The games that define your life.

[Wolf Kanno]

We haven't done one of these in awhile, but the games that really tell your story as a gamer. What got you started? What games introduced you to new genres you still play? Which games made you choose the devices you play games on? Which games had the most impact on you. You can list as many or as few as you need, though it would be cool if you could share the stories behind the games as well.

[Fynn]

There's quite a bit of games that have helped shape my writing, my expectations for storytelling, and in general, just a compelling experience.

But there's one game that has actually influenced how I view life, and that is Persona 3.

I didn't really feel it when I played it the first time. Maybe I was too young, too distracted by many things. But the second time around (on the PSP, the female path), I was at a different point in life. I was going to get married in a year, and that summer my wife (then fiancee) was away in the UK working.

That summer, I began my first actual job that gave me tangible money. I was responsible for karaoke nights at a bar - nothing really big, but it did help me save money up for the wedding. It was then that I truly started to feel that, yes, childhood is ending, and I can't be as carefree as I used to be. I was pretty bummed, reflecting on how futile life is because of that. Chalk it up to a quarter-life crisis or something

What I'm getting as is, despite not pulling its punches in terms of dealing with death and change (or maybe because of that), Persona 3 has really helped me deal with it all. It's okay that things change, it's okay that life has an ending because that's what gives it meaning. Because of that Persona 3 remains one of my favorite games of all time and I think, its popularity within the fandom notwithstanding, that it deserves a lot more recognition.

[Strider]

Well, let's see.

I think it's pretty obvious that Strider is one of the first games that really grabbed my attention. The NES one, not the arcade version that usually gets the praise. I didn't know it at the time, but it's based on a Japanese manga, so even despite the relative dearth of real dialogue, something about the globetrotting and future ninja archetype really grabbed me as a kid. The PS3 version brought me all the way back to how I felt back then.

Then there's Final Fantasy VI, which I maintain is the greatest game ever made. I got it for my tenth birthday, and even though my SNES tapped out before I could finish it, the story stuck with me and I finally got to go back and finish it when I went to college about 7-8 years later.

I went for nearly a decade between consoles, so the games I regard most highly are the ones with which I had good times with friends. Tecmo Super Bowl, Marvel vs. Capcom, Guilty Gear XX, Madden 2004 with broken legendary Michael Vick.

[FFNut]

For me it was Final Fantasy one, I remember as a young lad going to the rental store with my dad and two sisters, and being told I could rent a game. After searching high and low through the shelves I settled on... Ice hockey yup ice hockey. It just so happens at the store the girl behind the counter gave me final fantasy bye mistake, it changed my life! After that I rented it every weekend until I got enough money saved up to buy it. It makes me wonder who got ice hockey instead of final fantasy that weekend? But alas it is why I'm on these boards today, and it was introduction to the world of RPG's in general. Since then I've collected and played mostly RPG's, however Imstill play my hockey games as well.

[Pike]

The games that got me into gaming were all arcade classics from the 80s: Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, Defender, Centipede and so forth. Probably the first game to really blow me away with a story was Super Mario RPG; this was soon followed by Ocarina of Time.

Starcraft got me into strategy games, which to this day is my favorite genre. I played a very great deal of that game.

World of Warcraft was a major influence on my life because it got me into blogging, and the very act of gaining an audience encouraged me to start seriously writing (as I had only been doing it as a hobby up to that point.) The Warcraft games, alongside The Elder Scrolls games, were probably the ones that made me fall in love with the idea of lore and worldbuilding in a game.

Final Fantasy of course gets a shoutout for being the series that got me into this forum where I met a lot of lovely people!

Honorable mentions to Pokemon, SimCity, Civilization, and I'm probably forgetting a lot of others.

[Karifean]

I guess what really got me started with games are Final Fantasy VII and X. My brother got VII from our cousin and liked it so much he also bought VIII and X. I wouldn't play VIII until much later, but X and VII I played right away and they really hooked little young me back then.

Final Fantasy X would come to play another big role in my life several years later when I revisited the game as a teen. That was when I realized just how much I really loved the game, and for the first time I was actually really moved by the story. From that point on one of the main qualities I was looking for in games was the capibility of forming an emotional attachment to the story and characters. It was something fascinating to me.

FFX would remain my favorite game and the one with the greatest emotional attachment for years to come. However, just two years ago I entered university, and with that met a colleague who got me into anime. And through him I found CLANNAD. I watched the CLANNAD anime, then found out that its source material, in fact, something called a "visual novel". I hadn't had any experience with visual novels up to this point besides the Phoenix Wright series which I didn't even realize were visual novels. But because I liked the CLANNAD anime a lot, I got the visual novel, and over an entire month's time, I read through it.

For a little while I couldn't imagine finding a better story than CLANNAD, but Little Busters smashed that silly thought to pieces and convinced me that no matter how great a story may be, you'll find something even better someday. That was my introduction to Key, and that was when they became the most important storywriters in my life. To this day their stories continue to amaze me, not just because they're tearjerkers, but because they gave me an appreciation for the world I didn't quite have before. Quite bluntly put, I learned to love life through them. And I learned to truly appreciate the efforts of anyone struggling to find happiness not just for themselves but for others as well.

But that's still not it. No, because while reading through Key's works I got into a mognet conversation with Ultima Shadow, one of only very few other visual novel readers around these parts. I'd been reading Higurashi and when I was done, I asked him if I should try Umineko right away or move on to something else, and he kindly convinced me to go for Umineko.

Truth be told, at the time it was primarily (just) an 'awesome story' for me. The storytelling was unlike anything I'd ever seen before, the way the plot and setting were built up, it was all just so intricate and amazing, I loved it. But when I finished it after two weeks of binge reading? My first reaction was "eh, Higurashi was better." A statement I took back no more than one hour later when I looked up Umineko online and found out about a single plot twist I somehow failed to grasp this entire time. Looking back at it now I laugh at myself in that moment, because I couldn't have imagined that the grandeur of what I missed.

It wasn't until months later (!!) that I realized how dense I'd been. What I found (regrettably thanks to the help of the internet instead of on my own) was something I'd never ever expected to find. And all of a sudden my perception of Umineko changed. Massively. Every line, every conflict, every theme presented in Umineko, all of a sudden I looked at them in a different light, you could say I looked at them "with love", and just with that I found another truth in them I didn't see before. Without love, it cannot be seen. Words that through the way Umineko presented them came to be one of my axioms.

I could go more into how Umineko affected me, but sadly that goes into spoiler territory.

[Ultima Shadow]

No, because while reading through Key's works I got into a mognet conversation with Ultima Shadow, one of only very few other visual novel readers around these parts. I'd been reading Higurashi and when I was done, I asked him if I should try Umineko right away or move on to something else, and he kindly convinced me to go for Umineko.

Yep, that's right!





As for me, I have quite a few of them. It would take a while to really explain just how much these games have affected me, so I'll just run through them pretty quickly.


-Super Mario RPG. This game was my first introduction to RPGs, and without it, I might never have gotten into FF. I love this game so much.

-FFVIII. My first Final Fantasy game, got me hooked on the series and made me find these forums. Despite its many flaws, it's still one of my fav FF games. Partly because of nostalgia, but also for other reasons.

-Super Smash Bros Melee. I've been playing this game so much, and I still play it at a competetive level pretty frequently. I've managed to get to know so many people through this game that it's crazy. This is without a shadow of doubt the one game that I've played the most, by far.

-Touhou. I'm now part of a swedish Touhou community, and just like SSBM, I've ended up meeting many, many great friends through this game series. It was also through this game series that I got to know my japanese-knowing 'Visual Novel-sensei', and thus got into Visual Novels.

-Umineko. It's the best thing I've ever read, period. And it opened up so many new perspectives that I didn't even know existed before. Really, it's just great as Karifean said, but it's impossible to explain it all without spoiling too much.



...these are the main ones that come to mind.






Edit: Right now, Pokemon is the game I'm spending the most time on, but it has yet to actually affect me in any way even comparable to the titles mentioned above.

Another honorable mention goes to Crash Team Racing, just because I had sooo much fun playing that game with my friends on so many weekends way back in the day.

[Galuf]

Sonic 2 was the first game i ever played, so that got me into games. also the Zelda four swords adventures helped as well.
The games that got me through the later years of school were, pokemon gen4 i said enough about this so i am not going to repeat myself lol.
and the games that got me through the later years of high school were, Zelda. and then... the most important.... the best of them all.... Hello kitty..... nah not realy it is ofcourse Final fantasy: Battle of the everything.
Games are the only best thing to exist though so..

[Ayen]

A Child's First Game covers my first experience with video games pretty well. Mario is a big reason I enjoy platformers and 2D side-scrollers.

I grew up with a NES, Sega Genesis, PlayStation, and Nintendo 64, so I like the type of games that were available for those systems. Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat introduced me to fighting games, and Resident Evil introduced me to survival horror, and horror games in general. RE actually had the most to do with inspiring me creativity. As I went on to draw comic books and write my own stories from that game.

Monster Rancher is another one. Used to play the game for hours and could hardly sleep the night I knew I had my own copy of the game to play on my own system since I've been playing my brother's copy before then. BattleTanx Global Assault is another one. I just like blowing trout up.

Final Fantasy VII got me into RPGs, as I've stated before. MGS got me into games that had more focus on story and the likes.

[Zanmato]

Final Fantasy X made me interested in this series, in the art (you know, like paintings and stuff) and games with great storylines like Metal Gear Solid or Yakuza. :3

[Pumpkin]

The first video game I ever played was Tekken 2 and it's I guess what got me in to gaming.

The second game I played was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and it's what got me in to more involved games.

Final Fantasy IX was the first Final Fantasy game that I played more than 10 minutes of and it has had a profound impact in my life. It's the reason I like RPG's so much, and more importantly, the reason I came to this forum. And because of this forum I me my boyfriend of 3 years and we have a house together and everything now. It was also very therapeutic growing up.

Tales of Xillia got me in to the Tales series and I absolutely adore the Tales series now. That wasn't super long ago either.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask introduced me to a game that is bigger than itself and showed me just how important characters can be to a good game.

Final Fantasy XIV is the first (and only) MMO I have ever played.

Suikoden III introduced me to the Suikoden series, which I adore.

Xenosaga has a huge inspiration in the story I'm writing.

Girls Fashion Shoot and Style Savvy Trendsetters (as silly as it sounds) are close to my ideal dress up games, and I love dress up games.

Fire Emblem: Awakening is my favourite matchmaking game.

Final Fantasy Tactics got me in to Strategy RPG's.

Pokemon Diamond is the reason I got my Nintendo DS.

Pokemon X and Bravely Default are the reason I got my 2DS.

Totori from Atelier Totori got me in to the Atelier series, although I played Meruru first. I saw how absolutely adorable Totori was and wanted to play her game, but they didn't have it. But I'd heard she was in Meruru, so I picked it up, and ta da!

Xenoblade Chronicles is the reason I got a Wii.

Just Dance (which also sounds silly) is what I use almost daily for exercise, along with jogging, and I've seen an improvement.

Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar got me in to the Harvest Moon series.

Driver got me in to open world driving games.

[Colonel Angus]

Centipede, Pac-Man, Q*Bert, Frogger, Space Invaders, Pole Position & Burger Time were the games I played when introduced to gaming. We had an Atari 5200 when I was younger.

Super Mario Bros. was the game that made me fall in love w/ gaming. I've been a Nintendo fanboy ever since. I remember the Xmas I got the NES. I also got Mario Pajamas that year.

Final Fantasy introduced me to RPGs. Haven't looked back since. I remember I got the game from Carson Pirie Scott's of all places.

Doom 64 introduced me to FPS. It's still my favorite of the genre.

[Pheesh]

Sonic 2 and Mortal Kombat 2 are the games I remember most from my childhood.
CTR was the game that came with my Playstation and I just remember sinking hours upon hours into it as well as it being one of the few games my Dad would willingly play.
Diablo 2; I played it for the funsies and it lead me to Diablo 3; I play it because I'm compelled to by some horrible unseen force that won't let me stop until my mouse finger has seized into a horrible disfigured claw.
FF8 was the first Final Fantasy and probably JRPG that I played, not really my favourite but I guess it's significant.
Madden 2003 was the first sports game I really got into, which is a big deal because almost every year I'll buy Madden, NBA2K and MLB the show.
Final Fantasy X was the first time I was ever blown away by what I was looking at coming from my game console. The graphics actually took my breath away and I was hooked. Probably the only FF I'm compelled to replay these days.

Kingdom Hearts. This series is getting its own little paragraph. I picked this game up completely on a whim, I saw on the cover it had Disney characters so I was worried that it might be for little kids (I was like 14 or something *eyeroll*). Anyway, point being that I have no idea what drew me to the game. I hadn't read write-ups or previews, I had only played FF8 and 10 at that point so I wasn't aware of most of the tie-ins. So either way, that was the game I chose and straight away the intro cinematic drew me in, then came my favourite tutorial to any game ever. I don't know why I love the sequence on the large platforms but even to this day when I play it picking between the sword, shield and wand fills me with excitement. More importantly the passage at the end gives me goosebumps even thinking about it ("the closer you get to the light the greater your shadow becomes... etc). Anyway, I'm rambling, that game made me laugh, cry, rage quit multiple times only to ultimately come back more determined than ever, and is the pillar by which I compare all other games. I could make an equally long write up about KH2 but I'll spare you, I just smurfing love that series. Also looking for a walk through and discussion about this game is the reason I joined EoFF where I met so many friends and the love of my life... Sooo yeah, cheers Kingdom Hearts.

[Shorty]

My gaming timeline is fuzzy, and I don't remember specifically where everything starts and where it stops. I think if I were to pinpoint an exact first game that I can remember, Castle of the Winds might be the very first thing I ever played. Then came the Shareware point-and-click games. I remember browsing the little floppy disk Shareware games when my family would take a trip to the dollar store, and I'd always come back with one I was so excited to play. Hugo's House of Horrors is probably the very first DOS game I played, which led me to Jazz Jackrabbit and Mario and eventually to King's Quest, Laura Bow, and eventually Grim Fandango.

Somewhere in there we had an Atari, a Sega Genesis, and a Super Nintendo, but Nintendo games never really stuck out to me.

Finally we got a PlayStation, and with it came Frogger and Tomb Raider. The original Tomb Raider pretty heavily influenced my preferences for gaming and strong female characters along with puzzles, mystical elements and running-from-dinosaurs terror.

Sim City was my first "strategy" game, and it led me to loving Age of Empires.

Dare to Dream 3 led me to looking for haunting, devilish games like Silent Hill 3.

My most influential game is probably Final Fantasy VIII, which blew my mind and gave me a crazy thirst for a mix of realistic fantasy and reality. It was unlike anything I had ever seen or played, and gave me incredibly strong emotional links to the characters and things that I felt were a direct reflection of the things going on in my life at the time. It was the perfect mix of fantasy, escape and emotion for me. And of course, it led me here!

If I were to say recent games I've played that define my gaming taste, I would have to say that even though I don't really appreciate the ending and the gameplay is repetitive, Bioshock would have to be it for me. Everything about it speaks to me as a gameplayer; I just wish some things were a little better. Infinite will probably take the cake for me when I get there.

[theundeadhero]

When I was four my dad came home one day with an NES and The Legend of Zelda. My mom was pretty mad, but I had no idea what I was in for. I was just glad Dad was home and interested in what he brought with him. For an unmemorable amount of time after that, I didn't even play the NES. I watched my dad play Zelda, and enjoyed every second of it. Of course, I enjoyed spending my time with my dad, but I was just as interested in what what happening on screen. Then one day he beat it. I began to play after that. I remember I was five when I beat it with no help from my parents at all. Then I mastered it. They had nintendos set up in Sears stores and sometimes McDonalds back in those days and usually it was Zelda in them. It was amusing watching the grown-ups being stuck, with no idea what to do, then watch their amazement that a little boy was so much better at the game.

When I was nine or so my stepmom came home from a yard sale one day with a couple of NES games. One of those games was Dragon Warrior I. I remember most people didn't seem to like the game, but I thought it was fun. I enjoyed exploring the dungeons, figuring out how many torches I needed to get through a cave and where I needed to bring a key to progress. It was my first RPG, although I didn't really know what an RPG was, or that it was a genre.

Then some time later I played the first Final Fantasy when a friend brought it over while he was staying the night. By that time the SNES was out and Final Fantasy IV, maybe even Final Fantasy VI, but I didn't have one and those games were unknown to me. I loved it. That was when I learned that those types of games were RPGs and it sparked a life-long interest in them.

In 1995 Warcraft 2 came out and I played it at my cousin's house. It started my love for blizzard lore and a time in my life where after school I spent hours and hours playing computer games. We would play over the modem, as well as with games like Doom II and Duke Nukem 3D. A special mention goes out to Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games, which I also played with my cousin first and spent a lot of time modding and playing with him online. I learned about roms about that time and played tons of amazing RPGS for the first time, including FFIV, VI, and CT.

I also played Diablo for the first time at that cousin's house, and then instead of using my lunch money to eat at school, I skipped eating and saved the money to buy a copy. Diablo replaced other games, where I spent a lot of free time playing it both single player and online.

In 1996 I finally bought an SNES from a kid at my bus stop and starting collecting actual cartridges of all the RPGs. Then in 2001 I finally bought a playstation from the cousin of a girl I used to spend a lot of time with and the cycle continued.

There's were tons of amazing games in-between, but the next defining one was when I finally bought a copy of WoW mid-2006. Since then, I've been addicted to it, I've stopped playing it, I've picked it back up and played it in moderation, and every other way imaginable. Although Final Fantasy XI was my first MMO in 2004, I consider WoW to be a much more defining game for me.

Out of a lifetime of amazing games, those were the most defining, and the memories of them will stick with me forever.