Hi everyone! I just joined the forum after listening to a few episodes of the podcast and then coming over to the forums and finding some great, respectful, thoughtful conversations. On the internet! Who knew that was possible?
I grew up in California with older sisters who had an N64 and a PS1, and my first gaming memories are a mix of venerated classics like Super Mario 64 and also any schlock we rented from Blockbuster - Mary-Kate and Ashley’s Magical Mystery Mall, anyone? I also fondly remember gathering around the “family computer” (remember those?) and all playing through point-and-click games like Day of the Tentacle or Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.
It was in the next console era when I became more cognizant of what games I was interested in and started actually playing games through to completion. Some of the games that left an impact on me during this time were Katamari Damacy, Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Door, Kingdom Hearts II, and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.
In elementary school, it seemed like I was surrounded with people who were eager to trade Pokemon or help me when I was stuck in a game. I went to a new, smaller school for middle school and the only game people were talking about there was Call of Duty. I wasn’t allowed to play games with guns at that age - which is still a bit of a chip on my shoulder because I am absolutely horrendous at shooters now - and began to lose interest in gaming as a whole, not helped by the 7th console generation that was drowned in shooters and Wii shovelware.
Roughly 10 years later, I stumbled upon a video of Kingdom Hearts II, the Japan-exclusive Final Mix version with all of the insane superbosses I had watched people struggle with back in 2007. But the video was in English, and the game was on the PS4! At this point, I think the Final Mix version had been available in English for at least 3 or 4 years, but this was the first I was hearing of it. I happened to have a barely-used PS4, so I rushed to the store, grabbed a copy of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5, and popped it in. From there, I began revisiting old favorites and then eventually expanding my palette by trying new games and series. There’s been so much to explore from the titles I had missed during my 10-year break to the new titles coming out to the ones from before the N64 era that I hadn’t ever played as a kid.
I don’t know or interact with many other people who also play games, as my friendships with both my high school and college friends were incubated during a time when I didn’t play games much at all. I’m not the biggest or most consistent podcast listener, but I’ve really liked the episodes I have listened to, which have been such a salve compared to any other discussion of games I’ve seen online. Reading through the forums has also been so pleasant compared to anything other online threads. I really enjoy that the episodes make reference to books and movies and television and aren’t insulated (as are too many discussions about video games) in some nerd bubble. I like when they draw in references to film and literary criticism and respect criticism as a form. These discussions have been such a nice change of pace from any-nineteen-year-old-with-windows-movie-maker-tells-you-why-game-is-bad-and-woke-on-youtube, and I really look forward to interacting with others here and hearing their thoughts and hopefully picking up a few recs along the way :)
[I really don’t want to be branded with the mark of the beast (“Kingdom Hearts Fan”), and so I offer Megami Tensei as the series I’ve been most into lately]
