So I assume many of us have played some games for the first time long after their release date. Like, maybe you didn’t have a specific console growing up so we didn’t play the “classics” on it, or something.
I’m just wondering how many of you have played an older game and thought “wow, I wish I grew up with this game”?
For example, for me, many years ago I played Super Metroid for the first time and fell in love with the idea of just wandering aimlessly around the game world, occasionally stumbling into new areas. I would have loved to have played it as a kid with childlike wonder without worrying about finishing the game or making progress.
I owned Banjo Kazooie very briefly as a child but I think my dad sold it. Replayed it on XBLA years later and loved it. I wish I experienced it at the time along with the other great N64 games.
I was lucky. Born in the last gen-x year and with parents in the upper middle-class in a western country. I could save up to whatever console and game I wanted but yeah, I never did play any sega consoles and I never did own a c64. But I did get my feet wet with some c64 games as I had friends who had it.
I’m glad I grew up with these games. Todays games, while superior or pretty much every way, all seem to lack “something”. There are exceptions of course. Games like dead red redemption 2 are something else!
Yeah Super Metroid was as awesome as you can imagine as a 14 year old!
Aww, you missed out on the C64. My favorite thing was to get the new magazines when they came out every month so I could copy the BASIC code or ML code for games. So many cool games to play from those mags. It kept me busy for hours and hours.
Not really older games, since I grew up parallel to them, but I’m kind of jealous of the ubiquitous NES culture in the US in the mid-late 80s.
Consoles were a rarity in the UK till the 90s, and the Sega Mastersystem was largely the only game in town where I was before that. I didn’t even see a NES in person till the 00s. Seeing ads in comics for NES games, or hints of NES Mario and Zelda in magazines was a rare glimpse into another world.
I found an SNES Mini on eBay that they stuffed with EVERY ROM from Atari to SNES (and then some). My wife and I just beat Donkey Kong Country 2 yesterday. That’s one I had missed back in the day. If you’re interested in seeing what you missed out on, I HIGHLY recommend! So much fun!
Way ahead of you… I have about five devices stuffed with just about every game from before 2000 :)
Particular favourite is my MiSTer FPGA device, which does a lower level emulation than software emulation and tends to give extremely accurate results! Finally, I can be the nerdy 80s high school kid hooked on NES and hijincks that I always dreamed of being :)
King’s Quest and Final Fantasy.
KQ I did go back and play through the entire series about a decade ago and had a great time. Final Fantasy I’ve just recently got into with 7 (original) and 8 but I don’t have the patience to finish either. I would have if I’d have got into it back in the day.
For me, I recently played Earthbound for the first time on the Switch after seeing J.J. McCullough rave about it nostalgically. I can’t believe I had a SNES as a kid and missed out on it, but I guess I might have tried it and didn’t like it. I was probably a bit too young when it came out.
For the rest, I really wish I had BotW/TOTK as a kid. Even as an adult, the level of Immersiveness that these games have is amazing.
Earthbound is such a great game. I didn’t have a lot of snes games as a kid so this one kind of eluded me at the time but I just recently played it and loved it. I did not like JRPGs as a kid (still don’t but was able to still enjoy it as an adult) so maybe it’s for the best I had to wait to experience it
