you can copy my example if desired. I won't be listing them in a specific order, just 5 games that would define my childhood gaming experience.
1: Final Fantasy IX (Playstation 1)
Everyone knows this game. And for Millennials in my age group, you either choose this as your favorite FF or it happens to be FF7. For me FF9 was an emotional roller coaster. It's the first game I ever felt emotional with. Not only does it ponder some deep themes and classism throughout, but you've got multiple romance subplots wrapped up in a beautiful presentation and a big return to traditional Fantasy.
This game spans 4 discs, each with it's own twists and turns. It's a long game but it never felt dull or boring. This game would inspire my love for JRPG mechanics, and Final Fantasy in general. From here, I worked my way backwards through the series and than forwards as newer ones came out. Even today I'm still a HUGE FF fanboy. And it all comes back to this game. I've beaten it at least 4 times through.
2: The Legend of Zelda OoT (N64)
I suspect this game will be on many peoples lists. Ocarina of Time was not my first Zelda, that honor goes to "A Link to the Past" on SNES. The problem is, at the height of the SNES days, I was just too young to wrap my head around things properly. Zelda LTTP mine as well have just been a hack and slash with no story to me. But a few years later and more a developed brain, OoT was the hotness. My grandpa was playing it, My dad was playing it, the neighbors were playing it. Shit, my grandpa would call my Dad at work and say "come help me beat this boss!"
I myself played this game so much, I feel like I could play it to completion with my eyes closed.
3: Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation Vs. Zeon (Playstation 2)
This game is the definition of Arcade fun and possibly clocked more hours on my PS2 than all other games I played on it combined. Not only do you have short Arcade style quick-play stories, you have local multiplayer and co-op, you have instanced free missions against AI, and you have story modes with over a hundred missions on both sides of the conflict. You even get to role-play your own character as it covers the entire story of the original Gundam series.
The music slaps, the graphics are insanely good (for PS2) and it controlled very well. The Space battles were insanity! Somehow they captured it very well. The combat in general was pretty tense, every mobile suit had specials, sub-weapons, main weapons, and melee combos/modes.
I'm actually quite sad they don't put out games like this anymore. Now the latest Gundam Arcade fun is online PvP Overwatch lite crap.
4: Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo DS)
Words cannot express how addicted I was to this game. I played it nearly every-day for a year straight. This was before Animal Crossing let you create your character, so you had to look up guides to answer the opening questions in a specific way to get the character you wanted. I didn't mind. I spent hours and hours looking online for various guides and communities for this game. On that note, I think this is the first "social" game I ever played.
5: Halo 2 (Xbox)
Ah, yup. Halo 2. When I first played this I had not yet experienced Halo 1. BUT this was so many firsts for me. First time playing something online competitively, first time paying a subscription (XBL), first time experiencing trash talk online lol and so much more. While the online portion of this game was fairly important and revolutionary, for me, the Campaign and it's varying difficulties plus the addition of "Skulls" made the story mode nearly unending fun to challenge.
Me, my brother (before he passed), and my Dad spent sooooo much time playing co-op and multiplayer locally in this game. It's some of my most fond memories of that time. We did the Scarab Gun! We did the "outside the map" trick a billion times on Outskirts and Metropolis. Shit one time we nudged Hunters onto the banshees at the final level and brought them to the boss fight with Tartarus! My pops and I will never forget that one in a million experience.
My love for this game would later inspire me to spend many of my pre-teen hours reading the Halo Novels, even the spin off ones. I went backwards and experienced Halo CE. I eagerly awaited Halo 3 and even got wrapped up in the viral marketing/ARG Campaign. Halo Reach ended up being my first ever "midnight release" that I waited hours for in a line. And it all started with this and the good times I had with family and friends via local/online interactions.
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Your turn MC!
