Retro Time

Let's talk about the games that brought us to this point. You know, the games we spent endless hours on, only to be replaced by newer games and forgotten, sitting in a box or drawer somewhere, probably never to be played again, but there was a time when you couldn't get enough of it. I'm going to go through this by platform, starting with early platforms first and moving my way up, we'll see how much I can remember off the top of my head and how much I leave out when I read this next week and realize I left out something very important.

First off is the NES, which I never actually owned until way after it was obsolete. I actually got this from my uncle when he decided he didn't want it anymore, and it worked out great. I went to this little game store that sold used games and found myself staring face to face with Final Fantasy, the game that started it all, and it was only 3 bucks, so I grabbed it, along with both Zelda games for NES and a few others to round it out. At that point I had already played through various other FF games, but to see where they started out was a real treat. Took me a while to get through it, since half the time you don't get any clues of what you are supposed to do next, but I finally beat it and it was a fun experience.

Next is the SNES, the very first console I ever owned, and the very first game you get with it is Super Mario World. I can't tell you how many hours I spent on this game, with many of the levels having alternate goals that unlock different paths, this game kept you occupied for a good long time, especially if you had to beat every single level and unlock everything. Next up is Super Metroid. Once again this is a game that can be beaten without collecting every item, but where's the fun in that? After those games I got into the RPG genre, and that started with Final Fantasy III, or VI if you want to be proper. I managed to learn every single spell with every character before I finally beat the game, despite the fact that for the final dungeon you can't even bring everyone with you. I don't want to think about how many hours that took, but I know it's something ridiculous. Last up would be Chrono Trigger, my all time favorite SNES game, and maybe even favorite game in general. Not only did this game provide a great experience the first time through, but once you beat it you could start a new game, but with your characters carried over from the previous game, thus meaning they were already at a high level when you start out again. This may seem like cheating, but the whole point is that there are multiple endings that can only be achieved in this mode, one of them requires you to use only the main character to defeat the final boss on his own, so it provides a lot more than just a one time through game.

Moving on to N64, the next system I bought, and once again a Mario game, this time Mario 64. They somehow managed to make an awesome 3D Mario game right off the bat, and once again it took many hours to find everything this game had to offer. Yes, I collected all 120 stars, met Yoshi on top of the castle, and all that, and it took forever, but it was quite the accomplishment. Next would be the FPS game that would change the genre forever. I'm talking about Goldeneye, which not only had an awesome single player, but the multiplayer had me bordering on addiction. Proximity mines in the Complex was a legendary fiasco. I'm pretty sure I spent an entire summer break having friends over every single day and playing Goldeneye for hours at a time, and we still couldn't get enough of it. That is until the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time came out. I pretty much spent all my single player time on this game, and finally made my way through it in between Goldeneye sessions with my friends. And not a moment too soon because Banjo Kazooie was next up. This was another platform game, and I'm really not sure why I liked it so much, but this game, along with Banjo Tooie and Donkey Kong 64, took up a lot of my playing time. They were challenging, but fun to play, and that's exactly what draws me to these games. Last I have to mention Perfect Dark, or for me it was Goldeneye 2.0. Made by the same people, this game wasn't quite as solid in the single player, but the multiplayer replaced Goldeneye for me and my friends. First off, you could drop down from ledges, something you couldn't do in Goldeneye for some reason. They also carried over a few of the Goldeneye multiplayer levels, which is what we played mainly, and there were some really cool weapons to choose from.

So lets talk about Playstation. Actually I never owned one, but my friend did let me borrow his for a while so I could play Final Fantasy VII. Now I still say FFVI was better, but out of the rest of the FF games, this one comes the closest to being as good, it just would have been nice if the memory card didn't get erased twice while I was close to the end, forcing me to start over. I also managed to beat FF8 and 9 while I had the system, as my main reason for borrowing the system in the first place was to add those to the FF games I have beaten.

Next post I will move on to more recent games, except when I get to PC, where there will be many games from various eras, some of which you may have never heard of.