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Posted: Jul 24 2009 05:41 pm

Paperboy (NES) - Not sure what it is about this game; there's just something about dodging sidewalk break-dancers and Grim Reapers that has a special place in me.

Maniac Mansion (NES) - My favorite childhood game (and the best NES soundtrack IMO)

Uncharted Waters: New Horizons (SNES) - Incredibly addicting and underrated. I would estimate I devoted 500+ hours of my life to this game during the summer break of 1995.

Posted: Jul 24 2009 06:08 pm

Ah Maniac Mansion. The definition of 8-bit replayability. It wasn't the game I played the most (although I did play it quite a bit), but it will always have a place in my heart for the special kind of awesome it takes to end a game by getting a killer meteor a book deal and a TV spot. Possibly my favorite ending to any game, ever.

Posted: Jul 24 2009 09:28 pm

And here I thought GP and I would never agree on anything ever.

Posted: Jul 24 2009 09:51 pm

Oh geez, where do I begin? Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the DKC Trilogy, the PS1 Spyro Trilogy, and both Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie, I suppose.

Posted: Jul 24 2009 10:50 pm

Dragon Warrior III on the GBC. This was my first true RPG, and the first game to really tug at my heartstrings (the music that plays when you first enter the town with everyone sleeping, and the town that consists of a few corpses during the day but is full of people at night being the first examples that come to mind).

GTA: San Andreas. Although I got GTA: Vice City before San Andreas, San Andreas giving you the ability to climb monumentally increased the exploring aspect of the game, and this was the first game to truly immerse me in the environent.

Silent Hill 2. The first game that had a deep enough plot to where I had to play it through multiple times just to get a full grasp of what was going on.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. When I first got this game, I was enduring quite a few personal problems, and playing the game at night, dungeon crawling while searching for treasure, sneaking up on enemies, and listening to music ripped to my 360 was the ultimate stress relief.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors - the first two-player game I've ever played. When I was four, I used to play it constantly with one of my older brothers every time he'd bring his super nintendo to my house. Letting me have the lawn mower every time may not seem like much, but it was small gestures like that that eventually led to my brother being the closest member of my family.

2011 SNES Champ Joined: Dec 04 2006 Posts: 1929

About FF7, when does it start getting good? I mean much more fun to play than the beginning. I kinda want to play again but I wasn't really impressed up to now.

I really got into FF6 when I reached Zozo and got the Espers.

FF9 was nice from Lindblum onwards.

FF8 went backwards for me, as I disliked it more as the game progressed.

So when do you think the "turning point" is in FF7? Try saying things like "around the end of disc 1" so I can understand (and to avoid spoilers).

Posted: Jul 25 2009 01:18 am

I totally agree on FF 8. My least favorite of all the FFs, easily.

6 and 9 I loved all the way through, especially 9. 6 had the better story (and EASILY the better villain), but the music and atmosphere and dialogue of 9 has forever endeared it to me.

As for 7...well, that's another one I pretty much loved all the way through, but the plot really starts to take off (depending on your opinion) either about the time you meet Red XIII, or when you learn the truth about Sepheroth and where he comes from. I honestly have no idea where those parts are in terms of discs, so maybe someone else can help out there.

Posted: Jul 25 2009 04:21 am

FF7 picks up once you leave Midgar, at least it did for me. I for one love FF8, though I can see why people don't like it, especially fans from the old days of FF, but what I can't understand is why people like FF10 more. I'll admit that in recent years I've grown to appreciate 10 more but I think it's only because the FF brand has totally nose dived since then. For me, the PS1 FF's were the golden era for the series with 7,8,9, and Tactics, so I'll say the PS1 days of FF have a special place for me. 6 was great too, which I played on Anthology. I never finished 4 or 5 just because I lost interest after awhile, I think due to the more pure fantasy settings. I guess I need a little Cyberpunk in my FF, which makes it a little ironic that 9 is actually my favorite one. FF9 was amazing in every aspect.

Posted: Jul 25 2009 12:28 pm

I think FF7 is one of those "you had to be there" games. Compared to current stuff it is of course dated in pretty much all aspects. So to go in to it now, with the hype it has been given for over a decade, I can see how it'd be hard to appreciate.

But if I went into it today for the first time, I'd be waiting until after the Kalm flashback. By then you've got most of your crew, you get (sort of) the back story for Sephiroth is told, and you're given freedom to go wherever. Given the length of the Kalm flashback, it feels like the best part to me.

Posted: Jul 25 2009 04:29 pm

Excellent post, Bouya.

Sideways, I'm one of the lovers of 10. I actually like it even more than 7. (For me, my favorite list goes something like 9, 6, 10, 7, 1.) I actually thought pretty hard about it after you brought up the point. At first I thought maybe it was just because it was beautiful (and it is), but then I realized that even if you remade 7 with PS3 hypercool graphics, I would still play and love 10 more. The characters are very, very compelling to me (even if some of them are very annoyingly voiced, and I understand people hating them, I've played it so much that even Tidus has grown on me). The story absolutely fascinates me, and it has the perfect amount of depth for a game like this (so did 6 and 9). Its very much to the point, but there are enough twists and reveals and side quests and personal quests that you can really delve in if you feel the inclination. I love the fact that its about the tension between religion, freedom, government, etc, and Seymmore is easily my favorite FF villain behind Kefka. So powerful, and yet so sad and misguided. (And fucking crazy.) I also like that 10 is the ONLY real FF where you are handed a fixed path, and final goal, right from the outset. To me that makes the story much more compelling than just jumping from one disaster to another. You're really on a *journey*, and you're discovering this strange new world along with Tidus, who is just as confused about everything as you are. Some of the technical things (like voiceovers) could have been handled better, but for sheer perfect storytelling, 10 will always be my favorite.

Back on 7, as much as I love it, from a storytelling point of view, I think it looses focus and tries to be a little too complex for its own good in a lot of places. That doesn't take away from it being an amazing game, it just makes it a little harder to follow than 9, 6, or 10 imho.

And now I have to ask...since you mentioned you liked 8, what about it makes it fun for you? (Not being snotty here of course, I'm genuinely curious. It had its good points to me, but overall...yeech.)

Joined: Jul 19 2009 Location: England Posts: 91

Well, I'm glad Final Fantasy 7 is getting defended, as that's my answer too. It was the first in the series I ever played back in 1998 and me and a friend got hooked and spent an entire summer glued to the tv crying over Aeris, wasting money in the Gold Saucer and believing foolishly that we could beat Emerald Weapon.

I can understand how, if you were raised on the earlier Final Fantasy's, you might dislike 7. But when it's the first one you play, back when it was the most popular game on the market, it's an epic experience to be had.

Posted: Jul 25 2009 06:35 pm

Probably because they were the first games I owned: SMW and Super Scope 6.
Considering I hadn't kept up with anything dealing with video games since I had moved from New Jersey (my friend there had a Nintendo, I didn't), I opened my present that turned out to be a Super Nintendo and thought it was a knock off at first.
I thought Nintendo was just another term for video games (come on, I was like 5 or6) so I was cautious at first; until my dad installed it (we actually hooked it up through our C64 monitor Very Happy

) and that Mario coin flashed, that is.
We ended up spending most of Christmas Eve night playing those two games and had to be up in the morning to drive 8 hours from North Carolina to Pennsylvania.
Well worth it.

Two others that stick in my mind are LOZ: LttP and LA. I had borrowed both of them while living in North Carolina from friends and had a blast, but gave them back when I moved.
Ended up finally finding them a few years later.
I actually got LttP for like $8.00 at Blockbuster.

Posted: Jul 25 2009 08:04 pm

Even when I was there, FFVII bored the crap out of me. It took me years to bother giving another title in the series a try, and it turns out that I like the 16-bit FFs alot more, and it still annoys me to this day that people think Aeris dying was more of a shock than both Kefka and Exdeath WINNING(For the time being) in their perspective games.

Posted: Jul 25 2009 10:13 pm

^ Well, in fairness, the Trope of the bad guy temporarily winning was highly prevalent in other media, if not video games, at the time. I mean, every single action movie ever ends up with the hero beaten up and at the mercy of the bad guy before the final showdown.

Although, I guess the same thing could be said about Aeris, since the hero lso usually loses his wife/girlfriend/dog/partner/etc to give him emotional investment in the fight. But even so, it WAS particularly shocking to have a *playable* character that you had invested so much time in--and even got the ultimate Limit Break for!--taken away with no chance of getting her back. (And the way they did it was particularly cruel too...I mean she was just sitting there praying, and Seph stabbed her out of nowhere... Crying

)

Posted: Jul 25 2009 11:22 pm

In most of the FF debates on the forums I see, it seems like everyone has a mental block regarding any of the games after FF X-2. Yes, they should have just called FF11, "Final Fantasy Online" (and FFO2 for FF 14, ugh) but I feel like XII doesn't get the respect is deserves. XII is my 2nd favorite FF game to bring this back to the actual topic.

Posted: Jul 26 2009 12:46 am

Well, I've never played 11. And 12...well, okay, 12 was pretty damn awesome. WAY better than 8. But inferior to any of the 16 bit incarnations, and 9/10. Imho of course.

Posted: Jul 26 2009 10:26 am

Every FF4-6 defense force person I've known, online or off, hasn't come across like they specifically like those games, but more like they're trying to voice distaste for 7-9. Just an observation.

And sathien - I didn't finish XII but I had a good time with what I played of it. I just couldn't help looking at it and wishing it was Vagrant Story 2 instead.

Posted: Jul 26 2009 03:12 pm

Donkey Kong Country- By frustrating me to no end, that game corrupted the fuck out of me. And I thank it so much for that. Plus, it's found new life as my first-choice high as fuck game.

Mortal Kombat II- If I hadn't been convinced that the "Toasty" guy was a demon-ghost haunting my TV and trying to get me (seriously, when he'd come up, I'd leave the room where the SNES was for an entire day), I probably never would've ran to that other fighting game at West Coast Video (Super Street Fighter II).

Starfox 64- Nothing special in particular about this game. I just really liked it.

GTA: Vice City- Good times that Christmas morning when my mom walked into my room to see what this game she'd bought me was all about and I was blasting cops and pedestrians to hell with an assault rifle.

Posted: Jul 26 2009 03:22 pm

sidewaydriver wrote:

Everyone likes FF7, whether they want to admit it or not.

Yea, I'm with GP on this one. I tried to like it when it came out, and tried again a few years ago, and even though I finished the game, I never really enjoyed it. I'm not really sure why, but I just don't get all the hype and love for it that everyone seems to have.

Also, I thought of another special game to me; WWF Royal Rumble for the SNES. Best wrestling game ever imo and my brother and I still talk about it fondly to this day as it was hands down, our favorite game to play together.

Posted: Jul 26 2009 04:48 pm

Ah your Royal Rumble story reminded me of another wrestling game that's close to my heart...WWE Here Comes the Pain, without a doubt the best of the last-gen console wrestling games.

When I was still attending JC, I had a really weird schedule with several hours in between classes. Added to that, one of those classes was constantly canceled because the prof was very, very sick. (Why they didn't replace him I don't know, but they just didn't, so whatever.) Anytime class got canceled, I would call up Brian, one of my best friends, drive home to grab my PS2 and HCTP, stop by Jack in the Crack, and go over to his place. We spent HOURS playing that game, somtimes as HBK and Kane (our favorite wrestlers) or sometimes as our CAWs. Or sometimes as one huge stable where we kicked the crap out of every other wrestler in the WWE. Those are some of my absolute fondest teenage memories right there.

And don't even get me STARTED on the epic, three-hour long ladder match we had this one time...man oh man...

My Youtube Channel · Posted: Jul 26 2009 04:54 pm

Nothing can ever compare to when I got Ocarina of Time and first sat down to play it. So much nostalgia.

Posted: Jul 26 2009 06:01 pm

^ I can't disagree there. The first time you're set loose in Hyrule Field...magic.

2011 SNES Champ Joined: Dec 04 2006 Posts: 1929

Hyrule Field was really great. I still wander around Hyrule Field sometimes because the music is really great.

Mine would be Battle City. This, and Millipede, were pretty much the only games my father played. I believe it's the first game I ever played too.
It's awesome with two players. We would plan strategies for every level, though we rarely got past level 20. The headquarters are so hard to defend near the end.

It wasn't released out of Japan, so obviously it was a pirated cartridge. My uncle gave us his NES when I was 2 and it came with it.
In fact, we never bought a single NES cartridge.

Joined: Nov 02 2008 Posts: 725

I'm still thinking of some more games that have a special place in me, but for now...
Chex Quest - my first FPS
Zero Tolerance - Gradually got me into the FPS genre
Sonic 1/2 - First game I ever played, though I don't remember which one.
And that's it for now. I'll either edit this or post again when I think of more.

Posted: Jul 27 2009 07:02 am

Ah speaking of FPS Aqua Hedgehog, I just remembered more games that are very close to me, both for the same day in my life. The day of my junior high school graduation (yes, my junior high had a graduation ceremony), I was playing Wolfenstein 3D as I was getting ready to go and as we were leaving out the door, I have very vivid memories of me telling my mom "Just 5 more minutes! I'm killing nazi's here!".

Then that same night, after the graduation ceremony, waiting for me at home was a brand new copy of Kings Quest 6, CD-ROM version! I remember that day very clearly, and both games are very special to me because of it.