I read a writing prompt inspired by the My Perfect Console to write about 5 games that meant a lot to you and your life, and decided to write them out. These aren't necessarily my favorite games, or the best games, but the games that were significant in my life.
1. Persona 3P
I met my then girlfriend, now wife, when she was living in Kyushu near where I lived, but we didn't actually start going out until she moved much farther away from me. This meant in order to see each other, we had to take 2 hour plus train and bus rides. There was a lot of time to kill, and that is where this game came and ate those hours with exploring Tartarus, making social links, and uncovering the mystery of the Dark Hour. The game took 100 hours to complete, which were colored by looking forward to seeing the one I loved, and then the melancholy of having to go back home. Persona 3 Portable is so intertwined with the beginning of the relationship of my wife, that it is hard not to remember one and not the other. It is what filled the spaces of my life while I was falling even further in love. In that way, it is a way for me to remember the things I was into all the way back then.
2. Final Fantasy 7
Middle school was awful. Honestly, top 3 worst time in my life. Even compared to later in life when I would have an anal fissure, broken bones, a concussion, they just don't compare to middle school. The only times that are worse are times when I had to deal with the sickness and death of loved ones. They are awful for the same reasons: loss of control of being able to feel anything other than the relief that nothing could get worse at that moment. This is why Final Fantasy 7 stood out to me because it was one of the things I remember that went right during this time. It felt like me being a fan of Final Fantasy was finally paying off, and now everyone was enjoying the video games I liked to play. I could finally talk to people about Cloud, Tifa, Barrett and the rest and have some sort of chance that they would know, or at least be curious. The rest of my life may have been filled with awfulness and angst, but at least I could talk to somebody about how hard it was to get Knights of the Round.
3. Nier
When I played Chrono Trigger, I remember thinking that this was the best game ever made. The graphics, the music, and the story. Oh the story! Never did I think a game would ever make me feel the pure feeling of this gesamtkunstwerk than Chrono Trigger did. It became this feeling of nostalgia, something I would never truly feel again. Then I remember sitting on my floor couch, loading this into my PS3, and playing it for a few hours. I can't remember when exactly in the game it was, but at some point it hit be like a brick. I was experiencing the same sort of joy, the feeling of everything coming to together to create that gesamtkunstwerk feeling all over again. Something I felt like I would never was going to feel quite the same again. It made me realize that perhaps this feeling was more personal, and less universal than I thought, but it was great to feel that way about a video game again after to long. I now have music CDs, books, and other materials from Nier that I have consumed, all so I can live in that moment again. It just goes to show that video games can still wow me every so often.
4. Kentucky Route 0
Kentucky Route 0 is a game that even when I didn't get it, even when the broader commentary of what this game was trying to say were obscured to me, I loved the vibe of it. It spoke to a sadness, and a feeling of loss that I didn't know how to label yet. Even when I completed it, the ending sort of confused me because I didn't realize that Kentucky Route 0 isn't about a delivery to 5 Dogwood Drive and the characters trying to get there, or at least, it wasn't just about that, but about the mythology of America, and how it has died. Perhaps it never existed. Just like a recording of a priest playing to an empty building, it somehow keeps resonating. This is the first game that has hit me like a good book, and it is something that I still think about every so often.
5. Dance Dance Revolution
Dance Dance Revolution changed how I play video games, and how I appreciate them. DDR is why I bought a $500+ VR headset in 2023, and am having fun with it. Video games aren't just about sitting in a chair and pressing buttons on a controller, it is about getting up and breaking out into a sweat. I still remember the elation and the rush of endorphins when I was able to get through Maxx Unlimited on the Heavy difficulty. I remember getting shin splints playing this game on a concrete floor and having to sit out of football practice. It saddens me that this game has faded into relative obscurity, and the only glimpse of these dancing games are hidden in particular arcades that are themselves dying out. If I had unlimited money, I would make a non-profit organization that would make sure Dance Dance Revolution was made available on every platform, and that good dance pads were made to support those platforms. We'll just have to settle for emulation, and googling websites for pads that hopefully won't be too expensive and will actually stand the abuse of being stomped on.
