Gaming Nostalgia

[Roranora]

A Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, and Mega Man X1-3 really stand alone with most intense nostalgia and fond memories. Clearly the SNES is the favorite console.

FFXI cannot be ignored, and it was likely the climax of gaming, simply due to the crack-tier 'fun' at its peak years and the number of hours I logged. I only played 2004-2006 and logged over 600 days playtime. I kinda agree with those other XI players I speak to who say the game ruined video games for them. Of course, a big part of that is the timing in life and the all-too-obvious 'okay grow up a little' that can be realized after playing XI far too heavily.

During high school, I chose to forego both proms and play Diablo 2. My senior year I was asked out by a girl (definite to put out) and said no, I have other plans. >_>; LAN parties had some regularity with Halo: CE back in HS 2001-2003, too, and these were a blast every time.

1. A Link to the Past
1. Chrono Trigger
3. FFXI
4. Diablo 2
5. Mario Kart and Halo franchises

[Meresgi]

As the days and years pass, and the more "adult" we are all becoming, it's fleeting sadness we encounter in realization that our free time is diminishing, and the time we had to dedicate to gaming is all but totally gone.

Speak for yourself, don't plan on having kids and work IT so I have time for games still buwahahahahhahaha

Anyways. top 5;

1)Xenogears

Loved playing this game the first time, I remember me and a buddy taking our PS1 with us when we went camping (we didn't like camping) and playing this in our tent the entire time (had electrical hook ups on the sites). Was a blast and loved the game enough to go out and buy it before they finally started rereleasing it a couple years ago.

2)FFXI

Miss the community and leveling experience in the game. Leveling was hard as fuck back with just RoZ but it felt like there was a lot to do just because of the partying system and the quests along the way for Race gear 2, AF gear, farming for money and quests to be able to advance past certain levels. A lot of the game was bullshit looking back, but it was the only game where the community made the game and most people knew each other.

3)WoW

As much as I bitch about it, I still go back to it time to time. It's not the same game to me as it was in Vanilla/BC but I kind of am starting to not mind that with the career now and "less" time then I had when I was doing jack shit with my life. I'll probably go back for WoD since my biggest gripe of all was always the graphics looking like shit. Starting playing it back in Vanilla and I remember I was in Shadow Fang Keep when I got news my grandmother had passed away in the hospital and ended up just playing the entire night to get my mind off that. Also remember giving it up for a while back in BC before my father died, which caused me to go back to the game to again keep my mind busy. Also met my wife in WoTLK on the game so that was a bonus.

4) CoD Modern Warfare

Amazing multiplayer and fun as fuck. Back when we had private servers that enforced things like "No nades at start or no noob tubes" and made the game even more fun tracking people down. Played it with a few old buddies, one of which is my best mate, and was just a blast.

5) Mass Effect series

Just played this again for like the 6th time. Entire series was so good...and they fucking ruined it with the ending, but it's still one of my favorite game series and the Mass Effect Happy Ending Mod I installed made the entire ending so much better, that it was worth playing through one last time. Also Tali = top tier waifu

[Azull]

FFXI is almost a given for anyone here. I spent nearly a full decade playing and don't regret one second. The best part being all the great people I got to meet and play with.

Final Fantasy 6 (US III) might be my favorite game of all time. I think it was the right game at the right time in my life to just capture me totally.

The Legend of Zelda stood out. It wasn't like anything I played up to that point in my still infancy as a gamer. Is it wrong that I still remember my younger brother lending it out shortly after I started the final dungeon...only to get it back with my save overridden?

The Gran Turismo games, as well as other racing games, might have been the most bonding I did with my step dad. I having 1 one 1 races on Grand Valley was always great fun

Finally I would say Half-Life, specifically the Mod Action Half-Life. The community was small but was full of dedicated people who loved the game. Something about teaming up and playing against the same people so often was a ton of fun for me. Weather it was the early days of spawning in the air on a boat map that wasn't that great or diving around a corner with a hand cannon in a hospital it was always fun.

[Sepukku]

FFXI - Played from ~PS2 launch up until my PS2 finally died 12-18 months ago, was an amazingly fun, if not cruel, game. Amazing community, amazing music. Sometimes I still get Windurstian or Summer Fest music in my head. Or Ronfaure, or ToAU, or any zone. Probably would've kept playing had my PC been more easily converted to a set-up I would enjoy playing FFXI on and the community hadn't been plummeting below 1000 per server. I played briefly after the PS2 died, but I struggled to find a cheap PC controller I enjoyed that my non-bluetooth 2006 desktop could use and the community had died anyways so not much pointing hunting further. Have logged on maybe twice since FFXIV 2.0 beta phases began. Will definitely always miss though.

Socom - Jesus, this series was incredible, its hard to believe they shut off the last PS3 socom servers last month. I hope it comes back to console gaming in some form, either as H-hour being successful or a new company taking up the series again. This was everything COD never will be. Strategic, team-oriented, skill-based, challenging, with an amazing community. People who never played Socom seem flabbergasted that I wish for voting to kick & ban functions to be added to every game (BF, COD, etc). Its such a simple concept - you play like a cheater, like an asshole, like you don't care about the team, like your parents never taught you common courtesy, you were gone. Simply put. You could vote off only your own team, but the community policed itself, if you were rolling with an IW80 A-2 (an overpowered gun only available for the Seals side) in a public room, you could bet you'd probably be voted out by your own team since the community didn't want that gun in widespread use even though it benefitted your teammates for you to be using that. Simple game modes too that aren't used anymore, Breach, for example, would be amazing on a Frostbite 3 engine and map. Escort, Extraction, Demolition, even Bomb Squad in Socom 4 was unique and a refreshing new take on what a shooter game can have for a game mode. The maps, by the standards of the era they were designed in, were far more impressive than the silly maps being put out today. Overall the best video game series I've ever played and while I fell out of touch with my old Socom 2/3 clan I've played with the same guys since Confrontation through Socom 4 and into battlefield as a time killer til a real shooter re-emerges on the gaming market.

[OWS_Tonx]

FFXI
FF8
Crash Bandicoot
Unreal Tournament
CoD: MW2

1.) FFXI for obv reasons. Lots of friends, good times, etc.
2.) FF8 was the first FF game I ever played. Fucking love it. Currently in the middle of my 999999th replay on my vita.
3.) Crash Bandicoot was one of the first games I ever played with my family. Like after dinner that was our shit, go grind out that 100% completion
4.)Unreal Tournament was badass. In highschool during our programming class we would LAN the entire class period
5.) CoD: MW2 because I used to play with a bunch of dudes on here. Shit was so much fun. Be it trollin a random lobby or playin' Search and Destroy obliterating the other team to doing a private quickscoping lobby on Rust or Highrise

Honorable Mention: the Mass Effect series. Holy fuck I love them. Beating ME1 on Insanity as an adept is probably one of the harder things I've done in gaming. I feel like replayin this now too, great =/

There's many more I would mention that I've played through the years but those were probably the most fun

[Mina]

Earthbound/Mother 2 was the first game I experienced where I suddenly questioned what genre I was playing and how to get more of it. It was the first game that made me realize that gaming was something I wanted to do forever and not just something I would do as a kid. To this day it still remains my most "nostalgic" game.

I should add that I had imported Mother 3 and learned to read Japanese just to play that game. While it wasn't perfect I was able to feel the emotional tremors of that story and I feel that it's still powerful and amazing even today. Perhaps it is better than Mother 2 but the child in me that clings to that game refuses to believe it.

Legend of Zelda: A Link To the Past was a game that both me and my grandmother used to play together. We'd pass the controller around as we talked about video games. When I play this game or any of the Donkey Kongs, I think about her and the time I spent every summer with her until she passed away.

I remember neither of us being able to beat it growing up and one day (much later) picking up the cartridge to play and beating it within a few minutes. Sometimes I wonder if my Grandmother was humoring me as a child and intentionally not beating games just so we could beat them together. I'd like to think that.

Radiata Stories is a game that many of my friends didn't play despite my urging. The game is misleading. For all the bright colors and smiles there is a lot of deep story. You will end up falling in love with the characters and eventually feeling each of their burdens and pains. I would like to think this game taught me something important. If it did, it was that I have to understand true consequences for my decisions. That the painful choices I would make in a moment could affect the rest of my life.

Tales of... I'm struggling to pick out which Tales game affected me the most. Which one touched me and made me who I am today? Each one gave me simple life lessons that I took to heart. I didn't have the best upbringing so anime and video games always filled a void for me. That might seem silly for some people but Tales was really good for my heart. I can remember myself crying constantly while playing Symphonia and telling myself to be a better person. I shaped my ideal "person I want to be like" off of many of those characters.

Pokemon Blue/Red/Yellow I guess if there was a game that would describe most of my childhood it would be how this game stayed in my Gameboy for every winking moment. My desire to capture every pokemon and level them all was insatiable. I would spent most of my time on forums trying different tricks and methods to get Mew and listening to the crazy ideas people had and debunking them. My main file was Pokemon Red and my starter was Squirtle. I could probably go on about all the memories I have of this game but let's leave it at that.

These are favorites of mine, but they definitely aren't all on my favorite games of all time. They just make me nostalgic or shook me in some way.

[archibaldcrane]

The great thing about the "mobile gaming revolution" is the ability to replay all these nostalgia games whenever you want. NES, SNES and even PS1 games emulate beautifully on current gen phones (android at least, not sure how ps1 emus work on iOS). I routinely dip back into my favorites on my SGS4, especially :

FFT
FF1, 4, 6, 7, 9
Dragon Warrior 1 (my first RPG when I was like 8 years old, shortly followed by FF1)
Faxanadu
Strider

Other games I loved/get nostalgic for are MGS2 (I played this once with self imposed "no alerts, no attacking unless required, and then knockouts only, no kills unless required". Took a couple months, but so satisfying.) Also the codec system / fission mailed screens when you are destroying the AI is still an alltime favorite gaming revelation.

MGO (the online team battle system in MGS4) - I think this is wildly underrated, especially the sneaking challenges where one team is invisible with knives and tranq guns vs. visible, fully armed other team and you're playing capture/defend the flag. Played that for years, so great.

[wipers]

For me it has to be everything Dreamcast related. To this day it is my favorite console. Shenmue etc list goes on and on.




1. Shenmue

2. Sonic Adventure.

3. Crazy Taxi.

4. Skies of Arcadia.

5. Record of Lodoss War.

[Meresgi]

Reading through some of these I gotta add FF7 to mine. I totally forgot until now, but was remembering how I was never into RPGs that much or any FF games really (having just played a handful of shit on NES/SNES/Genesis) and seeing my 2 cousins playing FF7 when I was over to visit and leaving one day...man the graphics and the music and story just drew me in and made me buy my first PS1 and end up playing all the FF games.

[Rhyis.]

Ultima Online

I played that shit for 13 years straight. Ya'll niggas no doubt can't compete with that level of nerdom. RP servers, PK servers, pure crafting characters, GMing servers, creating server wide impromptu quests as both a GM and a player, etc. I did it all.

I was hardcore into Counterstrike as well. Cal-I with a clan.

[kareface]

Meresgi, I don't know what's going on in your sig but I agree with gentoo, lol.

FFXI was the reason I stopped gaming. She spoiled me for all other games, which has been great in a lot of ways. I really do miss playing and it sucked to get banned but at the same time I couldn't be happier doing what I'm doing now and I'm not sure I would be here if I hadn't gotten hit with the ban stick. I also never got to see the shit show that was abyssea. R.I.P. Minidragon

[wipers]

As far as FFXI nostalgia first time hitting up Valkrum Dunes with no sub job has to be it. Waiting eight years for people to gather. Someone dying without setting home point. Shit is classic. Goblin trains and running for zone also.

[Aylee]

1. Legend of dragoon
2. Final fantasy VIII
3. Pokemon silver
4. Starcraft
5. Gta 3

[Xno Kappa]

1. Xenogears
Enough can't be said about this masterpiece. Stand tall and shake the heavens. I literally played through this game three times in a row when it was released because the story, the battles, and the characters were just that much fun. Even in my latest play-through last month I still find subtle nuances that I never noticed before. It's the ridiculous depth and scope of this game that keeps bringing me back.

2. Megaman X
I was a huge Megaman fan before it but Megaman X came at a brilliant time where as I was growing up, so was Megaman. Unlocking the hadouken will forever be one of the biggest moments in my gaming life, me and my friends were getting pissed off at trying and when we finally saw that capsule there at the top of Armored Armadillos boss entrance I'll never forget the collective "OH SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

3. Final Fantasy Tactics
Dat face when you realize you have to restart an entirely new save because your fucking stuck at Wiegraf.

4. Gensō Suikoden
Some of my fondest memories right here. I refused to continue at some parts of the game until I was absolutely sure I could recruit as many people as I could.

5. Final Fantasy XI
Fuck this game.

[Seravi Edalborez]

FFXI: Reasons already stated by others. Suffice to say I sunk a lot of time (5-6 years) into it and reconnected with some old LSmates in XIV 2.0. I didn't know how I withstood the grind for so long, but the reason is pretty obvious: social. Once everyone I cared about hanging with quit or got banned, I left.

Chrono Trigger: This one's a bit personal; one December before Christmas when I was young (6ish I wanna say), I "caught" my dad playing this new game I hadn't seen before. He told me he was "testing" it. I asked if I could "test" too. Thus began a family tradition of getting early presents. It was also pretty great that he played this alongside me on his own save file; we basically compared notes on given scenarios (he killed Magus though, what a noob).

Other father/son tandem games:
Pokemon Red/Blue
Megaman X
Front Mission 3
Orcs Must Die 2

Standout games of their genres that I don't have anything particularly deep to talk about, but gave me good feels and the largest amount of "maybe I should replay that":
Starfox 64
Persona 4
Tales of the Abyss
Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner
Star Ocean: Til the End of Time
Sonic Adventure 2
Zelda: Wind Waker
Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Metroid Prime series
Metroid Zero Mission
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Dragon's Dogma
Dishonored
Deus Ex: Human Revolution

If you held me at gunpoint, my tops would probably be in no particular order: Megaman X, Persona 4, Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner, Wind Waker, and Starfox 64.

[Minnich]

FFXI - I think everyone covered the bases on this one.

SOCOM - Sepukku nailed it. This was the first game I really got into. I just fell in love with it immediately. The maps were amazing, the teamwork involved in public rooms (let alone competitive matches) beats any shooting game since. The competitive play and setting up "wars" with my "clan" was a special kind of intoxicating. Working our way up the ladder on a daily basis and having some pretty epic matches is something I haven't experienced in any other shooter. I could go on all day about how great SOCOM was. There was just something amazing about that game, that I don't think we'll see again. Although I have my fingers crossed for H-Hour.

Diablo 2 - Had a blast with some school friends just farming shit up, and grinding to max level.

FF7 - My first Final Fantasy. A buddy and I spent countless hours on this game. It was a great feeling when we finally beat it, then went back and beat all the extra bosses. Oh, and did I mention getting a gold chocobo? Holy shit, then we got Knight of the Round and used it for the first time! Lots of epic moments in that game. Without this game I'd never have played any of the other FF's, which leads me to...

FF Tactics - In my opinion the absolute best Final Fantasy game. Another game played with a couple of buddies. We'd pick a character and rotate the controller when that person came up. A memory of a friend punching a chair when our other friend made the wrong move when we were FINALLY going to beat Wiegraf still resides in my mind. Again, a lot of pretty epic moments from that game.

Honorable Mentions:
Starcraft 1, SNES Super Mario Brothers, Zelda: Link to the Past, CoD: MW1

[Tokitoki]

2. Megaman X
I was a huge Megaman fan before it but Megaman X came at a brilliant time where as I was growing up, so was Megaman. Unlocking the hadouken will forever be one of the biggest moments in my gaming life, me and my friends were getting pissed off at trying and when we finally saw that capsule there at the top of Armored Armadillos boss entrance I'll never forget the collective "OH SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Gonna call you out on this shit (really just trying to jog your memory).
Legs: Chill Penguin
Head: Storm Eagle
Body: Sting Chameleon
Buster: Flame Mammoth

The E Tank most people miss is the one behind the giant grinder thing on Armored Armadillo, though.

[Xno Kappa]

Gonna call you out on this shit (really just trying to jog your memory).
Legs: Chill Penguin
Head: Storm Eagle
Body: Sting Chameleon
Buster: Flame Mammoth

The E Tank most people miss is the one behind the giant grinder thing on Armored Armadillo, though.

It wasn't the e tank. The whole thing came together when one of my friends realized our life had to be higher than the weapon gauge, so we were missing a heart lol. We thought we had collected them all before that point.

[Serra]

At the end of the Armored Armadillo stage there's a hidden capsule. If I remember correctly, it's when you're riding the cart before reaching his door, so you can only try it once, and if you miss you have to die to try again.

I think I've only bothered to get it once..


Also, Mina, Squirtle!? I'm so disappointed..

[BadKarma]

Legend of Dragon
Legend of Legaia
Clocktower
Pokemon Yellow

#childhood